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Author Topic: Future of the Fortress  (Read 2850906 times)

therahedwig

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1305 on: December 14, 2018, 12:04:35 pm »

I'm not sure if this verges on the suggestion-ey, but I think it's a general enough idea that it must be something you've thought about before, and I'm just curious in which ways you have considered it, and how it influences current development.

A while back now, Ultimate Ratio Regum developer Mark R. Johnson was spending a large amount of time programming in AI behaviors involving time tables for work, having farmers man the fields, guards stand guard and replace each other at the appropriate time, etc., and to have that all work out regardless of whether the player is present, absent, or appears or disappears midway through such a scene. Currently, the NPCs in Dwarf Fortress in adventure mode tend to stand around inside their homes for the most part and do nothing.

Have you considered programming in the daily lives of NPCs (in adventure mode/outside of the fortress) in terms of going to work, eating, going to sleep, etc., and if so, how do you envision this for the future? Do you think it would be difficult/straightforward/possible to make it flexible enough that every day is not necessarily the same as the last, i.e. so that it doesn't interrupt more specific behaviors that don't fall under the purview of the everyday routine (that I think are currently much more developed already)? Also, on which other features (such as the economy or other social/cultural frameworks) does it rely, as far as you can see?

Yes, this is planned.

Quote from: Devpage
Adventurer Role: Trader

* Site resources
    * Villager/farmer schedules/activities

Quote

I imagine the absence (mostly) of this sort of AI currently influences how you might add some things, like in yesterday's devlog about (among other things) priests converting part of a community; I imagine that currently happens in a rather abstract manner, but once AI is more fleshed out, if it ever is, I imagine you might want to make this sort of thing more visible/make it so that it 'actually happens', so to speak. (I realize it's currently just WG stuff being described in there, so it would have to be abstract anyway, but I'm talking about when this shows up in other parts of the game.) Do you think this sort of thing is something best done relatively late (risking having to rewrite many other things that were at first abstracted) or early (risking you might not have all the prerequisite systems in place for it)? (Note that I'm not asking for a specific timetable or some such, obviously I know that's impossible to give at this point.)

Afaik, part of the reason those villager schedules are underneath the trader role(apart from the fun task of finding that one asshole who farms pineapples), is because these schedules are probably going to be determined by what a civ requires them to be doing, which in turn is influenced by notions of property/customs/laws/economy, etc. Mechanically there's a lot of stuff that'll be opened up by the starting scenarios arc. There's for example already things like festivals/fairs and inquisitions in world gen, that do not happen in play, and fairs in particular are intended to replace the notion of the yearly caravan at some point. With that type of stuff in mind it is not unreasonable to imagine a conversion minded priest to walk onto your fortress' fairs and have them start converting. Hell, given how bards and scholars work, it isn't unlikely these priests will be able to do this within this arc, hobbling into your tavern and turning all your dwarves pious. That'd fit right into the whole linking and intrigue stuff this arc is focusing on.

And, even in the current hamlets and towns you do see villagers heading out for a walk, going to get some water, etc. It's not much, but there's something there :p

The thing is that the laws and property stuff will do well to wait for the mythgen stuff because if you are gonna have gods walking around your world, it'd be good to have the civ's laws form opinions on those. But because the myth arc will take a long time so there's sufficiently cool stuff for gods and such to do, the villains and intrigue stuff is being done right now so players can chew on all those evil schemers in the world. That's the logic behind the ordering of the current devplan. And after that we might see expansion of these systems(more cool magic stuff, or more civ stuff for us to mess with), or we'll see work being done on parts that haven't had much attention like boats and other multitile goodness.

If I'm reading this correctly, we won't have to worry about megabeast worshippers turning into cults this arc?
« Last Edit: December 14, 2018, 12:21:52 pm by therahedwig »
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alexsa2015sa

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1306 on: December 14, 2018, 03:12:31 pm »

On combat simulation, with upcoming mythgen overhaul, will properly simulating natural weapons be addressed? I refer to mechanic of parrying them being 1) possible and 2) handling such collisions sensibly.

Currently it's not possible to parry (only block or dodge) natural weapons or wrestling moves - and being able to cut someone's grabby fingers would make chokeholds by low-skill wrestlers so much less deadly (I'll assume a high-skill one will just abort the contact instead of getting hurt). With spell effects eventually added into the mix, not being able to parry some Vampiric or Freezing Touch (nevermind an ankle lock!) is going to become way more relevant. Especially if it might turn out to be a Wood-And-Metal-To-Pus Touch which specifically targets your protection and you'd rather be one copper sword short (if even that, in case of a narrow-scope Steel-to-Rust, or Armok forbid Adamantine-to-Coke) than lose that steel breastplate which saves you from becoming a poisoned, blowdart-riddled pincushion.

It also makes bite attacks work really weird in that you can only dodge a tiny coyote, despite such a move being dangerous to suicidal with real-life physics when fighting against larger creature. Killing a beast with a sword/spear lodged between its teeth is such a cliche anyway it should probably work for those with sufficient combat skills.
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therahedwig

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1307 on: December 14, 2018, 04:17:03 pm »

Huh, you can't chop off creatures' fingers in the current release?

I mean, the rest is still pretty worrying from a balance perspective, but I thought it is possible to chop off creatures' fingers...
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PlumpHelmetMan

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1308 on: December 14, 2018, 04:31:20 pm »

Yeah, I thought I pretty clearly remembered chopping someone's finger off in adventure mode recently in fact. Could be wrong, of course.
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alexsa2015sa

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1309 on: December 14, 2018, 05:11:29 pm »

Huh, you can't chop off creatures' fingers in the current release?
Yeah, I thought I pretty clearly remembered chopping someone's finger off in adventure mode recently in fact. Could be wrong, of course.

Sure, you can chop off fingers. If you target them and if you pass the accuracy check or score a lucky strike. I'm speaking of failed grasp and natural attacks which were parried being treated as an attack on wrestler, something like this is mentioned in devlog as planned:
Quote
Not being able to hit a giant in the head, hitting a dragon in the head as a reaction when it attempts to bite
(parrying punches or wrestles doesn't currently happen - even if it's partly sensible Edit: I mean possibility to catch the weapon instead, but that's overcomplicating Edit 2: and actually catching weapons is  IIRC possible already, heh)
« Last Edit: December 14, 2018, 05:19:06 pm by alexsa2015sa »
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alexsa2015sa

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1310 on: December 14, 2018, 05:12:24 pm »

edit: double post
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therahedwig

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1311 on: December 14, 2018, 05:12:51 pm »

Ah, I feel dumb now. -_-

Thanks for clarifying!
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Whatsifsowhatsit

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1312 on: December 14, 2018, 05:40:56 pm »

Yes, this is planned.

Quote from: Devpage
Adventurer Role: Trader

* Site resources
    * Villager/farmer schedules/activities

Ah, right, I remember having read that before, now. So that is indeed how I should interpret that, being actually able to see the NPCs do their daily tasks, then perhaps visit a tavern based on their personality, and then go to bed? Sweet. I guess most of my question to Toady there can be reworked to just a request for confirmation of that interpretation of the quoted section of the devpage.

Afaik, part of the reason those villager schedules are underneath the trader role(apart from the fun task of finding that one asshole who farms pineapples), is because these schedules are probably going to be determined by what a civ requires them to be doing, which in turn is influenced by notions of property/customs/laws/economy, etc. Mechanically there's a lot of stuff that'll be opened up by the starting scenarios arc. There's for example already things like festivals/fairs and inquisitions in world gen, that do not happen in play, and fairs in particular are intended to replace the notion of the yearly caravan at some point. With that type of stuff in mind it is not unreasonable to imagine a conversion minded priest to walk onto your fortress' fairs and have them start converting. Hell, given how bards and scholars work, it isn't unlikely these priests will be able to do this within this arc, hobbling into your tavern and turning all your dwarves pious. That'd fit right into the whole linking and intrigue stuff this arc is focusing on.

And, even in the current hamlets and towns you do see villagers heading out for a walk, going to get some water, etc. It's not much, but there's something there :p

The thing is that the laws and property stuff will do well to wait for the mythgen stuff because if you are gonna have gods walking around your world, it'd be good to have the civ's laws form opinions on those. But because the myth arc will take a long time so there's sufficiently cool stuff for gods and such to do, the villains and intrigue stuff is being done right now so players can chew on all those evil schemers in the world. That's the logic behind the ordering of the current devplan. And after that we might see expansion of these systems(more cool magic stuff, or more civ stuff for us to mess with), or we'll see work being done on parts that haven't had much attention like boats and other multitile goodness.

Thank you very much for your comprehensive answer. Indeed, it does seem to make sense overall to do myth and magic relatively early, because it being metaphysical in nature and having to do with the very building-blocks of the world(s), many things depend on it and it itself depends on relatively fewer things, I guess. I do love that we're getting magic, but I am excited about the laws and property stuff, the expansion of the social and cultural frameworks, the economy, all that, too. I feel like that's the sort of thing it will take to get this sort of immersive AI that you can really see in action that appeals to my geeky nature the most.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2018, 05:45:30 pm by Whatsifsowhatsit »
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Death Dragon

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1313 on: December 14, 2018, 10:08:13 pm »

The last devlog was pretty great. I absolutely appreciate all those map pictures.

I don't understand how religions are going to affect fort mode temples in the future. In fort mode currently, we can create a temple and dedicate it to a certain god. Is anything about that going to change with this update?
For example, can we now dedicate temples to any god and not just to the ones of our civ because of how religions aren't connected to civs? Are we going to be able to dedicate temples straight up to religions instead of to gods? Or are religious groups going to "claim" temples we built that they like?
I assume that we won't be able to assign priests to our temples in fort mode because of how priests are positions chosen by the religious group themselves, not by the fort administrators (aka the player), right?
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JesterHell696

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1314 on: December 15, 2018, 12:21:38 am »

With all the work on religion will it be possible to choose what god your adventurer/s worships and at what "level"?
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Random_Dragon

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1315 on: December 15, 2018, 01:59:26 am »

With all the work on religion will it be possible to choose what god your adventurer/s worships and at what "level"?

Seems more like a UI improvement since you can RNG back and forth until you get the god you want, but who knows, it might be minor enough to get picked up along the way.
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Killermartian

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1316 on: December 15, 2018, 02:06:29 am »

Is it possible for two religions to claim the same city as their holy city?
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JesterHell696

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1317 on: December 15, 2018, 04:03:48 am »

Seems more like a UI improvement since you can RNG back and forth until you get the god you want, but who knows, it might be minor enough to get picked up along the way.

True it does seem more like a UI improvement then a "new" feature but as someone that does go back and forth a couple dozen times so I can get Ardent War or Fortress worshiper adventurers as is I really hope that its possible to choose given just how long it would take using RNG to get an entire squad to have the same religion and if you include the changes to demographics its going to be x100 harder as you'll have all of the religions in the entire civ to RNG though which could include dwarven, human and elven beliefs, so I decided to ask if it had changed.
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"My stance is that Dwarf Fortress is first and foremost a simulation and that balance is a secondary objective that is always secondary to it being a simulation while at the same time cannot be ignored completely." -Neonivek

FantasticDorf

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1318 on: December 15, 2018, 04:39:34 am »

Is it possible for two religions to claim the same city as their holy city?

Can't see why not, calibrating 'holy city' as a coined term of capital province for that group in a abstract way that the world would run out of space to have a holy city each, but Toady would be able to flatly answer this i think unless he changes his mind mid development.
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Death Dragon

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #1319 on: December 15, 2018, 07:06:17 am »

With all the work on religion will it be possible to choose what god your adventurer/s worships and at what "level"?
I wonder how the new adventure mode setup screen looks like in general. It was reworked like 5 months ago, but I don't think Toady ever showed a picture of it.

Is it possible for two religions to claim the same city as their holy city?
Looks like they can at least have a temple in a holy city of another religion, looking at the maps of Rainy Sect and Fenced Faith.
I wonder if sharing a city is gonna create conflict between different religions. I'm guessing that would have to wait for the status update after the magic update though.
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