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Author Topic: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?  (Read 3950 times)

andylatham82

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Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« on: February 22, 2019, 06:22:27 am »

Hello everyone, first post here  :)

So I have been playing Dwarf Fortress for about a week now and have spent way too much of that time fiddling with settings in the Lazy Newb Pack, trying to settle on what sort of setup I want, and in the end I've ditched the loader altogether, opting for purely vanilla Dwarf Fortress, just changing my tileset to Wanderlust as I like keeping an ASCII aesthetic, but with a hint of pixel art about it. I'm really starting to see far more in my head than I'm seeing on the screen, and that's a great feeling.

Since making that decision, I've dived into learning to play the game. And sure, it's been frustrating to try to figure out how to do various things, but I've really been enjoying the challenge.

I see almost everyone talking about stuff to do with mods and it's made me think: am I shooting myself in the foot by not using the loader? I can see the benefit of mods like Dwarf Therapist, but generally speaking I'm not one for mods, preferring to enjoy games as they are presented by the developer. I get that this game is a work-in-progress, but am I going to regret staying with the standard game? Are there many people out there who don't use mods with Dwarf Fortress?
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Egan_BW

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2019, 06:33:38 am »

No, you should be fine, if that's how you prefer playing. Plenty of people don't use external utilities to play.
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Starver

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2019, 07:08:14 am »

I use vanilla with Therapist added (manually) as my main crutch. No LNP, if I have Hack it's also added 'manually or at least with my version of an LNP subset functionality. I don't habitually use graphics packs or other Mods and make the three or four INIT changes I like to do (water levels as numbers, seasonal auto-saves, more tiles width/height in the windowed version and...  something else I forget but would spot when I go in to edit things) in the almost-lowest-thrill text editor.

But that's me. In the early days I'd maintain a complicated spreadsheet one Alt-Tab away from DF (letting me at least calculate whar I needed to do, manually, but FT covers most of that info (the remainder I tend to stick in the in-game nickname of Urist "Something important" McWhatever, or through DT, which also shows me those missing Nicks) and saves my typing and manually synchronising.

I know what the default tileset means and it seems awkward to learn someone else's idea of a better one (aesthetically, informatically, whatever) and while I used to (manually) Mod in the possibility of War Elephants in the past (when it wasn't possible at all with the default Raws) I've not really taken to "This Mod makes Star Trek/My Little Pony/Pirate-rethemed games" sort of thing, due to the vanilla setup already dominating my interest.


But I'll agree that (whether to prettify, make gameplay easier or make other gameplay harder, and perhaps with a few simple clicks rather than some manual retyping and hoping one is doing it right) LNP and the rest is an option that people can take. Even if I don't and you think you might really not want to do either.
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Khalari

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2019, 09:19:33 am »

I find it impossible to run a 100+ dwarf fort without autolabor. Even Therapist is not good enough for really populous forts.
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andylatham82

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2019, 09:24:19 am »

Many thanks for the responses. I think I'll continue doing what I'm doing for now. If I reach a point where it's too difficult to manage, I may think about using mods. I'm enjoying being at the coalface with the vanilla game for now though :)
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2019, 09:34:23 am »

I find fortresses get easier with tons of dwarves (until fps death anyway). There's always someone with the right labour to get things done, and if I feel the need to have to micromanage something (not often) well, that's my choice, not something necessary to play.

Years ago, the first thing which put me off dwarf fortress, funnily enough, was clicking the icon and being met, not with a quirky Ascii game, but with a Windows box of baffling settings that I had to do something with to actually be allowed to play.

After quickly uninstalling whatever Starter Pack that was and downloading vanilla, things got much better. Create World, Advanced World, Object testing. So much more user friendly. After playing for a while I got to know which tools, tilesets, etc that I actually wanted to have to aid my playing.

These days I play with a tileset that seems to fit my laptop OK and a bunch of my own mod mod tweaks that I find fun to play with. I use the Legends Viewer util quite a bit after exporting data from Legends Mode.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2019, 09:40:03 am by Shonai_Dweller »
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Khalari

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2019, 09:39:54 am »

[...] There's always someone with the right labour to get things done,[...].

And there's also a high chance that a few dwarves out of your whole population are hogging most labor so you can't get anything done because even though you may have 200 dwarves, only 50 of them have the labors you want done enabled.

I just feel like autolabor makes everything so much easier. You can micromanage all you want by setting a small pool or if you really need something done RIGHT NOW, just make that pool larger for a small amount of time.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #7 on: February 22, 2019, 09:41:25 am »

[...] There's always someone with the right labour to get things done,[...].

And there's also a high chance that a few dwarves out of your whole population are hogging most labor so you can't get anything done because even though you may have 200 dwarves, only 50 of them have the labors you want done enabled.
Nope. Can't say I ever find this. It's not like I'm walking away and letting the fortress run by itself. What ever needs to be done Right Now?? Game pauses when you open the menu.
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Khalari

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2019, 09:46:55 am »

Say you have 20 dwarves with the architect labor enabled and you're building a bridge. Those 20 are also hauling some stuff or pumping or anything else that doesn't require skill. You also have like 60 idle dwarves. You don't want a novice architect to design the bridge so you just sit there for however long it takes to finish some stupid task until the bridge is designed. On large fortresses I've had tasks sit there without being done for an hour because the dwarves with that labor enabled were otherwise occupied.

It's just such a hassle and autolabor makes sure you maximize your dwarf potential.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #9 on: February 22, 2019, 01:32:36 pm »

To answer the original question (which has already been done): There are a fair number of people that play DF pure vanilla, and some that only use a tile set. Then there are a bunch of people (me included) that use various DFHack conveniences, DT, and Legends Viewer. There's also a bunch of people that use various more or less disruptive (to the native game play) mods, but I don't do mods myself or follow the mod sub forum, so I can't comment further on that.

DF is a single player sandbox game, so there really isn't such a thing as "cheating" (unless you try to brag about pulling off something): Play it the way you want to play it, and if you feel like changing that way and experiment with other ways, just go ahead.
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Iduno

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #10 on: February 22, 2019, 04:54:07 pm »

I play with vanilla as well. Usually a tileset and seasonal saves.

So you're no madder than any other DF player. Using the utilities is more just a different flavor of the madness.
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Überzwerg

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #11 on: February 22, 2019, 09:34:54 pm »

I never used the Lazy Newb Pack, but today I decided that it may be a good idea to install it parallel to my normal install. With LNP I would have discovered TwbT (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=138754.0) earlier. With TwbT you can have a square font for the graphic and normal spaced text for the rest of the game. Still need to test it out, but this sounds like that what I'm missing a long time.

I usually install DFHack and Therapist manually. DFHack brings a lot of QOL stuff, like the quicksave command. But it also allows cheating, like the reveal command, that shows the whole map (and I can't resist to not use it...).
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Starver

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #12 on: February 22, 2019, 10:05:06 pm »

That's the one main reason I don't put DFHack on most of the time. That and whichever utility it is that quickdumps everything marked for such. (I find it too tempting, if available, to preplan my entkre fort around every nuance of the caverns from the start and to expedite portage to the currently defined dump-zone. Perhaps that shows my character more than anything else.)
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feelotraveller

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #13 on: February 22, 2019, 11:04:13 pm »

Play the way the works best (maximises fun) for you.  Really there should be no other way.

I can see the role for the starter/newb packs, and have at a couple of stages used them.  But over the years I've 'distilled' what I like myself.  Of course going the other way, starting from pure vanilla and later trying out add-ons (or not :P) is totally valid too.

These day I use Dwarf Therapist, DFHack, the ascii Myne tileset (included in CLA) and CLA's ascii-like creature graphics, as well as the init settings I've come to love.
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mikekchar

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Re: Am I mad for playing without DFHack or a loader?
« Reply #14 on: February 23, 2019, 02:54:27 am »

Another vanilla player here.  I sometimes use Legends Browser (similar to Legends Viewer except that it run on any platform), but sometimes I just use legends mode.  I find the main thing about labours is to sort them out when migrants arrive and don't touch them after that.  Keep in mind that a dwarf can get to legendary status in practically any skill in a reasonable amount of time.  There is currently not much point in optimisation unless you just like optimising things.  It basically doesn't make much difference long term which dwarf does what.  I used to manage squads and have 10 "roles" where I would assign labours like that.  Then I could easily give some squads holidays, or put them in military service or whatever and not worry that I would accidentally miss something.  It's actually kind of fun, but I stopped doing it a long time ago because I got lazy and it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all :-)

As others have said, though, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using what ever tools you want (as long as you don't complain about glitches caused by your own DFHacking...)  It's a different game experience, I think.  Do what suits you best.  If you are having fun with vanilla, there is no need to add anything.  If you are getting frustrated and think a tool might help you out, then absolutely go for it!
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