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[electro102]

First things first, collecting every unique item in Dwarf Fortress is impossible (or impossibly fun, depending on how you look at it) in several ways. If one were to truly collect every item, they would have to deal with the immense lag of all of those items, storage, the sheer number of years it would take, and so forth. What I am proposing is a toned-down version of All Items, one where the items need to meet certain criteria to be necessary. Granted, the number of items in both of my ideas is ridiculous, but it is much more manageable.

My first idea was to restrict the items to those with unique names, and even then only two or three different “factors” can be in the name. As an example, an apple wood barrel would be needed, but not a dwarven wine barrel (apple). Other “factors” are not considered either, such as the specific type of cut for gems.

My second idea was to depend on the stockpiles. In other words, if you can set a stockpile to only accept an item with a certain set of qualities, then an item with those qualities must be obtained. If this isn’t clear, all I can suggest is to take a look at what a stockpile can accept.

There are several problems with both ideas, however. As an example, the availability of items in a world are not always concrete. You would need in both scenarios to collect a cage for every Megabeast in the world, but what if even a single one dies before it makes it to your fortress? Randomness is a key problem anyways in Dwarf Fortress, yet one must heavily rely on it to complete All Items in either of my two ways for things such as the extremely important Strange Mood. Regarding Strange Moods, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a quarter of the necessary items come from them. Perishability is another issue, especially for raw foods and certain caged creatures. I could list out so much more, but I’ll spare you the rest. At the very least, I hope you can understand that some specific mods would be incredible for All Items, in any form.

So, there’s what I have been thinking about very soon after I started playing Dwarf Fortress. Now, I ask for your opinion: which method is better? Both are absurd, and there’s no denying that, but perhaps these can provide a new way to play a game that was already not lacking in content. Also, if you have your own proposal, or you have some ideas for mods that would help this out in particular, feel free to let me know.

Am I doing it? Absolutely not. At least, not yet. As for anyone who does, have fun. Interpret that any in way you wish.

[electro102]

Wanted to add some information regarding how long this would take- if my calculations are accurate (and that is a big assumption), and a player were to collect exactly one hundred new items every day, the second method I provided for All Items would take almost four real-life years to complete (more precisely, the challenge would be completed in the end of December of Year Four). My calculations for the second method require around 120,000 unique items be collected. The first method would, of course, take much longer and require vastly more items.

Also, if I made it seem like I didn’t want just anybody posting, that I wanted only specific posts, etc., then forgive me for the miscommunication. Any and all forum rules-abiding posts are welcome, not just what I asked for.

[Salmeuk]

hmm, I like the idea, but it is as you suggest: practically infeasible.

you seem to be talking about fortress mode, well, this would make a great deal of items very difficult to acquire without multiple embarks. since only certain materials is available across each embark, or from each trading civilization.

there seems to be an unclear categorization here... all items, as in all permutations of all items? like all the various body parts would add an exponential amount of 'item' to the pile. think of a crocodile's teeth or whatever.

if you go by the stockpile suggestion, then the challenge seems possible. Adventure mode crossover would make the whole thing much easier.

even then you run into the issue of each world only having so many of each creature, and for some worlds, none of a certain biome might exist, or certain megabeasts might have died.

basically the scope on this challenge is too big to be feasible or genuinely interesting

[electro102]

Wanted to add some things-

For both methods, copies of the same item are not needed. You do not need to collect an entire crocodile mouth’s worth of teeth, one tooth will suffice.

Fortress mode and Adventure mode would be allowed. In fact, I plan on using Adventure mode if I ever do this.

Mods would essentially be required. Even if you have perfect luck with megabeasts, biome generation, and more, two things come to mind: 1. Rotting items, and 2. Specific beasts cannot be permanently caught.

[Salmeuk]

Wanted to add some things-

For both methods, copies of the same item are not needed. You do not need to collect an entire crocodile mouth’s worth of teeth, one tooth will suffice.

Fortress mode and Adventure mode would be allowed. In fact, I plan on using Adventure mode if I ever do this.

Mods would essentially be required. Even if you have perfect luck with megabeasts, biome generation, and more, two things come to mind: 1. Rotting items, and 2. Specific beasts cannot be permanently caught.

yeah, but each tooth has its own title... how exactly are you defining 'item'? is it merely the underlying material category? it seems arbitrary to want one of every animal but only one kind of tooth from said animals. or to seek out every species of tree log but only one type of organ from an armadillo

ill put it another way - because DF has this complexity of material, where many things degrade or are smashed apart into smaller things, to what level will you further define the smashed-apart bits as items?

[electro102]

Truth be told, the first method of defining unique items became so complicated that I switched over to stockpiles for defining unique items. You do have a point, though. The reason why I did not require, say, every cave crocodile tooth, was to make the challenge remotely possible, and to stop clogging up item slots with what were essentially duplicates of the same thing. Perhaps there could be a rule stating that items need to be sufficiently different from one another to count as unique, or that there are a set number of factors in determining the uniqueness of an item. Keep in mind that this is supposed to be done in a ridiculous, but not too ridiculous an amount of time, and that it is supposed to be something a player can somewhat reasonably do, given enough time. Would one ever accept a challenge involving collecting every tooth in a cave crocodile’s head?

[electro102]

Working on a list of categories and subcategories of items for method one. Already have a soft set of rules typed out.