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Author Topic: Quick Reference Sheet?  (Read 2152 times)

Safe-Keeper

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Quick Reference Sheet?
« on: February 28, 2010, 07:43:58 am »

Has anyone ever made, or considered making, a DF quick reference sheet? Just a single stylized page or paper or two, in .pdf format, containing stuff new players need to know, in an organized, easy-to-read format.

An "advanced reference sheet" containing things like production flowcharts for steel and other materials, and instructions for building advanced buildings like pumps.
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Gazz

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Re: Quick Reference Sheet?
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2010, 09:53:28 am »

You're volunteering? =)

Actually, a quick reference not just as a plain list of keys but as some kind of road map through the interface would be something else.

Knowing that you have to press "d" to get to a part of the interface is nice but how do you find out if the thing you want is in the "d" section?
« Last Edit: February 28, 2010, 10:31:42 am by Gazz »
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Safe-Keeper

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Re: Quick Reference Sheet?
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2010, 01:25:36 pm »

Okay, lemme see if I can get the ball rolling. Brainstorming for contents:

  • Hot keys
  • Basics of Resources
  • Basics of Buildings
  • Basics of Furniture
  • Helpful URL's

Hot keys
Examples:

<: Ascend one level
>: Descend one level
v: Details on creature
q. Details on workshop, buildings, stockpiles, and constructions in progress
k: Details on terrain features, other objects; click k twice to see descriptions
t: Contents of workshops, etc.
p: Designate/edit drop-off points for items (Stockpiles). Dwarves will collect the relevant items and drop them off in stockpiles.
d: Designate terrain alterations such as mining, construction of artificial ramps, etc.
b: Place build order for buildings and objects that can be built on site, such as floor bars.
?: Open help documents.
Space: Pause/unpause.
a: Review in-game messages.

Basics of Resources
Examples:

Wood: Currently the only material that can be used to make beds, siege engines and crossbows. Can also be used in the construction of most buildings and furniture.
Stone: Used in the construction of most buildings and furniture.
Flux Stone: As stone, but also used in production of valuable metals such as steel.
Gems: cut and encrusted into items and furniture at the Jeweler's workshop.
Etc.

Basics of Buildings
Examples:

Carpenter's workshop: produces almost all furniture, etc. made of wood.
Mason's workshop: produces most furniture, etc. made of stone.
Craftsdwarf's workshop: produces siege engines and arrowheads.

Helpful URL's
 - BAY12 site
 - DF Wiki
 - Tutorials (play-along and video tuts)
 - DF chat (if there is one)?
 - Popular applications such as Dwarf Manager and Stonesense
 - Boatmurdered (with notes that this is based on an early version of DF)

Here's a quickly made flowchart concept. Ideally we'd have flowcharts for far more things, especially on the Wiki, as they can be incredibly useful (found one on the Wiki that made things tremendously easier for me).



Note that this is an "example" flowchart - it shows how you could link up an item with another item and leaves the player to explore further himself. A detailed flowchart would list every item that could be linked up to a trigger, as well as listing both pressure plates and levers. Don't know which would be most beginner-friendly - also keep in mind that complex flowcharts can certainly be more off-putting than helpful to newcomers.

Also, of course, these flowcharts take up a good deal of space, so we can't have more than at most one or two in a quick reference sheet. They'll also be made obsolete over time as new updates come out, so we may want to relegate them to the Wiki.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2010, 01:33:26 pm by Safe-Keeper »
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zwei

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Re: Quick Reference Sheet?
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2010, 03:08:39 pm »

Some ideas:

 * hotkeys should be grouped by category (navigation (<>,arrows), inspection (k, t, u ...), building (p, i, d, b ...), management (z, q, ...) )

 * Ideally, you will want keyboard clipart where keys are highlighted with lines collecting them to short text description.

 * Flowchart is good idea, but as noted should be restricted to special cases, if only because building/production part of game is quite complex and any detailed info is more likely to confuse rather than help. I think building well is a must and equiping/setting up military would be huge help.

 * I would keep building descriptions bullet-point because they make it easier to look for things. For example:

Wood Burner, b-w-b
* Inputs: wood
* Outputs: charcoal fuel

Masons Workshop, b-w-m
* Inputs: stone
* Outputs: furniture, construction materials.

Maybe even make table out of this.

Similar for materials:

Wood, d-t
* Uses: Furniture, Construction, Fuel
* Exclusive material for: Beds, Barrels, Buckets

Again, a table would be best.

I would not worry about space, I think we can go for four a4 pages (two sheets):

* keyboard/keys page
* material page
* workshop page
* flowchart page

atomfullerene

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Re: Quick Reference Sheet?
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2010, 03:18:25 pm »

One thing I always have trouble remembering is which plants are used for which types of processing.  So adding that in would be handy
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Safe-Keeper

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Re: Quick Reference Sheet?
« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2010, 04:57:16 pm »

For those who have played Age of Empires II (or any AoE series game), it had really nice, consise tooltips. For example, buildings would say something like:

Archery Range
Cost: {cost here}
Required research: Feudal age
Trains: Archer, crossbow, arbalest

Something like that. A simple list of workshops - every single one, from the kitchen to the wood furnace, with a short description, would be great to have. Maybe not on a QRS, but definitely somewhere.
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Strife26

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Re: Quick Reference Sheet?
« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2010, 09:51:21 pm »

For those who have played Age of Empires II (or any AoE series game), it had really nice, consise tooltips. For example, buildings would say something like:

Archery Range
Cost: {cost here}
Required research: Feudal age
Trains: Archer, crossbow, arbalest

Something like that. A simple list of workshops - every single one, from the kitchen to the wood furnace, with a short description, would be great to have. Maybe not on a QRS, but definitely somewhere.

That'd be doable enough. Shall we hand out assignments?
Workshops, A-K
Workshops, L-Z
Other buildings, A-K
Other Buildings, L-Z

Format
Name
Defualt hot keys
Building picture
Inputs
Outputs
Special notes

Carpenter's Workshop
b w c
X_X
_X_    <= I'm to lazy to actually look up the workshop layout at the moment, if we're saving it as a
X_X         PDF, we may want to place this off to the right of name and hot key to save space
Carpenter Skill, Wood logs
Beds, Buckets, Barrels, Bins, Wooden Furniture (Basically, the more important things get specifically highlighted)
Note: The only manual way to create beds is with the Carpenter's shop. In a pinch, Buckets, Barrels, and Bins can be made out of metal (although this is inefficient). Other furniture items are usually best made with stone, due to the limited nature of wood.


Edit: I'll try to cover Workshops 1 when I've got some dead time this weekend.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2010, 09:57:22 pm by Strife26 »
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