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Author Topic: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page  (Read 1551730 times)

PermanentInk

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #375 on: July 17, 2010, 12:41:55 pm »

Full-blown multithreading is made of lots of little processes that can get shuffled around as necessary. With this idea, all the processes for one broad purpose would be separate, but the main body of the game would still work the same. Like how the current graphics work.

Worker thread pools are one multithreading idiom; by no means are they requisite for a program to be considered "properly" multithreaded.

Naturally, DF does seem in many ways to lend itself to a multithreaded approach.  As with many simulations, there are a lot of pieces moving parallel and mostly independently, which is what you need.  It seems very possible that DF will have to migrate towards such an approach in the long term, for performance reasons.

However, it's naive to trivialize the difficulty of getting multithreading right.  Race conditions, memory barriers, shared state, semaphors and locks, deadlocks, live locks, and on and on and on -- there's a whole bestiary of problems that can hit you once you go multithreaded.  Toady's a really smart guy and he's clearly picked up plenty along the way, but his training as a programmer is also far from traditional, and while I don't consider that a bad thing by any means, it means there are bound to be gaps.  I don't know to what extent he's picked up knowledge about dealing with concurrency up to now, but if he hasn't and he tries it naively, it could become a *big* rathole and/or source of bugs.  If there's one possibility I can think of for how this project might get sunk on a purely technical basis, this would probably be it.

Not to be pessimistic; just pointing out that this would be a major architectural change and a difficult one for anyone to accomplish safely.
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tfaal

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #376 on: July 17, 2010, 02:13:53 pm »

Quote from: Devlog
Yesterday I messed around a lot with sparring and skill demonstrations and made sure they were moving between them properly, and I balanced out some of the timers and skill increases there. The combat rebalancing had had an effect on sparring injuries, which had already been a bit of a problem (and have historically been a major problem), so I put in some more safeguards there. I also found that anybody that was bleeding modestly would take a dive and decide they needed to be carried off to the hospital, even if the bleeding subsequently stopped. That's fixed now.

Today I took some time to think about the site/population rewrite that's the foundation of a lot of the future developments, mainly having your own sites in adventure mode, having sprawl/rural areas, villain groups, and having more dwarves live around you off-map in dwarf mode. Since I'm aiming for the 22nd or 23rd for the next release, I'm not sure if that rewrite is going to fit or not. I'd like to take some small steps on the dev page each time I release, but this one is larger and it still needs to be done early. If we wind up with some more days of bug fixing and then the site/pop rewrite first thing for the release after the next one, I wouldn't be surprised.
Yet more good news on the military front. Entity populations aught to be nice as well. This raises a question: once entity pops are in, can we expect the current (ridiculously tiny) towns to get scrapped in short order? On a related note, does this mean we won't be seeing mundane people appearing in the legends screen anymore?
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I still think that the whole fortress should be flooded with magma the moment you try dividing by zero.
This could be a handy way of teaching preschool children mathematics.

Master

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #377 on: July 17, 2010, 02:17:37 pm »

Quote
Today I took some time to think about the site/population rewrite that's the foundation of a lot of the future developments, mainly having your own sites in adventure mode, having sprawl/rural areas, villain groups, and having more dwarves live around you off-map in dwarf mode. Since I'm aiming for the 22nd or 23rd for the next release, I'm not sure if that rewrite is going to fit or not. I'd like to take some small steps on the dev page each time I release, but this one is larger and it still needs to be done early. If we wind up with some more days of bug fixing and then the site/pop rewrite first thing for the release after the next one, I wouldn't be surprised.

So does that mean we will finally be able to abandon (not abandon but set the fort to AI) a fortress, send the file to a friend and have them assault the fort?
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tfaal

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #378 on: July 17, 2010, 03:30:57 pm »

Nope. That's a ways off, due to various reasons. What Toady means is that adventurers will be able to create their own sites, such as cabins in the woods or small fortresses, leave the area, and have it still exist when they come back.

One more question, now that I think of it: will the entity population update break save compat? I can't think of a way it wouldn't, but you never know.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2010, 03:32:34 pm by tfaal »
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I still think that the whole fortress should be flooded with magma the moment you try dividing by zero.
This could be a handy way of teaching preschool children mathematics.

Untelligent

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #379 on: July 18, 2010, 02:04:11 pm »

I suppose Toady will put a little widget in the code to let the game know that saves with the old entity stuff are fine.
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regardless, the slime shooter will be completed, come hell or high water, which are both entirely plausible setbacks at this point.

Cespinarve

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #380 on: July 18, 2010, 03:04:25 pm »

Given how much confusion and problems people have had, would you be willing to produce the exact, precise steps to get a Baron, and to get the economy to turn on? There's so many different and contradictory statements.
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Nice one, not sure when I'll be feeling like killing a baby but these things are good to know.
This is why we can't have nice things... someone will just wind up filling it with corpses.
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thvaz

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #381 on: July 18, 2010, 07:56:17 pm »

Will we be able to let the computer run a player created fortress? For instance, to play five years and then let it run itself while we play as adventurer or running other fortresses.

Will we be able to play a fortress, abandon it, then advance the world a set number of years?
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Neonivek

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #382 on: July 18, 2010, 08:55:27 pm »

Yeah a spoiler type question

Toady I see the Darkones, whos name leaves me, have slaves. In what ways do you plan for these slaves to come to pass? Will it be anywhere from transformed children, to the controlled, all the way to just people hired with cash?
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tfaal

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #383 on: July 19, 2010, 12:33:28 am »

Will we be able to let the computer run a player created fortress? For instance, to play five years and then let it run itself while we play as adventurer or running other fortresses.

Will we be able to play a fortress, abandon it, then advance the world a set number of years?

New ideas that aren't related to the current development page should probably go in the suggestions forum.
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I still think that the whole fortress should be flooded with magma the moment you try dividing by zero.
This could be a handy way of teaching preschool children mathematics.

Askot Bokbondeler

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #384 on: July 19, 2010, 12:37:03 am »

that's atleast partially related to the entity populations rewrite, tough

tfaal

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #385 on: July 19, 2010, 12:46:07 am »

Uh, what? It may be because it's 1:45 were I live, but there's definitely something I'm missing here.
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I still think that the whole fortress should be flooded with magma the moment you try dividing by zero.
This could be a handy way of teaching preschool children mathematics.

Askot Bokbondeler

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #386 on: July 19, 2010, 03:37:18 am »

you fail to see the relation between entities and entity populations?

Toady One

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #387 on: July 19, 2010, 06:24:53 am »

Quote from: Osmosis Jones
Just to clarify on the forcing loyalty, I meant for situations like slavery; following your orders goes against the characters ethics or desires, but they are compelled to do so via fear etc, as opposed to just having subordinates follow you due to gold or reputation. You suggested one example in the dev list, of forcing someone you've captured to act as a guide, I was just asking about a more general system, with say forced labour, forced military service etc. Building on that, would it be possible to have that forced loyalty thing work with other characters? Say you intimidate 5 people into following you, and get them to intimidate 5 more each into following them; the end result is you command 30 people, 5 of which act as slave drivers in a way.

However ordering people around works with the guide situation, it would most likely be done as part of whatever system there is for your subordinates, so you'd have whatever range of commands is available as long as you're around to scare the guy.  A longer lasting effect that can be transferred down a hierarchy would be a different problem, but I imagine the bandit leaders and night creatures will need parts of that.  So we'll get pieces, and it'll probably keep on going that way.

Quote from: Baughn
Once there is a notion of relative wealth, will that include dwarf-mode economics, so we don't have to build buckets for our dwarves to sleep in?

Do you mean like people having good beds because they can afford them?  Or that you wouldn't even have to build the wooden beds because most of the dwarves are destitute and sleeping on the rock (or soil!) floor?

Quote from: Ratbert_CP
Can we have a goblin fry-basket made of magma safe wall and floor grates that we can place and/or trap creatures in, that we can then lower into a convenient pool of magma?

The only special provision the game would need to understand is that when the fortress part moves down, fluid should be pushed up through fluid-passable floors instead of treating it like an unpassable floor/wall.  It'll be something I have to remember to do as a one-liner, but that's really all it comes down to, and I've written it down now to remind me.  So yeah.

Quote from: Urist Imiknorris
Also, will grates eventually be able to support other grates as if they were all one giant grate?

I suppose it's not a bad thing.  I imagine you'd need something stronger supporting them after a distance, but that might as well remain imaginary.  I can't really say when it would be allowed.  I'd need to fiddle with the bridge stuff or whatever is currently in there.

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Quote from: Ratbert_CP
Are there any roadmap/plans to move more game interactions out to the RAW files?  Specifically, the ability to require certain/custom nobles to enable certain/custom workshops?  Or better, the ability to require a (specific?) third-party to cause a reaction?
Quote from: RCIS
When will the rest of the workshops/reactions be moved out into raw files? i feel kind of constrained as a modder trying to operate with only limited access to how Toady set up the workshops.
Quote from: Mephansteras
When will custom workshops be able to display the color of the building materials the way regular workshops do?

For reactions, there are a zillion things people have requested, and at some point, I'd just do a batch of them.  It's the kind of thing I think I'll find more time for when the bugs are under control, since it is fun to expand those powers out, but for now I've just been collecting a list.

Quote from: Heph
Toady you spoke of "Boulders" Buried in the soil. Does that include Multi-tile boulders like "Glacial boulders"?

I didn't think about multi-tile boulders.  It could be like two rock wall tiles sitting in the soil (or on top of the soil, looking at these pictures) instead of anything treated as a special object.  At that point, it's probably more for whenever we get canyons and mesas and interesting above ground stuff, rather than for this "adventurers and soil-bound dwarves get more access to large stones" change.

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Quote from: Psieye
Will the new crushing traps with moving sections have the same 'atomsmashing' effect as raised bridges do now? Or will you get to uh... loot pancakes of whatever you killed?
Quote from: Heph
In addition to Psieye's question: Wouldt it be possible to remove atom-smashing for bridges and replace it by actual crushing? 

The problem there is adding some kind of flag to have an item in a square, above the ground but below the buildings.  It would need to be respected everywhere.  It's not impossible, because there are already the buried and imbedded flags that are respected everywhere, and it would be nearly identical (except for the few places where it is actually added/removed).  There's a further complication with the material spatter, but it's already a problem, which is whether the spatter is on the bridge or beneath the bridge, since I imagine some squashed items would just become spatter, instead of a crushed item.

Quote from: Mephansteras
Will you be adding in some code to handle worn materials protecting the wearer from various dangerous elements? Things like dragon scale armor protecting from firebreath or an artifact mask that protects against poisonous vapor would be fun.

If it's not magic, there are some still missing properties that should help, like thermal conductivity.  Right now, a dragon item would become hot and not be damaged, but it would still convey heat to you.  Even if it has a high specific heat, it would still store the energy and transfer some of it to you (though slower).   So it really needs to reject the heat in the first place, which requires the conductivity.  Or there's magic.  Which I imagine would cover this kind of thing in most systems, at least in special cases.

Quote from: Cruxador
Surely a catchall "other" category would be superior to leaving stuff off the list?

That was the old system, and it didn't work -- it just takes too much time to keep the list up to date.  Now I'm going to stick with things that are "shorter term" in some sense and where there's a semblance of a roadmap (though that isn't quite the case for the ESV stuff at this point, unplanned as some of it is).

Quote from: zwei
One of popular mods are custom workshops designed to train skills. How far in pipeline are things that would make it obsolete: like books, master/apprentice relationships, training straw dummies for soldiers, toys providing experience for children and geting experience by observing others to do something or by talking to then about subject.

Right now the idea is to put in books in the treasure hunter section, and master/apprentice stuff is the province of guilds (though I don't imagine that's as relevant here, since the trades already have workshops, although children can't learn at them).  That enables the things you are talking about in part, but it's difficult to talk about with getting down into specific skills.  I imagine the mods are wide-ranging.

Quote from: Topace3k
Is there any possibility that bruising damage can be made to cause a small amount of blood loss?  Essentially, bruising is internal bleeding and a great deal of bruising means you are losing a great deal of blood from your circulatory system.  Currently, dwarves can punch eachother forever with little effect because these bruising wounds have little relevance in the game other than in causing pain.  If some internal bleeding was taken into account whenever bruising occurs, fights between unarmed living creatures would be much more fun and realistic.


It should, though internal bleeding from ruptured organs and adding concussions and brain bleeds is probably the most important for making unarmed striking fights realistic, compared to making muscle bruising the cause of death.  Things like ruptured spleens are probably just going to have to be something like an organ/body part tag/property, since spleens usually "rupture" and lungs usually "collapse".

Quote from: Purple Mage
With the ability to create and buy sites now in the works, will an adventurer be able to become a landlord and rent out land to the local peasants.

Entity populations are going to be coming soon, and as the sprawl is added, we're planning on messing with this stuff, whether that's with isolated villages or more developed manors.  Once those relationships are established, we can start considering getting the adventurer involved, though the focus will probably start with the combat-related partnerships with the people around you.  That said, if you can ask one of your guys to do your farming while you are away, rent is just around the corner, at least in crops or required labor days.  The use of markets/peddlers by your guys would be farther off, so rent in coinage/valuables/whatever might be farther away.

Quote from: Little
And with the new suspicion system and building system, would it possible to discreetly murder your tenants, hide their bodies in a hidden room and then blame an adventurer wandering into town?

I think the part where you actually cast the blame on somebody else through your words is the missing piece.  And the part about the hidden room I guess, depending on what you mean.  The idea is that blame would naturally fall on strangers, so assuming you aren't also a recent arrival at the town, you'd probably be able to get away with things for a while (or forever, since it'll probably be easy until more mechanics are put in).

Quote from: VWSpeedRacer
There isn't a fixed tile scale, but wouldn't it be fair to call a boulder as 1/3 a tile width, and give accelleration as something like (3 horizontal tiles per ramp tile) ^ 2 ?

Yeah, however it would work.  There are equations for acceleration on an inclined plane.  I probably used to know the basic ones, but I'm way out of practice, he he he.  We'll try to do things properly, although, yeah, we'd just be fudging the scales.  I don't think it'll be hard, although when we get to things arcing through the sky, targeting can be a tad annoying, especially when you have to account for the grid locations on top of the equations.

Quote
Quote from: Aquillion
Will adventure mode in DF ever track the player character's mood?  It's such a big part of Dwarf Mode that it seems like it'd be a logical thing to extend to adventure mode although, of course, I wouldn't expect players to go insane without something Lovecraft-style causing them to.  But there's various other things that could be done with it, like the bonuses / penalties I mentioned above.
Quote from: isitanos
This is a great idea, that would give a subtle but real gameplay role to luxuries. A good reason for people who are not too much in roleplaying to buy masterwork beds. For players that actually want to be a sewer dweller and not be depressed all the time (even though a kind of gloomy, self-destructive character would fit with that theme), what makes the player happy/comfortable could change over time.

Yeah, to me, as somebody mentioned, it was a roleplaying thing.  The example about preferences changing over time just points to the overall problems -- the system would have to be complicated, and when it screws up, you are being penalized when it makes no sense and I imagine it might pull you out of where you want to be mentally.  There are probably some limited cases like dwarven alcohol dependency or Lovecraftian insanity that we wouldn't mind doing, but I worry about the ramifications of a complete accounting of the player's emotional state.  Overall, doing it might end up being a quirky thing, rather than something bad, I guess, as it sounds with the candy bar example, but I'm not sure I want it to be that way.  Maybe if it is tied in to dwarf-style preferences you pick in the beginning it wouldn't be so jarring.  You'd at least know what to expect and it wouldn't push or irritate you as much as seeing something like "Angry" at the bottom of the screen when that's the opposite of how you think your character would react.  The mood accounting at that point becomes something of a positive, perhaps, since it provides a richer experience within the confines of your expectations.  I want to be careful though.

Quote from: Intelligent Shade of Blue
Will Armok ever make an appearance in DF? Like as a deity that all dwarves worship (in addition to their other, lesser gods)?

Right now, you can't for instance add a stock pantheon for a modded race (like one from real-world mythology).  I think when you are able to do that in the raws or an editor or whatever, Armok would probably be a top candidate for stock universe example raws.  Armok has kind of enjoyed the history of being in the original Dragslay, functioned as a joke about the player, served as an explanation for each save game, etc., and for the future, the stock entry is where I'd see it happening.

Quote from: Toybasher
Will the heart and throat ever get any other use? I mean you fixed major arteries for the next update, but a blue heart (function completely lost) should be fatal, at the same time throat wounds should cause death from not being able to breathe like the old 40d days.

Proper death conditions were redded out on the last release list as a delayed item, and now they are in the same limbo as some of those other items.  The heart ceasing to function should lead to brain death via deoxygenation/toxin buildup, where brain death would ultimately be the cause of all death, but we aren't there yet.  I'm not sure when it will next come up.

Quote from: Tehran
For when you implement full graphics support... are you going to release the game with its own tilesets already installed? And who would draw those tilesets? (As opposed to releasing it with just the capability to have tilesets installed.)

Dunno.  You'd want people to have graphics easily, as it is a major stumbling block to getting into the game, but I'm not sure I'd ever feel safe bundling a release with a tileset that wasn't produced internally.

Quote from: isitanos
Speaking of mood, could we have fey/fell moods for the player, where he feels compelled to realize a feat, with a potentially great benefit but also a great penalty if he fails? To avoid a sudden unexpected possession to ruin a game, it should probably be rather easy to foresee, for example if they only have a chance of happening if you push the above mood mechanic to extremes, or you make a visit to an out-of-the-ordinary place such as a god's altar, or engage dialog with a powerful demon.

I wouldn't want to randomly saddle people with too much of a burden, particularly on a single character in adventure mode, but I don't have a problem with a magical obligation at times when it makes sense, since those are fairly common and should be fun.  No idea when that sort of thing would happen, since it's all so far away.

Quote from: Jiri Petru
Isn't this what the Appraising skill is supposed to simulate? I mean, why have separate systems when we already have skills? The "chat with merchant" option could probably train the skill or add temporary bonuses.

Adventure mode should refine fort mode mechanics in general, and I think instant local knowledge from an appraisal skill would diminish the fun of being a trader.  I don't think it is a bad thing if adventure mode ends up with separate systems.  It is more work, and if you think of the entire game as a single simulator, it seems like the wrong way to do things, but dwarf mode and adventure mode are different and they will end up hurting each other if they try to use the same mechanics for everything.  Moving between modes you've got to deal with things like fort mode not having tools or having historical figures with skills that might not be used, but I think it's a manageable problem and ultimately a smaller problem than making adventure mode vague because fort mode can't support the specifity that comes out of the slower timescale and moving location of adv mode.

The situation with the two modes is one of the central problems of future development though, and I imagine there will be plenty of compromises and tradeoffs and whatever else going on as we work through the dev page.

Quote from: Jiri Petru
Have you considered how things like "kneeling in front of the statue" will be controlled in terms of interface, etc? I'm a bid afraid that as you keep adding more and more moves/things to do in Adventure mode, the list of commands will become so enormously long it would be unusable. I'm thinking rare things like these might be triggered through some item in environment - like the statue here. Rather than having the next-to-useless "kneel" command available at all times, the player would click "interact" or something on the statue, and the game would list all possible things to do there, including kneeling. Or something... The other issue is that the player might not know he can kneel in front of the statue and that the game would react (and kneeling everywhere just to try if it does something is a bit over the top), so a menu like this would definitely help. The question here is if you have thought about how to handle controls in adventure mode in a way that would both allow the miriad of functions and still stay user friendly at the same time?

There's already some menu nesting with context-sensitive information, as with ground interactions or building interactions.  Having gestures or movements as an 'x' category or wherever wouldn't send it way over the top, and the current plan was to add new categories of uncommon actions there.  It would take a long time before that became unusable, in the sense of scrolling or getting to the option that you want.  In terms of knowing what you can/should do, that's going to depend on the specific example.  If it comes to doing goofy things in some specific ritual, and it is a ritual that can be initiated by the player, then it's easy to guide one through the steps.

The example we've been talking about of impersonating people is more difficult, because in a sense it should be up to the player to pull off some of it without being guided.  If the player knows they want to kneel in front of the statue after seeing somebody else do it and can't figure out the keys to do it, that would definitely be a problem.  There might not always be an item/building as a context object though, so it needs to be addressed more with searchable commands/usable manual/etc.  In this specific case, any observed ritual could also be examined from a knowledge base, and rituals could have their commands listed explicitly.  Whether or not that's worth it would depend on how tricky it actual is though.  First, we'll see how it goes with farming, more combat commands, etc.

Quote from: Jiri Petru
How about if some features were added at embark? You could generate the word with the feature frequency optimalised for adventure mode, and then throw in some extra features when the player embarks in fortress mode. Or alternatively scan the neighbouring map squares and move the features from there to the embark idea or something. Or something... The question is whether retrospecting "cheating" like this (that could probably help even in other ideas) is something you might consider, or a thing that doesn't fit into your idea of simulating the world.

I think it is more likely that you'd just get to interact with features in a wider area by being able to send out squads/armies through the underground layers to off-screen sites that have been harassing you, and then you'd get to seem them in their full glory (even if it is in frozen time or whatever).
Taken strictly as an isolated single-fort worldless game, it would make sense to add a special feature on every level, and perhaps that kind of thing would work as an init option, but when it comes to villains/etc. I prefer having a historical villain attack from offscreen over a generated villain base being guaranteed, for example.  We'll have to see how it plays out as you have more off-screen interactions.  If it takes care of itself at that point, with the occasional point of interest actual being under the fort, perhaps with site-finding options, then that would be good.  The deepest underground can more afford to be glutted with features in adv mode as well, so that should also help a bit.

Quote from: Jiri Petru
How about switching from adventure mode to something like fortress mode when ordering minions? You could control you farm like in dwarf mode, then switch back to your adventurer at any time and continue adventuring. Is switching game modes (or more precisely, levels of control) something you would like to explore, or again something you don't like?

I think the issue here might be that it's too "god-like" and gives you more control than you would have if you stayed in "first person". But I disagree. Thinking about how dwarf mode works now, not only you can't control dwarves directly, but also all orders you can issue to your dwarves you could easily issue in "first person" too.

Nah, we don't want to do it that way, at least not in a way that involves instant information transfer or clairvoyance.  You shouldn't be able to change somebody's behavior from 200 tiles away or locate them without looking or having them told to come to you.  If something seems like it would be really annoying, like talking to each of the 7 peasants in your example, I think the proper angle would be to find one person, ask them to gather everybody and then use the fast-wait, or having that one person convey your orders.  Once you've got them within earshot or are sending orders through one guy, I wouldn't have problems with something like a paused dwarf-style management to lay out your orders for them.  If it is somebody else's job to convey the plan you make before you take off, then that may or may not happen, and that's where incompetence, betrayal and rebellion can lurk, so we really want to do things this way.  I'd object to a button that lets you find somebody automatically, or one that lets you convey an order when nobody else is present.  Leaving a note on a door would be fine.

There's the more general question of adv mode/fort mode transfer, as with the Oregon Trail style dwark embark ideas or certain reclaim scenarios or becoming one of your fortress dwarves in certain or any circumstances, and we're not necessarily against any of those, but in the particular case of a standard adventurer, frequent mode flipping is something we'd like to avoid.

Quote from: Urist McDepravity
Will type of material matter in terms of how long it will take to be crushed or whether it can be crushed at all? Theres a big difference between wooden fence and block of solid steel/adamantine.

In terms of digging invaders, doors already have these outmoded hitpoints, and it's quite likely that when constructions or natural walls can be destroyed, that it will take things like that into consideration.

Quote from: BigFatDwarf
Seeing as how the whole world would be living, with caravans, thieves' dens, towns and all the schemes and politics, sites growing, thieves stealing, creatures murdering, how will this effect DF, performance wise? For all the calculations, it seems like a black hole of FPS, really.

In dwarf mode, time is accelerated 72x, so things will happen in broad sweeps, most likely, and in adv mode, it is a slow enough time scale, that they don't happen often, so I think it'll be fine.  It's definitely arbitrarily bad, FPS-wise, and we'll just have to do our best.

Quote from: IronValley
Will it be possible for squads to automatically swap to training weapons when sparring?

They are supposed to do that already, so their screwups in that regard are just things that need to be fixed.

Quote from: jimi12
Are we going to be able to have statues and figurines of deities soon? This would be a good filler until religion is focused on.

It probably won't be any sooner than whatever makes it come up.  When we get to specification of items to be built, they'd be there.  That is on the dev page, but I'm not sure when it is coming vs. religious group interactions.

Quote from: darkrider2
will moving fortress parts displace water, thus enabling an actual oversized piston pump to be created?

It's doable using a slight modification of the current fluid code, but there are going to be a ton of edge and not-so-edge cases where it doesn't really work right, so we'll have to see how it turns out.

Quote from: Syff
Regarding the "farming improvements" goals, how much detail is currently planned for tracking soil quality?

A completely accurate model would probably be a lot of effort/information with little to gain from it, though enough detail to properly encourage crop rotation seems like something that should make it in eventually.

We haven't made any final decisions.  I think a NPK+pH model does give you something back, because you'd get some really great varied local landscapes and it would take care of crop rotation, composting, naturally poor soil, or whatever else, but it introduces a farming interface problem to dwarf mode in terms of conveying the information in wholesome terms and allowing you to solve problems that come up.

Quote from: Urist Imiknorris
Will blunt weapons be useful against skeletal enemies? One would think that skeletons wouldbe somewhat fragile, and a strong impact would be enough to take off a head or something. Will this be the case?

Skeletons are weird now because they are not explained, and they are glued together with muscle tatters which prevents them from behaving properly until they are explained.  It could be handled with night creatures.

Quote from: Mephansteras
Question on marksdwarves: If you give them the order to kill a target and they are up in a tower, but on the wrong side, will they go try to find a place near them where they can shoot or will they run out of the tower to go find the enemy on the ground and then start shooting?

They aren't smart or anything.  It is seek and destroy like anything else they do in battle.  It obviously needs to be improved, but it's somewhat tricky/slow on the 3D grid without extra information on the map, which is hard to maintain.  Player hints would be the easier way to handle it, but it would be good if they could think it out themselves.

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Quote from: Festin
Is resizing the playing field as described above even theoretically possible?
Quote from: TheDJ17
Whould the above mentioned feature eventually be replaced with some sort of Fog of War?

The resizing is mostly already handled by the adv mode moving code, but there are complications with changing your site location and overlaps with other sites and all that.  I don't understand the fog of war question.  Is that automatic moving of the fortress map?

Quote from: Knight Otu
With entity populations, I'm assuming that the first step would be taken for overworld nomadic civilizations, but is it likely that they'll be included?

We had roaming nomadic groups in adv mode before, and then they were removed.  It's true this would give them a new lease on life, but we're not really sure about any of the details.  It might start out with refugees from attacked cities or something, but I'm not sure.  Once we have pro-active villains, there'll also be more backing in for roving horde AI.

Quote from: Dwarfu
If a dwarf has the personality trait 'likes maces' and he arrives (spawns) with some military skills, will he be a macedwarf or have skill in maces?   Or will he spawn as 'likes maces,' arrive as a pikedwarf, and when assigned 'individual choice, melee,' he'll go and pick up a sword?

Preference won't influence what weapon they arrive with.  I think their individual choice would be a pike, not a sword, though.  They consider skill, at least.  If there come to be concrete bonuses to preferences, they should probably consider it.  At the time, I was preoccupied with getting them to pick up usable and useful things, although I failed in that regard.  At least the melee choice guys won't pick up ranged weapons now...

Quote from: Untelligent
Do any of the mental skills do anything yet, or are they all flavory placeholders for now?

Spatial sense and kinesthetic sense seem like they could potentially affect certain combat rolls, for instance.

The mental atts, as of the fixes for 0.31.11 (some of these are weird in part because only 3 mental atts can influence a roll, so there are holes, and there are probably dumb choices):  A lot of these will only effect duration, when that is the only available skill effect to begin with, but they are factored into outcomes when it applies.

analytical ability skills: animal care, trapping, cheesemaker, cook, smelter, extract strand, cut gem, siege craft, siege operate, mechanics, architecture, diagnose, appraisal, organization, record keeping, knowledge acquisition, knapping

focus skills: fishing, ranged combat, siege operate, sneak, surgery, bone setting, suturing, record keeping, knowledge acquisition, concentration, observer

willpower skills: mining, woodcutting, melee combat, crutch walking, pump operating, swimming, concentration
willpower directly resists exertion/pain effects

creativity skills: all crafts, trapping, cheesemaking, cook, architecture, organization, lying, comedy

intuition skills: animal training, judging intent, appraisal, observer, diagnose

patience skills: animal training, fishing, concentration, some non-skill tasks

memory skills: animal care, herbalism, diagnose, appraisal, record keeping, knowledge acquisition

linguistic ability skills: persuasion, negotiation, lying, intimidation, conversation, comedy, flattery, console, pacify, leadership, teaching

spatial sense skills: mining, wood cutting, crafts, trapping, combat skills, siege operate, sneak, architecture, wound dresssing, surgery, bone setting, suturing, crutch walking, swimming, observer, knapping

musicality skills: nothing yet

kinesthetic sense skills: most skills involving any movement at all (lots of them), non-skilled tasks as well

empathy skills: animal training, animal care, dress wounds, persuasion, negotiation, judging intent, conversation, flattery, console, pacify, leadership, teaching

social awareness skills: persuasion, negotiation, judging intent, organization, lying, conversation, flattery, console, pacify, leadership, teaching

Quote from: Shadowfury333
Will the addition of a crime tracking and investigation system be integrated into fortress mode? In other words, will random dwarves stop getting hammered (in a bad way) because of production mandate issues?

There'll have to be criminal dwarves first, which is a tricky issue because there are so few dwarves.  Once you've got dwarves outside the fortress to draw from, it is easier to consider.  It already picks non-random dwarves for the hammer, generally related to the craft in question if it can find them, but maybe it should hammer the manager, he he he.

Quote from: Untelligent
When we get to the point where history continues after worldgen ends and even as you control a Fortress or Adventurer, how will you handle this?

That's the game, pretty much.  Attacks on your fortress or the things you do in adventure mode should all be related to what happened before, and the villains/etc. that are harassing villages and so on are the ones from the histories.  There are already groups that move on the map during adventure mode, and there'd just have to be occasional decisions being made, and they'd need to be taken off their yearly generate-this timers in dwarf mode as we get more of the mechanics in.

Quote from: tfaal
once entity pops are in, can we expect the current (ridiculously tiny) towns to get scrapped in short order? On a related note, does this mean we won't be seeing mundane people appearing in the legends screen anymore?

Yeah, we'll be changing how the civilizations are spread out, and they'll be improved over time as more adv mode mechanics go in (especially related to your own adv mode site).  There will be fewer mundane people in the legends screen, though they will still occur, and there will be many more people that do not have legends entries, but instead draw their histories from the history of their surroundings.  It's kind of unfortunate that histories may have to be retroactively generated and mostly unrelated to the world at large, but we decided it was necessary to get the proper scope.

Quote from: tfaal
will the entity population update break save compat?

Old saves will be playable, but they likely won't have the additional sprawl that the update will provide on new maps.  Since this sprawl won't be used outside of adv mode for a while, it shouldn't be a big deal that it isn't there for dwarf mode games.  I imagine loading in a save from now into DF way down the line might be a little weird, especially when we get to the point that attacking armies aren't generated.  We'll either make provisions at that point or just let it float.  I'm not sure.  If village generation at the region level is simple enough, old saves could just get padded out with entity pop settlements on appropriate non-player site squares.

Quote from: Cespinarve
Given how much confusion and problems people have had, would you be willing to produce the exact, precise steps to get a Baron, and to get the economy to turn on? There's so many different and contradictory statements.

If there is a lot of confusion, perhaps it is bugged.  My understanding and what worked last time I tested was that you need to have a caravan leave when your pop is 20, you've traded 10000*, and you've produced 100000*, and then when the liaison comes the next year, you'll have an option to elevate a dwarf to baron.  If that isn't working, there is some problem.

Quote from: thvaz
Will we be able to let the computer run a player created fortress? For instance, to play five years and then let it run itself while we play as adventurer or running other fortresses.

Will we be able to play a fortress, abandon it, then advance the world a set number of years?

Transferring an active fortress to an off-screen computer controlled state has some difficult problems, mostly involving fluids upon return and the other tricky things the player can do.  When you return, it is difficult for the computer to know how the fortress might have changed and make that a safe process.  As long as the player doesn't have unreasonable expectations, it isn't so bad, but we might have different standards there, he he he.

Once adv mode waiting is in, being able to advance the world a number of years should be a settled matter, and it shouldn't be an issue at that point to "continue world gen" for a fixed period, although it might have a different flavor/arc from the original world gen, since more data would be established, and for that reason and storage space sanity, less might change, but I'm not sure.

Quote from: Neonivek
Toady I see the Darkones, whos name leaves me, have slaves. In what ways do you plan for these slaves to come to pass? Will it be anywhere from transformed children, to the controlled, all the way to just people hired with cash?

Night creatures?  Yeah, all those.  Hired people should already be in by that time (unless night creatures go in first), and night creatures will get extra ways to get help.  I guess Dracula, who had rough analogs to each kind of help you mentioned, is a good example for this kind of night creature.  Hopefully it will be scary and creepy.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2010, 06:36:32 am by Toady One »
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Baughn

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #388 on: July 19, 2010, 07:07:23 am »

Quote from: Baughn
Once there is a notion of relative wealth, will that include dwarf-mode economics, so we don't have to build buckets for our dwarves to sleep in?

Do you mean like people having good beds because they can afford them?  Or that you wouldn't even have to build the wooden beds because most of the dwarves are destitute and sleeping on the rock (or soil!) floor?

I mean market economics. Supply and demand.

As an example, currently if you build only luxurious bedrooms, the poor dwarves don't get to use them at all yet most bedrooms will stay empty. That's of course not realistic; the price will be what the market can bear, and no more - basically, the dwarves should bid on bedrooms.

(As an aside, "and no more" only applies where there are no ongoing maintenance costs, but since such things aren't in the game yet.. well, if the market couldn't bear the maintenance they'd go derelict, not just stay empty.)

Of course, bedrooms are just the most obvious example. This applies to everything that enters the economy, including money itself; minting more (without a corresponding increase in economic size) should cause inflation, minting too little deflation - and as real life shows, both can be very bad things (though especially deflation). Insufficient money would cause the economy to not work properly, too much.. well, that depends on how, exactly, the new money is distributed.

I can think of plausible exceptions to the economy, like nobles not wanting the rabble to have rooms as good as they do, but they should be exceptions - not the rule. Which is to say, first make the market economy work, then consider noble/personality-driven exceptions.

Does that explain my thoughts sufficiently?
« Last Edit: July 19, 2010, 07:12:17 am by Baughn »
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li

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Re: Future of the Fortress: The Development Page
« Reply #389 on: July 19, 2010, 07:25:21 am »

Sorry if it's not the right place to ask, but would someone explain me what means entity populations?
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