Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by puke:
<STRONG>it did?  i think it depends on what kind of geology you start on, as to what kinds of ore veins you get.  the 3D version definitly has more of everything except ore, and im not convinced that it even has less of that.  less on any give Z level perhaps, but not overall.

there may be less of any given kind of ore (say, hemetite) because available ore is split between more types which you may or may not want to use.  but its my guess that there is more overall in the new versions.</STRONG>

I've played both the 2D and the 3D versions.  In almost all cases, for those metals common to both versions, ores for all but two metals were considerably more abundant - in the size of map my computer could/can actually handle - in the 2D version.  The exceptions are iron and steel; both can be (assuming a favorable site) substantially more abundant in the 3D version.

All other metals were always more abundant taken together in a typical 2D map than on any 3D map I've played yet.  Note that the largest 3D map I've played long enough to take a proper mineral survey of is a 4x5 map with ~30 z-levels of rock, so YMMV.

Trading is *much* better in the 3D version, which makes up for a lot.

quote:Originally posted by Symmetry:
<STRONG>

Honestly, I signed up thinking that I'd do 3 years max and a year is only ~1 hour or so on a small map like this one.  I forgot that building means 95% of the time the game is paused...

Still we got it done, I just won't be doing anything like this again any time soon   </STRONG>

I also underestimated the amount of time it would take.  Took a substantial fraction of my free time for almost three months, this project did.  But no regrets, no regrets!  

[Anvilsmith]

The bridge looks terrific. I'm really impressed with the effort you made to put in gem windows, leather carpets, colored rope and that long suspension cable.

You didn't place some of the last remaining blocks needed for some of the towers, and a few apartments are exposed to the exterior, but I'm sure that can be ignored.

We'll wait until team 1 (AKA me and Valdemar) finishes Cloudeater, then we'll have a vote via PMs. Mountain-Banners and Cloudeater are really whole different animals, one being a civilian bridge of splendid carpets and luxuriant statues, the other a towering bulwark of crenelations and gears designed with defense in mind. It will be interesting to see how many votes each one receives.

I plan to run another challenge in july, once I finish my BSc. This one will be more military in nature. I understand Dwarf Companion lets players spawn creatures into the map and edit them at their leisure... If so, I have a very interesting tournament-style game in mind.

Also, can ballistae shoot through ramps? I didn't know that. I hope they can shoot through fortifications.

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by Anvilsmith:
<STRONG>The bridge looks terrific. I'm really impressed with the effort you made to put in gem windows, leather carpets, colored rope and that long suspension cable.</STRONG>

Speaking for myself, I had a lot of fun with this, fun I wouldn't have had had you not suggested the idea of building bridges.  Thanks!  

quote:Originally posted by Anvilsmith:
<STRONG>You didn't place some of the last remaining blocks needed for some of the towers, and a few apartments are exposed to the exterior, but I'm sure that can be ignored.</STRONG>

All three towers are fully complete internally and externally.  Some scaffolding and workers' access points in the side towers are still being taken down and closed up (a total of 11 scaffolding and two walls).  All of the apartments are still having windows installed, so they *are* a tad drafty, and some worker access points in the balls remain unclosed.

A word of advice if you build high:  "Start scaffolding-removal early; it takes half of forever to take it down block by block."

quote:Originally posted by Anvilsmith:
<STRONG>We'll wait until team 1 (AKA me and Valdemar) finishes Cloudeater, then we'll have a vote via PMs. Mountain-Banners and Cloudeater are really whole different animals, one being a civilian bridge of splendid carpets and luxuriant statues, the other a towering bulwark of crenelations and gears designed with defense in mind. It will be interesting to see how many votes each one receives.</STRONG>

I've always been a bit unsure about the scoring and voting intended here.  There are no unbiased parties to dispassionately judge.  I'm not really sure I'll vote, therefore, although I do very much look forward to seeing the mechanical systems of Cloudeater when complete.  

quote:Originally posted by Anvilsmith:
<STRONG>Also, can ballistae shoot through ramps? I didn't know that. I hope they can shoot through fortifications.</STRONG>

I didn't know they could either until  Lacero (Symmetry) looked at http://mkv25.net/dfma/poi-2489-siegeweapons  and told me about it.  I test-fired a ballista through the completed fortifications and ramp to make doubly sure that the approaches were covered by fire.

[Fedor]

Hmm.  Two weeks have come and gone.  What's the story, Team #1?

[Anvilsmith]

I'd like to see year 6 concluded, too. Though I won't have a lot of time on my hands until June 24, when I'll attend the final exam for my BSc degree, I will probabily be able to finish year 7 by then, if I trickle in an hour or so every day.

[Fedor]

.... aaand another fortnight has gone the way of the rotting two-legged rhino lizard remains, and I'm bumping this thread for the last time.

Anvilsmith, if you've given up, that's OK, but if you're still waiting for Valdemar, how about pulling the plug on his tardy ass and making Ateshzas Dolek happen, eh?  I want to see those windmills working!   *looks hopeful*

[Anvilsmith]

OKay, then. I'll get to work as soon the final exam and present my BSc thesis, and vow to complete the bridge on the following week. Unfortunately, that means I'll need to start on the 24th of June. Is this okay with you, Fedor? I could work on it now, but this means expending time that could otherwise be invested in preparing for that crucial exam.

[Akroma]

you DO know that spending TOO much time preparing for an exam makes your grade worse, not better

[lastofthelight]

Wow. This seemed like the coolest idea ever. A bit of a fluff post, but I'll just say that.

Though - the seed given above, in the initial post, will that still generate canyons in the current version? Everything seems smooth on the maps I've had thus far, mostly. And how do you build downward if you want to expand your bridge across two points and then down? Is that even possible, or do you have to go upwards? I just think your concept is brilliant.

[ May 25, 2008: Message edited by: lastofthelight ]

[Red Jackard]

Go upwards. I imagine downwards might be possible with a tile editor, though.

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by Anvilsmith:
<STRONG>OKay, then. I'll get to work as soon the final exam and present my BSc thesis, and vow to complete the bridge on the following week. Unfortunately, that means I'll need to start on the 24th of June. Is this okay with you, Fedor? I could work on it now, but this means expending time that could otherwise be invested in preparing for that crucial exam.</STRONG>

RL naturally comes first.  I misunderstood your previous post, sorry.

[Anvilsmith]

I GOT A 10/10 on the exam!!!! If all goes well, I'll be flying to Sheffield this September.

As such, I'll be devoting my time to Cloudeater, which will hopefully become a powerful bridge-fortress. I'll also pick up on the Candyland Mod, which had to be aborted for other reasons.

[Anvilsmith]

Cloudeater has reached year 7. Only 11 months to go. I'll try to play DF about 3 hours a day (the time it takes to finish a month now that the FPS is stuck in the single digits), so I'll complete it in 11 days, I hope. This fortress taken me quite a long time to develop, and I really want to see it through.

The physical bridge will no doubt be complete in time. As for the necessary mechanisms and windmills to power it, I don't really know.

[Anvilsmith]

After prolonged physical toil, Cloudeater stands complete, reaching defiantly across the winding chasm like a dagger thrust into the goblin kingdom's heart. Though some have died during this effort, their minds twisted by the haunted landscape, their souls survive amidst the stonework grafted from the canyon's underside.

The bridge contains a total of 16,000 blocks, with an additional 683 logs and  672 mechanisms. The windmills on its flanks produce nearly 5,000 power, enough to keep the 115 pumps working should the two sides of the bridge become mechanically uncoupled. Five hundred pieces of furniture reside in the bridge's enormous supports, 900 if the doors are to be counted. 77 floodgates carefully control the flow of water through the system of aqueducts,  reservoirs and subterranean farmlands that integrates the disparate supports.

This is the fortress of Cloudeater.

The fortress' total worth is 1.5 million, easily bested by Mountain Banners' 7+ million. Though the fortress of Cloudeater has more blocks (16,000 versus 13,600), the sheer fortress value exhibited by Mountain Banners makes this somptuous pillar of fine dwarven architecture the official winner of the Canyon Engineering Challenge. Congratulations, Fedor and Symmetry!

And sorry about the horrible delay. It took me ages to plow through the game, with a month sometimes taking as much as four hours to complete near the end of the game. Given how exhausted the entire project left me, I believe this will be a good time to retire from Dwarf Fortress.

[Anvilsmith]

Unfortunately, I cannot install the .net framework and therefore cannot use the map compressor utility to display Cloudeater in the DF map archive. I would be deeply grateful if someone posted the map in my place.

It would also be nice if someone could uncheck the occupancy flags for the two tiles in the top level of the southernmost pillar (from which I had teleported two trapped pets) and build on them... As I lack the .net framework, I cannot use the tile edit utility to do this myself.

3Dwarf visualizer crashed when I tried using it... Ugh. I'll post those pictures later.