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Absolutely!

0 (0%)

Eh, maybe.

1 (50%)

I think the technical problems will be too hard.

1 (50%)

Nah, not my thing.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 2

[ptb_ptb]

So, DF 40.11 is out. While we wait for the essential mods to be updated, I thought I'd introduce an idea I had for practicality checking and fine-tuning.

The idea is to switch between dungeon building and adventurer playing. One player runs a fortress and captures a Forbidden Beast he then releases it inside a maze, arena or whatever and retires the fortress. The next player plays an adventurer with the aim of entering and subduing that beast. If he succeeds, he retires his adventurer to a world-gen village somewhere and runs his own fortress where he seeks to capture a Forbidden Beast.

The first thing that concerns me is that it's not going to be much fun if the Forbidden Beast just walks away between fortress retirement and the adventurer turning up. Can FBs break bridges or walk through walls while the fortress isn't being player run? For that matter, can levers linked to bridges or floodgates in dwarf fortress mode be used by adventurers in adventure mode?

Sub-points:
* I don't want the fortress portion to take forever, so I think temporary ease-of-play cheats should be allowed for the fortress playing part. Such as letting dwarves walk 5 times faster and turning off invasions when they are inconvenient. Any such settings / cheats should be turned back before retiring the fortress.
* For ease of adventurer travel I intend to use a 'gentle slope' worldgen.
* From FPS concerns I intend to use a small world (65x65) and recommend fortress areas be between 3x3 and 4x4. Low-ish population limits in the init file may also be a good idea.
* Unretiring world-gen fortresses is absolutely fine with me.
* There may be stability issues with using the same location more than once. So I suggest not retiring your adventurer in fortresses and not attempting to unretire a fortress previously used by a player.
* Including traps and extra monster mobs is fine with me.
* Including 'treasure chests' for visiting adventurers is fine with me too.
* I suggest seasonal save backups be kept in case of buggy saves or other problems.
* I use Phoebus' Graphic Set, so would prefer that be the default for save exchanging (although I understand it is possible to switch with some effort?)

[Talvieno]

One little problem here I'd like to point out.

When you retire a fortress, the locations of the animals/citizens within are lost. That'll make the forgotten beast appear somewhere at random inside your fortress when you go there. Could be a bit problematic, methinks.

[ptb_ptb]

When you retire a fortress, the locations of the animals/citizens within are lost. That'll make the forgotten beast appear somewhere at random inside your fortress when you go there. Could be a bit problematic, methinks.

Hmm, I knew that was the case for abandoning, but I didn't know it was the same for retiring. That's a bit of a bummer.

[Talvieno]

Yeah, for creatures it works the same way, sadly. Not so for items, at least. Your items will stay in the same positions (apart from a minor oddity cabinets currently have where they shift a tile), but your creatures will move.

[ptb_ptb]

I suppose it could still work - it would just add a lot more 'random' to things. You could use a world-viewer utility to check that there is still a Forgotten Beast in the fortress from time to time while adventuring your way over. It does put a dent in the whole idea though.

[Skullsploder]

No dent really. All you have to do is ensure that the FB and other nasties are caged when you retire. AFAIK a creature in a constructed cage should stay in the cage, right? Just link all the cages to the same lever that opens the maze, and your maze will be instantly filled with hostiles when the adventurer opens it.

Also, along the same lines, dragons and bronze colossi are much easier to cage than FBs, so spamming ludicrous numbers of dyed robes and dresses and trading them all away will net you some interesting megafauna pretty quickly.

[Talvieno]

Good luck caging a FB. That's not as simple as it sounds. Even if you know it's not as simple as it sounds. It's one of those "you have to be really good at DF" things... and this sort of game needs people of all skill levels.

[ptb_ptb]

Good luck caging a FB. That's not as simple as it sounds. Even if you know it's not as simple as it sounds. It's one of those "you have to be really good at DF" things... and this sort of game needs people of all skill levels.

Well, I'm 'medium experienced' at best. If I can cage a FB, then anyone can.

I'll just have to see if I can. Haha.

I'm going to wait for Pheobe's tile set to update before trying, though. I tried a different one but I've just got too used to my favorite set.

[Chevaleresse]

The best solution is to get a GCS to spew some webs at a door surrounded with cage traps in the caverns. Dwarf recovery is optional.

[Timeless Bob]

Levers work in adventure mode - it's the 'u'se command when on top of them.