xkcd

by **eculc** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:47 pm UTC

I'd probably pick it back up again if I had a working PC, but since I don't...and since my laptop has nowhere near enough processing power to run DF at over 0 fps...yeah.

by **bluejello** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 2:38 am UTC

I have decided to try to play again, did download it several times before but never really put much time into getting into it. I wonder how much FUN* I will have... (hint, LOTS,) and yes, I will be/am using the lazy noob pack, because it is there, when it decides to finish downloading that is. I know enough about it to know that I do not know it enough to play with a low degree of success :lol:

*(and I mean the type that results in the death of everyone AKA the dwarf fortress type of FUN)

EDIT: first fortress I decided was hopeless, as people decided to throw tantrums and kill everyone else... (I think I know why, woodcutter could see the dead bodies because I failed at making things :roll:

Hopefully attempt two will go better.

EDIT 2: so far one caravan from elves, one from dwarfs, several waves if migrants, and one possession, and no deaths. I think I am doing well.

by **Shivahn** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:28 am UTC

New Dwarf Fortress out!

Mostly adventure mode changes, but it makes me want to start up again. Hopefully I can actually get it running on my laptop at some point.

by **novax6** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:20 am UTC

I love DF, but now when I see new releases and updates it really just makes me sad.
I want to enjoy the game to it's fullest extent, but it seems like it doesn't feel the same way. I realize that it's Toady's project, and that he is of course free to do whatever it is he wants with the game, but I think he needs to ask himself who he's making the game for, himself, or for other people to enjoy and play.

Nothing would make me happier than if he just stopped updating the game with new features, and spent a year or so fixing bugs, adding a decent looking graphic tileset that's the default, and most importantly, putting a ton of work into the interface and controls.

Right now the game is a giant chore to play in the way it really shouldn't be. It shouldn't take a solid week to figure out how to enjoy it again and actually do things after a break from playing, and it's missing tons of important basic UI features, like real mouse support (right clicking, menu support, dragging), and a menu system that makes sense.

by **Vaniver** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:52 am UTC

novax6 wrote:I think he needs to ask himself who he's making the game for, himself, or for other people to enjoy and play.

Eh. He attracted the fanbase he has by making an intensely featured game with a poor interface. Investing more into features makes sense, since it's what the core audience is there for.

Now, I think that improving the interface is generally a good thing. But I'd rather Toady hire (or get volunteer community work) for that rather than do it himself; if that were something he were good at doing, it'd already be in the game, I think.

by **novax6** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:16 am UTC

Vaniver wrote:
novax6 wrote:I think he needs to ask himself who he's making the game for, himself, or for other people to enjoy and play.
Eh. He attracted the fanbase he has by making an intensely featured game with a poor interface. Investing more into features makes sense, since it's what the core audience is there for.

Now, I think that improving the interface is generally a good thing. But I'd rather Toady hire (or get volunteer community work) for that rather than do it himself; if that were something he were good at doing, it'd already be in the game, I think.

Yeah, I didn't mean he do it himself, rather what you suggest and hire/find someone to do it, same with the graphics/tileset.

Adding features is fine, but it's been how long now, 10 years? At some point you have to stop and start polishing and making it usable. There's nothing wrong with his core audience, but there's a larger group of people I think who would love to play it but find it unapproachable and unplayable in it's current state (myself included now in that unfortunately).

by **Izawwlgood** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:09 pm UTC

Have you tried using the graphics interpreters? I found they made the game way more approachable.

They don't help the menu interfaces, of course, but it's a start .

by **CorruptUser** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 5:29 am UTC

So, umm, what are books in fortress mode? They are a new type of finished good, but how do you make them and what do they do?

Also, you can cut microline at your gem shops for crappy cash, but it gets rid of all that microline. Plus, encrust all your tradegoods with it, just to get rid of that awful stone while training up some craftsdwarves.

by **Reassuring Curve** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:43 pm UTC

I'd recommend waiting for the lazy newb pack to update.

Nvm, it's out. Get it: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0

by **mrbaggins** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 12:20 am UTC

I completely agree with your views. Although I've only ever played DF with Phoebus graphics installed.

Which is why I'm doing something about it and making my own game, heavily based on DF.

I've already cleared my design brief and roadmap with the Toad, so now it's just a matter of finding time.

Currently has single layer (Ala 40d style) and movable peeps, grass, dirt, and an editor.

It's the same top down, layer style as DF, but with 32x32 pixel character / item tiles, and 16x16 terrain tiles at 2x res (Making terrain quite blocky, but characters have detail). Tossing up whether to do smooth movement in all directions, or tile-locked at the moment. Or tile locked keyframes with smooth transitions between.

Oh, and I'm using XNA and C#, so it's unfortunately windows only (maybe XBox if I bother to make a decent interface for it)

by **Goldstein** » Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:50 pm UTC

God dammit, what am I doing wrong? I have people training - they're really training - and yet their progress is incredibly slow. In fact, in some cases it's going backwards!

I have a squad of ten guys set to 'Train, 7 minimum' year round. They're doing this. Their schedule is set to the active/training schedule, which is the schedule on which the training is scheduled. They have a barracks to train in, and they go there and their jobs come up as 'Organize Combat Training', etc. I must admit that I've never seen anyone sparring, mind. The results have been entirely underwhelming, where a Dwarf might go from being a level 1 dodger to being half way to level 2 in a year's time, and I don't think anyone's gained a rank in a weapon skill. I've accepted this, but I'm starting to think it's stupid - it's actually faster to wait for new migrants with combat skills than it is to train anyone up.

Just now, I've come across the Dwarf in the image. She's actively part of this training schedule and, as you can see, she's organizing combat training right now. But contrary to my expectations, she isn't improving at all - her skill with armour and shields has become rusty, despite her being equipped with armour and a shield at this very moment. What do I need to do to see an improvement? I just don't see the point of training at the moment.

by **Swivelguy** » Fri Mar 02, 2012 10:56 pm UTC

Try lowering the minimum to 2 or 3. If they're organizing and organizing and never actually training, it may be that they're waiting to get 7 at once and that isn't happening.

by **FearoftheDomo-Kun** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 2:14 pm UTC

I found the attached flow chart helpful when getting military to work as i wanted it to.

by **Goldstein** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:59 am UTC

Succinct. Thanks!

After reading through it, that still doesn't fix my problem! Of my squad of 10 Dwarves, only 4 would follow my orders. The rest had the order against their name as the current job, but would stand in the stock room doing nothing at all, and no amount of waiting would have them catch up. After rebuilding my squad from the 4 Dwarves who followed my orders, it now seems to work and they train and stuff. I still don't know what's wrong with the other 6.

by **CorruptUser** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:23 am UTC

I just channel out the sides of the archery targets so I can reuse most of my bolts anyway. (If a bolt hits a wall, but falls down a floor, it doesn't break, and if in a long archery room you usually miss. And since 1 bolt is melted into .1 bars, and 1 bar makes 25 bolts, this CAN be used for infinite adamantine, assuming you have a magma smelter since it will use up lots of fuel otherwise).

by **Okita** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:16 pm UTC

I finally started playing this game after maybe 2 years of hiatus. Unfortunately, it appears a lot of changed. I didn't realize pastures were implemented and so some horses starved. And then started to rot. For some reason my dwarves decided not to put the corpse in the refuse pile which was strange and so now I've got miasma everywhere.

....I've missed this game.

by **Vieto** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:07 pm UTC

I just rejoined today as well. Both my male and female Yaks died, which I had planned on mating. I was thinking "What do you mean animals get thirsty? And why can I search for clay but not sand!?"

by **CorruptUser** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:10 pm UTC

Yeah, I hate that you can't determine if embark sites have sand. Just as well, I hardly ever make glass anyway. Or clay objects. I build the furnaces anyway for things like making casts or for the occasional strange mood.

I mean, it's not like I ever run out of rock for rock crafts, and by the time I can get magma kilns for mass glass/clay-crafting I can get infinite obsidian anyway...

Night creatures are a pain in the ass. Sure, vampire-dwarves are easy enough to deal with; I trapped one in an office and made him my bookkeeper/manager, and I have to say, DON'T. The lack of blood makes him a VERY slow manager, even when he does get up to legendary. Only reason to keep him trapped is he is immortal, so, fortress never ends until I say it ends.

by **Goldstein** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:27 am UTC

I wish I could turn off the vampires. They don't work well with Dwarf Therapist anyway because Dwarf Therapist shows their real names, not their assumed names. In my last fortress I had four vampires, all sealed in different rooms, and it feels a bit silly ordering them to wait in a room while the mason turns up. At best, they're just a pest in your dungeon that takes some effort to deal with.

by **The Utilitarian** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 8:07 am UTC

Stopped playing DF a while back for two reason.
1.) My fortresses invariably started lagging all to hell as they got to any kind of interesting size, despite attempts to use all the various trickses to keep it smooth
2.) Discovered danger rooms, felt like cheating, but was too effective to resist using

Maybe I should give it another shot one of these days

by **torontoraptor** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:51 pm UTC

We need to find a way to use/have fun with vampires. I've heard of people pitting them and using them as a trap, or pitting them and throwing other things down there to train markdwarves, and I've heard of one disastrous attempt to use vampires as your military.

by **CorruptUser** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 11:57 pm UTC

Like I said, don't use one as your manager. He gets so sluggish when thirsty...

by **Vieto** » Wed Mar 07, 2012 4:12 am UTC

Some ideas I've heard on the DF forums:
-Lever Room attendants
-cavern explorers
-locked up in a room so the fortress will not be able to fall.
-above, combined with record-keeping
-bait
-scouts
-builders in dangerous/terrifying maps on the surface, as they are already undead/expendable and strong

edit: I've also heard of someone successfully feeding a vampire a sleeping leopard so...

by **Okita** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 6:50 pm UTC

In addition, you could technically make sure your dwarf has booze with some clever use of channeling, dumping, and reclaiming.

Seal your vampire in a room and then channel a hole above. Designate it as a garbage dump and set up some booze stockpiles nearby. Then, mark the booze for dumping which gets it sent down the hole. Reclaim it and the vampire will put it in a secondary stockpile in his prison and drink it. Kind of time consuming but you could probably just do a whole bunch of dumping and reclaiming at once. So like once a year.

I forgot how dumping barrels work but maybe you could do a barrel of alcohol?

And I suppose you could dump materials to be used in making goods with a second hole in the prison but there's a risk the vampire falls down the hole as well and escapes.

by **SecondTalon** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 8:10 pm UTC

A two layer setup in which the floor retracts on a switch, while another bridge blocks the area? Do Dwarven vampires smash floodgates/bridges? Could always airlock it if they don't.

by **Okita** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 8:33 pm UTC

Oh yeah, I suppose that works. You can set garbage dump on a bridge right? So then as when your vampire is nowhere near the dumpzone, you can retract the bridge to drop your goodies.

by **Elvish Pillager** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 3:34 am UTC

Do vampires respect locked doors? If so, you could go for the even simpler system of having a single airlock-type area with lockable doors on both sides that's used for exchange in both directions - no mechanisms required.

The problem is that if there's any way for objects to get in/out, there's also a type of monster that can get in.

by **lorb** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:26 pm UTC

Goldstein wrote:I wish I could turn off the vampires.

You can. Set amount of vampires 0 at world generation and you will get an entire world without a single vampire.

by **Hyphe** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:24 am UTC

lorb wrote:You can. Set amount of vampires 0 at world generation and you will get an entire world without a single vampire.

Surely that'll only affect the number of vamps the world starts with, but won't stop any more from being spontaneously made during world gen history? I've seen a dwarf that was cursed into a vampire (for no real reason other than a spiteful god, it seems) in year 51. (Disclaimer: I have no idea about how any of this actually works.)

In other news, while digging through a 6-level soil aquifer, I managed to muck it up irreparably on the very last layer, and drown both my doctor and carpenter.

by **eculc** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:38 am UTC

well, I've finally found an excuse to install DF on my PC again, and after watching some video tutorials I think I'm finally understanding how to get off to a good start. maybe I should have picked an embark site with deep soil, though...It seems like it takes forever to clear out a room so that I can create a stockpile there (hooray for quantum stockpiles!)

EDIT: Just started another fortress, with a bit better embark site. I've got a magma pipe, deep soil, lots of metals, and flux stone. And this time I think I might actually understand the game well enough to last beyond winter.

EDIT2: Okay, my fortress is going well...but I've mysteriously lost three chicks (all of which bled to death) and the units screed doesn't show anything hostile (the only thing that isn't dwarves/livestock is a few ravens). any ideas?

EDIT3: just decided to check reports and...all of my animals are fighting one another. I put them in a pasture and it seemed to die down, so at least that's a plus.

by **lorb** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 10:37 pm UTC

Hyphe wrote:
lorb wrote:You can. Set amount of vampires 0 at world generation and you will get an entire world without a single vampire.

Surely that'll only affect the number of vamps the world starts with, but won't stop any more from being spontaneously made during world gen history? I've seen a dwarf that was cursed into a vampire (for no real reason other than a spiteful god, it seems) in year 51. (Disclaimer: I have no idea about how any of this actually works.)

So set curses to 0 as well? I definitely genned vampire-free worlds.

by **Menacing Spike** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 1:14 am UTC

eculc wrote:EDIT3: just decided to check reports and...all of my animals are fighting one another. I put them in a pasture and it seemed to die down, so at least that's a plus.

Animals stacked together get angry real quick. If your meeting zone is very small, expect a lot of violence in your animal pile.

by **Thadlerian** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 7:02 pm UTC

I never bother with pasture animals any more - just a hassle. For meat, I get tons and tons of crundle and whatnot from my underground traps.

Reading Toady's update notes is almost as fun as playing the game:

Although once I've got a cart on a track I'll probably jump over to minecart physics and finish the hauling afterward, since it'll be hard to stay away from track accidents and carts hurtling through the air and stuff.
...
They gain speed going down ramps, get slower going up, lose a little speed on the rest of the track, a bit more on corners, and they fly in little parabolas and crash into the ground when you set them free, either straight off a cliff or launched from a short upward ramp.
...
you may well see parabolic unit paths when creatures are unfortunate enough to take flight without wings.

by **BoomFrog** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 12:32 pm UTC

I eagerly await tales of goblin launchers, especially ones that hit the goblins in midair with a minecart.

by **Goldstein** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 10:12 am UTC

How do Dwarves feel about keeping it in the family?

I've sealed my seven starting Dwarves in their fortress and am ignoring the horrible mess that the outside immigrants are getting themselves into. I've two men and five women on the inside and while it's optimistic to think they might live long enough, I'm at least curious. Can their ancestry go on forever?

Everyone born in two generations' time will have my two current men as grandfathers, making them closer to each other than cousins (both their parents have married into the same other family). Will they be too picky about who they marry to continue my great legacy, or does it not matter? Is there a limit to the age difference between Dwarves, or can mating pairs be from different generations? Is there a significant risk that my initial seven Dwarves won't get on well enough to begin a family?

Perhaps most importantly, do people actually get to a point in the game where these questions are relevant and can be answered?

by **Menacing Spike** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 8:02 am UTC

BoomFrog wrote:I eagerly await tales of goblin launchers, especially ones that hit the goblins in midair with a minecart.

Thinking too small
Get a set of mechanisms that divide the gob army into 8 piles
Launch the piles simultaneously with trajectories intersecting over a volcano.

Or encase them in obsidian midair

800% skilled airshot

Perhaps most importantly, do people actually get to a point in the game where these questions are relevant and can be answered?

Your fps will inevitably decrease over time as more clutter accumulates. Get a 1X1 embark maybe.
Cousins: yes
Aunts/Uncles: yes
Siblings: no

by **Goldstein** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 8:13 am UTC

Got messed up. Ghosts of immigrants took the leg off my expedition leader faster than I could engrave memorials for them - I don't even recall a warning that another ghost had arrived. I think I'll have to set the population cap really low and allow the first two migration waves in. If the cap works, I shouldn't see any more migrants.

by **ahammel** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 9:44 pm UTC

I just finished my first fortress. It was going rather well, I thought. I was at ~140 dwarves and a baron, food was stable, my military was getting off the ground, and I fought off my first siege. That's when about 3 dozen gobbos showed up with motherfucking cave dragons and killed about 110 of my dwarves before I managed to finish them off. I got a lucky wave of migrants* and geared what was left of my economy towards getting all the corpses in the ground before tantrum spiral killed the rest. Incredibly, I managed to bury enough dwarves to stop the tantrums—just in time for a 6 goblin ambush to show up and murder everybody.

This game is awesome.

_{* I have to wonder what the immigrants were thinking. "Hey, we heard you've got a pretty successful fortress running here and we...OH SHIT! OH JESUS GOD, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?"}

by **CorruptUser** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:42 am UTC

Yeah, I can't seem to get armies up and running in shiny full-steel armor in time for the sieges. The game pretty much requires you to use elaborate traps from the start. And by elaborate, I mean anything that requires more planning than "place weapon trap here". That or sealing everything off until you are ready. Supposedly you can build and raise bridges on the edge, so everything can only spawn in 1 spot, so everything goes down your corridor of death.

Luckily there are danger rooms until you can figure that out.

Seriously, hooray for danger rooms. Nothing like having legendary axedwarves for the first gobbo siege. My main problem is the lag now. IDK if it's my computer or not, but some fortresses I get to 200 dwarves no problem, others it lags out and becomes unplayable after 100 dwarves.

by **MisterCheif** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 5:13 pm UTC

Something you could try to reduce the lag is to use Masterwork dwarf fortress, if you aren't averse to using mods. Most of the features can be disabled, and it allows you to reduce the types of items so there are limited types of stone, mining produces less stone, as well as only one or two types of leather, a couple of types of wood, etc. My fps is normally down to around 50 by this time in my current fortress, and it is still at the cap of 150 fps.

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