Breadknife
1500+
One confusion tends to be its direct inspiration.
Posts: 1,888 
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Post by Breadknife on Aug 22, 2014 13:08:28 GMT
After quite some time forgetting to check the author's update logs, it looks like I missed the roll-out for the latest (still-in-Alpha!) major version of Dwarf Fortress. I've now had a world generating ("Large Island" setting) for more than an hour now (currently generating history, and still in the Age of Myth, Year 579. Historical figures/dead/events being 102751/84633/673335, respectively...), which is about par from the more complex large worldgens. (Move over Minecraft, you lightweight!) Anybody else have an itching to get digging/adventuring, in this particular Advanced Roguelike way? (Oooh look, a large inland sea. And a volcano. And I imagine that that river system through those mountains has gorgeous gorges and whispy-misty waterfalls galore... I wonder if I can find enough suitable land to embark a fort near there?) ((Still the Age of Myth, now Year 643 and 112761/94410/744743 historical figures/dead/events. Memo to self: seek out The Dwarven Mountain Halls Of Dumatkulal 1 in The Horns Of Weather)) 1 For those that don't know their Dwarf, or don't have access to the language_DWARF.txt file, that's "The Mountain Halls of Roughwonder" |
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Wikkiwallana
6250+
Resident Troll
What the hell is going on?
Posts: 6,835
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Post by Wikkiwallana on Aug 22, 2014 20:05:28 GMT
This thread menaces with spikes of bat.
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Oviraptor
3000+
I smell like cabbage..
Did someone say space?
Posts: 3,693
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Post by Oviraptor on Aug 22, 2014 20:07:42 GMT
I'm still on .04.04, so I need to update. I didn't know so many people here played.
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Wikkiwallana
6250+
Resident Troll
What the hell is going on?
Posts: 6,835
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Post by Wikkiwallana on Aug 22, 2014 20:21:57 GMT
I don't play, I just read about it.
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SaintB
2000+
Is very sensative
Will die in his sleep on August 6th 2075 at 3:09am. 8/6/75 3:09
Posts: 2,359
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Post by SaintB on Aug 25, 2014 1:18:33 GMT
I don't have an hour to wait for my games I play to START.
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Breadknife
1500+
One confusion tends to be its direct inspiration.
Posts: 1,888
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Post by Breadknife on Aug 26, 2014 0:13:27 GMT
There's Lazy Newb Packs and other such things which contain pregenerated saved worlds (or you can find downloadable worlds and directions to start on features like huge waterfalls or iron-rich islands, if you browse for such things on the game's player forums) which saves you the wait for generating your own.
When I first discovered Dwarf Fortress, though, I was actually so entranced by the worldgen that I'd just stare at them being made... It's pretty much a work of art at that point. I ended up generating several worlds before I even started playing for real!
But I'll admit the game is a somewhat acquired taste. It arguably has a "learning cliff-face", not a learning curve, and it may even take a while to understand what you're actually seeing. Unless you put a graphical tile-set on it, although I'm a purist personally. "I don't even see the code anymore, all I see is marksdwarf, giant cave spider, web..." (to paraphrase The Matrix).
Anyway, I'm currently at 5th Obsidian, 1050, Late Winter. It's my first year, and I've set up my defences (although I'm currently risking all by keeping my gates open to allow the dwarves to retrieve a whole lot of wood I chopped down when I first started... I completely forgot to turn on "gather refuse outside", when I'd originally set the whole lot to be dumped in the springtime). It's a wooden-walled surface fort with a couple of alternate drawbridge entrances over a ditch (an old but unnecessary design tactic of mine, which has always been overkill, but from what I've seen there may actually be climbing enemies this time round, so it might be put to the test.
If enemies on flying mounts arrive, I've still nowhere near sealed up the roof, and I've not even started to assemble a proper military from the (now, due to immigration) 21 dwarves under my command. I may have to just temporarily seal off the main staircase from the overworld, and also the entrances into the "sunken farm" areas containing my outdoor crops (sunk down within the walls of the fortress, but if they're being flow over then that's not a solution) and hope I can get almost everyone indoors before I do.
Food's a problem, as I've not really gotten an effective food industry up and running, apart from the farms. And, in fact, I've pretty much got no industry set up properly (except for a whole set of looms, thanks to a moody dwarf asking for silk cloth I didn't have). I've resealed the caverns (had to go into them to collect webs from the silk thread for the silk cloth) but not before "Something has pulled a lever!" came up in my log, so I'm wondering if I've got Gremlins sneaking around, or something/one else who likes to pull levers without being asked. But no signs of vampires. Just a couple of Giant Cave Swallows (and signs of Cave Spiders, Giant and otherwise) in the caverns and a couple of Eagles soaring well above my embark, not bothering my guys or their livestock/pets much at all.
It's not a very tidy fortress. I haven't even given everyone a bed, yet. And I've only just gotten around to building a couple of wells (from surface water) and design a subterranean cistern from which additional (more easily controlled) water should be retrieved in future. Although it looks like the big shortage at the moment is alcohol... That needs correcting. And I really ought to find the magma and start up a metal industry, you know. I usually manage that well before the first winter, but I suppose I got caught up in all the little changes like the multi-tile trees...
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Breadknife
1500+
One confusion tends to be its direct inspiration.
Posts: 1,888
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Post by Breadknife on Sept 11, 2014 18:07:20 GMT
Ha... The fort running on the machine to the left of me has had a Forgotten Beast ("a huge blob composed of steam, it has wings and it undulates rhythmically") wandering around the caverns for a while. And just now: "The forgotten Beast Furgigugath1 has come! A huge quadruped composed of steam2. It has wings and it squirms and fidgets."
The first has been killing all kinds of cave-beasties for a while (Blind Cave Ogres, Giant Toads, Jabberers, Giant Olms and (of course) Crundles), as can be seen from its extensive combat report log.
...and, whilst seeing what was happening (wasn't sure if they were in the same bit of revealed cavern or not), the first (and last) record in the second FB's combat report log is "The Forgotten Beast scratches The Forgotten Beast in the head and the severed part sails off in an arc!". For the record, it is Furgigugath who is dead.
But I'm too busy to send troops into the cavern, just yet. In fact I really don't have any good troops at the moment. Too much digging and building needs doing first! (Food's and drink is Ok, though. Just rearranging my farms a bit, now that I can afford to.)
1 "Furgigugath" translates as "Pulpbelch" in Dwarvish. The other FB's name now translates as "Scandal Griefwarning Flimsyhungerfin" (in Goblin), having gained some additional titles along its way.
2 May be a popular component for FBs, in this world...
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Post by desperatemarlas on Sept 12, 2014 16:36:01 GMT
This looks cool...
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Breadknife
1500+
One confusion tends to be its direct inspiration.
Posts: 1,888
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Post by Breadknife on Sept 13, 2014 0:31:02 GMT
BTW, desperatemarlas, that Weremarmot I mentioned during the CAH game, last night... it turns out to have been a Serpent Man in its uncursed form. From the combat log for the creature (from the point it's been wrestling with a wild chinchilla, just outside my fortress walls until just after the moon changes phase, given that I just sealed the fortress and let it attack the wildlife)... (The name "Rithi Comewinani" is elven for Itch Grieftoe. Which must really annoy a Serpent Man. Who has no actual legs, just arms.) |
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Breadknife
1500+
One confusion tends to be its direct inspiration.
Posts: 1,888
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Post by Breadknife on Sept 19, 2014 1:57:20 GMT
I should have taken a screenshot, but I've just seen a miner of mine gain some Climbing skill.
They were working on digging a covered route out of the bottom of a cliff. Here's a basic cross-section:
,-- (2) Cliff created by digging into slope
v
\_
##\_ (5) Currently digging out..
#### |
###_ <' ___(1) original ground level____
#### _Ditch_################################
####_##(3)##################################
############################################
^-(4) Deeper bit of ditch.
(i.e. 1: flat ground extended into slope; 2: Into which I carve a sheer cliff where one did not exist before; 3: Digging a shallow ditch and removing ramps; 4: creating a deeper bit of ditch; 5: Digging into the bottom of the cliff)
The slope being uneven, the cut cliff at one point. Imagining face on instead instead of cross-section:
_ __ _
#\_ ___/##\/# <- ragged edge of the cliff, with natural ramps
###\_/######### <- rock layer immediately above, and forming the cliff-face
############### <- to dig out (___plane ground level___)
############### /_ (Ditch
############### \ (Levels
This the 'digging instructions' were as follows:
_ ___
#\_/###
XRRRXXX X=Normal mining
####### R=Dig ramp (to later remove)
#######
This makes the following: Rather than the following
vvv--Sheer drop vvv--Original slops and "floor"
_ ___ _ ___
# ### #\_/### (the slopes being "on a floor")
_rrr___ (r=useless ramp _______
####### that I will set #######
####### to be removed.) #######
Of course, one of the two miners involved in the task digs one of the ground-level ramps by standing on top of one of the other to-be-ramps (the burrow guiding him included the level above, which was intentional for other reasons but normally wouldn't have mattered, except for the two acts of digging happening the same time.
Next thing I know, I got the miner cancelling his own ramping task "due to dangerous terrain" and, when I investigate, I find him doing the following (in cross-section)
\_
##\_
####☺ <- Clinging to the cliff!
###_ ___
#### _______###
####_##########
###############
He's obviously dodged out of the "nick" in the cliff and now, he's got a (potential, if not certain) 3Z-drop below him. But although when I first saw this scenario (in PAUSED mode) I thought he was falling, he does not actually fall (when I unpause, with trepidation). I hurriedly set a wall to be built beneath him (and a ramp to let him walk off of the wall, once built), while he's clinging there with "No Job".
Except that I check back a few cycles later (still long before the rescuing structures get built beneath him), and he's crawled along the cliff face (same height, but away from the point I'm building beneath) and his job status is a "Storing personal possession"-type one, I think it was. And then shortly after that he's somehow made it down to the bottom of the ditch. No injuries, so I don't think he fell (across the gap I created), but actually climbed down (by moving far enough across to avoid the nascent gap).
And now Bomrek 'Digger' Rakusttholest*, Miner, is a Legendary Miner, Dabbling Engraver, Dabbling Mason, Dabbling Grower, ..., Dabbling Pacifier, Dabbling Climber. I wonder if I can do anything with that?
(And, before you ask, the ditch as depicted above already has a constructed block wall (or raising 'drawbridge', at key locations), fortifications and a further overhang of the fort, on the 'inside' (right hand side) of the ditch boundary. These being pretty much my standard fort-wall design features from prior to the current version, when Climbing was not even 'a thing' except for select creatures like Cave Spiders. So I'm confident that whatever other fates befall my fortress, enemies with Climbing skills of their own (but not Flying, or on Flying Mounts, problems which I'll eventually also be proofing against, if they don't rush me first) should probably not find it easy to get past any lockdown.)
* - "Digger" being my own applied nickname, whilst his natural surname resolves as "Tombcyclone".
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