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[PatrikLundell]

When it comes to search profile saving, I'm considering an active implementation, i.e. save and load actions (or export/import, or whatever names seem suitable given available command keys, etc.). The data would be saved into a file with a fixed name, so if you want multiple profiles you'd have to juggle that by renaming the files.

[xaldin]

When it comes to search profile saving, I'm considering an active implementation, i.e. save and load actions (or export/import, or whatever names seem suitable given available command keys, etc.). The data would be saved into a file with a fixed name, so if you want multiple profiles you'd have to juggle that by renaming the files.

That would be everything I had envisioned or need honestly.

[lethosor]

This is a really nice utility. I don't suppose there is a way to add volcanos/magma within a certain range of surface into it?  I miss being able to search on criteria with volcanos from the older versions of DF. Particularly I recall finding surface or near surface magma more frequently with that.

I don't remember that ever being a vanilla feature - what version was that?

[TheBeardyMan]

This is a really nice utility. I don't suppose there is a way to add volcanos/magma within a certain range of surface into it?  I miss being able to search on criteria with volcanos from the older versions of DF. Particularly I recall finding surface or near surface magma more frequently with that.

I don't remember that ever being a vanilla feature - what version was that?

Version 40d's site finder had options to select sites with a magma pool and/or a magma pipe among the few subterranean features (the only others were one underground pool, one underground river, one chasm, one bottomless pit, and HFS) that existed back then.

[PatrikLundell]

Version 0.3 2018-02-26 is included in DFHack 0.44.07-alpha(dev). This means it can be accessed, but the primary purpose of that DFHack version is DFHack development, not game play.
The new version contains the following changes:
- Added adamantine spire count search criteria.
- Added magma detection criteria. This can search for magma pools and/or volcanoes.
- Corrected a bug in reanimated biome detection.
- Saving/loading of search criteria from/to a file.
- Required window height increased to 46 (to fit the new search criteria in).

[ltwass]

Can I make a suggestion for the embark-assistant? Or maybe this doesn't fall under its scope, idk.

Give us an option for a random embark location. Just plop the fort down somewhere in the world and good luck surviving in whatever conditions are there.  Frozen evil biome with no metals?  Good luck.  Temperate hill country with an aquifier?  Better start checking the wiki.

I know nothing prevents us from doing that by throwing a dart at our monitor, but it would seem to be more reflective of the Will of Armok if the computer generated one for us.

[PatrikLundell]

Since the purpose of the plugin is to find things, NOT finding thing is in the complete opposite direction.
It shouldn't be hard to write a script that just randomized the world tile and upper left corner of the embark rectangle, and then moved the embark rectangle there. Optional to also check it isn't all water...

[taleden]

Just discovered this and it is super cool, thank you!

Would it be possible to expand slightly on the metal/econ/mineral filters to allow for some simple boolean logic? i.e. "bituminous coal OR lignite" would be a common one to search for fuel sources, or "iron OR (copper AND tin)" to require either iron or bronze for military use.

I realize the menuing system isn't ideal for this purpose, but if you can dynamically add and remove entries then you could maybe do something like this, supporting only a two-level logical clause but presenting more slots as they're used up:

Code: [Select]

Metals 1       N/A
Economics 1    N/A
Minerals 1     N/A


Code: [Select]

(
Metals 1       IRON
Metals 1       N/A
) OR (
Metals 2       N/A
)
Economics 1    N/A
Minerals 1     N/A


Code: [Select]

(
Metals 1       IRON
Metals 1       N/A
) OR (
Metals 2       COPPER
Metals 2       N/A
) OR (
Metals 3       N/A
)
Economics 1    N/A
Minerals 1     N/A


Code: [Select]

(
Metals 1       IRON
Metals 1       N/A
) OR (
Metals 2       COPPER
Metals 2       TIN
Metals 2       N/A
) OR (
Metals 3       N/A
)
Economics 1    N/A
Minerals 1     N/A

edit: Also, the finder results seem presented in a slightly confusing way. It says "Matching World Tiles" but in fact that seems to be a tally of matching *Region* tiles, not World tiles, and it is only on the Region map that tiles are highlighted, not on a World map, which can make results a little harder to locate in the world. It'd be great if the tally said "Region Tiles" and if the World map also had blinking markers for found sites.

[PatrikLundell]

I don't think it would be easy to get those alternatives in.
Part of the problem is to retain RAW independence, i.e. have the plugin derive categories from the RAW contents, rather than hard code what they are. It would probably be easier to introduce a Fuel category, although I can't say offhand if there's an easy way to determine whether an input is fuel or part of the product (reactions are messy, with poor indications of what's what).
It's even harder for your metal case, as you're not satisfied with just any weapons grade metals, but only want the top ones (and silver can be argued to be the "best" one for blunt weapons at that). Leaving it up to the user to "build" the the lists would obviously remove the burden from the tool to determine what to look for, but at the cost of building some convoluted Boolean logic construction UI. It can also be noted that coal is represented by several mineral, while metals are derived from (potentially) several mineral, so it wouldn't be possible to combine minerals and metals at the same time.

The Matching World Tiles should be that, i.e. the number of world tiles that have at least one match in them. The number starts high as the first pass counts all tiles that are not incapable of having a match (e.g. requiring clay, and there's no clay in any of the mid level tiles). The detailed pass then removes the ones that do not have any match in them.
Unless there's a bug, each matching world tile should be marked on the middle map (the one labeled "Region" by DF), first with a yellow "X" after the tentative pass, and then a green one when the final check has been made (assuming there was a match: otherwise the marker is removed, of course). If those markers are missing, there's a bug somewhere.
It can also be noted that there are more yellow markers on the first search than on subsequent ones: that is not a bug, but a result of detailed examination of tiles carrying some info back to the preliminary phase data (it starts out based only on what the geo biome of that world tile and its surrounding tiles have, but e.g. in the case of clay, if one adjacent world tile has clay, the tile would not be marked as "definitely no clay", but if a detailed examination showed there wasn't any (due to erosion or no mid level tiles having that neighboring tile's geo biome), the info is updated to "no clay present".

The reason there are no indications on the World map (the rightmost one) is that I haven't been able to replicate the logic DF uses to squash multiple tiles into one for display: I've come fairly close, but that's not good enough.

[Meph]

Will your embark-assistant and region manipulator be bundled into the main dfhack release?

I'd love to add them to my launcher, maybe have them automatically started from an onload.init, but I'd rather avoid them if they lack behind up-to-date dfhack releases. :/

[lethosor]

embark-assistant has been since 0.44.05-r2

[PatrikLundell]

lethosor answered while I typed...

Embark Assistant is a plugin that's part of DFHack currently (and has never been made available outside of DFHack), as that's the only reasonable way to provide a plugin if you don't want to support development environments for multiple OS', and it's too CPU resource intensive to be viable as a script (it's slow enough as a plugin: it takes more than an order of magnitude longer as a script). Others have already made some minor changes to the Embark Assistant, by the way.
However, I don't like github as I find it a pain in the posterior (I still use it when I have to, e.g. for DF structure research results and DFHack script fixes), and the DFHack release tie means the turn around cycle for bug fixes and enhancements is longer than I like, so I use scripts when I can (it took 4 months from me submitting a Pull Request for the Embark Assistant to it being accepted in the first place).
I intend to support my scripts as long as they're relevant, although at some time in the future I'll obviously leave the community (they'll eventually put the lid on the coffin, if nothing else). However, the Myth & Magic release will certainly play a number on most everything, so we'll see what can be salvaged at that point. I currently have no plans of leaving the community, and the Big Wait isn't far away, and when that starts there won't be much in the way of changes that would disrupt things. If DFHack research results in (re)naming of used fields I intend to adapt to it.

[lethosor]

I am fast sometimes. For the record, most of that 4-month delay was my fault - I was busy during that time, didn't get around to looking at PRs, and didn't ask anyone else with repo access to look at them either. (Of course, partly due to that, there weren't many DFHack releases during that time either.) Chances are that'll happen again in some form, so I'll try to be more clear about that. (And better GitHub docs are still on my list of things to do... it's beneficial for us when tool authors like you are comfortable with it, because it tends to make it easier for you to merge our changes back into your version, decreasing the chance that they'll be overwritten, etc.)

I'm unfamiliar with the region manipulator / biome manipulator / etc. family of tools. If you think distributing them with DFHack would be beneficial, I can help look into that.

[PatrikLundell]

I don't have a version of embark-assistant... I work from whatever is on Github, as juggling multiple versions just for the sake of it is rather pointless, so any merging issues comes from concurrent changes.

I don't blame lethosor for being subject to Real Life, just commenting on the fact that such impacts propagate (at least until such a time the DFHack juggling tasks are spread over half a dozen people or so, which would add its own level of management complexity).

For me personally it's a lot easier to not involve DFHack itself unless it's necessary, as it just adds overhead, so in the case of my manipulation/view scripts, I prefer to keep them on the outside unless I'm performing some kind of controlled exit from the scene (In the case of an uncontrolled exit: I have no objections to an inclusion, as the scripts are intended to be used). I haven't had any indication of others having a burning urge to modify the scripts themselves, so I don't think there's any version control benefit either.

[clinodev]

I love this plugin, and I recommend it whenever it's remotely appropriate.

I have something of an addiction to DF streams on Twitch, and have cajoled it's demonstration on camera a number of times. I tell them "If you want an evil savage reanimating forest with iron, coal, emeralds, and magma by the second cavern at worst, it's no problem, as long as it exists, this will find it!

On a more personal level, I prefer mountain embarks, (6-8 tiles of a 3x3 when possible,) and they tend to be iron poor. Previous to this plugin being pointed out to me, I had to do much tedious and repetitive adjusting the embark, prospect all, adjust again, and so on before finding a suitable site (and most of those half covered in laggy trees.) Now almost all of that labor is gone, with all the best sites merrily marked for me to make my choice from, and I can get on with the game!

Thank you very much for your efforts!