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[yellowblanka]

I don't see a technical support/help section of the forum, so I wasn't sure where to post this but I've been experiencing a strange issue with Dwarf Fortress. I had originally been using the latest vanilla release of Dwarf Fortress, I unknowingly left it unpaused while I went to do something, and when I came back I couldn't see my caravan, and only one dwarf was visible on screen despite information claiming I had 12 population. In addition to this, the vast majority of the wilderness tiles had been changed from various plants and scrubs to "empty space" (even the river/swamp tiles which were no blue dots claimed to be "empty space"). I was messing around with something later, I think I hit the key for "zoom to location" and the tiles/dwarves reappeared. Upon reloading the game later they had reverted to empty space. I ran a Memtestx86 initial run, and it came up with no errors. Today I decided to download/use the LazyNewb pack - used one of the tilesets, and I noticed upon embarking that there were a great deal of "empty space" tiles where the wilderness in the map should have been. I applied the largeaddressaware patch to the EXE, I ran it in administrator mode etc. while generating new worlds and embarking - same deal, many "empty space" tiles where wilderness should be. My specs are as follows:

Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium
8GB DDR3-1600
GeForce 660 w/latest WHQL drivers

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this issue is preventing me from properly playing the game. I have attached a screenshot of the problem.

[Hamsmagoo]

This isn't a problem at all.  Those spaces are "empty" because the grass and trees are one z level below.  Those down arrows indicate a downward slope.  This is a 3D world and you're viewing it from a bird's eye view.

To see what's underneath the "empty space" press use the ">" command (shift +.)  To go back up a z level, press "<"

[yellowblanka]

Point taken, but I have some downward blue arrows surrounding blue "7's" in an area on this new world I generated, implying a downward slope to the water, yet moving down a Z level with "<" only shows the tiles and all surrounding tiles as empty space while I have to move up a level to find the stagnant water. Sorry if this is newbish, but my initial world I had embarked upon didn't show any empty tiles when I used vanilla...maybe I just got lucky. Thanks in advance for any help, this looks like an interesting and engrossing game and I'd like to understand it a bit.

[EvilBob22]

You have your up and down backwards: "<" goes up, and ">" goes down.  So, when you have the dark blue "7" tiles (one level above the water) and hit "<", you go up even higher and it changes to the totally blank space.

[slothen]

lol

[Hamsmagoo]

The first hurdle is understanding the game map.  It's just confusing because it's unlike anything you're used to seeing.  Eventually it'll just click.

Everything that seems impossibly complicated in this game becomes second nature before you know it.  The game sort of brutally forces itself into your frontal cortex and tweaks your perception.

EDIT: your first embark probably didn't show empty space because you were in a big, flat field.  On this embark, you seem to be at the foot of a mountain.  The landscape slopes downward, towards the west.

[snelg]

The open space means that ground level is further down compared to where you're at right now. Just need to get used to the < and > keys, if things turn out unexpectedly try the other key.

[jhxmt]

It may help to note the z-level indicator on the far right of your screen (it's reading '148' in your screenshot above).  That's what level you're currently looking at.  Higher numbers mean you're higher up.  Lower numbers mean you're lower down.

It's a strange idea to get your head around initially, but as others have said you'll soon find yourself skipping happily up and down z-levels without even thinking about it. 

[Triaxx2]

There are actually two numbers on the right-hand side. The bottom one is your current z-level, and the top one is your distance from the initial wagon site. So if you go down one level, it'll say -1, or up is +1, so you always know how far up or down you are from the starting point.

[EvilBob22]

There are actually two numbers on the right-hand side. The bottom one is your current z-level, and the top one is your distance from the initial wagon site. So if you go down one level, it'll say -1, or up is +1, so you always know how far up or down you are from the starting point.

That is not completely correct, it is really the levels above or below ground.  On a flat embark it is the same thing as your wagon site, but you see it changing it if you scroll around on a hilly embark site.

[King of Blades]

I'm sorry, I know it's awful, but this thread is hilarious.

We all went through this stage OP, don't worry about it. 

It clicks eventually.

[SpiralDimentia]

I remember my VERY first game. I had embarked, and IMMEDIATELY got a ''a section of cavern has collapsed!'' message, which put my screen waaaay below ground. I had no idea what to do, because it started me in a black screen with weird little symbols around. After about fifteen frustrating minutes of trying to do stuff, I finally gave up and generated an entirely new world.