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[iamthelol]

Some people think a tile must be the size of a dwarf, because they take up a tile. Well, so does a giant sperm whale, the biggest creature in the game. So we must assume that a tile is as big as one of those. But how big is a giant whale in real life terms? In df terms, the sperm whale is 200000000 adult body size. So, Let's compare that with a real number. An ant's adult body size is 1. in real life, ants have different sizes, But we will assume that dwarven ants are not the 3mm type. Instead, these ants will be about 3cm in length, so let's assume for some reason that a df metric of 1 adult body size= 3cm. A giant sperm whale is 200000000, so 3 cm multiplied by that, obviously, is 600000000 cm. A tile is 600000000 cm, which translates to 6000000 meters. So a single df tile is 6000 km. (maybe i shoulda gone with the 3mm ants ) Conclusion? dwarves have superspeed and game time is sped up. Or maybe the game is lying about body size, huh, I really should have gone with the common ant species.

[Mesa]

Or maybe we just don't have multi-tile creatures support in yet, so everything is kinda abstract like that.
Same thing with stacks system in Heroes of Might and Magic. You could have 25 thousand azure dragons (which are bigger than anything else) on one square and they'd still occupy the same scape as, say, one Centaur.

[AutomataKittay]

Tile is defined as how much space one creature can stand with infinitely many lying down. I believe Toady had a quote to that effect but I don't remember where it was.

Yeah, size's pretty abstract in DF, so is mass. You can get more meat and bone than the animal actually weights and so on.

[Mesa]

It's still more physically accurate in majority of aspects than a lot of other games out there.

[Baffler]

I remember Toady saying in one of the DF Talks that tiles were, at least for construction purposes, 2 meters by 2 meters, and 3 meters tall. I can't find the quote right now but I'm pretty sure that appeared at some point. I imagine that if I'm not just making that number up, a metric like that will be used with multi tile creatures when they go in.

[Buttery_Mess]

Yeah I looked it up the other day, because I wanted to try modelling a typical fortress design in minecraft, which I recently purchased. 2x2x3 metres. That's a whole 12 minecraft blocks!

[Aranador]

Size is a measure of volume, not length, AFAIK

[Antioch]

I always wondered why some huge creatures aren't multi tile, I mean the code is already there for the wagons.

[Kerbalrocketry]

A tile must be bigger than that though.
As, if all but one where lying down, you could fit infinitely many whales in the space!

[AutomataKittay]

I always wondered why some huge creatures aren't multi tile, I mean the code is already there for the wagons.

And wagons doesn't behaves very well, really. It's pretty difficult to get pathing worked out for it. Hopefully working on multi-tile trees gives Toady some ideas on how to do the creature kinds to his satsification.

[TheDorf]

Size is a measure of volume, not length, AFAIK

Thank you.

Seeing as Toady has already posted information regarding tile size, I believe dwarven volume units are a more interesting topic. Instead of making assumptions about dwarven ants, let's stick with the sperm whale (This is mainly because the volume of different ant species varies by several thousand percent).
The average size of sperm whale is 200 000 000 dvu (dwarven volume units). Let's compare that to the volume of a real sperm whale. Seeing as I was unable to find this, I'll make a rough estimate.

The average male sperm whale weighs around 41 000 kilograms. Assuming a sperm whale has around the same body density as a regular human, we can make a rough estimate of the male sperm whale's volume using the formula V = m/ρ.
m = 41 000 kg
ρ = 1 062 kg/m³
41 000 / 1 062 = ~39 m³
The female sperm whale weights around 14 000 kilograms, so we can make the following rough estimate about the female sperm whale's volume, assuming it has around the same body density as a human:
m = 14 000 kg
ρ = 1 062 kg/m³
14 000 / 1 062 = ~13 m³

If we assume Toady based the dvu on the male sperm whale, a dvu would be:
39 / 200 000 000 = 0,000000195 m³, or 0,195 cm³, which means that a dwarven ant, assuming it is a cube, would be almost 6x6x6 mm.

If we instead assume Toady based the dvu on the female sperm whale, a dvu would be
13 / 200 000 000 = 0,000000065 m³ or 0,065 cm³, and a dwarven ant, assuming it is a cube, would be around 4x4x4 mm.

Obviously, ants aren't cubes, but that's not really the point.
Also, the text above is probably overflowing with mathematical errors. Feel free to point them out if you do notice any. I'll just blame it on the fact that I'm on vacation.

Oh, and sorry for going off-topic.   

[DS]

Yeah I looked it up the other day, because I wanted to try modelling a typical fortress design in minecraft, which I recently purchased. 2x2x3 metres. That's a whole 12 minecraft blocks!

I remember Toady saying in one of the DF Talks that tiles were, at least for construction purposes, 2 meters by 2 meters, and 3 meters tall. I can't find the quote right now but I'm pretty sure that appeared at some point. I imagine that if I'm not just making that number up, a metric like that will be used with multi tile creatures when they go in.

This is correct. Toady mentioned it during the last development cycle, if I recall correctly, while he was developing the parabolic arcs that minecarts and other objects travel in. Those calculations required specific dimensions for a tile - hence, 2x2x3.

Of course, a hundred fully matured dragons could still fill into that space, so it's not as if it's a very confining 12 cubic meters.

[Hetairos]

Considering that "water [10]" in a bucket is enough to increase the water level by 1/7, but "water [833]" in a minecart increases it by 2/7, I wouldn't expect this kind of thing to be precisely defined.

[calrogman]

a dwarven ant, assuming it is a cube

Is this the Dwarven equivalent of a spherical cow?

[Greiger]

Well when you think about it every creature in DF is made up of spheres, or possibly cubes.

Ever try to decapitate a giraffe?  You'll find that it's neck is as thick as it's height, you'll be lucky to do more than break the skin aiming at a giraffe's neck.   All the game has to determine a body part's size is it's size stat, there's no height or width or anything like that, just "How big is it in comparison to all the other bodyparts the critter has."