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[PsyOp]

I dont know how people are playing there, but I don't think it is much different than me. So, I tell about my experience. It takes dozens of hours to build a good fortress, then you get bored with it and start another. The former is lost or destroyed (anyway it is not a point of interest, i never look at it again). The community games end in a such way too (as I understand). I've seen 20 pages of fortresses which weren't updated for at least a month (and suppose amount of resources, e.g. time, was used to build it!).

It is possible to utilize results of playing in a such way: create a resource like dfma, where people would upload their fortresses. Then, when the world is generated, and fortresses of civs are placed on the map, the generator can use this resource, to search for matching fortresses and substitute random fortresses with peoples'. So, my thoughts:

0) You'll get superb locations for dwarf mode (current results of generation are poor compared to people's fortresses, and they would be poor) - fortresses, ruins, human settlements (I've seen, some people like to play it) and so on.

1) Matching is hard. You should match rock, soil and temperature. Hopefully, 20 pages of community fortresses should negate it. In a bad case, use appoximate matching.

2) Placing is a technical task (no new content is required), although it is large work: all you have to do, is to align local time counters and populate it with history mosters.

3) Bandwidth. My saves are about 10-15Mb now. Stripping them from all non-relevant info should help, but i dont believe it helps much. Anyway, the restriction could lead to "packs" of fortresses(hundreds of megabytes), which would be downloaded separately ... in game downloading would be better.

4) Versions and mods - another problem to keep an eye on, if we export only buildings it shouldn't bother much.

5) Moderation would be required - at least to classify the fortress: human town, dwarf fortress - architecture style; their size etc.

[SolarShado]

*blink* so... it'd work like spore?

sounds cool!

That said, it would require massive amounts of bandwidth and disk space that toady doesn't have/can't afford... and i doubt something like this will ever make it into the game. certainly not before v1.

i believe there are future plans to more tightly integrate player-forts with the rest of the world anyway, so this will likely become even more complicated to implement in the future.

but it is a really cool idea, it'd make adventuring much more interesting!

[woose1]

This will be implemented when my suggestion for !!Flying-Robot-Cowboy-Space-Alien-Mutant-Monkeys!! gets implemented.

[PsyOp]

This will be implemented when my suggestion for !!Flying-Robot-Cowboy-Space-Alien-Mutant-Monkeys!! gets implemented.

i doubt something like this will ever make it into the game

In a basic variant (no site, a 1 version of df saves) can be implemented by modders, if modding interface would allow. For now, as I know, no modding in generation proccess allowed. So basically, both of you are right.

bandwidth and disk space that toady doesn't have/can't afford

So, a reasonal way would be an additional pack which is manually downloaded from filehoster and put into df folder.

[BonSequitur]

As an early version of this, the game could simply look for fortresses placed in a special "bones" directory, and place them on the world instead of a regular fortress. People who want the feature can fill the directory. Worldgen would only take the layout and do a few things like force all bridges open and doors unlocked, and would populate it with dwarves like a regular computer-generated fortress (So it fits with the larger world). Engravings would be replaced with random world-appropriate engravings.

[PsyOp]

special "bones" directory

Yeah, the bones is the right word, which describes all idea.

force all bridges open

Not sure that this is a good idea. With the coming of digging skills and so on, it would be definitely much more interesting to figure some ways to get in.

[Sowelu]

There's a few big obstacles to this.

1:  The elevations nearby would have to match, including river sources/sinks.  Building your map features AROUND existing fortresses tends to not work, especially the way DF generates worlds right now.

2:  The hist figs would be missing.  This becomes a bigger deal when more data is tracked, but already a whole lot is tracked now.  They're important for engravings, artifacts, and soon even 'whose bones are in those bolts'.

[Footkerchief]

1:  The elevations nearby would have to match, including river sources/sinks.  Building your map features AROUND existing fortresses tends to not work, especially the way DF generates worlds right now.

Yeah, this is really the hard part.  There's also stuff like matching up underground features to worry about.  To put it simply, in most cases it's hard to separate a fortress from its environment, or even to draw a proper line between the two.

2:  The hist figs would be missing.  This becomes a bigger deal when more data is tracked, but already a whole lot is tracked now.  They're important for engravings, artifacts, and soon even 'whose bones are in those bolts'.

This isn't such a big deal.  The game already throws in "by an unknown artisan" when the artist doesn't exist or got culled or whatever.

[PsyOp]

Yeah, this is really the hard part

I can see 2 methods of solving this:
1) Use fortress as a mask (take contour of source fortress via scan) and put it on the new ground with underground features, hoping that user will not be able to match nearby features (as for now, underground features are unmatchable for user - there is no way to distinguish native and new). The elevation is the simpliest issue - is should be possible to smooth it. Brooks can be copied, with "cheating" - for ex., chasms at the end of map. Small pools can be safely copied, lakes should be matched.
2) A solution for v0.01: take only overground part, the stairs down mark "collapsed". This will work greatly for human/elven fortresses, and probably ruins.