Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dark_Tundra]

I just thought I'd like to share my views on the scale of dwarf fortress, and I in no way mean to interfere with anyone's current beliefs.
I am also aware that Toady has estimated the scale of a grid square to be 5 feet across.

I will be using spoiler tags to hide exessive rambling and explanations for the purposes of shortening this text wall.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

in line spoiler buttons would have been handier if anyone can tell me how to do that(if possible).

From observation, intuition, and... strange coincidences; I have decided that a single grid square in dwarf fortress is a cubic 8 foot block.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(despite my lack of experience with the imperial measurement system)

This leaves one unit of water at one foot of depth; and one foot of thickness for floors. This, coincidentaly lines up with water depth rules; where a dwarf can stand and breathe in depth 4 water, but depth 5 is over his head;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(I imagine dwarves to be between 4'6" and 5 feet tall)

and an elf is only drowning in depth 7.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(an elf, contrary to what many belive, i would see as closer to 6 feet tall and of narrow build rather than the shorter D&D style elves)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(I also beleive the foot of water required to get from the ceiling of floor 1 to the floor of the second storey is abstracted out.)

I have also noticed that at least some of the creatures I have looked at in the raws have a size of: height in feet +1
-dwarves have a size of 6 (5 feet tall)
-humans and elves have a size of 7(6 feet tall)
-elephants have a size of ten(average of 9 feet)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

female elephants are about 8 feet tall; males are closer to ten;

-cats have a size of 3(most domestic cats seem to average close to 2 feet long ignoring the tail)

Square grid spaces also give 45° ramps which i beleive to be the steepest reasonable angle for a ramp. It also gives a 3.31(ish)foot gap between diagonal pillars,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(assuming a pillar is round[spoiler][or a shape with sides of a multiple of four]

and goes all the way accross the square horizontally.)[/spoiler] which i believe is easily passable.

I actually started thinking about all this when i decided I'd try my hand at building a high poly 3d model of one of my fortresses(which i have not yet finished).
Any thoughts are welcome.

Thankyou for your time.

[Quietust]

-elephants have a size of ten(average of 9 feet)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

female elephants are about 8 feet tall; males are closer to ten;

Er, elephants have a size of 16. Camels have a size of 10.

[moki]

There's enough room for any number of elephants, kittens, dwarves and and all other creatures in one tile (when the elephants are tamed, of course, and when at least one creature is lying down), as well as any number of items, stones or whatever you wish... determining the scale of a tile has been tried many times, even with calculations of how much water a dwarf drinks (none, hopefully) and how much volume this would take up in a square of 7/7 water.

About 6 feet (about 1,80m) is my guess... I imagine my tunnels and constructions to be about that high, though I can't explain a size 20 creature (about 20 feet/6m?) getting inside.
The in-game scale is very abstract, so you can use whatever size you like for modelling.
If you think, your dining hall should be higher than a small exploratory tunnel, though they are both 1 z-level, then make it so. If a 3d-picture of your fort with exact blocks for tiles is all you want, you can us Visual Fortress and save a lot of work.

[Dark_Tundra]

-elephants have a size of ten(average of 9 feet)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

female elephants are about 8 feet tall; males are closer to ten;

Er, elephants have a size of 16. Camels have a size of 10.

my apologies, i must have been reading fat by mistake

There's enough room for any number of elephants, kittens, dwarves and and all other creatures in one tile (when the elephants are tamed, of course, and when at least one creature is lying down), as well as any number of items, stones or whatever you wish... determining the scale of a tile has been tried many times, even with calculations of how much water a dwarf drinks (none, hopefully) and how much volume this would take up in a square of 7/7 water.

About 6 feet (about 1,80m) is my guess... I imagine my tunnels and constructions to be about that high, though I can't explain a size 20 creature (about 20 feet/6m?) getting inside.
The in-game scale is very abstract, so you can use whatever size you like for modelling.
If you think, your dining hall should be higher than a small exploratory tunnel, though they are both 1 z-level, then make it so. If a 3d-picture of your fort with exact blocks for tiles is all you want, you can us Visual Fortress and save a lot of work.

I realise the level of abstraction in dwarf fortress is rather... large, I'm not sure where I pulled the idea 7 foot ceilings from(maybe the water levels) but it seems to work(at least in the twisted world that passes for my imagination).

And i have seen Visual Fortress, thanks for pointing it out... but my project was more of an artistic dwarven mega project than anything else; I don't really expect to finish, but if I do It's going to be huge, difficult and unstable(and result in the unneccesary deaths of many dwarves).

(also I'm mostly posting here to overcome my unnececary caution in even typing on the internet. Y'know, incase they find out my evil plots and try to put a stop to them.(what evil plots? who couldn't stop me?) )