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[Fuzzpilz]

Hey. Glad to see this finally released - the main reason I haven't posted earlier is that I've been basically playing it nearly nonstop since the 8th. It is that excellent. However, a few things:

1) Designation rot. This really only happens with trees (not sure about plant gathering) and second-level detailing: often, the game will just forget I marked something. In the latter case, I think what happens is that when a dwarf finishes detailing something, the game erases the mark but for some reason doesn't set the tile as detailed; that or it erroneously removes the mark when the dwarf gets distracted and decides to do something else instead. The trees can't be explained the same way - I've seen that happen before my eyes with no dwarf anywhere near, so maybe it's something to do with them thinking about trees to cut.

2) Pathfinding troubles. A while ago one of my dwarves threw a tantrum and destroyed the one bridge connecting the main fortress to most of the mining tunnels east of the cave river; I kept getting "could not find path" messages even after digging a passage (which I am certain was accessible, since miners stuck on both sides worked on it, all even slightly relevant doors were unlocked etc.) connecting them to a different bridge built to access some minor tunnels further south. They only stopped after I rebuilt the north bridge.

3) Coins. Coins, coins, coins. I'm drowning in coin mandates from the bookkeeper; it's been tying up all my metalworkers and furnace operator ever since he arrived. Not really a bug since I'm sure he thinks I need that many, but will it ever stop? I finally struck iron very recently, so maybe building a lava forge and smelter will help.

4) The game intermittently runs very slowly now; if it matters, I have a population of 102, next to no wildlife, and am running on a not exactly new, but not horrendously ancient machine - an Athlon XP 1600+ with 512 MB of 266 MHz DDR RAM, if it matters. This started very suddenly (and not with a wave of migration), so I'm suspecting it's not just the strain of so many dwarves. I'm also getting lots of injury spam; might be related. And the game crashed while saving just now; luckily I had a quite recent backup because I only just switched to the newest alpha. I'm uploading a zip if you want a look.

Edit:

Here.

I also thought of another thing, although this might have been brought up already (I haven't read through all the reqs): I once had a jeweller fall asleep while using my last set of cut aventurines to encrust an item, leaving the encrust task inactive at the top of the workshop's list and the aventurines lying in the workshop. Another jeweller came along and... cancelled the task because he was unaware the aventurines existed since they were right in front of him rather than in the gem stockpile where they belonged.

[ August 14, 2006: Message edited by: Fuzzpilz ]

[Toady One]

1)  Might be a bug, although they do remove them sometimes when they think about them and find no way to access them.  A time when this could be annoying is if you separate your fortress into two pieces briefly with a locked door or a draw bridge, and a dwarf in the other component cancels the job.  That particular issue would be handled with burrows.  However, slight map corrupts and so on can also affect their ability to path find and so on.  I can check the save you sent for these.  It wouldn't explain what you saw with the detailing jobs.

2) Might be related to the issues I mentioned.  If it screws up one flag on the map in one tile, it can start having unintended effects.  I can try blasting the north bridge in your save if the fortress still has this form.

3) there's a req floating around to show exactly what the bookkeeper is thinking next to his mandates in the list, then it'll be easier to gauge if his estimates are way too high.  they seem too high a lot of the time.

4) if path-finding is starting to break down, there are going to be a lot of unnecessary floodfills as they try to find things.

I'll take a look at this save when I can, to see if I can find the problem.

I suspect we are going to have a lot of new troubles with mid/late game fortresses since people will start having them now.  I highly recommend backing up the "data/save" folder when you can.  To restore a backup -- don't copy over, delete the old one first, or your new save will be corrupted if new files had been generated.

[bbb]

actually.. (that's speaking from the 21.93.x versions)

mass 2nd level detailing job (like the whole room) does sometimes get several squares turned off all by itself.

especially true when a dwarf finishes detailing a tile/wall close by/adjacent.. i guess they figure it's pretty enough already and starts skiving

[Toady One]

The injury spam is probably the reason for the lag -- that fisher dwarf dropped 400KB of injury spam in the log in a minute or so.  There's also a bizarre flooding issue with the channel -- it keeps pouring water into the chasm, but it is empty.  I should be able to gather quite a lot from this thing.  And it's quite an impressive place.

[Toady One]

The injury spam is caused by the rentals I think -- the injured fisherdwarf can't find a bed to sleep in because he's injured and isn't renting an apartment (not sure why, he has barely enough money, but can afford one).  When I set one of your apartments off rental and made it a barracks, he rested cleanly.  Of course, then 4 soldiers went to spar there.  They don't seem to rest in non-rented rooms or in un-roomed beds, just the barracks.  This seems a bit off -- the un-roomed beds were supposed to be used for resting.  I'll keep looking.

[Fuzzpilz]

They used to rest in non-roomed beds the way they should, but that seems to have stopped a while ago for some reason. I didn't bring it up because I hadn't observed long and thoroughly enough to be certain - but it may have happened when the money economy started?

[Toady One]

Yeah, I think the rental code is restricting bed use too harshly.

[Aquillion]

Um.  If a dwarf is injured and stops earning money, how do they pay the rent on their house?

Maybe the game needs some sort of "Dwarven disability payments"...

Or incapacitiated dwarves could get a pass on their rent until they recover.

Or there could be some sort of hospital where injured dwarves could gather to rest, making it easier for other dwarves to care for them...

[Toady One]

Any bed without a room is sort of a "hospital bed", although I guess vagrants sleep in them to.  An explicit designation opposed to barracks might help them learn.

Are your other ideas too kind?  Dwarves seem like such harsh creatures.

[Aquillion]

Hrm.  There could be a special 'exile gate' through which dwarves send their infirm and wounded to prevent them from being a burden on the fortress.  The other side of the gate could lead into a chasm, lava, or waterfall.

The alchemist could produce poisons that dwarves use to execute other dwarves who they judge to be a burden on society.

And eventually you could get insane nobles who would decide that all the lower classes are a burden, and would simply poison the well!

...hrm, poisoning the well actually sounds like an interesting idea.  I assume there are already some enemies who do this?  But the way the player deals with it could be odd...  they'd have to notice it, and then...  can the player order a well destroyed?  Or maybe just sealed up?  It sounds like destroying it would be another rewalling thing, but maybe just sealing it would be enough.  Or they could try and have their alchemist work out a way to fix it...

Realistically, of course, when your well is poisoned you wouldn't be able to just grab a bucket and some stone and dig a new one...

[ August 14, 2006: Message edited by: Aquillion ]