Here is what we know so far from Toady One about the arena in the next version:
Last bits with hiding in grass or in shrubs, effect from being prone or next to an obstacle (it gives a bonus there, even if it wouldn't always make sense, until we have things like being able to look around corners). It also gives you quite a bit of feedback now on what factors are influencing your visibility.
I was starting in on tracking finalization when I became dissatisfied with having to hunt down certain situations, so I added some more options to arena mode. The map file can be given grass, dirt or sand, and the temperature, time, weather/clouds and fog level can also be set. You can pump the temperature up to dragonfire if you want to see the arena water channels boil off and the grass ignite, or you can put it down to deathly cold if you want to watch everything freeze. Playing around with stealth in heavy fog is also entertaining.
Let's see, you can set the combat state in the arena now, from lethal combat without quarter down to brawls and horseplay, and you can also turn morale on and off -- I did that mainly to test yielding and to fix some issue there with aardvarks surrendering and so on. Unarmed combat is more survivable, and on the other hand you don't have to actually damage somebody's brain to knock them out now.
Given the extra options for stealth, jumping, or climbing, the current arena design seems inefficient. The forum may be able to come up with a better one if we work together.
1. At a broad conceptual level, what set pieces should the arena contain? I am thinking of a "parkour course", and perhaps a "don't go into the long grass!" lawn.
2. Have you modified "\data\init\arena.txt" for your own purposes? Is there a change that you use often or highly recommend? For example, I added a closed fortification bunker to the bottom right "castle" to seperate ranged attackers from melee victims during testing.
3. Do you think some of the current arena features are pointless? I don't use all those repetitive open underground rooms.
4. Any links to interesting arena designs, or arena.txt-modifications?
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Topic: Collaborative new arena.txt design for next DF version? (Read 1380 times)