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[RaSchumann]

Massive wall of text warning

Hi, I love this game. I find random things where you have an opportunity to just explore very interesting. A couple other games like this, just to let you know where my interests lie is Sword of the Stars by Kerberos Producions, which is a space empire game with pretty simple empire management and customizable ships with a huge variety of weapon and other technologies to use in real time combat. My piece of advice is to start playing on a small (less than fifty or maybe you might want to go to the minimum) Like dwarf fortress, the starts are completely random, as in it does not pull punches. You can be trapped as humans with travel lanes traveling through enemy space, your enemy might find a dozen perfect worlds while you have to go halfway across the map to find something decent, did I mention there are random encounters? I once had "sparky" eat through pretty much ALL my original colonies as human, with a way more powerful AI Tarka player  that I was not friends with next to me, and I had to slowboat it something like 20 turns to the next habitable star because he had a colony between me and it. I gave up on that game, in fact, I usually never finish most games I buy. Its fun just for the variety of things it can throw at you, kind of like Dwarf Fortress.

That was way sidetracked, but I think its a game that shares the philosophy of "you never know what you are going to get." Which I enjoy about Dwarf Fortress, I didn't pay money for it, and I'm pretty stingy and I've only had one job as a high school student. Even just to watch the world generating is fascinating for me, it didn't last too long, only a few minutes, on a Athalon X2 4200+ with 3 gigabytes of fast ram (way to much), don't have an exact time, the world generation parameters where a custom seed and from the text file in the directory it says:

Created in DF v0.27.169.33b.

[WORLD_GEN]
   [TITLE:SEED]
   [SEED:473220798]

I used a ID number for me I know, kind of like the whole telephone-number thing in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, I jumbled it up a bit but it gave good base to just give a different seed. Also, in case your some stalker or something, you won't find anything with that, unless probability really likes you. I want to share it because it is actually pretty interesting.

One piece of advice I have, when you generate a world, export the image, it gives you a very clear, wide view and lets you see volcanoes and seas and mountains and all that stuff. That particular seed is interesting to me because there is a very large ocean and a relatively TINY ocean also. Several Volcanoes, and something I don't think is seen often, TWO major rivers, which have nearby volcanoes. The rivers don't exist in the same spot as the volcanoes, however looking around searching for a site (I'll pick one after I finish this) I noticed that magma pockets (at least if I read the map right) were in the same tile as the major rivers, and the biomes have aquifers and are quite hilly and sandy. I'm fairly sure this might be rare and it was my first seed this release I did, so I wanted to share it. I wonder how an aquifer, magma, and a major river would interact?

I have the image, though don't know how to put it on here, so if someone else does I'll say if its the same world.

I never actually tried going beyond just setting up the party and honestly, I only played continuously for a short while. I might try and make something of the next one though.

There are my thoughts, everything I though where somewhat important. If you read it all, you have quite some time on your hands, kinda like me.

Two more things, maybe a bit off topic but I link with this game.

I listen to the (I don't like the word classical) fine arts station in Chicago when I'm playing Dwarf Fortress, 98.7 wfmt. That station is just plain awesome. I'm streaming it off their site as I'm writing this.

I'm also into Infinity: The Quest For Earth, a space massively multiplayer online game with a massive procedurally generated universe.

The Violoncello is the greatest instrument ever. (according to me)

Boy, is that long, and meandering, and cheese, oh well.

Keep up the awesome work.

edit: small update, first: a question: is the right place for this?
second:Large Rivers must be really common in this version because I found 2 more for a total of 4
third: maybe a topic of discussion: What do you listen to while playing? The music that comes with it is pretty good, even if the music that comes with is kinda sparse. I find the music that comes with can get repetitive, nothing just gets boring, anything on your computer or compact disks needs to be monitored, so I just listen too the radio, all I have to do is remember not to close the browser window. (boy thats a run-on sentence)

Question: How do I underline stuff so I can highlight all the important points, and even more useful would being able to do it on other peoples posts so I can more easily understand them.

[ November 17, 2007: Message edited by: RaSchumann ]

Second edit: how come I can't see my signature, probably just me though, if it isn't there, its a disclaimer that probably belongs at the top of the page. Also I did a subject title change.

The official count on the world I created as far as I can see (I didn't try anything fancy too see hidden stuff, that would be cheating) is 4 large rivers and 6 oceans, plenty of volcanoes, and not too many rejects.

[ November 17, 2007: Message edited by: RaSchumann ]

[Krash]

prolly gonna give that world a spin.  Large river + volcanic vent sound like it could make for a fun fortress.  Maybe even a fortress/city on both sides of the river...

[RaSchumann]

Here's a summary of the interesting things on this map:

-seems to be a bit more tropical than some others I've seen
-Large number of oceans, I think I read that oceans could create volcanoes, and there are a lot of magma pocket here and there.
-A few big rivers, one of them is just massive in scale and has a huge basin on the map in the south, some also turn into lakes and back.

There is a lake in the middle of the north-western mountains that has scorching temperatures, the cliffs are incredibly high, there are multiple layers of 20+ cliffs, the mountains are flat around it but it drops down into this incredibly hot lake, there is also a dwarven settlement nearby, but I have never seen anything like this at all, the drop and temperatures make me think of a volcano caldera but there is no magma, there is also an interesting valley where a river comes out of the north creating a nice valley, there is also a similar lake to the south of it, I have seen mountain lakes but nothing quite like that, maybe I just didn't notice them before.

I looked again and all the mountain lakes seem to do that so maybe its just the way they work.

[ November 17, 2007: Message edited by: RaSchumann ]

[ November 17, 2007: Message edited by: RaSchumann ]

[Dreamer]

Hehe, interesting.  

Too bad magma doesn't pump upwards from the earth, from what I've seen.  That would create some cool volcanic possibilities, along with some interesting aquafer interactions, though I suppose the magma would simply form a wall against it in the form of obsidian.  Water only passes through sand and soil in an aquifer, right?  If not, any fortress created there would likely be the first to develop steam-driven mechanics.

[flight]

It's less interesting than you might think. I am currently playing a two biome map with one being mountain (with magma vent) and the other scrubland (with aquifer). At one point the two actually touch, but the contacting stone in just regular felsite or whatever, no obsidian. In fact, there is very little obsidian around here. There is, however, a cliff overhanging the magma vent. Man a waterfall off into magma would be awesome. I need to get to that.

[Skooma]

What is the name or is it random?

[RaSchumann]

random

[Sean Mirrsen]

A waterfall into the magma will make playing impossible with warnings of caveins pausing the game every tick.

The best use for water+magma that I have found is farming for obsidian in sandy volcanic deserts with aquifers.

Also, somebody try to make magma flow into the ocean. All my attempts had absolutely no effect. Ocean waves are not counted as water, at least not for magma interaction - they just push it (the magma) away.