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[bliantfive]

The problem solved itself quickly.

I found a big surprise while digging into the glacier. Soil!

Turns out when you embark on a glacier next to a tundra you might have a kind of mixed biome at the edges where soil is mixed with ice.
Im always amazed by this games capability to surprise me.

[bliantfive]

I did some experiments to run DF on WIndows Server 2012 on a cheap virtual server.
A game that runs at 1 FPS should work on even the humblest machine right?

WRONG!

It was an extremely difficult process to get everything running.
All that virtual drivers do an extremely poor job of handling DF, especially the graphics driver that didnt allow TWBT at all.

The game itself prooved to be an extreme challenge for the processor and i found no way to get the streaming software AND the game running at the same time.
That said, i wouldnt even try to run the stream on a standard issue dedicated server any more. On a server system there is to much clutter getting in the way.

What we need is simple: a basic PC with a strong processor and a basic graphics card that is housed at an ISP.
Everything below that will just get in the way.

On the other hand Season 2 is working out fine.
We got a yeti attack recently that we fend off using war dogs alone.
In the caves is a population of fish people that seem to be aggressive, but since they cant climb walls we are in no danger.
The next step is building a well and a basic military.

[CaptainArchmage]

I've been following twitch for Star Citizen, I've done searches for Dwarf Fortress but they were quite sparse. I really appreciate your effort in getting twitch coverage for Dwarf Fortress!

[Timeless Bob]

It would be interesting for you to set the screen to "follow" one of the dwarves while its running, so people who check the stream will be able to see what they're doing at any point.  Also, if you zoom in a little, then as the dwarf moves, different parts of the map will be revealed or hidden, which increases the "but I can't see what's happening over there!" type of thinking, which increases curiosity.

If you start making the stream more personal for that dwarf, it will be much like that movie "The Truman Show".

That sounds great, but the more i think of it i cant come up with a job for that dwarf. Most of the daily duties are very repetetive for a lone dwarf. And then hes sleeping a long time. It would need a dwarf that comes around much and doesnt sit in one place to often.

Maybe some kind of guard on duty that patrols the fort?

I'd be interested in following a newborn dwarf until the time of their death, (however long that takes), then switching to the next newest newborn and repeating the process all over again.  It would be interesting to see the world evolve around them as the dwarf grows up - who they choose to associate with and what jobs they eventually inherit.  It would be the Overseer's job to make sure this one dwarf lived to produce children - and each first-born of a new generation would inherit the focus of the twitch stream.

[Fleeting Frames]

While interesting sounding idea, it'd take over two years of nonstop playing at 1 FPS for newborn dwarf to die of old age.

Additionally, just the time staying in dwarven childcare would give over 7 week period where nothing of the rest of fortress is seen.

[bliantfive]

This is interesting but might need another format to be presented.
DF's simulation is very deep, but you dont see much of it.
So you would need a heavily cut and edited fast motion video that includes much of the stuff you cant see and only find in the logs.

A lot of work but would be very interesting indeed.

[bliantfive]

Ok I have no idea how to do the bedrooms. Lets asume we want large ones for our poor glacier dwarfs.
We have a whole z-level to play with. Link, draw or post any idea for a layout here!

[Fleeting Frames]

An entire z-level?

Hm, how about a deadly labyrinth with traps, beasts, extreme heat and cold, yarn lying all over the place, with a bed at the end.

Assign the bed only to the most annoying or worthy dwarves. If they survive, you might replace that "or" with "and".

Q: But bliantfive said dwarfs?
A: Assign bed as 2-tile dormitory and sleeping dwarves will be quantum stockpiled on the floor tile.

[bliantfive]

I learned much from the last seasons.
The response was great and people seem to like the concept.
The most important lesson is that watching me fail another fort is not entertaining enough. People check in but interest is fading and i do understand the reasons.

Thats why im already preparing Season 3, a huge change in concept. Its another experiment, even more crazy than the basic 24/7 fort.

Check the blog at http://dwarf247.com/?p=113 to get an early preview of the upcoming season.

Application for the first challenger is starting this week and will be announced in a new thread.

[Heretic]

Previous kind was much more intresting than the new idea... but... really, i don't sure.

[bliantfive]

Previous kind was much more intresting than the new idea... but... really, i don't sure.

We'll see. I'm glad you liked it so far.

I'm still experimenting and one thing is for sure: I couldn't keep doing it the way season 1 and 2 went.
The problem is not only that I feel the interest fading its also the workload. For some reason, the fort takes much more time than I could imagine when starting the stream.
I thought it would also be much more efficient and faster(more done per in-game year because of more micromanagement). The opposite is true, though.
Since I can't wait for the prerequisites of jobs to be done the game feels awkward.

When people were asking how long the stream is going to run then my answer was always: as long as its fun doing it and people are watching.
Right now the stream takes me 3 hours a day to maintain, and I can't do this work whenever I want but demanding me to do it often when I don't feel like it.
This leaves me no time to do necessary updates to the scripts and the blog.
Also, people check in less frequently which shows me clearly that I have to change something.

And yeah this is it. No idea if it'll work, but it was an experiment from the beginning.

[Spriggans]

From your experience, do you think it would be possible to write an AI to play a "standard' game of dwarf fortress with no keyboard inputs ?

Let me explain.
Right now, you have a script that follows a dwarf randomly every xx seconds.
Could it be possible to script an AI that way, but instead of following one dwarf, the AI would designate :

• rooms to be dug
• in these rooms, stockpiles, always at the same place
• some workshops
• after some time (to ensure everything is built), it would ask workshops to make buildings
• then it would place these buildings
• then create meeting areas, dormitories, ...

The fortress would always look the same. But it would be built automatically.
And it would have to be independant of geography (aquifers are excluded, even though, you could write an AI which could pierce them maybe o_o)

My questions are :
Do you think it's possible ?
How long would it take to AI-script a very basic fortress ? (10 ish rooms, some workshops, a pasture for hens with nesting boxes, a meeting hall and dormitory)

[bliantfive]

My questions are :
Do you think it's possible ?
How long would it take to AI-script a very basic fortress ? (10 ish rooms, some workshops, a pasture for hens with nesting boxes, a meeting hall and dormitory)

I have no doubt its possible without to much effort on the pure scripting side.
Actually, there is such a basic ai as mod somewhere in the archives but it isn't updated anymore.

I wouldn't undertake such a project for a simple reason:
The internal structure of DF is the biggest mess I have ever seen in any software. It's a wondrous, confusing, awesome and totally overwhelming pile of code.
To script the ai is a piece of cake. To find out how to actually send the commands and read stuff from the game is the hard part.

Just for the record:
To make the script zoom correctly took me 10 hours and I wouldn't have made it without the help of experienced  modders.
And it's still bugging out sometimes...
The logic behind the script took me 5 minutes.

[Fleeting Frames]

There is DF-ai plugin or script for dfhack which does do that, Spriggans. If making your own, I'd suggest looking at utilizing Quickfort for layouts (zones, jobs in buildings(use manager?) and initial build location excluded).

[Gwolfski]

It would probably be possible to modify the df-ai script to dig horizontally (it builds a vertical fortress). That could be interesting.