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[assimilateur]

1. I modded my game to hopefully make some (I didn't bother with all of them) mega- and semimegabeasts more common. I did so by slightly increasing the number of generated non-mountainous caves, giving them a littersize tag that wasn't too over the top (like 3:5) and increasing their cluster_number (I went with something like 5:7 for dragons and 12:24 for things like giants).

This has worked well in adventure mode in that in most caves it didn't take long to bump into a giant or minotaur, as there were usually several or even in excess of a dozen of them there. I found that littersize, contrary to what I've read somewhere on this forum, might have been an important factor. Creatures which I remembered giving that tag were far more numerous than the others (there were no or very few ogres, despite having the same cluster_number as giants which turned out to be ubiquitous with my modifications). Of course, this might have also been related to biomes, but I digress.

Now, this has so far had next to no influence on my dwarf mode games. Only once, after embarking in a terrifying biome, was I attacked by over a dozen semimegabeasts right off the bat. Other than that, when I embarked on a cave, there were ettins or giants all right, but I have yet to see roaming mega- or semimegabeasts in a non-evil biome. Is that the problem? Am I screwed if I play on something that's neutral or good?


2. Playing in a freezing environment, I did what appeared to be the obvious way of melting my frozen river: I pumped magma into a channel one level below it. The water melted all right, but froze again mere days (of in-game time) afterward, despite there being a 7/7-deep reservoir of magma below it. What did I do wrong?

[Nirreln]

Megabeasts normally attack forts with large amounts of wealth, so don't expect much of anything until your fort gets rolling.

[assimilateur]

Can you give me a ballpark figure of how much was meant by "large amounts"?

[Sphalerite]

2. Playing in a freezing environment, I did what appeared to be the obvious way of melting my frozen river: I pumped magma into a channel one level below it. The water melted all right, but froze again mere days (of in-game time) afterward, despite there being a 7/7-deep reservoir of magma below it. What did I do wrong?

Apparently, magma has to be moving in order to keep nearby ice melted.

[assimilateur]

Apparently, magma has to be moving in order to keep nearby ice melted.

So I'd have to make sort of a looping channel of magma under my river and keep pumping it around? Sounds like a pain in the ass.

So far, embarking on this freezing biome has had no upsides other than the role-playing and aesthetic factors of living in a winter wonderland. Looks like I'll be looking for something a bit more temperate for my next fort.

[Danarca]

Apparently, magma has to be moving in order to keep nearby ice melted.

So I'd have to make sort of a looping channel of magma under my river and keep pumping it around? Sounds like a pain in the ass.

So far, embarking on this freezing biome has had no upsides other than the role-playing and aesthetic factors of living in a winter wonderland. Looks like I'll be looking for something a bit more temperate for my next fort.

Make it half 6/7 and half 7/7, it'll float around and melt the ice.

[Derakon]

"Moving" just means "changing in level". So don't fill it to 7/7 depth; leave it halfway between 6/7 and 7/7 (or between 5/7 and 6/7, etc.) so that there's lots of random motion.

Of course, this hits up your CPU more for the fluid sim. But it should keep the brook liquid.

[assimilateur]

I'm close to abandoning this site anyway, but if I stay there I'll probably do as you suggested. All this increased fluid motion sounds like something I'd avoid, seeing how my fps is fluctuating between 20 and 30 already, so I'd probably make my magma channel drainable (which I should for other reasons as well, mind you).

Now that I think of it, is it possible to get rid of moving fluids by engineering means? I mean, I obviously want a river and a pipe if I'm looking for inexhaustible supplies of both water and magma, so embarking somewhere without either is something I'd like to avoid. I'm trying to think of a way to obsidianize both my river and the upper layer of my pipe, so that everything stays at a depth of 7/7, but I don't think there's a way. I obviously need magma to solidify my river*, and water to solidify my pipe, thus changing the amount of either and reintroducing the exact fluid movements I've tried to avoid.
 

*I'm optimistically assuming that a fully obsidianized river can be made to flow again after mining out all the obsidian, but I have no idea whether that's really the case.

[Retro]

*I'm optimistically assuming that a fully obsidianized river can be made to flow again after mining out all the obsidian, but I have no idea whether that's really the case.

Only the edgemost tiles of a river/brook/what-have-you actually generate the water, so whatever you do, don't get any magma on them. Anything else, though, you can really do whatever with so long as the water can still enter the map - once you've Han Solo'd the edge tiles, the river on the other side of your embark area will be like "huh, can't flow there anymore I s'pose" and you'll never get influx of water again.

[assimilateur]

So it seems that I'd still have a couple tiles worth of moving water, but I guess that's much better, lag-wise, than having a full river of it.

[Retro]

By 'freezing map', did you mean constantly frozen or only freezes during winter seasons? If it's the former, there's no need to unfreeze your entire river using magma; it's excessive (unless you want it all for aesthetics) - and if it's the latter, you can simply dig in to the end of the river, build a wall to dam it, and then when it unfreezes it'll stop draining and therefore stop creating lag (and it won't overflow). 7/7 tiles themselves don't generate flow and therefore lag despite what appearances may suggest.

[sneakey pete]

Its very hard to get a river in a permanently frozen area flowing, as the only way i could think of of getting magma under the map edge tiles of it would be fortificationing them off the map, meaning you'd need a constant resupply of magma

[Innominate]

Its very hard to get a river in a permanently frozen area flowing, as the only way i could think of of getting magma under the map edge tiles of it would be fortificationing them off the map, meaning you'd need a constant resupply of magma

Magma, however, does not move off the edges of the map.

[Retro]

Also, regardless of that, you don't need to try and get the river flowing from the edge of the map - if it's constantly frozen, then just pick the most convenient spot and unfreeze it there. The ice melts to 7/7 squares so long as the magma's underneath; you don't need to defreeze the edge so that water flows in, the ice IS water.

[assimilateur]

Also, regardless of that, you don't need to try and get the river flowing from the edge of the map - if it's constantly frozen, then just pick the most convenient spot and unfreeze it there. The ice melts to 7/7 squares so long as the magma's underneath; you don't need to defreeze the edge so that water flows in, the ice IS water.

If I understood that correctly, you'd essentially end up with a finite supply of water, no better than a murky pool?

That's in the case of a permanently frozen river, obviously. In the temporarily-frozen case you'd get fresh water every summer.