Thanks to MrWiggles, Eric Blank, DG, Mopsy, hermes, monk12, Cruxador, Heph, Telgin, Caldfir, Footkerchief, Knight Otu, Manveru Taurënér, King Mir, Putnam, Valtam, CLA, DarkDXZ, SmileyMan, HugoLuman and anybody I missed for answering questions. With such a large number of people helping out, you can imagine that a lot of the questions asked have already been addressed. This almost always happen within a few posts of the question, so if your question isn't below, it has probably already been answered and you can find the spot in your post history.
Will mega and semi-mega beasts, and wild animal historical figures (like that giant leopard that ate somebody's rabid 5 years ago and claimed a lair) breed during play now? I know during worldgen they will often enough have children, as you can see them in legends mode, but I was interested to see if that could continue to occur now that births and deaths of entity populations are being tracked.
In addition to this, will any offspring of historical figures follow in their predecessor's footsteps?
Nope, their world gen activities haven't been moved over yet. The predators will patrol around their lairs, tracking and attacking the player, but that's it.
Aside from succession, the historical figures don't care about their parents.
With the new climbing being implimented, what are the odds of seeing/constructing fences that block most animals, but only cost extra movement (take longer) for things with climbing or sentience?
Same as any other reasonable feature, I suppose. I haven't added anything like that for next time.
You said in the Bay12 report that bandits won't be hanging out around wells this release. Should this be taken to mean that the previously mentioned feature of bandits harassing townsfolk and getting in fistfights with the player is out for this release? If so, is there any way for the player to get into a nonlethal fistfight without angering the town's populace?
In the next release (or any plans for the future), will bandits ambushing the player in the wilderness still try to kill you, or will it be a lethal-with-quarter or non-lethal brawl with the intent to simply rob you?
Regarding wells, I said they were "on hold for the moment". Something will have to give somewhere. It was taking a lot of time, and without the auxiliary features, the value-per-hour just isn't there on the dev time. Ambushes in the woods are more or less identical, at least when it comes to harassing/robbing the player. There's going to be non-lethal combat in the new version, but I'm really not sure now what the overall bandit picture is going to be. I've set it down entirely while I work through the site issues, and I'll be back to it before the release is up.
Toady do you picture the incarnate gods (Dragons, Titans, and some such) eventually being legitimate gods in their own right or just fakes that people latch onto?
Assuming of course you have a set idea for that at the moment
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with Greek Mythology, quite a few monsters were gods such as Typhon or a few of the Cyclops (In fact the one Ulysses meets is either a demigod or a outright god).
It is why I like to call the Titans the Incarnate Gods (as in gods who's natural form is a earthly physical one) since by all means they are gods being the avatars of locations and their homes being temples and shrines dedicated to them built by unknown hands.
But if the game will recognize such divinity or not is another question.
The current worship of attacking beasts starts at the lowest level and is meant to reflect superstitious behavior resulting from the ever-present threat and trauma. Over time and with the help of subsequent attacks and the indoctrination of children of the affected historical figures, a cult worshipping the megabeast can be formed. There's nothing divine in this process as it stands.
The titans and their relation to the world etc. is something that will probably be thrown into a world metaphysics generator grinder before we do anything more with it. They are certainly candidates for divinity of some form, whatever that'll mean. At that point, whether or not there are worshippers and whether or not their object of worship hears their prayers (etc.) might be more detailed.
What exactly will be the nature of Hill/Deep dwarves? Is it just a title for dwarves living in a certain area, or will there be a sort of subspecies system?
There are options -- we have entity populations that can determine/restrict a creature caste's traits, and we have the cave adaptation system that might relate to how that is realized. This hasn't been done. I expect that there won't be pre-defined subspecies that are created separately. I'd prefer that it all come from the initial population. The "evolution" time scale is a little weird there, since world gens don't run all that long, but maybe dwarves are set up to morph to their cave-form rather quickly, or perhaps its the underworld radiation. Overall, I think the idea is that you could tell a deep dwarf by appearance, and that the perceived difference between hill and fortress dwarves is more cultural.
With all the tweaks you had to do to make dwarves in dwarf mode operate properly with the movement/combat/vision changes, is there something even slightly different in their overall behavior?
Does the creature's agility still defines it's overall movement in dwarf mode? How do they differentiate from one another in terms of speed? Are they always "running", or do their speed alternate deppending of what they're doing?
Do people and animals "charge" differently in combat in dwarf mode now? Any major changes in the combat AI?
I'm assuming the answer to the first question is yes, but there isn't a lot of sit-down-and-play time. I'm not sure what you mean by overall behavior. There are specific behavioral differences (combat especially), and I'm not sure what the aggregate means. I haven't noticed anything unrelated to the things I've changed, but probably, yeah.
It was always strength and agility that determined movement speed, and that is still the case (although I think there might be a tag for that now). I don't remember if it's only for the faster gaits now though. There isn't much of a reason why walking critters should move different speeds, and it doesn't have to be that way now. It no longer has anything to do with job speed. The dwarves walk -- running would make them tired.
Yeah, I think it's still an outstanding item somewhere, but critters will definitely change their speed in combat. The combat mechanics are entirely different, but that's probably not the kind of AI you meant -- there haven't been changes to how they prioritize or think intelligently about stuff. They are still stupid.
Will Dwarf, Elf (and Goblin? Probably not kobold..) sites have shops selling equipment? Will small vendors only sell clothing and armour wearable by the small races, and medium vendors to the medium races; or will dwarves sell medium sized things, humans small things, and so on?
Will there be shops in the non-human sites?
Yeah, there'll be such places for the dwarves and elves. The dwarf one might be a little weird -- I have to handle their forts in such a way that they are reclaimable and playable by people, but we haven't brought the economy back to fort mode. So you'll probably buy stuff at a depot.
There's a lot of multi-race sites, especially the human towns. The objects sold should at the minimum reflect that, and ideally reflect their market. That's not something I've handled yet, but we'll see what happens.
With the addition of retiring fortresses, can we now expect creatures not to scatter when leaving fortress mode in this way? If an adventurer visits a retired fortress, can he expect to find goblin prisoners in the dungeons, dragons in the treasure room and livestock in their pens? Or would he find the hostile creatures scattered randomly around the fortress, and all the pets dead, as it currently happens when one abandons a fortress?
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To elaborate further on this question; will dwarves isolated in a part of the fortress remain in that part once the fortress is retired? For example, will a werebeast/vampire/regular dwarf that is completely walled off from the rest of the fortress remain in its prison once the fortress is retired, or will it somehow end up roaming freely around the fortress?
Same question for any beasts. If you build a sort of maze within a fortress, with FB locked behind drawbridges and/or an item somewhere, will it still be in the same place once the fortress is retired ?
Retirement doesn't do the same stuff as abandoning, so the behavior is completely different. However, it does "advance" time, so things aren't frozen in their exact positions. I wouldn't expect the exact geometric relationships of all your critters to be maintained, especially if it has no way to tell what you intended, or if the things it uses go against your intentions (like room assignments a dwarf isn't supposed to use). It isn't a settled matter, though, and I'm going to try to handle some of the easier cases. The map connectivity should theoretically be useful, though relying on that could lead to some stupid decisions.
Will we be able to choose between retire fortress and abandon them?
I mean, out of siege times and all. Like one spring I decide I want to abandon instead of retiring the fortress.
Yeah, the old button is still available. I don't know that that'll ever be taken away, since the player can judge for themselves whether they think a fortress is viable. There could be some start scenario where remnants of the fort are left behind or something, rather than having everybody ship out. I'm not sure.
So does this mean that fishing is a low priority job now?
Yeah, it has always been part of the "idle behavior" group, along with hunting and some others. That can be made more flexible after this release now.
Are less draconian punishments planned for failed production orders, or will Dwarven nobles always be Vlad the Impaler? Since we're getting non-lethal combat in this release, it sounds like flogging is not too far around the corner.
There was something somewhere about beard shaving. That seems less-than-lethal.
Right now, due to necromancers and so on, the world keeps going from Age of Myth to Age of Legends and back, so you often get something like the 8th Age of Myth. Do you ever plan on changing up the Ages, or adding more of them?
Knight Otu brought up that it was due to megabeast reproduction, and it isn't really something that is supposed to happen -- having any age that only lasts a few years isn't really an age at all, but an event within an actual age or a period of transition (or part of an otherwise uncharacterizable chaotic period). The game should name things after it has some time to reflect, really, even if that means you don't get to see the age transitions during world gen.
Judging from the blog, its just bug fixes before release? Or are you just on an extermination spree? If not, whats left?
I'd prefer not to get pinned to a countdown of a specific list, since that hasn't worked out well in the past. There's still a lot left to do. Dwarf sites are a good chunk of it, and I still have to resolve refugees. And all sorts of other things.
While this may be a bit presumptuous, what are your plans for after the usual post bug fixing ? What should we expect will be next on the dev list?
I really don't know. Knight Otu mentioned the thief role and taverns and inns (both modes) as things we've floated in the past to do after we do the bug fixing, and those are still on the table. Handling some management/job prioritization stuff in fort mode is there to be done. Handling start scenarioey stuff and hill/deep dwarves as they relate to the fort opens a lot of doors. Hard to say though.
With the new multi-tile trees, are we going to have proper forest fires now? Can you furnish us with any screenshots?
It's one of the remaining items to address for trees (so, very soon!). Long ago, the trees actually burned, and now as I understand it, they no longer burn. Screenshots may occur during testing. I'm not sure how much the game is going to be able to judge the heat of the flames and so on -- it could be that grass fires only spread up to leaves if the tree has leaves near the ground, and the trunks only burn down in the presence of magma/dragons/etc., or something, but I'm not quite sure how it'll work until I go over the old code and update and fix it.
With the inclusion of climbing, will this also mean including tools to assist with climbing, such as grappling hooks and stakes to nail down and tie rope to them? Will wells become access points to caves and caverns?
Nah, we had originally wanted to get to some of that, but it has all been pushed along, I think. Do you mean wells in human towns? I don't remember what they do now if there's a shallow layer. Generally the layers are too far down. Or do you mean a well you make in your fort? We'll need climbing AI for that, which is either going to be non-existent or very shallow for this release.
Yo Toady, right now Demon escape is pretty much extrapolated. In the future what will be the more intricate ways demons will escape to darken the doorway of Midgard?
It goes into a bit more this time.
If companions leave adventurer's party due to breach of agreement or other reasons will they set off to their hometown and can they be tracked down? If they stumble on a night creature's lair can they be attacked by it?
It's not done, but I'm expecting for this release that they'll travel back to their home town in a trackable fashion, without being attacked (since it doesn't handle any army-to-army interaction that doesn't involve you yet).
How viable is hunting and tracking animals right now?
Are caravan guards drawn from the pool of historical figures? For instance, can one of your retired adventurers return to a fortress as a guard?
Will adventurers start in their respective sites: Humans in towns and hamlets, dwarves in fortresses, and elves in forest retreats?
Will you be doing kobold and other minor civ-sites?
Can drunks initiate bar fights?
I haven't done the placement of regular wilderness animal tracks during travel mode, which'll be a key part of hunting. You can track famous predators and things you stumble upon in the local view at this point.
Caravans are still a-historical. Once they are moving on the map, the guards'll either be historical or entity population critters, with the game preferring to use a historical whenever possible (as it currently does with patrollers etc.).
Yeah, people should start in their own sites.
Kobolds are not minor, he he he! We're still hopping to get to them. The underground layer civs and above-ground animal peoples are still completely neglected.
I haven't done anything with taverns. If it ends up like dragslay, there'll be various shenanigans, including bar fights and cheating at games, without requiring you to be the initial actor.
What sort of technique is used to avoid trees splitting roads and sewers, and is it purely a programming/abstraction solution to avoid them getting together or are there in-game realism considerations as to what to do about trees growing into existing things and/or about trees in the way where a thing should be built?
I wasn't clear in the dev log -- the issue there was one of basic clearing to get the roads placed at all. The tree growing algorithm now I thiiink won't go through constructed tiles in play when it tries to form a branch or widen a trunk, but we could consider addressing that kind of thing at some point (it would be a straightforward check).
When do you plan on having sites converting from one template to another?
There's an outstanding item on the list now to make long-term goblin occupations start to mix some goblin elements into the human town, post world-gen, and whether I get to it or not, having all of the new sites now makes it a lot easier to think about handling that sort of thing, both before and after world-gen is over. Other than the may-be-delayed item, I don't have a timeline, of course.
Will underground trees still grow after you pierce the caverns? Will underground trees still be single tile trees or multitiled?
The underground mushrooms and trees will be multi-tile, and they'll be treated like other trees with respect to growth (that is, it's one of the remaining items to get it to work, and I expect it'll work out since the tree growth function was written with growth-during-play in mind).
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Topic: Future of the Fortress (Read 3855429 times)