Thanks to Caldfir, Trif, Putnam, mastahcheese, King Mir, Knight Otu, Dwarfu, CaptainArchmage, Manveru Taurënér, Spish, MrWiggles, PTTG??, Footkerchief, monk12, and irdsm for helping out with answers this time. Remember that if your question didn't appear below, and you colored it green, it was probably addressed by one of the above people, or it didn't follow the guidelines in the OP.
How many z levels can a dwarf jump down without getting hurt?
If they jump-jump, as opposed to flopping over, it appears to be two tiles.
With the increase in dialogue options and time passing in conversation, will NPCs reach a point where they get tired of a conversation that is just about random rumors and incidents, and tell you so and/or just walk away? Probably not for this release ... but in the future?
Yeah, I've thought about it a bit, and it'll probably end up like that. As long as you have options to look back at what people tell you, there's no need to let you bother them over and over about the same stuff, unless they are really lonely or something -- in that vein, there's no reason why you're going to be the only one driving the conversation, once they have some reason to be interested in talking about something.
Will we see non-Goblin occupations in this release? i.e. Dwarves occupying Goblin fortresses, Humans occupying Elf forests, or Elves occupying Dwarf forts?
It's not the emphasis, but I'm not sure what'll happen yet. This isn't the army arc, so the more armies we have marching and taking sites, the stranger things will be, until they actually start fighting each other. I'm taking baby steps with the goblin invasions, and I'm not sure other occupations is the proper route forward from there. On the other hand, you can already have these as a consequence of world generation, and those are more likely to be there to see. Quite likely, depending on how I finish up guards.
Just wondering for future releases, when more things are RAW-ified, and I think it was mentioned somewhere that tokens for some aspects of the raws will spread to others, will we ever be able to set up position tokens into the creature files themselves? For example, setting up a noble-like position to wolves or whoever to make the "alpha" wolf with the responsibility of leading the pack, or something along those lines, allowing us to set up a psuedo-entity structure among individual creeatures, without them actually having their own entity?
I'm really not sure how stuff like that will work, things like the potentially complex social structures of regular animals. I don't know if it'll co-opt entity code, since there is a lot of baggage there as well. I haven't planned it out, in any case.
What effects would drink have on dwarves and their productivity? Could they become just like Drunks and useless for a few hours? Or are they already simple enough to not have real visible effects?
He he he, I have no idea. If they drink as much as they do, and human-style drunkenness is added, I don't think the game would be exactly playable, but having them remain utterly sober at all times would be creepy. But yeah, they could already behave drunkenly enough that I don't need to change it much.
Toady, will we ever see the cavern civ code used above-ground, where a mini-civ could exist as something other than a gang of bandits (although technically they could be a tribe of jerks who steal and murder)? Will we see any more detail put into the cavern civs' sites, culture, and behaviors as well?
We are playing catch up, as usual, and we just added the main races' sites for this release. All of the animal people need to be properly fleshed out, and things like semimegas and the animal societies from the earlier question are also relevant. We certainly hope to expand on the silly fake camps that are generated for underground layer civs to the point that they are properly realized.
The new combat changes, does this mean dual-wielding dwarves in fort mode are going to use both their weapons in combat, allowing berserk sword-wielding squads and dual-wielding shieldhammer* dwarves?
*Shieldhammer dwarves as in dwarves carrying two shields for defence and bashing skulls.
Could you elaborate on what your plans for dual-wielding are? And will it be modeled after dual-wielding in real life (i.e. not all that effective in most circumstances), or the more stereotypically "gamey" dual-wielding.
Does this include the notion of single-time counters?
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The very first technique in Meyer's longsword is the Zornhau - a diagonal cut, that is used both as a primary attack and also as the counter to that attack with timing and slight change in the direction of the step.
People will probably end up using whatever objects they are holding, yeah.
I don't have a specific model I'm following for dual-wielding. I'm happy enough with heavily penalizing simultaneous strikes for now, and other simultaneous actions like multiple deflections, and thinking about general clunkiness a bit (e.g. holding a halberd in the off-hand might penalize you just by existing), just to keep the game in a general sense of order as we navigate the move/attack split. If that allows some swash-buckly/fency-type fending off of multiple opponents for highly skilled characters, I don't think it's terrible. I'm not knowledgeable enough to make judgments about the efficacy of dual-wielding and so on. Decisions must be made at some point, but I'm hesitant to commit to anything now. I don't have the combat arc framework for it.
I haven't altered the basic nature of parrying in the game. When we get around to the meat of combat style rewrites and so on, I'm willing to include various techniques as they come up. Depending on how specific they are, they could fit better as a possible part of a style that is generated, or if general enough they might work as a technique for a weapon class, etc.
Given what has been stated about the difficulty's of fighting multiple combatants, when will highly skilled adventurer's be able to go the full batman (with the relevant requisite player skill) again?
The ability to block several simultaneous attacks with the same weapon is not likely to be added as a non-magical ability, or without respect to special circumstances (such as a shield or large weapon blocking more than one attack from similar directions). That doesn't mean you can't fight multiple opponents. You just have more of a reason to avoid being surrounded now.
In the inverse of earlier discussion, can player fortress (and sites in general) block progress?
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I'm saying if I cover every single passable route to an area in a solid line of dwarven fortresses, not just plonking one down alone in the middle of nowhere.
Player fortresses are more of a barrier than other site types, since we can't handle the number of units that might come passing through reliably, so you could game the system. You'd know you were being silly though.
Does the direction enemies attack from (on the local fortress scale) depend on the direction they approach from on the world map? Either currently, or in the future?
It doesn't matter right now. But it will, yeah, this is one of the reasons why we took fortresses and put them into the "seamless" world map. Way back when, it didn't even try. Now that the armies are positioned on the map, having them come in from the right direction will be the natural choice, although the exact timing of me putting it in will depend on me noticing to do it and that sort of thing.
I couldn't help be bothered by the fact that finished player fortresses contribute absurdly massive amounts of data to the filesize of a world region folder. What is up with that? Is it a coding oversight or an unavoidable side-effect of being able to store player-created (non-seed generated) fortresses?
I'm not sure it is unavoidable, but the size of the data definitely suffers from being non-seed generated, so the difference will be pronounced sometimes. We run it through a compression algorithm already, so we'd probably have to deal with the amount of data to do much better. I haven't checked out what the largest culprits are, and I'm not sure which data gets saved post-abandon vs. what gets cleaned out in adventure mode that would cause any observed changes. It does some processing there, but I doubt that'll help much with retired fortresses coming down the line now.
Now that movement/combat speeds are split, which attributes (or skills) determine each?
The movement rules are the same as before -- it uses strength and agility both, and the size of extra layers (e.g. fat) can change your speed. This is all settable in the gait definitions now, although str and agi are the only supported stats at this point.
Attack speeds are trickier -- there isn't enough resolution in the system to vary the speeds click-wise, so attributes are still used in the rolls instead. At some point I could have the fractionally faster people get their actions shifted forward in a queue within a given click, but I haven't messed with that yet. Attack speeds can be varied by choice (you can apply different adjectives to your strikes to vary their properties), and the observer skill lets you read the timing and qualities of incoming attacks, so more skilled people have a lot more control over the flow of things, which mitigates the lack of skill-speed somewhat. I still haven't gotten into the weeds of it though, and won't for this release.
Toady, how will flying adventurers attack with weapons while flying/diving? Many of the current attacks would realistically require a solid footing, or an insanely large amount of balancing force generated by an obscene wingspan.
This just isn't addressed at this point.
Toady, could you explain in more detail what your plans for this "pulping" are? Is it basically some sort of hit point system for each body part, where if it accumulates enough bludgeoning (or I suppose even slashing) damage, it gets turned into a useless pulp? Will the affects of pulping be gradual for the most part? And also, would it now be possible for bogeymen or any weak animal for that matter to literally punch you to death, reducing your adventurer to a bloodied pulp, without, say, just disabling the lungs?
Does pulping require completely pureeing the offending dead matter, or does, say, causing multiple fractures to a limb put it down for good? Are we talking pumpkin pie or just smashed jack-o-lantern?
How does the hospital handle pulped limbs? Will a pulped hand get amputated?
I don't have specific mechanics planned yet -- it's the sort of thing that'll rapidly change as I muck around and refamiliarize myself with the combat damage details. The bruising/etc. system are sort of like hitpoints, but there are many different types and they also have an area of effect and other rating numbers that mush everything, and I suspect pulping could end up as kind of an amalgam of that data with all of the actually cutting wounds. Once the amalgamated number is "bad enough", it would fall apart. Even if that's a single number, it's quite unlike hitpoints in that it comes from a collection of explicit varied data, all of which can be changed individually and have different effects on the score. I don't have a feel right now for how long pulping will take or how variations in size and material will impact the speed of it. It needs to be fast enough for undead tissue that multiple reraises are less silly.
For hospitals, it won't be clear until I start whether or not pulping will always lead to severs. For a critter like a gabbro man or something, "pulping" would be more crumbly and severful, but a mashed and incomprehensible jumble of meat doesn't necessarily imply a sever for a regular critter. In that case, I'd lean toward amputation, I think. If pulps end up as severs, it won't be any different from a regular one (aside from ruining the part that drops to avoid reanimation).
Will we ever see plants with the ability to move? Either those simalar to magical treants or as mundane as the common tumbleweed?
Knight Otu brought up grimelings, as plant-like creatures, and I'm not sure what the future will hold in terms of blurring the line between units and trees, etc. The new trees are more interesting tile-wise, which'll let us theoretically thing about some strange options. The whole treant question is more complicated now, of course, if they are supposd to be actual moving trees. It's whiffable in a single-tile way. But yeah, I'm not really sure what'll happen.
Say, are we going to see anything like randomly generated trees with bizarre fruits or blossoms? Like random syndrome fruit or miscellaneous items?
The list of randomly generated stuff slowly increases, and random vegetation is on the official list. Syndrome fruit is very common in fairy tales, so it's definitely fair to do, but I don't know if it'll be in the first iteration. It very well could be, since the random vegetation will likely first occur in lands with a heavy theme one way or another.
toady, your devlog from 2013/03/07 makes me believe dodging is now an active(read: player controlled) action instead of something automatic, is this true? can you give us some details on how this will work? are there other mechanics players will have more control over themselves with the next release?
You can choose to commit to an active form of defense, which'll give you a bonus there and reduce your passive chances, or you can take your regular passive rolls. It's not a crucial thing yet, but as actions lead to other actions, it should become interesting over time. Right now, I'm just trying to deal with the consequences of the blowing up of the old system without committing to the whole combat rewrite.
Will the amount of information available in combat be based on our observer level or oter skill, or do we just know everything for now?
Yeah, I just did that part. You can get information like which item/part is coming at you and what the target body part is, and information about timing, the swing type and the character (heavy/precise/wild/etc.) of the attack if you are really good.
Since we will be able to equip friendly NPCs in goblin controlled settlements or elsewhere, would we be able as necromancers to arm our undead minions too (given they are suitable for it, like at least body with legs and at least one arm, or some similar restriction?
I don't recall if your undead get added to your companion list, and I suppose it'll also depend on whether or not the initial equipment interface is conversation driven. If you can't dress a non-talker, you'd be out of luck. I'm not sure how it'll end up.
Will the framework for retired player fortresses have improvements that apply to abandoned/conquered ones as well?
I.E. regarding things like item scattering, NPC location, abandoned pets, etc.
Nope, it's not related.
Toady; once a body is found, and there was a witness, but they also died before they could report it to anyone else, will they still have any way to pin it on the adventurer? Or will eliminating witnesses prevent them from figuring out what happened?
Somewhat related: Will killing livestock or pets count as murder for this current release or will it be a separate crime/ignored until a separate crime can be planned out for it? For that matter, will livestock, or at least those without the CAN_LEARN/CAN_SPEAK tags, count to the game as a "reliable witness" who can report a crime and get a pike shoved through your head, or have you already handled that? Getting ratted out by a cat or somebody's horse would be silly, even if it kinda makes sense with any of the animal people living as pets in an elven site.
They don't have any ways to investigate crimes right now. It's difficult to do, just as real police work can be difficult, but you will be at a disadvantage when they start pinning things on strangers, since you'll mostly be a stranger if you travel at all. Killing all of the witnesses works as long as you prevent them from being off-loaded -- as it stands, if a witness is off-loaded, you are out of luck, even if you find them again shortly thereafter.
I'm hoping most of the stupidity around animal killing will be removed, but it isn't done yet. I'm pretty sure they can't be witnesses.
Say my fortress is the mountainhome, and the king (along with his entire family) suffers an "unfortunate accident." Will the reigning baron of the mountainhome get first dibs on succeeding him? Or will it still take those random schmuck barons into account?
It doesn't understand usurpation and taking control of the apparatuses of power and so on. There isn't any actual mutual war or proper understanding of such things yet, so claims aren't handled in a very natural or intelligent way.
If we depopulate a site as an adventurer, can we still retire in it like the current version? Or will they become like abandoned forts /worldgen ruined sites, and not allow retiring?
I'm not 100% sure, since I haven't finished that section yet. The entity will get scrubbed from the site, but if the last guy passes away one instant and you retire the next, it might not have caught up with you yet. It depends on how expensive the checks are and if I run them during all the special cases, etc. Eventually a dead site would be a dead site and not retire-able. Once you can claim a site with your own adventurer group, you'd be able to retire again, but that's not going in this time.
Is there a reason NPC sites go up to 17x17, and not a (theoretically) playable 16x16?
There are so many issues even with a 16x16 that it wasn't really a consideration. The 16x16 is just an artificial embark screen restriction in any case, with a few coordinate problems which are fixable. If we can figures out playing a 16x16, 17x17 isn't much larger. Doing things like playing human etc. villages is a post 1.0 goal, and so not worth thinking about in any serious way now, given how long this is taking.
This was probably brought up before, but what happens to worlds generated before this release? Will they still be functionable or are all previous worlds now only worth of archiving? (or something like being reseeded...)
The seeds won't generate the same worlds, if I remember. History is certainly different now, in any case. If you're talking about save compatibility, that's definitely not worth the time to support for large releases like this, since it would add months to the time.
As you intend to tie forts into the world by giving in-game purpose to their creation, will you be taking other steps to make starting a fort more interesting? Personally, i always find it the most difficult part to get into, and I'd like to have my initial options expanded in getting to know the area.
The "start scenarios" are sort of all-encompassing as a topic, so I imagine they'll get pretty interesting as they are implemented, even on the first pass. Setting up your relationship with any hill dwarves around or that you brought along would tend to happen early on, for instance. The above ground area itself could afford to be more interesting as well, but we don't have a lot there other than a few dev items about terrain features and interactions with some local critters. The start scenario also determines the nature of your relationship with the larger dwarven civilization, but much of that likely won't come to fruition in the first season, unless it's a really strict scenario about being hunted or something.
What happens to the king when you abandon? Does he go back to the mountainhome?
I haven't changed how those groups are handled, but there are some refugee items remaining on the list that might take care of it, depending on what I get to.
Can world-gen dwarf fortresses, as distinct from other sites, cross 16x16 world tile boundaries? If so, will will such fortresses be playable now?
I don't remember if I addressed it. Maybe not. I've written it down now in any case. The easy way to do it will be to stop them from crossing the boundaries, since I'm still not sure how bad it would be to let player-controlled sites exist in multiple squares. It might not be a problem, but I haven't had time to check and it's not a quick thing to do.
How many boxes of crayons have you guys gone through for making the crayon rewards?
We went through several smaller boxes at first (3 maybe), but we eventually splurged for one of those... I don't remember if it was 128 or 160... a giant spiral thing with three layers. It is still going, though I've lost a few colors. I'm not sure if we'll get a new one, or if we'll just try for replacement crayons for colors like black that tend to go first. We're almost at the decision point.
How will the new multi-level trees interact with bogeymen? Will climbing a tree be a viable means of safety, or can they just teleport up into them? Also if they can, will they appear in trees above you and jump down on you normally?
If it's possible for a creature to be so heavy that it crashes through tree branches, would it be possible for a bogeyman to appear in a tree, and then immediatly fall through?
I don't think the bogeymen ever teleport nearby, but it could just be a vision check, in which case they could pop up on the other end of a trunk if there's something there to support them... I thought it was distance based though. I also don't remember if their placement is elevation-based or walkability-based, in which case they might all be generated on the ground in all cases. If suppose if they show up on rooftops, that would answer that. And of course, Putnam mentioned the fliers, in which case trees aren't so safe.
Whether it's elevation-based or not, there's likely a check for walkability, in which case unusable branches would be off limits. That's all pretty uninteresting right now though -- there are just twigs vs. branches vs. heavy branches, without finely-grained checks.
So with the addition of nonlethal combat in adventure mode, do we have the option of challenging (or better yet, instigating) random jerks to one-on-one fistfights and training our fighting skills thusly?
Jerks don't always fight one-on-one.
With the new but earlier established "Combat Mind" changes and more dynamic decisions on whether to engage or not, will victims of a tantruming dwarf ever decide to fight back, or a good friend or great samaritan could intervene with the assault?
It's not that complicated yet.
Will there be support for ways, preferably in-game, of influencing your retired fortress sometime down the line? Up too and including, once it's properly done, what to do on a war footing or your stance on adventurer's? I'll be honest with you, this stems from a desire to expand the possibilities of succession forts. Passing along a world with your fort rather then vice versa has so many possibilities. I could truly appreciate the evil overlord list.
It's hard to say what'll happen in the future, but if there are things like edicts that you make (formalizing some standing orders, or however), then those'll last after retirement. Laws aren't really formalized in the game at all at this point. Hopefully it'll all be done in some sensible uniform framework later on.
With the new inheritance rules will Baron etc and King be replaced in a fortress if they die?
On a related note, if we get this type of familial inheritance to on-site nobles, will off-site family be suitable candidates? If so, will we be guaranteed their arrival on-site within X migration waves, or a special migration wave?
There will be a replacement, but it won't necessarily be somebody in your fortress at the time -- if it's a family position and the next person in line is off somewhere else, they'd get the nod, but this leads to the off-site problem. I haven't addressed this. I can't guarantee their arrival, since things can be complicated by their other responsibilities. It's the sort of thing that should make the game interesting, but I'm not sure when I'll handle each of the interfering cases.
Are there plans to allow active forts to decide to sever ties with their original mountainhomes, and form more agreements with foreign and their own civs, such as military assistance, joining a civilization, decisions affecting political standing of dwarves and entities, etc?
You can already do this in a basic sense when you refuse the barony. The only reason you don't get attacked is because that sort of civ invasion isn't supported yet. But yeah, eventually we're hoping to give you choices as your fortress becomes a piece of the world that others care about. Your initial status will depend on your start scenario, and that'll probably set up your initial choices as well, but start scenarios aren't meant to force too much. They just let your fortress make some kind of initial sense to everybody, including yourself as the decision maker.
What are martial trances really and why are they unique to dwarves? Is there any canonical reason for them that isn't just that dwarves are the feature of Dwarf Mode?
It has been a long time, but we might have wanted to give lone dwarves caught in an ambush by multiple opponents in fortress mode more of a chance to have a heroic moment. I have no idea now. It's just another quirky thing like the strange moods dwarves get for artifact creation.
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Topic: Future of the Fortress (Read 3836374 times)