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[CaptainArchmage]

Trees. Are we going to be able to carve them out as a miner would carve out stone, or would we still be limited to felling them?

Also, what's remaining on the to-do list for this release so far?

[Whatsifsowhatsit]

elves aren't apes

Hmm... they'd be primates, though, right? Seeing as they're humanoid (as are dwarves) and humans are primates? To be fair, I still don't really see elves climbing trees and swinging from branch to branch, so it's not like your post does not still have merit regardless.

The community's ability to add realism is limited by what Toady foresees though. If an option isn't in the raws, it can't be tweaked.

True enough. At least in this instance, though, it appears that option (of having the community pitch in) is available.

[Putnam]

elves aren't apes

I doubt that.

[WillowLuman]

Yeah the trees are fat, but they aren't particularly tall. Toady did talk about 30z or 20z tall trees being possible, but that was before he implemented them. 27z would be like the Grant Tree.

Which has a trunk diameter of about 5m, right? What're the dimensions of a tile meant to be again?

2x2x3, in meters.

General Grant is 8.8 meters wide at the base, not counting the root spread. So that'd be near enough to 4 tiles wide.

Yes, but you have to realize the General Grant, the Grizzled Giant, and other such trees are very exceptional trees. While there are trees that get that wide, they are by no means common. Trees out in plains don't tend to get super wide at the base, they tend to develop very wide-spreading boughs, like acacia trees do. That, or they become shrubs. Trees and other plants generally develop extraordinarily broad trunks if they live in an arid environment, so they can store water better, or if they're really tall, to support the weight. 1x1 seems sufficient for the trunk of most trees, 3x3 is simply immense.

elves aren't apes

I doubt that.

Well, you might say elves didn't evolve in the same way that humans evolved, from animals. In fact, in many fantasy worlds people were just created by gods or something. Elves might evolve from faeries or spirits, who for some reason had incentive to anthropomorphize, and goblins evolve from corrupted elves, as the convention goes. Or perhaps human-imitating spirits -> fae -> goblins -> elves, if you want a twist.

[King Mir]

Yeah the trees are fat, but they aren't particularly tall. Toady did talk about 30z or 20z tall trees being possible, but that was before he implemented them. 27z would be like the Grant Tree.

Which has a trunk diameter of about 5m, right? What're the dimensions of a tile meant to be again?

2x2x3, in meters.

General Grant is 8.8 meters wide at the base, not counting the root spread. So that'd be near enough to 4 tiles wide.

Yes, but you have to realize the General Grant, the Grizzled Giant, and other such trees are very exceptional trees. While there are trees that get that wide, they are by no means common. Trees out in plains don't tend to get super wide at the base, they tend to develop very wide-spreading boughs, like acacia trees do. That, or they become shrubs. Trees and other plants generally develop extraordinarily broad trunks if they live in an arid environment, so they can store water better, or if they're really tall, to support the weight. 1x1 seems sufficient for the trunk of most trees, 3x3 is simply immense.

Yeah, I agree they're too fat. The  General Grant Tree was a bit of a tangent, but I do hope Toady implemented them too.

[King Mir]

The community's ability to add realism is limited by what Toady foresees though. If an option isn't in the raws, it can't be tweaked.

True enough. At least in this instance, though, it appears that option (of having the community pitch in) is available.

We will presumably have some control over how trees grow, but it remains to be seen how versatile the system is. We don't know if trunk thickness can be varied independently of hight.

[WillowLuman]

While I don't think we should be having ultra-thick trees all over, I'd be disappointed if elves don't eventually choose their sites based on the presence of groves of giant sequoias or mountain ash. Say, an elven city with structures and everything built in a giant banyan swamp would be pretty cool...

[Manveru Taurënér]

Trees. Are we going to be able to carve them out as a miner would carve out stone, or would we still be limited to felling them?

Also, what's remaining on the to-do list for this release so far?

It would be quite awesome if we could that to the larger than 3x3 tile trees at least. It wouldn't necessarily hurt the tree either. The xylem or wood in the middle of a tree mostly just provides extra support, which the tree can manage just fine without.

This would actually provide for a very neat and easy solution for the elves to move up and down from whatever treehouses they may have up in the canopies now that I think about it. They could simply either have the tree grow an up/down staircase with openings where necessary (possibly even magical opening and closing of bark to cover the entrance) or even partly carve them out themselves as it's all dead wood which should make it ok to them.

Yes, but you have to realize the General Grant, the Grizzled Giant, and other such trees are very exceptional trees. While there are trees that get that wide, they are by no means common. Trees out in plains don't tend to get super wide at the base, they tend to develop very wide-spreading boughs, like acacia trees do. That, or they become shrubs. Trees and other plants generally develop extraordinarily broad trunks if they live in an arid environment, so they can store water better, or if they're really tall, to support the weight. 1x1 seems sufficient for the trunk of most trees, 3x3 is simply immense.

Actually, at least as far as northern european trees goes (which is what I'm most familiar), growing alone in an open plain promotes growing really wide since there's no shortage of space and it better supports the wide-spreading boughs you mentioned. Oak trees are the prime example of this, but I've personally seen both spruce, linden, pine and even birch grow far wider out in the open than they normally do in a forest (the birch in question was almost a meter wide!). It's actually quite logical, when there's no competition for sunlight there's no reason to grow tall to try and get above the neighboring trees, and resources are instead better allocated spreading as wide as possible. Finding an oak tree more than 2 meters wide in these parts is by no means hard, despite "our" best efforts to get rid of them. Also, a tree the size of General Grant would probably be best represented by 5x5 tiles at least.

One also has to take into account that a tree showing as 3x3 tiles in-game doesn't mean that it's 6x6 meters. It just means that that tree is large enough to reach well into all 9 tiles. And if we want trees that one can fit inside the trunk of (which realistically would work with a 1x1 tile tree) some measure of abstractation is required. I still agree with the general sentiment expressed that trees that wide may be a bit too common going by the initial preview screenshots, but it also depends a lot on which species of tree those were supposed to represent.

Edit: Almost forgot to add, my source for this is 3 years of biology studies specializing in ecology :>

[WillowLuman]

1-2 meters is hardly wide for a tree, and I always assumed that was the length of a tile anyway. Presumably, we could have "hollow" tree tiles that one could get inside through a hole, without having to have solid 1-tile walls around the hollow space. We know that 3x3 is about the size of a smithy, so that puts it about 18-30 feet. 5x5 trees should be reserved for things like that famous mexican cypress.

EDIT: I'm assuming he won't get it straightened out until he gets to multi-tile creatures, though.

[Cruxador]

elves aren't apes

I doubt that.

Well, you might say elves didn't evolve in the same way that humans evolved, from animals. In fact, in many fantasy worlds people were just created by gods or something. Elves might evolve from faeries or spirits, who for some reason had incentive to anthropomorphize, and goblins evolve from corrupted elves, as the convention goes. Or perhaps human-imitating spirits -> fae -> goblins -> elves, if you want a twist.

Toady's goblins are derived from demons or something like that, actually. They came from hell, which is why they don't eat.

While I don't think we should be having ultra-thick trees all over, I'd be disappointed if elves don't eventually choose their sites based on the presence of groves of giant sequoias or mountain ash. Say, an elven city with structures and everything built in a giant banyan swamp would be pretty cool...

Or if elves (whether passively or actively) enable trees to grow extra huge and old. Although the sort of elves normally depicted as living within tree trunks are the sort that are about knee-high to a human. Tolkein-based elves tend to build homes cantilevered off the trunks.

[Rose]

Keep in mind DF elves /are/ smaller than humans.

[Cruxador]

Keep in mind DF elves /are/ smaller than humans.

They're 6/7 the size of a human. Even if they're the same proportion as humans, that makes them only a head shorter.

[Putnam]

Dwarves are the same size.

[Eric Blank]

The DF units are a measure of volume. I like to take it as dwarves are short and rotund, goblins are human-proportioned but smaller as a whole, and elves are very tall and thin.

[MrWillsauce]

The DF units are a measure of volume. I like to take it as dwarves are short and rotund, goblins are human-proportioned but smaller as a whole, and elves are very tall and thin.

I think that's the case, seeing as how the elves insult the dwarves with short jokes.