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[hermes]

Maybe climbing invaders could be a post release update?   But it would be nice for dwarves to have some immunity whilst shooting from treetops, at least for a while.   

Unrelated question, anyone know if bandits will attack forts at all?

[Knight Otu]

Thanks, pedrousz. I forgot that one.

Unrelated question, anyone know if bandits will attack forts at all?

Hm, I kind of doubt it's going to happen yet, but I don't recall if its been mentioned.

[hermes]

OK, thanks Knight Otu, and thanks for answering my previous questions too.  (from ages ago but I forgot to acknowledge your replies, sorry!)

[Knight Otu]

No problem.

[nighzmarquls]

In the interest of doing silly things with RAWS what is the criteria that livestock are not given weapons?r

[Putnam]

In the interest of doing silly things with RAWS what is the criteria that livestock are not given weapons?r

Livestock were being given weapons because other creatures were; now they aren't because they're livestock.

[nighzmarquls]

In the interest of doing silly things with RAWS what is the criteria that livestock are not given weapons?r

Livestock were being given weapons because other creatures were; now they aren't because they're livestock.

But what DECIDES they are not livestock?

[Putnam]

Being citizens, I'm guessing.

[MrWillsauce]

When you program Dwarf Fortress, are you more concerned with making the code more comprehensible or with optimizing it? With such a huge game, I would imagine that using optimization techniques such as utilizing bitwise operators would make the game run a lot faster, but then again with the sheer size and complexity of the code it would also probably help to use a more memory intensive but easier to read style.

I hope my question makes sense, I'm not a programmer.

[Putnam]

Comprehensibility, almost surely. C++ compilers are really, really good at optimizing in that way nowadays.

[MrWillsauce]

But with hundreds of thousands of lines of code, I would assume that every little bit (sorry) of optimization would add up to speed the game up considerably.

[AutomataKittay]

But with hundreds of thousands of lines of code, I would assume that every little bit (sorry) of optimization would add up to speed the game up considerably.

Bitwise operation's relatively minor optimization move, and is pretty readable if you use the right constant to represent things. However, it doesn't works for everything. And well, really, algothirm matters far more with modern compilers ( which is very good at optimizing code itself but not the structure ).

Heck, with how much stuff's in the game, better optimization here and there aren't likely to do much, redesign and rewriting would probably do far better, but it'd take a few years just to do at this rate.

[Urist McDepravity]

Climbing invaders would be best thing in the release if we get it. We would finally be forced into putting some thoughts into defense design instead of relying on same old setups that worked back in 40d, and it would make me actually play the game again.

[MrWillsauce]

Bitwise operations were just an example.

[King Mir]

It's simply good programming practice to think about comprehensibility always, and optimize when it's known to matter. Also, often with a little extra work, you can create a clean, comprehensible interface that's as fast as it can be.

I expect most optimization in dwarf fortress is effectively indexing a larger data set. That's not too hard to make comprehensible.