Thanks to monk12, Manveru Taurënér, eux0r, MrWiggles, Trif, 10ebbor10, Knight Otu, Japa, Parisbre56, Valtam, King Mir, Cruxador, Footkerchief, EmeraldWind, Putnam, Neonivek, Ribs, Eric Blank, Man In Zero G, LordBaal, Jheral and anybody I missed for helping to answer questions this time. As you can see, lots of helpful people, and lots of helpful people means lots of skipped questions -- so if yours wasn't answered, please go and check its general vicinity in this thread and there could be a useful post.
With the new multi-tile trees, will the physics cause the entire tree to fall down on the dwarf due to a missing base, or will the woodcutter cut branches/small bits off at a time? Basically, like cave-ins with removed supports, except it's a tree.
If the tree loses its base in some odd way, then the cave-in mechanics trigger the collapse. The woodcutter does not operate tile by tile, but rather on the tree from where they are standing. I haven't related the cave-in to tree toppling, and I'm not really sure if that's how it should work or not, since the circumstances are already strange when it happens (mostly partial branch drops from fire). Trees can't currently be pruned.
Will companions we lose (and survive) at the very least turn up somewhere predictable, like their hometown, or generate a path for themselves back towards their home? Currently they just turn up in the darndest places, such as a town you'd never visited before. Or not at all.
The code that sent them to a random location is out of play now. I still need to do some sorting of stranded people, but it has the proper information to work with so it should work out -- that's only if you die/retire. If you are still playing, any person that goes out of view becomes an "army" at their location, if they aren't home, and they need to find their way back (which, as I discussed before, they don't exactly have a handle on yet, but they should soon).
Today, will we ever see an artifact for time measure, like the goblets, toys and music instruments we have now? Will different civs carry different calendars with different lengths of the year? Or will it remain as something more abstracted, under the control of no one.
I think clocks and entity-dependent calendars are on the old dev pages. So it's one of those things that's still up for consideration, but time-line-less.
With the new job priorities, will that mean you can give *orders* in adventure mode to your allies?
They aren't closely related, but we're entertaining the idea of still getting a little of that in even before this release. It can mess up your stealthiness if your hangers-on do every little thing with you. After that, I'm not sure.
Toady will we have trees (oasis) at places that are particularly dry but have Aquivers (like the Tree of Ténéré)?
There's nothing like that at this point. We haven't really done much with local variation in any of the land's properties, or rare events like roots reaching down to the water table in your example (after a period of change where the table was close to the surface? we don't really model change either).
Now that there are less-than-lethal forms of combat, will adventurers be given quests along the lines of "Beat the snot out of my annoying neighbor", or "A drunkard is terrorizing the locals, go teach him a lesson"? Perhaps even "Capture the outlaw alive, and return him here so he may be brought to justice"? Also, what different levels of combat are planned for the next release?
edit:
On the topic of non-lethal combat, will there be weapons designed specifically for non-lethal altercations? For example, a sap or blackjack meant to render an opponent unconscious.
The fights between villages are mostly along those lines. I don't have much else to work with at this point, but there'll be some stuff to do. Capturing people and bringing them somewhere is one of the hero role things we didn't quite sort out, so that'll come later.
Saps are on the old dev pages, so the typical line applies there (all for it, no timeline). The trick is getting the combat system to make the proper outcome likely without just flagging it (preferably). It would be cool to make it a consequence of some inclusive mechanic.
How exactly will you re-interpret the various stressers, assuming this won't simple mean changing the values around the current system?
The main thing is to stop calculating happiness directly from thoughts, but to have thoughts give rise to an extra layer of moods and emotions, which have an impact on long-term stress which impacts stability. The personality and value system influence the process at each stage. Hopefully people will behave a little more sensibly, but we haven't gotten a chance to tax dwarves much in-game.
Is there any plans with the old tree code? Perhaps create bushes and larger bamboo, for instance? Would the woodier of bushes and bamboo be able to be harvested for things like charcoal (and in bamboo's case, construction)?
The shrub occupies a weird space now. The trees are large, the grass is carpety, and the shrub is still one tile, even though many of the shrub example species should be multi-tile by any reasonable tile measure. I'm not sure what the future will hold. Probably other tile types and growth patterns, and more interesting vegetation as time goes on, so we can get giant blackberry bushes and bamboo forests, although plants kind of get infinitely complicated in their mixing and growing and the potential annoyances there.
Any raw changes *other* than attacks and trees so far, especially ones that must be accounted for when updating mods?
Here are some things:
Gaits:
Humans, for example, have
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_BIPED_GAITS:900:675:450:225:1900:2900]
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CLIMBING_GAITS:2900:2175:1450:725:3900:5900]
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_SWIMMING_GAITS:2900:2175:1450:725:3900:5900]
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CRAWLING_GAITS:2900:2175:1450:725:3900:5900]
which goes to
[CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_BIPED_GAITS]
GAIT:type:name:full speed:build up time:turning max:start speed:energy use
use NO_BUILD_UP if you jump immediately to full speed
these optional flags go at the end:
LAYERS_SLOW - fat/muscle layers slow the movement (muscle-slowing counter-acted by strength bonus)
STRENGTH - strength attribute can speed/slow movement
AGILITY - agility attribute can speed/slow movement
STEALTH_SLOWS:<n> - n is percentage slowed
it would be interesting to allow quirky attributes (like mental stats), but they aren't supported yet
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:WALK:Sprint:!ARG4:10:3:!ARG2:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:WALK:Run:!ARG3:5:3:!ARG2:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:WALK:Jog:!ARG2:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:WALK:Walk:!ARG1:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:WALK:Stroll:!ARG5:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:WALK:Creep:!ARG6:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CLIMBING_GAITS]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CLIMB:Scramble:!ARG4:10:3:!ARG2:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CLIMB:Faster Climb:!ARG3:5:3:!ARG2:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CLIMB:Fast Climb:!ARG2:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CLIMB:Climb:!ARG1:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CLIMB:Slow Climb:!ARG5:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CLIMB:Creep:!ARG6:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_SWIMMING_GAITS]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:SWIM:Maximum Swim Speed:!ARG4:10:3:!ARG2:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:SWIM:Faster Swim:!ARG3:5:3:!ARG2:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:SWIM:Fast Swim:!ARG2:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:SWIM:Swim:!ARG1:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:SWIM:Slow Swim:!ARG5:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:SWIM:Creeping Swim:!ARG6:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CRAWLING_GAITS]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CRAWL:Scramble:!ARG4:10:3:!ARG2:50:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:50]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CRAWL:Faster Crawl:!ARG3:5:3:!ARG2:10:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:20]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CRAWL:Fast Crawl:!ARG2:NO_BUILD_UP:5:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY:STEALTH_SLOWS:10]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CRAWL:Crawl:!ARG1:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CRAWL:Slow Crawl:!ARG5:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
[CV_NEW_TAG:GAIT:CRAWL:Creep:!ARG6:NO_BUILD_UP:0:LAYERS_SLOW:STRENGTH:AGILITY]
Entity values:
Here are the current dwarves, in their entity (you don't need the zeroes, but I left them to complete the list). They go from 50 to -50.
[VALUE:LAW:30]
[VALUE:LOYALTY:30]
[VALUE:FAMILY:30]
[VALUE:FRIENDSHIP:30]
[VALUE:POWER:0]
[VALUE:TRUTH:30]
[VALUE:CUNNING:0]
[VALUE:ELOQUENCE:0]
[VALUE:FAIRNESS:15]
[VALUE:DECORUM:0]
[VALUE:TRADITION:0]
[VALUE:ARTWORK:30]
[VALUE:COOPERATION:15]
[VALUE:INDEPENDENCE:5]
[VALUE:STOICISM:5]
[VALUE:INTROSPECTION:0]
[VALUE:SELF_CONTROL:0]
[VALUE:TRANQUILITY:0]
[VALUE:HARMONY:0]
[VALUE:MERRIMENT:15]
[VALUE:CRAFTSMANSHIP:50]
[VALUE:MARTIAL_PROWESS:15]
[VALUE:SKILL:30]
[VALUE:HARD_WORK:30]
[VALUE:SACRIFICE:0]
[VALUE:COMPETITION:0]
[VALUE:PERSEVERENCE:5]
[VALUE:LEISURE_TIME:15]
[VALUE:COMMERCE:15]
[VALUE:ROMANCE:0]
[VALUE:NATURE:-15]
[VALUE:PEACE:0]
Personality facet list:
This is still subject to change, though maybe not by all that much now (there are still some archetypes I have trouble constructing with these plus values). They run from 0 to 100 as before, but 0 is often the opposite of the listed phrase rather than just its lack. So a person with CRUELTY 0 is abundantly merciful, even in situations where it might not be prudent.
LOVE_PROPENSITY
HATE_PROPENSITY
ENVY_PROPENSITY
CHEER_PROPENSITY
DEPRESSION_PROPENSITY
ANGER_PROPENSITY
ANXIETY_PROPENSITY
LUST_PROPENSITY
STRESS_VULNERABILITY
GREED
IMMODERATION
VIOLENT
PERSEVERENCE
WASTEFULNESS
DISCORD
FRIENDLINESS
POLITENESS
DISDAIN_ADVICE
BRAVERY
CONFIDENCE
VANITY
AMBITION
GRATITUDE
IMMODESTY
HUMOR
VENGEFUL
PRIDE
CRUELTY
SINGLEMINDED
HOPEFUL
CURIOUS
BASHFUL
PRIVACY
PERFECTIONIST
CLOSEMINDED
TOLERANT
EMOTIONALLY_OBSESSIVE
SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS
ALTRUISM
DUTIFULNESS
THOUGHTLESSNESS
ORDERLINESS
TRUST
GREGARIOUSNESS
ASSERTIVENESS
ACTIVITY_LEVEL
EXCITEMENT_SEEKING
IMAGINATION
ABSTRACT_INCLINED
ART_INCLINED
Do they learn? Also, does locking a dwarf in isolation drive him mad now?
It hasn't changed that much.
Another interesting question is "With these changes, will there be dwarves with ethics and values that deviate greatly from their civ's ethics and values? For instance, a sociopathic dwarf who feel that killing and eating sapient creatures is perfectly fine, or a hippie dwarf that won't kill plants?".
And, if so Will this kind of thing be customizable for adventurers, allowing us to play a character with different limitations imposed by ethics (like being able to butcher kobolds/goblins and using their bones/hides/meat, for instance)?
Can you have dwarf with different ethics than general ethics of his civilisation?
Will adventurers use their race ethics? Like allowing elf adventurers to devour corpses, as they do in world gen.
For dwarves, I've only done it with the values thus far. Ethics'll happen at some point -- I've already specifically set up the framework for having individuals with different ethics, but I haven't set the ranges or chosen the ethics. There are places where it clashes with the interface options, where you'd likely still be restricted by the ethics of the civ. We'll need additional activities that let dwarves express themselves.
In adventure mode, I'm still not sure overall how I want to handle it. The game occasionally tells you when your character won't do things, but that's odd. You could do anything you want without personal penalty, do it but get some sort of broad depressiony minuses if it clashes with how you wanted your character to be (or some other penalty), or just not be allowed to do it. I'd lean toward the first two. The trick is to find the proper penalty. We'd like to unfetter your options but find some proper cost if the game knows how you want to play (the flipside would be "rewards" for playing according to ethics/role/etc.), without it being too game-y.
This is different from someone else in your civ seeing or hearing about you doing it, which would always be looked on through their own ethics and not yours.
You mentioned Dwarven society highly values craftmanship. How moddible is what different civs value? Could I say for example make a fortress race that highly values combat proficiency over crafting skill? Or perhaps number of kills? Or even crazy societies that value high amounts of pets, owned items, number of children, or extremely high or low bodyweights?
You can set all of the values for an entity. The choice of values is going to be limited by what I put in, so some of your examples won't be possible. The list of what I have now is above in the spoiler, though not all of those are going to have clearly related dreams or impacts yet.
The mention of philosophies and religions in the future stemming from cultural values made me think of the philosopher noble from 2-D. Will the philosopher ever be returning to Dwarf Fortress?
The philosopher as a single dwarf called "the philosopher" is likely out. Adding dwarves with a philosophical bent that get into arguments and get followers and sway segments of the population toward one way of thinking or another are something we'd like to do.
I just wanted to reiterated this. We have more of the building blocks in place, and eventually we'll see that sort of thing return to the game with much more backing behind it.
Toady, do you see dwarves/other races as being basically evil ("orginal sin"), basically good, or something else, like moral tabulae rasae or simply basically pragmatists?
Toady, what's your 'design philosophy' of the dwarven character? Where do you see yourself on the scale of Hobbes vs. Rousseau?
I'm trying to avoid all that. If there's a notion of original sin or soul improvement over several lifetimes, I want that to be modeled by the mechanics, and I want it to be adjustable. I still need to systemetize something with objects and rules, and there are going to be biases there and so on, but I'm hoping the system can account for a variety of metaphysical realities (which we'll eventually want to generate with each world gen). I don't need to get too deep into the root causes of things until I'm ready for it. Then certain systems can be given exceptions (as with the individual variation we now have from the base entity values).
Given the way moods work, will the new personality and dreams stuff have any affect on strange moods?
We're still wondering about that. A dwarf's actual talents might still matter, but we don't really have specific mechanisms plotted out for the different moods (it's a very old and game-y mechanic). The fact that there is often a large skill increase probably means that dreams could be used with no skill required.
Might we see some examples of these awful dwarves?
First I had it make 500 dwarves, where it highlighted the odd ones, and I went through them and picked a few winners:
So you can expect those types to show up reasonably rarely, but sometimes they'll be there. But then I took the last fort there and had it shuffle the personalities a few hundred thousand times, leaving the worst one, and found this guy:
You shouldn't have to deal with this unless the game starts baking them up for you for whatever reason.
Is climbing in dwarf mode confirmed for this release, or it ended up not happening?
If and when climbing becomes a thing in dwarf mode, will we see/be able to construct walls that will be harder or easier for things to climb on them? Like being able to order the construction of a block wall that is either full of cracks or very smooth?
Do you plan on having mortar/cement type materials in the future?
Climbing is still unknown -- I think it could still end up happening in combat. Larger, planned climbs won't happen.
Block walls are harder to climb... I'm not sure why you'd intentially carve the blocks and then tell them to make it easier to climb, or if you had something else in mind.
I'm all for whatever sorts of construction came up before the cut-off.
Now that dwarves can have dreams, will they get any particular benefit from achieving that dream? If a dwarf, say, dreams of becoming a Master craftsdwarf, will anything happen when they eventually do become one?
I haven't done it yet, but I'm not sure there'd be anything tangible or particular, aside from a large satisfaction/stress-buffer bonus, depending on their personality. There are probably personality configurations where a dwarf wouldn't get much out of achieving their dream, or might even be harmed by it, but I don't know that that would be common, and the exposition would have to have something about what's going on there to avoid confusion.
I know there has been some thought into making friendships HELPFUL instead of having them fuel tantrum spirals. In fact I believe there is some debate about trying to take tantrums out of the game or lessen their effect on other Dwarfs. Is there any projects/ideas on helpful professions or items or 'rooms' that could help slow down or stop a spiral once it has began? An Order of Warrior Monks to help with grief (and kick butt) or maybe expanding the Hospital, an already existing structure, to deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
We don't have a lot of specific planning. Each cultural institution we throw in should have its typical effects if we do it correctly. Whether that's helping people work through their difficulties or causing them to squabble with and murder each other, I'm not really sure how it'll play out on the average, since it'll depend on the numbers and specific dynamics. I'm not sure when we'll get to that stuff, though the advent of dwarf mode start scenarios which is coming up in the vague sense is related to religious objectives.
How about climbing/clamping onto the underside of floors/cave ceilings for flying and/or clawed creatures such as swallowmen, bats and spiders?
Will this be a 'lowhanging fruit' (
) when climbing is put in, or will the additional pathfinding for climb-capables be a project in itself?
The additional pathfinding is generally a mess, as with fliers in general, though what they hang on to doesn't really impact it. You yourself can already hang down from tree branches in the open air, so that part won't be hard. Just the overall concept of getting them to update their hold directions as they move and considering what's possible in a timely fashion. Climbing is easier than jumping, anyway.
With dreams coming into play, will there be new IS_SECRET_GOAL inclusions?
Not at this time. I'll probably have to merge them at some point, but they are also kinda different.
With the thief role, will it be possible for the people who buy stolen merchandise to be punished as well?
I'm not sure how it'll play out, with fences and all that, and how items get back into circulation. As we add more of that, it'll start to impact the tangential players, and being caught with somebody else's identifiable stuff would not be good. Depending on the turnover rate, the game might have the current holder of the object accused of the theft even after it has passed through several hands. The way the incident/rumor system is shaping up, that is certainly possible. So it could be a joyous mess.
Toady One, you mentioned the elves bringing coconuts and since in RL, coconut milk is made into liquor, will we be seeing new alcohol brews in the next version?
Coconut milks aren't currently related to it -- that sort of thing is complicated. Starting with simple fruit is the easy road we are starting with, and there's an awful lot of new fruit coming next time.
On the forums at http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=131179.45 we've determined that the Dwarf Fortress moon either orbits the planet prograde with a sidereal period of exactly 24 days, or retrograde with a sidereal period of exactly 28 days (one dwarven month), assuming the planet goes around the sun the "normal" way with Earth (travels anti-clockwise around the sun when viewed from the Sun's north pole; we know the planet rotates from West to East already). Which one is it? If the moon orbits the planet retrograde, it means its orbit will decay and eventually crash into the planet. Was this ever a planned apocalypse scenario?
We didn't put much thought into this part of the game, since we assumed the moons and calendar situation would become fluid over time. At that point, I have no idea how much we'll respect we'll have for astronomy vs. making the sun into a fiery chariot that goes underground at night or whatever.
Toady, How do you distinguish between the different movement speeds in the code, especially running vs. jogging? I found http://www.runrunlive.com/the-difference-between-running-and-jogging which suggests that the difference is mostly a mindset, and that the roots of the word "jogging" are in a semi-slang term for walking briskly. I can certainly see room for differentiating speeds further, I'm just curious about how you've gone about it.
It's just numeric speed vs. energy used. Running is a faster word than jogging, so it is used for a faster speed, below sprinting and well above walking. I haven't tried to get complicated on this initial embark.
Toady, what will be the general layout of new sites? Is a dark fortress going to be completely aboveground? Also, will non-necromancer creatures be able to write books? Will adventurers be able to do it?
There's quite a bit of dark fortress sprawl now, in general. Little watch towers, trenches, connected to an underground network of tunnels, and stuff, and other stuff, and there are the troll shearing areas, and so on.
No new features involving books at this point. Ideally, all thems what can write books would.
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Topic: Future of the Fortress (Read 3851075 times)