Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Darthlawsuit]

So if I understand right the creators of this game haven't had time to build a GUI. (Couldn't they get together a group of programmers from their fanbase to do it?)

I have never played a game without graphics and I figure people have tried to improve the looks of the game before. Is there any useful mods/hacks for this game that makes figuring out what everything is easier?

[FrankMcFuzz]

Lazy Newb Pack.

Now all you need is to learn how to play. Everything else is in here. Since the buttons are always on the side of the screen, it's pretty easy once you get the LNP.

LAZY NEWB PACK IS REQUIRED. Google it, search it, damn it I dunno, just get it.

Then you can use the GUI that comes in that and put on Phoebus or Mayday graphics packs. A dog is a dog. Too good.

You're welcome.

[Sus]

So if I understand right the creators of this game haven't had time to build a GUI. (Couldn't they get together a group of programmers from their fanbase to do it?)

I have never played a game without graphics and I figure people have tried to improve the looks of the game before. Is there any useful mods/hacks for this game that makes figuring out what everything is easier?

... Or, you could grab the Lazy Newb Pack (also contains a ton of helpful utilities) or any of the fan-made tile sets from DFFD. But that's for humans who cannot appreciate the glorious (not-quite-)ASCII.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Dorfs and ‼Fun‼ (and sometimes ‼Dorf‼s as well), BTW

[Astramancer]

There are a few.  Stonesense is a piece of visualization software.

Dwarf Therapist is probably the single most important helper program to get.  It allows you to quickly and easily assign and unassign jobs to your dwarves.  But that's pretty much it for adding to the interface.

DFHack is a collection of hacks, some of which will help to automate some of the more tedious parts of the interface

The workflow hack, for example, lets you set the minimum and maximum number of things your fortress should have for any given thing -- so it will add jobs when you run low, and remove them when you hit your max.  However, once you get used to the manager interface in the game, this looses a lot of it's luster, because it's not really all that hard to get everything you will ever need in any given category by year two or three.  You'll be amazed at how much food you can grow on 12 squares with one grower, especially once you start cooking.

The vein digger hack is probably the best hack out there, from a automate the tedious parts standpoint.  You put your cursor over one tile of a vein, trigger the hack, and the whole vein is designated to be dug out -- even the parts you can't see yet.

But, mostly DFHack is about hacks.  Making lava for your magma forges without having to transport it via insane pumpstacks, cleaning contaminants, making trees grow -- that sort of thing.

-------------

So, there are two things I'm going to point you to:

The Lazy Newbs Pack and the Masterwork Mod.  Both come with bundled launchers that will launch the game and DFHack, dwarf therapist, and a few others.  Masterwork is a great mod still in progress that removes some things (like a million and one stone types that are virtually identical), but adds still more (such as more monsters, more weapons, more traps).  Both allow you to sub in a new font as a 'graphics pack' to make visualizing the game quite a bit easier if you're not already familiar with rogue-likes.  I would recommend Lazy Newbs Pack first, simply because when you run into questions (and you will), the answers will be on the Wiki and when you ask on the forum, most people will know what the heck you're talking about.

Once you can drive a fort into the ground intentionally, then you can start branching into mods, because then you can probably answer most of the questions that pop up yourself.

[dizzyelk]

LAZY NEWB PACK IS REQUIRED. Google it, search it, damn it I dunno, just get it.

Every time I see this I laugh. It might just be because I played many RLs long before I found DF, but I find the tilesets too hard to see what everything is, especially because I like having a lot of my fortress on the screen at one time. Just knowing that, say, a white U is a unicorn, as opposed to whatever that blob that doesn't look like much is, is much easier to me.

[FrankMcFuzz]

LAZY NEWB PACK IS REQUIRED. Google it, search it, damn it I dunno, just get it.

Every time I see this I laugh. It might just be because I played many RLs long before I found DF, but I find the tilesets too hard to see what everything is, especially because I like having a lot of my fortress on the screen at one time. Just knowing that, say, a white U is a unicorn, as opposed to whatever that blob that doesn't look like much is, is much easier to me.

Mayday hurts my eyes, I agree. I find Phoebus sticks a little to the old graphics, what with black backgrounds on all the creatures and some similar colourings. But I prefer to know that a tree is a tree instead of having a to press D then T or alternatively K to figure it out.

I do feel like I'm missing out on the whole '&' joke though.

Also, you can play traditional graphics on the LNP, so it's not just about the graphics. If you want more fort, try zooming out with a mouse wheel, ya sausage.

[FuzzyZergling]

LAZY NEWB PACK IS REQUIRED. Google it, search it, damn it I dunno, just get it.

Every time I see this I laugh. It might just be because I played many RLs long before I found DF, but I find the tilesets too hard to see what everything is, especially because I like having a lot of my fortress on the screen at one time. Just knowing that, say, a white U is a unicorn, as opposed to whatever that blob that doesn't look like much is, is much easier to me.

Yeah!
ASCII users represent!

[beefsupreme]

I personally just use the ASCII. The learning curve is brutal, expect to lose a few fortresses, but it's well worth it. It's a ton of fun once you know what's going on.

[Darthlawsuit]

Thanks I figured there was something out there.

Do I have to re-run the world simulation with this Lazy noob pack? I just finished my 1000 iterations (Should have gone by in a second with my 4 cores <_<;

How long does loading take for you guys? I cannot tell if it crashed or is loading <_<;; (I have a gaming PC too and longest loading game I got is SHogun 2)

[FuzzyZergling]

How long does loading take for you guys? I cannot tell if it crashed or is loading <_<;;

Loading what, exactly?
If you mean initial loading when starting up DF, mine happens pretty much instantly.

[NTJedi]

I just finished my 1000 iterations (Should have gone by in a second with my 4 cores <_<;

The game is not multi-threaded... so anything beyond 2 cores(1 for game and 1 for OS) does little to zero help.

[Darthlawsuit]

How long does loading take for you guys? I cannot tell if it crashed or is loading <_<;;

Loading what, exactly?
If you mean initial loading when starting up DF, mine happens pretty much instantly.

Loading a save game. It never seems to get around to it.

It loaded 60MB and doesn't seem to do much beyond that.

The game is not multi-threaded... so anything beyond 2 cores(1 for game and 1 for OS) does little to zero help.

It wasn't even using a single core to 100% <_<;;

[i2amroy]

World generation tends to juggle a lot of things simultaneously, so some of them may slow the game down even if it isn't using the core fully. I strongly suggest that you not run the world for the full 1000 years, stop it after 200-300 or so (there is a button you can press to stop world gen, then just hit enter to accept the current world), which will give you plenty of history to play around with and will only take 5 minutes or so instead of a few hours.

As for loading a saved game, it depends on the size of your embark area. If you were smart enough to pick a manageable area (I tend to do the default 4x4) then it shouldn't take too long. If you chose something like a 6x6 then it will take much, much longer.

[Darthlawsuit]

World generation tends to juggle a lot of things simultaneously, so some of them may slow the game down even if it isn't using the core fully. I strongly suggest that you not run the world for the full 1000 years, stop it after 200-300 or so (there is a button you can press to stop world gen, then just hit enter to accept the current world), which will give you plenty of history to play around with and will only take 5 minutes or so instead of a few hours.

As for loading a saved game, it depends on the size of your embark area. If you were smart enough to pick a manageable area (I tend to do the default 4x4) then it shouldn't take too long. If you chose something like a 6x6 then it will take much, much longer.

Hum... Not sure what you mean by 4X4 I just put all settings besides things that can kill me on max.

[dizzyelk]

LAZY NEWB PACK IS REQUIRED. Google it, search it, damn it I dunno, just get it.

Every time I see this I laugh. It might just be because I played many RLs long before I found DF, but I find the tilesets too hard to see what everything is, especially because I like having a lot of my fortress on the screen at one time. Just knowing that, say, a white U is a unicorn, as opposed to whatever that blob that doesn't look like much is, is much easier to me.

Mayday hurts my eyes, I agree. I find Phoebus sticks a little to the old graphics, what with black backgrounds on all the creatures and some similar colourings. But I prefer to know that a tree is a tree instead of having a to press D then T or alternatively K to figure it out.

I do feel like I'm missing out on the whole '&' joke though.

Also, you can play traditional graphics on the LNP, so it's not just about the graphics. If you want more fort, try zooming out with a mouse wheel, ya sausage.

I DO zoom out with the mouse wheel, but that's the problem. Once you zoom out far enough, the tilesets are really hard to see, whereas the ASCII is still visible.