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[GreatWyrmGold]

The game needs abstraction because real time pace isn't a game. What it does now is two things: first, reduce the amount of natural cycles (hunger, sleep, etc.) in a year; second, reduce the amount of time needed for certain tasks (sleep, eat, stationary labor) in favor of moving around (so the player can look at an active fortress).

This works marvelously for normal economic activity, construction and skirmishes, but really has limitations for sieges and longer battles. Ordering your soldiers to run out the front gates takes days, if not weeks. It's impossible to eg. make tactical use of nightfall, because it lasts only two player time seconds.

A solution I proposed some time ago was to change to crisis mode whenever something dangerous happens. Civilians would get the same number of actions per year, but there would be much more days; soldiers and anyone involved in the danger would get more days. This would effectively put civilians in slow motion, allowing the player to pay attention to the invasion, the soldiers to leave their barracks and do some fighting before a week has passed, and have an overall more interesting combat without making it abusable in an economic way. thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113068.msg3445346#msg3445346

The problem is, how does the game determine when a "crisis" is? Is it when a hostile creature is on the map? That's, like, always. Is it when combat ensues? Then when does it turn off?
I haven't seen a good solution for this.

[darklord92]

As I've finally come around to compiling my thoughts. my though mainly come from me thinking that there is 72 times the wasted potential in a fort year.

if you were to compress this new time down to the28 seconds in a normal df day and imagine being able to do all do the things you would be able to do in 24 minutes while having your dwarfs own timers(such as hunger) scale up with it(if it took 5 real life minutes in old time it will still take 5 real life minutes in new time ).

[GreatWyrmGold]

The problems are two:

1. Most interesting things happen on monthly or seasonal timers. You'd get a dwarven caravan every 72 hours or so of 100 FPS play, rather than every hour.
2. You probably could build Rome in a day. You can easily build a small fortress for a few dwarves within the first year. With 72 times the time, you could build it in 1/72 of the dwarftime, or about four and a half days.

[Silverionmox]

Its common for games to divide up building time and fighting time. Pretty much any turn based strategy game will do this. The Total War series games all take place in hugely sped up time, so that a single turn can be weeks or months of time. However once a battle occurs, it goes straight to real time, where soldiers all move at realistic speeds. Ever play the old siege game, Lords of the Realm? Same idea. A turn was a season, but battle was real time. (Lords of the Realm 3 was made of epic fail and suck, as it had everything in real time, all happening simultaneously. Including battles. Meaning it took a soldier the same amount of time to walk from one castle tower to another in the very same castle as it took an army to march all the way across England.)

I just don't think DF is really suited to splitting up time into building time and battle time. There are many problems with giving soldiers bullet time as if they were in the matrix while keeping civilians slow. But I'll point out one severe problem:

Levers.

Soldiers do not pull levers. Only civilians do. If you are relying on machines for your defense then you're doomed, as soldiers will be zooming around while civilians are frozen, so goblins will be able to walk right in while your lever pullers are stuck in slow motion.

Also in a way, soldiers already can move much faster than civilians. A legendary armor user who is super strong and super agile will be vastly faster than a peasant, allowing the soldier to perform many more jobs in the same amount of time, be it hauling boulders around or chopping goblins. Soldiers tend to have extremely high physical stats due to them doing all kinds of physical jobs involved in combat.

The obvious and simple solution to this conundrum is to make lever-pulling an activity that's allowed for soldiers. (Siege operating was moved from the civilian skills to the military skills too.)

The game needs abstraction because real time pace isn't a game. What it does now is two things: first, reduce the amount of natural cycles (hunger, sleep, etc.) in a year; second, reduce the amount of time needed for certain tasks (sleep, eat, stationary labor) in favor of moving around (so the player can look at an active fortress).

This works marvelously for normal economic activity, construction and skirmishes, but really has limitations for sieges and longer battles. Ordering your soldiers to run out the front gates takes days, if not weeks. It's impossible to eg. make tactical use of nightfall, because it lasts only two player time seconds.

A solution I proposed some time ago was to change to crisis mode whenever something dangerous happens. Civilians would get the same number of actions per year, but there would be much more days; soldiers and anyone involved in the danger would get more days. This would effectively put civilians in slow motion, allowing the player to pay attention to the invasion, the soldiers to leave their barracks and do some fighting before a week has passed, and have an overall more interesting combat without making it abusable in an economic way. thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113068.msg3445346#msg3445346

The problem is, how does the game determine when a "crisis" is? Is it when a hostile creature is on the map? That's, like, always. Is it when combat ensues? Then when does it turn off?
I haven't seen a good solution for this.

It starts whenever dwarves panick in the current setup. It stops when no dwarves are panicked anymore. That takes care of 90% of situations. The remaining 10% can be taken care of by marking stragglers or creatures far below bridges as non-threatening, so dwarves would ignore them (on the inititiative of the player), which would solve another long-standing problem too (the "non-threathening" mark would vanish when one of those creatures managed to actually hit a dwarf).

In addition, floods and cave-ins can also be handled in crisis mode, allowing believable flow speeds of liquids: that will make traps more effective, not less.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The game needs abstraction because real time pace isn't a game. What it does now is two things: first, reduce the amount of natural cycles (hunger, sleep, etc.) in a year; second, reduce the amount of time needed for certain tasks (sleep, eat, stationary labor) in favor of moving around (so the player can look at an active fortress).

This works marvelously for normal economic activity, construction and skirmishes, but really has limitations for sieges and longer battles. Ordering your soldiers to run out the front gates takes days, if not weeks. It's impossible to eg. make tactical use of nightfall, because it lasts only two player time seconds.

A solution I proposed some time ago was to change to crisis mode whenever something dangerous happens. Civilians would get the same number of actions per year, but there would be much more days; soldiers and anyone involved in the danger would get more days. This would effectively put civilians in slow motion, allowing the player to pay attention to the invasion, the soldiers to leave their barracks and do some fighting before a week has passed, and have an overall more interesting combat without making it abusable in an economic way. thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113068.msg3445346#msg3445346

The problem is, how does the game determine when a "crisis" is? Is it when a hostile creature is on the map? That's, like, always. Is it when combat ensues? Then when does it turn off?
I haven't seen a good solution for this.

It starts whenever dwarves panick in the current setup. It stops when no dwarves are panicked anymore. That takes care of 90% of situations. The remaining 10% can be taken care of by marking stragglers or creatures far below bridges as non-threatening, so dwarves would ignore them (on the inititiative of the player), which would solve another long-standing problem too (the "non-threathening" mark would vanish when one of those creatures managed to actually hit a dwarf).

In addition, floods and cave-ins can also be handled in crisis mode, allowing believable flow speeds of liquids: that will make traps more effective, not less.

Both of those come with problems. As does your suggestion that lever-pulling be a soldier's job.

First off, creatures far away or lower down can still hurt creatures if they have a ranged attack of any kind, or if they are a necromancer. Having "combat mode" end when creatures are outside X range would screw things up with bowgoblins,
Second off, below "bridges" isn't a very good reason for a creature not to scare a dwarf.
Badgers would be even more of an annoyance than they are now.
The biggest issue that springs to mind is a non-threatening creature not becoming threatening until it attacks something.
How does DF tell what a "flood" is? It's just flowing water to the game.

Those come to mind instantly. I may type more when I have more time.

[Silverionmox]

First off, creatures far away or lower down can still hurt creatures if they have a ranged attack of any kind, or if they are a necromancer. Having "combat mode" end when creatures are outside X range would screw things up with bowgoblins,
Second off, below "bridges" isn't a very good reason for a creature not to scare a dwarf.
Badgers would be even more of an annoyance than they are now.
The biggest issue that springs to mind is a non-threatening creature not becoming threatening until it attacks something.

As I said, crisis mode would start whenever a dwarf panicks right now. It's just the player that has the option to designate a creature or a zone as non-threatening, if on occasion there's a straggler or a wandering animal somewhere around the fortress that he decides is not dangerous and he can't be bothered to send a squad to dispatch it (creatures down cliffs, a goblin bleeding to death, a room with wild animals,...).

How does DF tell what a "flood" is? It's just flowing water to the game.

It allows a rewrite of the flooding code that makes water actually flood instead of creep like jelly. When that has happened, quantity is a measure for dangerousness. But that's optional.

Those come to mind instantly. I may type more when I have more time.
[/quote]

[GreatWyrmGold]

First off, creatures far away or lower down can still hurt creatures if they have a ranged attack of any kind, or if they are a necromancer. Having "combat mode" end when creatures are outside X range would screw things up with bowgoblins,
Second off, below "bridges" isn't a very good reason for a creature not to scare a dwarf.
Badgers would be even more of an annoyance than they are now.
The biggest issue that springs to mind is a non-threatening creature not becoming threatening until it attacks something.

As I said, crisis mode would start whenever a dwarf panicks right now. It's just the player that has the option to designate a creature or a zone as non-threatening, if on occasion there's a straggler or a wandering animal somewhere around the fortress that he decides is not dangerous and he can't be bothered to send a squad to dispatch it (creatures down cliffs, a goblin bleeding to death, a room with wild animals,...).

And what happens when a "non-threatening" creature escapes?

How does DF tell what a "flood" is? It's just flowing water to the game.

It allows a rewrite of the flooding code that makes water actually flood instead of creep like jelly. When that has happened, quantity is a measure for dangerousness. But that's optional.

Okay. Best-case scenario, the game goes into Crisis Mode whenever water flows somewhere new. Worst-case scenario, waterfalls cause constant Crisis Mode. Yay.

Why would cave-ins cause Crisis Mode to engage? Even IRL, cave-ins are over in seconds.
How about if you're not supposed to know about a combat, like assassinations, thieves dispatching solitary dwarves, vampires, etc? Most of those don't really exist at the moment, but they're all supposed to, and it's short-sighted to hamstring future development.
What about tantrum spirals? Would tantruming dwarves trigger Crisis Mode? Wouldn't this make tantrum spirals worse because they make the game take way longer?

[darklord92]

The fact is toggling between two speeds would be far too drastic. hence why i ony proposed to lengthen the time of a df day and not the actions within it keeping them the current speed they are.

[Manveru Taurënér]

The fact is toggling between two speeds would be far too drastic. hence why i ony proposed to lengthen the time of a df day and not the actions within it keeping them the current speed they are.

Tbh it wouldn't really hurt the game if some of the crafting etc got slowed down a bit, since the travel distance is still the largest factor pretty much, and wouldn't be affected by a change of the calendar time. I'd rather say it'd be a welcome bonus, feels kind of odd when a dwarf can carve a masterwork throne in just a few seconds

[GreatWyrmGold]

The fact is toggling between two speeds would be far too drastic. hence why i ony proposed to lengthen the time of a df day and not the actions within it keeping them the current speed they are.

Tbh it wouldn't really hurt the game if some of the crafting etc got slowed down a bit, since the travel distance is still the largest factor pretty much, and wouldn't be affected by a change of the calendar time. I'd rather say it'd be a welcome bonus, feels kind of odd when a dwarf can carve a masterwork throne in just a few seconds

At 100 FPS, a few seconds is 300-400 frames, and as each frame is about...five minutes?...in fortress mode, those seconds would be hours.

[darklord92]

The fact is toggling between two speeds would be far too drastic. hence why i ony proposed to lengthen the time of a df day and not the actions within it keeping them the current speed they are.

Tbh it wouldn't really hurt the game if some of the crafting etc got slowed down a bit, since the travel distance is still the largest factor pretty much, and wouldn't be affected by a change of the calendar time. I'd rather say it'd be a welcome bonus, feels kind of odd when a dwarf can carve a masterwork throne in just a few seconds

At 100 FPS, a few seconds is 300-400 frames, and as each frame is about...five minutes?...in fortress mode, those seconds would be hours.

from the wiki 1 frame in for mode is 1.2 minutes within the game(so your dwarfs take 1.2 minutes to travel 1 tile) vs adventure modes 1 tile a an ingame second. as dwarfs travel exactly once a frame ( 1000/(100+speed of creature) dwarfs having 900 speed.

[Silverionmox]

First off, creatures far away or lower down can still hurt creatures if they have a ranged attack of any kind, or if they are a necromancer. Having "combat mode" end when creatures are outside X range would screw things up with bowgoblins,
Second off, below "bridges" isn't a very good reason for a creature not to scare a dwarf.
Badgers would be even more of an annoyance than they are now.
The biggest issue that springs to mind is a non-threatening creature not becoming threatening until it attacks something.

As I said, crisis mode would start whenever a dwarf panicks right now. It's just the player that has the option to designate a creature or a zone as non-threatening, if on occasion there's a straggler or a wandering animal somewhere around the fortress that he decides is not dangerous and he can't be bothered to send a squad to dispatch it (creatures down cliffs, a goblin bleeding to death, a room with wild animals,...).

And what happens when a "non-threatening" creature escapes?[/qupte]Nothing, until it actually bites someone. Then the "non-threatening" label is removed. An alternative (or complement) is to define a non-threatening zone, so that creatures leaving the zone would be considered dangerous again.

How does DF tell what a "flood" is? It's just flowing water to the game.

It allows a rewrite of the flooding code that makes water actually flood instead of creep like jelly. When that has happened, quantity is a measure for dangerousness. But that's optional.

Okay. Best-case scenario, the game goes into Crisis Mode whenever water flows somewhere new. Worst-case scenario, waterfalls cause constant Crisis Mode. Yay.

All depends on the water flow code rewrite.

Why would cave-ins cause Crisis Mode to engage? Even IRL, cave-ins are over in seconds.

Agreed, it wouldn't make a difference for cave-ins. It could be useful for fire though.

How about if you're not supposed to know about a combat, like assassinations, thieves dispatching solitary dwarves, vampires, etc?

These actions don't cause alarm because they're sneaky, and therefore wouldn't trigger crisis mode. I'm sure Toady has a framework for actions that he wants to hide from the player anyway.

Most of those don't really exist at the moment, but they're all supposed to, and it's short-sighted to hamstring future development.

One could say that for every single suggestion ever made.

What about tantrum spirals? Would tantruming dwarves trigger Crisis Mode? Wouldn't this make tantrum spirals worse because they make the game take way longer?

It all depends on how it's coded, actually: fistfights aren't generally considered hostile action, and dwarves that show their emotions with their fists aren't marked as site enemy; nor do other dwarves run away from tantruming dwarves (only berserk ones). So apparently it won't trigger.

And if it does, it would actually be better: the tantrum spiral takes just as much playing time, but less game time: it will be over in a day or two on the calendar (for a limited tantrum). So your dwarves can vent, but it doesn't take a whole season of lost productivity.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The fact is toggling between two speeds would be far too drastic. hence why i ony proposed to lengthen the time of a df day and not the actions within it keeping them the current speed they are.

Tbh it wouldn't really hurt the game if some of the crafting etc got slowed down a bit, since the travel distance is still the largest factor pretty much, and wouldn't be affected by a change of the calendar time. I'd rather say it'd be a welcome bonus, feels kind of odd when a dwarf can carve a masterwork throne in just a few seconds

At 100 FPS, a few seconds is 300-400 frames, and as each frame is about...five minutes?...in fortress mode, those seconds would be hours.

from the wiki 1 frame in for mode is 1.2 minutes within the game(so your dwarfs take 1.2 minutes to travel 1 tile) vs adventure modes 1 tile a an ingame second. as dwarfs travel exactly once a frame ( 1000/(100+speed of creature) dwarfs having 900 speed.

Alright, then those few seconds are about 1.2*350=420 minutes, or 7 hours. A completely reasonable amount of time to make a chair in.

First off, creatures far away or lower down can still hurt creatures if they have a ranged attack of any kind, or if they are a necromancer. Having "combat mode" end when creatures are outside X range would screw things up with bowgoblins,
Second off, below "bridges" isn't a very good reason for a creature not to scare a dwarf.
Badgers would be even more of an annoyance than they are now.
The biggest issue that springs to mind is a non-threatening creature not becoming threatening until it attacks something.

As I said, crisis mode would start whenever a dwarf panicks right now. It's just the player that has the option to designate a creature or a zone as non-threatening, if on occasion there's a straggler or a wandering animal somewhere around the fortress that he decides is not dangerous and he can't be bothered to send a squad to dispatch it (creatures down cliffs, a goblin bleeding to death, a room with wild animals,...).

And what happens when a "non-threatening" creature escapes?[/qupte]Nothing, until it actually bites someone. Then the "non-threatening" label is removed. An alternative (or complement) is to define a non-threatening zone, so that creatures leaving the zone would be considered dangerous again.

Oh, so dwarves don't react to a "non-threatening" forgotten beast that just crawled up the well until it attacks? Great.

How does DF tell what a "flood" is? It's just flowing water to the game.

It allows a rewrite of the flooding code that makes water actually flood instead of creep like jelly. When that has happened, quantity is a measure for dangerousness. But that's optional.

Okay. Best-case scenario, the game goes into Crisis Mode whenever water flows somewhere new. Worst-case scenario, waterfalls cause constant Crisis Mode. Yay.

All depends on the water flow code rewrite.

Explain a difference between a flood and a cistern filling.

Why would cave-ins cause Crisis Mode to engage? Even IRL, cave-ins are over in seconds.

Agreed, it wouldn't make a difference for cave-ins. It could be useful for fire though.

Glad you can admit you were wrong.

How about if you're not supposed to know about a combat, like assassinations, thieves dispatching solitary dwarves, vampires, etc?

These actions don't cause alarm because they're sneaky, and therefore wouldn't trigger crisis mode. I'm sure Toady has a framework for actions that he wants to hide from the player anyway.

But they require combat, which would have to be done in non-crisis mode...

Most of those don't really exist at the moment, but they're all supposed to, and it's short-sighted to hamstring future development.

One could say that for every single suggestion ever made.

Hardly so. Few suggestions mesh worse with future developments than with current DF.

What about tantrum spirals? Would tantruming dwarves trigger Crisis Mode? Wouldn't this make tantrum spirals worse because they make the game take way longer?

It all depends on how it's coded, actually: fistfights aren't generally considered hostile action, and dwarves that show their emotions with their fists aren't marked as site enemy; nor do other dwarves run away from tantruming dwarves (only berserk ones). So apparently it won't trigger.

Again, we meet the issue of dangerous creatures being ignored until it's too late.

And if it does, it would actually be better: the tantrum spiral takes just as much playing time, but less game time: it will be over in a day or two on the calendar (for a limited tantrum). So your dwarves can vent, but it doesn't take a whole season of lost productivity.

On the other hand, it also makes corrective methods (like putting up walls between groups and the like) effectively impossible.

[Silverionmox]

Explain a difference between a flood and a cistern filling.

As I said, optional and the definition depends on the required fluids rewrite.

But they require combat, which would have to be done in non-crisis mode...

As I said, it's more or less "when dwarves panic". They don't panic for tantrums.

Hardly so. Few suggestions mesh worse with future developments than with current DF.

A CLAIRVOYANT!

Again, we meet the issue of dangerous creatures being ignored until it's too late.

As I said, it's up to the player to decide whether to apply that mark or zone. Caveat emptor.

On the other hand, it also makes corrective methods (like putting up walls between groups and the like) effectively impossible.

Well, ask the police what they can do keep opposing groups of hooligans out of each other's hair: building a wall between them is not an option. It's a good thing that such gamey solutions become impossible.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Explain a difference between a flood and a cistern filling.

As I said, optional and the definition depends on the required fluids rewrite.

"Optional?"
And no, there isn't any technical difference between filling a cistern and a flood.

But they require combat, which would have to be done in non-crisis mode...

As I said, it's more or less "when dwarves panic". They don't panic for tantrums.

You're not responding to the point I said that for.
I was pointing out that you would need non-Crisis-Mode combat for myriad situations.

Hardly so. Few suggestions mesh worse with future developments than with current DF.

A CLAIRVOYANT!

Don't be so sarcastic.

Again, we meet the issue of dangerous creatures being ignored until it's too late.

As I said, it's up to the player to decide whether to apply that mark or zone. Caveat emptor.

Problem is, precisely zero creatures can be trusted to not figure out a way into your fortress if they're capable of frightening dwarves. If the dwarves don't panic, the combat reports are the player's first sign that something's wrong...

On the other hand, it also makes corrective methods (like putting up walls between groups and the like) effectively impossible.

Well, ask the police what they can do keep opposing groups of hooligans out of each other's hair: building a wall between them is not an option. It's a good thing that such gamey solutions become impossible.

What solutions become possible, then?
Anyways, it's more "keep angry people from ruining others' days" than dealing with hooligans. Walls make sense for that, and have been used to keep the happy happy before. The House of the Spirits has a good example that comes to mind instantly--the people pleased with the current administration were shielded from the others by a big wall to keep them safe from the less-happy masses. Replace the governmental issues with the things that make dwarves tantrum, and you have a DF situation.