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[Rogue Yun]

Hello awesome people of the Dwarf Fortress world.  I am probably not the first to say this is the best game I've ever played (I've been playing it for the past six months), but I will gladly add my voice of appreciation to the throng.  Though I searched for this in the forum and wiki, it might be under something else that I didn't understand. I hope I am not by any means stepping on anyones toes.

During Embark preparation in the "f: Find Desired Location" menu I thought it would be a wonderful idea to have a selection tool so that one could designate a rectangle around the area of the world map that he would like searched. So instead of searching the ocean,frozen tundra, and vast deserts, one may simply designate an area around a mountain chain or forest where dwarves are more likely to prefer to live.

Pros:
I think most people, as they come to love and appreciate Dwarf Fortress, will find it a very useful and valuable tool.
I presume, because of the smaller search area, that those who have slower computers will find they have less of a wait in searching for a place to start their fortress.
It would provide a more Lewis and Clark Explorer hands on feel for the person behind the keyboard.  They would be in control of what is searched and what is not. (A person who chooses to search an entire continent is less likely to complain about it than the person that is forced to search the entire continent)... if that makes much sense.


Cons:
Possibly the programming is such that it wouldn't cut search time at all : (
It would require programming that is beyond me (whether difficult or not, I do not know)
If you already have a fast computer and can do those searches quickly you wouldn't need it or want to use it.
By using it you might easily miss other suitable/superior locations of embark that could be found with a search of the entire map

I hope that my criticisms are helpful, it is hard to find flaws in something as beautiful as Dwarf Fortress but with something as near perfect as this game... why not try to help it weed out those few things that appear to be holding it back. I love this game : )

[CrzyMonkeyNinja]

I need this feature badly. My computer is barely fast enough to play DF at all, so I have actually stopped using the search function during embark because it just takes too long. +1

[Gargomaxthalus]

This would not only help in the way stated bot it would be far more realistic. They could even call it a geological survey, and have it be that you'd only have a set number of surveys that you can send until you just have to wing it. (All such features should be variable of course, so that as people as possible can enjoy "The Development Process That Doesn't End" Dwarf Fortress)

[Rogue Yun]

They could even call it a geological survey, and have it be that you'd only have a set number of surveys that you can send until you just have to wing it.

I like that idea : ) Making it more game and less sand box.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I like this idea, even if I can't think of anything to add.

[Cobbler89]

Don't make it a rectangle... for large areas that would get too many corner areas you'd rather exclude. Maybe allow you to designate any given tile as searched or not searched, and let the designator to set to searched/not-searched be an expandable rectangle so you can designate large areas at once if you want to, but get down to tile-by-tile shaping also.

[assasin]

Making it more game and less sand box

I hope this is supposed to be sarcasm.

[Rogue Yun]

Don't make it a rectangle... for large areas that would get too many corner areas you'd rather exclude. Maybe allow you to designate any given tile as searched or not searched, and let the designator to set to searched/not-searched be an expandable rectangle so you can designate large areas at once if you want to, but get down to tile-by-tile shaping also.

I'm really not sure I follow.

Making it more game and less sand box

I hope this is supposed to be sarcasm.

I did not type that in sarcasim... But I don't mean to offend. I am sorry.

[orodoth]

I like the idea. My pc finds sites decent enough,  but my laptop nearly has an aneurism.  Its led me to conduct most of my "beat the odds" campaigns on the laptop (novice skilled only dwarves embarking in terrifying biomes and such. Quite dwarfy)

[Dwarf Kitty]

A realistic explorer feel would be to limit the survey to X spaces from the home civ's territory.  (Territories flash when you select a dwarfy civ to hail from at the world map.)  Perhaps treat road tiles as easy-pass tiles to extend this survey.  You might also expand this by including any other dwarf civ's knowledge on the map.
 
Alternate method friendly to low-RAM laptops:  Random reveals of desired sites!  The game must systematically check every single tile to see if it has what the player wants.  Why not just make the game check X random tiles, or stop at the first 10 random discoveries of sites that fit the criteria, with option to set number of total checks at one time.  That way, if you want to scan the entire map, you don't have to wait for the game to finish the whole map if it finds something good in the initial pass.
 
The role-play justification would be that you prayed to Armok for directions to a proper site, and he gave you options.  Or you could go bold and dwarfy and tell the game to stop after it found the first one that fits your desires.

[XXSockXX]

Searching only selected areas sounds like a great idea, especially for larger worlds. If you have specific setting for a fort in mind, like a taiga/tundra area, you wouldn't have to process a search for a whole map.