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[jocke the beast]

I read many posts that says DF is un-playable without using DF Hack.
What fixes should one use without beeing a cheater (just a fixer)?
I just wanna play vanilla DF but if I can get rid of bugs using DF Hack, I sure will

[Rose]

That is entirely your own choice, and I disagree about DFHack being needed.

While I do use it myself, I can play just as well without it, I think.

If you read through the DFHack-init.example file, you can see a list of bugfixes that would, in my oppinion, be the least cheaty use of it. Though there are a number of other tools that help greatly.

[Garath]

dfhack is definately needed in some cases. I've had a fort with a small parent civ. 3/4th of migrants were affected with the 'trader bug'. This was before the fix and in the end I just gave up. I had 30 dwarfs after 3 years and virtually no defences (a good early warning system though)

similarly there are fixes for the long patroll issue, partial bones lasting for ever and ever, teleporting things from all around upon deconstruction and more.

To give some examples that are in my opinion cheating, I'd say autodump - except in cases where something gets stuck in a completely unreachable location. Fastdwarf, definately cheating. Stopping loyalty cascades. Adding magma on the desired level instead of having the magma forges all the way down or having to bring magma up somehow... things like that are definately cheating.

People may do so regardless, that is their choice

[slothen]

DF hack can do a lot of things, and those things range the spectrum from blatant modification of the game environment to fixing some minor bugs.  The game is perfectly playable without it.  Dwarf therapist on the other hand... that's kind of a requirement.  It can allow cheating as well but by default it prevents you from doing anything cheat-y.

[Raphite1]

I've never used DFHack or felt like I needed it. If your fortress is suddenly imperiled by a ridiculous bug, there's no reason you couldn't dl it and use the fix.

I tried Therapist a couple of years ago. It was definitely nice, but starting up a separate program got a bit tiresome, and I also hated the feeling of growing dependent on an outside utility. I just use the normal interface now, and it works well enough for my purposes.

[joeclark77]

I use the init file, which fixes a number of bugs.  I also think it's very important to use the "fixmigrant" bug.  This bug seems to happen when a dwarf who was previously a caravan trader arrives as a new migrant.  He'll appear not as a citizen but as a friendly NPC, and seems to hold up the line of migrants who would follow him onto the map.  You center the cursor on him, tab to DFhack, and type "tweak fixmigrant" to resolve the bug.

I would also point out that there's not really any such thing as "cheating" in a sandbox game.  If you have some cool architectural vision for the fort and want to make sure it doesn't overlap with a cavern, there's nothing "cheap" about using the "reveal" command to check where the caverns are, and then "unreveal" to hide the map again.

[Rose]

I tried Therapist a couple of years ago. It was definitely nice, but starting up a separate program got a bit tiresome

Fortunately, DFHack replicates the basic Therapist behavior right into the normal DF interface.

[Mickey Blue]

There is no third party program that is necessary to play or enjoy Dwarf Fotress, myself and countless others here have played the basic game without programs like therapist, dfhack, or even graphics packs.

That said, many of these programs can make the game more playable, make it more approachable, or add more content/features which people enjoy.


To touch on 'cheating' in a single player game for a moment; the goal of this or any game is to have fun, however in a single player game (when nobody else will be impacted by your cheating) cheating can be a means of having that fun.  If 'god mode' is your thing, go for it, no reason not to. 

However, I suspect you are more talking about wanting to use the program without taking away from the challenge of the game (giving yourself infinite adamant, etc).  After all, telling somebody you were able to get all the questions to trivial pursuit correct your first time through is less impressive if you just googled them all.  For that it's really about what you consider to be cheating as, despite the name and perhaps it's original intent, there are many plugins for dfhack that are unrelated to giving you an unfair advantage that the game doesn't intend you to have.

For that it's easy enough to look at the different plugins for dfhack to see what meets your view of 'cheating' and what doesn't.  For example, enabling some basic mouse support, or allowing 'planning mode' (to help set up your fortress without dealing with all the error messages) seems pretty much 'not cheating' to me, as are countless other things that help remove some bugs in the game (such as, moreso in the past than now, removing blood/mud/etc that would lag up the game and couldn't be removed in-game due to bugs).

[Sutremaine]

You could build what you want in the cavern space, though it's kind of a pain in the butt since unlike mining you can't designate it all at once (without DFHack, anyway...). Or, if your vision includes engraving, you could cast obsidian.

Definitely easier to go around it as much as possible though, especially since you can map the embark in-game. You can dig 1x1 shafts near the edge of the map and then send in a rover animal (or military, if the current cavern group is harmless and has recently appeared) to map the caverns, and use channels and stairwells to map the magma sea without constant cancellations. Mapping the magma sea takes as much time as everything else combined though, and the provisions you need to support the dwarves for that long will get scattered around upon reclaim. Maybe you could offer it all to the caravan and abandon as soon as the last pack creature leaves the map?

On a related note, I use DFHack quite often for filling water reactors. I have the buckets, the dwarfpower, and the time, but not the patience to deal with the game's pond zone creation. And while the list of disaster-inviting things in DF is very long, 'bucket brigade' is somewhere near the bottom.

[Starver]

I read many posts that says DF is un-playable without using DF Hack.

Hello, my name is Starver.  I don't use DFHack.

Which is not to say I haven't used it, nor to say that I wouldn't consider using it or that I consider it cheating[1] or anything, but I just never got around to considering it since the revamp (of however long ago it was) from being a collection of command-line tools to the integrated thing that apparently it now is.

Perhaps if/when I come across the "trader who is not a trader" bug (or is that "not a trader, but thinks he is" instead?) then I will go and download myself the new DFHack to solve my situation.  Not happened, so I've not worried about it.

(The following written without reference to what anyone else, or even the DFHack documentation, things.  Thus probably not accurate.)

I think there's probably three levels of Hacks available.   Firstly, there's downright 'cheats', but useful when trying something sandboxy, like the liquids spawning (also, by logical extension, obsidian spawning).  Although even these I would consider to be possible "mistake retractors", for example undigging some bit of rock one really hadn't meant to dig out.

Secondly there's "enablers".  Going beyond what is normally possible but it's really only a short-cut.  There's one to autodump things, I think (mark as dumped, run the macro and everything so marked is teleported to the current quantum storage).  It can be used to cheat (equipment dropped during one battle being teleported within the safety of walls during further hostilities... and can it be used to strip) enemies?  ...someone will know), but clearing detritus quickly without bothering the haulers could be seen as legitimate.   Similarly the Reveal function could be either completely cheaty or just, by some measures, speeding up the inevitable.  It's quite possible that Dwarf Therapist (which I do use) sits well within this ambiguous middle-ground.

Thirdly, there's the bug-squishers.  Much as discussed, but I can't think of any more examples, right now.  I think it'd be your right to use those, for anything you encounter.  (Of course, the definition of irretrievably broken bugs and mere 'inconveniences that you can circumvent or ignore' is open to interpretation.)

Others will go into more detail (or already have done), but I need to reinstall the browsers on this machine, to see if I can sort its performance out and not take half an hour writing however many paragraphs I've just written on this potable version.


[1] Apart from anything else, I'm quite clear that one cannot 'cheat' anyone but oneself when one has the ability to do so many things that make the game easier, or the ability to not do many things that make the game harder, if one follows the local variation of 'The Dark Side' for one's philosophy.  Oh, apart from saying "all my dwarves are going to be wielding only spoons" in the forums but then secretly either enabling a knifedwarf squad or modding the spoon to be "7H3 UL71M47£ K1LLZ W34PUN" even while continuing with the charade.

[smakemupagus]

"cheats, enablers, and bug-squishers" are not a bad paradigm to think about DFHack tools in, although I don't think it captures everything.

I would add:  Fourthly, there's extensions that make cool features in mods work, everything from a shamanistic rain dance, to enchanted swords, to power armor.  ed... Adventure mode crafting, is another great example.

Obviously, "cheating" is a grey line drawn by each player to suit their own tastes.  Personally, I'll use digv, but not reveal.  Just like among vanilla cheaty features I'll use invincible drawbridges, but not corridors lined with cage traps or danger rooms. 

[weenog]

I read many posts that says DF is un-playable without using DF Hack.

It's not.  Some of those posts are hyperbole.  Others are good faith posts from soft players, too young or too sheltered to remember when most popular home video games were straightforward ports of arcade games, actively trying to ruin you because Game Over. Continue?  9... was how they harvested quarters in their original incarnations.

100% pure vanilla DF is certainly playable.  You just need to be the kind of player that doesn't need coddling or hand-holding, and can see bugs and breakdowns as just one more environmental hazard to cope with, and ultimately exploit.

At least you kids get a save feature.  Back in my day... [interminable grumbling/reminiscing about '80s and '90s gaming conditions cut for brevity]

[slothen]

Others are good faith posts from soft players, too young or too sheltered to remember when most popular home video games were straightforward ports of arcade games, actively trying to ruin you because Game Over. Continue?  9... was how they harvested quarters in their original incarnations.

100% pure vanilla DF is certainly playable.  You just need to be the kind of player that doesn't need coddling or hand-holding, and can see bugs and breakdowns as just one more environmental hazard to cope with, and ultimately exploit.

There isn't an emoticon that exists to adequately express the eye-rolling I'm doing right now.  And I don't even use DFhack.

[weenog]

Roll your eyes right off my lawn.  *shakes cane*


I got nothing against dfhack, but calling df unplayable without it says more about the poster than it does about df.

[Victor6]

Pffft. 'Insert coin' is coming back. Think about it;- Cloud saves + Microtransactions + Complete lack of industry morals = Pay to Save. It's only a matter of time.

It'd still beat having to find a blank cassette, jamming the volume right up, and sacrificing a goat to god of read-write errors every time you want to record your progress in bards tale.