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[Philotes]

please tell me that there is any way to stop automatic suspending for buildings in small amounts of water.

Is there any file i could edit to increase the amount of water needed before a construction get's suspended (from 2/7 to 5/7 or something like that), a mod that unsuspend buildings automatically after 20 ticks or so, anything like that?

I'm trying to get through a multilevel aquifer with pumps, and i'm throwing a tantrum even before i finished the first layer.
It's a huge waste of time, there is no challange and no fun in unsuspending a wall thousand of times in a row, especially if you do this for your x.th fortress in a week.

I don't really want to mod aquifer out of my game, i like the building challenge and the possibility to use them as a water source, i don't even mind losing my fortress through a stupid mistake, but i hate the intense amount of no-brain micromanagement. 

[Drazinononda]

i'm throwing a tantrum even before i finished the first layer.
It's a huge waste of time, there is no challange

I don't really want to mod aquifer out of my game, i like the building challenge

I think I found your problem: You're lazy.

[Halfling]

This sounds like it will be very cute.

Anyway I'll just leave this here: https://github.com/peterix/dfhack/blob/master/scripts/autounsuspend.rb

[Philotes]

I think I found your problem: You're lazy.

Yes I am. Most creative people are lazy ;P.

If i wanted to smash 2 buttons in a repetitive pattern without the need to think , i could as well play world of warcraft or any other mmo.

This sounds like it will be very cute.

Anyway I'll just leave this here: https://github.com/peterix/dfhack/blob/master/scripts/autounsuspend.rb

Great, thanks.

[pabrams]

i'm throwing a tantrum even before i finished the first layer.
It's a huge waste of time, there is no challange

I don't really want to mod aquifer out of my game, i like the building challenge

I think I found your problem: You're lazy.

How can you conclude he is lazy? I see no signs of laziness.   If you want to unsuspend a wall a thousand times in a row, you are crazy.  A person that doesnt want to do that is not lazy, merely sane.

[Philotes]

How can you conclude he is lazy? I see no signs of laziness.   If you want to unsuspend a wall a thousand times in a row, you are crazy.  A person that doesnt want to do that is not lazy, merely sane.

That's exactly what i think.

But the definitions of sane and insanity have no meaning in the Dwarf fortress forums...

Maybe he's just that kind of dwarf that plays without any utility (not even dwarf therapist), no tileset and build a working calculator in the game powered by cats, being upset about anything that makes dwarf fortress even slightly more user friendly or that minimizes the micromanagement...

[Drazinononda]

He wants the benefits of an aquifer without having to do the work required to get it. It's not insanity, it's just tedium. Is it insane to go through a five-step process to get steel? Or to go through all the complications of the farming industry to get cloth and syrup? How about the thousands of dug tiles, constructed walls, mechanisms, furniture and barrels/pots it takes to run even a modest fort?

Doing boring things repeatedly to gain a long-term benefit is not insanity, unless you consider the entire game to be fundamentally an insanity. Unless you consider life to be insanity. Which I think is an impossible point to argue without simply defining such, "life is insanity."

[Di]

If you get buildings suspended a lot you're not using enough pumps. Also removing ramps before placing walls helps somewhat.
Though the only reason I didn't use this script myself last time is because it kept saying "no such plugin" even though it was present in the ls list of commands.

[Veylon]

Anyway I'll just leave this here: https://github.com/peterix/dfhack/blob/master/scripts/autounsuspend.rb

Hate to ask what is probably a stupid question, but how do you run this script?

I've tried:
autounsuspend
scripts/autounsupend
load autounsuspend
autosuspend enable
script autounsuspend
script scripts/autounsuspend
autounsuspend.rb
script autounsuspend.rb
script scripts/autounsuspend
ruby autounsuspend

I also had this happen with ruby:

Code: [Select]

[DFHack]# reload ruby
[DFHack]# ruby
ruby is not a recognized command

I can see that it's in the script folder. How do I turn it on? All I get is "error loading script".

[Philotes]

Have you tried "autounsuspend start" instead of "start autounsuspend" ?

If it says "not loaded" (after you just typed autounsuspend) that's afaik the response of the script, not the response of DFHack.

He wants the benefits of an aquifer without having to do the work required to get it. It's not insanity, it's just tedium. Is it insane to go through a five-step process to get steel? Or to go through all the complications of the farming industry to get cloth and syrup? How about the thousands of dug tiles, constructed walls, mechanisms, furniture and barrels/pots it takes to run even a modest fort?

There is a huge difference between a complex and challenging game mechanic (like a industry requiring multiple steps) and pressing 2 keys in a repetitive pattern.

I like game challenges that make you need to think (like a complex industry) or that just force you to be careful. But i hate grinding.

If you like games were you have to do the same stuff 10000000 times in a row (for example to farm millions of xp for a level up) - ok, fine. I can't stand that.

If you are proud about doing something repetitive without any challenge at all in a singleplayer game, fine, you aren't lazy, i am. I am fine with this. lol. Have fun pressing 2 buttons in a row for half an hour, must be a really fun way to spent half an hour. (and with fun, i don't mean the dwarf meaning of fun)


I like to use utility that make accessing the game easier, like the interface mods from falconne and dwarf therapist, things that don't change the game mechanic, just the interface or the way you give commands.

However, I don't like to use "exploits" like the quantum stock piles, the Atom Smasher, exploiting the water mechanics (diagonal tiles), wearing multiple shields, forcing your dwarfs to "dont care about anything" (by dropping kitties in the dining room), dwarf reactors, embarking with sand and different meats for free barrels and bags, danger rooms, and many more, the board and the wiki are full with "exploits" and nobody complains...  but if someone doesn't want to give the same order thousand of times in a row or want the game to be a bit more accessible, yeah, THATS a bad thing... How can he even dare to circumvent and abuse the game mechanic in such a way? ... You \/\//-\|\||\|4 |33 1337 guys are funny...

In my opinion using a interface mod so you don't have to give the same command thousand of times isn't half as abusive as using any of the methods mentioned above, but that's just my opinion.

imho, pressing 2 buttons thousand of times in a row shouldn't be an intentional game mechanic in any game, at least not in a management / simulation game. (these genre should be about making good decisions in the long therm and a sane amount of micromanagement. The complete rest of Dwarf fortress is about planing and making decisions, not about grinding to achieve something. That's the reason why i love it so much, cause a lot of modern games are about grinding. I think it's nothing more then a unnecessary timesink for idiots)

He wants the benefits of an aquifer without having to do the work required to get it.

In the first place i don't want to alter the gameplay in a drastic way (removing aquifer is). As unsuspending is a command, it's more of a interface modification (or macro) for me. And yea, i don't wan't to "work" in a game, i want to play it. (as i said, if you have fun pressing two buttons for half an hour, go on and have fun. I find it neither challenging nor entertaining.)

btw. I can't believe that it's a intentional game mechanic to be forced to unsuspend thousand of times, there is no similar mechanic in the whole game.

If you get buildings suspended a lot you're not using enough pumps. Also removing ramps before placing walls helps somewhat.

If you know a good and always working way to get through an aquifer of unknown size (no use of reveal) near the coast, tell me.

I searched the wiki and the 2 silt method was mentioned as the recommended way to achieve this, but it makes use of exactly one pump.

[Veylon]

Have you tried "autounsuspend start" instead of "start autounsuspend" ?

If it says "not loaded" (after you just typed autounsuspend) that's afaik the response of the script, not the response of DFHack.

It gives out a pile of errors referencing autounsuspend.rb and ruby.rb when I try 'autounsuspend start', so I guess the fault must lie there. Since I know nothing of Ruby, I guess I'll just have to wait for someone else to fix it and do without.

[Drazinononda]

Perhaps I misunderstood what you mean by liking the "building challenge" of having an aquifer. The only challenges to it are (a) constantly unsuspending jobs to build/smooth the walls that block off the aquifer and (b) keeping your fort alive in the intervening months. You're "throwing a tantrum," as you put it, about the first one, and the true challenge of the second is what you enjoy about the game.

You said that you "can't believe that it's a intentional game mechanic to be forced to unsuspend thousand of times," and I think you're right. The only reasons the suspension happens in the first time are either to keep your dwarves safe (so they don't keep running out into an oncoming siege or magma river to build the wall) or to prevent spam ("Urist cancels Build Construction: f'ing water everywhere" x10000000). The fact that an impermanent obstruction in an otherwise safe zone causes a permanent suspension is an oversight, and I don't see any reason to avoid correcting the problem in a least-intrusive-available manner just because it's an "exploit." In fact:

I like to use utility that make accessing the game easier, like the interface mods from falconne and dwarf therapist, things that don't change the game mechanic, just the interface or the way you give commands.

Your response to me seemed to indicate that I'm the sort of person who likes to go on WoW and spend an evening collecting 50 Bear Asses to trade in to a generic NPC to get a fancy sword so I can sell it to buy potions to use while I go collect the 75 Demon Clothes for the next quest to get a fancy robe to sell... and so on. But really, that's stupid. I play DF for the same reason you do: it's a thinking game. And I use DFHack for the same reason you (presumably) do: it makes the game less tedious. I personally think the workflow plugin should be integrated into the game, because in a game where the characters are supposed to be somewhat autonomous, they should behave like somewhat-autonomous people. My boss doesn't have to come tell me every day what to do to make sure my department runs smoothly; he tells me something once (or with my memory, sometimes twice) and I maintain that standard. And I don't have to tell my wife to add something to the shopping list every time we're almost out. She sees that we're almost out of milk, and puts milk on the list. And you should be able to tell your dwarves that you want fifty drinks in the pantry at all times and then leave them to maintain that, or to tell your dwarves to build a wall and have them automatically go back to it when a temporary condition that causes them to suspend the job has passed.

So yeah, I'm all in favor of various hacks and modifications to ease interfacing with the game while still playing it in the intent and spirit given to it by the Adams brothers. Toady didn't intend an aquifer to cause repeated suspensions any more than he intended dwarves to stand in the same tile where they're trying to build a wall or tame elephants to starve to death because they can't eat fast enough. Those are coding and design oversights that, assuming he lives forever, he'll eventually fix. Using "exploits" to fix problems in the present that Toady likely won't get around to for years hence is not cheating in any way, and in fact many of them are simply in-game ways to do the same thing that third-party mods do for you. As an example, using an Atom Smasher to clear up all the thousands of single bones, worn clothing, vermin remains, cartilage and nervous fiber that a mature fort can create is sometimes very helpful for increasing FPS to "make accessing the game easier" in a way. Same thing with stuffing a hundred puppies in a cage (rather than pasturing them) in order to cut down on pathfinding calculations, or making your pump stack reservoirs three tiles wide to reduce temperature calculations. On top of that, most of them can be role-played in ways that turn them from exploits into challenges; try disposing of all your junk by digging a "landfill" that you fill in with constructed walls proportionally to the amount of trash you "compact" under a bridge.

I'm just the slightest bit offended in my human sensibilities by your attempts to mock me for purism when my suggestion (paraphrased, "suck it up") was based on your opening statement that you didn't want to use an "exploit" and remove the aquifer because you "like the challenge," while complaining about literally the only 'challenging' thing about an aquifer. On top of that, after stating that you like to use third-party utilities that were neither suggested, condoned or approved by Toady, you referred to intended behaviors such as pressure reducers and atom smashers as "exploits." It seems to me -- note 'seems' as a hypothesis, not an accusation -- that you have decided upon your preferred gaming ethics and procedures and decided also to treat all other methods with derision, without noticing the circumstantial hypocrisies that such a behavior gives rise to, as noted previously.

[Philotes]

Aquifer can become challenging if important ores (like limonite) fall in the layers of an aquifer, which can happen by multiple layers of aquifer, i have that in my current game.

Once you breached through the aquifer you have more room to do something, for example leading water to the caravans or leading water from an aquifer above to one below, use big rooms for drainage etc. So, no need to use one pump for a 2x1 area.

That's a challenge i actually like about aquifer.

I just hate them if they are to deep to use a cave-in (or when they start in the first 2 z level).

Also, some tactics get harder to do if an aquifer starts in the first few z-levels, digging moats for example (you aren't protected against amphibians without some extra effort, kicked in dwarfs or miner could freeze etc...). Or if you want lightened tiles underground to prevent cave adaption, ventilation for your refuse pile etc...

If you have multiple biomes it can also happen that you suddenly locate dump stone were you didn't expected it (different levels of aquifer for different biome, or just a different type of stone), especially if you already planned to use that area, may forcing you to shift a part of your fortress...

As an example, using an Atom Smasher to clear up all the thousands of single bones, worn clothing, vermin remains, cartilage and nervous fiber that a mature fort can create is sometimes very helpful for increasing FPS to "make accessing the game easier" in a way.

That's a use i find ok (cause you don't gain something by doing so, but fps). Using it as a offensive trap or in order to kill undeads is something different. (imo)

I'm just the slightest bit offended in my human sensibilities by your attempts to mock me for purism when my suggestion (paraphrased, "suck it up") was based on your opening statement that you didn't want to use an "exploit" and remove the aquifer because you "like the challenge," while complaining about literally the only 'challenging' thing about an aquifer. On top of that, after stating that you like to use third-party utilities that were neither suggested, condoned or approved by Toady, you referred to intended behaviors such as pressure reducers and atom smashers as "exploits." It seems to me -- note 'seems' as a hypothesis, not an accusation -- that you have decided upon your preferred gaming ethics and procedures and decided also to treat all other methods with derision, without noticing the circumstantial hypocrisies that such a behavior gives rise to, as noted previously.

I read your two first comments as "that's the way it is, changing anything about it isn't dwarfy" and "not unsuspending for xth times is against the intended game mechanic".

Aquifer are not more of a challenge then a freezing or scorching biome, just some things you have to keep in mind it will affect your fort design or first actions after embark, also some additional possibility.

Yes, i notice the hypocrisy .  I just wanted to show that everyone has a different perceptions of whats ok and whats not (as i wrote multiple times - in my opinion) and listed some of the most common strategy's that can be argued and that i dislike. As i said, i read your comment as "that's not the intended way to play df".

your response to me seemed to indicate that I'm the sort of person who likes to go on WoW and spend an evening collecting 50 Bear Asses to trade in to a generic NPC to get a fancy sword so I can sell it to buy potions to use while I go collect the 75 Demon Clothes for the next quest to get a fancy robe to sell... and so on. But really, that's stupid.

When someone defends repetitive game mechanics and says that you have to "work" in a game to achieve something and finally have fun in the game, i automatically assume he likes mmos / rpgs xD...

[Di]

If you know a good and always working way to get through an aquifer of unknown size (no use of reveal) near the coast, tell me.

Well, if you try to breach it further from coast where it doesn't bend down (neighbouring biome probably) it'll be standard shallow aquifer. Also, oceanside often has rocks going through aquifer piercing it there using smoothing is a cakewalk since they don't suspend smoothing often.
As for me, I'm usually using variations of this scheme.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

free image hosting

It takes quite a time to set up but it minimizes the contact of dwarfs and water and you can simply lay it out and forget about it until they're done. You need to take into account that the size of the hole decreases by 2 per each level unless you start building walls one tile away from pump intake like in slit method.

[Drazinononda]

When someone defends repetitive game mechanics and says that you have to "work" in a game to achieve something and finally have fun in the game, i automatically assume he likes mmos / rpgs xD...

I can see where you would get that. I used to play Perfect World with my roommate, but just as a medium for interaction with him. When he moved out I left MMORPGs and haven't looked back since. They just aren't at all fun: if I wanted to do more tedious tasks I would go back to food service and make some money at it to boot.

But I think even though the planning and supervision of a fort in DF is a thought-requiring and highly strategic endeavor, most people would still call the actual execution of it "work." For example, setting up any half-decent minecart route requires a lot of actions that are individually quite boring and thoughtless: designating the track, building stops as needed, setting routes and route stops and linking all the stockpiles which are themselves specialized for what you want to haul where. You may spend ten minutes planning out the whole thing, but then another fifteen or twenty on top of that just do press all the buttons it takes to actually give the build orders.

You're right, though, about the aquifer-induced suspensions being excessive and unnecessary, so I apologize for calling you lazy. I, in fact, avoid embarking on aquifers for exactly that reason. Well, and FPS, but mostly because I'm lazy.

If you're just going for some way to get a shaft sunk through the aquifer without a lot of hassle, why not take the aquifer out (raw modding) and put it back in after the staircase is built? It would get done a lot quicker than using autounsuspend, because your dwarves wouldn't have to suspend and wait for the plugin in the first place.