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Author Topic: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?  (Read 3642 times)

Stiefel

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Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« on: April 30, 2014, 11:00:53 pm »

I never liked this. It always made looking at individual dwarfs harder and removes incentive to make bigger hallways and meeting halls. What, dwarfs have to carry around their babies all the time? Bah. It's frustrating to have a super decked out squad of axedwarfs with half of them carrying around their spoiled little brats only to have them chopped into pieces by some human swordsman. There should be a nursery zone and a babycare labor just like hospitals and animal training. It also allows armies in siege to put two or three guys in a quantum stack so your archers have a harder time of hitting them. Why hasn't Toady done anything about this?
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Arcvasti

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2014, 11:08:41 pm »

I believe the official statement is "It'll get fixed eventually.". But to work on it, Toady would have to put sizes on things and make multi-tile creatures and such, which is going to be a huge restructuring when it does hapen. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to get at because

It always made looking at individual dwarfs harder

removes incentive to make bigger hallways and meeting halls.

sort of cancel each other out. I think that dwarves carrying babies is going to stay, because that is something that hapens regularly all the time. I DO hope that there is eventually either some way for the military to hand off care of their offspring to dwarves in less dangerous lines of work or some way to give the babies chain mail so they are actually viable shields in combat.
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Stiefel

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2014, 11:34:53 pm »

I believe the official statement is "It'll get fixed eventually.". But to work on it, Toady would have to put sizes on things and make multi-tile creatures and such, which is going to be a huge restructuring when it does hapen. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to get at because

It always made looking at individual dwarfs harder

removes incentive to make bigger hallways and meeting halls.

sort of cancel each other out. I think that dwarves carrying babies is going to stay, because that is something that hapens regularly all the time. I DO hope that there is eventually either some way for the military to hand off care of their offspring to dwarves in less dangerous lines of work or some way to give the babies chain mail so they are actually viable shields in combat.
I don't see how they contradict each other, especially if you have some visual means of identifying an individual dwarf's occupation. And why should it be set in stone that a dwarf should carry her baby around 24/7? Especially military dwarfs who put their whining little turds at risk by bringing them to the forefront of the latest goblin siege.
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Xazo-Tak

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2014, 12:05:12 am »

I think creature sizing will change when the graphics do.
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Untelligent

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2014, 12:24:28 am »

The diameter of one tile is about a beard-decade or two, a beard-decade being the distance a beard grows in ten years (about 5 feet on average).

Some beards grow faster than others.
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smjjames

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #5 on: May 01, 2014, 10:01:06 am »

Well, there is a common quote saying that a tile can hold 100 dragons as long as 99 of them are prone.
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MDFification

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #6 on: May 01, 2014, 10:36:15 am »

Dwarves being able to occupy the same tile does not remove the incentive to create large hallways because collisions are a thing.
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Putnam

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #7 on: May 01, 2014, 01:53:52 pm »

Yeah, dwarves (and all creatures) slow down immensely when lay down, which they always do when there's another standing unit on the tile.

GavJ

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #8 on: May 01, 2014, 02:10:10 pm »

Quote
or some way to give the babies chain mail so they are actually viable shields in combat.
This x100. Clearly the proper solution to the problem.

Also, would YOU send your baby to daycare when they have like a 25% chance of being enslaved by goblins and turned into child soldiers when their nannies are too lame to fight off a copper dagger wielding snatcher? Screw that.
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Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

klefenz

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #9 on: May 01, 2014, 02:53:12 pm »

Quote
or some way to give the babies chain mail so they are actually viable shields in combat.
This x100. Clearly the proper solution to the problem.

Also, would YOU send your baby to daycare when they have like a 25% chance of being enslaved by goblins and turned into child soldiers when their nannies are too lame to fight off a copper dagger wielding snatcher? Screw that.

Just distribute some candy and toys in the daycare

GavJ

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #10 on: May 01, 2014, 04:53:17 pm »

Quote
or some way to give the babies chain mail so they are actually viable shields in combat.
This x100. Clearly the proper solution to the problem.

Also, would YOU send your baby to daycare when they have like a 25% chance of being enslaved by goblins and turned into child soldiers when their nannies are too lame to fight off a copper dagger wielding snatcher? Screw that.

Just distribute some candy and toys in the daycare
Don't snatchers only want children?
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Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

FrankMcFuzz

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #11 on: May 01, 2014, 05:11:35 pm »

It always made looking at individual dwarfs harder and removes incentive to make bigger hallways and meeting halls

Single tile anything is an absolutely terrible idea, OP. Unless it's a trap line for goblins. Then it's a fantastic idea.

And smaller meeting halls lead to gigantic fights, especially between unassigned war dogs and everything else. Plus, it leads to bad thoughts if it's tiny, because it won't have enough room for nice things.

This thread is giving me a bad thought too.
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Henny

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #12 on: May 02, 2014, 07:52:33 am »

Quote
or some way to give the babies chain mail so they are actually viable shields in combat.
This x100. Clearly the proper solution to the problem.

Also, would YOU send your baby to daycare when they have like a 25% chance of being enslaved by goblins and turned into child soldiers when their nannies are too lame to fight off a copper dagger wielding snatcher? Screw that.
How about some guard dogs?
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Sergarr

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #13 on: May 02, 2014, 08:56:59 am »

Use male only militia. Problem solved!  :D
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Verdant_Squire

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Re: Why is it that many dwarfs can occupy the same space?
« Reply #14 on: May 02, 2014, 10:27:59 am »

The current issue with putting a limit on how many creatures can occupy a tile at one time is that it can cause a whole host of pathfinding problems. The way dwarves currently calculate their pathfinding is to just find the fastest route to the destination based on the current obstacles IIRC. If something is blocking the Dwarf's path to his/her destination, he/she just recalculates the entire route, acting as if the obstacle is completely unmovable. Now, this is fine because at the moment anything which blocks movement is impractical/impossible to get rid of. However, if there is a limit on how many Dwarves could fit into a tile, the pathfinder would just try to find a completely different route every time another creature tries to mozzy on through his route, requiring the pathfinder to just completely recalculate the route even if it would take a single step to the side to get around the creature. Without a rewrite of the pathfinding system as a whole, implementing a limit of creatures per tile would result in absurd numbers of lag (from pathfinding constantly having to redo every route when as so much as a baby lamb decides to take a stroll by) and job cancellations.

I totally agree that a limit of creatures/items per tile should be implemented into the game, for many reasons ( Combat more interesting, Hallway and traffic design is more important, easier to look at a fort in general, ect. ), but its not something Toady can just do offhandedly. Such an update would be a fairly major milestone.
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