Thanks to lethosor, Footkerchief, Putnam, Japa, Dirst, therahedwig, Knight Otu, Inarius, Zarathustra30, LordBaal, Naryar, Vattic, MrWiggles, smjjames and anybody I missed for helping to answer questions this time.
Have you switched to c++11/14? How much did it make a coding easier?
I don't know about the 14 one, but if I remember, 11 had the auto keyword, which I thought was very useful. I didn't find anything to do with the other 11 features that I recall, like the lambda stuff.
How do invaders find their way to a fort now, do they have to path over other sites to get to the fort?
They walk over the land on a path avoiding water, but it doesn't concern itself with other sites at this point. Handling the resulting mess is a time-sink of army stuff or other diplomatic permissiony stuff that just wasn't on the table while I was trying to get them to go from A to B. Proper army stuff is still basically not done in almost all ways.
What techniques do you use to help you maintain such a large and sprawling codebase?
I think it's something I just became better at, compared to what I used to be doing. Try to name variables sensibly, comment carefully where you know you'll need it in a year, know why past projects have failed and watch out for those problems, try to keep frameworks general, think about the future, when there are bugs try to prevent similar things from cropping up later, etc. That's all an ideal to aspire to, anyway. I don't have particular tools, though I mess around with my notes in various forms.
have you thought about updating the effects of sobriety?
With the tavern update, will some of the more immoderate dwarves will actually become drunk, with different degrees of drunkenness (I suppose it would be shown in the Wounds screen as Tipsy, Drunk, Dead Drunk, etc., like Stunned and the other status effects), and cause drunken shenanigans all over your fort ?
Yeah, we've thought about it for this release. It'll be a challenge to see if it can work with the constant drinking of the dwarves, or if that makes the game too much like pinball. We'll probably have more to say later.
I've really missed the DFTalk frequency we had a few years ago. Are there any plans to get back to a more regular schedule with those? If not is that more because of scheduling conflicts or a lack of topics to discuss?
I was listening to some of the older DFTalks and was particularly interested in the game vs simulation discussions. What parts of the game do you currently feel are the worst offenders in terms of being way too gamey or way too simulationey? Are there any parts of the game for which you think you got the balance almost spot on?
It's a mix of all that. We had trouble scheduling and we didn't have topics which compounded those problems I think, and now it has been long enough that it's hard to jumpstart it. There was that emergency episode that was cobbled together, and that's the sort of future I see for it at this point.
I never feel like I'm done with anything, so it's hard to give a positive evaluation to any of the balance. The start scenario framework stuff is an injection of simulation into what I think is the gamey relationship of the fort to the parent civ, in part. Artifacts are also gamey and we're addressing that soon too, partially. I'm sure the list goes on and on there. On the other side, the weather simulation was done too early I think -- it could be much better, simulation-wise, but even as it stands, it grinds too much for such a tangential contribution to the game. I might be happy that it is there when I get back to it, but it might also be rooted out when that happens. Weather's kind of the easy target... I'm sure I've gone too deep down other rabbit holes as well. Sometimes the data isn't kept up. I haven't been good with material values or animal differentiation.
As it stands right now we can embark on the opposite side of the world to the rest of our civilization. Presumably this could mean very long travel times when interacting with existing hill and deep dwarves especially when trying to set up armies or come to their aid? It also wouldn't make much sense for hillocks half-way across the world to be under the control of our barony when other dwarf baronies are already much closer. Will we eventually have dwarves founding hillocks in the vicinity of our own fortresses when we embark or as our fortress grows more powerful? If so do you envision this as something we control, perhaps sending some of our own citizens to found a new hillock, or will it be something the parent civilization does in the background? What if our surroundings are unsuitable for hillocks eg terrifying glaciers surrounded by goblin pits? What if our parent civ is dead(-ish)?
Right now, there are no migrants actually traveling to the fortress and the fort has no associated hill/deep dwarves. When we get to the start scenario hill dwarves on the dev page, everything will be local (except the stuff that shouldn't be). I'm not sure exactly what control you're going to have -- it'll likely be a key part of the embark setup that you select. The location and state of the parent civ will matter more than they do now.
What reasons did the necromancers have for attacking their zombies? Is it related to the necro siege I got where all the sieging zombies left immediately?
Nah, it was just the "evil dead are bad" trigger the living get against the undead. There was something that stopped necromancers from having that before, but it was lost somewhere. They always started the fights, and it's a current failing of the system that the undead defend themselves against attackers that aren't normally their targets, so the necromancers generally lost.
Does this mean we will be able to have elves and goblins in our forts soon?
With multi-species forts, will intelligent pets/non-civilized animal-men or whatever (gorlaks!) be eligible for citizenship, or will it only be possible for other already civilized species to become citizens for now?
When a creature signs on to the fortress roster, will you have them keep the ethics and values of their homeland or immediately adopt all of the customs of their adoptive country, or some average inbetween?
Yeah, there'll be various critters. What happens at the fringes I'm not quite sure yet -- we'd like the occasional animal person or gorlak, but certain intelligent critters should be less likely. Since we don't have entities for them yet, and likely won't be time-sinking ourselves into that, there'll probably just be certain exceptions that come to visit. The existing civilized ones are easier, so certainly humans, elves and gobs will be a more normal thing.
If I remember, they'll have their ethics and values from their homeland at first, and any change will have to be programmed in. That doesn't necessarily mean all sorts of options will open up for you workshop-wise or whatever. Everything has to be manually worked on that deviates from your entity definition, so it's a case-by-case large project to make it interesting.
I am curious if standing orders for finished products, especially drinks and foods, will consider the likes and dislikes of the community. I'm also wondering how deep standing orders will percolate through the community, and to what degree standing orders might interact with likes and dislikes of fortress dwarves and potential trader interactions.
The intent of the standing orders is to produce things you need, officially. Having standing orders set up by the dwarves is a different sort of thing. I'd like to explore more dwarf autonomy, in various ways, but that's not what we'll be doing now.
Will there be barfights with the inclusion of taverns and inns? Please say yes.
Putnam mentioned that they are sorta in the game already, partially, but it is a crucial part of a tavern release, yeah. They'll matter more when we get to gambling, but we'll probably play around with it in the first release as well.
Since the next release is going to add in intellectual needs for dwarves, does that mean we can expect some sort of temple zone at some point after the tavern update?
I think this came up in a subsequent dev log, but yeah, we're starting with a simple temple similar to the tavern that'll be able to better satisfy the spiritual needs of dwarves that care. We aren't going full into the details until we get to the related start scenarios, but it'll be something.
What will the stories sound like when spoken?
Anybody's guess at this point -- we have the bad starting point of the legends screen, and we can strive to do better than that.
I feel like this has been asked but will there be books that grant experience to the reader? Or more aquired abilities?
Similar to necromancy
We've got the new knowledge stuff coming in this time, at least on a limited basis, and that's an appropriate use for books. We haven't really fully divided/figured out the split between theoretical and experienced/practical skill, so it's hard to say how something like a "manual on goldsmithing techniques" would work in the game. I'm not sure when we'll get to that sort of thing -- this current version has elevated books like "poetic forms of the dwarven kingdom" as the most likely candidate for inclusion.
If books are used in some way, will they or some kind of writing material be needed in administration, at least from a certain point of time?
Like for the bookkeeper? I imagine, yeah, though I'm not sure when we'll get to that sort of thing. The original conception of dwarf fortress has the adventurer finding diaries and production logs and so on, and that's still floating around as an idea.
How do you intend to mitigate feature creep during starting scenarios? It's beginning to sound like a magical, solve-everything release, which means it will take a very long time to implement.
I don't think I've put it forward that way, and that's not the intention. Certain dev sections, like the caravan arc in the past, did develop a sort of gate-keeper feeling about them, and the start scenario framework comes up that way (many times in this post), but that doesn't mean that a lot needs to be implemented all at once. It just means that a stronger basis for property, status and law enables a lot of different possibilities to be explored properly. I expect we'll be able to divide up the start scenario section into edible chunks and then aim at some interesting additions. The important thing will be to try to make the most extensible framework possible without spending two years on it.
do you have plans on how to implement multi tile creatures graphically? for example, will a bronze collosus be a bunch of Cs in the shape of a collosus, or using existing characters to make different parts look like a foot or a head or whatever?
We've tried some things out, and it seems okay. It wouldn't be a big block of C's or D's, but more likely various symbols with distinguishable limbs and so on (not unlike the trees). There are lots of potential problems with that, and it's hard to get right in 3D for the tall humanoids, but I think it's possible to do something good without burning too much time on it. The snakes and blobs are the easiest, and things like dragons aren't so bad, especially because they can still vaguely pull off a 1 tile corridor even at large-ish sizes (the 16-tile-long-with-tail test dragon wasn't bad even with a 1-tile thick body, just a bit spindly, but not bad). The giants are trickier, though it would be funny to see a couple of O's stomping their way along the ground toward your fort. Overall though, it's something of a stylistic change and not one I'd be entirely happy with. The large trees have kind of forced it, though. The giants and dragons are like little squirrels now, and it would be best to change that, even at the cost of losing some of the imaginative weight of "that green D is very scary".
If you were implementing them now, would furniture like chairs be tools?
We'd probably have almost every crafted object be of the same item type, since there's so much overlap in variables and so many things are multi-use. That might still happen as we go along, but in most cases it's an annoying rewrite, and it has to be done for each crafted item type separately.
With the addition of temples, will religious festivals and observances ever come into play?
He he he, somebody already pointed out the "ever". But yeah, we're hoping to have those, and they're on the dev pages. We thought we were going to start with fairs as the first scheduled community events, but now I'm not sure. The myth stuff we do prior to the first artifact release might clarify it a bit, though it might not.
With temples are we going to have new furniture (such as, altars)? Or will that be covered by existing furniture (like tables)?
It's still under consideration. It depends on how far we want to go into temples before we have the additional information which will be granted by the next two major cycles (world gen artifact myth stuff, and religious start scenario framework stuff).
Will the new temples in fort mode tie into desecration and curses (in the initial release)?
With the addition of temples will the "defile the temple" night-creature creating event now be able to happen in our own fortresses?
He he he.
Can a single temple designation be aligned to more than one deity, or would you need to make overlapping zones?
Right now it is one or all. You'd use multiple zones for some-deities-but-not-all setups at this point.
does this means that the noise mechanics are getting an update? Would taverns be noisy? What about the music? Should we expect some changes regarding sound?
There's potential for that now with what I've done, but it's unclear exactly how that's going to matter meaningfully in dwarf mode, if you mean the disturbance stuff. There's going to be all kind of interaction with music in terms of producing and enjoying it, and it might trouble people with beds adjacent.
Toady, do you intend to leave the temple design up to the player (simple shrine to megaproject) or will the requirements increase as the number of worshipers and/or fort wealth increase?
By the time we get to "requirements" for temples, we'll be in embark scenario territory and the whole idea will be changed. You can make what you want, and the quality will be taken into account when it checks if it satisfies this or that dwarf or attracts these or those. I'm not sure about what specifics there will be. If the place is crowded to the point of dwarves being stuck on the floor, that should be a problem at some point. If the goal is glorification, that'll need to be quantified somehow for the game to understand it, and there might be differing elements based on the object of worship etc.
Is it going to be possible to play as the different animal people in Adventurer mode or Fortress mode? (Such as Cave Swallowmen, etc.) Will these animal people be capable of making their our temples or religious totems?
They still don't have proper sites or moving groups. Something like that is needed for full realization. We're definitely going to do something with them for this time, but I wouldn't expect a broad expansion yet. Playable critters might be premature, though having animal people visiting the fortress starts to inspire such rumblings, and at some point you might find yourself with dozens of playable choices... at which point we'll need a friendlier menu.
all things considered with multi-culture forts comeing in (starting with the tavern arc) it's probably going to be possible to at least get animal pepole in you forts, I think NPC villages and civs can already do so (I see Sasquatch recruits on the surface all the time) but I would love confirmation and details. If someone like a animal man joins or fort will we get access to there tech, like will we be able to make blow Darts?
I think the sasquatch recruits are like the alligator recruits (just a naming mistake for wandering historical monsters), and the animal people in cities are all "outcast" groups living in the sewers etc. This'll be expanding somewhat for this next release, though it'll have to be directed right now toward dwarfy visitor type critters rather than a broad rewrite. The tech question is difficult -- the clothing part of it might be the most pressing issue. Not sure what'll happen yet.
Considering that a lot of religious worship involves music, will the music creation activities in taverns be extended to happen in temples? Or do you see temples more as places for quiet reflection and prayer?
Also, if we have people who worship a megabeast or titan in our fortress, will we be able to create a temple to said creature? If it invades, it could see the temple in its honor and either decide that it is a nice place to stick around, or just that since we worship it, it doesn't need to murder all our citizens.
It's easier to start it the quiet way and then make it the other as appropriate. That said, there could be religious music this time. It's up in the air for now. I certainly don't have a specific way I'm thinking about the temples -- it should be up to the culture and the nature of the object of worship probably, in time.
Yeah, if you have a citizen that worships whatever, it is in the list. This'll matter most if you start to bring in outside people... you'd theoretically be able to set up a temple in your fort to the elven regional spirit if you've invited an elf to join up. Perhaps that should upset traditionalists, or any dwarves of good character.
Can we create our own custom deities through a noble or by using the temple? Will dwarves be able to change religion? Can we enforce punishment on heresy or blasphemy? Will some religions be more violent? Will some religions be more peaceful?
Edit: When I asked the last two questions, I was referring to world generation scenarios. It would suck if all religions seemed the same for each race.
We're not doing too much with it now, but things will be more interesting when we get embark scenarios with religious components. I don't expect all of the religions to be the same at that point. I'm not sure what you mean by custom deities.
When a historical figure becomes a legend by defeating an evil beast,or when they become a important leader,they usually receive engravings,statues and books that concerns their heroic acts.Will such people receive a song in their honor?Maybe even a play about them?
He he he, yeah, we're doing songs and poems, and those have topics. Plays were in the list of things that necromancers were going to write, but I didn't get to it, and it's not currently on the plate for this release.
Does the temples being fully developed suggest a possible use for the gods and more dynamics between the religions? Or when finished just be focused on individual temples and inside fortress dynamics?
and guiltishly doing two
Will religions be fleshed out in terms of how their tenants, outside spheres and the individual gods, work? Such as if they allow multiple god worship, accept new gods to the pantheon, and what they consider to be profane? I guess I don't really need a specific answer I guess what I mean is: Is there going to be more to religions outside the individual gods?
Oddly enough that is what I am really interested in because one of the things I found interested was the religion dynamics within the game. For example some wars or disagreements being made because of the worship of deities often within the same religion (Oddly often with gods of death... which makes sense 'fictional world' wise but not 'world history' wise) and I was just like "Is that god the evil god of this pantheon? or are they just fighting over godly supremacy".
Not for these tavern releases, but we'll be seeing two key pushes for religion with the artifact stuff and then with the start scenario stuff. There'll be a more coherent myth generation first, and then there'll be global religious concerns with the religious embark scenarios. The frameworks that come up there will also answer some of the questions about status and relationships within the religion in ways that can't be addressed now, and the test myth generator we've been working with goes well beyond individual gods.
The current religious disagreements involving gods are sphere-based I think, so it's mostly over some vague conceptual disagreement that sort of amounts to "evil god to my god". I don't recall if there are numeric penalties just from the god being a different god, though they do penalize non-belief. We'll have more information to work with there, though it's anybody's guess what gets focused on first once the frameworks are improved.
In relation to religion ,is any sort mythology generation (god X father of god Y, genealogy tree, relationships between gods like in most mythology or things like this) an idea you are working on, or will gods remain independant from each other ?
We've been toying around with a test generator and have quite a bit lined up now for the world gen artifact releases which will follow the tavern releases. All sorts of new stuff should make it in.
Does the new need system that replaced breaks utilize zoos, statue gardens, and similar ilk at all? Or will those need to wait for their own new zones and associated needs? Have you considered modable zones with modable needs?
The need system, though impoverished in many ways, isn't completely dedicated to the new zones -- a lot of the old stuff will be incorporated. I'm not sure about moddable needs -- like moddable attributes or moddable spheres, there's a point where a concept is basic and modding doesn't make as much sense, but where you can imagine some extension or another (especially as it concerns custom attributes/needs vs. fantasy or specific items or whatever). Right now I don't have any plans, and I'm not sure what people would want.
When dwarves go play music in the taverns or temples, will they just play solo or is there the possibility for them to group up in (whether impromptu spur-of-the-moment or not) bands?
Will (or do) stringed instruments have string that is actually made of, well, string? Whether it's catgut (actually sheepgut, although knowing dwarves, it actually COULD be from cats) or metal string. I'm just wondering this because I find a rock harp to be impossible to play.
Will artifact instruments give really high quality thoughts to other dwarves? I imagine that masterwork quality instruments will give better quality thoughts than fine quality. Though the dwarfs own instrument skill would come into play, after all, a dabbling music player could play an artifact flute badly.
Will they also sing along to the music? You know, like drinking songs, or just folksy songs, or even bard songs.
Groups will be required for some forms of music, and many (most?) of the dances.
String materials are planned. I'm still considering gut -- in the current raws, intestines annoyingly become a meat-with-a-name after butchery, and there's a difficulty in teasing that apart. Gut is possible, wire is almost guaranteed. Silk strings are also likely. I guess animal hair and waxed linen also came up -- I'm not sure about those, or others.
I don't have special plans for artifact instruments -- with the artifact dev arc so close, punting on all such considerations seems prudent.
Yeah, singing. It's going to be tied to the poetic forms as well.
Given that many elements of the tavern arc seem ripe for re-use elsewhere in the game, how much planning and future-proofing do you attempt when adding new features into the game?
For this time, that work was already done pretty much -- the activity system I used for combat training held up through robberies and now seems to be working into tavern/temple stuff. The old parties were not using that framework, and now they're gone. I try to keep the future in mind, but it's only possible up to a point. It is always an important consideration for me, since long-term projects live and die by it. Haven't done a perfect job by any means, of course -- this time for instance, we're still coping with rooms vs. zones vs. buildings as well as the awkward and ancient instrument item type. There's a scheduling/time-sink component that goes into refactoring decisions, and I'm trying not to get bogged down. It's hard to say what the correct overall decision is there, but it'll be confronted somewhere along the line.
Will better musicians/instrument quality reduce breaks or "needs"?
The quality can make people happier, certainly, but I'm not sure they should impact overall length of free time a dwarf wants. There's a positive aspect to needs now that improves skill rolls and so on, so even if the time spent is the same, there's still a benefit to doing a proper job.
Will badly performed music give a negative mood beyond being woken up by it?
He he he, terrible buskers should be arrested in certain places, but we haven't gotten to the crime stuff yet. Yeah, a bad performance will likely matter, though in certain contexts perhaps not, in the same way that skill won't matter at all in certain taverney dances where all are welcome.
Will dwarves eventually have different tastes in music or other arts?
Given the preference lists they already have, I expect that'll be the case, yeah.
With multi-racial forts being worked on, will other races' unique abilities come into play? For example, elves growing wood?
All of the combat abilities come for free, pretty much. The industrial stuff is a bit more difficult, especially the parts that are currently so nebulously defined as elven wood-growing (no associated reactions/interactions etc.). I'm going to look at what I can do, but not overly tax myself at this point with so much already on the plate.
As far as room-groupings such as the mayorial suite, will these be added in with the temples/taverns, or will it wait until a subsequent release?
Will one of the new zones eventually replace the Trade Depot?
We're packed full of enough things for this release I think, so I'm going to wait on setting up the suites, but I've set up the system with that in mind, so hopefully it won't be a nightmare when we get there. When we get to the hill dwarves and the fair/market relationship with them, I imagine the trade depot is on the clock, though I'm not sure what form the new stuff will take technically. It would be cool to have all sorts of people visiting and trading in a more sprawling space.
Are you looking around the world for pub inspiration and drinking culture? Come to think of it, I'm sure there are regional twists beyond what you drink and how much.
I haven't really looked into it, but I saw your thread.
Will there be any leisure activities that consume the fort's supplies?
I can't think of anything special off the top of my head for this time, unless you count the use of instruments and toys -- they might not be so readily trade-able. We were considering gambling nobles getting the fort into trouble on occasion, but we have to be careful about it. Vattic mentioned the old shops, and when the economy rearises we'll see what happens this time.
Could tavern visitors potentially introduce other forms of poetry/music/dance with x chance of it catching on or someone getting inspired by it?
Also, will the tavern visitors occasionally pick up an instrument (assuming you have the one they want) and start playing or do their own singing or poetry? Would be great to see those from cultures besides that of our dwarves culture.
By what process will knowledge of poetic forms be acquired? Will skill affect how quickly a character picks it up?
I'm not sure how the information is going to diffuse right now -- some visitors will bring other forms, but it's unclear at this point in any mode how things are going to spread. I'll have more info later. There'll probably be at least something along those lines in both modes, even if it is half-assed.
Yeah, there will be visitor use of instruments -- I don't know at this point how bards will work, especially when it comes to building-style instruments. Perhaps those aren't so popular with traveling musicians, but I don't really have any idea. Perhaps the existence of building-style instruments in a tavern will attract suitable talent if it exists.
With the new break system, will dwarves make friends/grudges more frequently now?
Will artifact instruments have any unique quality or effect when played?
I'm not sure... they already hang around in meeting halls and so on, so I'm not sure what the particular issue is there.
We haven't done anything magicky yet. They'd just be like a super-quality instrument right now. The real artifact stuff is coming soon enough that we might as well wait for it.
Does the new entertainment stuff apply to adventurers? Will I be able to play as a bard soon?
Yep, next release you should be able to make some sort of living that way, to the extent that means anything. Failure should also be possible. They can't throw you in prison yet, and they don't have apples sitting around to throw at you, but maybe there'll be some way they can express disapproval when you offend them.
Of the poem varieties/styles/forms that you're adding, what's your favorite?
It's all generated, so that isn't really answerable. I thought the Sanskrit configurations you read in all manner of directions were interesting, and I hadn't really thought about tonal poetry before -- it kind of highlights how silly it is to do poetry at all before we know more about the languages (if there are no tones in the language, there shouldn't be poetry that describes their use -- and so on, and so on, but we just have to whiff everything for now).
Do dubious believers have lower spiritual needs (less breaks for prayer or whatever they do)?
How will dwarves fulfil their needs when there's no appropriate zone? Prayer could be done wherever I suppose, but socialising or merrymaking seems like they'd need some sort of organization. Or do they just get increasingly intense bad thoughts?
Yeah, the lower needs for lower belief is already in. If you don't bother helping your dwarves out, they won't operate at their peak. The incidental chats they have might be enough to stave off stress, but there's now, for instance, a positive effect on all skill rolls from satisfying needs well, so having proper taverns and temples will lead to a better place overall.
Does the generator try to generate each style of instrument for each entity, or are there some ways to control the output if we don't want, for example, wind instruments for a given entity?
Each entity can ask for a batch each of keyboard, stringed, wind and percussion instruments (and leave off any of those groups), and you can still feed in the fixed INSTRUMENT tokens. The generated instruments are different for each instance of a given entity.
Now that inns will (I'm assuming) exist in the world, will townspeople in adventure mode stop automatically giving us permission to sleep in their homes whenever we ask?
He he he, maybe not just yet. If the system is robust enough to avoid death, it'll be considered.
Do you think that the current skill system is a bit "gamey"? It is hard to tell how it works, exactly, but, for instance, a Legendary Miner can mine something like 15× faster than an unskilled miner. Is it just a multiplier placed on the time/quality for most jobs? Do you think it is reasonable as it is? What to you envision in its place, if anything?
Certain skill effects like that are gamey, yeah, and they are still scattered around. I think there needs to be more detail in all of the industrial jobs to combat this, but there are problems there with item proliferation and my personal lack of knowledge. I'm not as worried about the addition of skill/knowledge types, since that can be presented cleanly enough, as long as the number of labor settings doesn't increase (or that system gets partially blasted) and there doesn't have to be fussing around with dwarf choice for jobs. We're hoping to get to some changes to labors once we're done with the artifact stuff, but since it's a core part of the game the experiments will be tricky.
How will vampire feedings be handled in relation to taverns and breaks? Will they still be called "On Break"? And I know it might be an intended feature, but I still want to ask, is vampire alcoholism going to be looked into?
When I got rid of breaks, I ran into that, and put a marker in the code that it needs to be dealt with. It won't be "on break", but I'm not sure what it'll say. I'm not sure when we'll look at vampire alcoholism, but it seems to make more sense to me not to have them still suffer ill effects when they can't do anything about it, if that's the current form of the problem.
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Topic: Future of the Fortress (Read 1882654 times)