Thanks to Urist McGoombaBrother, Paaaad, MrWiggles, Novel Scoops, Knight Otu, Urist Arrhenius, BlackFlyme, Japa, Dirst, Putnam, Heph, blue sam3, and everybody that helped to answer questions this month! If you don't see your question below, it has probably been addressed by one of the people above, generally a post or two after it was asked in the thread.
If I understand you correctly, and this is mostly an issue of not having enough time to type out detailed descriptions, could this sort of thing be outsourced to your loving public? It wouldn't be at all hard for the community to flesh out scientific descriptions, especially of genuine scientific advancements.
I'm not sure what I'll need or how it'll change, so I don't want to set something like that up. When we get to the point where a raw format is more possible, I imagine it might happen on its own.
Is the "greatly respected for heroic acts" line in legends mode a "higher rank" than "legendary hero", and is there a similar sort like "greatly feared as a killer" beyond even "legendary killer" possible?
For some reason, that is actually a lower rank -- I think the convoluted logic at the time was that you had performed heroic acts but weren't yet recognized as a "hero". Getting to noun status is higher than any of the acts-type statements. "Legendary hero" is currently the top setting.
Toady, with visitors now coming to a fort, how important do you feel it is to have the ability to place arbitrary restrictions on which parts of a fort can be accessed? Like guards at the entrance to the royal chambers turning away everyone who isn't a noble without invitation, keeping random sightseers out of your secret defences, jailers granting or rejecting visitation rights, librarians supervising browsing or borrowing, kids being shooed out of taverns by the bouncer or any other thing you could imagine. "Sounds good, no time line" or closer on the horizon than that?
We've had outsiders coming to meetings for a while, and it didn't really come up, even though they could remember the positions of traps to pass on to invading armies. I don't really have a stronger reason to prioritize it now. If visitors could actually cause real trouble, it would matter more. Perhaps it will come up when we have more crime.
I was curious, with the new groups like bands and similar how big of a problem will loyalty cascades be? If my fortress is invaded by someone who is in a band with one of my dwarves, will i have to deal with my dwarf once i have killed off the invaders?
Although it would be difficult to end up in that situation (if the dwarf is still in the band), it would theoretically be considered... ideally we'd like cascades not to occur, but the whole idea of storing multiple entity memberships is to create complex conflicts, so hopefully some interesting stuff will happen as we go. Once we reach critical mass on those sorts of conflicts (which probably won't happen until we get subentities in the fort), we'll probably come up with some better faction formation/handling code, and better ways of showing what's going on to the player as well.
with multicultural forts coming out with knowlage transfer will we be able to gain the tech from other civs?
Like say, if a human moves into the fort with a scourge can we learn to make scourges?
It'll be a while before the knowledge system is linked to any actual stuff, but at that point, the transfer would be pretty straightforward. It might depend on how the linkages are set up for certain of them -- enabling something like a workshop reaction would probably be (almost) automatic, but having traders bring something acquired by a civ would require several auxiliary updates after the transfer for the civ to avoid problems.
How do you envision innovations affecting gameplay, and will it be used as an excuse to move some things out into the raws? I'm imaging several substitute reactions like INEFFICIENT_UNRELIABLE_STEELMAKING, INEFFICIENT_RELIABLE_STEELMAKING and EFFICIENT_RELIABLE_STEELMAKING, but there are others that don't map so well into current raws like using math innovations to unlock siege engines.
The ones we have now would most often just be a can-you-or-can't-you toggle for various jobs (reaction or otherwise) or items etc. But yeah, as we come to have a better chemistry system it could get really interesting. This aspiration is complicated by our profound ignorance.
How is the naming of innovations going to happen? For example with the Pythagorean Theorem, virtually everyone nowadays knows it as the Pythagorean theorem, yet it someone else had come up with it, it would be called something totally different? Is the game going to use the common, modern names so they are easy to look up for the players, or are the names of the innovations going to be more randomly generated or named after their inventors?
Yeah, I'm trying to stick with our efforts to leave Earth proper names out of the game. It gives descriptions of the innovations that should help people to look them up, though sometimes that is very clumsy as we try to dodge all the names they rely on. We're hoping to give the named ones names of their discoverers, yeah, though I don't think I did that yet, if I remember.
Once we have maps, I suppose it will be possible for them to get out of date as the lay of the land changes?
That's a hope -- not just maps that were formerly accurate, but maps that were never accurate in the first place. I wonder how that's going to turn out bug-report-wise though... In any case, we first vaguely played around with this in those 10-year legends mode snapshots, and various refinements in the amount and type of data stored should be possible. I'm not sure when we'll actually get to maps, but having them referred to as an innovation is another source of development pressure in that direction anyway.
You mention that maps might be a thing that could happen with this update ... does this mean that we can expect an Adventurer's omniscient knowledge of the landscape will disappear soon, and we will have to rely on various maps or road signs to understand where we are going? Will these maps be subject to various degrees of inaccuracy, with some areas artificially inflating or shrinking depending on lack of knowledge or even cultural bias? Could these include landmasses that don't exist in the world or could they even be missing landmasses that haven't been discovered yet?
I don't think displayed maps will happen this update -- they are referred to in the knowledge system, and cartographers might write interesting books said to have maps, but seeing maps will be a bit too far afield now, time-wise, but yeah, as for the inaccuracies the above response applies, and we're hoping for it as we move along.
1) Do you plan on having the number of philosophers/schools of thought vary depending on societal phenomena? IE, can we expect to see things like an influx of philosophers during prolonged periods of war, sort of like the Axial age?
2) Someone mentioned Alexandria earlier. Which made me think of an article I read that talked about how most of Alexandria's knowledge was lost before it was burnt down. As such, are we going to eventually see certain historical figures implementing policies that erode the knowledge base? IE, such as cutting funding to maintaining libraries (and their books) and possibly even cutting academics. I'd also ask about (ideological) cronyism but that is probably so far down the road it isn't even worth asking about at this point.
Additionally, how are books going to be impacted by wear in fort mode? Is there going to be to a book maintenance labor, or, le gasp, a new sort of noble dealing exclusively with books and book maintenance?
3) There was also mention of forts within cities in the last set of questions, which makes me wonder will we (eventually) see boulevard sort of phenomena? IE, civ leaders demanding that large sections of walls be torn down and remain so for some cities/forts within cities? Or that a certain tile path always remain open to the 'heart' of a fort in fortress mode?
In a more generalized sense relating to [3] do you plan to have characters that can force or otherwise threaten the player to do things, such as the above example? If so, what is the extent of it? We already have the "export the wrong thing/don't meet a mandate and a random dwarf dies" consequence, would we see similar consequences for missing a mandated road or such?
1) I don't have particular plans along those lines. It won't happen unless I have a clear handle on the influences in question, since I wouldn't know how to model it.
2) Yeah, I'm hoping to plant the seeds for this sort of thing with the upcoming frameworks for start scenarios. We want civilizations that have their own character, and then we want differing individuals and groups in those civilizations to be able to interact with those systems as well, so that we have various forces of internal change. Each of the mechanics we put in place will accomplish something, and we'd need three or four different mechanics for the Alexandria example you gave to pop up naturally (we don't even have mechanics for natural decay at all, except perhaps for the w.g. resource stockpiles). Hopefully interesting things will start to happen from the beginning of the big framework addition, since the ethics/law/property settings on societies will be able to shift, sometimes drastically.
3) I haven't thought about boulevards or eminent domain stuff, but it raises interesting questions about just how far personal mandates can go vs. the official will of the fortress (the player) in fortress mode internally, and externally, what other sorts of things the monarch might request. We'll see some of it with the first structured embark scenarios, and it should grow from there as we get to armies and trade/economics (the two major things we always seem to never quite get to fully). If you have a tight link with your civilization, I expect you could end up with some taxing requests, but hopefully we'll also get to positive aspects of the relationship. Eventually we're hoping to have intelligent megabeasts and other critters do the same thing. Overall, a fortress mode game with a lot of decisions that need to be made should be entertaining, with the option to be kind of farflung or otherwise left alone if you prefer that sort of game. It's easy enough to allow both sorts.
If I understand, books will provide experience for a skill, when a dwarf is reading it (in the far, future version).
1) Will you lower the experience gaining of the current "Find out yourself" method of training for the balance? Will it take more time to train a legendary X without books in the future?
2)Are you planning to introduce other training helping methods, like the master-pretence relationship?
3)What are your plans about diseases?
Books won't necessarily provide experience for a skill, but yeah, there should eventually be book that function that way, though I'm not sure how much you'll be able to increase certain skills with books. For the elements of skill that we don't turn into knowledge, books might still apply, but perhaps the skill gain won't be direct, but potential or something, once you actually get to work. As for "find out yourself", we were thinking that when we get there, the knowledge system will actually make the situation much more drastic -- certain jobs won't even be possible (you'd essentially be "researching" the knowledge), and for those that a dwarf without skill or knowledge can attempt (because its a well-known part of their civ), there would be negative quality classes and very slow if any skill increases depending on the example. So they'd get a completely crude shoddy crap chair that breaks, over and over... like me trying to make a chair. I know chairs exist and could attempt the job, but my first attempt would be in the -4 range... it might even hurt the dwarf that tried to sit on it. We should add splinters.
But yeah, you could be fine without books if you had a master, and we're definitely planning on having those and even larger guild-type structures in force mode.
Both natural and supernatural diseases are all in the notes, and we'll just add in different sorts as we go. The existing syndrome effects in the raws should be a great help. The "random" nature of natural diseases could be quite annoying in the game, but if it fits into the larger happenings of the world and there's some exposition, it's probably fine to just wipe out 60% of a fort once in a while, he he he -- or give you the choice to turn away all migrants before it happens, perhaps, sometimes. We try to keep the player's enjoyment in mind, so hopefully it can be added with reasonable care.
I saw that you are working on history books, and I was wondering whether the books you are talking about are just book titles like "This is a comparative biography of those three mayors, in such and such a style," or whether there will be books that record some of the significant events or citizens of our fortress that took place during fortress mode. I always loved the little stories that you get when you engrave a slab, but sometimes you have a dwarf that you really followed closely and when they die you would love to have some kind of recording of who they were and what they did in a more comprehensive way. As it stands, once they die you can't read about their preferences and friends and relationships while still in Fortress Mode as far as I can tell, so they become slightly lost. Also it would be amazing to have a little access to some of that history that we get in legends mode, but written from a citizen's point of view while still in fortress mode!
He he he, there'll be events, though, like engravings of cheese, I'm not sure "significant" will always apply.
Given the master-apprentice model being introduced, will such pairs emerge in the fortress mode eventually?
Yeah, we're hoping that becomes a mainstay of fortress life in time, along with bringing the guilds back.
Will certain nightcreatures, Vampires come to mind, be able to become students and teachers? Also will people actively search for new teachers to broaden their horizon once they learned everything from the old one? Would be nice to see wandering scholars. And finally will animals be part of the troupe? I don't remember if it came up earlier but it would nice to see trained animals, it could work similar to dances with some generated performances and some basic tricks.
I think vampires take part in normal w.g. life, unless I'm missing something -- the suspicions of people will screw up their site ties sometimes now, but I think their students might even follow them out of town if they flee. There could also be issues with vampire students returning to places where they are not welcome, though I'm not sure what'll happen. Students will sometimes leave teachers, for reasons or just to wander, but they don't really have a learned-everything check at this point. I haven't done anything with animals.
Toady I don't want to spoil the hunt for anything in the current version, but do you have any favorite Easter eggs that you left in prior versions of DF or other Bay12 games?
I don't know that there are any unfound ones left... there have been less of them over time, since the early ones tend to get written out as systems get generalized, and it's sort of sad to see them go.
Toady, what you said about my one response makes sense, but I was talking about pre-worldgen ruines, and was not clear bout that.
I had meant that there could be pre-worldgen ruins, (like how there are caves or temples or labrynths and such that re pre-worldgen) that have "modern" things in the sense of how they existed to ancient people in the form of novelties since slaves where easier at that time than steam power.
Plus, you said you wanted a generic fantasy world generator, and hints of an ancient precursor race is very cliche in fantasy.
We've included some of these in the myth generator, and we're hoping that everything will be explained and that you'll be able to find and interact with some very old things. The flipside is that it's tricky to determine when "year 1" should be, in terms of running the situation in more detail with more actors and spatial information. We're just going to toy around with it in the artifact release.
Is there any intent to handle the issue of literacy down the road? Within the scope of this update it sounds like everyone will be able to read everything, which makes sense. Throughout history, it was common for largely illiterate groups of people to congregate in taverns (or the like) and have one literate person read a piece aloud. If a significant number of a fortress couldn't read well enough to get a happy thought from a book of poetry, a single literate dwarf could read the poem to his/her peers even if no one is an actual poet, and then everyone would be happier.
I think this would tie in nicely to the "do dwarfs read in their downtime" question, even if all dwarfs remained perfectly literate.This might not make as much sense for "knowledge" books, since people don't typically pick up "Siege engineering for dummies" in their spare time, but it might be a middle-ground between a common "one dwarf reading one book alone" occurrence and a relatively rare "giant festival" event. Similar to small groups of dwarfs dancing in their free time outside of the festival events?
Also, I know that language isn't really an explicit thing right now, and you mentioned getting books translated. Would you ever consider having different languages influence each other and change? Historically, languages like English have been notorious for stealing words from neighbors, and also developing into a massive number of different local dialects (much in the way cultural values flow between different populations). Is this a topic you would ever want to approach?
Yeah, differentiating abilities to speak and read/write in each language is the eventual goal.
We have a little list of dev goals concerning information about languages, and I've had an interest in linguistics for quite a while, so I'm hoping to get a lot in there. Once we have more information, various forms of language change will be on the table, though there are some concerns with exactly how to store them if there are lots of individual changes over time (and then store which speakers use which dialect).
So I am going to make an assumption that later on there will be events, disasters, curses, creatures, what have you that will just flat out wipe civilizations off the face of the map where only their ruins still exist.
Because these happen in game, do you plan to make the players immune to such events, give them a fighting change, forewarn them that making a fortress in such a situation would be bad, or just allow them to fall to the civ wide death curse, or do you have something else in mind? Or is there just never going to be these sort of cataclysmic events?
Will you ever do something with the population so it feels less like the population limit is hit within the first 100 years and the world just constantly reincarnates the same 20,000 souls over and over again? Or is that just an ingrained issue?
As I stated above with plagues, I think my overall inclination is to go ahead with horrible random disasters, but to lean toward giving the player reasonable warnings that allow them to make decisions (like the turning away of migrants) which might be painful but could help. There are certain things like earthquakes which don't really have something like that, and I think it might be too much just to totally destroy a fort like the old demon timer from 2D (where you didn't even see a demon and it just ended the game, pending an adventure mode run). Rarely wiping out half of the dwarves in a quake on the other hand... I can kind of get on board. Sim City made it entertaining enough when a city-wide disaster struck, and we can probably manage -- especially if the effects of the disaster reverberate outward in a way that can be enjoyed for as long as you're playing the world, rather than just forcing you to rebuild and continue locally. I'd definitely understand turning that off though, for people that are just interested in working on fort-centered projects and so on.
The non-historical entity populations (you can see them in one of the text exports) were there to allow the population to increase beyond the historical figure cap, though that also tops out when you hit the site cap (at some hundreds of thousands). There's nothing much that can be done about it. Even if we overcome the memory issue (by successfully getting to 64 bits, say), there will still be FPS issues that stop it all the same. As long as we can keep things playable at 20000 hist figs, it doesn't really bother me. You couldn't meet and meaningfully interact with that many people easily even over many games. The main issue as I see it is how the non-historical people are... non-historical, and it might not be enough for them to just direct you toward the historical ones.
How will you handle "off to tame the giant mantis" quests?
The naturalist innovation branch kind of made those seem a little odd, as stand-alone independent events (and we haven't added any general domestication stuff so there'll be even more information later). Still, they have kind of an epic feel to them and there should be things like that -- perhaps with more of a story to them. So far they are as they were, and we'll see how they evolve -- there's this issue of the tamed animals not fully being incorporated over time into the civ, and that should happen in some cases instead of whatever half-broken invasions-only state they are in now. I kind of feel like I'm forgetting something on this one...
Since this will (hopefully) be a shorter development cycle on the new release, will the corresponding post-release bugfix drive also be shorter, or do you just fix bugs until you're bored of fixing bugs?
It'll probably be shorter than six months or whatever, yeah. I think somebody calculated out what usually happens... was it 1:4 or something? There isn't a fixed schedule though. Hopefully we can get the releases shorter than this one is turning out, but it'll be tricky with some of the framework releases. Still trying to figure out how that'll be divided up.
I just found and quite liked Threetoes' Stories, is there a chance of another one coming out?
He has been writing one, but the reward responsibilities have increased... and I suspect this May is going to be the most intense reward period we've ever had due to the Patreon bump. We may yet see something, since there has been progress.
You mention that spectator areas and such will be automatic. will we still be able to designate them if we want to have a dedicated auditorium? Will this ever be expanded to other activities like gladiator arenas?
Once we get to more interesting spectacles, there'll probably be more control. For spontaneous dance activities we aren't really planning to set them up. We have the new performance artforms, but we don't really have organized performances -- this might be come up when we have our visitors further along, since they include troupes. As it currently stands, the troupes would just join in with tavern revelry and by their example teach your dwarves lots of new songs and so on. When I'm done, they'll be able to perform as a unit, but they won't need a special stage or anything.
Might we get rowdy creatures dancing on tables?
Somebody brought up the stepladders, and we do have some more code for it, but I don't think I'll get to it this time.
Will the new libraries have any raw-defined and/or randomly generated secret books in them, which is to say anything with IS_SECRET:MUNDANE_RECORDING_POSSIBLE in them?
There could be some quirky way that a necromancer (or post w.g. adv) gets a book to a library, but I haven't expanded or linked that SECRET system into the innovation/knowledge system -- I think that ongoing neglect is because of the upcoming obliteration coming with the myth/artifact stuff... then it'll be much more common, though I'm not sure how much of the SECRET stuff will survive vs. new general linkages with knowledge and whatever else. So you might have to wait one more step, but there'll be some intense interaction modding changes coming.
Have you considered having Dwarves shove chairs and tables out of the way to make room to dance? Or is that too complicated for now?
Also, stress seems to have become pretty easy to manage recently, are you making any Fun changes to encourage players to allow dancing Dwarves (besides slight increase in productivity?).
Seems like the min-maxers might not bother with dance floors at all.
For now yeah, I don't want to mess with moving buildings. There are too many variables and potential hangers-on that could get screwed up. They are one of the main reasons "moving fortresses" are going to be their own release topic most likely. It would be nice to just kind of toss them around like stepladders, and it kind of relates to fluid workshop ideas floating around, but there's this unfortunate thing where chairs etc. get these whole rooms attached to them and all that. There'll need to be a large reckoning later where we try to reformulate them.
Satisfying a dwarf's needs has a positive effect now -- min-maxers that ignore that are neither minning nor maxing. I'm not sure I want to keep jamming stress effects. We kind of need the threat of emigration, a frightening enough proposition that I imagine people would start to care quite a bit about happy dwarves.
Do you plan to have activities other than dancing that use area divisions in the next release?
All of the activities try to set aside some space for themselves, like a place for the musicians and a place for those listening (just so the musicians end up near each other), but dances are the only ones with three places.
One of common interest in past civilizations is astrology/astronomy. People thought messages were hidden in sky, they tried to understands god(s) and watched stars, comets, eclipses... and "explained" them.
I guess it could fit with DF universe.
IG, astrology could give clues about what happens in the world, may warns about future siege, necro/FB attacks...
Astronomy could help for travels, caravans stuff (frequency for ex), trade, special conditions stuff (stars alignment allowed special alloys and dwarves could predict that)... Artists could leave/come for astronomic events, like celtic priest gathering during full moon night,... could give astro moods...
It may needs special buidlings (mirror, glass, books,...)
Does it fit with knowledge and religion stuff you re working on? Does it interest you ?
He he he, yeah, we've actually played around a lot with astronomy in side projects, and that's probably one reason we never really focused on it in DF. We'll eventually jump right into that stuff from a lot of different directions, including the astrology angle (and having different calendars as well and so on). Science-wise, the innovation system has an entire branch for astronomy, and eventually that'll be linked into various aspects of the game in terms of navigation and so on.
Why is the cap for a job order in the manager screen 30?
I think it is to force your manager to do more job. Of course, it could be solved in way that is more convenient to player. For example, you could write "56" and DF would automatically create two jobs - 30/30 and 26/26.
It has been so long that I don't recall the reason. It does seem like the manager should have to do some sort of work, but the artificial limit is strange. The standing order change coming up will probably shake this up a bit, though I expect it will be limited for this release unless we get lucky. Hopefully we can find a good balance.
So written stuff is books and could include scrolls, but despite already being used, not much reference was made for slabs, and engravings haven't come up at all. Do you suppose that literate dwarves might make and enjoy text-oriented engravings? These do seem to be things that are only prevalent in more modern times with widespread literacy but the Egyptians were also known for it, and it would be a good way to get a lot of book content into the fortress as well.
Logically, the most historical cases would include writing alongside graphical representations, which brings up a second question. Has any thought been given to such aesthetic concerns as illustration and calligraphy? This was pretty common practice especially in religious contexts. The monks of Western Christendom was well known for illuminated manuscripts for a good period, and the calligraphy and beauty of copies of books (most especially the Koran) have been an esteemed artform in Arabic cultures from the Islamic golden age. Eastern calligraphy focuses on short phrases, to my understanding, but is also worth incorporating in some respects probably. While that might not be a priority for the tavern release, it does tie in to the science, art, and religion themes that his release has picked up, and tavern signage (especially in German and Japanese usage) would probably use the same code foundation.
Yeah, I think it'll be good for written content to be included on engravings and slabs. I'm not sure what I'll get to, but it should go in sometime, especially for dwarves, who would reasonably like that sort of thing.
We've considered illustrations and some of the other qualities of books, probably because of the Name of the Rose scriptorium, he he he... I think there might even be an illustration object sitting around unused from when we first added books, but we didn't get to it then, and we probably won't make it this time either. I'm not sure why. Probably just a question of time as usual. I haven't gotten into stuff like calligraphy at all because the overall lack of language work has prevented us from exploring orthography in general.
With non-dwarf permanent residents, does that mean individuals will have their own civilization's moral code attached? Or to put it in laymans terms, if you have an Elf resident, will they be dismayed by woodcutting? Will moral codes be alterable in game, so that your Elf resident may become numb to tree death over time because of cultural immersion?
Well, they have the values and ethics from their origin civilization, but these haven't had a broad implementation as it concerns most fortress mode situations, so it'll be an ongoing process. We'll probably play around with it a little bit, especially as we look at their thought screens and see the discrepancies. I haven't done anything with personality alteration in general (outside of that general numbness counter) -- these kind of character changes/growth/etc. are one of the most important parts of stories, so we'll get to it sometime, but I don't have anything scheduled. The new non-dwarf residents will just put some new pressure on the change, which is how things often eventually get done.
Toady, with forts now being playable with members of other civs as citizens, will there also be a mechanism allowing non-civilized creatures like tamed pets to become citizens in the same way? What will happen to the relationship between a pet owner and a "pet" who is thus considered a citizen?
Button mentioned tame gremlins, which are probably the oddest case now, since they'd probably be the new "citizen-but-also-pet" mess. Regular not-so-intelligent pets would not be considered citizens. Gremlin pets were made tameable by us so that they could revert and pull interior levers (as if they were pretending to be tame the whole time)... I'm not sure what should happen there.
Seeing as the issue different cultural norms in your fortress becomes prominent, is it possible for citizens to not only join the fort, but also be banished from it (or leave on their own accord)?
This would apply to individuals who are not criminals per se, but who just won't respect some local customs, wood use being the standard example, and basically nobody likes them. (Actually, this can apply to dwarves too, if they have exotic morals.)
The response is pretty much as with Fieari's question above -- as they get to care about more things, it'll be an issue that needs to be dealt with, but we aren't sure when it's going to come up in enough important cases for it to matter. The issue of banishment also came up when were considering hill dwarves. Those aren't all that far away now, and the ability to send dwarves out to the hills or back will have to be considered now with the existence of non-dwarf residents and how they'd react to that.
What is the definition of a k-chain of polyhedrons in a Banach space? What do you mean by a 'sum' of polyhedrons?
Is it like the union of all polytopes in the sum? Does the induced space act as a vector space? For a given polytope [P], how are defined g[P], [P]+[Q] or [-P]?
I don't have much to add to what blue sam3 said. You can think of the normed abelian group as a kind of "density" on the faces of the chain, and the negative signs are from the orientation (you can imagine a counterclockwise face canceling out a chain of the same density with the same clockwise face). The boundary chain gets the orientation induced by the orientation of the face. You can think of it as a union or equivalence class of various chains or whatever -- once the operations are established formally, I just think of it all visually as oriented polyhedra with densities, and it suffices to draw stuff in 2D for most tinkering. The preliminaries section of the paper has the three formal equivalences that are in effect -- (-g)[P] = g[-P] (so negative densities flip the orientation). (g1+g2)[P] = g1[P] + g2[P], so densities just act like you'd expect and you can add them. And finally g[P1 U P2] = g[P1] + g[P2], which gets at what a sum of polyhedral chains means for us -- it's a union of all the polyhedra we are considering, and you can decomposes stuff however you like. These are just formal operations to make working with the objects easier.
Could these methods be used to allow an adventurer to carry a quest log which could be recovered after their death, bonus question: could npcs occasionally have these with potentially interesting stuff or even just banal notes jotted down when you find their corpses?
It really depends on where we go with it. A book that has stuff in it can have whatever in it. We just need to work on various cases as we go.
Will there be some kind of Fungus based paper? Furthermore will it be possible to use certain fabrics like silk (used for some time in china)?
Pig tails can be made into paper like the other "thread" plants. We haven't gotten to silk paper.
Is purely vocal knowledge and history going to be covered?
The master-apprentice stuff works that way, and your dwarves can learn art forms from all over the world from visiting troupes (which they can then try themselves, often badly). I haven't done much with oral or written history -- there are lots of events and that makes it difficult to model knowledge of them.
How many quires fit into a codex, and can they be on multiple subjects?
That's the very next to-do with books, but the existing book structures already support multiple "pages" improvements on different topics, so hopefully we'll be able to do that. I'm not sure how the codex maker is going to choose, with a preference by author or by topic or whatever.
Will you sum the donation received via patreon (or other websites, if any, one day) to those received via the website when you announce the monthly report ?
Yeah, as we've been doing with mail contributions and PayPal, we'll just add everything together.
With books and instruments done, what is the next thing coming up on the DF to-do list?
There's still a bit to do with books, but visitors to fortress mode taverns/inns are our next big topic.
Do boogeymen ever go extinct? In case of a no, do you plan to add a way to make them go extinct, since it would be kinda of strange seeing them in the Age of Fairy Tales?
They don't. Later on, I imagine the interaction with them will change as their origin is more explained, and that various world changing outcomes will be possible eventually -- the upcoming myth generator will be one of the first steps in establishing (randomly) what is going on. Our place-holder is just that they are some sort of incarnation of the night that doesn't have a number attached.
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Topic: Future of the Fortress (Read 1884015 times)