Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lytha]

So, I've been gone for about 3 years, but felt the urge to play DF again. Once addicted, you're never clear again and all that.

I've started and abandoned a few mini fortresses since my return, re-learned the most basic keybindings, got attacked by a butchered horse head hair in an evil biome (it won), double-slit a 2 level aquifer, rejoiced that the dwarf civilians don't need to be assigned anymore to the military to wear something, set up underground treefarms, used a different kind of dwarven power generator, generated more ore from melting down items, split some stacks at the trade depot, generated a world with a goblin king (wtf), had my expedition leader become queen before the start of the first summer in another fortress, was irritated at sterile domestic animals, and used minecarts for quantum dumping and timidly for some magma dumping tests.

What else is new? Tracks and military still utterly confuse me.

[Astrid]

Oh a lot. The world now actively continues simulating while your forts run. Which means your forts/adventuerers actions actually can influence said world.
You can now retire forts which makes them become NPC places until you want to play them later again.
This allows you to build as many forts as you like and try to raid them with your adventurer.

Trees are obviously new. Male Animals can be castrated. Dwarfes and Animals can become gay. Dwarfes now have a more proper emotion/ stress system which replaces the old thought system.
You can collect fruits from trees. Farming is somewhat improved. ballista arrows are now actually useful
The elve diplomat is alife again. You can now pulp body parts. Handy with zombies, once a part is pulped to a mishy mashy mess it wont stand up again. Its similair fatal for living beings....
Zombies are now EXTREMELY dangerous. because they are stronger than before AND can wear armour and weapons And use them properly.
aaand....

I am sure i have forgotten a lot of more stuff....

[Quietust]

Male Animals can be castrated.

Not until the next version...

Dwarfes and Animals can become gay.

I'm pretty sure they cannot become gay - they can merely be gay (i.e. sexual orientation is decided at birth and does not change).

[Lytha]

Yes. After my peahen sat about 3 years on her nest box in one fortress, I looked that up and found out that we now have orientation. In my current nano fortress, I started apparently out with a rate of 66.7% homosexual female animals (Dwarf Therapist shows their gender icons without pink, and I haven't had them give birth to kittens and water buffalo kids). So... interesting and making walling myself in without purchasing anything from the caravans less viable.

I wonder if I would get cave-ins if I dig out the first subterranean z-level and a tree grows on the thin floor between my cave and the surface. After I read about such things happening a few versions ago, I was careful to leave 1 untouched z-level between the surface and me. Not sure if Toady removed the "trees burst through floors" feature for stuff growing on top of the floor in question.


Oh yes, and the zombies... Generally, speaking of surprises with evil biomes:

- would it be a horrible idea to start a fortress on a neutral wilderness tile +3 tiles on a terrifying ocean? I have such a wonderful Terrifying tropical ocean on the pocketworld with the goblin king. Then I thought of undead giant sperm whale skeletons invading my fortress, which might be... Fun...

- are there any interesting surprises waiting in "good" biomes? Or just the hoardes of merry unicorns rampaging around, as it was before?

[taptap]

I started apparently out with a rate of 66.7% homosexual female animals (Dwarf Therapist shows their gender icons without pink).

No. At least in my case DT (the one that shipped with PyLNP for 40.14) has different, coloured icons for actually homosexual and bisexual animals, there are "asexual" (aka not interested in marriage?) animals as well, I assume they are the ones with grey gender icons - and they are far more common than actual homosexual ones. Not that it makes a functional difference at the moment.

[smeeprocket]

Yes. After my peahen sat about 3 years on her nest box in one fortress, I looked that up and found out that we now have orientation. In my current nano fortress, I started apparently out with a rate of 66.7% homosexual female animals (Dwarf Therapist shows their gender icons without pink, and I haven't had them give birth to kittens and water buffalo kids). So... interesting and making walling myself in without purchasing anything from the caravans less viable.

I wonder if I would get cave-ins if I dig out the first subterranean z-level and a tree grows on the thin floor between my cave and the surface. After I read about such things happening a few versions ago, I was careful to leave 1 untouched z-level between the surface and me. Not sure if Toady removed the "trees burst through floors" feature for stuff growing on top of the floor in question.


Oh yes, and the zombies... Generally, speaking of surprises with evil biomes:

- would it be a horrible idea to start a fortress on a neutral wilderness tile +3 tiles on a terrifying ocean? I have such a wonderful Terrifying tropical ocean on the pocketworld with the goblin king. Then I thought of undead giant sperm whale skeletons invading my fortress, which might be... Fun...

- are there any interesting surprises waiting in "good" biomes? Or just the hoardes of merry unicorns rampaging around, as it was before?

embarking by a terrifying ocean is a great idea actually! Take a video if you get attacked by a zombie giant sperm whale, please. Or upload the save. I want to see one.

I am on a good biome right now, joyous wilds, it's... yea just unicorns. Also, apparently there is only one sun berry on the entire map, and I have not found it yet. Very annoying, I want to make sunshine.

[Lytha]

With my luck, the ocean would probably just have.. other fun stuff than zombie whales.

Anyway! I think the process of turning the liquid red manna into obsidian seems to have changed? The process of magma via minecarts is a bit prone to mistakes (I should build a power reactor first and automatize the process in future nanofortresses - SO worth it to fill like 6 channeled tiles in the planned workshop z-level!). Yeah anyway, prone to mistakes. Like mining carts sitting in that magma channel and looking desperate. And so I had to dump water into my small magma channel a few times. I could've sworn that this would have turned the magma into obsidian in 31.25 or earlier, but nope, it just vanishes some of the magma. Only one wall of obsidian this time, and I don't even know which magical reaction caused this lucky event. That is not how I remember water + magma behaviour. But okay, my insane channel-an-48x48-inverted-obsidian-tower-into-13-z-level-deep-ocean from some versions before that 31.25 did not involve buckets.

I can now also confirm that homosexual individuals have another icon in Dwarf Therapist. Yay. Nice that this baby knows to come out of his closet right at birth.

[smeeprocket]

pah, dwarves and their animals don't even know where the closet is located. They were never in them to begin with!

[wuphonsreach]

With the critters now having a 25% chance to not breed - I suggest embarking with 3 of each sex, and always keep at least 3 of each sex alive for production.  In the case of expensive animals, you can roll the dice a bit and embark with 2+2 - then pray that the fall caravan brings you more.

Right now - I'd suggest 40.13 as the version to play.  That's the most stable of the recent releases with no show-stopping bugs.

Alternately, wait for the upcoming 40.19 or 40.20 (i.e. wait another week or two for Toady to bug-fix the new bugs).

[smeeprocket]

what's broken in 40.18? (besides no dfhack and therapist)

[Lytha]

Mhm... I grabbed the Lazy Newb Pack, so I am now with 40.16 until it upgrades to 40.18. And I kind of enjoy it with the cozy little starter GUI for all the add-ons. I didn't even know of SoundSense, but that alone was worth it.


Here's a question though: I am not entirely sure why, but when the last dwarven caravan arrived, they walked to the trade depot, looked at the cheerful trader waiting for them, turned around and walked away again. I am not in the habit of murdering caravans. The path to the depot was accessible. There were some combat reports of an axe dwarf though - not one of my dwarves, as the military confuses me and I don't have any. And I found a merchant horse sitting in a tree. It fell down later. Whereabouts of it are unknown.

Now, I am not entirely sure, but it could be that my entrance drawbridge's lever was set to repeat for *cough* some not intentional reasons and that they went flying because of that. I think that this accident with the lever happened after they had run off without a trace though when I wanted to secure the entrance again.

They are now all "missing" in the units screen. Well, except the axe dwarf who started it all by having a combat report, maybe. I am not sure. Anyway, I quickly made some engraved slabs for them and put them somewhere. While doing that, I found a large list of possible individuals to make engraved slabs for though!


Here's the question: Should I also make these engraved slabs for "A Wagon" and the various now dismembered and dead "sentient" Sparrow Men and stuff? Will I be haunted by ghosts of "A Wagon" if I don't?

If I wouldn't play without invasions, would goblins also appear in that list? Can they produce ghosts?

[smeeprocket]

don't worry about that stuff. Though a slab of the wagon would be worth it for fun.

I think the only thing that will haunt you will be the dwarves, but humans or elves might if they die, I am not sure.

It will also list living people for engraving but it lists the dead first. SO don't go crazy with the slabs.

[wuphonsreach]

what's broken in 40.18? (besides no dfhack and therapist)

Issues with vault weapons and more fallout from changing the compiler settings.
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

40.19 is now out.