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[Vattic]

Yes, though like many others I convert my personal mod between versions and sometimes install DFHack.

[daagar]

The starter pack is so well done that I would use it even if I merely wanted to play pure vanilla. While I'm certainly able to go to the trouble of doing it all manually, I'd end up roughly in the same place at the end. This isn't Skyrim where everyone makes their own unique snowflake modpack, you simply enable the utilities/tilesets/options you want and go.

[Dirst]

I generally do my playtesting in PE's Starter Pack and Masterwork if it's available for a version, mainly as a basline of what I expect players to have (The Earth Strikes Back! and Accessibility Utility both require DFHack).  When those packs aren't available I build my own bare-bones pack.

I don't find ASCII (CP437 for the purists) any more confusing than using graphics, though I do prefer the look of GemSet.  For my mod that doesn't require DFHack, that was tested in pure vanilla as soon as I had time to check it for compatibility.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Started out as a lazy noob, but realised it was more fun and less bloat just to do myself. Install the utils, graphics that I like, tweak the raws as I feel like it.

There's actually 3 answers to this question. Non-lazy noobs don't necessarily play vanilla. These days I generally play vanilla+Taffer tileset and colours+own tweaks, though I happily used Therapist, Soundsense and DfHack for a while without a pack. (Still keep a copy of DF with Dfhack on hand to export extra Legends data).

[xZippy]

I've only been playing for about a week, and I'm doing everything in my power to understand the game 100%. What exactly does DFHack fix?

[Pseudopuppet]

I play DF perfectly fine without any third-party utility. The farthest I get away from Vanilla is using square ASCII and a different color scheme.

[Max™]

Ooh, I'm gonna chime in now!

I play Vanilla+1, because calling it Vanilla HD or whatever sounds kinda lame, and it zooms out to be indistinguishable from the curses_640x300 set (well, the clipped-diagonal wall corners still show up, but I consider that an acceptable deviation from purity) or zooms in to be fully HD.

The starter pack is so well done that I would use it even if I merely wanted to play pure vanilla. While I'm certainly able to go to the trouble of doing it all manually, I'd end up roughly in the same place at the end. This isn't Skyrim where everyone makes their own unique snowflake modpack, you simply enable the utilities/tilesets/options you want and go.

...but, I did make my own mod for my use, I think that is a big part of what drives most modders, it's just a question of whether you want to commit to advertising and supporting it or not,

It really isn't hard, drop a few text files in the right spots, make sure the relevant tags and such are in said files, you're good to go.

[Eric Blank]

I never used starter packs or noobie-oriented mods or graphics packs. ASCII and the vanilla game and some mods myself or others have made is what I learned with and am comfortable with. Its just not df any other way.

[Starver]

I've only been playing for about a week, and I'm doing everything in my power to understand the game 100%. What exactly does DFHack fix?

Depending on your needs, many things.  Or nothing, it just lets you 'cheat' and smooth over something awkward whilst you're developing some grand project.

I normally play entirely without DF, but I have been known to dabble, to deal divine death upon a wandering were-creature, for example, in the early days of their appearance when I just found it too unhandleable.  There's 'fix' fixes, too, made to restore or correct-to-popular-default some feature that Toady messed with that doesn't fully satisfy some of the community.

[taptap]

I use dfhack to preserve FPS (occasionally wipe contaminants and unreachable items from game) and for 3dveins. I use DwarfTherapist to track experience gains and for animal husbandry. But currently I play happily in 43.03 without third party tools.

[mifki]

I never used starter packs or noobie-oriented mods or graphics packs. ASCII and the vanilla game and some mods myself or others have made is what I learned with and am comfortable with. Its just not df any other way.

I don't quite like when people say this. Maybe it's partly caused by naming and positioning of these "newbie" and "hack" tools. I noticed a lot of people who do not use DFHack still use Dwarf Therapist, for example.

The main thing to keep in mind here is that if you do not want, these tools will not change anything in the gameplay, make it less hardcore or make it "not df" any other way. Using DFHack does not mean you're cheating or incapable of playing vanilla DF.

I personally do not use any gameplay-changing plugins myself, and I don't like that "newbie packs" come with a lot of plugins and custom shortcuts enabled by default. Still, at least the launcher app can be useful for changing settings in init/d_init files, if needed.

As for DFHack, if you don't want to change anything in gameplay (mostly it's related to automation of certain tasks), there are useful plugins that improve UI, adding things that are missing just because they are low-priority for Toady. Like search in all lists, comfortable labour management, improved game load screen, quicksave to avoid losing all progress in case of a crash, and some others. Previously DFHack also included fixes for some acknowledged bugs, but not anymore, as Toady releases bugfixes more often.

[Findulidas]

I also don't run into the "problem" of "OMG lazynewb isn't updated and I feel like playing right now". I make my install work for me.

To be fair dfhack and therapist isnt updated for the latest version. If they were someone would probably updated the pack unofficially now. Therapist might not be a problem but dfhack could potentially cause crashes I guess.

[Bumber]

I don't use starter packs. Too many changes I don't know about. Too many utilities I don't use. I can play equally well on graphic or ASCII, though I'm stuck on ASCII until I learn how to setup the raws without a pack.

I use Dwarf Therapist, SoundSense, and Announcement Filter. While my current fort is mature and all the labors are set, it's good for checking if my squads are actually wearing the equipment they've claimed. (Two of of my soldiers were going around weaponless, for whatever reason.) SoundSense is good for background music and not missing important events. Announcement Filter lets me keep track of all the important announcements and combat, without interrupting gameplay, and while filtering out cancel spam and misses.

I'm not using DF Hack right now because I'm staying up to date with the latest DF versions, and it's either a version behind or too unstable. My fort is suffering without cleaning commands. I also really want to see my fort in a visualizer, although that can wait.

To be fair dfhack and therapist isnt updated for the latest version. If they were someone would probably updated the pack unofficially now. Therapist might not be a problem but dfhack could potentially cause crashes I guess.

Therapist is. You just need to grab the 0.43.03 offsets.

[peasant cretin]

I've never used any starter pack. I've mucked around with different ASCII tile sets over time, finally settling on Xenomorph's acorn tile set which is just the font from those old RISC OS computers. I used DF Hack during a run in 34.11, but never after that.

[Dame de la Licorne]

FWIW, the alpha version of DFHack for 43.03 was released a couple(?) of days ago, and it's actually pretty stable if you only use it for cleaning commands and butchering (which are the only reasons I install it).  At least, I haven't had it crash on me yet.

-Dame de la Licorne