i am new to DF.
May I echo the welcome (
welcome welcome welcome...), huehuehue (
huehuehue huehuehue huehuehue.. )
i wish:
[…]
there was mouse support
What kind? You know you can 'paint' digging designations with the mouse and even use a mousewheel to change zoom-level, especially. Or are you thinking right-click context menus? That will probably come, but as keyboard control is more precise and tactile then I must say I don't want/need to use the mouse much myself. (Did you know that Shift and a cursor-key jumps the cursor around? That might also be something useful to you. Can be used quite precisely.)
that there was an option to change the graphics so there is no ascii stuff.
That's just graphics
based on ASCII. Tastes differ (I prefer the 'ASCII' that I have learnt to understand to 'graphics' that sometimes leave one at the whim of a particular artist's version of Impressionism, but that's probably just me being lazy and unwilling to learn) but it's fairly easy to experiment and find a tileset you find more pleasing amd/or comprensible. (
Very easy, I understand, if you're using the Lazy Noob Pack frontend, but that's another thingbI've been too lazy to experiment with.)
Look for 'graphics packs' (and I wouldn't count that as a 'mod', personally, although mods may indeed come with alternate/enhanced graphics).
that it was easier to pick out/see what resources were. i spent 3-5+ minutes trying to figure out what trees looked like before going on the wiki
Modern multi-tile (and multi-Z) trees are somewhat more complex than the 'ASCII shape that
looks (sort of like) an entire tree', or redrawn 'non-ASCII' version. I think already being used to viewing the world in Z-slices helped me transition to the new development (first of all, by noticibg that something
different was now going on). You'll have been without that advantage.
But checking (and rechecking, and continually dipping in and out of, thereafter) the Wiki is probably the most useful thing you can do, so you're on the right track!
As an, if not 'old hand' at the game, at least a middle-aged one, I think you've got a few good points, and I absolutely think that you're on the right track. The game is (as you have no doubt gathered) right in the middle of a lengthy development process, and some of the things that aren't looking so good right now are
definitely going to be changed later, but waiting on other tweaks. Often because the other tweaks will disrupt the thing that
could be changed, so perhaps better to improve it just the once, rather than right now and then again when things change and again again when more changes happen.
So I suggest that you persevere, learn, adapt, adapt to the inevitable changes, enjoy (at least some of!) the changes... But also don't stop making suggestions and giving feedback. I think you are going to fit in here nicely. (Not that I'm anybody special, to so proclaim, but I'm going to so proclaim anyway...
)