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[Shonai_Dweller]

Are there plans to be able to save the difficulty settings at some point? It's a little frustrating to have the custom settings reset at the start of every game.

Also is there any way currently to make the embark box that shows the list of neighbours longer? It's already cutting off Towers a lot of the time in vanilla and really doesn't work at all in mods with multiple additional civs.

[Randomizer]

Also is there any way currently to make the embark box that shows the list of neighbors longer? It's already cutting off Towers a lot of the time in vanilla and really doesn't work at all in mods with multiple additional civs.

Do you plan on upgrading embark screen or the site finder in the near future?

I agree the embark box should show neighbors at a longer distance. Is it also possible to put all possible races in the site finder where you can check yes, no, friendly, or hostile for each one?

[lethosor]

As a reminder, suggestions should go in the suggestions forum. A lot of recent questions seem more like suggestions to me.

[Bumber]

Just an FYI: The DF Bug Reports section still links to the old bug tracker.

The "DF File Depot" link is also a redirect to the proper bay12games.com one.

[Randomizer]

I was wondering if the site finder or embark box will be upgraded in the near future.

[PetMudstone]

What determines if an image used in game uses palettes for material color or not? Will modders have a way to set their graphics as palette colored? I haven't been able to figure out how to palette cheese.

In "vanilla_descriptors_graphics", graphics\palette_default.txt defines all the palettes associated with colors in-game. This includes the "grayscale" palette that gets recolored based on material color token.

vanilla_descriptors_graphics\graphics\images\palettes.png contains all the palettes associated with colors. In both the .txt file and the .png the topmost palette is the "grayscale" one. Note that there are two halfs to each palette row. The left half is associated with wood items, and the right half is associated with metals, stone, just about everything else.

[Toady One]

Didn't have time to proofread this time!  Apologies in advance, things are just that way for the time being.

Don't specifically have one? Does that mean it's possible, but just weird and clunky? Something like:

[DESCRIPTION:First line of a description]
[DESCRIPTION:]
[DESCRIPTION:Second line of a description, after a paragraph break]

Would be somewhat awkward, but workable for when a mod needs a description of a moderate size that's still readable (or a changelog; I can't remember ever seeing a changelog that would fit in one line/paragraph comfortably).

DESCRIPTION currently overwrites the previous string, so I don't think this works.  The changelog thing is steam's format, a single string.  I'm not sure what they generally use for formatting there, escape characters or some syntax, no idea.  We can work to support it at some point.

Also, is there any chance that feather tree eggs will get eggshells (and thus be collectible) before the release?

(Also, I’ll note that bug tracker seems to have been completely wiped clean.  Is there any reason for that?)

What would be an acceptable alternate method of bug reporting for those who cannot, or simply no longer wish to, use Mantis? Emails with [BUG] in subject line, Discord DMs, or something else? (Besides the report forms on Mantis being a shade over-complex IMHO IIRC, this humble Firefox user is having profound difficulties coming to terms with the idea that they may simply have neglected to store their password in this one case, you see.)

Ziusudra: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8431602#msg8431602
clinodev: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8431622#msg8431622
Doorkeeper: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8431808#msg8431808

Doorkeeper is correct about the eggs.  We were mostly locked down by October 26 - it's just not possible anymore to do quick little changes right before a release, though the term won't be as lengthy now.

The new system doesn't involve creating accounts as I understand it.  The number of accounts we have available is limited, so the current email method linked below is what we have.

https://kitfoxgames.notion.site/How-to-Report-Bugs-in-Dwarf-Fortress-b5e2ca19dabe408897d1c2669599b7a2

the one thing about the villains arc stuff is I hope you can play into the villains that join the fort than having to treat them like a pest... like are the villains that move to your fort still count as a citizen when they are the last citizen? I wonder if this might ruin villain hermit fort runs?

voliol: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8431683#msg8431683
Mr Crabman: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8431685#msg8431685

I think we're generally planning not to end forts.  Like, full wereforts and such still work if I recollect.  We also wanted to continue forts after, say, goblin conquest if the conquest isn't 100% lethal (which isn't a thing currently obviously.)  That said, if your hermit has a rich inner life and is also running a place where visitors come, they are sorta putting themselves at risk a bit, and we'll see what situations we have to handle.

now that the game is out, i can see that there's some stuff in the vanilla definitions that would allow a degree of changes, but it requires me to change my question:
will we gain the ability to add mods to existing save files?

this has become a serious obstacle with mods that aim to improve accessibility by adjusting icons in the ui, or for my use case, replacing audio elements that are highly disruptive (like that horrific REEEE REEE REEEE bird noise in grasslands which is absolutely deleterious to some of us)

making a new save file every time we discover an experiential issue that someone solved with a mod is problematic.

Graphics stuff can already be adjusted w/out worries about saves I think?  I was doing it during development all the time anyway.

Sound just isn't that moddable yet, the format there isn't really complete.  It doesn't know how to use non-vanilla files, doesn't have a place to put them.  I wanted to get something in there so that saves could be a little bit compatible with more support later, by having any objects at all to work with.

Questions about prostetics reminded me about one thing: exoskeleton or power armor. What about them? In magic/myth future context of course.

I think there might be a power goal for this.  We've vaguely thought about it anyway, in a few DF contexts.  Any magic armor that imparts attribute/skill improvements in any setting is some kind of power armor?  Not sure where the lines are drawn here.

On animal people armor
Would it be possible to have one piece of each armor type (one mail one breastplate, one left and right high boot etc) drawn out for each animal person and palatte swapped on demand rather than say one different armor graphic for each piece. Specifically can the graphics system handle palette swapping the gear itself, or would you need to premake the gear and apply the pallete swap manually to each piece of gear, then feed it to the graphic system.
Asking both in desire for custom mod armor/clothing without insane work, and for how your system could handle something like that for “middeground” you spoke of in reference to a similar question.

It isn't currently possible to palettize equipment materials.  We did the clothing/armor way before the palette system existed, and we need to loop back around to support things like this.

asking on the eve of release, but assuming you're reading this a good week or so after: were there any last minute mission-critical bugs you had to drop everything to fix, or has it been relatively smooth sailing?

Before the release, it was mostly good up until the end, though we had some crashes and such that weren't reproducing etc., or that were rare enough but we couldn't figure out.  Right after launch, the crashes of course amplified a bit but it also meant that could be fixed quickly, mostly.  We're also handling what's hopefully the last of the save corruption now.

will there be any way to import my current Fortress into the Premium version and be able to see it with graphics?

Paaaad: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8432272#msg8432272

Nope, it was just too much to do.

I've seen that the plan for boats is for them to be able to turn 90 degrees. Does this include turning around X or Y axis (that is, turning a wall into a floor and/or capsizing)?

The tricky part here is mainly the floors - the thin floors, and the thin floors on top of wall blocks.  Neither of those are really supported if you rotate, without adding completely new types of tiles that the game doesn't understand at all yet.  Doesn't mean it's impossible, just complicated and potentially not worth it.

will you make NFTs for people that donated back in the day? that would be really sweet

DG: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8432517#msg8432517
hirsute_offender (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8432534#msg8432534
DG: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8432540#msg8432540

Not something I'm interested in.  I don't support them, but this is not the place for what is already a much-had discussion.

Couple of Worldgen questions:

MINERAL_SCARCITY in Advanced Worldgen parameters for every type of world changed from 2500 (sparse) to 100 (everywhere) in 50.01.
Was this simply to increase minerals in worlds, or did the balance change somewhere requiring a value of 100 to produce the same kind of result as 2500 in the previous version?

Titan and Werebeast Triggers changed from exact numbers to a 1-5 scale. Can we still adjust Worldgen.txt to use exact figures, or will these be ignored now?

Also:
Would it be possible to have an option to turn off the DFhack style prospector thing from the embark screen in the future? I get that some people are quite vocal about demanding to know exactly where the iron, gold and copper are, but it's kind of destroyed one of the fun things about fortress mode for me, which was adapting to what we discover upon Striking the Earth. Into the unknown...but actually not.

How do the "difficulty setting" custom menu population/trade siege triggers interact with the triggers in the raws? Like most people playing in worlds with several different enemy civs, I've set the triggers individually per civ. Are the raws triggers now ignored?

Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433017#msg8433017
Shonai_Dweller (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433020#msg8433020
Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433048#msg8433048
Shonai_Dweller (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433213#msg8433213

Putnam handled the difficulty/trigger questions.

There's been some reworking of equations generally, but mainly, yeah, this was to increase the occurrence of minerals in default play.  Of course, we improved the site finder after this so it might not have been as necessary in retrospect.  But I think people will normally want a fort that works and has lots of stuff.  The world trade system is really necessary before we start grappling with scarcity in any serious way, probably.

An option to just show 'metals' again isn't a huge technical problem of course, but as people pointed out leading to the current change, it was almost worthless.  It basically meant gold and never iron, for example, as I recollect.  Part of the rework was to add some deeper sedimentary layers (presumably ones that have moved about, though we don't really understand DF strata etc.) which alleviates this somewhat, but originally it was less of adapting to the unknown and more "there's no iron again".  As I understand it.

What's the thinking behind removing Civilian Alerts?
Is it due to some plans that you have for later improved sieges? Or a feature that you just haven't finished implementing yet?

I think most players (actual players, not folk struggling to get started) set up a civilian alert. Are our plant gatherers and hunters just supposed to die unless we indulge in horrible micromanagement of manual burrows?

Or is there a missing "get to the tavern" general button somewhere that we've all missed?

We're going to get something back there, or to something equivalent, likely before the army stuff or any of that.  If I recollect, it was interfering with the new military tab, trying to keep it workable, and I just had to get something finished.

What's the current priority for adding things like maps/exports for Legends mode to the Steam/itch.io release?

Will Legends exports like the xml dump, the maps .bmp exports and other infos on the world like the world gen file, be back in a future version of the Premium game?

It's up there with other stuff that used to be in the game but is missing.  All important to do, and I'd expect all of it back before adventure mode is fully updated because they are all pretty straightforward, but there might be exceptions here and there if the wrinkles get nasty.

What's the current state of the native Linux port for v0.50? Steam doesn't appear to support it, but performance with Proton is apparently good. Are there any plans to port v0.50 natively to Linux for Premium? Will Classic still get a native port going forward?

This is the idea, yeah.  The old code is there but it's not fit to sell - have to deal with the symlink situation or whatever issues various maintainers and etc. were troubled by, and I'm not qualified for that.  Have to discuss it with Putnam, see where it goes, etc.  But our plan is to get to native support for some flavor at least, however that usually ends up working for closed source steam stuff etc.

1.Right now modded creatures without textures show up as the debug creature, which can be annoying. Will this get changed?
2.Will we ever get multiple economic systems rather than strict capitalism or communism?
3.What improvements can we expect from the premium adv mode release?
4.Currently the game doesn't warn you about being close to necromancer towers. Can we expect this to change in the near future?

Ziusudra: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433121#msg8433121
Mr Crabman: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433168#msg8433168
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433262#msg8433262
Mr Crabman: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433380#msg8433380
Urist McSadist (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433714#msg8433714

1. It's possible to have options I suppose, but I don't want ASCII generally to show up in the graphical release without opt-in.  It would be more confusing.
2. I'm not sure we have strict versions of either system you mentioned currently, but there'll be more variety with the entity rewrite and the economic stuff afterward.
3. The only stuff to definitely expect are graphics, better menus, mouse support, etc., as with the fort release.  The rest is less expectable and more just stuff that will happen.  I'm not sure if there are clear standouts like the labor system for improvement, since the whole thing is kind of a weird bird.
4. Multiple people have mentioned it.  There are still more serious issues, but it's a reasonable request.

I've noticed in the caverns that there are these small clusters of various colored diamonds and rubies/sapphires in a chunk of obsidian, but I can find nothing that causes this behavior in the raws. Is this intentional?

TheFlame52: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433201#msg8433201
LuuBluum (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433235#msg8433235
Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433255#msg8433255
LuuBluum (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433259#msg8433259

I enjoy exploring Legends Mode and I often notice that people often have hundreds of relationships that only last 2-10 years or so, and never just settle down with one person that is a good match for them and who they "love" until they die. It's kind of depressing honestly. I think it would make for better storytelling to have more serious or long lasting relationships, eg. two people have been married for 50 years and one of them is killed/kidnapped by a monster or something, and the other gives up their comfy life in the hamlet to go search for/avenge them. It's just more dramatic. So, is there any plan to make relationships or marriages longer lasting/permanent (given the right circumstances)? I also think displaying the reason for break ups/divorces would be good as well.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433396#msg8433396

Yeah, if that's all you're seeing, it's surprising.  There are supposed to be a range of personalities and some support long durations.

I know that fees and taxes and whatnot probably take a sizable chunk out of your sales revenue, but it looks like you just made a boatload of cash. Any fun plans for the money? DF-related or not.

Miuramir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8436149#msg8436149

Ha ha, it's still too early.  I mean, I got better health insurance!  This is something.  And now we're squaring away the game.  Having people come on gobbles stuff up pretty rapidly, and DF only has one launch in all these years to go, so we need to be careful.

The CUT and SELECT tags you introduced for us are great. However, a couple of these tags are not currently included in the base game, but apply to raw-moddable files. The raw files lacking appropriate CUT or SELECT tags are:

    body folder (all files) :  b_detail_plan_default, body_default, body_rcp, tissue_template_default
    creature folder: c_variation_default
    materials folder: material_template
    and the following one which i'm personally less concerned about:
    building folder: building (only applies to the two vanilla custom buildings, screw press + soaper, anyway)

Why this matters:

    If i want to make changes to, say, the c_variation_default file, I can't currently do that, and furthermore its in the same folder with all the creature files and have to ask my players to instead unload the entire Vanilla Creature Objects folder, with all its creatures.

Are there any plans to introduce appropriate CUT and SELECT tags for these raw files?

I just added it for the ones that could easily support, where it could be done quickly as the release approached, since they already had certain data structures/code blocks in place.  It's certainly reasonable to get the functionality in everywhere and I understand why it would be useful.

Regarding a particular game mode, out of sheer curiosity since I personally don't know much about Dwarf Fortress's development, why is Adventure Mode always at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to updates in comparison to Fortress Mode, Legends Mode, and possibly Arena Mode?

Even before Dwarf Fortress's very successful release on both itch.io and Steam, congratulations by the way—got me a copy on Steam as soon as it became available, Adventure Mode was always last to receive the amount of attention Fortress Mode receives and now it's yet again last to receive updates and implementation into the premium version of Dwarf Fortress.

It's my favorite game mode, so I can't help but wonder, but thanks for all that you and your brother do. I'm very much looking forward to Dwarf Fortress's bright future now that its premium variant has been released.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433650#msg8433650
clinodev: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433762#msg8433762
thvaz: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8433780#msg8433780
Vivalas: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8435500#msg8435500

I think the responses here more or less cover it - if you cast your view a little further back, it's simply not the case.  It is the case the adventure mode is rougher, and I think that's because it's simply harder to write a procedural RPG than it is to write a procedural settlement manager and get up to territory where it feels acceptable, at least in the situation we have here, where we're not willing to use most of the RPG tropes/practices/etc. that would make things easier (like hitpoints, or scaling equipment drop tables, or etc etc).  But there's a lot planned for adventure mode and we work on it quite a bit.

I'm seeing some changes in worldgen between 47.05 and 50.02 in my modded world. Mostly that my one incredibly aggressive expansionist city building civ is not expanding (as you'd expect them to do in 90% of worlds generated in previous version) and they are content to found a couple of sites then build tombs until they go extinct. Same raws, same worldgen settings, no errors in copying stuff across as far as I can see. Just...different.

What kind of adjustments were made to worldgen balance this time that might affect the rate at which civs spread out? Maybe some necromancer nerfs or something?

--edit
After some fiddling about I found that adding Indoor/outdoor_farming gets them working again. I assume this is additions/fixes to the economy working behind the scenes. So generally is anything else interesting going on behind the scene during worldgen?

I don't remember a change here with farming, but it's possible some bug or other was squashed that changed the balance of things.  The main thing I remember changing is just that book writing slowdown that Putnam found, and the ui of course.

Can you elaborate on what Putnam will be doing over the coming months? - Do you have plans to hire additional help in the near future? - Have you been receiving feedback about QoL changes to the UI? (tomb zones, report history, etc.)

I assume this might very well be clarified soon enough anyway by either Putnam, Tarn or Kitfox, but I'm curious if there's a specific focus that Putnam is currently set to have?

I might be wrong but I'd assume Toady will want to keep the big picture, foundational feature coding of the game to himself still.

There are no plans for additional programmers currently.  Lots of feedback coming in.  So far we've gone through some version control stuff, and also squashed a save corruption after a few long sessions messing around with it (I was mainly backseat driving through DF oddities while Putnam used a debugger and tested saved etc.)  Putnam also fixed some other issues here and there, and that seems like what it'll be like.  I think I'll be doing the arena changes at some point and we'll get them merged in.  It's possible the save corruption stuff will be patched in sooner, but it's just more difficult to schedule quick patches now that there are so many more moving parts, at least now before everything is settled.

I'm not sure about the larger question of the division of kinds of coding labor yet, it's just too early to know.

we saw someone on the kitfox discord say that the reason labor management was changed was because you don't want us to be able to micromanage our dwarves. is this a true sentiment, or were they just salty?

[we quite liked the degree of control we had in the old system, so if it was intentionally removed and WONTFIX'd rather than an unexpected side effect of the new one... well, we'd be a little sad.]

what has collaborating with fans been like? will mike and the others be continuing to provide assets as development continues?

therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8434192#msg8434192
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8434251#msg8434251
DG: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8434334#msg8434334
jipehog: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8434517#msg8434517
Vivalas: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8435504#msg8435504
Bumber: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8435570#msg8435570
Vivalas: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8435649#msg8435649
Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8435896#msg8435896
Miuramir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8436142#msg8436142

I specifically set up work details so you could micromanage your dwarves, and they aren't necessary for people that like the automated system (aside from some of the default ones), so this seems misplaced.  Obviously there need to be improvements.  They are already in progress.

Having people familiar with the project working on the project has always been great, ever since we started.  There'll definitely be a need for art as we continue, even with the arena stuff I'll be getting into soon, and certainly as we continue on with adventure mode.  A baby aardvark was also drawn recently.

1. I noticed in the steam version that combat and announcement logs are currently limited and temporary compared to previous version. I just wanted to check if  a more comprehensive and permanent log will be brought back into future versions. Rereading what my guys were up to is important for storytelling purposes.

2. Related to storytelling, will we eventually be able to export legends content like before? Viewing it in 3rd party programs was fun but it was the easiest way to export world gen parameters.

3. There seems to be some confusion that the game has been slightly 'simplified' (less granular labor management, inability to select specific ammo, burrows etc) for the sake of reaching a wider audience. I don't believe that was ever mentioned and besides a few specific examples I don't see much evidence of that so I believe that's just a rumor that a handful of people are running with. I'm certain a lot of the examples people site are things currently in the works. Unless I missed it, which I totally could have, it might be nice to have a list of familiar features currently missing that are currently being worked on from the "old" version that will make their way to the steam version versus things that have been actually been simplified if that's the case.

1. Yeah, we just ran out of time.  I was working on it the week before the release but it just wasn't going to be testable.  Now that we're fixing serious bugs and etc., it'll be a bit more time, but it's one of the high priority things to get back.

2. Similar, but it'll be a tad longer than announcements/reports.

3. Ammo/burrows/work details also similar.  Ammo we're going to do with a ranged combat rewrite generally, probably before/at beginning of adventure mode stuff (now that version control is up and there are multiple programmers, I don't think there's going to be a patch drought while adventure mode graphical upgrade is in progress.)

The simplification sentiments for ammos/burrows, to the extent they exist, are also misplaced, as it was for work details, though in a different way since there isn't even a parallel new system for these.  Just didn't get to the ammo system, and the game can function without it for a bit, so it was a reasonable delay.  Alerts obviously are missed a bit, but we've already got the add all buttons in a patch and we'll get to a bit more to reproduce the functionality in whatever way.

Sentiments more along the lines of 'launched without things we like and expect' (depot accessibility is another one, legends exports, finishing keyboard menus, existing ports, etc...  also adventure mode ha ha) are reasonable.  Sentiments like 'altered to appeal to a broader audience' are also obviously true - that was the entire point ha ha.  But that doesn't mean we've 'dumbed it down' or whatever.  That just hasn't happened.

I noticed in the steam version of fortress mode some content changes have been made to make the game more approachable. Will adventure mode receive any content or gameplay changes when it finally releases on steam? And if so, are there any future changes you are able to tell us about at this time?

I imagine the process is going to be roughly the same as it was for fort mode.  When you are updating a huge interface, sometimes it just makes more sense to change a system than to build an interface for it, and there are also lots of general changes that come up that make sense to do while you are in a given spot.  With adventure mode, this is also coupled with the upcoming villains/army stuff - if it makes sense for some of that to come in earlier, because it would save a ton of time, we'll do it.  But we don't want to get sidetracked into doing the whole of all that or it'll take too long, even though those two things together are specifically there in part to make adventure mode more of a full game experience.

I kind of love the way that, in 50.0x, you can click on your cats or even the giant hamster closing in on your fisherdwarves and read that he's "grouchy after being caught in the rain" and other such thoughts. Is that supposed to happen, or is it something you'll be re-concealing later? Same for enemy skills, were they visible before? I forget.

A_Curious_Cat: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8435352#msg8435352
Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8435387#msg8435387

Yeah, I think it's a little weird sometimes, but it's mostly been funny and doesn't really bother me.  If it's changed, I'd hope for something interesting to compensate.

[Toady One]

With alchemist removed as a skill, we got the option to use MODSKILL## for defining custom labors. It works fine. However, we can't seem to find a string for the unit type associated with MODSKILL##. So, for example, an elf will show up from off the map and his profession title is "Adept Skill1". Are we all overlooking a string that would let us rename the unittype Skill1?

Yeah, I don't think we had time to do any string support.  This was something put in very quickly to get some kind of skill available in a basic way.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8435972#msg8435972

1. full list: UNROTTEN, CONTAINS_LYE or POTASHABLE, NOT_WEB, WEB_ONLY, EMPTY, NOT_CONTAIN_BARREL_ITEM, GLASS_MATERIAL, BUILDMAT, FIRE_BUILD_SAFE, MAGMA_BUILD_SAFE, CAN_USE_ARTIFACT, WORTHLESS_STONE_ONLY, ANY_PLANT_MATERIAL, ANY_SILK_MATERIAL, ANY_YARN_MATERIAL, ANY_SOAP_MATERIAL, ANY_LEATHER_MATERIAL, ANY_BONE_MATERIAL, ANY_STRAND_TISSUE, ANY_SHELL_MATERIAL, ANY_WOOD_MATERIAL, (also STONE GEM TOOTH HORN PEARL), USE_BODY_COMPONENT, CAN_USE_LOCATION_RESERVED, NO_EDGE_ALLOWED, HAS_EDGE, ON_GROUND (ha), NOT_ENGRAVED, NOT_IMPROVED, HAS_WRITING_IMPROVEMENT, DOES_NOT_ABSORB, FOOD_STORAGE_CONTAINER, HARD_ITEM_MATERIAL, WOVEN_ITEM, NOT_PRESSED, METAL_ITEM_MATERIAL, IS_SAND_MATERIAL, IS_DIVINE_MATERIAL, IS_CRAFTED_ARTIFACT, NOT_ARTIFACT.+

2. WIELD, ANY_HELD, and the normal category stuff you mentioned (token, type, category).

3. This was a discussion way back at the beginning, having an option to swap between profession and mat/dye colors.  Added the support in to the creature layers, but I don't have the option yet.  Oversight/time issue as launch approached.

4. No, I only did TISSUE_MIN_LENGTH and IF_MIN_CURLY.  I don't think there are bp app mod queries at all.  I just did what I needed.

5. Yeah, it can obviously be made better.  No idea when that will happen.

6. The palette system came later, when the creatures were already done.  It would be ideal to use the same system throughout, but that was not possible with the time we had.

7. I don't think item quality is available.

Now, a lot of changes/additions can be done here, and I understand why a lot of them would be valuable.  This is just what we could do, with the time we had, the way events unfolded (keeping in mind what happened with the art while we were working on this stuff specifically.)  I don't know when we'll get back to it, since we're working through some serious issues now that affect everybody, but I'd expect it there to be extensions as we go.

Is open-sourcing parts of the game (especially the ones that relate to the more tedious aspects of it such as rendering, interface, etc.) now in the realm of possibility?

The rendering part specifically has been open source for a long time (though that's current in hiccup land since it was normally packed in with the linux version - DFHack people have a current copy of g_src though.)  The new interface stuff isn't made with an API/lua or anything so it can't be released simply.

1. With the new additions to the Hidden Fun Stuff (gem spires and all their goodies), Will there be any changes or tweaks to this? While this might seem very hard for new players.. this is.. a oddly easy way to quickly obtain divine artifacts, specially since the baddies that can spawn with in.. tend to be made out of dust or something very weak.

2. With those changes to the Hidden Fun Stuff.. will there be changes to Vaults or anything for adventure mode? (it was possible to open a underworld pillar in adventure mode and cause demons to spawn too).

3. More or less likely when adventure mode is released.. alot of new players will question why we can't mine....lol. Will anything be implemented to let us do this in Adv Mode? Maybe something similar to how DFHack's gui/advfort worked? I would assume it would only allow us to dig on our player-made camps and nowhere else.

4. Without having you spoil to much, will there be any adventure mode bugs/issues that will be fixed for the adv. mode release?

1. Yeah.  These were tweaks to existing stuff pretty much.  If you mean soon, it's not a priority compared to the stuff we're currently facing.

2+3+4. Adventure mode is going to undergo the same process that fort mode went through - it's not just a graphical upgrade.  We fix stuff, adjust stuff, make things more sensible, add whole new chunks, etc.  Of course, making adventure mode really work well has been an ongoing issue, so I don't think we're going to shoot for too too much - completing villains and the army stuff are already aimed at this, and we don't have to do them all at once, and probably shouldn't.  However, I'd be shocked if there weren't little additions here and there ha ha.

Very much looking forward to Adventurer. With this tileset and the awesome soundtrack (maybe more soundtrack? That would be nice) it should be great fun. Having given yourself a "much further away" deadline to get it done, is this the deep dive focus on bringing Adventurer up to the standards of Fortress with side bugs and other issues all addressed along with the interface that we've all been waiting for? Or is that still something that will eventually happen over a long period of time and updates in amongst other update arcs? While none of it is "finished" of course, how "finished" will it feel as a game compared with Fortress when this update is done do you think?

Is the plan to release adventurer, then get back to villains, or release adventurer once villains is done (since it seems to be a large part of future adventurer play).

Also:
You've mentioned that you want DF playable for people without a numeric keypad. Does this extend to removing keypad movement from Adventurer?  Or are you going to keep the keypad controls and also implement other ways of getting about with a mouse like in Caves of Qud?

For what it's worth I wouldn't feel very comfortable playing a roguelike and not being able to use the keypad.

clinodev: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8436686#msg8436686
Shonai_Dweller (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8436691#msg8436691
Miuramir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8436772#msg8436772
Shonai_Dweller (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8436795#msg8436795

I think the main issue with getting adventure mode up to a fort standard all at once is kind of what you brought up - doing villains (and the army stuff) was our main plan for years for accomplishing this.  So it just depends if we also want to push those into one giant release, which seems unnecessary.  But we are going to be working on bugs and issues for the first adv release.

I think we're going to try to keep adventure mode entirely keyboard friendly - this would have been nice in fort mode as we're already experiencing ha ha.  Just having keypad/no keypad options for keybindings seems like what people want, in addition to mouse support.

- Why does the world map tileset have tiles for good+savage and evil+savage areas, but not for neutral savage areas?
- Why doesn't the official sprite for beak dogs show them with the rainbow-colored skin that's still in their raws?

voliol: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8437194#msg8437194
FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8437468#msg8437468
voliol: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8437472#msg8437472

The responses covered the beak dog question.  The raws should probably be updated rather than the image, now that we have giant lovebirds.

I think there aren't any neutral savage tile because they were never differentiated in ascii, and the good/evil savage things came in I think as just some extra art that we could choose to use or not, if I recall, though I don't really recall, ha ha.

What parts of the ear do the BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER parameters correspond to? Right now it seems a bit vague and it really could use some clarification.

I think your diagram is basically how I thought about them at the time, if the broadness there is extended the whole ear width uniformly and not just making the tip longer.  So you basically scale the shape in either dimension, rotate it out, and fuse/hang the lobes.

Setting tombs in the new interface seems actually harder than previously (making a 1x1 zone on every coffin) unless you enclose every coffin in its own room and use the multi command.

Is that something that needs more development (to have multi recognise lots of unenclosed coffins as separate burial places) or is your vision of dwarven burial to have each coffin in its own room (and therefore system is working as intended).

(Also because the tombs are zones, when you designate a memorial hall over the graveyard it says it's "overlapping" which I think reduces the value, right? Guess that's not a big deal but I do like to avoid overlapping zones...)

Miuramir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8437555#msg8437555

We wanted to add some kind of catacomb zone to cover this, and didn't get there.  It came up quite a bit in pre-launch testing.  I don't think I can easily make multi recognize semi-enclosed spaces well, although I'm assuming there's various existing work on that.

As a side note, overlapping is a huge penalty now, so we're going to want to fix the spots where it feels improper.

will df ever support higher population counts? fortresses typically cap (mostly due to performance reasons) at 200, in worldgen dwarven civilizations typically get in the thousands (with the largest ive seen at 140000) while human typically get into the tens of thousands, with a lot of their population being stacked in town sites, which again, due to performance issues, are unplayable. relative to our world (in the medieval period) though, even the largest human settlements pale in comparison to most small to medium sized historical cities, and player fortresses barely pass as villages, to the point that its easier to think of the various entities as citystates rather than more widespread empires and nations (something which fits the pretty small ingame world size pretty well, and a direction i think df should actually lean into). similiar games like songs of syx usually have their player settlements reach in the thousands, and while i totally understand that this performance cap is due to technological limitations (which the afformentioned game doesn't have), can we expect a raise in site population performance anytime soon? metropolises being larger than irl hamlets and armies being larger than in the dozens would help great for immersion, imo

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8437620#msg8437620
GOTOTOTOE (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8437630#msg8437630
Vivalas: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8437658#msg8437658

I don't have much to add to the responses.  It's just hard to make the numbers higher.  The technological limitations are the main and often only problem.

1. I've noticed in the current version, you're no longer able to assign "pet" sapients to a squad. In prior versions you could, for example, mod the game to make dwarves embark with trolls, and then assign those trolls to a squad led by a dwarf and give them weapons and armor and all that. Is the current absence of this feature a bug or intentional? If the latter I understand given that sort of thing will probably get a more nuanced system in the future but a lot of mods used it, so if its gone for good it'd be good to know.

2. For awhile now cannibalism has been completely impossible even if the civ has ethics that allow for it. Are there any plans to change that in the near future?

1. I didn't intentionally make a change from the old behavior.  I'm not sure but it might be because I was wary of having militia captains being appointed and it was more noticeable in the new interface.  I'm not sure.

2. Ha ha, I'm not sure - generally the near future has much larger issues.  But it's reasonable for things to line up, at least to some extent, where whole new mechanics aren't required.

How did the stress feedback shape up? Any insights about mechanics involved

I must have written this up somewhere, but you can see that the system is completely different now.  There's the happy faces at the top, which are the current stress level, and then that impacts the long-term stress level, which can currently only be seen with the haggard etc. adjective.  And yellow faces etc. can never become harrowed etc., only red ones.  And I think red ones go through the long term stages faster.  Like a red one will hit level 1 long-term stress much faster than a yellow, and a yellow caps there while a red one goes on to level 2 then level 3.  We adjusted tantrum/etc. frequency a bit too I think.  And also rebalanced a some thoughts/memories I think.  With a lot of people playing now, I think we should have some good feedback, but I haven't gotten a chance to go through it.

Wiki states Advanced worldgen setting BEAST_END_YEAR checks for dead Megabeasts and Titans. Is it just Megabeasts and Titans? Or do semi-megabeasts and forgotten beasts count? And is every Megabeast and Titan a historical figure? Or are there pools of abstract "Megabeast pops" somewhere?
I ask because my settings are to end at 50% with checks starting in the year 250, but I've just generated a 1000 year old world in which (according to Legends Mode historical figures list) 35 of 36 Megabeasts and 13 of 18 Titans are dead. So just wanted to check exactly what it's checking for before sending a bug report.

It checks the percentage of the initial starting population versus the size of the hf_mega vector...  that should just be living megabeasts and titans.  The only way what you're seeing is not a bug is if most of those megabeasts were children not original (I think, maybe.)  Like if initial pop were 9 megas and 18 titans, then 14 of 27 remaining is still above 50%.  But I'm assuming you started with more than 9 megas.

How close are we to an Adventure Mode release?

I'm really missing it.

Do you have any timeline/objective in regard of Aventure mode release ? I suppose it will be much faster than doing Fortress, but some things also have to be reworked, so maybe it will be longer than one can expect.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8439445#msg8439445

Yeah, it's not going to be fast.  There are a lot of menus and options there.  When you sit down to enumerate them, which we've done now, it ends up being quite a list, even just the stuff that needs to be minimally converted.  Having a lot of existing art for them is useful, but there's just a lot to do.

Species descriptions - "fond of drink and industry" - were previously an iconic feature of looking at units in dwarf fortress. Now they are buried four clicks down in the health menu. Instead, the first click of a unit gets in your face with a personality description, even for non-sentient creatures like frogs and elephants. A couple streamers have already made light-hearted fun of this.

Is there any hope of getting the species descriptions back onto the overview? And what about nerfing the extremely-humanoid personalities of anything that doesn't have CAN_SPEAK?

FantasticDorf: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8439751#msg8439751

The species description is literally the same for every dwarf, so I don't think it should take up a lot of important initial space.  That space runs out very very quickly.  And it was also reasonably buried under quite a few key presses in the older versions.  For procedural creatures especially I think it's more important than where it's currently placed though.

The personality stuff is somewhat ridiculous, especially the weirder top traits.  The thoughts mostly haven't bothered me so much.

How does the near future look in the terms of improved modding support, versus squashing bugs and optimization? Some "missing" features such as not having SELECT/CUT for all object types means mods have to be written with workarounds/disallow usage with other mods. So I am wondering if it's worth waiting for 50.05 or .06 where that won't be needed, or if it's better (as a modder) to research the workarounds because it will be a while.

Putnam and I haven't gotten a chance to set anything up yet - they start in January.  So it's just too early to say.  For me it's certainly going to be a learning curve figuring out how it all works, whatever technical systems we end up using.

Did you have a merry christmas?

Will adventure and arena mode be coming out at the same time? I feel its probable since taking control of units requires the adventure interface, but want to know whats planned.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8440486#msg8440486

Yeah, I had a good holiday break.

We're going to do the non-adventure part of arena mode first, and then you'll get adv style control again once adventure mode comes out.

Lutefisk?

Yes.  I ate three.  No fish taste this year, which I think is good.  (and I tasted the pepper, so not a covid symptom.)

Any thoughts on updating the encoding used for the text in raws? -- I'm having some trouble with this myself at the moment.  What about the Raws format itself? Besides updating the files themselves, how big of a lift would it be to move to something like XML or JSON?

It's a huge process to switch.  There's just a lot there, and it would all have to be reprocessed.

Will modders be getting a way to edit dwarf image layers for the steam version without the inherent graphic incompatibilities of redoing the entire dwarf? is a SELECT_* tag a viable addition for this to allow more mod compatibility when editing or adding graphics?

What determines if an image used in game uses palettes for material color or not? Will modders have a way to set their graphics as palette colored? I haven't been able to figure out how to palette cheese.

Will dwarf layers be able to show material colors and dye colors, is there a particular reason that the layers were made for each of the vanilla materials instead of being a single palette colored layer? A group of modders I'm talking to have not been able to manage visible dye conditions outside of item tiles.

PetMudstone: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8442248#msg8442248

If something along the lines of the creature variations stuff where you can move around and insert etc. would be useful, that's certainly doable, and doable everywhere eventually, though it becomes a larger project.  I understand the current system is quite clunky.

Palette availability is determined by whether we got to them or not, really.  They were a later addition, and didn't make it everywhere where they didn't already exist, which includes all the creature stuff.  Palettes didn't exist at the time, so dwarf layers don't refer to them.

Are there plans to be able to save the difficulty settings at some point? It's a little frustrating to have the custom settings reset at the start of every game.

Also is there any way currently to make the embark box that shows the list of neighbours longer? It's already cutting off Towers a lot of the time in vanilla and really doesn't work at all in mods with multiple additional civs.

Do you plan on upgrading embark screen or the site finder in the near future?

I agree the embark box should show neighbors at a longer distance. Is it also possible to put all possible races in the site finder where you can check yes, no, friendly, or hostile for each one?

I didn't have specific plans for these, aside from I'm sure some notes generally touching upon those overall features that I didn't get to.  It's all reasonable of course.  Adjusting the site finder in that way might be more difficult because it would need to calculate distances/etc. for every tile or civ or whatever, and that's probably pretty hefty.

[Bumber]

Didn't have time to proofread this time!  Apologies in advance, things are just that way for the time being.
...

Apparently Rumrusher is "Bumrusher" now.

[voliol]

Whoah, that's quite something length-wise. Thank you Tarn for the answers! 

[Eric Blank]

Thanks for the answers Toady!

Didn't have time to proofread this time!  Apologies in advance, things are just that way for the time being.
...

Apparently Rumrusher is "Bumrusher" now.

I though the question came from you actually

[Su]

thanks for the answers toady! =]

[Shonai_Dweller]

Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
Wiki states Advanced worldgen setting BEAST_END_YEAR checks for dead Megabeasts and Titans. Is it just Megabeasts and Titans? Or do semi-megabeasts and forgotten beasts count? And is every Megabeast and Titan a historical figure? Or are there pools of abstract "Megabeast pops" somewhere?
I ask because my settings are to end at 50% with checks starting in the year 250, but I've just generated a 1000 year old world in which (according to Legends Mode historical figures list) 35 of 36 Megabeasts and 13 of 18 Titans are dead. So just wanted to check exactly what it's checking for before sending a bug report.

It checks the percentage of the initial starting population versus the size of the hf_mega vector...  that should just be living megabeasts and titans.  The only way what you're seeing is not a bug is if most of those megabeasts were children not original (I think, maybe.)  Like if initial pop were 9 megas and 18 titans, then 14 of 27 remaining is still above 50%.  But I'm assuming you started with more than 9 megas.

Thanks for the answers!

Yeah, all 18 Titans and 36 megabeasts were there from year 0 (which matches the number set in advanced worldgen).
So, (if its not a bug) a possible reason is non-historical figure child Megabeasts that don't show in Legends (or 47.05 pops export)?
Although aren't all children of historical figures automatically historical figures? So that doesn't seem right.

--edit
Seems I was missing the Megabeast kiddies, really need that Legends data output back, rocs breed so much!

So basically working. Although the targets are near impossible to reach if worldgen goes on more than about 200 years as there are so many children. Maybe megabeasts should mate for life? They just rush out and have kids with the nearest thing that looks like them resulting in some crazy inbreeding...

[dikbutdagrate]

1. full list: UNROTTEN, CONTAINS_LYE or POTASHABLE, NOT_WEB, WEB_ONLY, EMPTY, NOT_CONTAIN_BARREL_ITEM, GLASS_MATERIAL, BUILDMAT, FIRE_BUILD_SAFE, MAGMA_BUILD_SAFE, CAN_USE_ARTIFACT, WORTHLESS_STONE_ONLY, ANY_PLANT_MATERIAL, ANY_SILK_MATERIAL, ANY_YARN_MATERIAL, ANY_SOAP_MATERIAL, ANY_LEATHER_MATERIAL, ANY_BONE_MATERIAL, ANY_STRAND_TISSUE, ANY_SHELL_MATERIAL, ANY_WOOD_MATERIAL, (also STONE GEM TOOTH HORN PEARL), USE_BODY_COMPONENT, CAN_USE_LOCATION_RESERVED, NO_EDGE_ALLOWED, HAS_EDGE, ON_GROUND (ha), NOT_ENGRAVED, NOT_IMPROVED, HAS_WRITING_IMPROVEMENT, DOES_NOT_ABSORB, FOOD_STORAGE_CONTAINER, HARD_ITEM_MATERIAL, WOVEN_ITEM, NOT_PRESSED, METAL_ITEM_MATERIAL, IS_SAND_MATERIAL, IS_DIVINE_MATERIAL, IS_CRAFTED_ARTIFACT, NOT_ARTIFACT.+

1.) What in Sam Hill is an ANY_SOAP_MATERIAL token?
"A token used in defining custom reactions which produce soap goods, armor & weapons." - Would a forbidden beast made of FILTH_Y be weak to bolts made out of soap?

2.) Speaking of filth, will the GENERATES_MIASMA token ever be changed so as to permit materials other than rotting meat to produce miasma?
I've been trying to get a poop mod working for awhile, and the self-interaction logic is complicated enough as it is, (getting the self_interaction delay triggers just right, getting the dwarves to be variable levels of poop shy, having the dwarves physically explode from ruptured organs due to their own poop shyness, getting them dwarves not to poop in the hallways, and getting the dwarves to be consistent in whether they decide to drop their deuce inside of the fort's drinking well or not.) and just having an actual on-point material that functions correctly would be rad. Right now, I have to use RAW_FISH made out of DWARF♂. The RAW_FISH looks like an actual dwarf, which then rots into an entire dead dwarf, which then rots again and produces miasma. It's neat, since the dwarves won't actually clean it up on their own for some reason, and thus it requires player micro.

The problem with the work around is that dead raw_fish dwarf statue poop/stuff won't fall through grates and things, which defeats the whole plumbing gameplay idea behind the mod. Also, it's kind of hard to tell whats a dwarf and whats a giant turd that looks like a dwarf.

3.) Is "+" a token?
I know this wasn't proof read or whatever, but it's a curious typo, due to the button presses involved.

[Toady One]

Didn't have time to proofread this time!  Apologies in advance, things are just that way for the time being.
...

Apparently Rumrusher is "Bumrusher" now.

Ha ha ha, see, I really didn't proofread it!  Thanks for the heads up