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[FAA]

Does the economy update for the next version mean that items in the game world will finally be made of metals that make sense? As in, mostly of iron/steel and not platinum or gold all the time?

EDIT: Why won’t DF use mapgen system similar to the one in Cataclysm: DDA? It’s very simple and results in hundreds of structure types, each much more believable than anything DF offers atm.

Lime green for questions to Toady

On structures you really need to be more exact. What about structures should be better? What isn't realistic? Doubt Toady's going to go play CDDA and study their code just to answer your question.

(Of course, if you're going to write a lot, it's better off in the Suggestions forum).

And there isn't an "Economy update" in the next version (besides some abstract accounts for bribery and weapon upgrades). So, it'll work as it's always done probably.

Sorry for a bit of OT. I’ll clarify what I meant.

Cataclysm uses a simple jsonised code that allows them to tie a tile to a letter and quickly write structures. They have groups of items that each structure can spawn as well so a house will spawn a different set than a police station, a restaurant or one of about 80 types of shops. And there will be a lot of plausible variation in all of them.

The great thing is that every building you enter feels like it could be real - clothes and pillows in the bedroom, alcohol and food in the fridge, medicine in the bathrooms and clothes in the drawers. Shops have display racks, police stations have lockers, and loot always makes sense. Structures in DF are way too random and don’t make nearly as much sense, it ruins the feeling of a real world.

Reddit widely regards Cataclysm DDA as one of the best, if not THE best roguelike currently available. It would make sense to at least see how they do stuff. They have a much larger team of volunteer developers so they can add stuff much faster than DF, but still, could be a source of inspiration. The experimental version which is the version to play has progressed immensely throughout 2019. More than any other roguelike I know.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Does the economy update for the next version mean that items in the game world will finally be made of metals that make sense? As in, mostly of iron/steel and not platinum or gold all the time?

EDIT: Why won’t DF use mapgen system similar to the one in Cataclysm: DDA? It’s very simple and results in hundreds of structure types, each much more believable than anything DF offers atm.

Lime green for questions to Toady

On structures you really need to be more exact. What about structures should be better? What isn't realistic? Doubt Toady's going to go play CDDA and study their code just to answer your question.

(Of course, if you're going to write a lot, it's better off in the Suggestions forum).

And there isn't an "Economy update" in the next version (besides some abstract accounts for bribery and weapon upgrades). So, it'll work as it's always done probably.

Cataclysm uses a simple jsonised code that allows them to tie a tile to a letter and quickly write structures. They have groups of items that each structure can spawn as well so a house will spawn a different set than a police station, a restaurant or one of about 80 types of shops. And there will be a lot of plausible variation in all of them.

The great thing is that every building you enter feels like it could be real - clothes and pillows in the bedroom, alcohol and food in the fridge, medicine in the bathrooms and clothes in the drawers. Shops have display racks, police stations have lockers, and loot always makes sense. Structures in DF are way too random and don’t make nearly as much sense, it ruins the feeling of a real world.

Is that a question?
Ah well, whatever...

[voliol]

Does the economy update for the next version mean that items in the game world will finally be made of metals that make sense? As in, mostly of iron/steel and not platinum or gold all the time?

EDIT: Why won’t DF use mapgen system similar to the one in Cataclysm: DDA? It’s very simple and results in hundreds of structure types, each much more believable than anything DF offers atm.

Dwarf Fortress is getting a map rewrite due The Big Wait, in some year or two. I don't know much smaller structures will be touched upon then, but taking a look at other code for inspiration is a sound idea. From what I've played of CDDA that game also has really nice-looking generated structures, so it feels like a good contender for code to be looked at.

Also, we should remember that CDDA is a younger game than Dwarf Fortress, so Toady couldn't use it as a reference when originally writing the DF structure code. I'm not sure exactly how the CDDA code works, but even simple ideas can be exceedingly difficult to come up with.

[FAA]

I created some new content for CDDA that made it to the main build. Adding new structures, modifying mapgen or adding npcs takes no time at all. If DF had something like that, one could create, let’s say a dozen types of procedurally generated, realistic houses, in just a few hours of coding. The coding structure of cdda is also very simple - almost everything is in a folder called “mapgen”. I don’t know DF coding so I thought I’d ask a question regarding the feasibility of that.

[LordBaal]

No one but Threetoe and Toady (and I guess now a few Valve engineers) know the code of DF. Is not open source and my guess is that it will be keep that way now that will be on steam.

[FAA]

Does the economy update for the next version mean that items in the game world will finally be made of metals that make sense? As in, mostly of iron/steel and not platinum or gold all the time?

EDIT: Why won’t DF use mapgen system similar to the one in Cataclysm: DDA? It’s very simple and results in hundreds of structure types, each much more believable than anything DF offers atm.

Lime green for questions to Toady

On structures you really need to be more exact. What about structures should be better? What isn't realistic? Doubt Toady's going to go play CDDA and study their code just to answer your question.

(Of course, if you're going to write a lot, it's better off in the Suggestions forum).

And there isn't an "Economy update" in the next version (besides some abstract accounts for bribery and weapon upgrades). So, it'll work as it's always done probably.

I based it on this excerpt from the “development” page:

World economy
Supply/demand based on current available entity resources etc.
Expand on trade/tribute relationships formed in world generation

They’re listed as “Partially done”. I also remember reading somewhere that this update will include some economy changes.

EDIT: I remember reading somewhere that sites were supposed to use materials available to them. I think I read it in Steam updates but I’m not sure.

[therahedwig]

Yeah, that item has been marked as partially done for over a few years now

Mind, items of platinum and gold are a lot rarer in adventure mode than it might seem from your average caravan load-out. Most of the stuff that is truly pulled from the aether has DF's weird materials going on (forgotten beast parchment scrolls, divine metals, barrels of blood...), but once you go into the towns things normalize a little (because the town's generation of stuff has a bit more detailed economy and resource structures behind it).

[FantasticDorf]

Cross informational tidbits mean that guilds will allow much more consistent procurement of availible resources though where they are present for site-maps (in the weekly behind the scenes basis where sites make crops to feed themselves, and procure goods for adv-market/wagon trade/stockpiling), which are accessed by companies seeking out new goods like draltha leather from the particular devlog (if that makes it in within the steam version or hotfix after)

Toady's Trade map from 12/13/2018 devlog, though its mainly used to denote the colors in where religions are rather than particular trade or locations.

(10/23/2018) This week involved a lot of bug-fixing from last week, so there's not as much concrete progress to report. For instance, a human trading company called the Present Hall was wildly successful trading various leathers and bones for crafting, and eventually had enough clout to open a branch warehouse inside a dwarf fortress for the first time. Can't resist that draltha leather. This turned out to be a strategic error, as two short years later, a forgotten beast obliterated the fortress, the warehouse, and killed everyone inside. So, what's the correct response? Close the destroyed branch? No, no, you stimulate the (non-existent) economy by hiring local. Forgotten beast, you're the new (ruined) warehouse administrator, congratulations! Those sorts of fixes were straightforward, but more time was burned with screwed-up resource lists, naming problems and some stability issues.

At some point with possibly more post-fix refinement (or sooner if someone sets up a novel way with modifications), the very real threat of Goblins or Humans getting aquisition of secret alloy metals like steel by some manner will become a reality on forts who have been running for a little while.

[Ekaton]

Hope I’m not getting too much off topic, but Cataclysm is definitely a great source of inspiration. It has a great mapgen and an incredibly in-depth crafting system. Both are very easy to code. I added some NPCs, items and places with almost no knowledge in the field of programming. It’s insanely easy.

One thing other than mapgen would be the very clear set of traits for each item. Items have capabilities valued in points to determine how good they are for, e.g. bolt turning, butchering, lifting, hammering or heating food. The way you craft with various tools and how you can use different items like honey instead of sugar or lumps of steel instead of chunks, makes it absolutely amazing. I really wish we could see something like that in DF. You need an axe to cut a tree, a woodsaw or a saw or even an axe but it will take time to cut the trumk into planks, hammer and nails or ropes to build a wall. It’s insanely satisfying and immersive.

The question, I suppose is: can something like that be done in DF, within the constrains of its engine? The way it works in CDDA is wonderful and insanely easy and fast to code. If the simplicity can be replicated, it could make development faster and smoother.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Hope I’m not getting too much off topic, but Cataclysm is definitely a great source of inspiration. It has a great mapgen and an incredibly in-depth crafting system. Both are very easy to code. I added some NPCs, items and places with almost no knowledge in the field of programming. It’s insanely easy.

One thing other than mapgen would be the very clear set of traits for each item. Items have capabilities valued in points to determine how good they are for, e.g. bolt turning, butchering, lifting, hammering or heating food. The way you craft with various tools and how you can use different items like honey instead of sugar or lumps of steel instead of chunks, makes it absolutely amazing. I really wish we could see something like that in DF. You need an axe to cut a tree, a woodsaw or a saw or even an axe but it will take time to cut the trumk into planks, hammer and nails or ropes to build a wall. It’s insanely satisfying and immersive.

The question, I suppose is: can something like that be done in DF, within the constrains of its engine? The way it works in CDDA is wonderful and insanely easy and fast to code. If the simplicity can be replicated, it could make development faster and smoother.

Again, you can't and won't ever be able to code anything in Dwarf Fortress. It's not an Open Source game.

So without knowing how fast and smooth Toady's current building procedures are we can't know that rewriting the code so it works the same as CDDA will help him at all.

He seemingly added castles, monasteries and bandit forts in a week so it doesn't seem that it's causing him many problems right now.

Devlog:
8/01 "now we can start on maps".
8/07 "The map work is complete. I finished bandit and mercenary forts, merchant company counting houses, guildhalls, monasteries, and improved necromancer towers."

--
Now, for modding options, it would be worth hearing about what may be possible later. Although site and building design will likely be part of the fixed world editor and that's coming after the map & site rewrite, so it may not be clear yet what will be possible.

[kitfoxgames]

Not sure if it was asked before but what will be the copyrights for game soundtracks? I'm asking because when the game is on Steam I'll start making a series of tutorials as i did before and i used DF soundtrack as background music for it. Will i be able to do it or youtube can potentially ban me for it?

Yeah, that should be fine!   Preferably you'd give credits in the description for the soundtrack, but Youtube shouldn't ding you for it or anything, especially if it's DF-based.

[FAA]

Will food spoilage make it to the game?

[FAA]

Hope I’m not getting too much off topic, but Cataclysm is definitely a great source of inspiration. It has a great mapgen and an incredibly in-depth crafting system. Both are very easy to code. I added some NPCs, items and places with almost no knowledge in the field of programming. It’s insanely easy.

One thing other than mapgen would be the very clear set of traits for each item. Items have capabilities valued in points to determine how good they are for, e.g. bolt turning, butchering, lifting, hammering or heating food. The way you craft with various tools and how you can use different items like honey instead of sugar or lumps of steel instead of chunks, makes it absolutely amazing. I really wish we could see something like that in DF. You need an axe to cut a tree, a woodsaw or a saw or even an axe but it will take time to cut the trumk into planks, hammer and nails or ropes to build a wall. It’s insanely satisfying and immersive.

The question, I suppose is: can something like that be done in DF, within the constrains of its engine? The way it works in CDDA is wonderful and insanely easy and fast to code. If the simplicity can be replicated, it could make development faster and smoother.

Again, you can't and won't ever be able to code anything in Dwarf Fortress. It's not an Open Source game.

So without knowing how fast and smooth Toady's current building procedures are we can't know that rewriting the code so it works the same as CDDA will help him at all.

He seemingly added castles, monasteries and bandit forts in a week so it doesn't seem that it's causing him many problems right now.

Devlog:
8/01 "now we can start on maps".
8/07 "The map work is complete. I finished bandit and mercenary forts, merchant company counting houses, guildhalls, monasteries, and improved necromancer towers."

--
Now, for modding options, it would be worth hearing about what may be possible later. Although site and building design will likely be part of the fixed world editor and that's coming after the map & site rewrite, so it may not be clear yet what will be possible.

I’ve started adventure mode today and most buildings are just walls, lacking furniture entirely. That’s probably one of the weakest points - there are structures but none of them are believable. The world is really shallow. Adding new structures doesn’t matter if they’re so shallow. I suggested following Cataclysm because, compared to DF, ALL structures have appropriate furniture, and there are hundreds of them.

[voliol]

At this point the map discourse should probably move to its own thread in the suggestions forum.

Also, nice seeing an official @kitfoxgames account here on the forum. Welcome!

[Shonai_Dweller]

Ooh. New paradigm. An official answer, and we didn't have to wait until the end of the month! Scary new world of DF we're entering now...