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[AliceRed]

I'm really late but the comparisons to CDDA are kind of shallow IMO, cataclysm's buidlings are pre-built chunks (just randomly populated with items and mobs) and adding them kind of goes contrary to this game's goals of having everything be generated, which is far off but is the goal.

[PatrikLundell]

As long as it doesn't result in e.g. k/k-v/k-q/k-t, i.e. interact key (here loo'k') followed by another key

Dear Armok, no. One "interact" key or left mouse click, that knows what to do depending on the type of the object. I don't know for the life of me, why it wasn't like that from the beginning.
Look makes most sense to be a mouse hover event. So far we only have one text field to put look information in, but it could be a popup window in graphical mode and there you can put anything and everything about an object or a dwarf.

The problem is "knows what to do depending on the type of object" as in my example. I'll leave it at that to allow the thread to go back on track.

[Borzoi]

I imagine this was already asked before, and answered in turn, but what's the possibility of expanding the range of text characters that can be used to represent a tile? I'm not really sure of the technicalities of how that works, so I imagine there might be a practical restriction on it.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I imagine this was already asked before, and answered in turn, but what's the possibility of expanding the range of text characters that can be used to represent a tile? I'm not really sure of the technicalities of how that works, so I imagine there might be a practical restriction on it.

Lime green text if that's a question you want Toady to answer.

From a couple of days ago was this, if that's what you're asking:

Quote from: PatrikLundell
A few reasonably near time technical questions that may not have been decided on yet:

As far as I understand, the CP437 character set is going to be replaced with a wider set.
1A. Is the set going to be the same for actual text as for character graphics?
1B. Is the set going to be fixed size (e.g. 16 bit), or variable size (e.g. Unicode)?
1C. If the set(s) has been decided on, can you tell us what it is?

I have gotten the impression that the current set of 15 colors is going to be replaced by a wider set(s).
2A. I've seen indications that named colors will be usable, would that be in addition to RGB or instead of RGB?
2B. If both versions are supported, will you be able to use one or the other at will, or will each color usage situation have a fixed definition (or some being fixed and some variable)?
2C. Assuming named colors can be used, would they be fixed or defined in a RAW file where the users can add additional ones for use in RAWs?

Toady:

We haven't decided if we're going to use a wider set -- we're juuust starting to experiment with our first text-bearing buttons, and we'll see what comes out of that.  The graphical tiles and the interface tiles are completely decoupled now, so the only relationships between their sizes are just based on what makes a nice button with an animal/item picture next to it, etc.  I'm just using the old 8x12 font now.  Dunno if we'll end up somewhere else, either in terms of fixed size or fixed width or anything else, though we've had trouble supporting ttf in the past and I'm not sure what issues there are implementing unicode.  It's not as crucial as some of the absolutely horrible stuff about the UI, as long as it is legible.

The wider color ranges are used in recoloring the graphical tile set (weapon materials, gems, etc.), and those colors are already defined in a raw file (descriptor_color_standard.txt), but I haven't done anything with text yet.  DF text has always been printed using 24 bit color, and it just artificially narrowed the range.  So it would just take a few minutes to get it to print in any RGB color, as a technical matter, but it's a matter of where that is used.  Certainly there are lots of places where it would make sense.

Having done nothing with it makes it difficult to comment on usage.  The descriptor raw file is more for in-game stuff though, so for some UI text unrelated to game objects, something more along the lines of data/init/colors.txt would be appropriate.  But if the text is, say, of an in-game material and we want it to be the same color as that material (possibly brightened if it is too dark), then that would still use a raw color definition.

[Borzoi]

Oops, I meant for it to be directed towards Toady. My bad! That quoted post answers pretty much all my questions anyways, so thanks.

[Mort Stroodle]

We can now raise our citizens as intelligent undead, who retain all their conversational skills and personality traits, and act with wills of their own, yet have zero emotions. Emotion and motivation are closely tied, and trying to untangle them gets messy. For me it's hard to really comprehend what it would even mean for someone to lack all emotions. To my understanding, even people with Alexithymia don't outright lack all emotions, much of it is a more complicated inability to understand their own emotions.  So with intelligent undead, who have no emotion yet behave in many ways like regular members of the fort... is it all an act? Are they just "pretending" to be the person they once were? Are they operating entirely on habit? What are your thoughts on the philosophical implications of having motivated people with zero emotions at all?

This whole concept is extremely interesting to me, characters like Spock and Data in Star Trek always get me thinking hard about what exactly it is that motivates people, and how much of the human experience is directed by emotion.

[Shonai_Dweller]

We can now raise our citizens as intelligent undead, who retain all their conversational skills and personality traits, and act with wills of their own, yet have zero emotions. Emotion and motivation are closely tied, and trying to untangle them gets messy. For me it's hard to really comprehend what it would even mean for someone to lack all emotions. To my understanding, even people with Alexithymia don't outright lack all emotions, much of it is a more complicated inability to understand their own emotions.  So with intelligent undead, who have no emotion yet behave in many ways like regular members of the fort... is it all an act? Are they just "pretending" to be the person they once were? Are they operating entirely on habit? What are your thoughts on the philosophical implications of having motivated people with zero emotions at all?

This whole concept is extremely interesting to me, characters like Spock and Data in Star Trek always get me thinking hard about what exactly it is that motivates people, and how much of the human experience is directed by emotion.

I imagine any thinking has been put off until after Mythgen when the exact nature of master-zombie relationships and how much free will that implies has been developed.

[Wieniawa]

1. On some Steam version screenshots, some creatures seem to be multi-tile. Can we expect multi-tile creatures then?
2. If Steam version is going to expand upon overground farming, can we expect NPC farms?
3. Also re farming, can we expect to be able to dig stones from the ground and fill holes with dirt? So far when you’re farming above ground you end up with a lot of holes in the middle of the farm, if you happen to have stone tiles in the middle.

[PatrikLundell]

1. On some Steam version screenshots, some creatures seem to be multi-tile. Can we expect multi-tile creatures then?
2. If Steam version is going to expand upon overground farming, can we expect NPC farms?
3. Also re farming, can we expect to be able to dig stones from the ground and fill holes with dirt? So far when you’re farming above ground you end up with a lot of holes in the middle of the farm, if you happen to have stone tiles in the middle.

1. The only multi tile "creature" in DF for the time being is the wagon. The creatures you've seen are probably the oversize ones, i.e. ones that are allowed to poke into neighboring tiles a little bit, but game wise they still occupy a single tile and have no problems moving through single tile spaces. Multi tile creatures have been mentioned in the past, but there are a number of problems with their implementation, so any attempt at those will be beyond the Myth & Magic arc (The boats and complex equipment work might possibly look at multi tile creatures, as boats will be multi tile, but that will remain to be seen).
2. No major features are intended to be implemented for the Premium release. The time is already too short for bug fixes, stress, UI improvements (which will probably include some minor functionality changes), and graphics.
3. No. This is related to the issue of moving material around in smaller chunks that whole tiles, and probably require support that the Map Rewrite (part of the Myth & Magic release groundwork) might introduce. Such a change ought to make sand and clay deposits deplete rather than being unlimited, and the logic required for that ought to be reasonably easily adapted to soil shuffling as well. (The stones can be worked around by muddying the rocky patches, or you can channel away the whole first soil layer over the farming area to get uniform farming areas using the current DF version).

[Wieniawa]

I'm really late but the comparisons to CDDA are kind of shallow IMO, cataclysm's buidlings are pre-built chunks (just randomly populated with items and mobs) and adding them kind of goes contrary to this game's goals of having everything be generated, which is far off but is the goal.

To be fair, real-life buildings follow certain patterns so this would probably be the best way to do it. Create prefabs for the game to use, sets of furniture/items that match occupant’s civilisation, profession, wealth etc. and voila, a realistic world.

[Liamar]

1. Will animal training ever extend to herding?
2. Will we ever have fences to keep livestock separated without a full wall?
3. Will we have dog breeds at some point? General domesticated breeds, selective breeding, explicit (dif name, sprite) or just trait-based? Sentient breeds, half-breeds?
4. Will fort mode ever receive a more real time clock with day-night cycle?

[Bumber]

1. Will animal training ever extend to herding?
2. Will we ever have fences to keep livestock separated without a full wall?
3. Will we have dog breeds at some point? General domesticated breeds, selective breeding, explicit (dif name, sprite) or just trait-based? Sentient breeds, half-breeds?
4. Will fort mode ever receive a more real time clock with day-night cycle?

These are more like suggestions, and should be put here if they haven't been suggested already. (I'm pretty sure #2 and #4 already have been.)

[PatrikLundell]

:
4. Will fort mode ever receive a more real time clock with day-night cycle?

4. Most probably not. Fortress mode uses an accelerated time where dorfs walk at 1/72 the speed of adventure mode, drinks twice a month, etc. While it certainly would be possible to change from accelerated time to real time (or a lesser acceleration), the result would be that any kind of fortress scale project would take forever to accomplish. Do you really want a DF year to take 3 real world years (assuming you spend 8 hours a day, every day, with no pausing [although a DF year is slightly shorter than a real world one])? A fortress day/might cycle at the current time scale would just add an annoying color scheme change cycle at a fairly high rate.

[BrythonLexi]

I just made a discovery about dwarf's attributes changing pre-to-post embark based on what labours they were given on the embark screen.  I'm wondering if this is a hard-coded thing; and if so, how this is programmed.  Additionally I'm curious to see if this also affects personality traits as well.

EDIT:  It appears attributes do not change, but for some reason, personality does?  This is bizzare.  Maybe it's just Dwarf Therapist preferring high skills and not actually a game hard-coded thing.

Edit of edit: I was mistaken in my findings; it was a misinterpretation of the data Dwarf Therapist gave out.

[Mort Stroodle]

I know dwarf appearance varies by civ, but does it also vary by sex? Could a particular civ have, say, shaved heads being in fashion for women while braided hair is all the rage for men?