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How much warning do you plan to give before the release of the new version? Will there be an official release date scheduled, or will you just drop it on us like in previous releases?

I'd like to be able to schedule some time off

[A_Curious_Cat]

Thanks for the answers Toady! Interesting that artifacts can be destroyed for good now. The wiki should be updated!

Topologically, it's a torus, just one that you can't really put into a 3D space without overlapping or whatever. A mug is also a torus, and all that.

Dwarf Fortress is...mug shaped? It is Armok's will!

The dwarves think it’s an ale mug.
The humans think it’s a coffee mug.
The elves think it’s a mug of hot cocoa…

…And the kobolds think it’s shiny!

[Eric Blank]

Something that's bugging me a little: Why are the underground crops the ones effected by the changing seasons while the surface crops- the ones actually exposed to the changing weather and temperature- aren't? The conditions underground are really quite stable- hence wine cellars and root cellars.

Like Patrick said, there used to be underground seasons. In the 2D version, there was always a cave river in the mountain behind the fort, and every spring the river would flood the crops, so the crops available depended on the season. It never got updated when the z-levels got added and the flooding no longer happened, and then cave rivers and chasms got phased out when the current caverns got implemented. But crops still depend on the "seasonal floods" kinda. Which makes sense if the rock is porous enough that a significant amount of surface water drains down into them after every spring thaw. But thats not currently a thing in the game right now.

How much warning do you plan to give before the release of the new version? Will there be an official release date scheduled, or will you just drop it on us like in previous releases?

I'd like to be able to schedule some time off

Me too!

[FantasticDorf]

Something that's bugging me a little: Why are the underground crops the ones effected by the changing seasons while the surface crops- the ones actually exposed to the changing weather and temperature- aren't? The conditions underground are really quite stable- hence wine cellars and root cellars.

Like Patrick said, there used to be underground seasons. In the 2D version, there was always a cave river in the mountain behind the fort, and every spring the river would flood the crops, so the crops available depended on the season. It never got updated when the z-levels got added and the flooding no longer happened, and then cave rivers and chasms got phased out when the current caverns got implemented. But crops still depend on the "seasonal floods" kinda. Which makes sense if the rock is porous enough that a significant amount of surface water drains down into them after every spring thaw. But thats not currently a thing in the game right now.

If nothing else it just keeps a accurate check of the time for your seasonal cycles wherever you are. Only having 2 seasons underground like "Moist" and "Chilly" would be more difficult for new players to associate, and also to time crops.

[kiiranaux]

Will premium introduce a solution to Necromancer Entropy - the fact that given enough time undead take over the world? I believe Tarn previously mentioned vampire hunters of the Van Helsing ilk, possibly grouping together into some kind of organizations. How are the odds for this looking right now? (This was stated in an interview with Blind, but not his most recent one, or maybe here, or in maybe in some other interview.) 

I know this is technically an emergent gameplay feature rather than a bug, but it's not one that actually enables any fun gameplay (except for roleplaying Zombie Apolcalypse), and it seems you guys have acknowledged that it's a problem. Thanks for reading.

(First time posting in FotF, let me know if I got anything wrong).

[☼Obsidian Short Sword☼]

I was curious:

1: Once a creature is parsed from the raws, How do you represent it in memory(I'm ok with technical details)?
2: On the dev page, Automatons were mentioned as a possible feature. When could we reasonably expect their first appearance?

Thanks for the answers in advance!

[Mr Crabman]

On the dev page, Automatons were mentioned as a possible feature. When could we expect their first appearance?[

Probably myth&magic. That would be the most likely.

[FloofyMomo]

Bottomless pits? Yes please that’s so dwarf fortress, hope you are able to keep it in some sense. Maybe like at a certain zlevel put a trigger that if any creature like a dwarf touches it it goes into the dead/missing category, perhaps with a message like “Alive but lost forever”.

[PatrikLundell]

I was curious:

1: Once a creature is parsed from the raws, How do you represent it in memory(I'm ok with technical details)?
2: On the dev page, Automatons were mentioned as a possible feature. When could we expect their first appearance(After or before Myth/Magic)?

Thanks for the answers in advance!

1. The DF structures of DFHack maps most or all of the creature info, so you can find the info there (and you won't have to wait to the end of the month).
2. Like Mr. Crabman, I see Myth & Magic as a prerequisite for automata. They'd most likely require magic, and I doubt Toady would introduce more things that would have to be reworked by Myth & Magic without a very strong reason (and I fail to see that automata would be essential for anything that absolutely has to be introduced before that arc).

[AvolitionBrit]

I was curious on a few things

1. Have you ever considered restrictions/segmentation on books in libraries ever and would you possibly consider it in the future, such as restricting individual books and/or a library on a certain topic like astrology in one library and chronicles in another

2. In regards to religions, will it be possible in the future for a player to found them, especially in terms of adventure mode, having a adventurer founding a religious cult, a splinter off from a already exisiting one or becoming leadership and making changes to an existing one.

3. At somepoint in the future will costal erosion be considered as a feature, so overtime the map changes, sea level rises, islands shifting together or breaking off. Sea volcanos forming islands. So sites might end up becoming lost under the ocean or burried in magma. I know its a big feature to implement but has it ever been thought about or considered before. As well as biome changes as the enviroment changes, like the expansion of a desert over time due to desertification or a forest becoming colder over time due to enviromental changes.

[PatrikLundell]

If you want Toady to answer your questions you should use the convention of coloring them lime green. That allows him to find them when writing up the answers.

3. Biome changes already exist, although only to a very small extent (savage biomes are tamed over time in world generation due to influence from civilization, and evil can now spread from nodes (necro towers and new demon led goblin civs)). The map rewrite will make it possible to change terrain as well, both gradually as a result of sphere influence changes, and abruptly as the result of a spell. or a divine or natural cataclysmic event. Thus, it has been considered, but it remains to see when and how abrupt changes make their appearance (spheres battling it out is more or less a given, and although the number of sphere influence changing factors will probably be limited initially, the "battle" mechanics will probably have to be in there from the start).

[AvolitionBrit]

3. Biome changes already exist, although only to a very small extent (savage biomes are tamed over time in world generation due to influence from civilization, and evil can now spread from nodes (necro towers and new demon led goblin civs)). The map rewrite will make it possible to change terrain as well, both gradually as a result of sphere influence changes, and abruptly as the result of a spell. or a divine or natural cataclysmic event. Thus, it has been considered, but it remains to see when and how abrupt changes make their appearance (spheres battling it out is more or less a given, and although the number of sphere influence changing factors will probably be limited initially, the "battle" mechanics will probably have to be in there from the start).

I know those kind of changes exist. I was talking about more natural changes such as temperature, sea levels, disasters, costal erosion and the like

[Mr Crabman]

I know those kind of changes exist. I was talking about more natural changes such as temperature, sea levels, disasters, costal erosion and the like

At the very least, disasters are planned. Sea levels and temperature probably would be included in some sorts of disaster, but I don't know if it would happen in a gradual, "natural" way.

[Nordlicht]

3. At somepoint in the future will costal erosion be considered as a feature, so overtime the map changes, sea level rises, islands shifting together or breaking off. Sea volcanos forming islands. So sites might end up becoming lost under the ocean or burried in magma. I know its a big feature to implement but has it ever been thought about or considered before. As well as biome changes as the enviroment changes, like the expansion of a desert over time due to desertification or a forest becoming colder over time due to enviromental changes.

I think this would be great if you put it into the Suggestion Forum. I think climate and island shifts would need different timescales like SimEarth. E.g. Tectonic Simulation instead of Diamond-Square.

[PatrikLundell]

Temperature changes should easily fit into the sphere system, as that's currently one of the most important parameters determining the biome.
I doubt erosion and "natural" sea level change would come into play, as that's generally happening on larger time scales than that of the game (and tectonic activities are much slower still), so unless the world's rules are different from our world I don't think there would be a point to add them. You could, of course, have some kind of rather chaotic world where things happen randomly or much faster than in the real world, in which case it would make sense to add such changes (but they'd come with a CPU cost, of course).