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[Starver]

(@Schmaven) If not a spear, the next thought I had was it's also not quite a halberd. That tends to be "double-headed axe with spear point atop", or axe plus hammer side-heads plus the pointy bit for cleave+bash+poke capabilities (and also +hook by overextending over your target and pulling back in) in one handy head - that looks a bit more like three spikes, perhaps mini-pick or ice-axey, but not quite.

I think, therefore, it's modelled after a boar-spear, or other hunting variation. Which might not be a bad decision for many of the enemies you need to equip spears for, even if a competent opponent with reach and reactions (vs a lesser competency wielder) could perhaps take advantage of the bars to grab-parry any thrust.


A long, long time ago (easily 10 years ago, so not going to dredge it up), I'm sure I waffled on about procedurally-generated weapons. Based on grip (handle, pole, hilt (with or without crossbars/etc)), head (pokey, slashy, bashy, spiky, in all kinds of packages) and what goes between (shaft, chain, tether, etc, in anything from direct to hyper-extended length). This indeed looks like a weird exotic tridential spear using the procedural system... But we don't really have that, so it won't be.

[Bumber]

Enormous corkscrew looks odd tapering like that, considering its use as a screw pump component.

[Criperum]

Spikes look like they are already installed right in the store. Maybe while not installed they should look more like a stack or pile. Probably tied with the rope

[ror6ax]

Re: tree topic.

Could we have a very subtle animation of trees rocking in the wind? I'm a big fan of +3 z level view of blossoming plum orchards. With animation that would be a serious meditation material.

*damn I sound like those filthy treehuggers*

[Rekov]

Wooden floor looks like a brick wall texture to me

I think part of it is just the color. Compare the color of the wood floor to that of the stockpile signs or the tree trunks. It's redder and more saturated. It looks more like terracotta.

[ror6ax]

Wooden floor looks like a brick wall texture to me

I think part of it is just the color. Compare the color of the wood floor to that of the stockpile signs or the tree trunks. It's redder and more saturated. It looks more like terracotta.

Yep, colour change would be the least work intensive fix for this problem

[Nelia Hawk]

i wonder if the "debug creature" will get to be a actual creature at some point... or maybe it is already something weird existing in the caves or so... maybe something with the magic update at some point, who knows...

[Rekov]

Wooden floor looks like a brick wall texture to me

I think part of it is just the color. Compare the color of the wood floor to that of the stockpile signs or the tree trunks. It's redder and more saturated. It looks more like terracotta.

Yep, colour change would be the least work intensive fix for this problem

And who knows. They're already playing around with material colors, so maybe it will eventually end up being that the wood floor just actually reflects the color of the material. Which could mean mostly brown, or a whole bunch of subtly different browns for different kinds of woods, with a few odd colors like glumps.

[Cruxador]

I feel like allowing items to be rotated would be handy; they could be any 0º/90º/180º/270º rotation, which would encourage a hectic look where appropriate. Even when placed nicely, I reckon rotating all of them (90º clockwise) would make them look more discarded/inactive, as opposed to being in a "readied" position. Although a small thing and it would be excessive to say that the current orientation is wrong, I think that would help readability.

(@Schmaven) If not a spear, the next thought I had was it's also not quite a halberd. That tends to be "double-headed axe with spear point atop", or axe plus hammer side-heads plus the pointy bit for cleave+bash+poke capabilities (and also +hook by overextending over your target and pulling back in) in one handy head - that looks a bit more like three spikes, perhaps mini-pick or ice-axey, but not quite.

I think, therefore, it's modelled after a boar-spear, or other hunting variation. Which might not be a bad decision for many of the enemies you need to equip spears for, even if a competent opponent with reach and reactions (vs a lesser competency wielder) could perhaps take advantage of the bars to grab-parry any thrust.

I parsed it as a ranseur, albeit a particularly non-curvy one. There's also a chinese weapon that I don't know the proper name for, but I think ranseur is closest. It doesn't really resemble a boar spear meaningfully. The "crossguard" is far too huge for that, even within the limits of how much variation the sprites can show.

[ror6ax]

I feel like allowing items to be rotated would be handy; they could be any 0º/90º/180º/270º rotation, which would encourage a hectic look where appropriate. Even when placed nicely, I reckon rotating all of them (90º clockwise) would make them look more discarded/inactive, as opposed to being in a "readied" position. Although a small thing and it would be excessive to say that the current orientation is wrong, I think that would help readability.

(@Schmaven) If not a spear, the next thought I had was it's also not quite a halberd. That tends to be "double-headed axe with spear point atop", or axe plus hammer side-heads plus the pointy bit for cleave+bash+poke capabilities (and also +hook by overextending over your target and pulling back in) in one handy head - that looks a bit more like three spikes, perhaps mini-pick or ice-axey, but not quite.

I think, therefore, it's modelled after a boar-spear, or other hunting variation. Which might not be a bad decision for many of the enemies you need to equip spears for, even if a competent opponent with reach and reactions (vs a lesser competency wielder) could perhaps take advantage of the bars to grab-parry any thrust.

I parsed it as a ranseur, albeit a particularly non-curvy one. There's also a chinese weapon that I don't know the proper name for, but I think ranseur is closest. It doesn't really resemble a boar spear meaningfully. The "crossguard" is far too huge for that, even within the limits of how much variation the sprites can show.

You mean that swords on the weapon pile would be pointing in different directions?

[Starver]

Swords in different directions: Possibly something to be done. I guess that depiction is used because "/" is generic 'weapon' in DF.

If taken with a more Nethack spin, originally, "/”-placed items would have been wands, with items likely to be posed in 'graphics' format to best befit their ")" and "(" origins for (classic) weapons and tools respectively. The pickaxe here being a debatable either/or, though demonstrating one posdible reason for consistency, making the "\"-orientated pick stand out as a special case at a quick glance.


Ranseur: Maybe. Later I mentioned the 'tridential' (trident-like, i.e.) spear. This is probably what I was refering to, but neither that name nor that of the related Partisan look like the name I still fail to remember (and it also isn't the Sai dagger).  As for this maybe-crossguard being too large.. it's on the very edge of useful pixilation without looking like a plain line. With the slight curved extremities it could even be a fully rounded thing ("bell-guard"-like, as in épées and foils, but shallower and inverted - making it look more like a wooden-bladed, metal-gripped training 'sword' in reverse) or  because of the diagonal jaggardness forced upon it by pixelation have the qualities (also mentioned) of ice-axe blades with vicious serations (could be a 'can-opener' design, used to trouble an armoured foe (natural scales/etc or manufactured stuff) by piercing straight into any plate it can pierce and then with a levering action each way do significant additional damage to the armour, and not do much good to its inhabitant either as the tip waggles, and potentially 'whisks', around in the squishy interior).

Not that I think any of these depictions are 'wrong'. Fantasy weaponry often comes in far more fantastically impractical forms that defy pretty much all logic, so excuse me if I barely twitch reality as I voice my own head-canon. In the world of DF, it's not inconceivable that this is an offshoot from a slightly different original set of farm-tools where a different kind of bale-spiking tool was used than our very own multi-tined pitchforks/etc, and from that arose the crossbarred-spear we (perhaps) see before us. Very feasible, even if still entirely incorrect.

[Cruxador]

I feel like allowing items to be rotated would be handy; they could be any 0º/90º/180º/270º rotation, which would encourage a hectic look where appropriate. Even when placed nicely, I reckon rotating all of them (90º clockwise) would make them look more discarded/inactive, as opposed to being in a "readied" position. Although a small thing and it would be excessive to say that the current orientation is wrong, I think that would help readability.

(@Schmaven) If not a spear, the next thought I had was it's also not quite a halberd. That tends to be "double-headed axe with spear point atop", or axe plus hammer side-heads plus the pointy bit for cleave+bash+poke capabilities (and also +hook by overextending over your target and pulling back in) in one handy head - that looks a bit more like three spikes, perhaps mini-pick or ice-axey, but not quite.

I think, therefore, it's modelled after a boar-spear, or other hunting variation. Which might not be a bad decision for many of the enemies you need to equip spears for, even if a competent opponent with reach and reactions (vs a lesser competency wielder) could perhaps take advantage of the bars to grab-parry any thrust.

I parsed it as a ranseur, albeit a particularly non-curvy one. There's also a chinese weapon that I don't know the proper name for, but I think ranseur is closest. It doesn't really resemble a boar spear meaningfully. The "crossguard" is far too huge for that, even within the limits of how much variation the sprites can show.

You mean that swords on the weapon pile would be pointing in different directions?

I was thinking of the swords strewn about your threshold because your soldiers lost their grip while succumbing to the pain or got an arm chopped off or something. Not necessary, of course, just an Idea that I thought would be neat.

As for this maybe-crossguard being too large.. it's on the very edge of useful pixilation without looking like a plain line.

A plain line would be about right for a boar spear.

Not that I think any of these depictions are 'wrong'. Fantasy weaponry often comes in far more fantastically impractical forms that defy pretty much all logic

Dwarf Fortress ain't never been that kind of fantasy.

[Starver]

(Oh, I'm sure there's some around here, and I cast absolutely no aspersions by saying so, who are particularly ardent pogonophiles.  )

I don't think a single (diagonal) line of pixels fits the art style, however thin the boarspear crossguard.

Spoiler: Pretentious art analysis... (click to show/hide)

Mephday aren't Randall Munroe (whose lines have organic antialiased thickness, anyway). Four such rows (~5.6 pixels across the normal) is perhaps an extravagance if you could have done the styling with three, but includes a row of shadow-edging, in the house-artists' current style, leaving not much scope for any meaningful 'substance' to the bar, and we already see we're confused about its intended 2d (never mind 3d) shape as I pinch-zoom these images and it 'helpfully' interpolates a set of fuzzy, interlocking block-boundaries that don't add to the understanding that there is a non-flat structure bounded within the outline.

The whispiest it can reasonably be to retain that at-a-glance (assumed)  is a front line (say) shadow-edge, adjoined by the parallel (alternate diagonal spots) of metal-grey, but that might look to be indicative of a 'Death's Scythe'-sharpness, and look weird amongst all other completely outlined elements.

As I never tire of saying, I'm no artist myself. An artist like L.S. Lowry could convey much meaning into a thin, abbreviated pencil-stroke. I've no doubt that a pencil-line graphics-pack could be done (if not xkcd, then KoL suggests possibilities) by the incumbants or various others who may indeed already have done so (but I don't scan the board/DFFD much at all, even as disinterested 'tourist' of all these wonderfully crafted renderings), leading to a completely new look. House-Style demands a chunkier look, that (in a diagonal feature, especially) is going to mean disproportionally thicker 'thin pieces' than photorealism would have, and that's the price you pay for using a good all-rounder pallette of illustrative conventions to prevent blending of item into an unfortunately similar background too often to be funny.

TL;DR; I stand to be corrected, but I'm going with the flow with that mock-up. If that was supposed to be a crossbow, I'd voice serious concerns about its artistic merit, but I'm willing to believe it's a spear-like weapon (if not the true specimine). If it persists past the point where I get to see the finished graphics in use and have to reclassify it as more like a spontoon, so be it.

[Hiul]

i dont know is this suggested already or not, but is it possible for this steam one to be able to make  different graphic profession for male and female?

[Starver]

I'm sure it's possible (there's other property-diving selectivity of component graphics going on), though given all clothing is unisex to the dwarves and (aside from the old arguments about beards) only a babe-in-arms seems to be a differential across all the typically gender-irrelevent possible depictions to be had then I could see it being left out.

If a player wants to make the Spirit Of The Fortress a bit more picky (like whether tending towards, or against, baby-shielding militia, according to personal taste or lack thereof) then they can probably differentiate the sprites by some othe feature under their control ('dress' uniform vs a pants one?).

Otherwise, might be better to request a togglable-on ♀/♂/× symbol over their right shoulder. Maybe an extended version, or a counterpart symbol over the left shoulder, to depict the kind of thing Dwarf Therapist does. Might be easier than making convincingly different masculine/feminine faces, and/or "lump(s) in just the right places" alternative cuts for every single clothing/armour variation so far planned, given the LOD capable in even a Steam-size tile.