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[Shonai_Dweller]

Yeah, that's basically what I imagine it would look like.
You might need a bit more info in the raws to define body shapes correctly. While you can manually add what a gorlak looks like, can Dwarf Fortress actually come up with the right shape based on it's raws alone? You'd maybe need to define a few more shapes and dimensions beyond "size" to get realistically shaped random characters.

Yes, Japa did a creature viewer thing that managed to give something sufficient enough for a paper doll based on raws alone, this is an example of a dragon: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/File:Dragon_Size.png

Yeah. I play with that sometimes. I think that's the best current raws can give us. Not quite good enough for Steam and not scaring away noobs though. Still, body templates are already a thing in the raws, several extra body-shape tags/variations of some kind in there should cover most everything the ring can throw up.

Well, until the centaur issue becomes an issue anyway. What shape is a dragon merged with a half-gorlak/half-elf? Still, that's kind of fun I guess.

[JesterHell696]

what i meant was an inventory screen with a paperdoll representation of the char in the center and inventory slots for each kind of equipment/clothes/armor around
in Baldur's Gate 2:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

in Siege of Avalon:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the latter has an armor system with layers, closer to that of DF than other games.

I have got to be honest, I'm not a big fan of "slots" as I have always hate when a game tell me I can only wear 2 rings and one cloak, one of the things that attracted me to DF was that it approached things from a "make sense to be able to do that" perspective, if I want to wear 20 rings, 2 cloaks, 3 amulets, 2 chainmail shirts and a breastplate all at once I can right now but I couldn't do that with one slot for each kind equipment, Df imho shouldn't say you can't do that, it should give you a debuffs for overloading yourself.

I just don't want to give up DF simulation based approach to everything, like necromancer being able to reanimate hair and skin, is it useful? not really but it make about as much sense as reanimating a severed hand so you can do it.

I would rather a paper doll that you directly drag clothes on to and off of and if I was forced to choose between a paper doll inventory with slots and reduced ring wearing ability or no paper dolls and the ability to wear 20 rings, I would choose no paper dolls and 20 rings.

But that is just because I love DF more as a Fantasy World Simulator then as a game so giving up DF's clothes/armour size, permit, layering and coverage system is very unappealing for me.

Although I suppose Toady could give each slot a size/permit indicator allowing you to "layer" the equipment slots, first you put your socks on your feet slot then you put your shoes on your feet slot.


Edit: I feel the need to apologise for the unnecessary hostility in this post, sorry about that, its just I have a love/hate relationship with DnD games like Baldur Gate and Neverwinter Nights, I loved the stories but hated the mechanics, to this day my hatred of spell level/slots it near pathological.

Just the idea of being restricted in DF the ways typical RPG's restrict players annoys me greatly, I loved that TES: Morrowind allowed you to kill the "essential" NPCs and hate that Oblivion and Skyrim removed it, if I want to murder children in DF I can and I want it to stay that way.

[PatrikLundell]

I think an inventory system discussion may be a bit off topic, but on the other hand this thread has probably served its purpose by now.

Like JesterHell696, I'm annoyed by the common RPG restriction of one ring (sometimes per hand), etc.. On the other hand, while I can see that it might be possible (but probably a bit unwieldy) to wear two cloaks, I find it hard to see how you'd wear two breastplates, even if the outer one would be large enough to actually contain both the character and the first breastplate (i.e. it would need to belong to a larger item size range). Two or three shirts of the same size, however, is basically using the layer principle recommended against cold weather, so it really comes down to material thickness and stiffness.

When it comes to equipping things, the layer model means that DF knows where everything should go (even though the [past?] issues with militia missing gear because it can't figure out the order indicates it doesn't take the "teleport into place" approach, which I think it should, at least in Fortress Mode).

This means that an equip order of a sock (regardless of whether it's a key press or drag & drop onto the doll in general) should know where the item should go (with the exception of socks[!], where the logic should just take the foot with the least number of socks on it, unless a special option to select the location is selected). For e.g. a shiva type character (i.e. with 6 arms), you'd get into the sock problem with things put onto the hands even though handedness solves it for the human layout, and ettins would have that issue with head gear (again, an override option might be applied). You might even require the override order to be used to wear more than the logical limit to the number of objects worn (for rings, you might set that limit to 4 normal and one thumb ring per hand, or more than one if rings are considered narrow enough to wear more than one per finger, with a simulation option to base the number on the character finger length and individual ring widths]).

[JesterHell696]

I think an inventory system discussion may be a bit off topic, but on the other hand this thread has probably served its purpose by now.

I seem to have an unfortunate habit of derailing threads, I did it in this one twice now, my bad.

Like JesterHell696, I'm annoyed by the common RPG restriction of one ring (sometimes per hand), etc.. On the other hand, while I can see that it might be possible (but probably a bit unwieldy) to wear two cloaks, I find it hard to see how you'd wear two breastplates, even if the outer one would be large enough to actually contain both the character and the first breastplate (i.e. it would need to belong to a larger item size range). Two or three shirts of the same size, however, is basically using the layer principle recommended against cold weather, so it really comes down to material thickness and stiffness.

I do think wearing two cloaks is at once is kind of silly, probably a bit uncomfortable and cumbersome too, but I don't want to be told I can't wear four cloaks just because its silly, maybe my character is silly and has a zany sense of humour and finds wearing six cloaks at once amusing, I mean who are you to tell him he can't wear eight cloaks?   

As I understand it you can't currently wear 2 breastplates because breast plates are [SHAPED], but your example of 2 breastplate does make a kind of sense as a "if you really want to" kind of thing, Maybe [SHAPED] items can just have slightly harder restrictions then non [SHAPED] instead of an absolute restrictions? maybe items worn can give a slight increase to size so wearing the next size level on top of the current size level is possible? would be really heavy and cumbersome to the point it does more harm then good but you could do it if you really wanted to.

At some point wearing more on things on that location start to become a real hindrance and then practically impossible, just looked up the Guinness World Record for most shirts worn by one person, 224 shirts and no mobility.

When it comes to equipping things, the layer model means that DF knows where everything should go (even though the [past?] issues with militia missing gear because it can't figure out the order indicates it doesn't take the "teleport into place" approach, which I think it should, at least in Fortress Mode).

Given the abstraction already in fortress mode I can agree with teleporting clothes on, but I also want to be able to play fortress mode at the adventure mode scale/time-frame so it is a little bit of a begrudging agreement. 

This means that an equip order of a sock (regardless of whether it's a key press or drag & drop onto the doll in general) should know where the item should go (with the exception of socks[!], where the logic should just take the foot with the least number of socks on it, unless a special option to select the location is selected). For e.g. a shiva type character (i.e. with 6 arms), you'd get into the sock problem with things put onto the hands even though handedness solves it for the human layout, and ettins would have that issue with head gear (again, an override option might be applied). You might even require the override order to be used to wear more than the logical limit to the number of objects worn (for rings, you might set that limit to 4 normal and one thumb ring per hand, or more than one if rings are considered narrow enough to wear more than one per finger, with a simulation option to base the number on the character finger length and individual ring widths]).

A quick google search for "Too many rings" reveals that depending upon the size of the ring it can be easy to get four rings on one finger or hard to get one ring on each finger, it should be possible to use the current Size, Permit and Layering system to determine how many rings you can wear, simple band rings? just use the finger size to calculate if they fit allowing for several on each finger, big gaudy bling rings? could use the [UPSTEP] tag so they also use and share hand size for calculating how many you can wear, would also mean you can't wear big rings and gauntlets.

[Pvt. Pirate]

i didn't think of it as a restriction, i wanted it modified as a representation of DFs system.
the underlying system should not be changed, but been made visually accessible for ease of use.

[JesterHell696]

i didn't think of it as a restriction, i wanted it modified as a representation of DFs system.
the underlying system should not be changed, but been made visually accessible for ease of use.

Yeah I apologised in an edit because my reply was a knee-jerk reaction to your Buldar Gate example but Sorry for jumping the gun, I loved the BG story but hated the mechanics, mainly spells slots but also ring and amulet equipment slots.

I suppose that if it builds a paper dolls using RAWs and then every body piece could have it own slot, would get crowded when making slots for all the fingers of a six armed Shiva.

I think I'll call my contribution to this conversation here, suffice to say I think everyone agrees that an improved inventory system would save some noobs.

[Symmetry]

I will throw some thoughts in

* the werebeast visiting the tavern are much more terrifying than attacking ones, and temples etc. default to allowing everybody so it's really easy to do.

* job cancellation spam is a newbie killer.  It has lodas of different causes, doesn't help you see how to stop it, and hides real messages you need as a new player.

* the game difficulty is very sensitive to map conditions you can't know before embarking, evil clouds, rain, wood, fresh water.  The location choice + embark screen is like rpg character creation, the new player has absolutely no idea what anything means and will need a lot of guidance or a default safe option.

* I do think bugfixes are more important than a tutorial but I've thought that for a long time and the team haven't

[Snow Gibbon]

I've played since 2D but I would like to echo the sentiments around migrant spam. 40d is what I regard as the most playable iteration of the game due to the sense of progression garnered from migrant waves. There was a bell curve to the wave sizes and helped me ease into new mechanics as population increased. Past 40d, the bell curve has been replaced with reverse exponential - you get 20+ migrants in the first 3 years and suddenly you're at the population cap and you're now trying to build hospitals, barracks, traps and defences, taverns, temples when you're still trying to work out a food industry. Migrants are no longer a reward system because they will appear in droves regardless of your progress. Why are grand master skill dwarves coming when we are still living like cavemen?

[Showbiz]

1. I'd like something like an learning mode where certain things are turned off or behave differently until you've figured out how things work out, like raids, (slower or turned of) clothing decay, stresssytem etc.
Even better: A few scenarios where you learn how to do basic stuff.

2. Maybe I am alone with this: I love !FUN! I really do. But It is sometimes hard for me to understand why my fortress failed. Often my dwarfs (or guests) kill each other for apparently no reason and I have a hard time to comprehend, what the root for the problem is.

3. Please fix (or add manual) hauling priorities: somewhere in my fort rots a meal, causing miasma and therefore bad thoughts, but my dwarfs can't stop hauling stones or wood.


4.  I never manage to set up some kind of clothing management - I simply produce clothing in abundance and do a manual cleanup occasionally, which is a pain.



I love Dwarf Fortress for its complexity, but frustration can be overwhelmingly high when you are beginning to play. 

[FantasticDorf]

I will throw some thoughts in

* the werebeast visiting the tavern are much more terrifying than attacking ones, and temples etc. default to allowing everybody so it's really easy to do.

* job cancellation spam is a newbie killer.  It has lodas of different causes, doesn't help you see how to stop it, and hides real messages you need as a new player.

Both of these are definitely common newbie problems (and i agree with your other points as being difficult for all players)

Firstly defences are always something to think about, and werebeasts and infiltrators are usually always foiled by a enclosed corridor with guards (or chained guard animals) as a checkpoint for access to the interior of your fortress map, elsewise they'd have to climb over walls/other accessways but they'll always choose the easiest route in more often than not.

• A useful technical design for you might be a sally-port, in which to trap off the werebeast until it has transformed back so your dwarves can duff them up in squishy reverted form later

If you press enter on the job that is failing to fire or cancelled,  it'll bring up a screen usally explaining what is missing like containers for your brewing (from maybe barrels or pots being locked up queued elsewhere), though DFhack is usually considerably more industry QoL friendly with search function, stockpile managers + more descriptive item screens that describe the uses of each individual item beforehand.

[Bumber]

Firstly defences are always something to think about, and werebeasts and infiltrators are usually always foiled by a enclosed corridor with guards (or chained guard animals) as a checkpoint for access to the interior of your fortress map, elsewise they'd have to climb over walls/other accessways but they'll always choose the easiest route in more often than not.

If they're coming as untransformed visitors, the guards aren't going to try to stop them until after the time bomb's gone off.

[Eric Blank]

So I just tried the new version last night, and got a couple guildhall petitions first year. I approved both of them, and tried to set up a guildhall, but found I was so swamped in first year coordination I had no time to dedicate to the guildhalls, eventually the agreements were "abandoned." Though this didn't seem to have any real effect besides the associated dwarves feeling dismayed. Turns out 2000u is just too much for a first year agreement, but I was biting off a lot anyway. I managed to build a 11x11 chamber with some tables and chairs, that was it, didn't have time to smooth and engrave or make fancy furniture.

I was thinking some new players might panic at this. Maybe in the petition screen in addition to "deny (permanently)" add an option to "delay for 1 year" (maybe even let us choose how many) and theyll petition again at that time. This way new players don't feel like they're going to lose this opportunity by denying it, and don't agree to a huge undertaking until they're ready.

[Pvt. Pirate]

Firstly defences are always something to think about, and werebeasts and infiltrators are usually always foiled by a enclosed corridor with guards (or chained guard animals) as a checkpoint for access to the interior of your fortress map, elsewise they'd have to climb over walls/other accessways but they'll always choose the easiest route in more often than not.

If they're coming as untransformed visitors, the guards aren't going to try to stop them until after the time bomb's gone off.

is this new to 44.12, because i never had this happen, but i'm playing 44.09 because of the terribly unbalanced stress in 44.12.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Presumably Bumber is playing 47.01. Seeing as, you know, it's been out for a couple days now.

[Erendir]

A very frustrating thing for me is when there are 10 hives in a Finished Goods Bin, but b-Alt+h tells me "Needs hive". Most probably because the bin in question is marked TSK.

If there is no way to make the dwarfs smart enough to take an item out of the bin without interrupting other tasks, more information along the process would be very nice. Like, "Needs hive -- all hives are currently engaged in other dwarfs' activities"; "TSK -- Active task: an item is being put in". Or something.