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[Darkchampion]

From reading around on the forums, I came across this little snippet.

quote:  
The mountain is also no longer a flat face, and the interior of the mountain is no longer fixed to River -> Chasm -> Magma -> Pits -> Adamantium -> Demon. You are no longer guaranteed iron, or any other ore for that matter. You are no longer guaranteed water, or magma, but picking your start location wisely will help with this. How do you pick wisely? Read a book on geology. Wikipedia is the design document.

Now since all ores will no longer magically be in abundance in every mountain, will it be possible to trade for ores/bars that you have none of? I saw that you can trade for wood and was just wondering about this.

Also, since all ores wont be everywhere, will it be possible to prospect for ore in a given location? After all large mining companies don't just blindly start throwing down mines. They go through a lengthy and expensive process when prospecting.

[Pnx]

Hey Toady, will it be possible to select areas for designation over multiple Z levels. So that you could say designate and then go down three levels and do that entire area.

[Toady One]

You can't trade ore yet, but you'll be able to at some point.  Not sure when.

It depends on what you mean by prospecting.  If you want to play an adventurer and check out a site before you play, you can do that.  You can't mine in adventure mode yet, so you can't do more than examine the surface deposits.

Right now, designations only work over one level, but it wouldn't be hard to change that.  I guess there are a few instances where that might be useful.

[SwiftSpear]

Is DF that geologically accurate?  It seems from the screenies I've seen that ore seams are just kind of strewn semi randomly throughout the mountains...

[Faces of Mu]

I'm so excited about the new version after seeing those river pics! The mention of boats got me all excited about seeing below decks and even sitting above decks as an adventurer and seeing the world glide by! |:-D

I'm also excited by the idea of being able to see the world map and navigate around it properly when picking fortress location. The current method just doesn't make sense to me.

Loved the pic of the bridge above! Makes me awed to think of people getting together (or even slaved into it) to make such an immense building!! I don't know how long it would take to make these things, but it's pretty inspiring to think that those that designed/engineered these constructions may not have lived to see it finished, or may not have had long to live afterwards. Seems almost altruistic (though I imagine it at the demand of a king or such, but still...).

Hurray for Toady for getting the to-do list down to three pages! I hope there isn't too much testing to be done, as I'm sure many of us out here would be willing to endure the bugs as you roll out the new updates. Toady, how often do you think you'll be releasing updates after the next release? How do you find this more gradual release-pace compared to how often you released updates earlier?

[John Hopoate]

quote:Originally posted by Faces of Mu:
<STRONG>Loved the pic of the bridge above! Makes me awed to think of people getting together (or even slaved into it) to make such an immense building!! I don't know how long it would take to make these things, but it's pretty inspiring to think that those that designed/engineered these constructions may not have lived to see it finished, or may not have had long to live afterwards.</STRONG>

I forgot the exact details of Caesar's bridges so I consulted Google and it gave me this:
http://www.answers.com/topic/caesar-s-rhine-bridges

 

quote:
The length of the bridge has been estimated to be 140 to 400 m, and its width 7 to 9 m. The depth of the river can reach up to 9.1 m.

The construction of this bridge it showed that Julius Caesar could go anywhere and that Rome could go anywhere. Since he had over 40,000 soldiers at his disposal, they built the first bridge in only 10 days using local lumber.

EDIT: Further searching reveals that the Romans built an even more impressive bridge, over 1.1km long (0.7 miles) and 15m wide (about 48 feet).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan%27s_bridge

[ July 20, 2007: Message edited by: John Hopoate ]

[hactar1]

quote: creatures in dwarf mode can now move in 8 directions. We had a discussion about this in a thread a while ago, and there are some problems (mainly aesthetic), but those will work themselves over time. Even though dwarves can move diagonally, they can't currently dig out ugly diagonal passageways. They can move through room corners if the corner square is open.

Wow, this is pretty major.  Perhaps this will solve traffic problems as well, since dwarves can sidestep obstacles and each other while still making forward progress?  Does it slow down pathfinding with more options for each move?  Also, it seems like this will make diagonally-oriented hallways actually viable in fortress design.

Moving one tile diagonally should be sqrt(2) times slower than moving orthogonally.  Does it?

Also... the task list is very short!  Hooray!  Of course it still has that monster "TESTING" item at the very bottom  

[Casey]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>It depends on what you mean by prospecting.  If you want to play an adventurer and check out a site before you play, you can do that.  You can't mine in adventure mode yet, so you can't do more than examine the surface deposits.</STRONG>

I like this idea... but is there any way to record which map square you've been to?  I'm thinking an (x,y) coordinate you can write down in adventure mode and then come back to in dwarf mode would be simplest, but really any mechanism that lets you find a spot again would be fine.  Perhaps a menu item in adventure mode "Mark Square" with a color and/or a note, which wouldn't be saved until you've returned to (dwarven) civilization would be more "realistic."

[MindSnap]

quote:Originally posted by Casey:
<STRONG>

I like this idea... but is there any way to record which map square you've been to?  I'm thinking an (x,y) coordinate you can write down in adventure mode and then come back to in dwarf mode would be simplest, but really any mechanism that lets you find a spot again would be fine.  Perhaps a menu item in adventure mode "Mark Square" with a color and/or a note, which wouldn't be saved until you've returned to (dwarven) civilization would be more "realistic."</STRONG>

You would just have to use a landmark, like a mountain range tip or lake. Also, being exact proably wouldn't matter that much as the geology shouldn't change that drastically from one square to another (except maybe around fault lines...).

[Neopergoss]

quote:Originally posted by hactar1:
<STRONG>

Wow, this is pretty major.  Perhaps this will solve traffic problems as well, since dwarves can sidestep obstacles and each other while still making forward progress?  Does it slow down pathfinding with more options for each move?  Also, it seems like this will make diagonally-oriented hallways actually viable in fortress design.

Moving one tile diagonally should be sqrt(2) times slower than moving orthogonally.  Does it?

Also... the task list is very short!  Hooray!  Of course it still has that monster "TESTING" item at the very bottom    </STRONG>

I'm not entirely pleased about this development.  Toady has said that they can't currently dig out diagonal hallways like that, but that they can move through room corners.  The thing that really bugs me about this is that moving diagonally probably won't be slower than moving orthogonally.  I don't think it is in adventure mode, either.  I fear that this will motivate strange fortress design decisions that don't really make sense.

But perhaps Toady will fix that someday.  Maybe.  I'm still pleased with the progress that he's making.  I can easily overlook something like this with the prospect of the next release closer now.  And at least adventure mode is more consistent with dwarf mode.

[ July 20, 2007: Message edited by: Neopergoss ]

[Grue]

Does it mean the room designations are square now (instead of diamond)?

[Eiba]

quote:Originally posted by Neopergoss:
<STRONG> I fear that this will motivate strange fortress design decisions that don't really make sense.</STRONG>

Indeed, it would lead to the following situation:

code:

##############.A.##############
#############.....#############
############..###..############
###########..#####..###########
##########..#######..##########
#########..#########..#########
########..###########..########
#######..#############..#######
######..###############..######
#####..#################..#####
####..###################..####
###..#####################..###
...X...........B...........Y...
...............................
###############################

Where X is just as close to A as it is to B (11 tiles).
Furthermore, to go from X to Y, it would be just as quick to go via A as to go via B. This would mean, for instance, that it would be tactically unwise to have a straight entrance hall as opposed to a zig-zag one, as arrows could fly straight through the former, while the latter adds absolutely no travel time (which it logically should if there are obsticles).

Of course on the other side of the issue, approaching archers diagonally in the old system would be absolutely hellish (though as long as their range was a diamond instead of a circle it wouldn't actually expose you to more fire than charging them head on...)

Anyway, for various, mainly aesthetic, reasons I really prefer 4 directional movement to 8 directional movement, but it's not a huge deal either way.

[Toady One]

The "gradual" release pace has sucked, but it's unavoidable with an overhaul like this.  Hopefully it won't happen again any time soon.  I'd like to get back to releasing once every 1-2 weeks, and faster if I fix any show-stopping bugs.  I think everything coming up after this should be easier to manage in smaller packages.

I don't think the new 8 directions really slows down the dwarf mode path-finding, since although they have more options per square, they also get to their destinations in fewer steps for most paths.  Probably makes it faster.

I haven't made any changes to how diagonal movement works, but ever since I added traffic designations and the new pathing associated to that, it has been an option.  It was not an option before.  I'm not sure whether I'll do it or not, since it might make adventure mode feel weird.  I'm used to a diagonal move being equivalent to a horizontal move, but I'll probably try out the other system soon.  Using the euclidean metric could also slow down distance calculations somewhat, since a couple of multiplies and an add probably compares poorly to a max, though this isn't really a big deal, and most distance calcs in the game don't need to be exact anyway.  It could always be an init option as well, especially if the feel of adventure mode is really altered by having expensive diagonal moves.

Yeah, room designations are going to be square, assuming I don't spend any more time changing how that works in general.

Anyway, as I noted in my status report, I have problems with the change as well, but it was forced by the latest alterations.  Maintaining two systems between two modes which are supposed to parts of the same game just wasn't working, and now I'll just have to react to that reality.

[Idles]

Toady,

I recall it being mentioned that besides the temperature and weather system, pathfinding and maintaining a connectivity map of the fortress were two of the largest tasks for the CPU in DF.

Am I right, at least for the version that we're all currently playing? I think everyone's noticed the freezes that occur when completing a large bridge, or the slowdowns that occur when a fluid is in motion.

I'd like to ask you about the specifics of your implementation of these two systems, so that perhaps other forum users with programming experience could try their hands at giving useful optimization advice. I'm sure a lot of forum users would be more than happy to help in any way possible; it's already evident by the number and quality of bug reports you receive.

So here are some questions about the new version:
How have changes to the fluid code impacted the speed of pathfinding calculations and connectivity mapping?
Do those freezes and slowdowns I described still happen?
How do you deal with a path once it has been calculated?
What events can cause the dwarves to recalculate their paths? A change in the connectivity map?
How do dwarves deal with avoiding moving obstacles? Do they recalculate their paths whenever they sidestep another unit?

[Core Xii]

Oh no, not diagonal movement... This completely just ruined the game.