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[Reasonableman]

Say, Toady, have you ever considered submerging your laptop into some oil, say, cooking or mineral? It's non-conductive (I think) and may keep your computer cool enough to prevent it from BOILING AWAY YOUR PROCESSOR! Seriously, does that thing have zero cooling? Check and make sure the fan is working, then check and make sure the bottom of the computer is on a cool, heat-conductive surface, or better yet, raised above such a surface. If neither of those is the problem, check the software your laptop came with: normally, laptop manufacturers will include some sort of temperature monitoring system that throttles component speed to battle overheating. Heck, such a throttling program could even be whats causing the lockups. Hope I helped. Also, any action you take based on my advice is purely your responsibility. I don't want a rabid horde of DWAAARF FORTRESS fanboys like my self chasing after me with the charred remains of the latest build clutched in their, cold, over-obsessed fingers.

EDIT: OH GOD I MISSED AN APOSTROPHE
MORE EDIT: OH GOD AN EXTRANEOUS SPACE

quote:Originally posted by Javis:
<STRONG>

Actually, it's best to be in direct contact with the conductive surface, so long as it's not blocking a fan.  Air is an insulator.</STRONG>

Huh, I hadn't thought of that. But if you could get some air flowing under it... Nah, I'm no expert. Well, most laptops have feet that would still produce a pocket of air... Meh. I don't know how that would affect it. Blast. I suppose the single best thing you could do would be to stick the laptop in a refrigerator with the power and extra monitor connections threaded through a hole in the back, with a wireless mouse and keyboard connected. Or, just use a super-nifty and upgradeable desktop. Oh well.
I feel kinda like I just had my advice-giving license revoked.

[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Reasonableman ]

[Reasonableman]

EDIT: ACCIDENTAL DOUBLE POST, WHEN WILL IT END?!

[ June 11, 2008: Message edited by: Reasonableman ]

[mutant mell]

Hey Toady, would it be possible to see the new entity definitions, and the creature templates of the humans/elves/etc.?  It would help to see what changes have been made/added.

Also, when it comes to [POWER] and [RELIGION:ANY_APPROPRIATE_POWER], will the creature with the religion tag worship creatures with conflicting spheres?  And you said that Megabeasts with religion spheres can be worshiped like Demons; will they go out and rampage if they're the object of worship?

[umiman]

Reasonableman: I doubt it would be very easy to use a laptop that's submerged in oil...

[Tamren]

quote:Originally posted by umiman:
<STRONG>Reasonableman: I doubt it would be very easy to use a laptop that's submerged in oil...</STRONG>

Just plug in a corded mouse and kb and keep the screen above the water line. Easy. As long as the oil is not conducting then nothing bad will happen.

[JT]

I'm fairly sure he was being facetious (like I was about Sindai's comment about Windows).  Hard drives aren't perfectly sealed and immersing them in oil could severely damage them.  Plus, you wouldn't be able to use the CD-ROM drive ever again because the laser would be covered in goo even after taking it out of the oil.

[Kennel]

quote:Originally posted by Dwarmin:
<STRONG>
Didnt see that part about Elves, Now we know how they make Lembas bread.    :eek:
</STRONG>

Soylent Lembas is dwarves!

Oh man, I can't think of LotR seriously ever again.

---

Toady:
Have you thought about allowing user created bitmaps in the world generation. For example GeneRally reads track topography from a grayscale picture (black is height 0, white 255 etc).

[Red Jackard]

quote:Originally posted by Kennel:
<STRONG>Soylent Lembas is dwarves!</STRONG>

one small bite is enough to fill the stomach of a grown man

[SmileyMan]

I have a Zalman notebook cooler for my DTR lappy and it's awesome - keeps everything lovely and cool, and very quiet too.  Well worth it.

[Athmos]

quote:Originally posted by Duke 2.0:
<STRONG>That AI talk sounds like something I Read from Here.

And I had a thought about Pathfinding from playing Settlers IV. With The Settlers III and on, the citizens move freely around the map to haul resources. After a while, you notice some paths being made into the ground from repeated walking. This got me thinking: Why isn't the game slow because of pathfinding? I can't attribute that to good algorithms, because thats like making up Technobabble on a Sci-Fi show.

Then I thought of how it could be done. Perhaps they only pathfind once, creating a route between workshops and stockpiles. Then when a settler wants to say, bring food from the bakery to the mines, they would do their own pathfinding from where they were to the bakery. From there, they follow the path  made when the bakery was made. If something is in the way, they try to make a new path to the workshop path again.

I imagine if premade paths between workshops are made and used(Perhaps even manipulated by the player) then some problems with pathfinding resources would be helped. Heck, even a simple designated "Ranch" where animals go would help a lot. Just somewhere where animals won't start wandering around the place.

I don't know how well it would work, but thats just my thought.</STRONG>

Our Dorfs do carve path in the landscape, given enough time. when they move a lot outside (going to the trade depot for example), you'll see that there are less and less plant growing there, no tree or bushes, and progressively you end with bare soil. Juste like a real life path appearing.

The problem with precalculated pathfinding is that environement change. you dig, you wall, you lock doors, monsters or stuff get in the way, other dwarfs or a kitten is in the way this time and you'll need to get around.

When to recalculate your path ? Concerning pathing, i'd simply like if it was a bit better with Z level, not considering the above or below tile like if it was necessarily near. They may be at the far end of the fortress, in term of the real pathfinded length.

[Gantolandon]

quote:According to SpeedFan, the accuracy of which I have no clue about

It's as accurate as your thermal sensors are. The worst thing it can do is swapping readings from the sensors - but that shouldn't happen if you configure it properly. On Dell laptops you should also turn the Dell motherboards support on. But I believe SpeedFan is right. I know no other component than CPU which can rise it's temperature to 90 C.

90 C is definitely not nominal. Even my Pentium M's (which is designed to endure much heat) highest recorded temperature was 73. In full stress. I know no processor which, with proper cooling, could and should rise to 90. Freezing is very possible - it's the last failsafe which protects the CPU from burning.

[Dadamh]

Bugs like !!CPU!! can end progress on a new version pretty quickly.

This may be a stupid question, but there ARE regular backups of the code to other machines, preferably occasional off-site backups as well, right?

[Gantolandon]

The worst thing that can happen is damaging the CPU beyond repair, possibly with the motherboard. There is no way HDD drive could malfunction because of the processor burning.

[Bullion]

quote:Originally posted by Dadamh:
<STRONG>Bugs like !!CPU!! can end progress on a new version pretty quickly.

This may be a stupid question, but there ARE regular backups of the code to other machines, preferably occasional off-site backups as well, right?</STRONG>

Toady has a memory stick containing the source code sent to every person under 4 feet tall throughout north america, It's safe.

[Javis]

quote:Originally posted by Reasonableman:
<STRONG>Say, Toady, have you ever considered submerging your laptop into some oil, say, cooking or mineral? It's non-conductive (I think) and may keep your computer cool enough to prevent it from BOILING AWAY YOUR PROCESSOR! Seriously, does that thing have zero cooling? Check and make sure the fan is working, then check and make sure the bottom of the computer is on a cool, heat-conductive surface, or better yet, raised above such a surface. If neither of those is the problem, check the software your laptop came with: normally, laptop manufacturers will include some sort of temperature monitoring system that throttles component speed to battle overheating. Heck, such a throttling program could even be whats causing the lockups. Hope I helped. Also, any action you take based on my advice is purely your responsibility. I don't want a rabid horde of DWAAARF FORTRESS fanboys like my self chasing after me with the charred remains of the latest build clutched in their, cold, over-obsessed fingers.

EDIT: OH GOD I MISSED AN APOSTROPHE
MORE EDIT: OH GOD AN EXTRANEOUS SPACE

[ June 11, 2008: Message edited by: Reasonableman ]

[ June 11, 2008: Message edited by: Reasonableman ]</STRONG>

Actually, it's best to be in direct contact with the conductive surface, so long as it's not blocking a fan.  Air is an insulator, so if it's suspended above the surface the surface will only help dissipate heat that's already being removed via the fans.

[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Javis ]