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[Demon]

I plan on getting a PhD in physics.  The applications will be going out as soon as I take the subject test.  I think that the physics subject test is still taken on paper and graded forever.  I wish they'd just spit out the socre at the end!  Then I wouldn't have to be worried abuot how bad I did for a few weeks...

[Toady One]

Yeah, math took forever too -- they eventually mailed my result, and it said what I said it was.  Then I went in to the department to see if they had received it, and all they see is the 990.  He he he.  I would have benefited in math by going over old random first year stuff I had forgotten, rather than the advanced stuff.  If physics is known to be the same way, it's something to pay attention to.

I might see a little more from Rita, but it veered far enough east that it's been kind of a non-event in my area so far.  Winds are gusting up around 40 right now, that's all.  Hardly any rain.  Power has held up fine.

[Fuzzpilz]

It's weakened further now, I hear. Everything still in order in your area?

[Toady One]

Yeah, winds are 35 with gusts of 50 now, but this should be the peak for me.  Utilities are still in order.

I'm being very thorough with the dwarf plan now -- making a new file for it and cleaning up some references in the code.  I expect the number of core things left to drop and the other two numbers (required stuff and shameless bloats) to go up.  Then we'll have the final countdown in place.

[Toady One]

All right, finally.  Done revising, and no more hurricane.

40/204/133.

40 core elements, 204 bugs and other required tweaks, 133 shameless bloats that won't all go in.  And hundreds of others like that that I'm not considering for this release.

Example core things left:

• Giant beasts attack from outside
  
• Evil civilization leaders detailed
  
• Fire
  
• Init file
  
• Tutorials
  
• In-game advisors
  
• Help (what's this?)
  
• Sound (HAH A HH AHA!)
  

Example bugs and required things:

• Some missing haul code, better piles
  
• Way to customize job priorities
  
• People don't sleep when they are chained up
  
• Orphaned babies are currently left to starve
  
• Told the hunter not to hunt and he stripped off his armor and complained about being naked, eventually going insane
  
• Capturing an enemy leader in a cage and then selling it to a caravan might cause a save bug
  

[Aquillion]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>

• Tutorials

</STRONG>

Ooo, tutorials are good.  I was worried about how complex the game looked.

quote:<STRONG>

• Orphaned babies are currently left to starve
  
• Told the hunter not to hunt and he stripped off his armor and complained about being naked, eventually going insane

</STRONG>

But really, are those two things necessarily bugs?  They could be seen as hidden features!  I mean, hunters spend a lot of time outdoors alone...  it stands to reason that they wouldn't be that stable to begin with.  And, I mean, dwarf babies.  Come on, imagine what they must look like.  It's a wonder dwarves take care of their own babies, much less anyone else's.

[Toady One]

Come on, they are like spongy micro santas.

I am grading exams right now.  2000 problems to grade...  it's going to take all day.  I'll start knocking off some easy bugs during the week while I'm working, and I'll go for a core feature or 2 during the weekend.

[ September 25, 2005: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Gezol]

"Spongy Micro Santas" would be a good name for a band. Or a toy line, a la Cabbage Patch Kids.

A way to customize job priorities was something I  felt the game needed from watching the movies, so I'm glad that's going in, though I imagine some of the odd behavior there was due to bugs and the missing haul code you mentioned....

[Toady One]

Yeah, all of that...  one of the big problems is that items can accumulate all over the dungeon if people are busy working, but hauling items is a high priority when it is on, so then nobody will work sometimes...  being able to customize this will go a long way.  There are some ideas like using wheelbarrows and mules to aggregate items before hauling, but that's harder to code, since it has to determine that 2 items want to go vaguely to the same place.  You might have noticed in the movies that a few times I just shut everything down to have "hauling breaks", so that the fortress would be clean.  Job priorities will relieve some of the need for this, and once you get more people, you can just have some peasants that go around hauling stuff...  if mules go in, they'll be the teamster dwarves...  to help with transport, was even thinking of having sections of the fortress called "burrows", like the five boroughs of new york city...  he he heh e....

It is 1AM here.  I have been grading all day and am 80% done.  2 or 3 more hours should do it...  man, during the true/false grading, I felt like the knight at the end of indiana jones 3...  "you have chosen...  poorly"...  then they shrivel up and blow away...

[Aquillion]

Can pets haul on their own?  It seems to me that a trained Musk Ox or Wolf could probably grab a dwarfload of goods in their mouth and drag them around.  Certainly they could take care of corpses and such.

I like the image of a craftsman Dwarf making things, and their pet wolf dragging in new materials and dragging the finished goods where they're supposed to go.

[Toady One]

Pets don't haul on their own.  Except for cats, when they catch vermin and bring them to their masters.  It would be fun to extend animal training though.  Right now all you can do is train dogs to hunt or be war dogs, which is clearly insufficient.  Shameless bloats?  That counter can just keep going up, it doesn't effect the release date...  grading does though.  I didn't do anything today.

[Silleh Boy]

will you be able to set the speed that the world runs at, or, will everything run at one constant speed, apart from when you're paused and interacting with menu's?

[Toady One]

It depends on which direction you mean.  It might be text, but this game is processor intensive.  I can't make it go much faster.  I can make it go as slow as you like.

Edit:  That said, some processors are better than others.  Both ways is fine with me.

[ September 27, 2005: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Toady One]

40/201.  No point in listing the bloats...  there are just more and more...  I was working at the university all day again today.  The time around an exam is pretty intense.  It should quiet down now until the next one, although I suppose I'd ought to learn the simplex method before I teach it Friday.  I hope to knock out a core thing or two during the weekend.  At worst, it will go like that, and I'll be done around the deadline.

[Silleh Boy]

i mean like, will there be some setting that allows you to customise the speed that the world itself runs at, for example say, an option that defines the game speed that by default would be 100%, but when you just want things to hurry by after setting lots of projects (and your computer being able to handle it.) you could set it to say, 150%, or when you wish to oversee several things that're happening at roughly the same time, and change them as they occur, you set it down to say 25%.

so what's this going to be classed as, though?
a rogue like sim?