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[tfaal]

It would also be rather nifty to be informed about the sounds of people talking in a city, or the birds chirping in a forest, if it only played the announcement once upon entering the area. Listening to the mundane sounds in detail would depend upon the player hitting the "listen button". Of course, this paints a pretty grim picture for our framerates, with the game having to perform several distance checks every tick, just to calculate the apparent loudness of nearby birds.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Actually, classic roguelikes suggest an easy alternative to constant checks - check once when you enter an area/landmark (such as the central market in a town), and then only check when the player uses the "listen" skill, with maybe a check every minute or two of RL play to preserve at least some passive awareness ability.

[Footkerchief]

It would also be rather nifty to be informed about the sounds of people talking in a city, or the birds chirping in a forest, if it only played the announcement once upon entering the area. Listening to the mundane sounds in detail would depend upon the player hitting the "listen button". Of course, this paints a pretty grim picture for our framerates, with the game having to perform several distance checks every tick, just to calculate the apparent loudness of nearby birds.

It definitely would not need to do distance checks every tick, at least in a sane implementation.  If a sound occurs, it does a one-time distance check to creatures that might be interested in hearing it.

Actually, classic roguelikes suggest an easy alternative to constant checks - check once when you enter an area/landmark (such as the central market in a town), and then only check when the player uses the "listen" skill, with maybe a check every minute or two of RL play to preserve at least some passive awareness ability.

For background sounds, that's fine, but those by definition don't really need distance checks anyway.

[ManaUser]

Setting aside the speech sounds, the question of how to summarize sounds of combat is interesting. It seems to me there are three potentially competing goals:

• Realistic distinctions between what you can and can't hear.
• Non-distracting presentation.
• Simplicity.

For instance. One solution would be to give every individual combat message a sound (or none if relatively silent). So you might see something like "You hear a crash. You hear a crash. You hear a crunch. You hear a crash. You hear a thud. You hear a cry of pain." That satisfies realism, and it would be relatively simple, but it's barely less annoying than what we have now.

A more satisfying solution would give a natural sounding summary of the loudest sounds like "You hear a scuffle." or "You hear sounds of a large battle." But that would require each sound to have some kind of loudness rating, and adding them all up while keeping track of anything else relevant like whether it's animals or humanoids fighting. It should ideally give some indication about distance and possibly direction too.

And to cut down on spam it probably shouldn't inform you every round that fighting is still going on, just occasionally, unless the sounds have got louder since the last message.

[Aqizzar]

I should be done with underground civs tomorrow.

I'm surprised to not see more people talking about this.  Super viruses aside, I'm so glad to see the big nebulous stumbling block of development finally done and gone.

[Martin]

I'm surprised to not see more people talking about this.  Super viruses aside, I'm so glad to see the big nebulous stumbling block of development finally done and gone.

Yeah, that caught my attention. I was going to form up a last Masters Competition as a send-off to 40d, but I'm wondering if we're now close enough to the new version to just wait and do the first under the new version.

[Lord Shonus]

What's the version number suuposed to be? It may soon be time to start working on updating the wiki.

[smjjames]

Somewhere between 41 and 50, although chances are that even the 0.28 will change.

[atomfullerene]

I think the importance of sounds should be inversely related to their frequency.  So talking in cities and battle sounds in battle should both be tuned out more because they are more common in their respective locations.  You could change volume or detail of description based on the number of occurrences in the last x minutes.  As a bonus, this emulates the way we pay attention to things in real life.  There would have to be an override for instances like people you are talking to (and listening to directly) as well as for bits of information flagged as interesting-which could be based on various things about your character (history, quests, ect) 

[Footkerchief]

I should be done with underground civs tomorrow.

I'm surprised to not see more people talking about this.  Super viruses aside, I'm so glad to see the big nebulous stumbling block of development finally done and gone.

This was the latest breakdown I could find of the underground to-dos: "I also organized the remaining underground notes and threw various things out for this release, so I'm down now to needed work in various categories. More or less it boils down to testing out the new life and populations more, testing out and fixing up the underground animal people civilizations, fixing map quibbles, deciding what to do with the rope stuff, and dealing with a few hanging issues with the stuff I put in the spoiler before."

So after he finishes underground civs, there's still the rope issue and possibly some other stuff.  But it's getting closer!

What's the version number suuposed to be? It may soon be time to start working on updating the wiki.

Nobody knows yet, probably not even Toady, since it'll depend on how many dev items end up getting checked off.  I made a prediction a while back:

As a follow up to this, I went through the Core/Req/Bloat items to see which ones were likely to be marked as completed.

Spoiler: Core items: 5 total, 2 probable (click to show/hide)

# Core36, BURROWS, (Future): You should be able to associate buildings and dwarves to areas called burrows. A dwarf would only work on jobs at its burrow, and could not haul between burrows unless specifically designated to do so. Miners, outside workers, engravers and so on would be exempt while doing those jobs. Burrows could have general goals for the amount of objects, such as bins, that they need to have, and you could order transfers between burrows with the manager. Manager work orders could specify burrows. Once your fortress is large, having such a system to reduce the amount of hauling is very important. Coupled with some of the other ideas, large fortresses should become easier to manage.
# Core72, ROBUST ATTRIBUTE SYSTEM, (Future): Attributes are a sad, sad placeholder right now. There should be more attributes, say those from Armok 1, and their development, to the extent that they change, should depend on use rather than random assignment. They should degrade slowly over time if left completely unused.
# Core74, WOUND HANDLING, (Future): Wounds are dull right now and lead to at least one major problem (extreme and long-lasting phantom limb pain). Proper descriptions, scarring, infections and so on are in order here.
# Core91, PROPER UNDERGROUND/MAP FEATURES, (Future): Underground is currently where the stone and boring stuff and occasionally something else is. There needs to be more something else and less boring and stone, though stone might be bored. This project includes areas outside the mountains, as well as some interesting natural features in the mostly featureless above ground areas.
# Core92, APPEARANCE VARIABLES/DESCRIPTIONS, (Future): This is especially relevant for individualizing civilized critters you meet, but important elsewhere as well, and will be the springboard for randomly-generated beasties and other stuffs.

Spoiler: Req items: 46 total, 18 probable (click to show/hide)

# Req68, HUNTING ARMOR, (Future): Aside from the other concerns with armor/clothing conflicts, the hunting profession seemed to determine whether a dwarf chose to wear leather.
# Req76, INTELLIGENT HUNTING, (Future): Crossbow hunters should be more intelligent about their ammo.
# Req79, JOB CANCEL NOTICES, (Future): Option to turn off job cancel notices. Make it smarter about posting multiple notices in the first place by making jobs handle themselves when they are in trouble.
# Req84, SKILL ROLL CONSISTENCY, (Future): Improve consistency between skill rolls. Right now, the process for getting a good strike and making a good item are related, but it would be nicer to have everything use the same process.
# Req85, PAIN DEADENING AND SCARS, (Future): Wounds should stop hurting after a while (unless they get infected). Eventually, wounds should scar over, and you should be able to view scars (they would be maintained on your old foes between games, etc.).
# Req91, LEATHER COUNTING, (Future): Smaller creatures should have smaller skins. When skin is tanned, it could be turned into multiple pieces of leather, more like metal bars, with many being required for the larger goods like armor.
# Req104, SLAYER ANNOUNCEMENT, (Future): In dwarf mode, it could include the slayer in some of the death announcements if it is warranted.
# Req120, OFF DUTY SOLDIER STORES, (Future): Off-duty soldiers don't store their belongings, but they should.
# Req161, LEADER TITLES, (Future): Civilization leaders need proper titles.
# Req165, REFINE POISONING, (Future): Refine unit contamination amounts and levels.
# Req189, ARCHER ARMOR START SKILLS, (Future): Starting skills for archers are a bit off. They should have some armor skill if they use light armor.
# Req197, BUTCHERY OPTIMIZATION, (Future): The butchery code can be consolidated with some other sections of the program.
# Req203, PROPER HEALING, (Future): Nemeses should not just heal on travel, it needs to use the amount of time passed. This is related to infections and scarring.
# Req252, USE BARRACKS BEDS, (Future): People should use the barracks beds when they don't have their own rooms, but they don't do this properly.
# Req256, BUTCHERY ISSUES, (Future): Butchery should not be instant. Should be able to butcher the small creatures too. Need to mix this with extraction properly.
# Req273, STATE OF EMERGENCY, (Future): Having castle and royal guards uses up soldiers you'd like to use sometimes. Add state of emergency declaration. This allows you to stop these guards from performing their regular duties, and you can control the castle guard under their captain (the sheriff), and you can control the royal guard under the hammerer. They don't like this of course, and the ensuing negative thoughts can ensure that the option is used sparingly.
# Req285, OLD BLOODY WALLS, (Future): Need to handle bloody river walls in dwarf mode.
# Req323, BREAK EXPLOIT, (Future): Can draft then undraft to end breaks.
# Req325, PUNGENT BUGS, (Future): Dead insects and really small things shouldn't create miasma. But dead rodents should still stink.
# Req355, LIQUID CREATURE SUPPORT, (Future): Some creatures like magma men need better support for extreme temperature effects to work properly for them.
# Req358, CONTAMINANT MATERIALS, (Future): Contaminant materials need to be tracked more carefully.
# Req359, CONTAMINANT TEMPERATURE EFFECTS, (Future): Most importantly, metals that melt over creatures should have an effect, but the temperature of contaminants isn't currently stored.
# Req360, TEMPERATURE AND ROTTING, (Future): The recycling critters that rot corpses and food work faster and are more abundant in higher temperature areas in general, though it might also be linked to the biome specifically.
# Req362, CREATURE SUBTYPES AND TEMPERATURE, (Future): The safe temperature calculations don't take the gloss into consideration, so even if "oak" and "mangrove" have different temperature properties, the game doesn't use them for related creature doesn't use them in some instances.
# Req371, AXE USE DEACTIVATED, (Future): Deactivating squads can do strange things to axe use preference.
# Req398, PLATE/CHAIN LAYERING VS. ARMOR LEVEL, (Future): Wearing mail under plate is permissible, but it can be confusing to see when you select plate as the armor level.
# Req403, DAMBLOCK OPTS, (Future): There are some optimizations that can be made to the damage blocking calculations.
# Req413, PAIRED ITEMS ON ARMOR STANDS, (Future): Armor stands need to be able to hold 2 gloves and shoes, rather than just one item.
# Req414, EQUIPMENT STORAGE, (Future): Need to salvage some armor stand/weapon rack storage code for use by soldiers.
# Req417, "WATER"SKINS?, (Future): Military dwarves should be apt to carry booze instead of water.
# Req427, ELITE SOLDIER SETTINGS, (Future): You should be able to set soldier preferences for elite soldiers, though they should be unhappy to part with their favorite weapons.
# Req434, MESSAGE CONTROL, (Future): All messages should be optional with optional pause-zooming. There should be optional building completion announcements.
# Req441, CHILDREN AND GROWTH, (Future): Children need to change sizes more gradually as they grow up. It must also handle their clothing sizes without generating a ton of garbage objects.
# Req445, INJURED HUNTERS, (Future): Injured hunters should not attempt to hunt in general.
# Req449, BARRACKS ASSIGNMENTS, (Future): Allow barracks assignments for squads, including specific assignments (possibly automated within the barracks) for weapon racks and armor stands for soldiers.
# Req457, STEAM EFFECTS, (Future): There are currently problems with steam temperature damage, and the effects of walking through a forest fire.
# Req458, ZOMBIE BODIES, (Future): Zombies should just leave rotten corpses instead of rotten zombie corpses, though their former status as a zombie might have impacts on the body's properties later on.
# Req467, UNDEAD HEALING, (Future): Undead and construct-type creatures tend to heal when they shouldn't.
# Req473, MATERIAL REWRITE, (Future): There's a technical rewrite required to support things like object materials which are, for instance, the blood of a specific creature.
# Req476, DEEP OBJECT PLACEMENT ISSUE, (Future): There's an issue with object placement in one of the deep areas.
# Req482, FISH CLEANING IMPROVEMENTS, (Future): You should be able to remove relevant portions (shell/bones) of fish during cleaning.
# Req483, BLOOD VISIBILITY, (Future): Blood of all types should be visible on whatever color stone it falls on.
# Req492, MELTED OBJECT SIZE, (Future): When objects change states, their sizes need to be tracked more carefully.
# Req526, WOOD RAW TOKENS, (Future): Wood raws are missing a lot of customizable properties that other materials have.
# Req545, LAZY COMMANDERS, (Future): In addition to whatever else is keeping soldiers from there stations and patrols, they should not hang out with their eating/sleeping/wounded commander.
# Req568, LIMB BLOOD DROPPING, (Future): Bloody limbs that fly up in the air don't drop blood.

Spoiler: Bloat items: 29 total, 8 probable (click to show/hide)

# Bloat23, END GAME EXPANSION, (Future): Extend adventure opportunities in end game caverns.
# Bloat45, FLASKS, (Future): Use flasks for drinking. Dwarves should seek to have a full flask on their person at all times.
# Bloat69, MORE END GAME, (Future): Pre-endgame and post-endgame warnings and cave changes, in line with nemesis character.
# Bloat99, SELF-SERVICE HEALTHCARE, (Future): Take charge of your own health if nobody comes to help after a while.
# Bloat102, AMMO FETCHING, (Future): Improve ammo fetching code. Right now they shoot until they run out, but there were some issues with replenishing ammo sooner that might have to wait for item stacking.
# Bloat104, CHITIN PROCESSING, (Future): Handle chitin properly in butcher's shop. Shouldn't need to tan it maybe, but use some other process, or perhaps use it raw.
# Bloat110, CAVE-IN INJURIES, (Future): Allow people to survive cave-ins with injuries, instead of the current all-or-nothing system.
# Bloat127, HEALING CODE TWEAK, (Future): There's a small issue with healing that might slow the mending of breaks slightly.
# Bloat138, WRESTLING, (Future): Handle grab-tear shaking and further poison injection.
# Bloat150, WORLD CUSTOMIZATION, (Future): Some startup options to speed things up if you already have preferences in mind, including the ability to set the world size. See future dev.
# Bloat152, FIGURINE SHAPES, (Future): Shapes for figurines.
# Bloat159, CHANGE SNEAK SKILL, (Future): Refine sneak skill gains. You should get the most when someone is trying to detect you and you know they are doing it.
# Bloat162, POWDER THROWS, (Future): Throwing powdery object should make short-lived cloud flows (like dust from cave-ins but slower).
# Bloat176, PHYSICAL FEATURES, (Future): Various superfluous physical features for dwarves and others.
# Bloat210, STORE NAMES, (Future): The stores in town should have names, saved in the abstract at world level so that people can talk about and direct you to them.
# Bloat246, ORGAN RETENTION, (Future): Rather than just creating "chunks", butchery should keep many creature organs intact for cooking and alchemy
# Bloat270, COMBAT LOGS AND EVENTS, (Future): Combat log display for dwarf mode. Tracking and grouping of combat events for larger historical events. Important specifics of a given combat event might be kept for the historical record. Combat events could be named in the legends.
# Bloat297, CONTINUOUS ITEM AMOUNTS, (Future): Thread, rope, chains and cloth should have variable dimensions that are treated like variable amounts in jobs.
# Bloat300, ARCHERY TRAINING MATERIALS, (Future): Standing orders for archery training regarding which material to use.
# Bloat307, DESCRIPTIVE INFO, (Future): Ability to see genders information more easily in adventure mode. Ability to see other descriptive information as it comes in.
# Bloat319, IMPROVED BLOOD TRACKING, (Future): It can use stance point blood contaminants to handle blood tracking rather than spreading blood infinitely from spatters. In general, map blood amounts could afford to be tracked more closely.
# Bloat320, WORLD-SPANNING FEATURES, (Future): Use the world map feature system to create some world-spanning special map features, both indoor and outdoor, aside from rivers.
# Bloat323, WIDER USE OF COLOR DEFINITIONS, (Future): Tying all of the raws to color definitions would improve the coherence of the game. Minerals, plants, etc. should all be linked to color definition tokens.
# Bloat333, ARMOR CONTAMINATION FROM BLEEDING, (Future): Requires location specific bleeding information, tied to scarring and infection.
# Bloat341, STUCK-IN CONTAMINANTS, (Future): Issues with contaminants on item that becomes stuck inside another creature.
# Bloat347, HEREDITY, (Future): Once there are enough physical and other candidate traits to be passed along, the game could model heredity/genetics with some simple algorithms and data.
# Bloat353, BARRACKS FUNCTION SPLIT, (Future): The barracks has various functions, and you should be able to say what goes on in a given barracks.
# Bloat358, MACROS, (Future): You should be able to make keyboard macros to perform complicated repetitive actions.
# Bloat368, GENDER-BASED PICTURES, (Future): You should be able to further specify which graphical tiles are used if you like.

Based on this, my prediction for the next version number is DF v0.31.208.55a.  I included all of the ones I thought probable and 1/3 of the others, so it's complete BS, but hey.

[Neyvn]

Not long now I reckon...
Can't wait to see whats been cooking...

[Ozyton]

I should be done with underground civs tomorrow.

I'm surprised to not see more people talking about this.  Super viruses aside, I'm so glad to see the big nebulous stumbling block of development finally done and gone.

I want to know if this means that he will be done with the underground week, or if he just finished another part of the underground but still has a few more days before moving onto something else...

[Shoku]

The would certainly be interesting to see hapen in the game but how in the world could you have the game generate tactics for the predators like that?

Learning AI. Would eat the pants off a modern system, but systems X years from now might be able to pull it off.

Making Ai that isn't tricks and hacks mostly involves uber-computing and ultra-programming. Unless someone goes and makes a package where it's mostly done I don't think the time to develop a system like that is something we want to wait through.

What it could do is it could filter important information depending on your situation.

The sound of people speaking in a city is unimportant.

The sound of speaking in a deep cave is very important.

However, how does it determine what your situation is?

Maybe there could be a bunch of options settings to help determine this, however it could get overcomplicated doing it that way.

Maybe not. I thought IF had had this sort of thing for quite awhile and I doubt there's anything you really couldn't appropriate from that that you'd want to.

You might be able to just give sounds something like sphere information and then announce the ones that didn't match known conditions.

[Lord Shonus]

If you're talking aboult Interactive Fiction, that's all scripted. It wouldn't be much use in this sort of situation. Now I have to give Zork another go. Thanks for killing my week. 

[Innominate]

The would certainly be interesting to see hapen in the game but how in the world could you have the game generate tactics for the predators like that?

Learning AI. Would eat the pants off a modern system, but systems X years from now might be able to pull it off.

Making Ai that isn't tricks and hacks mostly involves uber-computing and ultra-programming. Unless someone goes and makes a package where it's mostly done I don't think the time to develop a system like that is something we want to wait through.

A genetic algorithm might be able to develop the fighting styles, but it would have significant disadvantages. First and foremost, it wouldn't be realtime. So it would have to develop a non-situational fighting style based purely on information in the raws at worldgen, or we would have to sit through the algorithm every time we wanted to update a creature's fighting style. Could actually be done, but as you say, I sure as hell don't want Toady to spend his time on such a solution when he has much better things he could do. I think simplistic AI is fine for now. Maybe consider better AI (apart from sieges) for version 2 or some other far off date.