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[Lancensis]

I wonder how cave-ins will work with the new natural caverns.  I imagine a nightmare scenario where your dwarves break into the underground and the whole map collapses.

That's funny. I have a wonderful dream where the exact same thing happens.

[Mephansteras]

Ah, glad to hear that we'll be able to specify the hunter's equipment as well. I always get annoyed when my hunters use up all of my really high quality ammo shooting goats while my soldiers are stuck with copper bolts to fight off the hordes.

[Aqizzar]

There weren't any amusing errors this time around, unless you count a dwarf running off to kill the local elephants bare-handed every time I did something wrong.

Elephants.  Somehow it's always the elephants.

[smjjames]

There weren't any amusing errors this time around, unless you count a dwarf running off to kill the local elephants bare-handed every time I did something wrong.

Lol, we should still be able to make dwarves chase elephants bare handed if we wanted to, right?

Looks like squad stuff will be done this week as the last two are already a dark blue (meaning more than 75% finished I think?), so those shouldn't take long and Toady was aiming to finish up squads by the end of the month.

Edit: I think the last two may be finished at the same time as they seem interrelated.

[olemars]

There weren't any amusing errors this time around, unless you count a dwarf running off to kill the local elephants bare-handed every time I did something wrong.

In a recent fort I had an immigrant who, almost immediately after arriving, decided to leg it to the nearest waterhole and wrestle the inhabitant alligator.

He only did that once.

[PencilinHand]

There weren't any amusing errors this time around, unless you count a dwarf running off to kill the local elephants bare-handed every time I did something wrong.

Lol, we should still be able to make dwarves chase elephants bare handed if we wanted to, right?

Looks like squad stuff will be done this week as the last two are already a dark blue (meaning more than 75% finished I think?), so those shouldn't take long and Toady was aiming to finish up squads by the end of the month.

Edit: I think the last two may be finished at the same time as they seem interrelated.

Squads could be polished off by the end of the week but I doubt it(testing, troubleshooting, thanksgiving?). 
I would be surprised if squads last beyond the weekend though.

[Footkerchief]

I wonder how cave-ins will work with the new natural caverns.  I imagine a nightmare scenario where your dwarves break into the underground and the whole map collapses.

This was addressed:

Do the edges of the map provide support in the current version? If not, are there any protections against the cave-in of the entire surface on small maps with the new cavern systems? While funny, I can see this being a major problem for players, especially if encountered in adventure mode.

I remember having some edge-supported-but-still-caveins, but I don't recall the fix.  Collapsing huge sections of the cavern on the layers will be possible one way or the other, of course.  Layer maps of all embark sizes have enough pillars to prevent instant cave-ins though.

[smjjames]

There are lots of caves which naturally have collapsed roofs, creating 'skylights' (I think it happens more often in limestone caves). Maybe this is how the monsters came streaming out of the caverns in one devlog.

I would support some natural caveins punching a hole through the first layer or two of the caverns simply because it's natural and we might even end up with a brook or river plunging into a cavern. Who wouldn't want something like that. Also, cave whitewater rafting anyone?

[Warlord255]

Squad completion is so close I can taste it! GAAAH!

Maybe it'll be a Dwarfy christmas after all!

[Neonivek]

Squad completion is so close I can taste it! GAAAH!

Maybe it'll be a Dwarfy christmas after all!

Naw apperanty this item can take weeks: "Handling butchery/rot/fish cleaning/eat leavings vs. body materials"

[Footkerchief]

There are lots of caves which naturally have collapsed roofs, creating 'skylights' (I think it happens more often in limestone caves). Maybe this is how the monsters came streaming out of the caverns in one devlog.

I would support some natural caveins punching a hole through the first layer or two of the caverns simply because it's natural and we might even end up with a brook or river plunging into a cavern. Who wouldn't want something like that. Also, cave whitewater rafting anyone?

Yeah, I was watching the Planet Earth episode on caves last week, and one of more spectacular caves was the Cave of Swallows, which basically looks like a giant hole in the forest, big enough that people BASE jump into it.  That episode was just incredible in general.  Hills of guano carpeted with cockroaches would set the tone well in some DF caves, I think, especially if it described the crunching sounds.

[Neonivek]

There was also a movie where the Cave was basically two holes in the ground (which slowly driven one of them insane who then proceeded to murder everyone)

[Footkerchief]

Naw apperanty this item can take weeks: "Handling butchery/rot/fish cleaning/eat leavings vs. body materials"

I don't think it's expected to take weeks, although I guess a very thorough implementation could.  The only estimate we have is "probably more than a day," which isn't very dire.  If we're talking release dates again, I'll post this recent quote which has as much detail as we could ask for:

Squads might end up with enough hanging annoyances to push it out of this month, though I'm still hopeful I'll be able to green it out.  I'm running even with my plan for the month so far.

The underground is one of those things that I can apparently work on forever.  I have more that needs to be done there, but I can probably wrap it up in a week, and I'll try to talk about it as much as possible, or at least have something to talk about there.

Butchery/rot will probably take more than a day, and a few of those others might also take longer, though I don't see why that would be from here.  I know there are some lingering irritations with reactions.

The "explore minor compat issues" could take a few days.

The "any remaining tests" is likely to take a while.  That consists of the kind of pre-release, "stop crashing!" kind of stuff I can't pass off to all of you, as well as all kinds of weird things that need tackling to get the presentation up around the low 40d standards (all wilderness tree names display as plurals now, to name one of a zillion little things that have cropped up -- they are all dirt easy to fix, but there are dozens and dozens of them), and there are a few promises I made and a few quick requests that made it in before I decided I can't take anything else on ("handle a few misc. bug reports and minor interface requests that have arisen").  You'll have more than your fair share of bugs to find, no doubt, and I'll be spending at least a month post-release cleaning those up and doing bugfix releases, as usual.

The 40d# merge will take an unknown amount of time.  On paper, I just need to structure my code files the same way as 40d#, do a few easy diffs and translate over all the interface tokens into the new format.  However, there's no way it's going to be that nice to me.

Anyway, I'm acting now as if I can get it out by the end of the year, and when that doesn't work out, there shouldn't be that much left.

[Chthonic]

I wonder how cave-ins will work with the new natural caverns.  I imagine a nightmare scenario where your dwarves break into the underground and the whole map collapses.

This was addressed:

I'll rephrase.

I seem to remember seeing vast caverns in the screenshots of the underground.  Assuming that there will be user-adjustable parameters to set the shapes/distributions of caverns, and that some form of cave-ins will be implemented at some point in the future for excavations supported on the edges--involving a rule similar to the seven-by-seven--how will caverns and cave-ins play together?

-Will whatever algorithms generate caverns take into account cave-in rules, thereby forcing regular pillars or smaller spaces (i.e., will expansive Lost-world style spaces not be an option for caverns?)

or

-Will the original 'natural' hollows not be tested for cave-ins at all, thereby allowing vast spaces?

or

-Something else?

[Footkerchief]

Well, he said "Layer maps of all embark sizes have enough pillars to prevent instant cave-ins," so yes, there will be enough pillars to provide support, though having one pillar per region tile doesn't rule out expansive caverns by any means.  The caverns will still be tested for cave-ins, since he said "Collapsing huge sections of the cavern on the layers will be possible."

edit: oh, didn't realize you were talking about a revamped cave-in system, never mind