Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dame de la Licorne]

From the dev notes:

Scamps carries toys to the room he wants play in (generally where I'm at), he can open my cardboard boxes, and he has learned how to pull out the plugs of my electrical cords.

and he has learned how to pull out the plugs of my electrical cords.

Oh no...

[Hoborobo234]

Toady: Phew, glad to get all that work out of the way, I'm almost done.

*Scamps enters room*

Toady: Scamps what are you doing?I haven't saved that!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOetc

[Pruvan]

Toady cancels development: interrupted by Scamps.
Scamps cancels mayhem: interrupted by raging toad.

[SirPenguin]

SirHoneyBadger: First of all, it's hilarious how we both have "Sir*Insert animal name here*" names

But anyways, I won't derail this topic any further, but I did want to clarify my question for Toady a bit. I'm not saying he should drop everything to optimize the game; the game runs "decently" even on my older computer. The problem is, from experience, I tend to know exactly what'll kill my FPS in a fortress...and that's the sudden and large introduction of critters. Happens during migrants, traders, goblin sieges, etc. And it makes sense, given that that's a lot of new people the engine has to keep track of, path for, etc.

Further, the way A* pathfinding works does not mesh well with large, open spaces, given it's a lot more "expensive" to calculate a path through given the sheer amounts of options it has.

So you can imagine the possible difficulties of unearthing a) a very large cave with b) a very large amount of critters in it.

And who knows, this might not even be a concern, which is really all my question was asking on the subject, as Toady would know first hand. FPS issues kind of make or break the "end game" of DF for me, so, to me at least, it's important to know so I can plan my forts a little wiser than I have been.

Phew, ok, back on topic:

Anyone else worried cats will learn all sorts of new "tricks" because of Toady's real life experience with them? Hmm...

Mechanic cancels pull lever: Missing mechanism
Fort cancels live: Dying to unchecked magma flood
Cat cancels playing with mechanism: Searching for dead owner

[Kazindir]

You would have to warp some badass mnotherfucking carp in order to shut one of those babies down

Tame the carp and invade the demon dimensions through the rift with your unstoppable legions of dwarven warcarp!

[Hoborobo234]

FORWARD!

[Zironic]

On April 5th Scamps was introduced.

On April 16th He became self aware.

On April 17th Mankind fell.

[THLawrence]

I put the pictures into a map and put it up on the map archive.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-5540-undergroundpreview

Add points of interest if you see something out of the ordinary. I have already seen at least one interesting feature.

[Greiger]

I was under the impression that the unending attacks was just the chasm, cave river, magma pools, Ect. endlessly respawning critters once killed.  Like it did back in 2D when losing was fun, instead of now where losing is just difficult.

Back in 2D you actually had to have an active military, patrolling the chasms rivers and magma flow because aggressive critters would actually spawn from them. And they would never stop (except the chasm if you decided to "red line" it) Back then you couldn't just wall those features off either.  Your main fortress hallway was almost required to cross all 3.  Activating the military once you saw the ambush message, usually resulted in the military showing up too late.  Hell, you even had to keep an eye on yer wells, or at least booby trap the crap out of them, because stuff would climb out of them.

Thats what I'm hoping for the return of.

[Drakale]

I put the pictures into a map and put it up on the map archive.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-5540-undergroundpreview

Add points of interest if you see something out of the ordinary. I have already seen at least one interesting feature.

Neat thanks for that. I wish we could run this in the 3d renderer to see what it look like.

I might try do make a model using the greyscales later.

[Monkeyvich]

Map Features (last changed Apr 12)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We're not spoiling specific features, but there are general goals:

• Possibility for unending attacks
• Underground feature resources more likely and useful (farmable areas, etc.)
• Easy to find features (if you want lots) throughout all Z levels, arranged to permit ample area for a fortress
• Features spanning multiple world map squares
• Consider rope/ladder/etc. building particularly for downward movement into large open spaces

I likey these green bits....  How may I help Speed the Plow that Strikes the Earth, Toady ??  I live in Seattle, have 2 decades of game balancing experience, coding knowledge, enough D&D sourcebooks to choke a librarian, music-creation skills, writing skills (ninja skills, hacking .. wait ... nm)... etc.    And I've lurved roguelikes for ages.  ?

Monkeyvich

[SirHoneyBadger]

This'll be the last I have to say about the subject, so as not to cause further "disruption", but I strongly disagree that the question of new features affecting CPU usages, and how pertinent that question is, is a derailment, and that's what my statements ultimately boiled down to.

Let me state my concern in a different way?

Caverns are the immediate new development. That's entirely on topic.

SirPenguin and I are both asking the same question, in the opposite way: If it can be supposed, or atleast suspected, that caverns are going to add an additional burden to framerate/processor speed, then at what point is an arbitrary limit going to be set on additional new features?

The Army Arc is getting closer.

Since it's entirely within DF status quo to have the game track every single soldier, down to name, rank, and -ropereed sock-, it's not farfetched to envision that as yet another major processing issue. Doesn't mean it will be, but it seems very likely. Add in realistic geology, maybe an additional flow or two, and it should be pretty apparent that compromises based on processing power could be the deciding factor on how deep the game can go.

I'm not saying Toady can't find ways around that. What I'm asking is how convoluted do those ways have to be, and where does the line get drawn?

Toady's going to make the game he wants to make, and that's how it should be, but I think it's useful to ask the Forum community whether we (since we'll be the ones most affected by it) want the game to come first? Or do we want CPU usages to come first?

I feel the answer(s) to that question could have a direct and long-term effect on the Future of the Fortress.

There, now we can continue on with our regular scheduled programming.

[Areyar]

I don't think the caves will be much burden on the CPU, except initially during woldgen.

Any burden will flow (heh) from the creatures inhabiting them and maybe waterfalls should the cavesystem intersect with water containing features such as UG rivers.
And we all want to those underground buggers to challenge our fortresses.
Mo' underground diversity we've been hollering for ages now, too late to get cold feet.
(T1 also stated that most new features would be optional in WG settings, so .)

Also I suspect Toady will (try very hard to) find a way to optimize flows before adding a new type.

Seems today I have my 'optimist hat' on...

[Sean Mirrsen]

The answer to the "Features VS CPU use" thingy is either optimization, or switch to multithreading, or both. Many of the features will be init-toggleable, some will also be worldgen-toggleable, so if your PC is unable to cope with the task, turn something off and enjoy what is left. I suppose this is the problem with the "gameplay over graphics" view on games - if power goes into graphics, you can tone down graphics to improve performance while keeping the gameplay. If no power goes into the graphics, you can only cut down gameplay to improve performance.

[Phrog]

The answer to the "Features VS CPU use" thingy is either optimization, or switch to multithreading, or both.

This. Even on a relatively good machine (I'm running a 2.6 quad, for instance) I can only squeeze out a little over 15 FPS (though I'm asking for it by running a large map I suppose). It doesn't matter how much money you throw at your machine if buying a processor with twice the processing power (as in two cores over one, nobody makes really fast single-cores and even if they did nobody would buy them) will do nothing to help you. As long as DF is single-threaded optimization will only go so far.

DF can get as complex as Toady wants it to, and in all reality I do want a really deep, complex game. However, if the caves do add even more processing strain to already-overworked CPUs then "compromises" will have to be made just to keep the game playable. I don't think very many people want to play DF at under ten FPS or limit themselves to a very small map just to keep the game speed at a playable level.