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[Footkerchief]

First post updated, cat bug fixed

Also, I've only been following DF for the last couple of months but, why exactly was it decided to do one long major update instead of normal updates?

Toady posted this a long while back, but it's still relevant:

Spoiler: long quote (click to show/hide)

In general, yeah, I'm not happy with how long the release is taking, though I'm not going to be too critical of myself since it's hard to see how these things are going to work out sometimes.  Save compat or not, the material rewrite had to come in at some point, and excluding the rest of the release, that's probably still six months (not even done yet), for little immediate return without additional features.  Picking off some of those low-hanging fruit that popped out of the definition rewrite like descriptions could have waited, but there are downsides to a dry six month release as well.  The entity rewrite was necessary for the military stuff, which is still the ostensible goal, so the several months going into that is also a chunk (you have to count time spent on entities prior to starting the material/underground stuff).  Then there's the underground update, which goes nicely with the military rewrite and also the material rewrite but could also have waited.  The combat rewrite was partially necessitated by the material change, since too much wouldn't make sense without it, but the specifics of the health-care rewrite might have waited (though I'm not sure what impact that would have on playability, since I'm not sure if the number of broken limbs won't increase somewhat).  Anyway, yeah, there are a few more dependencies in between them, so I'm not going to acknowledge the absolute exclusivity of the groups of changes for this release, but I do acknowledge that it definitely could have come in more than one giant section, but I think more than two or three parts would have had led to some heavy downsides caused by some very, very dry longish-wait releases.

[...]

I'm still ambivalent about save compatibility preservation as I've been handling it.  It wasn't fully responsible for the decisions that led to the long release wait, but it was an encouraging factor in piling on a bit more than I needed to pile on.  On the other hand, world preservation is only going to become more important to people, especially when they are allowed to get out there themselves beyond running isolated sites, and I'll probably be happy in the long run to have made so many save-breaking changes now once the main elements of the army arc are complete, rather than wrecking worlds that people have invested in.  Nobody really cares now, but if people don't care later, we aren't doing this right.

In any case, we're well along now, and all I can do is try to be a little more careful with my scheduling for future releases.  For instance, we mentioned a while ago that we were thinking of doing improved sieges or sending out armies plus looking at the top ten on the voting thread plus one thing of our choosing.  I don't think that would take a year again if it were all done at once (as if I've ever been right), but after this process we'll probably still stick more or less with that sequence -- but definitely grouped into several releases.  There would be no reason not to do all of the voting items independently for example, if I'm remembering them correctly (it does represent a few lost days, since releases themselves take several hours to prepare, especially now that I'm on three partitions over two computers).

There are reasons not to break up improved sieges that much, since a too-incremental approach there, aside from lessening the impact, would also involve way more AI rewriting each time, and improved sieges require a lot of mechanics that aren't in the game yet.  My previous inclination would just be to do it all, but if I want to do more releases, I might have to backtrack and do things like the vehicle rewrite as a first goal, which is essentially wasted time until they are used, which leads to complaints and ill-will, just as many elements of this release garner complaints for their apparent lack of utility.  The material component of the release never had a chance, I think, in terms of public relations and expectations (broadly speaking, I know many of you were excited about it -- and I have no real way of telling how upset people are.  Donations have been okay so far.).  You either spend some months working on something with very few immediate benefits and do a release that changes nothing, saying it's good for the project in the long-term, or you explore some of the benefits, which leads to further delays and some new features.  It's not so clear-cut, as there are always short-term projects laying around that might be used to spruce up a dead-weight release without delaying it too much, but it is a conflict that's happening and which I have to think about when I'm planning what to do next, which is something that sucks personally, since it screws up the flow of the project, though I think it's good to keep you all happy as well.

Also, that cat bug got fixed suspiciously fast.  I bet he just removed cats.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

and added pigs so much more loveable

[CobaltKobold]

Also, that cat bug got fixed suspiciously fast.  I bet he just removed cats.

My hypothesis: adding specialcase for [verminhunter] to the code for carrying vermin.

Or  the job cancel code,since it presently works (cats carry vermin), just makes a false error. Where'er the problem part is.

Probably smarter than my thoughts though.

[Toady One]

The cat bug was strange.  I looked and the relevant part of the code was already fixed, and I have no idea when I did that.  I remember I fixed it in the 40d# series, but I used a different more hackish fix there.  I must have just gotten tired of the announcements and then forgotten about it.  It's green now, anyway!

There's also the matter of including adventurer skills/entities and improved sieges along with the top 10 in the next series of releases, and I haven't decided on the order yet.  But yeah, I'm definitely going to address that when I get there, and there isn't as far off as lots of other things.

Since Adv skills inexplicably has dropped to #11, y'know.

I'm not sure what you are getting at.  It probably dropped down because I said I'd be doing it and sieges along with the top 10 way back when, since people want their votes to matter.

[CobaltKobold]

There's also the matter of including adventurer skills/entities and improved sieges along with the top 10 in the next series of releases, and I haven't decided on the order yet.  But yeah, I'm definitely going to address that when I get there, and there isn't as far off as lots of other things.

Since Adv skills inexplicably has dropped to #11, y'know.

I'm not sure what you are getting at.  It probably dropped down because I said I'd be doing it and sieges along with the top 10 way back when, since people want their votes to matter.

It was just sort of an aside, since I earlier thought you were doing it because of its position in the top 10

But now, I think, you wrote down the rankings...yeah, I'm confused/it's late.

[Toady One]

The adv skills/entities and improved sieges stuff are sort of our personal ones (though hopefully people will appreciate them and I know they are reasonably popular).  Then, there's the top 10 stuff, and yeah, I took one snapshot of the rankings back when, and I'll take another look once the release is out, at which point we were going to do... something.  I'm not sure it's clear, though we've discussed it.  I'd have to look back at what was decided if anything.  Things that are doing fairly well and didn't crack the top ten might come up as well.  It depends on where everything fits, and nothing is set in stone, especially when the situation might just be totally different once a lot but not all of those things are completed.

[Kaiser Reinhard]

Toady, in the future will enemies come up with new ways to kill your dwarves other than sieges and ambush parties? Will they perhaps try to poison your water supply, or hide in trading wagons? And will they eventually be able to destroy constructions like walls and floors?

[alway]

Toady, in the future will enemies come up with new ways to kill your dwarves other than sieges and ambush parties? Will they perhaps try to poison your water supply, or hide in trading wagons? And will they eventually be able to destroy constructions like walls and floors?

From what I understand: yes, unknown, unknown, yes. IIRC, mobile seige engines will come when vehicles are done properly and I remember something said about letting them knock stuff down so one cannot just lock the door until enemies go away.

[Footkerchief]

^^^ Yeah, destroyable constructions are practically guaranteed when Toady does the siege improvements that he just mentioned.

Will they perhaps try to poison your water supply

# Bloat272, WATER POISONING, (Future): Malicious creatures might attempt to poison or otherwise taint your water supply.

[Kaiser Reinhard]

^^^ Yeah, destroyable constructions are practically guaranteed when Toady does the siege improvements that he just mentioned.

Will they perhaps try to poison your water supply

# Bloat272, WATER POISONING, (Future): Malicious creatures might attempt to poison or otherwise taint your water supply.

Cool.

Also, this means that 5-tile thick steel walls will be more far more effective than wooden fences, right?

[Bacu]

I wait in this thread and the dev_now page every morning about this time, waiting to see what the next update is.

I have no life.

[James.Denholm]

I have no life.

Sure you do! It's just that it's owned by Toady. I suppose that, strictly speaking, this means that it's not your life, but you get what I mean.

[dorf]

Just out of curiosity...

I've organized all of the remaining notes... massive but contained.
[...]

Can you put it in numbers?

[Neonivek]

I can

A >= 0

[Sean Mirrsen]

I've had a few suggestions that seem deceptively easy to implement.

Will it be possible to make the ITEMCORPSE tag multi-value, i.e. so that several items may be added, and one of them will be chosen at random at the creature's death?

How probable is the inclusion of an .ini tag to remove all default embark items and replace them with just a lot of points? Mods frequently make the default starting pack disbalancing - some races don't have access to anvils, and there may be more expensive default metals. Sometimes even in vanilla you can get more points if you have expensive meat or booze selected by default.

In the same vein, how probable is an option to be able to select the amount of starting dwarves? Maybe even in-game, through the same interface we use to stock up on animals?