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[TowerWizard]

Hail and well met, beardlings. I have a couple of questions that I need answering! It was a while since I played the game, and I would like to know if the issues I had with it have been corrected since last time.

*Do dwarves still find the tile one z-level above to be nearer than a tile two tiles away, assumin no stairs are near?

*Do dwarves still have problems finding the best gear to use (ie picking older weaponry even when newer is available)?

*Do dwarves still walk into the line-of-fire of other dwarves who shoot at a target, even if tile priorities mark those as bad, if they ?

*Do useless rocks still clutter your fortresses as a result of "good miners"?

I am not sure if that was all of my issues. I remember something about civilians during wartime... Anyway, the first is the most annoying. Are these things still present in the game? Is the game still beeing developed?

[Danarca]

Hail and well met, beardlings. I have a couple of questions that I need answering! It was a while since I played the game, and I would like to know if the issues I had with it have been corrected since last time.

*Do dwarves still find the tile one z-level above to be nearer than a tile two tiles away, assumin no stairs are near?
Yes

*Do dwarves still have problems finding the best gear to use (ie picking older weaponry even when newer is available)?
Yes

*Do dwarves still walk into the line-of-fire of other dwarves who shoot at a target, even if tile priorities mark those as bad, if they ?
Hmm, don't know if they get a downing of priority, but usually yes

*Do useless rocks still clutter your fortresses as a result of "good miners"?
Yes

I am not sure if that was all of my issues. I remember something about civilians during wartime... Anyway, the first is the most annoying. Are these things still present in the game? Is the game still beeing developed? Yes it is

[Vactor]

*Do dwarves still find the tile one z-level above to be nearer than a tile two tiles away, assumin no stairs are near?
--yes

*Do dwarves still have problems finding the best gear to use (ie picking older weaponry even when newer is available)?
--fairly easy to manage via the stocks screen and dumping unwanted gear off of dwarves

*Do dwarves still walk into the line-of-fire of other dwarves who shoot at a target, even if tile priorities mark those as bad, if they ?
--friendly fire is off for things smaller than siege weapons

*Do useless rocks still clutter your fortresses as a result of "good miners"?
--quite easily taken care of with mass Dump designation (d-b-d) or via the Hide option

[Greiger]

Depending on how long ago, you can use a new hide designation to make the stone(and anything else) disappear from view.

It's still there, so it can still block stockpiles, hold open doors, and dwarves will still use them but you don't have to think about it in most cases anymore.

[Haven]

1: I think so.

2: Somewhat, but the next release is apparently fixing that for good.

3: Only with ballistae, I think. Not sure about tile priorities.

4: Mass-hide is a wonderful thing.

[Wooty]

I remember something about civilians during wartime...

You're probably thinking of entrance dancing, where dwarves will get as close to the entrance as possible and spam you with job canceled notifications as soon as you tell them to get indoors. I don't think this is fixed

[TowerWizard]

Yes, entery dancing. This is it. Extremely annoying.

1) How could this be so hard to fix? Solution: don't use z-levels when calculationg the path unless stairs exist between two tiles. End of problem?

2) This problem seems harder to solve. There must be a prioritizing system built into the items, so that better equipment has a better ranking. This, together with a better command ("go get an iron axe" instead of "go get an axe") should solve most of the problems.

3) Mark tiles between archers and their targets as forbidden.

4) Come again? Hide them from sight? They are still there, but invisible? They still takes up memory? Solution: Add an option to not create boulders when mining!! I mean if bad miners can pulverize solid rock into small gravel, so should good miners, if they need to. It should off course be selective, so that only useless boulders are destroyed.

Oh, well. Seems like I have to wait some more until it is worth to spend time playing this game. It is good, but it need some streamlining. I mean, clothes is all welll and good, but who cares about ordering dwarves to produce wool socks? That level of detail is beyond me at this point

[Pruvan]

1) How could this be so hard to fix? Solution: don't use z-levels when calculationg the path unless stairs exist between two tiles. End of problem?

Pathfinding is never easy. It all sounds simple in our heads and on paper, but for coders it's a pain in the rear.

3) Mark tiles between archers and their targets as forbidden.

If you like having dozens of pathfinding issues during an attack then sure, this will work.

4) Come again? Hide them from sight? They are still there, but invisible? They still takes up memory? Solution: Add an option to not create boulders when mining!! I mean if bad miners can pulverize solid rock into small gravel, so should good miners, if they need to. It should off course be selective, so that only useless boulders are destroyed.

This is pretty much cheating, since it means you'd be able to dissolve entire mountains into thin air. Those rocks you mine out have to go somewhere. How you deal with them is simply another challenge to deal with.

Oh, well. Seems like I have to wait some more until it is worth to spend time playing this game. It is good, but it need some streamlining. I mean, clothes is all welll and good, but who cares about ordering dwarves to produce wool socks? That level of detail is beyond me at this point

Do not underestimate the throwing value of a wool sock in combat.

[Neruz]

Dwarf Fortress is attempting to be a fully realised world simulator, including all the nitty gritty details like making socks.

If you don't like that level of detail, then i humbly submit that DF is probably not the best choice of game for you, i don't mean this as an insult, merely a statement of fact, DF is not everyones cup of tea and only appeals to a very small number of people.

[martinuzz]

At least, dwarves don't wanna rush out anymore to pick up that goblin sock... Toady has been so kind to implement a feature that makes all loot dropped from hostile corpses start out as forbidden.. Same for fired ammunition..
So, there's a lot less entrance dancing during wartime.

[Shades]

1) How could this be so hard to fix? Solution: don't use z-levels when calculationg the path unless stairs exist between two tiles. End of problem?

The problem isn't in calculating the path, that will correctly take into consideration distances to stairs. However when trying to locate the nearest item pathfinding to it is slower than a 'as the crow flies' distance check. You get the same problem with long walls and items on the other side of it but people tend to be better at designing for that in 2d than in 3d.

Personally I'd just do the pathfinding on each object (closest first) to find the true distance until one is less than the next as the crow flies distance. But that might kill those with slower computers.

2) This problem seems harder to solve. There must be a prioritizing system built into the items, so that better equipment has a better ranking. This, together with a better command ("go get an iron axe" instead of "go get an axe") should solve most of the problems.

Actually this is easier to solve than the above (and still keep performance), your solution is the one I'd use too, just allow material specification or weight things towards better materials by default. Ideally allow a best material / worst material layers so trainees can be given 'anything in wood' orders.

3) Mark tiles between archers and their targets as forbidden.

Archers don't shoot each other anyway, so why bother?

4) Come again? Hide them from sight? They are still there, but invisible? They still takes up memory? Solution: Add an option to not create boulders when mining!! I mean if bad miners can pulverize solid rock into small gravel, so should good miners, if they need to. It should off course be selective, so that only useless boulders are destroyed.

I never understood the hide from sight thing either, but the mass dump designation is handy. I dump rock to stop my masons using colours I don't want them too (yes I have issues), although I guess I could mass hide and mass forbid. Memory however isn't an issue, they don't use much for a rock or even 1000 rocks, and hopefully the DF logic is smart enough to ignore forbidden items in search functions.

[Greiger]

Personally I feel you should have an option for legendary miners to produce less rock, but by no means eliminate it completely.  Dealing with the rock is indeed part of the game.

As for the weapon upgrades isn't that being handled in the next version with the redoing of all the squad stuff?

[The13thRonin]

Hail and well met, beardlings. I have a couple of questions that I need answering! It was a while since I played the game, and I would like to know if the issues I had with it have been corrected since last time.

*Do dwarves still find the tile one z-level above to be nearer than a tile two tiles away, assumin no stairs are near?

*Do dwarves still have problems finding the best gear to use (ie picking older weaponry even when newer is available)?

*Do dwarves still walk into the line-of-fire of other dwarves who shoot at a target, even if tile priorities mark those as bad, if they ?

*Do useless rocks still clutter your fortresses as a result of "good miners"?

I am not sure if that was all of my issues. I remember something about civilians during wartime... Anyway, the first is the most annoying. Are these things still present in the game? Is the game still beeing developed?

If you're looking for something to draw you away from the bugs and give you a fresh, exciting gaming experience why not try one of our mods over in the modding section? I have my very own called DIG DEEPER which aims to expand the variety of Vanilla game-play. I'd be honoured if you'd give it a try!

You can find it here if you so wish: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=35736.0

[TowerWizard]

Pruvan: If rocks have to go somewhere, how come bad miners make them go away? Please answer this for me!

The idea here is off course that you WANT the rocks to remain, so that you can use them to build things with, and as the miners get better, they produce more building blocks. It has nothing to do with realism. If that would be the case, then bad miners would produce useless rocks that had to be dumped, and good miners would have a chance of instead producing valuable rock that can be used to build with, if you wanted to. Besides, if you hide them from sight, does not that constitute an even bigger cheat?

Neruz: I know. It does a decent job at it as well. I am a fan of detail. My favorite game at the moment is Civ IV BtS, much because of the level of management possible. But still, in DF where clothes isn't even necessary, to be able to produce X number of different types of socks is too far. I don't care about them IRL, so why would I want to care in a game?

Mertinuzz: Sounds good.

Shades: If the pathfinding system actually works, but another feature is used instead since it saves memory, then let it be an option to use different types of pathfinding so you can use any of them depending of computer capabilities?

The thing I meant with my archer remark is that it is stupid to have dwarf shooting a bow at a target practice item at the same time as another dwarf cleans up the mess the arrows make, the small wooden pieces.


Greiger: I can understand the point that the rock issue is a part of the game, but it is so stupid that better miners make a bigger mess than poor miners.

The13thRonin: I might just do that

[Dakk]

Its like you said, a good miner can create rocks large enough to be used in masonry and the like. A bad miner doesn't know how to hit the rock well enough, and digs slower, meaning he's taking smaller chunks of the rock with each blow, and such small rocks are mostly useless for masonry. Of course, this sorta cluttlers things up, but like in real mining, you have to deal with all the pieces of rock created.

I don't understand how people can't see this as realistic, since you're dealing with one of the real problems real miners have.