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[Vattic]

I wonder if it has anything to do with the weather simulation; Poles influence weather which influences the biome type? In real life dry broadleaf forests occur at a specific latitude so maybe it's distance from the poles?

[cephalo]

The mangrove swamp thing might also be related to the minimum ocean edges tag. Maybe an edge is required for the salt to penetrate inland.

EDIT: Never mind, I am definately getting saltwater swamps. I'll do some checking on the tropical ones.

EDIT2: Yep, I have located mangrove swamp on a map with no poles (but with PWDF poles). I can also see some separate tropical saltwater swamps that are not mangrove swamps.

I think the issue might be that if you use the 'elevation standard deviation' map on the drainage tab without noise, drainage is tied exclusively to elevation slope, which will lead to few coastal areas with low drainage. I always turn up the noise on the drainage map to make things more varied and not so dependent on the elevation contours.

[thepaan]

In real life dry broadleaf forests occur at a specific latitude so maybe it's distance from the poles?

Wow. I think you may be onto something here. I had just given up on figuring out this last bit and had generated a world to start a new game. This world is about 30% Broadleaf Forest and, while looking for an embark, I noticed that the dry forests are all more north than the wet ones. There seems to be a division right around 205 which is sometimes either dry or wet, but north of which is always dry and south of which is always wet.

World Parameters:
  Elevation:        25%-85%, west and south forced ocean, turbulence 100-25-50, noise 25-50-75
  Rainfall:          2%-17%-90%, wind 30*, noise 50-75-25
  Drainage:        7%-22%-80%, noise 50-75-25
  Temperature:   5% freezing - normalized - 55% scorching, linear gradient (193,0) 120*, noise 50-75-25
  Pole:               North

[cephalo]

I can confirm that having DF poles changes quite a bit. For one thing, when I turned poles back on and deleted my PWDF temperature data on the same map, I suddenly was getting map rejects for having too many subregions. So using DF poles creates more biomes on the map than PWDF can create without them. I also started seeing some tropical dry brdlf forests where I didn't on the first map, but I wonder what else on the map is different.

The subregion limit on the first map was 3500, then when I switched the poles back on I was overshooting that by 53~136 causing map rejects.

EDIT: If it's just tropical dry brdlf forests we're giving up, maybe it's worth having control of temperature. If there's more to it however, maybe it's best to let DF do the temperature map and not use PWDF for that. Really, if you think about it, the only thing that PWDF offers over DF is the ability to do curves and weird temperature changes. The DF options as they are now with the new controls are really quite satisfactory.

[thepaan]

If it's just tropical dry brdlf forests we're giving up, maybe it's worth having control of temperature.

I don't think the loss of one biome is worth giving up the temperature control. Especially when, afaik, there is nothing unique to that biome. The temperature stuff only seems to break down on the tropical end, but can easily be countered by using both a DF pole and PWDF temperatures. I can get a larger tropical range with the combination than I can with only a DF pole, and I think that extends to any specific biome someone might be looking for. For that functionality, I think it's worth keeping in.

I'd still like to be able to make a world close to 100% Shrubland though.

[cephalo]

I'd still like to be able to make a world close to 100% Shrubland though.

Hey, I ain't Roger the Shrubber. 

Also, thanks for finding the pitfalls (albeit minor) of turning off DF's poles. It's good to be aware of that. :thumbsup:

[Deon]

I've opened a thread for your custom creations. If you have an interesting or beloved map to share, please proceed to the ✫ Cartographer's Lounge ✫.

[thepaan]

Hey, I ain't Roger the Shrubber. 

I'm not requesting that you bring me a shrubbery like those silly knights. But, perhaps you could put in a couple extra sliders so I can make my own shrubberies?

[cephalo]

Haha! I've been waiting my whole life for someone to ask me for shrubbery so I could use that joke. It's gotta be a once in a lifetime thing right?

Anyway, here's my trouble with adding more sliders. Once I've made a decision to put in a slider for everything slidable, I think it starts to diminish the usability of the application to present an even more intimidating wall of sliders. In my mind, I just can't imagine why someone would want shrubland, and not savanna, or plains. In game terms they just seem like exactly the same thing to me, they are all the place where humans tend to end up.

Another issue that may come up is that these values do tend to change as DF changes, trying to exactly find where shrubbery begins and ends may only result in temporary control. The purpose of the sliders is to give you general control over the values curve to emphasize certain areas if you want, but trying to pinpoint this or eliminate that is likely to fail. For example, when I first released PWDF, I had the rainfall needed for the jungle trees pinpointed, but now it's only a very rough estimate. It's still a useful slider since it exists at the end of the rain spectrum, but its no longer aptly named.

PWDF is already kind of a beast for new DF players, I really don't want to make it beastlier.

[Ddynamo]

Using the same world in both Dwarf Fortress and Sim City 4, and the height map was taken from a random selena class planet in Space Engine.

Spoiler: Original Height Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: DF Ingame (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: DF Detailed Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Sim City 4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Space Engine Version (click to show/hide)

I could not for the life of me find the exact spot on that planet the height map was taken from, I scoured the entire surface, so I just took an aerial shot.

[ArmokGoB]

Using the same world in both Dwarf Fortress and Sim City 4, and the height map was taken from a random selena class planet in Space Engine.

Spoiler: Original Height Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: DF Ingame (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: DF Detailed Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Sim City 4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Space Engine Version (click to show/hide)

I could not for the life of me find the exact spot on that planet the height map was taken from, I scoured the entire surface, so I just took an aerial shot.

How did you pull the heightmap?

[Ddynamo]

Using the same world in both Dwarf Fortress and Sim City 4, and the height map was taken from a random selena class planet in Space Engine.

Spoiler: Original Height Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: DF Ingame (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: DF Detailed Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Sim City 4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Space Engine Version (click to show/hide)

I could not for the life of me find the exact spot on that planet the height map was taken from, I scoured the entire surface, so I just took an aerial shot.

How did you pull the heightmap?

In order to get the heightmap in Space Engine, first you need to find a planet you want to export, then go to the menu and select editor. From that menu, click export planet, and you'll get a menu of ways to export. In the Layer section, check only the surface box. For the texture section, only check Elevation map. Finally, change the projection to Cubemap.

After that, go to wherever you downloaded Space Engine to, and open the export folder. In it, there should now be six height maps. Pick whichever one you want.

[ArmokGoB]

Is this still under development?

[nickbii]

Is this still under development?

Depends on what you mean by under development.

If you mean is the guy whose doing it issuing updates every two weeks with cool new features, the answer is no.

If you're asking whether it gets upgraded as the DF Worldgen engine changes, then the answer is yes.

[ZeroMcUrist]

Is there any way to align evil areas with savage areas? I was fiddling with a map, setting the eastern coast to be completely and utterly savage, expecting it to be evil. 

Each time I tried to gen it however evil areas generated wherever. This resulted in much frustration until I realized savagery =/= evil.

So...do evil areas just gen wherever, or are they attracted to savage areas, and rng was just unlucky?