Print

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

[Kogan Loloklam]

So you're complaining that there's nothing wrong?

Essentially, yes. Leave my dwarf fortress alone darnit!

[Deathworks]

Hi!

So you're complaining that there's nothing wrong?

Essentially, yes. Leave my dwarf fortress alone darnit!

;)

But ... but you would be okay if at least some surface plants were seasonal, right? (That is the one thing I definitely would love to see changed about farming).

Deathworks

[Schilcote]

Hi!

So you're complaining that there's nothing wrong?

Essentially, yes. Leave my dwarf fortress alone darnit!

But ... but you would be okay if at least some surface plants were seasonal, right? (That is the one thing I definitely would love to see changed about farming).

Deathworks

Yeah, surface plants. Aren't a bunch of plants seasonal already though?

[darkflagrance]

Hi!

So you're complaining that there's nothing wrong?

Essentially, yes. Leave my dwarf fortress alone darnit!

But ... but you would be okay if at least some surface plants were seasonal, right? (That is the one thing I definitely would love to see changed about farming).

Deathworks

Yeah, surface plants. Aren't a bunch of plants seasonal already though?

I think the only seasonal surface plants are valley herbs, which you can't cultivate anyway.

[Psieye]

Hi!

So you're complaining that there's nothing wrong?

Essentially, yes. Leave my dwarf fortress alone darnit!

But ... but you would be okay if at least some surface plants were seasonal, right? (That is the one thing I definitely would love to see changed about farming).

Deathworks

Mods have already done this (Gensis Mod threw in nearly a hundred crops...) and you can easily make the existing ones seasonal yourself by removing the various season tags in the plant raws.

[blazzano]

I too wouldn't mind some farming modifications...but not to beginning game farming, but advanced-stage farming (as some have already suggested).

My version would go something like this: 

1.  Plump helmets remain just as easy to cultivate and just as capable of feeding a fort.  However...

2.  They have low value as food (even lower than now), and add a mechanic where certain pompous dwarves (nobles et al.) get unhappy thoughts from eating them.  Thus requiring that...

3.  An advanced fort needs some more variety of foods, some of which might need to be grown outside.  Also...

4.  Set things up so that outdoor crops have their own grower skill, separate from the one used to grow indoor crops.  Give them  a harsher yield curve than indoor crops, so that a Dabbling Outdoor Grower gets a usable crop from a tile about as often as a Dabbling Miner turns a rock wall into a rock. 

[Kogan Loloklam]

Mods have already done this (Gensis Mod threw in nearly a hundred crops...) and you can easily make the existing ones seasonal yourself by removing the various season tags in the plant raws.

Not true. There is a serious flaw in seasonal crops...

You see, the season is "planting to harvest" time. I discovered this by modding. What it SHOULD be is only planting time. Seasonal crops don't work because if they actually take a season to grow, they vanish. What I'd like to see is the removal of the removal of plants when the season is up, and make the season list that is shown be only "planting" time instead of the whole kabootle, But since the longest growing time is less than 2 months for unmodded plants, I don't see that happening anytime soon. As such, seasonal crops aren't very "seasonal" because you can just order the farm to grow something else the next season, which makes the farm produce all year long. Sure, they are different crops, but the farm is still productive, which is what makes farming seem so easy.

[Schilcote]

Mods have already done this (Gensis Mod threw in nearly a hundred crops...) and you can easily make the existing ones seasonal yourself by removing the various season tags in the plant raws.

Not true. There is a serious flaw in seasonal crops...

You see, the season is "planting to harvest" time. I discovered this by modding. What it SHOULD be is only planting time. Seasonal crops don't work because if they actually take a season to grow, they vanish. What I'd like to see is the removal of the removal of plants when the season is up, and make the season list that is shown be only "planting" time instead of the whole kabootle, But since the longest growing time is less than 2 months for unmodded plants, I don't see that happening anytime soon. As such, seasonal crops aren't very "seasonal" because you can just order the farm to grow something else the next season, which makes the farm produce all year long. Sure, they are different crops, but the farm is still productive, which is what makes farming seem so easy.

But I think that's realistic... Don't real farmers already do this?

I think the main problem is that dwarves only eat once or twice a month. I'm not sure how the system works now, but this is what I think should happen:

Each food item should have a calorie value, and a dwarf that eats an item has that amount subtracted from his hunger. When a dwarf performs a task, a certain amount of hunger is added, mining would add 20-35, masonry would add 10-15, farming 20-30 and such. That way, you can't run your fortress on one *prepared mosquito brain* per dwarf, and dwarves that do more work will eat more food. If we adjusted the numbers right, it should be relatively challenging to make enough food for a whole fortress without making it so that as soon as your farmer forgets to plant the Plump Helmets everyone starves. Perhaps plants (especially fungi) should have a higher calorie value when grown in fertilized soil (since the Dwarves are really just using the Helmet as a conduit from the dirt to them, the Helmet just extracts nutrients from the ground).

[Zantan]

One of the most important points made so far is that different DF players like very different things, and no new feature should limit a player's ability to make fortresses in savage evil areas, wage war with every race, or live in isolation (though I would be fine with making it much more difficult to embark in a desert or on a glacier). 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There are a few ways to make those playstyles easier, such as adding more control to the flow of migrants and merchants.  I would like to see a feature where you can choose between (1) the current system where peaceful outsiders enter the region at will, (2) peaceful outsiders notify you of their presence outside of the region, and wait for permission to enter before giving up and leaving at the end of the season, and (3) peaceful outsiders are automatically turned away before entering the region.

On the agriculture topic, in the OP I tried to emphasize other topics because while the farming system is an incredibly important topic, it has already been heavily discussed already, especially in terms of the size and yeild of farms.  I like the ideas about crop disease and health/happiness benefits from varied diets because they add an optional layer to farming/trading, though, and they would be fairly easy to impliment. 

With the underground ecosystems, I tried to make an underground plant that could only survive at very high temperatures (near magma), but that isn't possible right now without memory hacking.  I would love to see something like that added to the game.  Given the amount of magma on each map, I think it would be believable if plants like this justified about half of the underground fauna, and some basic underground soils.  I am comfortable with some magic sustaining the underground as well, and I'm sure some more specific magical justifications will eventually come from Toady.

I'm sticking with my ideas on different civs having different specialties, though.  The highest levels of craftsdwarfship should come not just from an individual's practice, but from generations of passed down knowledge and experience.  Aside from possessions/moods, the highest quality goods should only be produced when high skilled dwarves move into your fortress, you send your aspiring learners to the experts in other cities, trade, or having an industry in your fort for a *long* time.

[Kogan Loloklam]

But I think that's realistic... Don't real farmers already do this?

No. Real farmers plant their autumn planting season wheat in the autumn and the plants mature in the summer and are harvested in the summer. Mod in a growdur of 1680 to wheat and make it's "season" autumn and you don't have a crop that ever grows. It doesn't affect base dwarf fortress, but without this change farming can't ever become "realistic" or be modded to suit people like myself or Deathworks.

Reality has planting seasons and harvest seasons. Sometimes two a year for the same crop (a winter and summer version. See wheat.) And these "seasons" are sometimes capable of overlapping.
(Crop rotation, by the way, isn't cramming as much growth from one field as you can a year, but planting different plants different years)

I think the main problem is that dwarves only eat once or twice a month.

Every dwarf has to schedule. Time in dwarf fortress is abstracted. I think the problem is that Dwarf Fortress food doesn't supply adventurers as well. What should happen instead is 1 plump helmet should be multiplied into 28 portions of Plump helmet in adventure mode. I like the fact that my dwarves only take up 3 days out of every month eating. It'd be horrible if they did twelve steps of a task and then had to eat all the time.

Edit(Accidentally hit enter too soon):

I'm sticking with my ideas on different civs having different specialties, though. 

This isn't a problem, this would improve the game, as long as CIV!=RACE
As long as Craftshumans have as much ability potential as Craftsdwarves (within reason), I don't care. My problem comes when the argument is to make all dwarves suck at farming, or all dwarves better at x, or whatever. If it were civ-specific, fine. Race-specific? Never. Alakotad dwarves? Sure. All Dwarves? No.

[Draco18s]

I think the main problem is that dwarves only eat once or twice a month. I'm not sure how the system works now

There are two concurrent problems:

1) Dwarves only eat once a month-ish
2) Crops grow 8 times a year (you CAN get two harvests of the same crop in a single season if they're replanted soon enough)

So on the one hand, dwarves require less food than in real life and on the other, farms produce 4 times as much food.

[Hyndis]

I think the main problem is that dwarves only eat once or twice a month. I'm not sure how the system works now

There are two concurrent problems:

1) Dwarves only eat once a month-ish
2) Crops grow 8 times a year (you CAN get two harvests of the same crop in a single season if they're replanted soon enough)

So on the one hand, dwarves require less food than in real life and on the other, farms produce 4 times as much food.

3) You don't get single plants, you get stacks of plants.


This means that a single farm tile can produce 8 x 5 = 40 plants per year. More if you bother to fertilize it, but most stacks of plants top out of 5.

As each dwarf only needs 8 units of food per year, 1 single tile of farm land can feed 5 dwarves.

This would be like feeding 5 adult humans from a piece of land the same size as a dining room table. 

[Draco18s]

This means that a single farm tile can produce 8 x 5 = 40 plants per year. More if you bother to fertilize it, but most stacks of plants top out of 5.

As each dwarf only needs 8 units of food per year, 1 single tile of farm land can feed 5 dwarves.

This would be like feeding 5 adult humans from a piece of land the same size as a dining room table. 

Exactly.  And they'd only have to plant it once a year.

The only thing I can think of that's like that is zucchini (ever grown zucchini?  1 vine feeds 100 people for a month)

[Schilcote]

I think the main problem is that dwarves only eat once or twice a month. I'm not sure how the system works now

There are two concurrent problems:

1) Dwarves only eat once a month-ish
2) Crops grow 8 times a year (you CAN get two harvests of the same crop in a single season if they're replanted soon enough)

So on the one hand, dwarves require less food than in real life and on the other, farms produce 4 times as much food.

3) You don't get single plants, you get stacks of plants.


This means that a single farm tile can produce 8 x 5 = 40 plants per year. More if you bother to fertilize it, but most stacks of plants top out of 5.

As each dwarf only needs 8 units of food per year, 1 single tile of farm land can feed 5 dwarves.

This would be like feeding 5 adult humans from a piece of land the same size as a dining room table. 

That's exactly my point, dwarves should require more food. Sure, if you're desperate, you could probably sustain your embarking party for a while on a 5X5 plot, but if you have them do work they're going to starve a lot faster. If you want your fortress to be productive you're going to need a far larger plot, maybe 25X25 for a 30-dwarf fort.

[Draco18s]

Completely irrelevant to the topic, but:

541. When prompted for a target by the guided missile "the naughty bits" is not a valid choice.

Damn.

That made me chuckle.  It's also getting entered in the List of Things I Am No Longer Allowed to do in ShadowRun.