Print

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

[NW_Kohaku]

So then, are you now proposing arbitrary changes to eating cycles and how much is consumed in a year?  Do dwarves have to eat more frequently just to meet an arbitrary ability to skip those meals?

The number of meals required is already arbitrary.

Yes, but at the same time, Toady has said he doesn't want it to go up any, as he says it's already a problem that dwarves take too many rests at inopportune times.  (He has even said this is his main concern about adding in feces and urine - that he wants fertilizer and sewers, but he doesn't want "potty breaks" (his words).)

Again, I'm really not seeing the problem that requires a "dwarf bullet time" solution.  It seems like you're discarding the perfectly good solution of having dwarves eat more on their downtime simply by labeling it "micromanagement" and discarding it before even considering it.

Now you are dragging it back up. I didn't say anything about that.

Sorry, I thought you were still arguing for that... So what is it you are arguing for now?

[Silverionmox]

Basically, that combat happens at adventure mode speed, automatically making all fighters run on a reasonable schedule, so they don't go to their bedroom/grab a drink/starve to death while waiting until the goblins have reached the end of the hallway.

What happens with the civilians? They do the same what they do otherwise, but 72 times slower. That keeps them out of combat, (solving the mesmerizing giant cave spider silk sock problem), and allows the player to focus on the invasion. When they are attacked they're in combat too of course and can run away at suitable speed.

Combat mode starts whenever an enemy is spotted. Active soldiers, enemies and fleeing civilians move at adventure mode speed, non-alerted creatures move at normal speed (i.e. 72 times slower than your viewpoint, the fighting creatures). It could end automatically when no enemies are in the list anymore, but it's probably better to let the player signal when he considers it safe (eg. "Press C to end combat mode" - and switch back to civilian mode), so he can order a few squads to check the walls before they go off-duty. We might let the player start combat mode on his own, to practice military commands, why not? There's no exploit, the economy slows down.

(Occasionally a straggler that you can't or don't want to kill might send your dwarves into a panic again and again. For that case we might want a way to label creatures "harmless", so they're ignored until they draw blood. That would also be a solution for the case where creatures twenty levels down at the feet of a cliff scare your dwarves on top of it.)

[NW_Kohaku]

OK, I didn't expect this to come back from the grave. 

I still like your subsequent combined breaks idea more than messing with the timescale.

Basically, I'm not convinced that the timescale difference is a "problem" at all. 

The fact that it's something that's as potentially problematic and exploitable as giving the player a "bullet time button" makes the drawbacks of this system seem to be much worse than the supposed problem that it solves.

[Mckee]

I have to say, I much prefer the suggestion to set a threshold for each basic need. It seems sensible to me that during a siege situation, any soldiers on duty (or alerted, or whatever term you want to use) but not engaged and without orders would be doing their best to grab food, water and sleep, even if they aren't particularly in need, since they don't know when they will next have the chance. Then, when they do have to get stuck in, they aren't tired, hungry or thirsty. I think some kind of 'combat time' is too unweildy, having to disrupt the flow of time, further breaking down the game into distinct, dare I say it, mini games. Its also fiddly and its just a more complex routine to go through, having to turn on, or turn off a particular mode every engagement. Or worse, having it snap to it every time urist Mceasily scared engages in fisticuffs with a fluffly wambler.

That and setting needs threshold isn't just something that is useful for the army. I'd have my doctors using it too and the ability to set conditions improves player control. Now, in terms of it being exploitable, its not a major problem, presuming we let dwarves exert their personalities when the threshold is set too high or low. A dwarf wont go without food water and sleep just because you ask him to, neither will they spend every waking moment trying to eat, sleep and drink constantly, even if you ask nicely. Either a fixed number of settings - 80%,60%, 40% etc or a sliding scale that either stops somewhere between 0% and 100% or allow dwarves to break those settings if they are too extreme.

[Silverionmox]

Where's the exploit? The economy slows down to a snail's pace, so there's not much happening at all there. The soldiers move normal, as does the enemy. Anyone who moves fast is either fleeing or fighting, so not in a mood to craft. If the player ambushes any creatures with their squad, then that's a valid tactic. They'll fight at the same pace asa they're attacked.

If we send an ordinary squad to the outer towers now, by the time they're there the blue and brown arrows are flashing above those dwarves - that is, those that didn't turn back to get a nap. Even combined breaks won't solve that.

The basic problem as I see it is the abstraction needed to let time advance in fortress mode. In civilian life it all evens out at the end of the year: the dwarves will have spent reasonable proportions of their time on eating, sleeping, working etc. respectively. In combat there's no time nor opportunity for lunch breaks, so then we have to make soldiers not require food and sleep as much. Now that's exploitable.

It also opens up the opportunity for night-time attacks etc.

It also solves the problem of sending a squad to the map's edge, if in the future we can let them do things overland: that might take a month. Solved by simply activating the squad before sending it away.

[Silverionmox]

I have to say, I much prefer the suggestion to set a threshold for each basic need.

That's how it is now, and it causes problems.

It seems sensible to me that during a siege situation, any soldiers on duty (or alerted, or whatever term you want to use) but not engaged and without orders would be doing their best to grab food, water and sleep, even if they aren't particularly in need, since they don't know when they will next have the chance. Then, when they do have to get stuck in, they aren't tired, hungry or thirsty.

But they will become so before they've done a reasonable amount of military action.. Worse, all at a different time.

I think some kind of 'combat time' is too unweildy, having to disrupt the flow of time, further breaking down the game into distinct, dare I say it, mini games.

In case you weren't informed, combat is disrupting to civilian life.

Its also fiddly and its just a more complex routine to go through, having to turn on, or turn off a particular mode every engagement.

It turns on automatically. Turning off requires the pressing of a button (if you made a mistake and forgot a squad, it'll be back on immediately). Yeah, fiddly.

Or worse, having it snap to it every time urist Mceasily scared engages in fisticuffs with a fluffly wambler.

I adressed that above. Of course the real problem here is that Urist is scared to death by a fluffy wambler and that there only are two modes of action for dwarves: complacent or panicked. Their threat assessment can be improved, but that remains true with or without this suggestion.

That and setting needs threshold isn't just something that is useful for the army. I'd have my doctors using it too and the ability to set conditions improves player control. Now, in terms of it being exploitable, its not a major problem, presuming we let dwarves exert their personalities when the threshold is set too high or low. A dwarf wont go without food water and sleep just because you ask him to, neither will they spend every waking moment trying to eat, sleep and drink constantly, even if you ask nicely. Either a fixed number of settings - 80%,60%, 40% etc or a sliding scale that either stops somewhere between 0% and 100% or allow dwarves to break those settings if they are too extreme.

So you have to set thresholds for every squad or every dwarf, and after that they may or may not ignore it at an undetermined time that is different for each dwarf because their personality values are a bit off the average, or their cat died or something? How exactly is that not fiddly? How is it different from what they do now? We'll just have soldiers starving to death on their way back from the battlefield that way, because their tresholds were set too low.