Print

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

[Qwazzerman]

Greetings, all.  I've only been playing for a few weeks but am really enjoying the game.  About two weeks ago I started writing down things that I figured might help.  The list quickly grew to massive proportions (I believe there were over 150 things), but I've found that many of them have already been suggested.  Here are some of the (hopefully) more novel ones.

• Webs: A function similar to Gather Plants or Fell Trees that allowed you to select webs for gathering.  This can already be accomplished with burrows, I guess, but a more direct option seems simpler.
• Salinity: Some indication of whether a body of water is fresh or salty.  Maybe it would require a dwarf to sample the water?
• Levers: Currently levers don't indicate what they connect to, but perhaps an activity could be added where a mechanic would find out by following the gears and pulleys and such to the connected components.
• Weapon Improvement: The ability to improve existing weapons, either through something like sharpening blades or a more labor-intensive process like reforging it.  That way the metal isn't lost (like with melting it down).  This could either just increase damage or it could (potentially) upgrade the item quality.  Or not.  (Though if sharpening were added there would probably need to be some sort of time-related blade dulling)
• Enemies: A list of all (visible) enemies/non-player-owned creatures on the map.  Similar to the 'u' window but without any of your dwarves and animals and without the deceased.
• Rock Finder: Similar to the z-stocks window, it would list all the unmined stone, ore, and gems currently on the map.  So if you find yourself needing more iron ore, the menu would list all the hematite, limonite, and/or magnetite walls (with the ability to zoom to them) that are visible.  To keep the list from getting crowded, common stone could be excluded, and a single vein or continuous group of stone would be a single entry rather than each tile having its own entry.  Would come in handy if you think you might have forgotten to dig out some gems you found earlier but don't remember where they were.
• Death: Indicate (at least in the combat log) when a creature dies/is killed.  For player-owned creatures there's a message, but when fighting goblins, it's not immediately obvious if the most recent blow killed them.  I learned how to tell after awhile, but actually stating it would simplify things.  It could be restricted to actively hostile enemies (or maybe include wild animals).
• Wounds: A list of all dwarves that have been injured within the last day/week/month.  It would help explain any mysteriously injured dwarves.  The big appeal to me would be the ability to see how many soldiers were injured in the most recent battle to give me an idea of how well they did.
• Empty Buckets: An option for dwarves to automatically empty buckets when they're through using them.  Buckets with lye could be excluded, but it's annoying to find that every single one of your buckets is filled with lye and water.
• Falling Down: After a big battle and after all combat is finished, the combat log continues to fill, inundating me with messages that "Urist stands up."  But there's no record of him falling.  Often the last dozen lines of an individual dwarf's combat log inform me that he stood up.  Did he trip?  Does he enjoy suddenly dropping to the ground after a fight?  Is he narcoleptic?
• Reserved Stone: After mining out a large room, some of the stone remaining gets reserved for a building, but which one?  Perhaps any reserved stones could be excluded from the mass dump designation?  That way the job doesn't end up getting canceled because the stone was moved.  (This may have been addressed in 0.31.13, I don't know.)  That or instead of reserving a specific stone, the builder would just use the nearest stone of the type you specified.  Though that sounds like it might be more complicated, at least from a programming perspective.
• Teamwork!: After a squad has trained together for awhile, I like to think they'd start developing strategies and combo attacks so that when they fight, they fight as a team.  Like Urist 1 sneaks behind a goblin and crouches down while Urist 2 pushes the goblin, making him trip over Urist 1 and fall down.  But, obviously, cooler.  Of course, it sounds like it would be a big task for the programmers, a much simpler version would be that when dwarves from the same squad are adjacent, they get combat bonuses: they hit slightly harder, dodge a little better, and so on.
• Old Wounds: On a dwarf's z-status screen, wounds are not differentiated.  So old wounds, wounds that healed years ago, look the same as the hand he just lost in the meat grinder.  Even if they're diagnosed, you have to look at the requested treatment screen to figure out what's injured.  Maybe a date next to the wounds would make it more obvious?
• Building Materials: An option to exclude metal bars and/or wood and/or stone from the list of available building materials.  This could also simplify the building process; choosing a specific material could become optional and the default would be to automatically use the nearest available item.  (So maybe an option in the d_init file where, if set to 'yes', all building material would be selected automatically.  If it's off, things would stay the way they are now.  Also a qualifier to go with that option to specify material type.  Or the qualifier thing could be in-game and allow more specificity, allowing specific types of stone/metal/wood to be selected.)
• Suggestion List: This is for the Suggestions forum.  It sounds like a grand undertaking (which I guess it would be) but it would make it easier to check if a suggestion has already been made: a master list of suggestions.  Might also help Toady by putting all the suggestions in one place instead of a scavenger hunt.

If any of these are confusing, let me know.  They make sense in my head but that's no guarantee of comprehension.

[smjjames]

Buckets: There is some kind of bug going on with them, they are suppoused to empty them, and did in 40D.

Falling down: Sounds like you've got some dwarves who may be exhausted after battle or some with wounds that make them try to stand up or go prone.

Stonefinder: Theres already an utility for that and it's part of DFHack. It lists all stone and gems other than the layer stones.

Teamwork: It would require a much smarter AI than there currently is.

Building materials: Isn't there something like this on the eternal suggestions list?

Everything else is pretty valid though.

[Qwazzerman]

Stonefinder: Theres already an utility for that and it's part of DFHack. It lists all stone and gems other than the layer stones.

Yes, but it doesn't tell you where, and it's not restricted to revealed stone.  I'm thinking about something that would show you where the stone is.

[Angry Bob]

Of course, it sounds like it would be a big task for the programmers,

Programmer.