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[Tanelorn]

Hi,

I used to play vanilla games (no utilities), then I moved to modded games (no utilities) to enhance the game, but thank to the Lazy Newb pack, I found out that a few utilities enhance the game a lot more than the mods do:
- dwarf therapist (to manage the dwarves)
- quickfort (to designate complex/repetitive digging)

Are there any utilities you like, and what do they do?

[Urist Imiknorris]

DF Hack has some good ones, namely dfprospector and dfvdig.

[PopeRichardCorey]

Therapist is the only one that I use so far, and I just started it the other day.  (And I've been playing for probably a little more than 2 years....)  I already consider it basically necessary; it takes SO much pressure off of figuring out who needs to do what.

I've heard DFHack makes things a lot easier, but I'm kind of afraid to use it.  I feel like I'll be too tempted to use it to cheat instead of just to clean up fps-killing contaminants and make digging easier.

[TheyTarget]

I usually use DwarfTherapist, and perfectworld. If I feel like doing something different, I use DFhacks to make sure the sites perfect, and DFusion to mod my embark and races. If I'm really trying for something specific I might use Runesmith as well to get something specific.

[Urist McBusDriver]

DwarfTherapist makes the game playable! Before DT, I would have a sheet of A4 paper (or several) by the PC, and I'd write down the name and skills and enabled professions on every single dwarf. I'd give each dwarf a serial number as a nickname. With DT, there's no need - when new migrants come, I just go through each of the skills and make sure that each labour is being done by the most skilled dwarfs.

[slink]

I really miss Dwarf Companion.  I used to use it to heal injured pets, and to teleport them indoors when they were trapped outside during a seige.  Alas, Dwarf Companion is abandoned.

I only recently began using Dwarf Therapist, but I find it to be nearly essential to my playing now.  It is so much easier to plan when I can see everyone's abilities and work assignements at the same time.

Various 3-D visualization programs have made it more enjoyable to create megaprojects.  Hopefully these will one day catch up to DF.  I don't like the one with the fake mountains in the backgrounds.  The background looks silly on some embarks.

And last, but not least, DFHack and its wonderful little applications.  DFProspecter is very nice for determining whether a site is worth continuing with, without spoiling the surprises in locations.  And of course, DFReveal can be used to end the suspense.

JustDigItOuty was something I used to use, and occasionaly EmbarkAnywhere.

[j0nas]

Quickfort is my second most used utility, but all utilities pale in comparison to Dwarf Therapist (and its many similar predecessors).  Without DT, DF is simply unplayable to me.

[PopeRichardCorey]

Of course, DT making the game playable isn't exactly a flaw with the game itself -- it's a flaw with our ability to recall every little (and amazing) detail about our dwarves.  DT wouldn't be necessary to so many of us if this game didn't have the absurd level of unnecessary complexity which is about a third of the reason most of us are drawn to it.

(The other 2-thirds are magma.)

[proxn_punkd]

I actually have never used Dwarf Therapist. I do use DFHack a lot, though, CleanMap, VDig, and once in a while Reveal or Weather.

[j0nas]

Of course, DT making the game playable isn't exactly a flaw with the game itself -- it's a flaw with our ability to recall every little (and amazing) detail about our dwarves.  DT wouldn't be necessary to so many of us if this game didn't have the absurd level of unnecessary complexity which is about a third of the reason most of us are drawn to it.

DF is a fun game, but it's not perfect.  That third-party, completely unsupported tools are necessary to play the (fortress-part of the) game at any reasonable level is a flaw of the game, no more, no less.  Perhaps it's a problem with no easy solution within the boundaries of the game as set by Toady right now, but it's still very much a flaw of the game.  I don't mean to derail the thread, but yeah, no.

[SirAaronIII]

Seconding on the DFhack. I have Dwarf Therapist but I don't really use it much because I'm too lazy to figure it out.

[PopeRichardCorey]

Of course, DT making the game playable isn't exactly a flaw with the game itself -- it's a flaw with our ability to recall every little (and amazing) detail about our dwarves.  DT wouldn't be necessary to so many of us if this game didn't have the absurd level of unnecessary complexity which is about a third of the reason most of us are drawn to it.

DF is a fun game, but it's not perfect.  That third-party, completely unsupported tools are necessary to play the (fortress-part of the) game at any reasonable level is a flaw of the game, no more, no less.  Perhaps it's a problem with no easy solution within the boundaries of the game as set by Toady right now, but it's still very much a flaw of the game.  I don't mean to derail the thread, but yeah, no.

I disagree.  While the game is highly flawed, mostly due to the fact that it's still an alpha and has a number of bugs which put Legion to shame -- the insane complexity that goes beyond the ability of any player to remember unaided is not one of them.

[j0nas]

I disagree.  While the game is highly flawed, mostly due to the fact that it's still an alpha and has a number of bugs which put Legion to shame -- the insane complexity that goes beyond the ability of any player to remember unaided is not one of them.

Giving a game which has been made available for public testing for *years* the arbitrary label of 'alpha' does not magically counter this flaw.  Nor does the fact that it has a number of bugs, of which the topic at hand is not one.  Beyond that, nobody said that the complexity was a flaw, though I admit that it makes for a handy strawman argument.  The flaw lies in the fact that there is no reasonable solution in-game to handle all this complexity in a way that makes sense, and that we, like I already wrote, have to rely on unsupported third-party software to solve that problem ourselves.

Edit: Fixed a misrepresentation.

[krenshala]

I disagree.  While the game is highly flawed, mostly due to the fact that it's still an alpha and has a number of bugs which put Legion to shame -- the insane complexity that goes beyond the ability of any player to remember unaided is not one of them.

Giving a game which has been made available for public testing for *years* the arbitrary label of 'alpha' does not magically make it flawless.  Nor does the fact that it has a number of bugs, of which the topic at hand is not one.  Beyond that, nobody said that the complexity was a flaw, though I admit that it makes for a handy strawman argument.  The flaw lies in the fact that there is no reasonable solution in-game to handle all this complexity in a way that makes sense, and that we, like I already wrote, have to rely on unsupported third-party software to solve that problem ourselves.

Just because the game has been available for us to muck around in for a few years doesn't mean it is not an alpha version.  Also, as you quoted above, he did not say the game had  no flaws ... rather, he stated the complexity was not one of the flaws.  I'm not sure, but I believe your straw-man argument comment was, in fact, a straw-man itself ...

[j0nas]

Just because the game has been available for us to muck around in for a few years doesn't mean it is not an alpha version.  Also, as you quoted above, he did not say the game had  no flaws ... rather, he stated the complexity was not one of the flaws.  I'm not sure, but I believe your straw-man argument comment was, in fact, a straw-man itself ...

Like I said, alpha is an arbitrary label with little meaning beyond 'it is not entirely done yet'.  We could go through this entire forum and reply to all complaints and suggestions for improvements with 'its just in alpha', but that is not constructive nor relevant, just like how it's not constructive or relevant here, or as a counter-argument to bugs/niggles/flaws anywhere, at any time.