it's harder to enjoy new features when some of the main draws of 0.31 in general (like the new body/combat/butchering systems) still need work and have problems both relatively small and relatively fundamental
What's an example of a relatively fundamental problem with bodies (materials?), combat, or butchering? I know combat had some serious issues initially, but I thought those had been pretty well solved at this point.
For reference, the two mantis reports I've written up:
This one is partly responsible for the "acid rain" fat-melting bug:
http://bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=2676This one is just strange and possibly indicative of greater problems:
http://bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=3357Creatures also don't properly respond to high heat in general (heating a dwarf's brain up to much higher than operational temperature doesn't kill or wound him at all; I only know this because I've seen actual burn wounds on brains in arena mode, albeit very rarely), tissue distribution in certain body parts is rather odd, there are still likely some lingering issues with what does/doesn't cause creatures to die properly (bleeding, effects of fractures, etc.), ribs follow some kind of bizarre electron-cloud model that doesn't work well and results in them hardly ever protecting the organs inside (this is likely because part positioning isn't implemented yet, so quite forgivable although it messes things up in practice a great deal; numbers could at least be tweaked), and the only time blunt objects seem to kill anything is when the skull is smashed through into the brain (which seems astonishingly common sometimes, even just from punching someone).
Tissue material properties in general, aside from fat, could also use some tweaking in some places. For instance, I have to wonder what values of "chitin" Toady used for the bug-type creatures, as it seems really easy to break through (one reason I'm curious is because in the real world, "chitin" as a pure material is very soft and pliable and differs greatly from the reinforced type found in something like a hard exoskeleton), and the heat/cold damage and melting points for several tissues could use adjusting. Also, weird little things like chicken skin being the same as anybody else's and being used for "chicken leather" (horse and chicken and human and elephant skin differ in more than just thickness, surely? But that's all debatable).
I also have a sneaking suspicion that all combat collisions (as in things-hitting-things, including weapon attacks) are treated as if they have a total momentum of zero at the end. To better explain: When you punch someone in the head in real life, the head (and to some extent the rest of the body) is pushed back, making the blow less severe. Compare this to someone's head being held entirely still (against a wall, by someone else, via invisible magicks, whatever) and punched; there's a big difference. My suspicion is that DF treats attacks more like the latter scenario than the former, turning every kick into a curbstomp. This would explain certain things, like why it's so easy to break certain body parts.
If you look on the bug tracker, you'll also find a lot of other oddities that make it clear things aren't what they should, such as "Elephant killed by three hoary marmots - Issue with pain", "Blunt weapons extremely ineffective, extended single combat with groundhog", and "BP_RELATION around upperbody have no effect". I could give plenty more examples, but it's easy enough if you just filter the report view by category.
There are also plenty of other oddities, tweaks, and minor problems that people on the forums have addressed in other threads, whether about bleeding or tissues or something else.
I think it's undeniable that the military screens are difficult to use in the sense that it's just a really flexible and complex system, so there's a steep learning curve to mastering it all.
In my experience, the problem is also that it doesn't provide enough feedback. If, for example, your dwarves aren't training when you want them to, you have no way of knowing what you did wrong, if anything (there are likely outstanding bugs). I think a little bit of work in that area could go a long way, if it hasn't been done already.
Anyway, I'm aware that bugfixing is tedious and kind of awful to do, but it's easier (and therefore more fun, or at least less not-fun) to fix the problems with a system
before you start implementing other systems. I'd prefer to see more of a development cycle where a new set of features is introduced, then that set of features is polished as much as is feasible (obviously some placeholder junk is going to remain in a project like this at certain stages, and that's mostly fine),
then rinse and repeat. I don't know why that isn't done, to be honest, except maybe that it's harder to get donations rolling in without consistent feature updates, but that feels both overly cynical and unrealistic.
I guess this has become a bit of a derail, and I apologize for that, but if I'm making a big deal out of it, it's because this issue is the
one major thing about development that I've seen draw serious long-term fans away from the project.
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Topic: Future of the Fortress (Read 1204453 times)