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[Zared]

Fixed that for you. 9936 miles squared is 98,724,096 square miles, which is roughly half of the earth's surface.

Basic order of operations.  "9936 miles squared" only squares the units, so it is equal to 9936 miles², or 9936 square miles.  Much how "pi r squared" means pi * r² not (pi * r)².  But, 10 miles squared is not the same thing as 10 miles square.  A mile square is what you're thinking of, not a mile squared.  The D is very important.  Of course if you just use metric, there's no such thing as a "kilometer square" to cause such confusion in the first place.

[Quatch]

In my calculations, assuming tiles are 2.5 feet on edge on average, then the largest worlds are 100 miles long, or near enough to be about the same. That means that they could contain the big island of Hawaii.

Tiles are almost certainly cubic, and would have to be much more than 2.5 feet high.

Quote from: Silverionmox

    what are the plans concerning distances, weight, etc. Now a square holds anything from a butterfly to a tree or colossus - how far do you intend to go in sticking to a specific size for squares, with all the implications for large creatures, mass conservation etc. ?


I'm pretty comfortable with not specifying square sizes.  It's a ginormous mess to get into that.  At the same time, some of the plans will require steps in that direction, such as large item piles (so you could have a giant skull mound to slide down in adv mode for instance) and multi-tile trees to hop around on.

The 1/8 of a planet comes from the desire for a diverse set of biomes, and the UK statements come from the tile size of the world (197376x197376).  If you throw out a, say, 2 meter side to a tile (no need to start the tile size discussion again...), then you arrive at 155,829 km^2.  The island of Great Britain is 209,331-215,595 km^2 according to different parts of wikipedia.  The quest for a more representative island can begin at this time.  South Island, New Zealand is looking pretty good.  We can go all LotR movies there.  That assumes the 4m^2 tile size of course, which is arbitrary.  My calculations, are, as usual, suspect, so don't hold me to them.<p>[ January 28, 2008: Message edited by: Toady One ]

I seem to recall a more recent one too, but can't find anything.

[abadidea]

In my calculations, assuming tiles are 2.5 feet on edge on average, then the largest worlds are 100 miles long, or near enough to be about the same. That means that they could contain the big island of Hawaii.

Tiles are almost certainly cubic, and would have to be much more than 2.5 feet high.

While it is absolutely impossible to come up with a value that's consistent in all cases - remember the Hundred Sleeping Dragons but Only One Gnome problem - it seems like the only way they can even kinda sorta work is if they are tall rectangles rather than perfect cubes. The value I prefer is a meter on a side and two meters tall. I also think that "the floor" is a thin layer BETWEEN each z-level. IE, if it's two meters from each floor to the ceiling directly above it, then there has to be some extra thickness for the floor/ceiling itself.

The Visual Fortress 3D viewer (not sure if it's still maintained, but I used it back in 40d) portrays tiles as having twice the height of their width and depth. It looks visually and logically correct. By analogy to other games in the same genre, Minecraft has proper cube tiles (generally taken to be a meter) but people are two tiles tall.

The whole discussion is purely academic, because the tiles are faux quantum physics magic anyway.

[Neonivek]

Fixed that for you. 9936 miles squared is 98,724,096 square miles, which is roughly half of the earth's surface

No I did that mistake too and had to correct it. 9936 by 9936 is 9936 squared.

Or rather
9936= 9936
9936 Squared = 9936 x 9936

I use time as my measurement of distance since by all means that is the most significant.

[G-Flex]

While it is absolutely impossible to come up with a value that's consistent in all cases - remember the Hundred Sleeping Dragons but Only One Gnome problem - it seems like the only way they can even kinda sorta work is if they are tall rectangles rather than perfect cubes.

Why? Something like 7 feet cubed works well enough. It sure doesn't work perfectly, but it's the least problematic. The game's geometry assumes that it's cubic, and quite frankly, it would be bizarre if it wasn't.

I also think that "the floor" is a thin layer BETWEEN each z-level. IE, if it's two meters from each floor to the ceiling directly above it, then there has to be some extra thickness for the floor/ceiling itself.

No, the thickness of a floor is infinitesimal. Quick proof: A tile having a floor does not lower the amount of water it can hold.

[Sunday]

While it is absolutely impossible to come up with a value that's consistent in all cases - remember the Hundred Sleeping Dragons but Only One Gnome problem - it seems like the only way they can even kinda sorta work is if they are tall rectangles rather than perfect cubes.

Why? Something like 7 feet cubed works well enough. It sure doesn't work perfectly, but it's the least problematic. The game's geometry assumes that it's cubic, and quite frankly, it would be bizarre if it wasn't.

I also think that "the floor" is a thin layer BETWEEN each z-level. IE, if it's two meters from each floor to the ceiling directly above it, then there has to be some extra thickness for the floor/ceiling itself.

No, the thickness of a floor is infinitesimal. Quick proof: A tile having a floor does not lower the amount of water it can hold.

Well, technically, that doesn't prove that the floor is infinitesimal, as long as you assume that water units are actually being "rounded" into the nearest 1/7 (rather than 1/7 being an actual unit of water in the game—and since a 1/7 chunk of water can turn into further units of water if placed in a bucket, one should be able to make that argument).

That way, as long as floors displace less than 1/14 of a given cubic tile (i.e. less than 1/2 of one of the 1/7 units of water), the game could be "rounding" it to the nearest 1/7.

Anyway, it's pretty obvious that DF's tile system doesn't really break into conventional measurements at all.

[Sizik]

Fixed that for you. 9936 miles squared is 98,724,096 square miles, which is roughly half of the earth's surface.

Basic order of operations.  "9936 miles squared" only squares the units, so it is equal to 9936 miles², or 9936 square miles.  Much how "pi r squared" means pi * r² not (pi * r)².  But, 10 miles squared is not the same thing as 10 miles square.  A mile square is what you're thinking of, not a mile squared.  The D is very important.  Of course if you just use metric, there's no such thing as a "kilometer square" to cause such confusion in the first place.

I was assuming "9936 miles squared" meant "(9936 miles) squared", not "9936 (miles squared)" which is more accurately described as "9936 square miles". Also, metric-ness has nothing to do with it. It'd be the same if he said "9936 kilometers squared".

Fixed that for you. 9936 miles squared is 98,724,096 square miles, which is roughly half of the earth's surface

No I did that mistake too and had to correct it. 9936 by 9936 is 9936 squared.

Or rather
9936= 9936
9936 Squared = 9936 x 9936

I use time as my measurement of distance since by all means that is the most significant.

So you're saying "9936 miles squared" as meaning equivalent to a square 9936 miles on a side, correct?

[Neonivek]

So you're saying "9936 miles squared" as meaning equivalent to a square 9936 miles on a side, correct?

Yes.

The Sizes in Dwarf Fortress are mildly small when I use "Travel time" as the measurement of the world.

[Sizik]

So you're saying "9936 miles squared" as meaning equivalent to a square 9936 miles on a side, correct?

Yes.

The Sizes in Dwarf Fortress are mildly small when I use "Travel time" as the measurement of the world.

Then what I said before is correct:

9936 miles squared is 98,724,096 square miles, which is roughly half of the earth's surface.

[Neonivek]

Except that isn't how it works when you use Square miles.

Especially since it leads to inconsistancies.

For example... it would take over a year to walk around the earth. Yet only two months (give or take) to walk across the Dwarf Fortress world.

There is something wrong with my math somewhere.

The Earth itself is 40,000x40,000 km
or 24,854 x 24,844 miles

So I'll need a different calculation here.

[Sizik]

Here's a square 5 units on a side:

Code: [Select]

#####
#####
#####
#####
#####
The area of this square is (5 units) squared = 25 square units.
In general, the area of a square with a side length of n units is n² square units.

There is something wrong with my math somewhere.

The Earth itself is 40,000x40,000 km
or 24,854 x 24,844 miles

So I'll need a different calculation here.

Since the Earth isn't rectangular, you technically can't express it's area like that.

Let's check your math:

Let me see... in a 12 hour period I was able to move (a bit over) 4 tile squares

I got 276x276 (probably a miscount) so let me see

Let me see in Ideal condition a person walks at about 3mph for about 8 hours (but I'll say 12, since I used 12) so according to my calculator the size of a world is

9936 Miles squared

I'm assuming you multiplied 276 * 12 * 3, since that results in 9936. This would be correct if you walked 276 tiles (the size of the world?), but you didn't, you walked 4. Therefore, the size is 3 mi/h * 12 h / 4 tiles = 9 mi/tile, so (276 tiles * 9 mi/tile)² = (2484 miles)² = 6,170,256 square miles.

[Neonivek]

Anyhow after calculating the area of Eurasia and seeing that it is a about half the size (ignoring water space) of the largest world I guess I should take it back.

It just often feels like there is less in the Dwarf Fortress world and that you easily travel around.

Travel wise the size of the Largest DF world is fine I guess (it needs to be almost 2.4 times larger to hit earth size)

Assuming my math is correct. Which once again is

It takes my character 12 hours to move 4 squares on the world map (of which there are 276 squares). If we assume that the character is moving at a constant 3mph then 4 squares are the equivilant of 36 miles (or 9 miles for every square). Thus 276 squares are  2484mph... hmmm

Ok... my math was rather wrong. it is 2484miles by 2484miles. That is significantly smaller.

Smaller then Europe (ignoring water mass)

UGH, where did I make that mistake? I guess I forgot to divide something there by 4... Ohh I see I forgot to divide the number I came up with 9936 by 4... which gets 2484

-------

Anyhow this means that even in the Largest worlds Dwarf Fortress is less then the Size of Europe

So it isn't unrealistic for Carrivans to get from one end of the world to the other.

[Sizik]

Which is why blindly reading answers off a calculator is not recommended.
(Fun fact: the unit for 9936 is tiles*miles)

[Neonivek]

Which is why blindly reading answers off a calculator is not recommended.
(Fun fact: the unit for 9936 is tiles*miles)

Interestingly enough I did that so I wouldn't make a mistake. Though I am pretty sure I made a mistake in counting... mostly on water since they blend soo much.

[monk12]

Did we ever hear what Toady's mysterious month-end project was? Is that still a thing?