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[DS]

Hmm, well, I'm of course flattered by any attention that the fort received. I'm not going to be terribly critical of any "historical inaccuracies," since your story is of course taking creative liberties by its very nature. If I'm that concerned about it, I might write my own journal at some point (which would inevitably be the journal of the duke, Kogsak Murdershot, which would then pass to the queen Domas Tickcities after his death in 136, and so on).

It seems alright so far. I'd personally avoid starting a journal that early - you've got decades and decades to fill with interesting material, during a time where literally the only things going on in Weatherwires was excavation. Though, as you've noted, the dates between your story and my notes don't match up, so I'll let you off the hook as far as that's concerned and see where you take it.

My experiments with the alternate save are a bitch, but I might have identified the problem. On a hunch, I decided that the culprit of the crash might be the literally massive amount of animals which show up in both Stonesense and Runesmith, but not in the game itself. I figure that, since they show up in the code but not in actual gameplay, DF doesn't know what to do with them. Here's what they look like in SS:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The process of going through and marking each of these animals as "dead" in Runesmith is going to take a ridiculous amount of time, but I have finals to study for and term papers to finish, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. Peace out, Bay12.

[Lordraymond]

Peace off, DS

I'm actually planning on revealing the tantrum spiral and then having large chunks of tome missing, revealing only some details around making her artifact and then it'll pick up again shortly after the first post. I don't have a lot of pre-fort dates to go off of, so I'm just making up some interesting occurrences to go on while the years pass.

It'll be much more historically accurate once I have the events in the thread to follow.

[Cellmonk]

Since I just got out for Christmas break, I decided I'd make a fort similar to yours in approach, recording its passing years on the forum

I will build a giant cylindrical cast obsidian tower, spanning through all the cavern layers, and perhaps anchoring on the semi molten rock, and reaching up to the end of the sky. In its upper levels there will be tree farms and food production, which will be automatically regulated (with limited stockpiles) such that food is neither over or under produced. through its center will run a bore of magma, to feed a massive magma-mine system on the surface, and possibly in the caverns. it will be separated into sections which will be closeable from one another by my own obsidian gate design. Every section will be flood able with either magma or water.

Before I start, do you have any tips from your own public mega fort? Any ideas on what sort of place such a fort should be built at, and or tips on what features of such a fort are more or less important? Do you have any tips on building functional room systems in a circular perimeter, while keeping things tightly packed? any other features I could take up space with? I also haven't decided on the diameter of the thing.

My preferred location would probably be a slightly hilly terrifying jungle with nice water features, such as a lake. I'm considering only using one cavern layer, and a slightly shallow world (like I usually do), but does that cut down on the epicness? I'm flexible with location.

Anyway, I'm sure moving to an absolutely terrifying place would compensate for my tendency of modding out clothes, genning shallow worlds, and playing around with the metal raws in stupid ways (like making platinum a weapon grade metal, and whips a dwarven weapon. probably wont do that for a challenge like this tho). I might remove most trade good from the raws, to reduce the number of irritating useless artifacts which just sit around collecting dust.

Well, I want to be able to upload plenty of images, but I have a slow 'net connection. Anyone have a image sharing site to recommend for my purposes?
Again all ideas are appreciated.

EDIT: just made a page for it: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=97678.0

[DS]

I will build a giant cylindrical cast obsidian tower, spanning through all the cavern layers, and perhaps anchoring on the semi molten rock, and reaching up to the end of the sky. In its upper levels there will be tree farms and food production, which will be automatically regulated (with limited stockpiles) such that food is neither over or under produced. through its center will run a bore of magma, to feed a massive magma-mine system on the surface, and possibly in the caverns. it will be separated into sections which will be closeable from one another by my own obsidian gate design. Every section will be flood able with either magma or water.

The similarity between portions of your proposed fortress and a conceptualization for my own next fort (which I won't begin until after the new version is released) is remarkable. Mine would avoid the use magma entirely though, and it's very nature would be entirely different from yours (or that of Weatherwires, for that matter), so it will be interesting to compare and contrast.

As for any tips I can provide - an accurate and comprehensive logbook is your friend. Record dates, especially of landmark constructions or similar things that don't appear in Legends mode in particular. As far as running the thread on the forum, I'm not sure I can provide much advice besides: don't expect people to reply to every post you make. There's no need to update daily when things are slow or dull ("today the dwarves dug some more").

I'd pick a smaller embark area, judging by the theoretical size of the project, in order to save on FPS. Besides that, embark normally based on what you are looking for in wildlife, vegetation, weather, etc. Concerning functional room systems... hahah. Weatherwires has a room layout that is about as unintuitive as one can get. It's a labyrinth in three dimensions - every guildhall has it's own network of apartments which I intentionally made as different from one another as possible. Be creative, is all I can advise - if you're looking for efficiency, the wiki has plenty of options.

As far as image hosting, I use img.ie.

[Cellmonk]

I will build a giant cylindrical cast obsidian tower, spanning through all the cavern layers, and perhaps anchoring on the semi molten rock, and reaching up to the end of the sky. In its upper levels there will be tree farms and food production, which will be automatically regulated (with limited stockpiles) such that food is neither over or under produced. through its center will run a bore of magma, to feed a massive magma-mine system on the surface, and possibly in the caverns. it will be separated into sections which will be closeable from one another by my own obsidian gate design. Every section will be flood able with either magma or water.

The similarity between portions of your proposed fortress and a conceptualization for my own next fort (which I won't begin until after the new version is released) is remarkable. Mine would avoid the use magma entirely though, and it's very nature would be entirely different from yours (or that of Weatherwires, for that matter), so it will be interesting to compare and contrast.

As for any tips I can provide - an accurate and comprehensive logbook is your friend. Record dates, especially of landmark constructions or similar things that don't appear in Legends mode in particular. As far as running the thread on the forum, I'm not sure I can provide much advice besides: don't expect people to reply to every post you make. There's no need to update daily when things are slow or dull ("today the dwarves dug some more").

I'd pick a smaller embark area, judging by the theoretical size of the project, in order to save on FPS. Besides that, embark normally based on what you are looking for in wildlife, vegetation, weather, etc. Concerning functional room systems... hahah. Weatherwires has a room layout that is about as unintuitive as one can get. It's a labyrinth in three dimensions - every guildhall has it's own network of apartments which I intentionally made as different from one another as possible. Be creative, is all I can advise - if you're looking for efficiency, the wiki has plenty of options.

As far as image hosting, I use img.ie.

Thanks for the advise! I think I'll start it now, because I don't expect the update for a little while, and I a few weeks' break. The logbook tips will be useful. I've tried doing that before, but I inevitably make them complicated and incomprehensible. I'll try to take your advise, and make it more based on whats being constructed, rather than random cheese-maker deaths (as I have in other forts). Lets see if I can get a foothold fort working in a terrifying place on the first shot. Raw editing and prepping time!

[DS]

Hey, no problem.

Update on the fortress: all attempts (conducted with alternate saves) to abandon the fortress have failed. Using Runesmith to delete all of the excess animals did nothing, as did removing all ghosts, and all other creatures in the fort. The problem lies elsewhere. It's entirely possible (though I dread to consider it) that it is merely the amount of data that has to be compiled upon the "completion" of the fortress that is causing the crash, in which case, another computer, with more processing power, might be able to succeed.

I'm currently attempting some alternate attempts, using DFHack in various methods.

[DS]

Bad news.

So far, it seems that the fortress cannot be exported to Legends (as in, when the last dwarf dies, or upon abandon). I tried to use the mode utility in DFHack to switch to adventurer and get out that way, but that didn't work either. I have a feeling it might have something to do with using Runesmith to recruit all those merchants (the only Legends mode save I have dates to before that), or it could be an issue with the size and age of the fortress. In any case, it seems as the story will be unable to continue past the fall of the fortress. There will be no reclaim, no peeking at legends, or exploring the fort as an adventurer. The saga of Weatherwires - at least, as far as the actual game is concerned - will end with the last dwarf.

[Cellmonk]

Bad news.

So far, it seems that the fortress cannot be exported to Legends (as in, when the last dwarf dies, or upon abandon). I tried to use the mode utility in DFHack to switch to adventurer and get out that way, but that didn't work either. I have a feeling it might have something to do with using Runesmith to recruit all those merchants (the only Legends mode save I have dates to before that), or it could be an issue with the size and age of the fortress. In any case, it seems as the story will be unable to continue past the fall of the fortress. There will be no reclaim, no peeking at legends, or exploring the fort as an adventurer. The saga of Weatherwires - at least, as far as the actual game is concerned - will end with the last dwarf.

Its interesting that the very thing that made this story a tragedy also made it a mystery--the accumulation of bugs.
I wonder if the save can be manually tinkered with...

[DS]

During my tinkering with Runesmith, I noticed that there were four forgotten beasts in the creature registry. This is exceedingly odd, since the fort has slain every megabeast that has been encountered. Then, when I was using DFHack to screw around with an alternate save, I discovered where they were. A very small, isolated, and overgrown series of tunnels located between the magma vent and the edge of the map - because these tunnels are cut off from the rest of the caverns thanks to the way the volcano is generated, I never discovered these tunnels. Four forgotten beasts have been residing in the fortress since... well, probably since before I began this thread - by that time, all the megabeasts I knew of had been slain.

[DS]

Litast Wiremansion, previously a merchant guard, has been slain by Ilral Visioncloistered. The fact that a ghost can claim so many kills and yet not gain a special title seems to be an oversight. Hmm.

The grim spectre of death hangs over the fortress. Season after season, a member of the Diamond Cloisters is slain by the murderous ghost. The death of Weatherwires is named Visioncloistered.

There are nine dwarves remaining. Looking at their relationships, they hardly know each other - a few dwarves are passing acquaintances, but for the most part, the survivors have barely spoken to each other. Each goes about their daily activites - eating, drinking, sleeping (and training, for the militia commander) - but hardly interact with one another.

[peskyninja]

DS what kind of crash are you experiencing? Try waiting, sometimes my DF crashes but if I wait it resumes to normal activities. (It usually happens when saving, abandoning or loading big fortress.)

[DS]

When I try to abandon, I get the regular "r u srs" menu, then it goes to the "Ending game..." screen. Then, a window pops up that says "Dwarf Fortress.exe has stopped working" and "Windows is searching for a solution to the problem." But of course, Windows doesn't find said solution, and says as much, giving me only the option to close the program. I'm aware that occasionally DF just needs a bit of time to run through all its processes, but if that were the case in the given situation, it seems as if Windows isn't giving the program a chance to do so - even if I just let it sit there, it doesn't continue.

Mistêm Oilytaut, merchant and the last dwarf with any skill in engraving, has been claimed by the dead. During much of 234, Mistêm had been busy detailing sections of the fortress, creating beautiful murals carved into the natural rock from which the dome had been carved. Now her work is cut short, and it seems that the final days of Weatherwires shall have no record, except in the minds of the mushroom folk who witness the fall.

Of the plump helmet men, now five possess legendary social skills, and a dozen more are Masters. It seems that these fungus people, short of stature and apparently harmless, are a brilliant philosopher race, enlightened beyond their years.

[Karakzon]

Submit a copy to toady as a bug report. Since your game will have a tone of juicy little things he can use. If he finds a solution to some of your problems im sure when another weatherwires situation crops up itll go more smoothly.

[Cellmonk]

Submit a copy to toady as a bug report. Since your game will have a tone of juicy little things he can use. If he finds a solution to some of your problems im sure when another weatherwires situation crops up itll go more smoothly.

Seconded. I'm sure that this game may pinpoint some of the issues that makes all games eventually crash, if they run too long. Could be useful for debugging, if its dissected.

[DS]

Today, I'll go through and catalogue all the bugs that I can find or remember. Then, I'll file reports on the bug tracker for each one - from what I understand, that's the preferred way to do these things. Then, I'll e-mail ToadyOne a copy of the save. I doubt anything can be done for Weatherwires at this point (as far as avoiding the crash), but it is a consolation that it might help other players' forts in the future.