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[Kogut]

Well, you want to patch game. For obvious reasons Toady prefers to keep DF closed source.

@Sprawl - it may be useful during army arc (maybe it will start in 2020, after caravan arc)

[Cruxador]

I think everyone is getting obsessively nit-picky on a feature that they haven't had a chance to try out yet.

Murder mysteries are just one example of such an unwanted feature.  Another major one, already done, is sprawl.  Toady was really proud of it, but gamewise it was a step backwards.  Now worlds take longer to gen, but are effectively smaller since so much space is unavailable to the player.  It's not as bad as it was before the default worldgen parameters were re-tuned, but it's still not an improvement.

What the hell are you talking about? Sprawl is a great addition. It gives us actual non-wilderness to adventure in and meet people, and entity populations are a great resource for adding numbers pretty much everywhere. It's not like worldgen time matters, since you only do it once per version pretty much, and you can just leave it to generate while you do whatever else. There's not less effective space, the space is all there and accessible. If you mean for forts only, well, forts are limited to a tiny area anyway.

[Andal]

Murder mysteries are just one example of such an unwanted feature.  Another major one, already done, is sprawl.  Toady was really proud of it, but gamewise it was a step backwards.  Now worlds take longer to gen, but are effectively smaller since so much space is unavailable to the player.  It's not as bad as it was before the default worldgen parameters were re-tuned, but it's still not an improvement.

Oh, and you do know you can create your own custom bindings, right? If something doesn't look right to you or a key isn't in the right place for you don't wait for Toady to fix it, everything you need to fix it yourself outside of motivation is right there.

I don't think that will help with the annoyances I have with the UI.  I'd need something more like a scripting language.

Can keybinding set things up so that dwarves will initially stock crafts in bins next to the crafts workshop, but move bins to a larger pile near the trade depot if and only if they are full, all without ever moving single craft items to the depot or moving anything out of the depot pile to the workshop pile?

Can it let me set a sane policy somewhere between the extremes of "dwarves gather refuse from outside" and "dwarves ignore refuse from outside"?

Is micromanagement at that level strictly necessary? 'cause, I mean, seriously, I don't really think adding all those options would result in a simpler UI at all.

And p.s., some of us are actually really excited/thrilled by the "murder mystery" and urban sprawl stuff. Just sayin'.

[Cespinarve]

I think everyone is getting obsessively nit-picky on a feature that they haven't had a chance to try out yet.

Murder mysteries are just one example of such an unwanted feature.  Another major one, already done, is sprawl.  Toady was really proud of it, but gamewise it was a step backwards.  Now worlds take longer to gen, but are effectively smaller since so much space is unavailable to the player.  It's not as bad as it was before the default worldgen parameters were re-tuned, but it's still not an improvement.

What the hell are you talking about? Sprawl is a great addition. It gives us actual non-wilderness to adventure in and meet people, and entity populations are a great resource for adding numbers pretty much everywhere. It's not like worldgen time matters, since you only do it once per version pretty much, and you can just leave it to generate while you do whatever else. There's not less effective space, the space is all there and accessible. If you mean for forts only, well, forts are limited to a tiny area anyway.

Sprawl is only going to trip you up in small worlds, and if its a problem just don't gen worlds for a long time. A century's worth of sprawl is much smaller than a thousand years' worth.

As to the first page, people saying "be patient, he'll release when it's ready". while you have a point, I'm impatient because I thought he was releasing when he'd finished the cities. That was months ago, and he went off and did vampires and stuff. I'm not really sure why the release couldn't have been split into two, I've been wanting to just explore the city code for a while now. I don't care if there's nothing cool in it yet.

[freeformschooler]

WELL CESPINARVE I AM WAITING until when we as adventurers can fly to the moon using magic and fight moon badgers. SO THEnah sarcasm. I actually was also really impatient for the first little while, but then magically, I waited for so long that I eventually stopped waiting. Now I'm here just for the forum. The next release of DF will merely be a bonus.

[EveryZig]

WELL CESPINARVE I AM WAITING until when we as adventurers can fly to the moon using magic and fight moon badgers. SO THEnah sarcasm. I actually was also really impatient for the first little while, but then magically, I waited for so long that I eventually stopped waiting. Now I'm here just for the forum. The next release of DF will merely be a bonus.

I am kind of glad for the waiting because it caused me to find the forum games section of the forum.

[Michael]

If you mean for forts only, well, forts are limited to a tiny area anyway.

But the sprawl may take up most of the sites that are nice to build on.  Choice of build-site is basically the difficulty knob of Fortress Mode.

Is micromanagement at that level strictly necessary?

It's an actual problem in my attempts to play the game.  There's a lot of dwarf-hour consuming stuff I want to get done before my first caravan, and dwarves hauling single craft items any distance wastes a lot of it.

I've never played 2010 deeply enough to actually get in a fight (haven't quite figured out the new Military yet), but goblinite collection would be a similar concern.  You don't want your civilian dwarves still ferrying socks when the next wave hits.

As for the orders/refuse/outside concern, I once tried putting a butcher and tanner in a quarry -- at the level of the rest of the workshops but open to the sky to prevent miasma. (Within a fenced-in area, of course).  Butchering didn't work properly as a result, because the dwarves considered many of the products to be untouchable "outside" refuse.

'cause, I mean, seriously, I don't really think adding all those options would result in a simpler UI at all.

A UI that is too simple can be very complicated to use.

[CharlesPeter]

If you mean for forts only, well, forts are limited to a tiny area anyway.

But the sprawl may take up most of the sites that are nice to build on.  Choice of build-site is basically the difficulty knob of Fortress Mode.

Is micromanagement at that level strictly necessary?

It's an actual problem in my attempts to play the game.  There's a lot of dwarf-hour consuming stuff I want to get done before my first caravan, and dwarves hauling single craft items any distance wastes a lot of it.

I've never played 2010 deeply enough to actually get in a fight (haven't quite figured out the new Military yet), but goblinite collection would be a similar concern.  You don't want your civilian dwarves still ferrying socks when the next wave hits.

As for the orders/refuse/outside concern, I once tried putting a butcher and tanner in a quarry -- at the level of the rest of the workshops but open to the sky to prevent miasma. (Within a fenced-in area, of course).  Butchering didn't work properly as a result, because the dwarves considered many of the products to be untouchable "outside" refuse.

'cause, I mean, seriously, I don't really think adding all those options would result in a simpler UI at all.

A UI that is too simple can be very complicated to use.

DF is bigger than just fort mode. the sprawl was put in to help with adventure mode and the advancements that are going on there now (cities, underground things, necromancer towers etc.) so you have to kinda look at it in the big picture, and try not to see every addition of a feature from release to release as the way things are going to be from now on, or as a step backwards.

And I think you should play 2010 more deeply. The military isn't that hard to use and it's actually pretty flexible. You mass-designate all the gobbo stuff you don't want, and just take their copper/iron/silver shit. If your dorfs stay outside and you're worried about them getting attacked by the next wave, set up a panic button with burrows.

That butchering thing can be solved too, I just can't remember how; I've never had that problem.

also, could you explain that last bit about simple UI possibly being MORE complicated that DF's UI? cause I have yet to encounter another game with a UI this impregnable.

edit: Neonivek, don't worry about it. I can take a joke I was also a bit overly dramatic. A little bit.

[Michael]

also, could you explain that last bit about simple UI possibly being MORE complicated that DF's UI? cause I have yet to encounter another game with a UI this impregnable.

A UI can be complicated to use if, in the name of simplicity, it does not include a function that does precisely what you want (assume here that "what you want" does actually have a definition -- I'm not talking about "DWIM").  Then you have to use lots of simple commands to get the same effect.

For example, in present DF, to get what I want with respect to crafts hauling, I need to:

• Designate a dump zone near the trade depot
• Create a crafts stockpile next to the Crafts workshop.
• Begin crafts production
• Manually dump bins from the stockpile when they fill (repeat as needed)
• (when caravan comes) End crafts production, wait for any crafts still in workshop to be binned
• Manually dump remaining bins
• Delete crafts stockpile (so bins won't be moved back when unforbidden)
• Unforbid craft bins
• Designate all craft bins for trade
• (after they have been moved) do trading
• Release unsold crafts from trade depot
• Create new crafts stockpile near depot, wait for all unsold crafts to be moved there
• Forbid everything on this stockpile
• Delete the stockpile
• Return to step #2 if more crafts are wanted for the next season's caravan

And that charitably assumes I don't need to abuse "dump" for anything else...

But if my Stockpile Greediness eternal suggestion was implemented, nominally making the UI complex by adding a 5-way advanced setting to each stockpile, it would only involve:

• Create a crafts stockpile next to the trade depot
• Set depot crafts stockpile's "Greediness" parameter to "Solid mode"
• Create a crafts stockpile next to the Crafts workshop.
• Begin crafts production
• (when caravan comes) End crafts production, wait for any crafts still in workshop to be binned
• Designate all craft bins for trade
• (after they have been moved) do trading
• Return to step #4 if more crafts are wanted for the next season's caravan

That's only 5 steps that need to be repeated, and leaves the dump facility entirely alone.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Why not create a craft stockpile near the depot that takes from the one near the workshop?

[Kogut]

Why not create a craft stockpile near the depot that takes from the one near the workshop?

Haulers will happily move single crafts (ignoring bins).

[MrWiggles]

Why not create a craft stockpile near the depot that takes from the one near the workshop?

Haulers will happily move single crafts (ignoring bins).

They don't ignore bins. Urist Logic for hauling items, is the same for most of the urist logic. Closest to destination, top right, work your way down. Thats not a UI issue per se, thats an AI issue.

And its stupidly simply to work with it. What I do is, is make the craft stock pile under and/or above the Trade Depot, with stairs leading adjacent to the Trade Depot. The distane, is so short, that the dorfs haul the craft stuff in fast order.

[Michael]

And its stupidly simply to work with it. What I do is, is make the craft stock pile under and/or above the Trade Depot, with stairs leading adjacent to the Trade Depot. The distane, is so short, that the dorfs haul the craft stuff in fast order.

I suppose that would help if your problem is that other hauling jobs are out-competing the final "bring goods to depot" jobs.  But that's not the concern I have.  I'm worried about dwarves long-hauling one mug at a time from the crafts workshop to the close-to-depot pile, when I have better uses for their time.  To avoid that, I must have the only stockpile next to the crafts workshop, possibly quite distant from the depot.

Then I use dump abuse (although I suppose a temporary near-depot stockpile could also work, although I still must undesignate the near-workshop one) to get the bins moved closer to the depot before the game enables "Move goods to depot".

[EveryZig]

I avoid worrying about hauling almost entirely by turning off hauling and cleaning for all of my important dwarfs (though I guess you sill have a problem if you have a civilian pop of < 15).

Alternately, you could avoid the long hauls altogether by building your depot close to your workshops, (and letting them out through the caverns if they try to leave when there is a siege going on). It is just a workaround rather than actually solving the issue, but works.

[tolkafox]

o-r-o to collect refuse from outside. Ayup, problem solved.

Why don't you just collect the crafts in bins in the stockpile closest to your workshop, and then have the workshop closest to the trade depot take the bins slightly before the caravan arrives? That seems to be a lot more simpler. When you're done, just stop the stockpile from taking from the other stockpile. I've never really had this problem as my crafts stockpile is directly below my trade depot, crafts workshop directly below the stockpile, and stone stockpile directly below the crafts workshop. I think the main problem here isn't UI or lack of features, but a clear lack of fortress design experience.

Or you can just move the bins to the trade depot, it's like 20 hauling jobs if you have a decent stonecrafter to buy the caravan and it's honestly less than "move to workshop, haul to stockpile near workshop, move elsewhere, move back to stockpile, move close to depot, move elsewhere, move back to crafts, move crafts to depot...' My plan is simply 'move to crafts workshop, move to stockpile, move elsewhere, move to stockpile, move to depot'. It's the same minimum distance no matter how you do it, you're just adding extra hauling jobs and distance.

Lets say your dwarves chill in the meeting area 10 steps from everything. Every time they finish a job and have to wait they move back to this area. Every time you add a new hauling job and then have them wait you're adding 10 more steps into the equation to move back to the meeting area and 10 more to move back to the new job, wasting more time than you think you're saving. My second plan at worst adds 30 steps into the equation, yours adds 50 steps.

Wait, why would you move the crafts away from the trade depot? I make sure my crafts stockpile can't accept any more crafts before I release unsold crafts, that way there will be no hauling to the crafts stuck in the depot. Next season I just mark them and they're up for trading instantly.

Wiki. Use it.