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[PatrikLundell]

What's the current approach regarding the UI for the Classic/character tile set Premium version of DF?
The reason for the question is the realization that things are reworked significantly, so the current UI can't be retained as is, and it seems to be a duplication of effort to make two different versions of the UI, in particular if a character set oriented version would try to emulate widgets using characters (or something looking like characters).

Edit: To clarify, I'm thinking of things like sliders, that do not naturally translate into tiles, rather than cases where the character tile set can easily be used instead of image/icon tiles.

[Shonai_Dweller]

What's the current approach regarding the UI for the Classic/character tile set Premium version of DF?
The reason for the question is the realization that things are reworked significantly, so the current UI can't be retained as is, and it seems to be a duplication of effort to make two different versions of the UI, in particular if a character set oriented version would try to emulate widgets using characters (or something looking like characters).

For reference this was the situation a month ago:

Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
Are the icons sliders and other graphical parts of the interface that you're adding locked to the official tileset? I'm just wondering how the new interface will work for anyone who doesn't buy the Steam version. Or indeed in Steam's curses tileset, is that Curses plus graphical icons? Different icons to match the ASCII style? Presumably all the new rectangle drawing tools and such will be fully functional?
Quote from: DG
Are all new UI elements and any changes to current ones supporting keyboard only input?

Toadyone:
They are locked, insofar as everything else is - it's set up currently as the creature graphics have been, where you link up images with text files and so forth, and the fancy image sets aren't going to be in DF Classic (which is likely what the Steam curses version will be, same as the free one.)  That does leave us the question of what DF Classic is, when we've been aiming for "no graphics but as many of the interface improvements as possible."  We'll very soon reach a point where the changes will require some sort of substitute.  Whether those are literal text buttons (with line outlines and ASCII symbols inside), or something else, is yet to be seen.  The way the interface currently works where it still respects the old grid somewhat (rather than the new graphical layer, which doesn't respect the old grid, other than being a grid at all) makes it much easier to handle ASCII parallel work on an ongoing basis.

Yeah, the continuing plan, which seems feasible thus far, is to maintain keyboard alternatives everywhere.  There are some questions here and there about how some nested widget might work, if various little tick boxes end up being convenient, and so forth, but having quick key/sequence methods is important.

[Putnam]

Quite a significant number of the boolean flags for this and that end up being mapped out and twiddled with via the DFhack github project and this is the foundational basis for a lot of DFhack scripts and community bit-patches that have emerged over the years, its really as close as anybody would get to anything that is not the RAWS without being either of the Adams brothers themselves.

Are you saying that almost anything could be modded through DFHack?

Yes.

[ArrowheadArcher]

Will there be an expansion on medical simulation in Fortress Mode? Will there also be disease simulation, dentistry, and hygiene (haircare and skincare) in the game at some point?

[PatrikLundell]

UI commonality between versions: I have no problem at all with creature tiles being replaced by character tiles in e.g. the embark screen "image" section, or fancier button images being replaced by character ones, but you start to run into problems if you try to replace e.g. a slider widget (as shown in the images), as that lies outside of the single tile bit map domain. I guess you can, to some extent, spend extra effort to emulate something that sort of looks like a slider with character tiles, and handle the addition/removal of tiles as the DF window is resized, but it really seems to me that it would be wasting Toady effort on something for the sake of Premium exclusivity (as opposed to the artists efforts to provide something on top of/in addition to an existing baseline).

I've updated my question post in an attempt to clarify the question.

[FantasticDorf]

Will there be an expansion on medical simulation in Fortress Mode? Will there also be disease simulation, dentistry, and hygiene (haircare and skincare) in the game at some point?

Id check the list through the development goals page, seperate to the development log which talks about nearer term progress.

If you have any particular suggestions to talk about in detail, you can share them in the suggestions subforum, because often reaching out on a topic that isn't particularly related to upcoming arcs without a suitable reason tends to yield polite`I dont know, havent thought about it` type responses from Toady or refer directly to community responses as a reply.

[Schmaven]

I heard there was some criticism of the scroll bars in the embark loadout screen.  Have you considered having multiple pages to tab through rather than scroll bars?  Already, there are category tabs at the top, so my concern with pages replacing scroll bars would be just too many tabs.

Personally, I think the scroll bars are totally fine.

[therahedwig]

I think people are more upset at the scrollbars reminding them of older operating systems. DF has always had scrollbars, in particular in the windows for legends mode and the thoughts screen.

I have to admit I am pleasantly surprised to hear we're apparantly getting something a little simcity like for the main fort mode UI. I wasn't sure if the game could handle that at all

Do you think the 'text' terminal rendering mode for DF will survive all these upgrades? I know we're keeping an old-style ascii graphics pack, but all the changes made to different grid sizes sound like terminal-text wouldn't be compatible anymore.

[clinodev]

What's the current approach regarding the UI for the Classic/character tile set Premium version of DF?
The reason for the question is the realization that things are reworked significantly, so the current UI can't be retained as is, and it seems to be a duplication of effort to make two different versions of the UI, in particular if a character set oriented version would try to emulate widgets using characters (or something looking like characters).

Edit: To clarify, I'm thinking of things like sliders, that do not naturally translate into tiles, rather than cases where the character tile set can easily be used instead of image/icon tiles.

I really hope this gets a thoughtful and thorough answer.

I don't have any real preferences about sliders verses whatever, but I think it's very important the default "ascii" and Premium controls look enough the same that any new player can view a tutorial using either, for instance, and immediately understand one is just a fancier or prettier version of the other.

In my opinion, (not to project too much on PatrikLundell's question,) it would be best to keep the control surfaces exactly the same between Premium Tiles/Premium "ascii"/Classic "ascii." Even from the development side, it would seem better to plan so that making a change or fixing a bug in a control panel doesn't require commissioning two or more sets of art.

It's on a short list of things that I genuinely worry could "split the community," (and I spend a lot of time reassuring people that Premium isn't going to split the community,) along with retaining traditional "muscle memory" key commands, which seems like it should be possible with the strange mood level super-comprehensive  keymapping system built into DF already.

[squamous]

1. What exactly is required for a bandit/mercenary fort to spawn in the world. I am currently working on a project in which the only civ type is the fortress site-type and the only biomes are tundra and mountains. The civ has BUILDS_OUTDOOR_FORTIFICATIONS, but the forts themselves do not appear. Are there other requirements I don't know about? [answered I guess]
2. When the eventual military update rolls around, will there be more diversity in unit types? By which I mean more combinations of armor (ranged units in heavy plate armor for example) or the use of sidearms/multiple weapons, like a pikeman or bowman who carries a shortsword and uses it when the enemy comes close, or a berserker-type of fighter who uses two one-handed weapons.
3. Is there any way to prevent forgotten beasts from spawning without setting cavern layers to 0?

[Atomic Chicken]

The Dwarf Fortress Wiki article on 'Time' indicates that time advances 72 times faster per tick in Fortress Mode relative to Adventurer Mode, which is something I've seen repeated as a fact in a plethora of forum posts over the years. However, when attempting to corroborate this using DFHack, I observed that the presumed fortress-mode-tick counter increases by 1 for every 144 increase in the presumed adventurer-mode-tick counter, and the counter from which the calendar date appears to be derived in both modes increments by 1 when these increase by 10 and 1440 respectively. To me, this implies that the time difference between the two modes is in fact double the value stated above. Is this actually the case, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[PatrikLundell]

@Atomic Chicken: There are 1200 ticks in a fortress day and 86400 seconds per a real world day, resulting in a speed up of a factor of 72. However, you've used the implicit assumption that one adventure mode tick is one second, while I'd suggest your research indicates adventure mode ticks are in fact ½ second.

[FantasticDorf]

1. What exactly is required for a bandit/mercenary fort to spawn in the world. I am currently working on a project in which the only civ type is the fortress site-type and the only biomes are tundra and mountains. The civ has BUILDS_OUTDOOR_FORTIFICATIONS, but the forts themselves do not appear. Are there other requirements I don't know about?

I think i've answered this seperately for you outside of the forums on discord, but if there are bandits present with bandity (percentage of entity) and/or religious foundations (of which i think need to be organized religions, but im not sure) they'll occupy them, and simply clearing banditry from entity.txt (because bandit forts create endless loops of sieging, losing, then continuing wars), only mercenaries occupy them from that point on of which seem to be mostly human denominations unless they're conquered at a later date (confirming its a problem with bandits, not the site type under siege).

Re-reading some wiki articles, I would say that counting houses established to buy properties may also determine the actual accessibility to founding the site by a group or persons amassing enough wealth to build it but you'd have to see the group association in the site's history to do any cross analysis of that. Necromancers tend to buy bandit forts simply because they live long and scheme enough to use counting houses with frequency, but they're no stranger to bandit societies anyway.

There's even a report of a necromancers property purchasing a castle no doubt under a guise.

2. When the eventual military update rolls around, will there be more diversity in unit types? By which I mean more combinations of armor (ranged units in heavy plate armor for example) or the use of sidearms/multiple weapons, like a pikeman or bowman who carries a shortsword and uses it when the enemy comes close, or a berserker-type of fighter who uses two one-handed weapons.

Weapon-users are already varied as to whatever preferred weapon that they've trained in and the civ has accessibility in their skill to use, to fufill what you're asking would need a some re-tooling of the military screen and how dwarves equip and order their accessories (given in fortress mode if both weapons are light enough from training you can clumsily carry both a crossbow & a hammer at the same time).

Its worth mentioning also your distinctive warrior types would mean a radical change to [POSITION:CAPTAIN] if not done on a entity token level which currently solely selects non historical individuals for civs to throw at each other and you the player for army-controllers; if you throw down some relevant suggestions in the subforum, Toady might take notice.

• But i would be hopeful for more in the way of soldiers of higher standing rank like generals and rulers themselves arriving like they used to as a more significant threat and better grades of equipment, since especially necromancers or (now enabled villian) mummies will never personally arrive anymore. Something has bottlenecked [POSITION:CAPTAIN] to work as a sole hardcoded position tag, and no other military goals or strategy historical people will be in attendance for real-time fortress mode sieges.

[FantasticDorf]

Seperate post for a seperate point.

Since the positions are hardcoded at present, for the upcoming (past steam release in mind) Military Arc, would you be releasing any of the structures related to the military positions (like elf rangers, human warriors, generic captains etc) to the modding community or would you be expecting to flush them out and put in a new system/set of positions in typical DF style?

It's kind of frustrating that these old positions with [ATTACK_ENEMIES] and [PATROL_TERRITORY] do not have any perjunctive use at all but carry everything related to sieges in their mysterious ways, but i hope im not overstepping too much asking about it; after the modding community got a significant boost in 47. with forgotten beasts and our special friends the clowns's special tokens being brought to the forefront was greatly appreciated.

[neutrino431]

This has probably already been asked, but will we be able to transfer saves from the current version to Steam and vice versa?