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[Shonai_Dweller]

Regarding development, is there an order of things planned before the Big Wait^tm? Can we expect adventure mode intrigues to be expanded and finished before the Big Wait^tm?

Current plan (subject to change) is:
Steam and whatever bug fixes/cleaning is required there.

Villains (everything which isn't finished yet in Villains - lots).

Improved sieges & armies (+ Adventurer medical stuff)
- from the development pages.

Big Wait.

So quite a while to go before we get to Wait.

[clinodev]

2. Will the steam version of the game have an option to play the game in ascii, or will it be required to use the graphics pack?

IIRC, it's been said that the Steam version will come with an ASCII option.

I honestly can't remember if it was Bay 12 or Kitfox at this point, because it was one of the big questions right away with the AMAs, but it was explained to me that it's against Steam's store TOS to offer special features elsewhere that aren't available through Steam. This is apparently why Kickstarters that give away bonus DLC content, etc., are so careful to end Kickstarter sales before their Steam store opens. In our case, it means "Classic tileset" will definitely be on Steam from the publisher, or nowhere.

Tarn's talked about the "Classic tileset" being available as an available open beta version, a sort of single tileset pre-install Pack, (like the ones we do on DFFD to get people testing new versions and utilities) but I suspect that's outdated by now. It's my sincere hope that we'll end up with a tileset menu within the main game, and both "official" tilesets included with the basic install, with others easily added from the Steam Workshop. I imagine folks who regularly read the FotF are generally just fine installing their own tilesets, but it'd be great if it "just worked" for everyone with a click. If Workshop integration works at all, there's no sense in "Classic" being the hardest to install tileset, requiring delving into Steam menus.

[PatrikLundell]

I would guess one (among several) reasons for changing the character set into a tile set whose tiles happen to depict characters is that it will make the game itself tile set agnostic.
One of the changes in the Premium release is the decoupling of the tile set from the raw files with the aim being that you'd select which tile set to use with the game at any time (possibly requiring a restart), allowing saves to be shared between people who use different tile sets while allowing each of them to use their favorite (as well as not raising a barrier between Premium version users using the MephDay set and everyone else).
If there won't be an integrated tile set selection in the game, it would probably be a text file editing action (that tools can put a shell on top of): it doesn't make any sense at all to require some Steam specific guff both because the Premium version currently is being scheduled for availability through Itch.io as well, and because the Classic version will still need to support non official tile sets.

[Immortal-D]

Just wondering if you've given any thought to what a tutorial might look like for Steam.  Any notes or simply 'thinking out loud' ideas?

[PatrikLundell]

Just wondering if you've given any thought to what a tutorial might look like for Steam.  Any notes or simply 'thinking out loud' ideas?

There definitely have been thoughts, as Toady has mentioned it several times, and given how Toady and Threetoe seem to operate, there are probably lots of notes with more or less thought out ideas, and possibly even some side projects. Whether they're ready to share any of those initial thoughts is a different issue (weighing cost/benefit of discussions [takes time, but may provide useful suggestions], as well as some people treating lists of candidates as promises [at least when it comes to their favorite items]).

[Shonai_Dweller]

In this PC Gamer interview, Toady explained what he thought the Dwarf Fortress tutorial for Steam Release might be like and what challenges it presented. More recent thoughts would be interesting too, I guess. But be sure to read that first.
https://www.pcgamer.com/tutorials-and-mouse-support-could-make-dwarf-fortress-on-steam-vastly-easier-to-play/

[hamurlik]

Do you have any way to protect the steam version of dwarf fortress from piracy? I assume that virtually all the game files from the normal, ascii version, stay on the steam version, but with new ui and tileset files; creative modders could try to integrate the stuff from steam version into the ascii version for free using someone else's copy of the game; does the steam version require steam to play, or you can just copy the files from your steam copy to share with other people, like with older games released on steam, where steam is just the "bootloader"?

[Shonai_Dweller]

Do you have any way to protect the steam version of dwarf fortress from piracy? I assume that virtually all the game files from the normal, ascii version, stay on the steam version, but with new ui and tileset files; creative modders could try to integrate the stuff from steam version into the ascii version for free using someone else's copy of the game; does the steam version require steam to play, or you can just copy the files from your steam copy to share with other people, like with older games released on steam, where steam is just the "bootloader"?

The tileset and music are the only locked items. Everything else is the same as the free version. Just a matter of flagging tilesets which use assets from premium and either blocking them or moderating forums like this one to prevent them being shared for free.

[PatrikLundell]

I don't think the tileset can be protected, as any kind of protection scheme is likely to be cracked within days, which means it will cost Toady more time to implement it than it will take a bunch of crackers to blow through it. After all, it's just a (large) set of tiles using a system that's available to third party tilesets.

The UI could be somewhat protected if the associated code isn't included in the Classic version, but, again, crackers can probably devise cracks to patch the code with the functionality taken from the Premium version into a Classic "host" fairly quickly.

The greatest "protection" is probably the convenience of a product that works out of the box without having to resort to shady suppliers of patchers without any guarantee that those are free from piggybacking "extra" code.

[Rafal99]

Toady, any plans for sorting options in the new Trade Screen? Especially sorting by item value could be very useful.

[Mr Crabman]

1. Will the map rewrite make it possible for tiles to stop being considered "on the surface/outdoors" forever if exposed once to the sky?

2. Will it be possible to engrave each side of a wall separately?

3. There are plans for siegers (presumably ones armed with mining tools) to be able to dig through tiles, but will some strong and/or big creatures/monsters be able to dig through tiles and smash through constructions without the use of tools?

4. What sort of limits if any (other than the obvious "no digging through adamantine/slade"), do you imagine instituting for digging siegers (or monsters) for balance purposes?
5. Different places in the real world have different durations of seasons (and in the southern hemisphere they are in reverse order), and AFAIK some places don't experience the familiar 4 seasons but instead have a different set, is this something that is planned eventually? Similar question goes for durations of day and night depending on location.

6. Speaking of seasons (and day/night cycles), does the "list of things to have in the game one day" include more bizarre/random/high magic worlds taking into account different astronomy (amount of suns etc), and maybe even some "magic cycles" that happen alongside (or sometimes replace) natural cycles like seasons and day/night, with their own effects?

7. You've said something about playing as procgen races in fort mode even in the first myth&magic update, provided they tick off a certain number of fort mode necessities (including digging), as some features aren't where they need to be yet (such as above-ground constructions for non-digging civilizations). Other than the digging, are there any other requirements you can think of off the top of your head, or is it pretty much just digging?

8. Right now creatures like hydras and ettins have 1 mind for all heads, and I think you've said you plan to support 1 mind per head, but would that apply to all kinds of multi-headed creature, or would some species and/or creatures have it one way and others the other way?

9a. Are "animated statues and figurines" planned? That is, magic that turns an arbitrary statue/figurine into a bronze-colossus-like creature made of "whatever the statue/figurine was made of", with the anatomy/body shape of the thing the statue is depicting, at the appropriate size of the statue/figurines representation of that thing. The dev notes mention automatons, but I'm not sure if that's quite the same thing (magic automatons are usually custom built to be automatons and aren't fully solid).

9b. A similar question goes for art/engravings (like an engraving of a troll just coming off of the wall, leaving the wall bare).

10. Will bronze colossi ever turn into statues of themselves upon death instead of the statue having a random subject, or is there some other plan in mind for them?

11. How do you think mind reading and/or short-term clairvoyance by reading intentions would work (assuming it's planned)? Wondering particularly about your thoughts on NPC's trying to read the mind/intentions of a player's adventurer.

12. Is it planned for creatures to be able to be eaten or swallowed whole by much larger ones? Like a dwarf being eaten by a dragon or other large enough beast, and maybe being rescuable if you get them out before they suffocate or get digested.

13. What about creatures fighting differently depending on the size and position of their opponent (kind of related to the above question I guess)? By this I mean something like a bronze colossus happily punching, wrestling and headbutting other massive beasts, but preferring to stomp on or kick puny dwarves, unless the dwarves are on a ledge or something and therefore easier to reach with the arms.

14. Regarding creature sizes, will it always be the case that their size is modeled only with volume? Apart from when they're real life creatures or just assumed to be of human proportions, it's often ambiguous whether something is meant to be tall and skinny, or wide and bulky, or really long.
15. The images shown for Steam with the new trade depo seem to imply that wagons no longer overlap with the depo, how does that work now? Will more space be necessary to have a functioning trade depo?

16. Many screens will now apparently no longer pause the game when brought up; will it be possible to set in a menu to pause automatically when opening these?

17. What are all the screens/interfaces/functionality that still remain to be completed for Fortress mode in the Premium update?

18. If the Steam release does well enough to accommodate it, would you consider hiring someone more experienced with optimization to help with that during the map rewrite? Or maybe bringing on volunteers (under NDA of course).

19. With the big map rewrite coming up, is threading or even GPU acceleration (like OpenCL, or whatever its successor is) that something you might try to implement in there, or at least architect the new code with potential for it in mind (so if you decide in the future that it's necessary, it wouldn't require another big rewrite)? Especially if you have help from someone more knowledgeable about threading (and GPU acceleration). In particular, I'm asking about pathfinding, temperatures, and liquid flow, as while I may be mistaken, "map rewrite" sounds like it involves rewriting those to an extent, and they happen to be some of the biggest FPS users.

[clinodev]

17. Which screens/interfaces/functionality still remain to be completed for Fortress mode in the Premium update?

I'll try to come back in after work and try to answer some of these, but I'd just like to point out that Mr_Crabman has been sharing a great list along those lines on various forums, and it'd probably be easiest just to add on to or comment upon it.

[PatrikLundell]

@Mr_Crabman:
1. It's possible now using DFHack, and I don't expect the corresponding functionality to go away just because of a rewrite. Logic to flip the flag is really a separate issue that would be implemented when there's a perceived need for it.

2. It's been requested, and I think it's under consideration. Nothing is certain until it's been implemented, though.
:

5. Worlds that don't correspond to Earth's astronomical and/or "magical" environment would need adjustments. That's partially a different question than the one whether the Earth analogy should be improved (the temperature variation over the year is rather strange, for instance).

6. Bizarre worlds should be internally consistent. It's entirely possible magic world differently during the day than during the night, or during different seasons/sphere influence phases etc.

7. Digging is more or less required because that's how you get stone and metal, so it's the first of the requirements along that chain. That doesn't mean other requirements can't exist as well.
:

11. Reading the mind of the player is essentially impossible. I'd expect there would have to be some fudge to block it except in very specific situations (type quest to murder ruler and being interrogated by mage on guard before being let through, but nothing if there's no externally "visible" reason). However, even that becomes rather weird. It would also require the NPCs to have sufficiently much of a mind that there's something to read.
:

18. If it made obscenely well Toady may feel a pressure to bring in external help. However, the main reason for not bringing in external resources is that it would turn him into a manager rather than someone who does what he really wants to do. Obviously, the artist interaction serves as the dipping of a toe into the water, but it's still a completely different matter to bring in help to make a nice surface compared to have someone else messing around in the guts. I believe there are parts of the code Toady doesn't understand precisely because someone else was brought in to do them in the past.

19. It can also be noted that multiple threads don't speed things up if the calculations are bound by the rate at which data can be brought in from memory, and I believe there are indications DF is memory bound rather than CPU bound.
Map rewrite is about reorganizing the map data to allow for new info that doesn't fit in the current structure, as well as allowing for partitioning of is such that you only need to load data that's needed (examples of that are to load the surface but not the underlying geological layers in adventure mode most of the time, as well as having multiple locations loaded concurrently [portal functionality]). It should also support movement of geography (constructed and "natural", such as flying islands [as well as portals to such moving locations]). As far as I understand, pathfinding, etc. have to be adjusted to work with the new organization of the data, but that doesn't mean the logic they use would have to be changed: changes to the logic would be driven by ways to do it in a better way, and if map reorganization can present the data in a more efficient way it would help, of course. Pathfinding probably would need to "understand" things like portals, "moving terrain" (such as elevators), and minecart routes (for personnel transport) eventually, though, which means the map rewrite should take such things into account to allow for it.

[voliol]

13. What about creatures fighting differently depending on the size and position of their opponent (kind of related to the above question I guess)? By this I mean something like a bronze colossus happily punching, wrestling and headbutting other massive beasts, but preferring to stomp on or kick puny dwarves, unless the dwarves are on a ledge or something and therefore easier to reach with the arms.

• Ability to jump up on and ride opponents if they are large enough (can happen to you too of course)
• Not being able to hit a giant in the head, hitting a dragon in the head as a reaction when it attempts to bite
  

[Mr Crabman]

It can also be noted that multiple threads don't speed things up if the calculations are bound by the rate at which data can be brought in from memory, and I believe there are indications DF is memory bound rather than CPU bound.

Maybe so, though I've heard some mention of people measuring cache misses with external software and there not really being a whole lot many from DF, and I myself have noticed the core running DF is often at 100% (as have others), so it's CPU bound at least some of the time, to some extent. Incidentally, threading also means a bit more cache memory anyway, since L1 and L2 are locked to individual cores (so you get more slightly more fast memory to work with), and so you can work on expensive calculations with smaller amounts of data, while other threads are waiting for their large amounts of data to come in.

And while I'm no expert on the matter, it seems like if you could keep as much data in the VRAM as possible (minimizing the transfer back and forth between it and the regular RAM), then that may free up more cache and memory bandwidth for other calculations in the CPU at the same time (aside from the insane parallel power of the GPU of course).