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[Vanzetti]

I suppose only if it were raining poison on the artifact creator.

That was the idea. Send the moody dwarf into the fetid slime blizzard. Perhaps make him into an undead before, to make sure he "survives" the ordeal.

[Shonai_Dweller]

In the Villains release, if, as an Adventurer, I manage to become a notorious villain, with a wide crime network, will the game be robust enough for me to retire and try to hunt down myself with a new character? Will the "clues" that should lead me to the villain I made exist?

[Randomizer]

Since Toady One cannot continue to post revenue for each month do to not being paid that way any more, maybe he could just post total sales figures for each month.

[Urist McSadist]

After the Magic Update, will there be the possibility of superhero style worlds where each caster has unique powers?

[Beag]

What do you think will be the hardest part of adventure mode to port to the Steam release?

[PatrikLundell]

@Urist McSadist: I don't see that as being an intentional world variant, but if you had a world where magic ability was very rare but very powerful and magic couldn't be taught but had to be developed by each individual based on more or less random traits you might possibly come somewhat near such a world.

[Toady One]

- What news of new music & graphics for premium?
- Are friendly Necromancer Experiments supposed to be so common?  I rarely see them invade, but a whole bunch show up at every Fort as scholars and visitors.
- The caverns still regularly see multiple hundreds of invaders pile up, regardless of caps.  Is this strictly a difficulty setting, or something that needs further adjustment?
- Is the lack of caravans from your home civ after becoming the Mountainhome intentional?

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8458570#msg8458570

- For graphics, we had some news about e.g. baby animals since this was announced.  I think we've announced everything that's ready to go.
- Yeah, right now civs aren't particularly xenophobic about it even when their cultures would bend that way, so the friendly populations probably win out until the inevitable necromancer death of the universe if world gen runs too long.  I don't recall if hostile experiment populations successfully replenish on their own currently either - necromancers don't mass produce them after w.g. which is an issue with sustainability.
- Still just broken.
- It might have been a zillion years ago when things were more simple, but it wouldn't make sense now.

Would it be possible to use letters as a backup for creature/item graphics if there's no graphical tile for it? Similar to what CDDA does.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8459782#msg8459782
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8459797#msg8459797
Ziusudra: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8459808#msg8459808

Ziusudra found my recent response.

No doubt Steam graphics will be reused in Adventure mode. But, is there still much to be done in the graphic section for this mode by artists?
And in the sound section, can we finally enjoy a soundtrack in Adventure mode?

Yeah, there are several things to do, and some of them aren't even decided.  In the "definitely need it" category, we have the mid-level travel maps vs. towns/etc., and stuff like combat/movement indicators that we didn't need in fort mode.  In the "we'll see how it plays out" category, we have stuff like conversation and wrestling and inventory interfaces, and animal people adventurers may need some attention.  We're currently giving some attention to aboveground plants which are much more visible in adventure mode (but this will also impact aboveground fort farms of course.)

Adventure mode is going to need a whole rpg-style soundscape.  We're seeking an audio engineer for example for this reason.  Music is also a current discussion.  It should be pretty exciting overall!  And we'll see what comes back to fort mode as well, since sounds (not music) got the short end of the stick there.

I am curious about the overall development of Dwarf Fortress. You on occasion mention upgrading the compiler, using visual studio 20XX and the like. As a programmer I wanted to ask, what automated tools do you use to help keep the code healthy and stop bugs before they begin? Examples being clang-tidy, gtest, or GSL (from microsoft). On the same vein, have you updated any parts of the code recently to use more modern patterns from C++11/14/17/20 I know that this is a relatively large project and started long ago so I imagine some things like unique_ptr/optional are not heavily used.

Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8460906#msg8460906
stoyang (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8461348#msg8461348

Putnam has done some things now, yeah.  I was required to update to the latest enterprise MSVC since the game did well ha ha, so I'm up to date with handy tools.  I've done some static analysis etc. though there are false positives and sometimes it dies, so it can be troublesome.  I don't know the modern patterns myself so I'm not updating them.  I think 'auto' was the last thing I started using for convenience and maybe that was C++11 or something.

With the "baby update" either already being out by the time this is answered, or coming soon, are there any plans to go into the raws and give some creatures the CHILD token/child stages? Or is there some thematic meaning behind certain creatures being locked out of domestication due to being born as adults? The giant variants of animals which should metamorphose is understandable, since it'd presumably take a body rewrite to get proper giant cave tadpoles, and giant flea tadpoles. There is an argument for dragons too, since they are an ultimate beast of sorts. But crundles are less obvious.

I was surprised at a few of the ones that didn't have a CHILD tag when I was going through.  I'm sure some of it just depends on who their "copy paste" parent was way back when they were created, and since children were basically irrelevant back then, it just didn't come up.  I don't know which if any will be changed in the upcoming update, though, since I'm just going to go with the art I've received, and those assignments were entirely based on existing tags, though I possibly missed or added some by accident ha ha.

Where did the idea come from to call insect blood "ichor", rather than simply calling it "hemolymph"? And what edition of DF did insect blood start being referred to as ichor?

I can't find any descriptions of insect blood being called ichor prior to 2012 and outside of DF.

TheFlame52: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8461592#msg8461592
Schmaven: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8461602#msg8461602
dikbutdagrate: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8461644#msg8461644
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8461665#msg8461665
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8461900#msg8461900

I don't have anything to add to the discussion since it has been so long now.

Are there any plans for fixing/improving the ASCII UI? Right now it looks like the graphical UI copied one-to-one, which doesn't really work (for example, the magnifying glass icon in the workshop menu makes zero sense in ASCII, a simple capital D for "Details" would work a hundred times better - and the list goes on and on).

'D' doesn't mean anything obvious either, really, at the first encounter.  It also maybe implies a hotkey.  It's all down to tooltips in the end, if we have little square buttons in ASCII, which we are stuck with for now and which are always pretty bad.  Ultimately we may be able to decouple the one-to-one match up a bit, but that won't be possible if I can't maintain it.

Im not sure this has ever been brought up but with the Myth and Magic release coming soonish will the gods and magic system allow for more varied, developed and complex megabeasts? Better yet will we get sentient races of megabeasts and/or primordial god-like beings that wander the world and create vague civilizations of their own? Also will all beings created by the gods look the same from world to world or will they look different.

Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8462497#msg8462497
BlackAion (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8462507#msg8462507
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8462580#msg8462580

To add to the replies, there's also that concept of the constrained dragon generator I've mentioned from time to time, and that applies to things like elves too, where there are lots of concepts that get mixed up, producing something 'elf'-like for a given setting.  And there's the 'editor' style constraints, and the myth-imposed constraints.  Once we have frameworks like that in place, we should be in a good position.  We want to be able to build up raw definitions in various ways, with various stakeholders in the outcome - this seems possible anyway ha ha.

Sorry for multiple questions but will we will be able to make larger worlds? Like as in worlds so large they dwarf Earth since that has happened a few times in fiction albeit rarely. HunterXHunter and Toriko specifically had worlds so ridiculously big that the areas in which humans other sentients lived in amounted to a few small islands in middle of a lake. Not an inland ocean but a lake.

voliol: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8462662#msg8462662
BlackAion (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8462710#msg8462710
Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8462724#msg8462724

Yeah there are technical issues, some parts of the game are slower, from army pathfinding to save/load from the raw size of them.  Map rewrite should get us some concepts of infinite worlds, but there's a trade-off since the information can't all be stored, it doesn't solve pathing on its own, and nothing gets around the fundamental problems of procedural emptiness and repetition except for the hard work of adding variety.

This may be an unnecessary throwback to a now defunct mechanic, and I may have misinterpreted what was said (as tends to happen), but I've been listening to old DF Talk recordings:
In DF Talk 4 you mention that when placing civilisations you begin with 20 individuals to ensure genetic diversity and also limit incestuous couplings.
Does this mean that the family trees of all (non-historical) individuals is tracked through world generation, and a family tree could theoretically be drawn between a descendant and two of the founding 20?
It was always an assumption of mine that population numbers and growth was simulated through some sort of equation.

-

This is the part I'm interested in, really. At the risk of having asked too many questions:
What determines what genes an individual can have? Is there a single gene pool available for members of a civilisation, or many? Or are gene pools more granular and differ based on site/ other entities?

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8462972#msg8462972
kontako (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8463004#msg8463004
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8463084#msg8463084
TheFlame52: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8463107#msg8463107

Does DF Talk 4 predate the addition of entity populations?  Non-historical individuals just have the population pool information.

Genetic information is stored in units for the historical figures at the end of world generation.  Before that, hmm, I'm pretty sure it's still tracked.  Yeah, there's a 'world gen genetics' structure in the historical figure that is used during world gen, and then passed over to anybody that survives to their unit definition.  So theoretically family lines/characteristics/etc. are fully tracked once somebody becomes historical, although whatever deterioration that's undergone over the years I'm sure is a thing.

In the event that this 'feature' isn't intentional, can we keep it?

Evidently, when an artifact is either created or named out in the rain, even if the precipitation happens to be some kind of freakish weather, the artifact is liable to be permanently covered in whatever its reagents or pre-artifact item was coated in.

My understanding is that that description is being pulled on the fly from the item linked to the artifact, which is maintained in memory to avoid "nemesis unit load failure" type messages.  So if the item becomes uncoated with dwarf blood (by being washed, for example), I think it will then state instead that the item is coated with water in legends, until it dries off?  Science welcome of course.

In the Villains release, if, as an Adventurer, I manage to become a notorious villain, with a wide crime network, will the game be robust enough for me to retire and try to hunt down myself with a new character? Will the "clues" that should lead me to the villain I made exist?

For the first question, yeah, this'll almost certainly be the case, in the general sense of your old character being an ongoing villain that needs hunting.  All of the data structures and information will be the same, and it'll be set up for the AI to just take over - all of your subordinates will already be using this code while you are still playing, presumably even producing clues that you can stupidly/ironically follow to hunt yourself.  That's the hope/intention/design, anyway, and I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work though I'm sure some hiccups will arise.  One I can think of is knowing the overall intent of your character - the game will act out their existing plots and relationships once you retire, but knowing broadly where they want thing to go needs some more info.  This is a general issue with retirement overall I think we've mentioned before, but we haven't done anything with it aside from adding personalities and values to chargen.

For the second question, I can't say yet, since I'm not sure how that system is going to work at a granular level.  Certainly any new plots your adventurer hatches will fall under the investigation system that exists, but it may be trickier to find clues for existing plots, although each of the subactors that continues operating will likely generate them as they advance the existing plots step by step.  But getting that first lead may feel different for retired player villains, and it may take some time to find it.  That's my intuition now anyway.

After the Magic Update, will there be the possibility of superhero style worlds where each caster has unique powers?

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8465004#msg8465004

Yeah, as PatrikLundell suggests, I think the "bloodline of one" extreme would get you here, or maybe the corruption mechanics as well (which would be related to a blessing-style system as well, which is virtually the same as the current necromancer system.)  It just needs a reason to generate a unique thing and it'd do it.  And it needs to understand if children are affected and you might want a 100% wobble on that to make those unique too (or less to make them related powers, which just takes us back to a typical bloodline scenario), seems feasible.  There are some practical limits on the number of simultaneous systems, but power definitions are pretty light weight.

So overall, I feel like we'd start within range, and then subsequent changes/mods/editor profiles would land you around where you want to be.

What do you think will be the hardest part of adventure mode to port to the Steam release?

Conversations and wrestling need updates and that'll take some UI work.  Handling Z level display will be interesting since we're considering situations where you might want to see up hillsides for instance, and that could get a little weird sometimes when subterranean spaces or interiors compete.  But the trickiest part will probably be balancing the amount of new additions/tweaks/etc. we feel are necessary for the mode to be in a good state, without sucking in all of the villains and army stuff.

[Egan_BW]

Thanks for the answers!

[brewer bob]

Thanks for the answers!

We're currently giving some attention to aboveground plants which are much more visible in adventure mode (but this will also impact aboveground fort farms of course.)

Any specific plans for this already? Like, will the whole plants and not just growths be gatherable, will seasons come into play and will it be changed how much you can gather from one plant tile (since now you can just pick vast amounts)? And/or will there be new uses for plants?

[PatrikLundell]

Thanks for the answers!

We're currently giving some attention to aboveground plants which are much more visible in adventure mode (but this will also impact aboveground fort farms of course.)

Any specific plans for this already? Like, will the whole plants and not just growths be gatherable, will seasons come into play and will it be changed how much you can gather from one plant tile (since now you can just pick vast amounts)? And/or will there be new uses for plants?

My impression is that the answer refers to graphics rather than functionality. A farming overhaul is probably way too much work to fit into something else (in this case Adventure Mode adaptation to new UI and graphics, with some minor general improvements/additions). I assume Toady will answer the question in a month, though.

[Buttery_Mess]

Is there a possibility of getting starting scenarios or human/elf/goblin "forts" before the map rewrite? How much have you thought about this and how much might these be differentiated from dwarf mode? These can be modded in fairly easily but it's just dwarf mode in a fancy hat; is properly intergrating non-dwarf forts "low-hanging fruit" or do you intend to modify the gameplay enough that it's a bigger job?

[voliol]

Thanks for the answers!

Is there a possibility of getting starting scenarios or human/elf/goblin "forts" before the map rewrite? How much have you thought about this and how much might these be differentiated from dwarf mode? These can be modded in fairly easily but it's just dwarf mode in a fancy hat; is properly intergrating non-dwarf forts "low-hanging fruit" or do you intend to modify the gameplay enough that it's a bigger job?

Considering starting scenarios is a whole arc after myths&magic, I imagine they have too many ideas to be able to cram in just a few before the map rewrite.

[Vattic]

In the last FotF reply you mentioned above ground plant graphics getting some love. These questions possibly relate.

As things stand grasses can have their growths (flowers and buds) displayed as a layer above the base tiles. This does not work for other plants from what I can tell?

Spoiler: examples (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[PLANT_GRAPHICS:MEADOWSWEET]
[GRASS_1:GRASS:0:0]
[GRASS_2:GRASS:1:0]
[GRASS_3:GRASS:2:0]
[GRASS_4:GRASS:3:0]
[GROWTH:BUD]
[GROWTH_1:GRASS_FLOWERS:0:1]   <- these tokens
[GROWTH_2:GRASS_FLOWERS:1:1]
[GROWTH_3:GRASS_FLOWERS:2:1]
[GROWTH_4:GRASS_FLOWERS:3:1]
[GROWTH:FLOWER]
[GROWTH_1:GRASS_FLOWERS:4:1]
[GROWTH_2:GRASS_FLOWERS:5:1]
[GROWTH_3:GRASS_FLOWERS:6:1]
[GROWTH_4:GRASS_FLOWERS:7:1]
but this does not work (using a modified plant_garden.png etc.):

Code: [Select]

[PLANT_GRAPHICS:ARTICHOKE]
[SHRUB:PLANT_GARDEN:0:0]
[PICKED:PLANT_GARDEN:1:0]
[SEED:PLANT_GARDEN:2:0]
[GROWTH:LEAVES]
[GROWTH_1:PLANT_GARDEN:4:0]
[GROWTH_2:PLANT_GARDEN:4:0]
[GROWTH_3:PLANT_GARDEN:4:0]
[GROWTH_4:PLANT_GARDEN:4:0]
[GROWTH_PICKED:PLANT_GARDEN:5:0]
[GROWTH:FLOWERS]
[GROWTH_1:PLANT_GARDEN:6:0]
[GROWTH_2:PLANT_GARDEN:6:0]
[GROWTH_3:PLANT_GARDEN:6:0]
[GROWTH_4:PLANT_GARDEN:6:0]
[GROWTH_PICKED:PLANT_GARDEN:7:0]
[GROWTH:HEART]
[GROWTH_1:PLANT_GARDEN:8:0]
[GROWTH_2:PLANT_GARDEN:8:0]
[GROWTH_3:PLANT_GARDEN:8:0]
[GROWTH_4:PLANT_GARDEN:8:0]
[GROWTH_PICKED:PLANT_GARDEN:9:0]

Strawberries do kind of have their growth displayed, but in an unusual way. They have two sprites, one with and one without the fruit. Using SHRUB_PICKED for the sprite to use when it has no strawberries. Before they have the growth they are using SHRUB_PICKED, once grown SHRUB. Gathering destroys the plant so SHRUB_PICKED is never actually used for the picked plant.

Spoiler: example (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[PLANT_GRAPHICS:BERRIES_STRAW]
[SHRUB:PLANT_STANDARD:0:9]            <- sprite with berries
[PICKED:PLANT_STANDARD:1:9]
[SEED:PLANT_STANDARD:2:9]
[SHRUB_PICKED:PLANT_STANDARD:3:9]     <- sprite without berries
[CROP:PLANT_STANDARD:5:9]
[CROP_SPROUT:PLANT_STANDARD:9:9]
[GROWTH:FRUIT]
[GROWTH_PICKED:PLANT_STANDARD:11:9]

My first question is whether you plan to allow us to specify graphics for each individual growth as with grass? This is preferable in my opinion as it allows for plants with multiple harvestable growths to display correctly and for plants to flower or display other growths independently. I had assumed this was the case having seen grass, but the way strawberries have been handled makes me wonder.

My second question is whether you intend to implement graphics for dead plants as in the text mode? As things stand you can't tell without mousing over them. It's annoying when designating individual plants for gathering.

Third is the same, but for specifying graphics for dry and dead grass?

[brewer bob]

We're currently giving some attention to aboveground plants which are much more visible in adventure mode (but this will also impact aboveground fort farms of course.)

Any specific plans for this already? Like, will the whole plants and not just growths be gatherable, will seasons come into play and will it be changed how much you can gather from one plant tile (since now you can just pick vast amounts)? And/or will there be new uses for plants?

My impression is that the answer refers to graphics rather than functionality. A farming overhaul is probably way too much work to fit into something else (in this case Adventure Mode adaptation to new UI and graphics, with some minor general improvements/additions). I assume Toady will answer the question in a month, though.

Oh, I somehow missed the whole graphics part from the question, my bad. But regardless, still asking the question.

[PatrikLundell]

Is there a possibility of getting starting scenarios or human/elf/goblin "forts" before the map rewrite? How much have you thought about this and how much might these be differentiated from dwarf mode? These can be modded in fairly easily but it's just dwarf mode in a fancy hat; is properly intergrating non-dwarf forts "low-hanging fruit" or do you intend to modify the gameplay enough that it's a bigger job?

The "low hanging fruit" version of non dwarf fortresses is the modding that's currently possible, and, as mentioned, it's rather unsatisfactory. I don't agree with @Voliol, though, as non dwarven forts ought to appear in the Myth & Magic arc. As that arc intends to support mundane worlds (i.e. no dwarves), it has to support human fortresses at the very minimum, and it also has to support any playable race generated by more extreme settings. At that point, it's a fairly small step to require it to support any civilization capable race (not that multi race support is small, but the step from supporting all generated "primary" races with all their variations, to supporting "secondary" ones as well is probably small, and at that point the distinction disappears: any generated civ building race would be available for starting race selection).

Note that this isn't necessarily going to be present at the first release of the arc, but may be improved gradually. I could imagine a process where the first release only implements the current mundanity setting and only have dwarves playable with the following releases focusing on some other aspect such as magic. In a later sub arc fully mundane humans might be introduced (beside the dwarves), followed by the gradual implementation of varying mundanity levels, for instance.

In that framing, the fortress would be the current generic "new colony of unspecified kind" scenario, where the difference would be in what race you play (which should influence what buildings look like, at least graphically, and what the race can produce from its workshops as a minimum: it might also affect mining and tree house construction, for instance). Starting scenarios, on the other hand, would deal with how the fortress relates to its parent civ, playing differently based on its type. That, in turn, may involve different restrictions for different races (you'd hardly set up an elven logging camp, for an obvious example). Starting scenarios might add and remove capabilities to fortresses beyond the race ones when they are implemented.