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[gchristopher]

I much prefer the current world-activated version of dwarf fortress over version 34. Also what do you mean decouple teh simulator, that would be completely pointless he can make a good ui without messing up his simulation lol. Also the community is in no way dwindling. Hes making more money through donations then hes ever made and the reddit/here is actually really active.

Agreed, there's lots of other improvements, especially bug fixes, but ambushes are missing and sieges aren't as good, which was what this thread was asking. 34.11 had those, and that one aspect of the game is worse at the moment.

"decouple ..." refers to how Toady has described the DF code. Right now the code that does the simulation, physics, pathing, psychology, world events, is mixed up with the code that draws the graphics, in a way that makes the game harder to work on. Someday, he (or a helper) will have to clean that up, so you can improve the graphics with less effort and without breaking other things. One promise of the Kitfox release is that he might get a start on some of that work.

[Untrustedlife]

I much prefer the current world-activated version of dwarf fortress over version 34. Also what do you mean decouple teh simulator, that would be completely pointless he can make a good ui without messing up his simulation lol. Also the community is in no way dwindling. Hes making more money through donations then hes ever made and the reddit/here is actually really active.

Agreed, there's lots of other improvements, especially bug fixes, but ambushes are missing and sieges aren't as good, which was what this thread was asking. 34.11 had those, and that one aspect of the game is worse at the moment.

"decouple ..." refers to how Toady has described the DF code. Right now the code that does the simulation, physics, pathing, psychology, world events, is mixed up with the code that draws the graphics, in a way that makes the game harder to work on. Someday, he (or a helper) will have to clean that up, so you can improve the graphics with less effort and without breaking other things. One promise of the Kitfox release is that he might get a start on some of that work.

I know what decouple means. I’m a software engineer. While I don’t doubt he’s made some mess in terms of his UI code I doubt it’s that connected to his simulation code given that mostly happens while the game is paused. He’s not going to multithread it so he can’t do that. What I’m saying is I doubt it’s that heavily connected/intertwined. The tile drawing code though, I’m sure it’s pretty heavily intertwined but it can’t be that much given the new world activities stuff. But that will be the focus of the steam release so I’m sure he will clean it up. When I say UI I mean user interface (eg the screen on the right while in DF mode) not tile graphics drawing that’s sort of it’s own thing and is generally thought of as separate.

[therahedwig]

Ah, the graphics and gui drawing parts are in a separate thread already, that's something I recall baughn (dude who helped out with graphics for a while, implemented the truetype support) saying this was the case.

It's something that gets lost quite easily as it doesn't fit in the narrative of 'multi-threading will solve all fps-death problems' (which is not true either).

[Untrustedlife]

Ah, the graphics and gui drawing parts are in a separate thread already, that's something I recall baughn (dude who helped out with graphics for a while, implemented the truetype support) saying this was the case.

It's something that gets lost quite easily as it doesn't fit in the narrative of 'multi-threading will solve all fps-death problems' (which is not true either).

Thank you!

[Fleeting Frames]

As far as being on a separate thread goes, never seen DF CPU usage go over a single core, despite paused DF using 4 to 40% of a single core, plus there's also surface fps < underground fps. So even if it is on two separate logical threads, it's still limited to single core.

[Nopenope]

I much prefer the current world-activated version of dwarf fortress over version 34. Also what do you mean decouple teh simulator, that would be completely pointless he can make a good ui without messing up his simulation lol. Also the community is in no way dwindling. Hes making more money through donations then hes ever made and the reddit/here is actually really active.

By Toady's admission, and also by my own experience of lurking the forums for 10ish years, the forums are pretty slow and are probably the slowest I've ever seen. The wiki is outdated and many aspects of DF2014 like insurrections, agents or reputation are poorly understood. It's not clear what activities happen post-wg and which ones are confined to wg. I mean we're talking about stuff that's been in the game for 5 years and for all the supposed activity on Reddit or donations, no one still clearly knows how any of that works (or if they do, they haven't bothered updating the wiki with the info they have). Contrast with the extremely well documented article on strange moods.

Note that it's perfectly possible for Toady to receive donations while activity slows down. It simply means that although he community supports the game, less and less people are actually playing it. Which has been my impression as of late.

[Untrustedlife]

I much prefer the current world-activated version of dwarf fortress over version 34. Also what do you mean decouple teh simulator, that would be completely pointless he can make a good ui without messing up his simulation lol. Also the community is in no way dwindling. Hes making more money through donations then hes ever made and the reddit/here is actually really active.

By Toady's admission, and also by my own experience of lurking the forums for 10ish years, the forums are pretty slow and are probably the slowest I've ever seen. The wiki is outdated and many aspects of DF2014 like insurrections, agents or reputation are poorly understood. It's not clear what activities happen post-wg and which ones are confined to wg. I mean we're talking about stuff that's been in the game for 5 years and for all the supposed activity on Reddit or donations, no one still clearly knows how any of that works (or if they do, they haven't bothered updating the wiki with the info they have). Contrast with the extremely well documented article on strange moods.

Note that it's perfectly possible for Toady to receive donations while activity slows down. It simply means that although he community supports the game, less and less people are actually playing it. Which has been my impression as of late.

I dont remember toady saying anything about it being slow and any slowness can probably be traced to the fact that reddit exists now. And that is extremely active, and so is the df dicord server and the kitfox discord dwarf fortress section. The reason they decided they wanted to have it published was due to a health scare not due to any percieved weakening of activity and anything more is rumor and speculation.
Ive been around for equally as long,
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:World_activities
I am an active person on the wiki actually.  But yeah i see what you mean by it not being entirely clear. I am actually one of the original editors of that world activities article i believe. I play aton but havent bothered updating becaus eits going to have so much new things when the next version comes along and i don't want to do all the !SCINCE!

[therahedwig]

To be fair, if you compare that page to the mine cart one, which is only two years older, you can kind of see where most DF player's priorities lie, especially the part where every single detail about how minecart speed works is figured out, but there's barely any advice on how to use mine carts for hauling. I have always seen this as a similar issue: most players don't play adventure mode, and invasions are still triggered primarily by population, so what would they care stuff is happening outside of the fort.

[George_Chickens]

I much prefer the current world-activated version of dwarf fortress over version 34. Also what do you mean decouple teh simulator, that would be completely pointless he can make a good ui without messing up his simulation lol. Also the community is in no way dwindling. Hes making more money through donations then hes ever made and the reddit/here is actually really active.

By Toady's admission, and also by my own experience of lurking the forums for 10ish years, the forums are pretty slow and are probably the slowest I've ever seen. The wiki is outdated and many aspects of DF2014 like insurrections, agents or reputation are poorly understood. It's not clear what activities happen post-wg and which ones are confined to wg. I mean we're talking about stuff that's been in the game for 5 years and for all the supposed activity on Reddit or donations, no one still clearly knows how any of that works (or if they do, they haven't bothered updating the wiki with the info they have). Contrast with the extremely well documented article on strange moods.

Note that it's perfectly possible for Toady to receive donations while activity slows down. It simply means that although he community supports the game, less and less people are actually playing it. Which has been my impression as of late.

I have noticed the wiki has substantially slowed down, but I think it may partially be because a few of the features are only half implemented. Insurrections never seem to happen in worldgen and the actual mechanics of them in adventure mode are vague, glitchy and sometimes just don't work.

[Nopenope]

A lot of things are vague, glitchy and don't work in the game.That's part of the game being in alpha state. The only difference is that these days, nobody ever bothers figuring out how said things work, however vague or glitchy.

And this isn't limited to insurrections, take a look at this: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Combat

Attack speed has been overhauled for DF2014. Research is impending.

Impending indeed.

[feelotraveller]

Nopenope, I heard that you've been assigned to it. 

My barbed contribution to what has been removed is: FUN (and FUN! if we want to make the distinction) - although !FUN! still exists.

At least my forts never end in FUN(!) these days...

[Pillbo]

A lot of things are vague, glitchy and don't work in the game.That's part of the game being in alpha state. The only difference is that these days, nobody ever bothers figuring out how said things work, however vague or glitchy.

And this isn't limited to insurrections, take a look at this: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Combat

Attack speed has been overhauled for DF2014. Research is impending.

Impending indeed.

I'm completely dependent on the wiki, and it is often out of date or lacking fairly basic info.  Maybe it's about time for someone to organize a community Update-The-Wiki project.  What better time then after villains/Steam with a Big Wait looming?

[Shonai_Dweller]

I find the wiki kind of intimidating. I see things which are probably out of date and think should be changed but then notice that:

a) Wiki is for Df2014, whatever that means. Do I have to add a note to say when in the last 5 years the update I'm making came to be? Requires research, clicked on cat video, forgot about it.

b) The incorrect info is part of a beautifully constructed lengthy paragraph which goes into exquisite detail about how the author believes the system works (perhaps it once did, who knows). Now I'm hit by a confidence crisis. Is what I believe to be true, really true? Do I delete this flawed work of art possibly the only copy the author has access to and add my own instructions? Or do I add a comment to the bottom "please note, none of this is true". Oh indecision. Clicked on cat video, forgot about it.

So, yeah, much as the wiki is a free "anyone can add to it, just go ahead" zone, an official community effort might yield better results than just letting it be.

[Untrustedlife]

I find the wiki kind of intimidating. I see things which are probably out of date and think should be changed but then notice that:

a) Wiki is for Df2014, whatever that means. Do I have to add a note to say when in the last 5 years the update I'm making came to be? Requires research, clicked on cat video, forgot about it.

b) The incorrect info is part of a beautifully constructed lengthy paragraph which goes into exquisite detail about how the author believes the system works (perhaps it once did, who knows). Now I'm hit by a confidence crisis. Is what I believe to be true, really true? Do I delete this flawed work of art possibly the only copy the author has access to and add my own instructions? Or do I add a comment to the bottom "please note, none of this is true". Oh indecision. Clicked on cat video, forgot about it.

So, yeah, much as the wiki is a free "anyone can add to it, just go ahead" zone, an official community effort might yield better results than just letting it be.

Dont be afraid to delete incorrect stuff, as long as you know its incorrect, ive been doing that often lately.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

I've noticed (last time I checked, anyway, which was a few months ago) that the wiki still has almost nothing on worldgen artifacts, prophets or secret identities beyond just acknowledging here and there that they exist, despite the fact that all three have been in the game for just about two years now.