DWARF FORTRESS

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 30 Oct 2007, 08:17

The new version is a bit confusing

imbaczek · Post by **imbaczek** » 30 Oct 2007, 09:04

The old one was too when I launched it the first time

Saktoth · Post by **Saktoth** » 30 Oct 2007, 12:44

You need to build both up AND down stairs. You cant just build 'down' stairs and go down them, you need to make 'up' stairs on the other end.

Thats all i really had any trouble with. Thus far i have: (WARNING SPOILERS)

Game 1:
Tried to redirect a river. Doesnt work. Managed to create a nice waterfall that flooded some lowlands i luckily didnt care about. I tried to halt it with channels- they just filled up and the flood kept going. Tried to dam it using rewalls- too late, wasnt fast enough. At least it flows off the edge of the map though rather than filling the whole thing up.

Got invaded by 6-7 kobold archers in year 2 or 3. Nothing else, just archers. They camped there on the edge of the map and whenever a dwarf got close 100 arrows flew at him. At this point, the lag from the waterfall (fluid dynamics.

) was so bad i just quit.

Game 2:
Started right on top of a goblin fortress. They actually arent very aggressive, and i took one of their buildings to myself (dug around the back, entered underneath, ran through and slaughtered everyone inside). Sadly, my dwarves pathed wrong while trying to dig out a second 'invasion tunnel' and got picked off one by one by a goblin guard. Fun, though.

Game 3:
Started on a volcano. It had fire imps and fire men and i thought 'right, im dead'. However, they never attacked me and the worst they did was make my magma workers cancel their jobs when they saw them, once i had a magma econ going. Sadly, despite all the drink and food i brought along, with no way of farming and no water sources, my dwarves died of thirst.

Erom · Post by **Erom** » 30 Oct 2007, 14:22

I've gotten a game where I got a giant rock spire sticking up out of the middle of an outdoor river. I'm tempted to tunnel under the river to it (If I can get deep enough) and hollow it out into a keep.

imbaczek · Post by **imbaczek** » 30 Oct 2007, 17:37

I like that you don't have to do much to farm, just proper terrain type. No need to make anything wet.

The game's dog slow though (amazingly it runs twice as fast on level 0.)

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 30 Oct 2007, 18:14

Make your starting locale smaller (resize it using UHKM on the fortress placement screen). This helped me a lot. Even the smallest locale size is quite big enough for a good-sized fortress - remember you have like 150 Z-levels to play with so you don't need as much room in the XY axis.

Adalore · Post by **Adalore** » 30 Oct 2007, 18:31

Bah, I am lost for words, This is Neat and cool and every thing, but I can't figure out how to use the Z level's

On another note, I thought Y was Up and down on a 3d location thing.

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 30 Oct 2007, 19:24

Adalore wrote:Bah, I am lost for words, This is Neat and cool and every thing, but I can't figure out how to use the Z level's

On another note, I thought Y was Up and down on a 3d location thing.

Z is up
Y is inward/outward
X is side to side

BigHead · Post by **BigHead** » 30 Oct 2007, 19:39

btw the dwarven society presented in this game is communism in its purest form.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 30 Oct 2007, 19:52

BigHead wrote:btw the dwarven society presented in this game is communism in its purest form.

Not exactly - the simulation is limited in complexity.

Michilus_nimbus · Post by **Michilus_nimbus** » 30 Oct 2007, 20:42

Felix the Cat wrote:The new version is a bit confusing

Understatement of the century.
It's over the top. Take a look at the designation menu. I'm getting sick of just seeing those options.
It's simply too much.

Erom · Post by **Erom** » 30 Oct 2007, 22:17

Wow, fishing got a big buff. It's still slow, but it doesn't run out like it used too, so you keep getting food continuously.

I just missed getting farms up before my first winter, so I survived on fish. You couldn't do that in the old version.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 30 Oct 2007, 23:21

neddiedrow wrote:
BigHead wrote:btw the dwarven society presented in this game is communism in its purest form.
Not exactly - the simulation is limited in complexity.

It's not supposed to be an accurate government/sociaty sim. It is a communistic sociaty in the early game though, albeit not portrayed realistically.

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 31 Oct 2007, 00:13

Comp1337 wrote:
Adalore wrote:Bah, I am lost for words, This is Neat and cool and every thing, but I can't figure out how to use the Z level's

On another note, I thought Y was Up and down on a 3d location thing.
Z is up
Y is inward/outward
X is side to side

Y is up/down and Z is in/out normally, DF uses the "pure math" way of doing things...

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 31 Oct 2007, 00:28

Felix the Cat wrote:
Comp1337 wrote:
Adalore wrote:Bah, I am lost for words, This is Neat and cool and every thing, but I can't figure out how to use the Z level's

On another note, I thought Y was Up and down on a 3d location thing.
Z is up
Y is inward/outward
X is side to side
Y is up/down and Z is in/out normally, DF uses the "pure math" way of doing things...

No... DF is a top down game, hence Z is up, just as it is with conventional mapping. Longitude and Latitude are X,Y in global maps, and Z is Altitude.

Y is used as up/down only in horizontal mapping... which has gained some popularity in 3D rendering as well as physics calculations, but doesn't make much sense in context of a topical map.

Zpock · Post by **Zpock** » 31 Oct 2007, 02:41

The guy making dwarf fortress is a mathematician. In math z is almost always the up direction (on the chalk board that is), with x going out of the board and y to the right. This makes a lot of sense for example if you would want to draw z as a function of x and y.

However in computer graphics such as opengl, z is usually the depth (into the screen).

Usually you have 2 primary directions and a third extra coordinate that is different from the other 2. Such as altitude when thinking of the earths surface, or the screens depth, or the value of a function of 2 variables.

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 31 Oct 2007, 02:50

Zpock wrote:The guy making dwarf fortress is a mathematician. In math z is almost always the up direction (on the chalk board that is), with x going out of the board and y to the right. This makes a lot of sense for example if you would want to draw z as a function of x and y.

However in computer graphics such as opengl, z is usually the depth (into the screen).

Usually you have 2 primary directions and a third extra coordinate that is different from the other 2. Such as altitude when thinking of the earths surface, or the screens depth, or the value of a function of 2 variables.

That's what I was trying to say, but I was interrupted by class.

Zpock · Post by **Zpock** » 31 Oct 2007, 02:59

Interestingly Dwarf fortress uses z as in/out of the screen, and this at the same time this corresponds to altitude in the dwarf fortress world since your always viewing it top down, so it's consistent with both "pure math" and opengl in a way if you think about it. Also from a chronological point of view, it wouldn't make sense to have x,z as the 2d coordinates, skipping over y, in previous versions and later add in y.

I always find it annoying that spring uses y as up, if you want to do something in the ground plane as is usually the case, you have to write:

(*lotsofformulas*, 0, *moreformulas*)

instead of a more sensical:

(*lotsofformulas*, *moreformulas*, 0)

imbaczek · Post by **imbaczek** » 31 Oct 2007, 03:36

it's how opengl works - y is up, x is right, z is into.

anyway, how do i open a cage with an animal inside? either that's changed or i've completely forgotten how to do that...

CautionToTheWind · Post by **CautionToTheWind** » 31 Oct 2007, 14:20

Maybe connect a lever to the cage? Or if its a tame animal, just assign it to another cage or to none and a dwarf will move it.

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DWARF FORTRESS