The Dwarf Fortress even Newer Release !!!

[Oarfish]

The wiki should be good again in a couple of months, with canned strategies for pumping out aquifers or finding bloody water in the first place. This version is so different from the previous that at the moment its pretty useless.

 

[Jasede]

I tried the new Dwarf Fortress for a few minutes, but gave up and decided to go do something easier, like constructing a real coal mine.

That's how I feel about this game in general. I really like it, and reading Let's Plays about it, and all, but it's just so vastly complex that even though I know the time it needs to get used to is time well spent, I have yet to find that time.

No wonder my Physics professor has a hard-on for this game.

 

[jimkehn]

Psycojester. I agree, for those of us who are just trying it, a tutorial would be wonderful. There is one of sorts on the wiki mentioned above. It helps, but some of the instructions are wrong. It took me awhile, for example to figure out the instructions to dig a tunnel were wrong in the tutorial. I have that much figured out, but simple things like instructing someone to haul stones or go fishing??? I know there is a way, but.....

In the meantime, check out this link. This is from a bunch of guys who each took a turn running the fortress for one game year and their AAR. Plenty of screenshots and the narrative is mostly hilarious. Makes me want to redouble my effort to learn this. I know that inside all this chaos of a game is a gem of a game. If I can just figure out how to mine it!!!!!!


http://fromearth.net/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/

 

[Nedrah]

Boatmurdered, which originated on the Something Awful forums, has to be one of the most famous and, imo, best Let's plays ever. I think most people propably know about it, but if someone doesn't and is looking for a reason to play DF... well, best motivation for that ever.

I'm almost tempted to re-read the whole thing, actually, but it would make me want to play the game, and I know how that ends without a functional wiki / tutorial.

 

[SlyDrak]

--

 

[jimkehn]

Well, I WAS going to quit this game, but I keep going back to it. Half the fun is the gratification one gets from figuring something out that had you stumped before.

 

[Nedrah]

Most of you are going to know about this, but there is a seemingly updated kind-of-starters-guide on the wiki.

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Your_first_fortress

Might help, I guess - actually, I'm going to find out how well it works quite soon.

 

[psycojester]

I agree with you on that one. I played the last version a bit, managed to get a community staggering over the bottemless pit into its third year of life. If it would just give some basic statistics about hwo many food/drink needed per dwarf and the rate of farming to consumption it'd be fucking brilliant.

For me there was a tad to much of MWUAHAAHAHAAHAHA! YOU DIE NOW! in the learning curve of the game. I don't mind dying from bad decisions in games, i object when death is waiting for me, hidden in the trees, disguised as a health pick up whilst armed with a rocket launcher.

 

[Gladi]

, for example to figure out the instructions to dig a tunnel were wrong in the tutorial. I have that much figured out, but simple things like instructing someone to haul stones or go fishing??? I know there is a way, but.....

¨

Bright day
Go into [v]iew mode and find the dwarv or find him through nits, then [p]references and [l]abour- white means the work is enabled, grey means disabled.

 

[Palikka]

Decided to put my progress in the net. Let's see how long I can keep this up
First year went pretty good (everybody didnt die..) even though I didnt know that I need to build a trade depot for the traders.. at the moment I'm halfway through my second year and my population has grown up to 26! Got two dwarves possessed and killed and one bled to death for unknown reason.

Great game.

 

[SuicideBunny]

I'm excited to hear about the sprite packs. I have been wanting to give this game a shot. Any ETA? Need a beta tester?

ETA- very long and possible to not even happen. I'll keep you guys up to date.

if it's any help, as a <s>graphics whore</s> ascii-challenged person, i'd be willing to donate at the very least five sixths of a whole dozen of our fine and superior european currency to the cause.

simply can't stomach pure ascii, but on the other hand, this sound pretty awesome....

 

[MessiahMan]

Yeesh, what a game. I'm afraid of fortress mode at the moment because in adventure mode, I can't even find the entrance to a cave to beat the first quest I was given. I must've wandered around the area for two hours now, no little circley thing. I had fun attacking a little kid with my last character. As I expected, though, the town gangbanged me, sprained my ankles, broke my brain with a spear, and generally skewered the crap out of me before I finally died from blood loss.

I will persevere, though. The entrance to that cave has to be SOMEWHERE relatively close...but I'll probably die of starvation (in game, I mean) before I find it.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeesh, what a game. I'm afraid of fortress mode at the moment because in adventure mode, I can't even find the entrance to a cave to beat the first quest I was given. I must've wandered around the area for two hours now, no little circley thing. I had fun attacking a little kid with my last character. As I expected, though, the town gangbanged me, sprained my ankles, broke my brain with a spear, and generally skewered the crap out of me before I finally died from blood loss.

I will persevere, though. The entrance to that cave has to be SOMEWHERE relatively close...but I'll probably die of starvation (in game, I mean) before I find it.

You have to look at your quest journal [press Q] and then zoom in on the area that the cave is in. If you're in that area, a block of blue o's will appear, and inside this block somewhere is the cave entrance. It's something like an "X marks the spot", still requires some searching but you'll find the cave entrance this way.

 

[Palikka]

From the dev pages:

Core50, TILESET SUPPORT, (Future): Allow graphical tiles to be used for all game objects.
Core51, SIZEABLE GAME WINDOW, (Future): Allow the resizing of the game windows, and possibly the support of variable width fonts to allow more text to be displayed.
Core52, INTERFACE OVERHAUL, (Future): A coherent interface, additional options and mouse support.

Sounds great!

 

[Nedrah]

I managed to come to somewhat friendlier terms with the game in the last few days.
I actually got a shithole of a badly designed fortress up and running, even with a farm.
Btw, how do I make sure I actually get seeds instead of having my dorfs eat it all, followed by not having anything else left to plant next season?

Also, how big can my indoor stockpiles be? The 5x5 ones I'm doing don't seem to even be remotely big enough.

The problem is, I am still struggling with the interface. As toady himself seems to acknowledge, one huge problem is not the lack of contextual mouse-menus or stuff like that, the real problem is that the whole game interface lacks coherence.

Also, the whole z-axis deal just kind of kills me. I may have a river and lots of animals runing merily around - but since I started on a much higher z-level I don't have the slightest idea how I could possible take advantage of that. Seriously, I think z-axis should be considered the "point of no return" where a better representation of the game world is overdue for anyone who hasn't been with the game forever.

 

[SlyDrak]

--

 

[Mayday]

We just started a new thread on PA. The first post is probably a good compilation of info that a newb should familiarize with:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?p=3504921

 

[MessiahMan]

You have to look at your quest journal [press Q] and then zoom in on the area that the cave is in. If you're in that area, a block of blue o's will appear, and inside this block somewhere is the cave entrance. It's something like an "X marks the spot", still requires some searching but you'll find the cave entrance this way.

Heh! Almost got to it. I had every bone in my body broken by an iron man after I exhausted myself trying to wrestle him to death. Needless to say, I bled out until I lived no more.

Aah well, I'll make a more practical build next, THEN use your advise to find that cave.

 

[Nedrah]

So, I understand I need to make sure that not all of my plants get cooked. However, since that won't necessarily mean I want none of them cooked, what should I do? Do seeds need to be extracted from plants?

Also, I was already aware of how I can move the screen along the z axis. My problem's rather that I have no real idea yet how I can implement that into my game.

 

[Mayday]

"D"esignate downstairs on the ground. When a miner digs them, switch to the level below and designate upstairs in the now-revealed tile. Then order him to mine around the stairs and VOILA! you have dug a room underground.
That's how you implement it.

 

[Oarfish]

Do seeds need to be extracted from plants

As long as you don't cook them into prepared meals you will get seeds. Brewing or eating plants raw will produce seeds.

 

[Nedrah]

That's how you implement it.

Cool, thanks.

So, say I want some fresh water supply, but the river is several levels below. I assume I'd then have to build multiple up/down staircases, followed by digging a way to the river at the lower z level, correct?

I realize it's somehow possible to do some arcane stuff with chanels and somehow create a well, but I think I should stay with the easy stuff for now, as in: my dorfs had better fucking walk to the river if they need water.

 

[Cassidy]

I find Dwarf Fortress ASCII-art more pleasant than Wasteland 80s graphics, and the text descriptions are things that would lose their charm with graphics, as it simply will take some significant time to draw enough gory 2d graphics for all the combat consequences.

 

[Jasede]

I know there's a way to turn all the crap on the screen into orderly dots to represent ground, but I don't know anymore where it was explained.

So, guys, in DF, how do I make an outside that looks like

,...,,;,.\:;'.'t.;"
,,'"|";..'']]]||\]]"

look like

.......TT......
.......T.......

 

[psycojester]

What you've got there is a patch of terrain with some small trees and shrubs and if memory serves your dwarves have started disassembling their wagon.