3161

What sort of rig do you have?

Did you use any sort of reveal tool? Did you embark on an ocean or a location with alot of visible z levels right off the bat?

There’s now a whole world underneath your feet, though I’m not sure when the cpu starts to simulate it.

Also check FPS cap in lazynewb or ini

3162

Is there a cross-sectional rendering of the underworld generation?

I found Minecraft’s snakework of tunnels to be incredibly interesting, I wonder how DF looks.

3163

Wolf, it was a steep river valley, perhaps that didn’t help. I have a Asus G-somethingorother gaming laptop. G73 I think.

3164

Waterfalls? They are pretty but oh the cycles. As long as you have a decent machine you should be fine. I think world size also may play into it, but check the fps cap as well.

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Maximizing_framerate

Pogo, you can you dfreveal (part of lazy newb pack) to see how the tunnels are. There are worldgen setting that make them more open or more tunnely. They span multiple z-levels.

3165

Ta for tips. Hmm. The default DF dwarf setup is a little weak, isn’t it? Two miners minimum is so much nicer. And damn I need to learn about bees and wool and all that new stuff!

3166

Ya I almost never use the default setup. Typically for non crazy evil maps I go

Miner 5
Miner 5
StoneCraft 5
Carp 5/Lumberjack 5
Farm 5/Brew 5
Doctor/Broker/Miner 1
Mason 5/ Architect 5
Leader/Miner 1

Dump the extra axe, replace any steel with iron, 2 cats, 2 dogs, enough food and booze to last till end of summer in case my production gets messed up.

3167

I am asking a lot of questions because I need to catch up due to a new project I have been asked to do. Probably shouldn’t say more until some form stuff is done, but it should be amusing. As much as possible I need to keep to using the default download, hence some of the above.

3168

Last time I played (last week) I tried multiple embark groups and the most effective for me (for non-evil zones) was:
2 Miners
1 Mason
1 Carpenter/Crafter
2 Farmers/Brewer
1 Hunter

  • 2 dogs and 4 hens and a rooster

Setting up a nestbox for the hens early on provides a nearly endless supply of chicken for your fortress and the hunter is a pretty good addition provided you micro him well enough and don’t let him drown or fight some gigantic panda cough cough.

Also, setting up multiple cage traps outside the fortress will wield a large quantity of trapped creatures including beastmen which you can (cruelly) use as target practice in a designed arena/pit and sell the captured beast or make a very interesting zoo.

Last note, I love the whole clay industry, my last fortress had clay and kaolinite so I crafted hundreds of porcelain pieces that have a base value of 100 which is basically the same as metal crafts.

3169

I had the same issue, If you last playthrough was before .31 it’s probably because Toady added a very very large amount of Z layers and caves to the game. It’s possible to remove those caverns (i usually keep 1) using the world generator. Also if you don’t plan on invading the bottom layer (HFS land), you can disable it there.

Also, you can disable the following settings in d_init.txt for better performances:

[TEMPERATURE:NO] -> magma is less dangerous (temp doesn’t spread)

Very important, as those function will screw your FPS over time with no ingame method to correct it:

[WALKING_SPREADS_SPATTER_DWF:NO]
[WALKING_SPREADS_SPATTER_ADV:NO]

also using DFHacks -> DFCleanMap every year or so keep the splatters and other junk in check.

3170

OK… I downloaded this and loaded it up. Now I’m scared. This is way more intimidating than Minecraft (the single player DF, or so I’m told).

Is there a simpler (older) version that might be better to start playing on? Or a tutorial for the intimidated?

Maybe I’ll just go back and restart that map on Minecraft instead.

3171

I’d get the Lazy Newb Pack here:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0

Then start in adventurer mode to learn how the interface presents itself somewhat. It’s a lot easier to die there and restart again then to lose a fort in fortress mode because you have no idea what any icon on the screen means. Do that a few times, then brave the fortress mode with the magmawiki by your side.

If you derive fun from incrementally learning how systems work, you’ll like DF. If it’s more stressful to be baffled how anything gets done, I’d go back to Minecraft or something else.

3172

Interesting. But going back to the idea “holy shit is this complicated”… is there an older version that would be good to start with? Like a version 0.1 that just had the basic cool features that hooked people?

I like learning organically… but the amount of features he has bolted on seems kinda insane. I’m figuring maybe if I hit whatever the stablest legacy versions are, before more mechanics got glopped on, it might be easier.

3173

0.28 is available on the main download page, but I just don’t think it’d help you much. I could be wrong. The basic features are mostly the same but with a lot of improvements and changes since.

YMMV, so worst case go ahead and download it and see if it’s easier or more enjoyable.

3174

Start with that. Made by our very own Calistas. Get’s you the last stable/easy (kinda) to play with version of DF, and with some nice help getting your basics going.

3175

Yeah that’s the farthest I ever got with DF was playing Calistas tutorial and download package.

3176

Yep. Calistas’ AAR tutorial is how I started, and you’ll get up and running very quickly. The newer versions don’t add that much and a lot of stuff has actually stopped working since then. I think 40d (the version he used for the tutorial) is a pretty good version all round.

BTW I would stay away from adventure mode. It’s a totally different game. Even the interface is quite different.

3177

I decided to watch a YouTube LP to see what all the fuss was about. It sucked me right in & taught me almost everything I needed to overcome the wall-like learning curve & abysmal interface.

I’ve probably build around 30 fortresses now. The interface really is the crappiest pile of… I’ve ever come across. But there’s a hugely addictive game buried under it. It also has a lot of the LP qualities of X-Com, so I’ve been considering doing one on here for a while. I’m just afraid it would be an insane amount of work to do it right.

3178

I can’t remember if I’ve posted it before, but Bad Shepard over at OO has been posting a pretty epic AAR of his fort Nude Jugglers. It’s a massive read now, but it well written and even illustrated by one of our forum members. Great read if you have some time to spare.

Here’s the First Seven:

And here’s my namesake:

3179

Wow, that thing is epic :)

3180

I’ll add my endorsement of the Nudejugglers AAR that Sepiche linked to. It’s very well-written and engaging, and this being DF, lots of crazy stuff happens.

My namesake is also in the picture above. While Sepiche is a bad-ass warrior in spiked armor, I appear to be a developmentally disabled version of Julia Roberts. On a horse.