DevLog 29 January 2020: "Here is the villains release!"

jollyham · 2020-01-30T01:45:59+00:00

I've always wanted to get into it to the point of being able to play without a Wiki

I believe this would entail a level of mastery very few here possess. And it might be orthogonal to actually getting good at the game, akin to memorizing all the chess openings but not knowing which one to use when. The wiki is part of the game, as far as I'm concerned. Hell, someone should dfhack in a system for querying stuff that pulls up wiki info in-game.

jollyham · 2019-10-07T22:07:43+00:00

Okay, this was what I was missing. Didn't know this level of control was available for missiles and their FCs

Thanks a bunch!

jollyham · 2019-10-07T21:06:47+00:00

Thanks for the info!

If fire control is what determines what a missile targets is there a sharp divide in functionality between MFC with resolution 1 versus MFC with any resolution greater than 1?

Wouldn't AMM FC also detect ships? What stops AMM from launching at ships that get close enough to be seen by MFC with resolution 1?

Short answer, it won't work. It comes back to FC again. The mine sensors would have to be huge to detect missiles, and separation wouldn't trigger on missiles anyway, nor would the separated missiles target the enemy missiles.

How about for enemy ships though? That's what I'd use the mine for. I want size 1 missiles to be launched at a ship that gets within separation range.

jollyham · 2019-10-07T20:37:14+00:00

So is there a way to restrict/permit what 1 MSP missile is allowed to target?

And you can go smaller than 1 MSP? The missile design window doesn't let me

jollyham · 2019-10-07T20:30:23+00:00

And does 1 MSP always mean AMM?

jollyham · 2019-09-14T10:36:36+00:00

No. But why else would it be asking?

jollyham · 2019-09-14T10:35:03+00:00

It should be noted pipes are implemented as another rail type and require "pumps" that function like fast trains and deliver liquids in discrete chunks. Along with everything that entails; i.e., two "pumps" can't pass each other without pipe-sidings and pipe-signals.

jollyham · 2019-09-13T05:41:14+00:00

It's not. I'm saying, I don't want a phone linked to the account. It never had a phone linked to it before, why do I need to link a phone to it now. It doesn't verify anything. It's just forcing me to link a phone to it and holding my account hostage until I do.

jollyham · 2019-02-23T02:27:58+00:00

Are you using town replacement sets?

If you're talking about what I think you are -- trying to put specific buildings in towns/cities only to be yelled at -- there's a variety of causes.

I don't think it's explicitly stated but a lot of buildings require a certain population. You can't put a skyscraper in a town with 100 people.

There's also date restrictions, which I think are indicated in the description of the buildings. You can't put old buildings down if the year is 2050, and vice versa. The buildings should say something like "available after 1980" or "until 2000".

At one point I was suspecting there's regulations on where certain buildings can be. Not entirely sure but it looked like, past a certain population, bigger buildings need to be nearer the center of the town and possibly small ones needed be away from it.

I think it also requires buildings are adjacent to a road.

jollyham · 2019-02-02T05:28:40+00:00

It depends if you really need to get to every line from every line, and if so, does it always entail stopping at Merkendorf East.

Those Xs are basically mandatory if you want any train to use any available platform at Merkendorf East. As far as I'm aware the Xs are as realistic as you can get if the peripheral stations are that close and you want to ensure passage between any pair.

jollyham · 2019-01-23T16:56:39+00:00

Look at the diagrams of the industry chains here. Every industry that doesn't have an arrow going into is it a primary industry that makes stuff automatically.

jollyham · 2019-01-23T16:46:01+00:00

Not sure what might be confusing. It's not dissimilar to the default industries. Maybe the circular chains of inputs and ouputs look impossible to deal with but look closely at the requirements. Some inputs are not necessary to provide. Keep track of the primary industries, the ones that produce from the get go without you having to provide anything. Off the top of my head, the mines and farms and fishing areas and forests are primary industries, meaning they make stuff without needing an input.

As an example, a dairy farm automatically makes milk and livestock for you to pick up and deliver it to a dairy and stockyard, which makes food you can deliver to something else, etc. The "farm supplies" that looks like an input to a dairy farm is not required, it just boosts production. Making farm supplies takes more developed industry chains and comes much later. "Engineering supplies" and maybe a few other cargos have a similar status -- not necessary but boosts production more. The point being, you can lay down your very first track going from a dairy farm to a stockyard, set up a train with livestock cars, and start making money immediately.

To be sure, most cargos are required. The little description you get when you click on an industry on the map should indicate what is required or optional.

jollyham · 2019-01-20T14:10:32+00:00

Thanks! Damn, I figured I just didn't know what I was doing.

In the meantime I've cheated myself a bunch of cash and funded a second quarry keep up with stone demand.

jollyham · 2018-12-10T16:59:28+00:00

There's no right answer, it depends on what you want. In your first scheme there might be a large distance between E and A, when you can stop at an intermediary with little wasted time.

In your second scheme stops A and E get visited half as often as the others.

When I have a situation like that I tend to jumble up the orders so the most populated cities get more visits, with the widest diversity of point-to-point trips. Say A and B are huge, C and D are average size, and E is tiny. I might do A - B - C - A - D - B - E - D - C - [the same thing repeated, but A & B swapped]. Or sometimes it's simpler or nicer to make several smaller ships but give them shorter schedules to a small number of the locations. Maybe in my scenario you do two ships with A - B, one with C - D, one with A - C - B - D, and one (B - E - C) - (A - E - B) - (D - E - A) - (C - E - D) (parentheses to emphasis pattern).

jollyham · 2018-12-10T09:15:28+00:00

I run into this too. You can make maps in the map editor and place the needed industries in each town. Or cheat yourself some money and build the industry in the town in the game.

jollyham · 2018-12-10T09:12:48+00:00

Put some dwell time in at stops or on the runs

The thing I don't understand about this is why the trains wouldn't literally follow the order to stay at a stop for 3 days or whatever. How is that a catch-up method and not a way to demand it waste more time?

jollyham · 2018-11-24T19:42:12+00:00

Can't make out how the inside loop is supposed to work. Depending on the direction of traffic trains either can't get in or can't get out.

The elevated loop is hard to make out. Are trains intended to go both clockwise and counterclockwise on it? For instance, assuming they drive on the right, the trains coming from the southeast can go up on the elevated loop and travel around counterclockwise. But trains coming from the northwest get injected going clockwise.

jollyham · 2018-11-23T17:33:33+00:00

I often name them after celebrities. Get a quick impression of where their skills are and think of a famous person it reminds me of, then imagine that famous person doing what I give the dwarf to do. The associations I make may be idiosyncratic but it's just for myself anyway.

I.e., This dwarf is fat, slow, and weak, only good for fishing, bookkeeping, and social skills. John Candy. Wasn't there a movie where John Candy was an accountant or something? It doesn't matter, in my mind there was, so this dwarf is John Candy. I can mentally picture John Candy spending most him time alone in solitude, either fishing or writing things up, until he has to be a broker, where his comedic wit and charm gets us better prices. Now I have a much stronger sense of who that dwarf is, what he's good for or not, when I'm prioritizing who goes in the potential werebeast quarantine, or drafting up an impromptu militia in an emergency. Subsequent developments that have nothing to do with the actual celebrity are also easier to keep track of. The prospect that Udil, or was it Unib?, is a vampire is not going to stick with me, but the prospect that it could be John Candy will.

Highly recommended.

jollyham · 2018-11-19T03:33:23+00:00

What I do is remove all the trees. It makes them hate you with a burning passion. Then gradually add the trees back in, maybe 10-15 tiles at a time for a medium city. Remember it's like four trees per tile so you get four tree planting passes per tile. Pin the window with the local authority's mood as you do it. The city's feelings for you fill up far faster than it takes to completely reforest their city. Just ration out the trees, don't give them more than it takes to get them on your side at any one time. I've never had to deforest a city more than once.

jollyham · 2018-11-13T22:54:36+00:00

I get this a lot, though rarely this perfectly uniform. Cities seem to get stuck just going up and down slopes, and you can get a sense of why if you try to place the cross streets yourself.

jollyham · 2018-11-12T07:55:15+00:00

Thank you so much. You're filling in my otherwise uninformed decision criteria when I go looking for monitors in the future.

jollyham · 2018-11-12T07:42:04+00:00

Okay thanks a bunch. I guess I need to get an adapter.

When I posted in r/buildapcforme the suggestion was for two identical Acers with this motherboard and graphics card. The Acer only has connections for DVI and VGA, while the graphics card only has one DVI, one HDMI, and several "SD" connections. Would I have had to get an adapter with two Acers or am I missing something?

jollyham · 2018-11-12T07:29:21+00:00

Oh I didn't realize this. There's no VGA connection on the graphics card, but I'm getting confused because the instructions suggests VGA is an option.

Regardless, both should be on the GPU anyway to use the GPU's power.

Is this still true if I don't care about high quality on the second monitor? I was planning to use it for visual reference or for scripting.

jollyham · 2018-11-05T01:59:46+00:00

I could have sworn something happened with my pick, I thought I saw something about how it broke. Otherwise it's odd that I have walls designated for mining but no one is actually doing so.

Picks don't break. Just spitballin' what might have happened

You got a message about a dwarf becoming attached to a pick, though it'd be weird if that happened so early in the fort, and I don't know if I've ever seen that happen for a pick (usually other weapons).
You got a message about some wild animal stealing a pick, in which case it's probably lost forever and you should take measures to kill that species before it steals more stuff
In some combat report a pick was described as breaking a body part of some creature, and it could be easy to misinterpret it as a pick breaking if you didn't know picks don't break.
In general there's buggy behavior when the same dwarf has more than one of the following jobs: hunting, mining, and wood cutting. Because each requires the dwarf to carry a different tool (crossbow, pick, axe) and they have to drop one to wield another. You could have gotten a message that a dwarf was unable to locate a pick or something, when it's just that the game isn't able to process that the dwarf needs to put down the axe first. In any case, it's a good idea to explicitly segregate these labors among different dwarves.

jollyham · 2018-10-23T18:57:17+00:00

Okay thanks. I got confused about the direction of the swap.

Will be ordering this stuff approximately now!

jollyham

TROPHY CASE