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Dwarf Fortress News

Army fix ⚔ Dwarf Fortress Update 52.04

Hey Urists,

It's Alexandra here with patch 52.04 to fix issues with armies/squads travelling. We're sorry this was such a pain to deal with in-game, it was a nasty bug. There's also some other fixes in there. The team's focus for September is continuing with the siege update. We will have more news and details to share soon.

[h3]New Single Release[/h3]

Dabu and Simon Swerwer just released the new single, a remastered and reimagined rendition of "Danger Room" using the original recordings. The cover art is also by Dwarf Fortress pixel artist Carolyn. This track will also be making its way into the game soon. Give it a listen:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Release notes for 52.04:[/h3]

General updates
  • Fixed issue with squads/armies breaking into groups and not rejoining.
  • Mod upload doesn't clobber info.txt.
  • Fixes a crash when choosing clothing sizes in workshop.
  • Fixed out-of-bounds error in army processing.
  • Fixed out-of-bounds error in transformed units.
  • Fixed armies deleting items improperly.
  • Fixes a potential crash in wrestling.
  • Fixed issue with plant processing job specifiers being ignored.
  • Mill job plant can be specified.
  • Makes the "placing lakes and minerals" stage of worldgen significantly faster.
  • Moods using bars try to use metal now.
  • Animal people no longer inherit meandering from their base creature.


See you in the next one,

Alexandra

Dyes, Lua fixes and more! Dwarf Fortress Update 52.03

Hey Urists,

It’s Alexandra here with update 52.03 which brings new colour and options for dying and some general fixes and improvements. From Tarn:

Here is a release to continue to stabilize the lua update. There are several regular fixes as well, listed below in the patch notes.

Also, we have some dye improvements for you! You can now mix dyes to produce a variety of colors, and you can tint with dyes to mix the natural color of the material and the color of the dye during the dyeing process. If you make a new world, you'll also have access to some additional outdoor plant dyes. Leather can now be dyed, and there are some new stockpile controls to help you manage all of the new stuff.

If you want to see your dwarves in their new outfits after you've made some shiny clothes, there's the existing preference setting to show their dyed outfits rather than coloring them by profession.

Release notes for 52.03:

Dye improvements
  • Added dye mixing.
  • Added dyeing of leather.
  • Added partial dyeing of items (tinting).
  • Added 60+ new outdoor plant dyes (in new worlds).
  • Leather, cloth, armor, and finished goods stockpiles can now filter by color and dye status.
  • Plant processing and extraction jobs can have a specific plant set.
  • Added natural colors to undyed cloth, thread, and leather descriptions.
  • Added dye color to dye descriptions.


Modding and lua updates
  • Mods in mod_upload are now sorted (first by ID, then name, then numeric version, then description).
  • The "delete" buttons for saves have been replaced with a "Files" button, which, when clicked, gives the previous menu (with a warning that "Delete" is permanent and instant) with an extra button that opens the saves folder (Windows).
  • You may click on mods in the various mod lists to open their folder (Windows).
  • Added logging for missing PERMITTED_REACTION and PERMITTED_BUILDING objects.
  • Reactions associated to entities that use plant reagents will check that the entity has those plants when making powder list (reaction products are not checked.)
  • Changed how duplicate object message boxes work.
  • Possible improvement to Linux message boxes.
  • Added DYER to list of hard-coded buildings permitted for reactions.
  • Nightmares no longer have bogeyman polymorph.
  • Fixed angel sphere descriptions.
  • Fixed attack tweaks and webs on forgotten beasts.
  • Fixed necromancer animation missing IT_MANUAL_INPUT.


General updates
  • Fixed issue with not all save files being copied to the folder.
  • Archers will no longer infinitely flick each frame between archery training and going to some other training if they have no ammo.
  • Fixed problem causing some armies to become stuck.
  • Announcement settings save properly again.
  • Prevented some potential crashes on startup.
  • Removes dead/ghostly/caged/sleeping/paralyzed units from the noble queue.
  • Makes nobles drop their haul items when they go to a meeting.
  • Noble meetings auto-rebuff if meeting data is lost.
  • Improved/optimized memory management for armies/army controllers.
  • Optimized a particularly slow army loop.
  • Fixed crash associated to transformed creatures with fewer body parts than their untransformed body.
  • Fixed the "view sheet" hotkey for items/units.
  • Fixed placement of titan shrines.
  • Made work orders reset their suggested conditions properly when details are changed.
  • Added some crash guards and logs for corrupted units/nemesis records.
  • Made default embark cloth items dyeable.
  • Updated historical nicknames in more places so that legends mode has them.
  • Adds a fix for scrolling on laptop trackpads etc.
  • Fixed typo in nemesis corruption message.


It’s also the start of the Kitfox Festival which means that Dwarf Fortress and the entire Kitfox catalogue is on sale! And as owners of Dwarf Fortress, you can take advantage of our bundles and pick up say, award-winning roguelike Caves of Qud (since not all of us are patient enough to wait until it comes out on Nintendo Switch, announced this morning)

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38314/Best_Patch_Notes_Bundle/

Our friends at A Sharp also just announced their brand new procedural adventure game, Thousand Hells: The Underworld Heists. If you're into tense tactical battles and long sunless journeys then this might be for you. You can watch the announcement trailer here and wishlist the game on Steam now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3794210/Thousand_Hells/

That’s all for now, happy festivaling!

-Alexandra

Hotfix: Patch 52.02

Release Notes for 52.02:

  • Fixed hang on Linux when updating an installed mod the first time.
  • Removed the temporary geology variables placement layer/freq/parent from lua to prevent crashes.
  • Fixed crash when opening the mod menu after deleting the %appdata% folder.
  • Fixed a logic issue where any duplicated raws detected will cause further types of duplicated raws to no longer print.
  • Init files are loaded from the game folder first so that updates always apply properly.
  • The game now checks for prefs/arena.txt and prefs/colors.txt.
  • Added more cases of auto-toggling portable mode if something fails to save.

Dwarf Fortress just made it easier for modders to add their own procedural creatures, items, curses, and more: 'All of these things have been hard-coded in Dwarf Fortress, inaccessible to modders. Now the algorithms and data are available'




For years, Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams has been planning a more mythical turn for the notoriously dense fantasy sim—which, by his own admission, has been a little lacking on the fantastical front. Today, thanks in large part to the efforts of programmer Putnam, who joined Bay 12 Games in 2022, Dwarf Fortress makes its first major step towards that prophesied myth and magic update with a scripting overhaul that will let modders work a bit more of their own magic...
Read more.

Dwarf Fortress gets much more powerful modding in the latest update

I can't wait to see what the community cooks up for Dwarf Fortress, with the latest update bringing much more advanced modding capabilities to the game.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/07/dwarf-fortress-gets-much-more-powerful-modding-in-the-latest-update/