Dwarf Fortress News

Hi everyone!

We've started up work on the main information display, where you'll be able to check on and manage all sorts of things about your fortress. The old version of the game had this information scattered all over the place. This time we're trying to collect it all together:



Please note that most of this is placeholder graphics as I'm still tweaking bits and pieces. I drew a little red outline for 'remove work from job', but it'll probably end up being something different, ha ha ha. Some of the categories are also likely to change a bit.

We're more or less going to implement/update these going left to right, though there are lots of relationships between all the types of data so it isn't as simple as that. For instance, even on smaller screens (like the 1366px wide laptop image displayed here), there's still room on the right side for, say, some labor, health and military information for each citizen in the fortress. I'll be adding that as I go. And 1920px screens won't need the ellipses on dwarf names for the most part. In any case, when each of the tabs are done, we'll be through a hefty chunk of the remaining menus and screens from the old game.

Also new here on the Creatures tab (the old units screen), we have sorting! Lots of sorting. There's also a stress display, which players of the old version will recognize as something we just didn't have before. Now you're one click away from finding all of the dwarves in your fortress that are closest to throwing tantrums or otherwise having a miserable time. And it's cool to see them all there in a column with their little outfits! You'll note that we don't have a dwarf baby image in yet, he he he.

- Tarn

Hello again!



Here's a little setup I've carved out at the underground level where the water flows in a brook. Near the bottom of the image, a stone floodgate holds the water back. The channel to the north of it has a ramp for access from above, coming down from the grassy field by the brook. We also have vertical bars forming a few large cells in the upper right. The shape shown in the individual bar tiles adjusts according to what is nearby. Patrick drew the new bar and floodgate pictures.

The lever in the top left has been connected to the floodgate. I've used a hasty and risky method! As you can see in the animation below, a dwarf can run down and pull the lever, escaping upward just in time before the water comes rushing in.



You can see in the image how water blockages works. Water can rush through vertical bars, but it is blocked by floodgates and doors. Floodgates are safer since dwarves can open doors by default and it's a bit dangerous to rely on them. Players make drowning chambers in a variety of designs for various reasons.



I've also more or less completed the trade screen, where you actually exchange items with the merchants that arrive periodically throughout the year. This is reasonably similar to the old trade screen, aside from all the mouse support, as well as the search filters. You can also collapse both headings and container lists by clicking on them, though I should probably add a specific button for that. The dwarf merchant there up at the top is placed so low since we need to support much larger creatures, though I should get a chance to even that out for different sizes. So, a few things left to do, but it's going pretty well.

- Tarn

Hello again!

Mostly I've been spending these last two weeks moving apartments after 13 years in one place. So much junk... and my vacuum caught on fire, ha ha ha. But there was still a bit of time for work, and now we can show you the very important DF industry, beekeeping!



This industry came about after the community voted on which of some hundreds of animals should be added to the game over a decade ago. Being a practically minded community, the animal that led to naturally to several new industries was the overwhelming favorite! Above you can see some artificial hives, ready to accept wild colonies.



Hives can be populated either using a wild colony, or by splitting an existing colony in an artificial hive. You'll want to balance your splitting and gathering of products, since gathering products destroys the hive in question.



Natural hives can take some time to appear and aren't on every map. Above, I've used debug commands to place all of the possible wild hives together. From the top going counterclockwise, there's a bumblebee colony, an ant hill, termite mounds, and then the one we are looking for, the honey bee hive!



Once installed, the bees will begin working (the second hive down on the right side has little bees buzzing around it.) You can also see an individual wild bee above the right column. These pop up around artificial and wild colonies, and are mostly okay, but will occasionally sting!



After a time, the bees' work is done and products are ready to collect! I've also split the first colony to another colony on the left side. In this way you can keep expanding your industry.



Here you can see the products in the hive building, wax honeycombs and some royal jelly. Royal jelly can be collected in a jug and used in cooking (though as old hands know, there are some jug storage issues there we're still working on!). Honeycombs themselves must be brought to a screw press. The pressing produces a wax cake and also some honey which can be stored in a jug. Honey can be used in food or made into mead, and wax can be used for crafts.

- Tarn

Hello!

This time we'll revisit bridges, which Patrick has done another pass on.



Here I've set up a double wooden drawbridge. You can see now where the mechanisms are, and thus can tell from the image itself which way the bridge will raise. (The fisherdwarf has been busy catching salmon, steelhead trout, and mussels, but I didn't make a food stockpile, so they are littering at the riverside.)

This is the bridge in action:



This might keep some invaders out of your fort, but you'll often want to build further defenses deep underground in case things go terribly wrong.

Here's a stone bridge over an internal moat:



The water isn't necessary if you dig a deep enough pit, but it's fun to play around with nonetheless. For this moat, I connected a surface stream to my fort using a channel and then a staircase. The water flows into the moat from a submerged hallway at the northern side. Of course, due to water pressure, this is incredibly dangerous, so a submerged hallway on the southern side connects to a staircase which drains the water further down into the natural underground caverns. Lots of giant mushrooms currently being rained upon down there. You can avoid this by using floodgates and only admitting as much water as you need.



When the bridge goes up, dwarves in the hallway are safe from arrows, though the way I've set this up, the initial lever puller would be exposed.



Here's a steel bridge, or diving board, above a volcano, along with a pit zone. The game doesn't care what's below the pit zone particularly - once a prisoner or beast is designated, a dwarf will bring them over and throw them in. You can use this to create lion pits and stuff like that, or you can use it over volcanoes and other such places, as you like, for captured thieves or invaders.

- Tarn

PS: Alexandra from Kitfox here, the one who posts on Tarn's behalf. Hi! I did an interview with content creator BlindIRL that's worth checking out. Stay tuned for future community events!

Hello again!

Over the last few weeks, part of what we've been doing involves trade in the fortress, both making it look better and adding some new practical pieces as well.



Here we have some full wagons on the bottom of the screen bringing much-needed supplies to the player, through a bamboo forest. There's also a yak with some bags packed on it that is part of the caravan as well, and a few bodyguards. On the wagons and animals, there's not a lot of graphical real estate to work with, so the images reflect the amount of stuff being carried (there are four levels), rather than specific items.



Once we get to the newly redesigned depot, though, the situation changes, and we can show specific trade goods on the tables. The tables at the top are for the visiting merchants, and they also get the northern stool. The bottom tables show the goods the fortress is willing to trade (which are selected by the player), and the fortress broker sits on the southern stool.

In the image above, the left side is before the wagons arrived, and on the right side, the wagons have unloaded (you can see the wagons resting at the very top.) I've also brought the, um, goods I had on hand in my little test fortress, ha ha. It is a bin of wooden crafts and some turtles we caught. I'm sure the thriving capital of the dwarves will love my little turtles.



Just for fun, here's an image of the depot in the old version. I've circled it in green in case you have trouble picking it out! The separate tables and the ability to tell who is trading which item are new to the graphical version.



We're still working through the trade screens. Here you can see what we have for bringing items to the depot so far. It's a little easier to select groups of items now, as well as bins containing various objects, but we're also going to allow direct selection at stockpiles and from the items themselves, so you won't have to handle everything from the depot, which could be very cumbersome to say the least.



A little of this applies to adventure mode as well! Here I've packed some items on my trusty donkey, and that is visible now as I lead the critter through the village.

- Tarn