Dwarf Fortress Thread.

[Ellyssa]

Long-winded lead-up to a question..

I'm not quite to the succession-game experience level yet. I've only played like 2 or 3 small forts (usually moving on when they reach about 100

, and I was very amused when the latest one caught an invading dragon in a trap

).

The query earlier about low FPS when you only had 7 dwarves may have something to do with lots of creatures spawned on the map - not necessarily on surface level and not necessarily visible either. One of the maps I started turned out to be a really cool* locale, right by a horizontal gash in the earth that went from map-edge to map-edge, and led down

all the way into hell, virtually all the way across the chasm

. Really far. Halfway down I could see

caverns and

a narrow ledge thing bridging the abyss and connecting the north and south sides of the map. So I was pumped, it looked gorgeous for a randomly-generated vanilla map, couldn't wait to play it and dig down.

So I autosaved and started the map, and the moment I simulated one step,

a ton of demons burst out of hell (with accompanying warning message of having 'hit' the hell layer) and stood at the bottom of the chasm staring up at me (I have no idea if they can fly or anything).

And that immediately killed my FPS (I generally get 70-100 on regular maps, and it dips to just below 50ish depending on how busy the map is.) It took a minute or longer to simulate one single "turn" (not even one dwarf step), and seemed to be an ongoing thing.

My question is, is there a way to fix that to make that map playable? From what little research I did, it was possibly because

the demons have a messy pathing algorithm thing that makes them constantly try to find a way into your fort and destroy your stuff, from below, though since it was barely 1 turn in I wasn't 100% sure on that. I don't know how it'd possibly be made playable again.. some editor to nuke the demons?

[Ellyssa]

Not at work.. I'll try to get one later at home. Not really sure what kind of screenie I should take to show it (since it was more of a multi level thing), as I'm still in the later stages of DF-newbie status, but I can probably throw the savegame file up somewhere if I can find it still, or see about learning to linking pictures/files on these forums.

And now I'm worried my memory exaggerated the layout, heh. But definitely not the bloody

demons/

FPS thing! Grr.

[Ellyssa]

Sorry, I don't really know how to turn a DF map into a good screenshot (something about some reveal.exe program and some mapping converter thing that I doubt I'll be able to master in short order). And I don't know which layer to print screen to give it justice.

I did find the entire savegame though, .rared it up, and it's now sitting on scummy Megaupload for lack of a better upload place if interested. 27.51mb, eesh. And it's a pre-game autosave

, the demons burst out of hell the first time you unpause it

. Mind the bad item/dwarf skill embark selection.

Don't know why the terrain got cut like that though! Oh, my DF is v0.31.18 and full vanilla (I've only used Dwarf Therapist for assigning jobs). And I don't think the map can be saved.

[Ellyssa]

Sorry, I have no idea offhandedly what dfreveal is. One of the apps I haven't come across yet. I don't have a map reveal tool though, I think.

I shall take a few screenshots and get back to you.

---
Ok. Took a few zoomed out ones. Dwarf starting level (F1), Height -16, Height -42, Height -54, Height -144, and Height -165. There are a few more caverns on the way down that I didn't find screencap-worthy.

The bloody mountains to the south went up forever. Holy tuna! I didn't realise mountains went that high. Even at Height 400 and more than half of the southern half (so uh, a quarter of the map) was still "higher up" terrain. Some of it plateaued out in the mid 200s I think but even then. I kinda want to punt a dwarf from the top of that thing. I went up to Height 500 and stopped.. too laggy and don't know what the upper limit on the mountains are.

[Ellyssa]

Urgh. Maybe sometime. Kind of wary of new forums; it took me forever to convince myself to sign up for this one.

[Ellyssa]

Hrm well okay. Next time I'm bored at work then, since I've at least now uploaded the file + screenies so I can technically access it there.

Thanks for the help! (I'll just re-post it there as my original question when the time comes.)