Apr 2

DFHack - Dwarf Fortress Modding Engine - myk002

This release is compatible with all distributions of Dwarf Fortress: Steam, Itch, and Classic.

Please report any issues (or feature requests) on the DFHack GitHub issue tracker. When reporting issues, please upload a zip file of your savegame and a zip file of your mods directory to the cloud and add links to the GitHub issue. Make sure your files are downloadable by "everyone with the link". We need your savegame to reproduce the problem and test the fix, and we need your active mods so we can load your savegame. Issues with savegames and mods attached get fixed first!

Highlights

New toolbar icons for popular tools

By popular demand, gui/sitemap now has an icon on the main toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Click this button to quickly find and zoom to (or follow) units, locations (like your guildhalls and hospital), or artifacts. You can search by either native names or translated names for units and artifacts.

If you prefer hotkeys, the Ctrl-g hotkey for gui/sitemap still works as it always has.

Similarly gui/mass-remove now has a toolbar button that shows when you click the vanilla "eraser" toolbar icon. The new button shows up next to the other "remove" icons. gui/mass-remove allows you to area select to remove any combination of constructions, buildings, stockpiles, and zones. For buildings and constructions, you also have the option to only remove those that are fully built, those that are planned but not yet built, or both.

Announcements

PSAs

As always, remember that, just like the vanilla DF game, DFHack tools can also have bugs. It is a good idea to save often and keep backups of the forts that you care about.

Some DFHack tools that worked in previous (pre-Steam) versions of DF have not been updated yet and are marked with the "unavailable" tag in their docs. If you try to run them, they will show a warning and exit immediately. You can run the command again to override the warning (though of course the tools may not work). We make no guarantees of reliability for the tools that are marked as "unavailable".

The in-game interface for running DFHack commands (gui/launcher) will not show "unavailable" tools by default. You can still run them if you know their names, or you can turn on dev mode by hitting Ctrl-D while in gui/launcher and they will be added to the autocomplete list. Some tools listed as "unavailable" in the docs do not compile yet and are not accessible at all, even when in dev mode.

If you see a tool complaining about the lack of a cursor, know that it's referring to the keyboard cursor (which used to be the only real option in Dwarf Fortress). You can enable the keyboard cursor by entering mining mode or selecting the dump/forbid tool and hitting Alt-K (the DFHack keybinding for toggle-kbd-cursor). We're working on making DFHack tools more mouse-aware and accessible so this step isn't necessary in the future.

Changelog

New Features

gui/journal: Ctrl-j hotkey to launch gui/journal now works in adventure mode!
gui/mass-remove: add a button to the bottom toolbar when eraser mode is active for launching gui/mass-remove
gui/sitemap: add a button to the toolbar at the bottom left corner of the screen for launching gui/sitemap
idle-crafting: default to only considering happy and ecstatic units for the highest need threshold

Fixes

Fix processing error in the overlay that displays unit preferences in the baron selection list
gui/journal: prevent pause/unpause events from leaking through the UI when keys are mashed
idle-crafting: check that units still have crafting needs before creating a job for them

API

Filesystem module: rewritten to use C++ standard library components, for better portability

Apr 2

Beta Branch Update 4 - Mechanics improvements and Fixes

Norland - D.

Hello everyone.

This is the final update of the beta version before it transitions to the main branch. This version includes a lot of fixes, so we need some time to process your feedback. Therefore, the beta will be released to the main branch on April 8th, next Tuesday (plus, we didn’t want to roll out anything major right before the weekend).

Until Tuesday, we’ll do our best to polish and fix as many small issues as possible to improve the core game experience, and starting next week, we’ll shift our focus to developing new major features.

Almost half of these changes are the result of your feedback. So, let us know how you liked this update—we read everything.

So, what’s interesting in this update:

Chancellery

We’ve revamped the Chancellery mechanics:
- Now it requires 1 hour of the lord’s time to operate.
- It only needs 1 paper to function.
- There’s now a setting that automatically connects new buildings to the chancellery.
- Tools are no longer required for construction Chancellery.
- However, for a bit of balance, we’ve limited the number of buildings that can be connected to 15.

Thus, those who liked the previous experimental inspection mechanics will find an almost complete analogue in the new chancellery system.

Combat with archers

We’ve improved combat, specifically the algorithm that determines how units, especially archers, engage in battle. Now, when entering combat, archers will only switch to melee if they are directly attacked by a specific enemy unit. Additionally, if an enemy unit targets your archer, it can be intercepted and engaged in combat by your melee unit standing in its path. Overall, there are many behavioral changes, and we think it’s gotten better.

Knowledge on Global Map

We’ve reworked and fixed the knowledge generation algorithm for cities on the global map. Now, there shouldn’t be any knowledge that you’ve already learned, and the knowledge will primarily be selected from the unique knowledge of cultures.

Surprise Attacks

We’ve changed the surprise attack algorithm. Now, only deadly enemies (with a relationship below -50) will launch such attacks, and when such enemies appear, a hint will pop up explaining what you can do about it (if you’re not ready for such a battle, you can always sign a peace agreement and start scheming). The Matriarch is now less upset if you suddenly attack your deadly enemy. (only a -5 relationship penalty).

Other stuff

On the annoying side—ragged bandits will no longer show up if you have reinforcement armies in your city, and each new squad’s attack won’t pause the game anymore.
Also—young brides from foreign cities are likely to be puppets of their parents, so be cautious (though you can do the same).
We’ve also added marauder squads that occasionally travel across the entire map. They don’t attack anyone on their own but can be useful if you want to improve relations with the church or just warm up (when forest bandits are no longer interesting). At the same time, we’ve slightly buffed them.
Now you can bribe the Bishop.

Full list of changes:

Gameplay

- Chancellery reform
- The book "Economical Construction" is available from the start.
- AI bride becomes a puppet of one of her parents after marriage if she is under 24 years old.
- The resource requirements for building the Chancellery have been changed to 30 wood and 5 iron.
- Day patrols is now in priority for warriors.
- The relationship threshold for surprise attacks on the player by AI is now always -50, regardless of whether the AI king is ambitious.
- The cost of one wall section has been reduced from 14 to 7 wood.
- Beggars will no longer attack if reinforcements from AI are heading to the player's city or already in the city.
- Starting from day 5, a marauder squad will periodically travel from one mountain point to another on the global map. They can be attacked, and if victorious, the player will receive a good thought from the Matriarch.
- A new action in the Bishop's menu - "Bishop's Reward."
- New advice "Mortal Enemy."
- When attacking a squad, the nearest archers will engage only if the number of enemies exceeds the number of defenders in close combat, and a specific enemy will target the archer.
- The attack order will be redirected to the nearest enemy soldier from the same squad when the fight begins. Thus, a squad attacking archers in the back rows will engage soldiers from the front rows instead.
- AI squads will no longer change their attack target between archers who are firing at them if all those archers are from the same squad.

Fixes

- The "requires inspector" notification will no longer account for scaffolding.
- Children are not considered in the Lords' Rivalry advice (flag on top left).
- The equipment ratio of marauders bands has been changed from 25% axe-wielders and 75% archers to 75% axe-wielders and 25% archers.
- If the player launches a surprise attack on their mortal enemy, relations with the Matriarch will only decrease by -5 instead of -25.
- Changed the algorithm for distributing knowledge to cities on the global map.
- Geographical labels on the global map will appear when zooming out further.
- Identical messages can no longer spam the event display at the top of the screen. Fixed a bug where all displayed messages remained in the game's memory.
- It is no longer possible to demand a gift from a puppet if the puppet does not have rings.
- The hall can now be relocated again.
- Fixed a bug where characters could come to the local map with weapons and equipment they shouldn't have during long gameplay.
- Fixed a bug where the game couldn't be saved during a wolfpack attack.
- Fixed a rare crash when loading a game with active auto-battle.
- All actors arriving at the local map now automatically remove bleeding.
- Fixed a bug where mood dynamics were incorrectly displayed in the statistics menu (up/down arrows).
- A bandit squad in the tutorial will no longer attack the player's squad by itself, blocking the tutorial progression.
- Fixed the number of rings in the hint from the thought of gifting rings to the king.
- After the game pauses due to the start of an enemy squad's attack, subsequent attacks from other squads will not pause the game again.
- Fixed a bug where rings were not returned when changing the sermon.
- If a lord dies of old age or cannot walk soon, they will not be available as order executors.
- Fixed a bug where closing the menu with ESC while the dropdown list was open caused the dropdown to stay visible on the screen.
- Lords now only play dice in the hall, and only if they are not far from it.
- If the AI has been suddenly attacked by the player and relations with the player are <= -50, the AI will no longer leave 30% of its troops at home when attacking the player's city.
- Fixed a bug where after loading an old save with a level 5 mill, it would display incorrectly.
- The decision for a night raid on another lord will be canceled at 8:00 if no attempt was made.
- Added a limit of 1 new wish per lord per day. Wishes will now be issued at 21:00, not at 8:00.
- The gambling guest will only play with characters from the player's faction.
- The mill's appearance has been redesigned; at level 3, it becomes a large mill with blades.

Refactors

- Optimized day scrolling speed in the statistics menu.
- Optimizing memory consumption by hints

Apr 2

Improving Operation "Leadstorm" based on your feedback

Enlisted - [CM] Ungorisz

We see that the Battle Pass format of the Operation "Leadstorm" event that started yesterday was not received well by many of you.

Regrettably, we can no longer drastically change the current event - but we are going to make a number of important adjustments and additions to it.

In the future, we plan to completely revise our approach to rewards to ensure that as many players as possible can enjoy the celebrations.

More rewards for everyone!

From now on, you will be able to get Silver Chests every day for participating in the "Leadstorm" event, regardless of whether you purchased the event's elite Battle Pass or not. One chest for the first battle, two for the second and three for the third.

Silver Chests occasionally appear in the shop for Silver - they are filled with Silver, orders, boosters and rewards from past events.

Their content has been updated with unique rewards from the Operation "Earth Shield" event that took place last year.

In the future, after approximately six months, rewards from Operation "Leadstorm" will also be added to future Silver Chests.

At the moment, chests open automatically at the end of the battle. We are working on a more elegant way to visualize them - but this will be implemented in a future update.

Accelerating event progression

In your feedback one of the key points was the slow progress of the Battle Pass for such a short event.

From now on, each kill in the event will grant you twice as many Battle Pass points, and for three daily tasks you will receive 9000 points instead of the current 6000 points.

As compensation for the first day, after completing one battle in the event, you will immediately receive 6000 points toward your Battle Pass progress.

Thank you for your feedback! You help us make the game better!