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Mountaincore

Settle an untamed wilderness with the might of Dwarven engineering and thoughtful planning! · By Rocket Jump Technology

Alpha 2.7

A topic by SirRockstar created Oct 14, 2019 Views: 1,235 Replies: 13
Viewing posts 1 to 8
(1 edit)

Hey Rocket Jump Technology,

Winter is coming so I am looking to your work over the last 6/8 month. I am running 2.7 and came from 1.15. First thing that I encounter is that the save game is not valid anymore, sounds reasonable. So I left my save games with some test scenario's (big camp) and started over.

The first thing I noticed is the resource and settlers tab, great.  The one thing I miss is to prioritize things. At the start that can be come in handy. Like cutting rocks into stones. The food harvesting automatically gets prio so that's good.

The game also still runs smooth so that's good.  

I saw some strange things:

  1. At the start you get Iron plates, I haven't seen that before. What is the 'normal' purpose?
  2. Dwarfs carrying a rock walking in some circles in the resource zone before bringing the rock to the stonemason. I saw this multiple times on different spots. Note: I was running on full speed, it seems like a waste of time.
  3. Order a door to be build on a spot with a rock on it is valid. But when the stones for the door arrive and the rock is not picked up yet the dwarf will return to the resource zone with the stone. In my case this is a huge wast, because I had this with 2 doors on the same time and saw 4 dwarfs (out of the 7) do the same trip at the same time. Also the distance was long. I suggest a easy fast fix to not allow the build because the space is not empty.
  4. My miners do not mine any more (still year one), see screenshot. For days the miners do not mine even when Idle. I think the cause is that I planned some mining but saw the stockpile of rocks. So cleared the mining and start over to only mine out one room for the carpenter (I need barrels for the feasting hall). I will keep the save game for if you like it. I will run it to year 2 to see if order dwarfs will start mining also. Then I will try again :)
  5. The bedroom comfortable size has increased from 12 to 13 spaces, why? I like some symmetry so 15 or 16 spaces will be optimal then.
  6. What was the max room-size in the mountain again, like then to use pillars?
  7. How to cancel more then one ordered wall builds? I tried a outside building but found out that the space was to small. I had to cancel each space at a time, that seems wrong.
  8. What is the purpose of the Earthworks? Oké, for building a large room outside the mountain.. but.. can you explain? I had some out door kitchens and a feasting hall 'outside' by building a square with walls.
  9. Is it possible to add the feature for exclude or include resources in a resource zone. Even in the first spring it you can have some large spread for resource zone's. One close to the forest near the sawmill, one close to the stonemason, the start zone, one close to the mountain. Now I see that new stones are stored by the forest (the zone most away) then collected again to get turn into a block. If you can make a zone only for some type's of resource that would help allot. (Note: this is from my second start).

For the fun of it, this is a image for what I have created:


Keep up the good work!

Some additions to point 4:

  • I started a bridge to be build, will not be constructed
  • I ordered some chopping, they will not
  • In year 2, I got 5 new settlers. The new settles build the bridge. The new settlers don't chop/mine..


So it seems my game got stuck..

So I did a second run,  I have to stop at the start of the second year because of a own mistake.. Lets sum it up:

  • I saw that I have some fishing rods. How can I use them?
  • Gunborg Ironbeard one of the first 2 miners stopped mining. I can't fix it. Even after give him an other job etc. The dwarf continues to work by walking goods.
  • I don't know how to create a bronze anvil?
  • At the start of year 2 I got 10 new dwarfs so that's great!
  • After the blacksmith buildings aren't build I figured out that it needs barrel loops. But all my barrel loops are transformed into water barrels.. So I am stuck and have to try again.
  • I found out the normal purpose for the 'Iron/tin plates', it is needed in the blacksmith. This building has a bug, the placeholder is not replaced with the correct value:
  • Also the name is not correct, it seems the tooltip is shown:


To bad that I have to start over, because I had a nice stop with some nice caves. So I have some tip for players:

  • Build a blacksmith early, I guess before or at the same time as the carpenter.
  • Mine slowly, don't let your resource zones get flooded with boulders.
  • Start farming from the start of the game
  • Give the dwarfs large single rooms

I guess this will get me more playable years with the basics running.

(1 edit)

Some answers to your questions:

1. As a new ressource to create stuff, but mostly unused right now

2. Yeah, noticed stuff like this, too. Also generally play at fast speeds since there's not too much to do (on a sidenote, I do the same in Prison Architect all the time)

4. Miners not mining anymore: Every resource has a (hidden) maximum amount that's allowed in storage. From your screenshot it looks like your storage is pretty much overflowing of rocks. So you need to get some of the rocks transformed into blocks to get the miners working again. And your problem under number 3 is probably linked to this, too.

6.  Either 6x6 or 7x7, but I personally don't press my luck and put pillars whenever I hit 5 large.

7. Will certainly come later, but right now, it seems to be the only way.

8.  With the Earthworks you can transform wooden logs (32 of them) into coke fuel. (Only) useful if you got plenty of trees but no coal vein nearby.

9. Planned for later as far as I know, but that has't been programmed yet

Oh, and fishing rods can't be used yet, just as there's no hops yet to plant even though the option for the fields show up

Thanks Bofferbrauer. I found out the Iron plates will be used in the metalworks to make a cauldron if i am not mistaken. The anvil needed in the metalworks was a starting tool from one of the dwarfs.

I almost played a new full first year and this are my findings:

  1. When you make an order to build something and you cancel it because it is the wrong thing, wrong type of stone or something the cancellation is not correct. It seems as the building is still on the stack/queue so the parts will still be delivered. If you build one thing and there are resources in place and then cancel it and build the correct thing the new resources arrive before removing the old one's. I got a deadlock with that, the new parts where delivered on the barrel rings see below. Because the spot was not free the new boulder (limestone in this case) could not be dropped and returns to the zone, then de dwarfs picks up the next boulders and repeats the process.. I had to cancel the second building and wait to get all resources returned to the zone before building the furniture again.

    After seen the problem, it worked:


    In this screenshot you can see the same problem with a annoying effect, I order a table with chairs and some pillars without selecting the stone type. Because it is in my shale area I like to have the furniture from dolostone. So I cancel and order it correct on the same spot. And now look to the backlog of assigned shale blocks.. They are assigned to the dolostone items.. So the dwarfs pick them up, bring them to the spot and then bring them back, after that is done they try to fetch the correct blocks..
  2. One more assigned bug, I made a new resource zone close to the mountain I started making rooms. But then I didn't want them because I wanted the boulders close to the masonry workshop. So I removed the resource zone. As you can see in the next image the boulder assigned to the removed zone will not get a new assignment, event after reboots and days of game time.  A rock with gems mined later is handled correctly so I can go on :)

  3. Chairs seems always before the dwarfs, I thing it is niceer to do it on the chair position, so the upper one is wrong the lower one is correct:
  4. My tomato's where harvest in 2d day of winter, or not. Because it didn't work or they are lost, they are gone, I didn't get the tomato's or seeds.. To bad..
  5. And now some good news, I make the Metalworks work and have created some iron ingots :)

This is it for now. I will start to play the second year and will see what that brings, with more dwarfs and so more work done :)

Hello,

I played the game the last weeks and I am at the end of year 6 now. The game is still enjoyable.
The game can use over 3 gig of ram at some point, but it is good to see that the ram size will decrease again after some time for some.

First talk about the population grow:

  • Year 1, 7 starting settlers
  • Year 2, 6 new settlers (13 total)
  • Year 3, 9 new settlers (22 total)
  • Year 4, 9 new settlers (31 total)
  • Year 5, 12 new settlers (43 total)
  • Year 6, 17 new settlers (60 total)

Oké, lets talk about food production. Wheat, potato and carrot will grow in the winter, tomato and corn don't. So you have to harvest tomato and corn before the winter starts. In the winter (day 2) they still try to harvesting plants that are in 'rot/remove' state (first image). This can be hard because the farmers will remove pest instead of harvest good crops at the last day of autumn.. (second image)


I tried to produce alot of food and that worked with the problem of keeping it stored ofcaurse. I use about 50% of the settlers with a farm skill. So I adjust some new settlers to my needs. I like to play with lesser miners then the game gives because that task seems to have a really high prioritization.  The next images will so my food stockpiles:

Winter year 2:


Winter year 3 (the zones are full):


Winter year 4 (I created a second story in the little mountain close to the fields):


Winter year 5:

Winter year 6 (added zones between the 2 kitchens and already had zones close to the second kitchen in year 4, close to the second farming area on the right side in the forest):

Now I will list some things that seems strange

  • "Crafts items.." will not go away untill a reboot. I don't know who to reporduce but I have seen it more then once
  • Dwarfs will go to the river to drink water even in there is water in the feasting hall. I seems it will pick the closed water source in bird view and not walking distance..
  • With more Dwafs it happens more that they get on the same spot, start walking slowly and do so for a long time, until they are in the feasting hall for example, there is a lot of space to take an other path, or just wait so they can both can walk faster.. In year 2/3 it seems odd, but in year 6 it can be like 6/9 dwarfs getting to gather because if you have some walking slow the odd are getting bigger with more settlers that one will catch up.. Note that I am making hallways 2 or 3 wide to minimize this problem.
  • If you have multiple miners they will mine the same spot. In year 6 I even have seen them mine a mined spot.. So I think there is something with the alocation of the task going wrong:
  • The resources viewer is realy handy to see the count of the block's and it type. I fount out that it is not working well for the cauldron's somehow they get mixed up:
  • If you have 2 metalwork's I expect that they do work within one metalwork's but they don't. They can bring a 'bloom' from one to the other at moments you don't want to. As you can see in the next screenshot the settler is extremely tired and even picked up a bloom and is hauling it the the order metalwork's which is a long walk.. Luckily they haven't died on me:
  • The same problem will heapon with the kitchen and feasting hall if you have 2 of both. I want them to work with the adjacent one and not the one on the order side of the mountain. The hole point is that I want them to spend less time walking around. You can see them walking cauldrons around:

  • It seems that bringing plank's is a low priority task. At least if the planks are not close by. I started with a sawmill next to the river. So after I build my second kitchen/feasting hall I wanted a second row of bedrooms next to it. But the beds where not created. So I removed my sawmill, created one on the right close to the forest and started creating beds somewhere else. That did use up some planks and new one's where created in the new sawmill. Now the planked where in a close-by zone to the beds where made:

  • cauldron allocation seems of if you have multiple metal types of cauldron's. My kitchen in waiting for 4 silver cauldron but there are iron and bronze cauldron's available in the resource zone next to it:

This is what I have at the end of year 6 (I will make extra bedroom's in the winter for the newcomers because spring and autumn in farming time):


Final note, I think it I am getting to the maximum side of the settlement. At least now I have used all the content (almost, I haven't make a mushroom farm because I found few) and got to a size where some problems occur:

  • If you have more then one metalworks, kitchen and feasting wall the settlers are not working optimal
  • Water consumption seems odd. I have seen 3 of 5 water allocated and then some dwarfs drink and the water stays at 5. That seems incorrect but fixes the first point. Because they settlers will try to refill the water barrels a lot, even when on 5 then putting a bucket with water in a resource zone. Then when they want to refill again then don't use the water in the bucket but walk with it to the river to refill. It would be nice if you can build a aqueduct or something to transfer water from the river into the mountain.
  • Settlers will try to do the same task at the same time
  • When the walk close to each other they are walking slowly, that is fine but they don't try to avoid it so you can get hordes of dwarf walking long distances together.
  • Once you have boulders that aren't picked up because of different reasons they will stay in place for the rest of the game.


@Rocket Jump Technology, I am really interested in your next Devlog update. I have you like my posts on your current version and you can use some of the feedback.
Keep up the good work!

1. Dwarfs will go to the river to drink water even in there is water in the feasting hall. I seems it will pick the closed water source in bird view and not walking distance..

That's correct, I already had that problem.

Best thing to do here is just build a small feasting hall close to the river with just a couple barrels (how many depends on the expected traffic) to have them drink there instead for the meanwhile

2. cauldron allocation seems of if you have multiple metal types of cauldron's. My kitchen in waiting for 4 silver cauldron but there are iron and bronze cauldron's available in the resource zone next to it:

Yeah, I seem to have a problem with that one, too. Got a cauldron spot that got never filled because it was waiting for a bronze cauldron, which I didn't have.

3. With more Dwafs it happens more that they get on the same spot, start walking slowly and do so for a long time, until they are in the feasting hall for example, there is a lot of space to take an other path, or just wait so they can both can walk faster.. In year 2/3 it seems odd, but in year 6 it can be like 6/9 dwarfs getting to gather because if you have some walking slow the odd are getting bigger with more settlers that one will catch up.. Note that I am making hallways 2 or 3 wide to minimize this problem

Yeah, happens since the first build, which can be pretty annoying sometimes, especially when you're not prepared for it. And having wider hallways didn't do much for me, so I stopped doing that.

The inefficiency of having multiples of the same production rooms stems from not having any priority settings yet apart from getting the goods to the spot which asked it first. To alleviate this I have built 2 large centralized kitchens (one bakery and one soup kitchen), which will deliver to the feasting halls from there.

Thanks. To make to central kitchens seems smart (for now). As a programmer I also had have some thoughts about how the code some optimization and user feedback.

Developer

Apologies I've only just seen this topic, that's a lot of feedback! Will get back to you when I've digested it all

Thanks for your reaction and the November update. I just joined the discord server. Will see whats on that and how to send some feedback/thoughts in there.

Developer

Phew a lot to get through here! Thanks to Bofferbrauer to answering where possible:

First thing that I encounter is that the save game is not valid anymore, sounds reasonable.

Yep, it tries to be clever about it. If the save includes anything which isn't in the current version of the game, either because it was removed or renamed, it won't be compatible, but other than that saves should be compatible with older versions. When the game is closer to release I'll put more time into making sure saves are compatible.

The first thing I noticed is the resource and settlers tab, great.  The one thing I miss is to prioritize things.

A priority system is one of the biggest requests so I'll be working on this (for alpha 4) after the current update (for alpha 3).

At the start you get Iron plates, I haven't seen that before. What is the 'normal' purpose?

Just a new type of item/resource for more complex constructions.

Dwarfs carrying a rock walking in some circles in the resource zone before bringing the rock to the stonemason. ... Note: I was running on full speed

This is a bug with the pathfinding at faster speeds, I'll have to either come up with a solution to it or reduce the maximum speed. Obviously the former is much more preferable!

Order a door to be build on a spot with a rock on it is valid. But when the stones for the door arrive and the rock is not picked up yet the dwarf will return to the resource zone with the stone. ... I suggest a easy fast fix to not allow the build because the space is not empty.

Weird as that's how it's supposed to work already - there's a progress state to constructions and if there's anything blocking the tile, they should be removed before any new materials are brought. Let me know if this happens again and I'll see if I can recreate it.

My miners do not mine any more (still year one), see screenshot. For days the miners do not mine even when Idle.

From looking at your save I think this is because the mining pickaxes got stuck on "assigned". My current piece of work is to try and fix this.

The bedroom comfortable size has increased from 12 to 13 spaces, why? I like some symmetry so 15 or 16 spaces will be optimal then.

I did this just to mess with people like you and me that like it to be symmetrical :) I'll have to remember to make sure this is moddable in case it really bothers people.

What was the max room-size in the mountain again, like then to use pillars?

A mined-out area of 7x7 tiles with no walls or pillars will eventually collapse.

How to cancel more then one ordered wall builds? I tried a outside building but found out that the space was to small. I had to cancel each space at a time, that seems wrong.

This is an issue which needs improving. Some kind of UI tool to mass-deconstruct things. It's on the backlog to go with constructing outdoor rooms.

What is the purpose of the Earthworks?

At the moment it is just an outdoor-only type of area for the charcoal clamp to be built in. The name is a bit unusual and could do with improving.

Is it possible to add the feature for exclude or include resources in a resource zone

Yep this is also coming in the near future!

The new settlers don't chop/mine..

Were they assigned to these jobs when they arrived? If not, it's due to a lack of tools which I need to make clearer. Some of the points here and elsewhere are convincing me to put in a tutorial sooner rather than later.

I saw that I have some fishing rods. How can I use them?

Fishing is not implemented yet but some of the items are still in the game, similar to hops/barley for brewing which is also not implemented yet.

Gunborg Ironbeard one of the first 2 miners stopped mining. I can't fix it.

Hopefully this is also because of the assignments bug that I'm currently working on.

I don't know how to create a bronze anvil?

You need a forge to create an anvil, but creating a forge requires an anvil. Your settlers start with one anvil so don't lose it! :)

the blacksmith. This building has a bug, the placeholder is not replaced with the correct value

Thank you for pointing that out, wish I had seen this thread earlier and I would have fixed it sooner!

When you make an order to build something and you cancel it because it is the wrong thing, wrong type of stone or something the cancellation is not correct. It seems as the building is still on the stack/queue so the parts will still be delivered.

Thanks, that's something I need to look at.

One more assigned bug, I made a new resource zone close to the mountain I started making rooms. But then I didn't want them because I wanted the boulders close to the masonry workshop. So I removed the resource zone. As you can see in the next image the boulder assigned to the removed zone will not get a new assignment, event after reboots and days of game time. 

Sounds like the assignment bug again, here's hoping I can find out what's causing it.

Chairs seems always before the dwarfs, I thing it is niceer to do it on the chair position, so the upper one is wrong the lower one is correct

Down-facing chairs are set a bit higher up in the world and up-facing chairs lower so this is supposed to be what happens, but it doesn't always work quite right. I think there's a small change that can be done to make it work a bit better.

My tomato's where harvest in 2d day of winter, or not. Because it didn't work or they are lost, they are gone, I didn't get the tomato's or seeds.. To bad..

It is a case of "too bad" at the moment, sorry :)

In the winter (day 2) they still try to harvesting plants that are in 'rot/remove' state (first image). This can be hard because the farmers will remove pest instead of harvest good crops at the last day of autumn

I'll need to make sure that harvest jobs are higher priority by default.

I tried to produce alot of food and that worked with the problem of keeping it stored ofcaurse. I use about 50% of the settlers with a farm skill. 

It probably needs changing then as 50% of settlers farming is higher than what I want it to be.

"Crafts items.." will not go away untill a reboot. I don't know who to reporduce but I have seen it more then once

There's an issue with the tooltip display. I need to figure out how to reproduce it myself to fix it. The tooltips also don't always show up when they're supposed to too.

Dwarfs will go to the river to drink water even in there is water in the feasting hall. I seems it will pick the closed water source in bird view and not walking distance..

Yes to avoid pathfinding from every dwarf to every water source they use "as the crow flies" distance for the nearest water source. I could make it so they always prefer a barrel over the river even if its further away?

With more Dwafs it happens more that they get on the same spot, start walking slowly and do so for a long time, until they are in the feasting hall for example, there is a lot of space to take an other path, or just wait so they can both can walk faster..

Thanks for pointing this out, I'm going to do something to improve this.

If you have multiple miners they will mine the same spot. In year 6 I even have seen them mine a mined spot.. So I think there is something with the alocation of the task going wrong:

Definitely seems like something is going wrong. If you see this happening please send me a save at that point in time and I should be able to fix it.

The resources viewer is realy handy to see the count of the block's and it type. I fount out that it is not working well for the cauldron's somehow they get mixed up:

Thanks! Didn't know that the cauldron wasn't working right but I think I know why, I'm going to fix this for the next update.

If you have 2 metalwork's I expect that they do work within one metalwork's but they don't. They can bring a 'bloom' from one to the other at moments you don't want to. 

Great suggestion! I'm going to change it to work this way. It should have been obvious but I haven't played with complex settlements enough :) 

It seems that bringing plank's is a low priority task.

Hmm, almost everything is about the same priority right now. Perhaps they were further away than everything else? I'll look into it.

My kitchen in waiting for 4 silver cauldron but there are iron and bronze cauldron's available in the resource zone next to it:

Thanks, this is a bug I'll look to fix too, I thought I had already fixed this one...

Water consumption seems odd.

Similar to the item assignments, I think there's a problem with water assignments too which I'm looking to fix.

 It would be nice if you can build a aqueduct or something to transfer water from the river into the mountain.

Yep that's the plan! Underground pipes to move water around rather than having to do it by hand.

Settlers will try to do the same task at the same time

That shouldn't happen, is this just the miners mining the same tile or are there others like this?


Thanks again for taking the time to go through all this and sending me those useful saves, it really helps!

Thanks for all the answers! And I am happy to help. I have made a list with items that need some reproduction, I will give it a try in December. Can I do this with 2.7 or not?  This will be easier for the one with settlers working on the same task because I can continue then.

Settlers will try to do the same task at the same time

That shouldn't happen, is this just the miners mining the same tile or are there others like this?

My question
Your answer
My Answer
    The new settlers don't chop/mine.. Were they assigned to these jobs when they arrived? If not, it's due to a lack of tools which I need to make clearer. Some of the points here and elsewhere are convincing me to put in a tutorial sooner rather than later.This was after the first year settlers where not mining.. I think the tools where not the problem.. I think this will be fixed with "Hopefully this is also because of the assignments bug that I'm currently working on."
Dwarfs will go to the river to drink water even in there is water in the feasting hall. I seems it will pick the closed water source in bird view and not walking distance..Yes to avoid pathfinding from every dwarf to every water source they use "as the crow flies" distance for the nearest water source. I could make it so they always prefer a barrel over the river even if its further away?Yes, because normally they drink and then eat. I have water and food always together. So it make no sense to go to the river end then to the feasting hall.
So maybe you can join this with the ration/feasting hall. If there is one just move over there and eat/drink. If there is not drink out of river and eat a ration.
If you have 2 metalwork's I expect that they do work within one metalwork's but they don't. They can bring a 'bloom' from one to the other at moments you don't want to.Great suggestion! I'm going to change it to work this way. It should have been obvious but I haven't played with complex settlements enough :)I am happy to do that and give some input :)
It seems that bringing plank's is a low priority task.Hmm, almost everything is about the same priority right now. Perhaps they were further away than everything else? I'll look into it.Yes, I started a sawmill at the river and then working into the mountain.. So it was further away.

It is a idea to first look from jobs close by. Then have some counter on jobs and when they haven't been done for some days give them higher prioritization.. Or say that there range is bigger so it seems closer so it will get done. I would like it if settlers do jobs, eat/drink and sleep in a region if possible. I think it will need some different approach for assigning jobs.

I think that looking from the settler current location each time and have different list to pick work from would be great. So not assigning a rock to zone #7 at the moment it get mined. But give it a pickup task. Then the settler makes a decision where to bring it.  Let a zone next to a stonemason ask for 10x rocks as it has tables etc. If it is full just drop it to the closed location. This way a settler can drop its item anywhere if its getting hungry/tired etc and it will be picked op at a later time again.

I am looking forward to some of the improvements you have in the queue, like the work within one smelterworks, the underground pipes etc.

Glad I could be of assistance to both of you. Can't wait to see how the game will look like in a couple months with new updates.

One Question: Is there a way now or in the finished game to make the mushroom trees regrow? I hoped they would do by themselves but even if I left one per fertile ground spot standing nothing happened.

While we're at it, will any mushrooms (re)grow outside of the mushroom farm in the finished game?

Developer

At the moment, no both mushrooms and mushroom trees don't regrow naturally. This might be changed, but its based on the idea that mushrooms need something to grow from (like the logs), so perhaps they could grow around graves? The mushroom trees are meant to be very old so might not grow over the course of a normal game. Haven't really decided yet!