• This forum is strictly intended to be used by members of the VS Battles wiki. Please only register if you have an autoconfirmed account there, as otherwise your registration will be rejected. If you have already registered once, do not do so again, and contact Antvasima if you encounter any problems.

    For instructions regarding the exact procedure to sign up to this forum, please click here.
  • We need Patreon donations for this forum to have all of its running costs financially secured.

    Community members who help us out will receive badges that give them several different benefits, including the removal of all advertisements in this forum, but donations from non-members are also extremely appreciated.

    Please click here for further information, or here to directly visit our Patreon donations page.
  • Please click here for information about a large petition to help children in need.

Dwarf Fortress General Discussion Thread I

EliminatorVenom

EliminatorVenom

VS Battles
Thread Moderator
3,321
1,833
Hello fellow dorfs. I don't know how many of you there actually know Dwarf Fortress, a game of the highest craftsmanship by scriptdwarf ToadyOne, menacing with spikes of greed and toil.

For the longest time I've wished to make pages for the universe, but the structure of the game makes taking scans and presenting proof of feats (Things I consider necessary for a good profile) almost impossible. As in, much of the game is randomly-generated to the point that it is hard to make profiles for many of the things in the game, and that every single thing depends on multiple factors and attributes to a degree that very few games detail.

I shall strike the earth with this thread to gather help from all around, hoping that someone is willing to share some ideas on how to treat the verse!

Some important issues to cover:
  • How to scale? Attributes in the game, for every single individual of every single species not only is randomized within a small pool, but they can be continually increased. While we can generalize what a "average" dwarf, human, animal or anything can do, there really is no true upper limit. Of course, this isn't a big issue, this is only problematic when we try to scale different people. We can't just get scans of a dwarf being murdered by a bronze colossus and use that as a basis; while of course, most dwarves will be exploded by one, it is indeed very possible for a dwarf to do the crushing instead to the colossus.
  • How to quantify feats? In general, we have a good idea of what can and what can't be done by most creatures into most circumstances, but getting scans of said things happening is... Difficult, to say the least. We know for a fact that, say, a legendary wrestler can explode a head with a pinch or decapitate people with punches, but actually seeing that happen in-game depends a lot on luck of the dwarf actually trying that.
  • Impossibility to calc things. Sometimes it is possible, but in Dwarf Fortress, due to ASCII art and how entities are treated in-game in space occupation per tile, it is almot impossible to calc 90% of stuff.
  • Lastly, the very game engine. It is... Hard to know the exact limits and capabilities of any given thing. Continuing from the very first point, attributes in-game aren't given specific numbers. The game describes your dwarf as being "average", "strong", "very strong", and so on until "superdwarvenly strong", but that is the noted limit. In-game, you can still keep accumulating experience and attributes far, FAR beyond that. A legendary dwarf is usually skill level 10 or 15, I don't remember, but you can go far above that, and the same principle applies to attributes. I've seen dwarves in full adamantine armor, but also of extremely high toughness charge through a lava lake with no damage at all, and we have no idea how much of that toughness was due to the armor, and how much was natural of the dwarf. In short: We don't know the specifics of why anything tanks/kills/destroys/dodges/etc. anything. Again, we usually have a good idea, but not an objective measure.
I hope more people get interested in this. Now, let us embark carefully, lest the boogeymen get us...
6afe2512e6313e879fad3fd3191c181453cd6904c59d1620387ad090ef85f3d2:200
 
How did I not see this thread before.

Anywho, I don't think there's a lot of Dwarf Fortress fans here, so I'm unsure if we'll ever be able to make profiles for the verse, but when has that stopped anybody?


 
Never, my friend! In fact, it is quite easy to make profiles for DF in most regards. It's just hard to make any calcs or objective scaling. And getting scans too, since they are very much circumstantial.

I'm reading many DF stories and getting scans from where I can, and also some links from DF wiki to what is relevant. Of course, I won't link directly to DF wiki, but it is very useful as a reference.

I have already a good plethora of information to go by, the problem is getting the specific scans where they apply, but no biggie. Sometime I'll tinker around with the object testing arena and legends mode to get some very needed scans.

Right now, some of the more interesting bits:
  • In DF, there is a category of creatures that are dubbed as building destroyers, that can be from level 1 to level 2. Level 1 building destroyers are solidly Wall-level by that alone; they can break objects like wooden doors and supports, stone statues and slabs, and level 2 building destroyers are Wall+, if not Small Building level alone. In legends mode, these creatures can destroy houses and buildings, and in play, they can destroy wagons, most stone buildables and windmills.
  • There are several monsters that should be Small Building to Building level by size alone. Bronze Colossi, giant elephants, steel forgotten beasts and titans come to mind.
  • Most characters should be Wall level. People fighting with alligators, rhinos, horses and other such animals are surprisingly common, even without weaponry. I remember an adventurer of mine that was only of above-average strength and agility, while being novice at most combat skills, could easily keep up with horses in melee.
  • Speed is a wider prospect. Most people would range from Normal human to Superhuman, but experienced combatants should be at least Subsonic (It is very easy to block, dodge and react to crossbow bolts and arrows from bows at a certain point of the game, even at very close range and with several coming at once), possibly Supersonic even (It depends on how you think DF's whips work).
  • In general, it is easy to get Wall level feats to people.
  • Many fire-related creatures can evaporate large amounts of water just by it coming in contact with their blood, skin or fire. In fact, Dragonfire (that may or may not be more of a hax ability than actual power-based one) reaches a temperature higher than the sun's surface.
 
dont forget to borrow feats from boatmurdered

Ah, that's neat. I'm pretty sure the verse also has some wacky mythology and eldritch deities as well last I checked. I've been thinking about returning to the game and this thread convinced me to give it another try.

On the subject of feats, apparently proficient dorfs can keep up witth Bronze Collosi, which have been stated to be seven times taller than the average dwarf. Maybe we can get something out of that?
 
That's the weird part. Gods and most entities in Dwarf Fortress are randomly generated - of course, there are certain general themes that allows us to make profiles for them still. The one god that stays consistent, that is Armok, is apparently at least Universal level, he literally breaks and reforges the entire universe whenever he wants just to see more strife. Gods and very powerful demons can create massive towers of slade and obsidian, structures that are otherwise unbreakable, although I'd doubt a lot that it should scale to direct AP, as it is something that is very ritualistic in nature (Like, how they actually erected those is... Ambiguous, to say the least).

Oh yeah, bronze colossi have been calculated to be around 11,43 meters tall and made of pure bronze with no hollowness, and sufficiently strong heroes can and do keep up with them. I've seen a very strong adventurer that had no armor nor weapons but outrageously high stats keeping up with it and exchanging blows. In fact, both of them kept wailing at each other without actually damaging them, the fight only ended when the adventurer took out a whip and clipped the colossus' legs. Bronze Colossi should be Building level in my opinion.

There are also forgotten beasts that can be made out of pure diamond and solid steel, over 8 meters tall and in the shape of a massive, amorphous blob. Yes, sufficiently strong (Although very out of norm-strong) characters can technically one-shot one of those.

One of the endgame enemies in DF, the Archangels, have even managed to fight modded Forgotten Beasts made out of adamantine to a standstill.
 
Fun fact: I was reading Boatmurdered just as you mentioned it! So far, I didn't get any usable scans, but I'm still looking.
 
I concur. It is easier to do so, and I'd be delighted to describe how dwarves can make turing-able computers out of stone gears, magma, water, wheels and levers, and how it is easy for dwarves to construct magma wave guns.
 
I'm playing around the object testing arena, and soon I'll post the results. For now, I'm testing the limits of Bronze Colossi, and so far I'm surprised. They're even tougher than I expected.

So far, I put them to fight a giant elephant (Elephants 8 times the size of normal elephants), iron men (A living statue of pure iron), imps (Small and weak, but they can throw fireballs capable of frying flesh) and a giant (Massive humanoids, larger than elephants). So far, the colossus has took absolutely no damage from any attack that landed on him, and every single blow of his exploded a body part or heavily fractured it. It also threw the iron man around like a ragdoll.

EDIT1: I started to put him against some other megabeasts and semi-megabeasts, and the results were... Interesting. A minotaur managed to last much longer against him than anyone else thanks to their natural combat skills. It still couldn't even damage him, but it kept dodging and enduring much better than anyone else. Magma man was hilariously one-shot and the colossus didn't even feel the heat. Against a dragon, however, the colossus actually lost. It seems that the dragon is much weaker than the colossus physically, it couldn't damage him at all with the attacks. However, the dragonfire did the trick, and after being exposed to it several times, the dragon melted the bronze colossus faster than it could kill the dragon.

EDIT2: In the object testing arena, there are many limitations on the attributes, creatures that can be spawned, items to be spawned, and many other things. Despite all that, a dwarf that is average in everything physically, but a grand master in all relevant combat skills and equipped with adamantine gear (with steel mail shirts as those are more effective due to specific properties) will solidly win against a bronze colossus without taking any damage. Even when the colossus managed to hit them with a charge, they didn't take damage. The dwarf fractured or clove apart every single body part they struck with the battle axe, but any other strike, like punching, kicking and stuff didn't do anything to the colossus.

EDIT3: Went around exploring with undead, to put them against the bronze colossus. The results were interesting. Undead giant sperm whales (Much larger than even our own blue whales) can fight with a bronze colossus almost equally! The colossus still defeated it, of course, but the whale actually damaged it a lot. When I reanimated the whale as a intelligent undead (Who are more powerful, retain their mental faculties [and gained some in the case of the whale] and have special powers), the whale actually had a solid win. For a fleshy creature, that is impressive!
 
Last edited:
This page on Dwarf Fortress details how complex material science and how combat is treated.

I'm both astounded (how did the creator manage to do something that complex?) and baffled (how the hell we'll apply that?).

I mean, there are several factors and complex calculations involved in each strike. I suggest reading, even if only the simplified parts of it, to get an idea of how combat works and some ideas about scaling in DF. One notable thing I must note, however, is the velocity of bows and crossbows compared to anything else. Bows and crossbow bolts only have a velocity factor of ~20 in most cases. Blowguns go up to 100, and the creator of the page seems to believe that an incredibly powerful, min-maxed, undead adventurer can reach the hard limit of 10000 velocity by striking with a whip. Does that mean we can multiply the speed? I don't believe so, even if we had hard scans of that. But I do believe that we can consider that powerful characters are safely way above Subsonic, and makes Supersonic speed much more likely.
 
I'll post the stuff that I managed to get so far in my profile. Sadly, the object testing arena is very limited on what you can do...

Some things that I must say:
  • Bronze Colossi can easily lift and throw elephants with only one hand.
  • I've recorded people dodging a crossbow and bow shots at point-blank range, and also dodging whip striks. The dodger had Skilled level in dodging (4th or 5th skill level), the attacker was a Competent(?) shooter (It was the 2nd level, just after novice, I'm unsure if it's exactly Competent...). It should be noted that even below that level it is indeed possible to dodge shots, and those weren't aimdodging: Aimdodging is indeed covered in Dwarf Fortress with a high Observer skill, and the game distinguishes between an attack that is about to be done, to one that is already in mid-process of being made. Just so there are no doubts, I dodged both manually and automatically (Which is even harder, auto-dodging are done in an even smaller window of time since you effectively waste moments in not dodging).
  • Toying around Legends Mode, I noticed that many creatures, most notable forgotten beasts, titans, demons and gods, interact in a "time before time". It's too vague, as that could and mechanically does mean that it's simply before civlizations and calendars could be created, but it could also mean that they are actually before time... It shouldn't scale to attributes, of course, since demons, forgotten beasts and titans can be kept up by blatantly normal beings, but maybe it justifies some form of Atemporality, I don't know. I wouldn't use it, but it's certainly possible.
  • I also got statements that level 2 building destroyers in the game, like megabeasts and forgotten beasts, can destroy towns and cities. Before saying City/Town-level beasts, it should be noted that it is very ambiguous how it is done, it is done within the period of one year, and while it is implicit that it is rather quick, it could mean that the process took several weeks. It would be very outlierish for them to be able to destroy towns in one strike.
  • One funny thing in the arena is that we can set up temperatures, ranging from dragonfire temperature (Hotter than the sun's surface) to absolute zero (Actually slightly below real-life's absolute zero). Any heat-immune creatures are shown to not be minimally affected by dragonfire temperature, like fire and magma men, and in counterpart, no creature really dies in absolute zero instantaneously. I think that is more of a case of gameplay mechanics, as absolute zero is just treated as very cold (capable of killing someone in a few minutes) instead of something that actually disrupts matter, but it is certainly interesting. Most heat-related creatures also resist cold, funnily enough. Also, temperature changes in the object testing arena are nearly instantaneous; all beings can survive, even if just for a few moments, temperatures that instantaneously evaporate/freeze water. Again, it shouldn't be used as that is more about gameplay mecahnics, but extended survival with little to no side-effects should be able to be used as cold and heat resistances, at least.
  • Indeed, gods can create artifacts that allows demons to create massive slade spires (As in, larger and much taller than a mountain). It is ritualistic in nature, but certainly interesting, could be used as environmental destruction that gods can cause.
  • Not screenshotted, but apparently, as I go through the wiki, great evils such as necromancers and unique demons can cause evil weather and corrupt entire areas. More environmental than direct power, but very interesting.
Soon I'll propose here some ideas of scaling and powers, and we'll work from there.
 
I'll make my new world tommorow, and try to gather some feats and all that other good stuff while messing around in said world.

I also believe dwarves can resist type 2 & 3 corruption as they can somehow live in corrupted biomes or whatever are in-game areas called again.
 
The evil regions. They don't automatically corrupt living beings there, the problem is that they are frequently and regularly poisoned, there are special, nasty beasts that spawn there and, most alarmingly, the dead passively rise there.

It is a very serious problem for dwarves and any living being in the area, so I'm hesitant to give resistance to corruption, although that isn't ruled out, especially to tougher members.
 
Made the thread. I'm disappointed to see that the game apparently didn't record the videos of the character dodging stuff, but oh well.

In any case, I'll list here all powers that, technically, anyone can have with high enough stats. For dwarves it's similar, with the addition of Statistics Amplification, as if they fight more than one enemy at a time, they get into a combat trance, considerably bettering their combat performance.
  • Superhuman Physical Characteristics. Should be pretty clear. Street (Even the absolute weakest people in DF that aren't small animals can horrendously break bone, explode small body parts into gore and similar things) to Building (Can overpower monstrosities like bronze colossi, forgotten beasts and titans made of solid steel, archangels, giant sperm whales and elephants, and easily overcome level 2 building destroyers) level, I think. As for speed, Average Human to at least Superhuman movement speed (Even low-level adventurers can run faster than horses), with combat and reaction speeds that similarly ranges from Average Human to at least Subsonic, possibly Supersonic. (Even low-level fighters can react to, dodge and block arrows, bolts, darts and whip strikes, with speed increasing massively with higher attributes, skills and circumstances). Not sure about LS, I'd need to check the weight of many things, but it should range from average human level to class 1 or 5, something like that. While due to the game's quirks one can travel with infinite weight on them, sufficiently strong adventurers can carry massive bronze statues, giant sperm whale corpses, several boulders, and other things.
  • Regeneration. Mid-Low, with enough time most beings in DF can recover from deep cuts and wounds without scarring, and with a high-level recuperation attribute, one can do so very quickly and to even more serious wounds. Not to the point that it is useful for immediate combat, but it bears consideration.
  • Martial Arts. Any being can learn how to use their own body effectively, and use it with such complexity and interactivity that Dwarf Fortress' comunity even managed to create a full-fledged martial system to be used.
  • Weapon Mastery. Any being can have incredible mastery over improvised weaponry, swords, polearms, axes, spears, maces, whips, bows, crossbows, blowguns and many other weapons, being able to do feats such as striking people precisely in individual fingers of the hand in the middle of chaotic combat, taking out specific clothes in the middle of combat, and many other, insane feats.
  • Analytical Prediction. With sufficiently high observer skill, one can predict the next movements of the opponent with incredible precision, being able to guess their next moves, being able to see which kind of attack will come, from which limb, with how much effort behind it, specific ways for it to be delivered, and other small details.
  • Enhanced Senses. With sufficiently higher kinesthetic and spatial sense attributes, observer and intuition skills, one can easily notice people who are sneaking around them, even when they could otherwise fool even wild animals with ease.
  • Stealth Mastery. Anyone can learn to become so stealthy that they can easily sneak around wild animals and other people with enhanced senses.
  • Resistances to Poison, Heat, Disease, Pain and Status Effects. High disease resistance attribute allows people to shrug off many types of lethal poisons and diseases, high toughness enables one to endure great heat and cold for extended amounts of time, but also hampers the effect of bleeding, stunning, getting winded and similar things. Lastly, a high level of willpower attribute allows anyone to shrug off immense amounts of pain.
 
So, I've been reading the official stories by ThreeToe that take place on the "far future" of Dwarf Fortress, about features that will be implemented, but are still untrue. It is obviously somethig that bears consideration and is some sort of "super-canon"; it will, necessarily, be canon in the future and the creators are working towards making those stories possible. but as of right now, almost nothing there is quite possible.

I'll be posting the feats of those as well, but it may necessary to separate keys in actual profiles. If we go by those stories, most people are able to learn magic, and at least specific indivduals can have incredible magical powers, some of which are really impressive.
 
No worries.

Started to post some feats from the official DF stories by Threetoe. I think it is better to add keys to things only possible in stories for now, since ToadyOne and Threetoe explicitly said that they intend to make magic randomly and procedurally generated in each world, including in complexity and function.

Still, some of the feats may be applicable in a general sense. Things like the blizzard man feat that I posted should be scaled in any situation.
 
I'm mostly finished with the uploads! There's some ~20 or 30 feats more from the stories I've read so far, but really, nothing that changes much from the information we actually have. At least that would be relevant to the profiles.

This brings me to the question on how we'd make the profiles. There's this whole conundrum that DF works in a basis of "tokens", as in, there's a set of skills and capacities that are either biological or trained into people, and those, of course, could go into profiles. But any character can get tokens such as "Intelligent Undead", which gives randomized powers and characteristics, and so on and so forth.

I don't think it'd be very well-representative to make a profile and include all possible "tokens" a character can have, like, a profile for Dwarves and noting all the capabilities that can be technically gained in-game in the same key as the base profile.

I was thinking of making a separate profile for things like Intelligent Undead, Night Trolls, Vampires and the like, and linking them to the profiles as "possibly having the powers of X, Y and Z".
 
After I finish some work on Swords and Sandals, Dwarf Fortress will be next. I'll probably set up a verse page draft very soon!

But I wanted to discuss with you guys how to tier the higher-level characters. Any idea on how we'd handle the speed of whips part and the higher-end feats? I'm unsure if we would consider them 9-A or 8-C...
 
ThreeToe's stories are tales written by him, the co-creator of Dwarf Fortress, with ToadyOne being more focused on the coding part and ThreeToe being more on the idea part of things. His stories are written in "possible" Dwarf Fortress universes, discussing mechanics that will be implemented in the future.

In general, his stories stand in a curious state of things that will be, but are still not, canon. Still, they are very good to reference some basic stuff and feats. The capabilities of random soldiers and monsters of that world are fully applicable to the profiles that will be made.
 
EliminatorVenom said:
But I wanted to discuss with you guys how to tier the higher-level characters. Any idea on how we'd handle the speed of whips part and the higher-end feats? I'm unsure if we would consider them 9-A or 8-C...
Click to expand...
I would really say it's both, 9-A and 8-C. Whips are really only a good speed feet if your dodging it up close and personal, considering only the tip is what makes it fast.
 
InfiniteDay said:
I would really say it's both, 9-A and 8-C. Whips are really only a good speed feet if your dodging it up close and personal, considering only the tip is what makes it fast.
Click to expand...
And here's the thing, they do even at grappling range, and Dwarf Fortress explicitly distinguishes between dodging and aim-dodging, with aim-dodging happening when one has sufficient Observer skill and they somewhat see what move will be made. Said whips move proportionally faster to the wielder's strength, but even then, sufficiently skilled and fast beings can still dodge them, even when multiple strikes are performed from many directions at once.

InfiniteDay said:
Also, what is the single strongest being that can be fought in Dwarf Fortress?
Click to expand...
I'd guess the Archangels, which can be found in Vaults. Every single one of them is Grand Master in all combat-related skills and have extremely high levels on all attributes. They can handily defeat even blob-like Forgotten Beasts made out of steel, which is considered a fortress-ending hazard on the level of HFS. In modded games, they can keep up even with adamantine blobs.
 
EliminatorVenom said:
And here's the thing, they do even at grappling range, and Dwarf Fortress explicitly distinguishes between dodging and aim-dodging, with aim-dodging happening when one has sufficient Observer skill and they somewhat see what move will be made. Said whips move proportionally faster to the wielder's strength, but even then, sufficiently skilled and fast beings can still dodge them, even when multiple strikes are performed from many directions at once.
Click to expand...
I would say they should be Supersonic.
 
EliminatorVenom said:
I'd guess the Archangels, which can be found in Vaults. Every single one of them is Grand Master in all combat-related skills and have extremely high levels on all attributes. They can handily defeat even blob-like Forgotten Beasts made out of steel, which is considered a fortress-ending hazard on the level of HFS. In modded games, they can keep up even with adamantine blobs.
Click to expand...
Should be a solid 8-C, if not likely higher candidate.
 
I love that story. One of the oldest, but still relevant gems of today.

It's still possible to do so, but it requires someone with an extremely high throwing skill coupled with high stats. It helps a bit if you use a particularly heavy example of fluffy wambler.

In fact, I've seen people decapitate bronze colossi by throwing their own vomit at their head.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

EldemadeDityjon
Tomodachi Game; General Discussion Thread
2 3
Replies
109
Views
2K
Stanobreak
Stanobreak
Sans2345
Dead Estate General Discussiion Thread
Replies
1
Views
310
Sans2345
Sans2345
Sans2345
People Playground General Discussion Thread
Replies
9
Views
738
Vyfourthaccount
Vyfourthaccount
Ghengiroo115
Absorbing a red dwarf
Replies
4
Views
288
Thelastmlg
Thelastmlg
Sans2345
The Coffin of Andy and Leyley General Discussion Thread
Replies
6
Views
898
BlastX
BlastX
Back
Top