mifki · Blog

[mifki]

This blog has moved!

It’s been nice 10 years, but I need more advanced and comfortable post editing functionality, thus moving to my own place. The address remains the same, and all existing links to posts will continue to work. See ya!

blog.mifki.com @mifki

[mifki]

I'm happy to announce that Dwarf Fortress Remote 1.15 is available on the App Store. This release introduces multilevel rendering and contains a lot of other user interface and usability improvements. Below is a lengthy detailed list of changes.

Multilevel Rendering This feature is well known to users of TWBT plugin on desktop, and now it's available on mobile. It allows to see not just the current z-level, but also everything below. Only the top X levels are refreshed though, where X is configurable and is set to 3 levels by default. You can tweak fog and shadow parameters if required (darker tilesets may require more dense fog and shadows to distinguish between z-levels easily).

Fast building placement mode When you need to place a lot of buildings like beds, doors or coffins, where you do not care which items will be used, you can do it much faster now. Just long press the green OK button when placing a building, and the closest item(s) will be automatically selected, without showing the item selection screen.

Fast linking mode The same when linking buildings to a lever or trap - long press OK button, and the first two mechanisms will be automatically selected to be used for the link.

New clean style for the top status bar and for announcements at the bottom of the screen. Two announcements are now shown at a time, allowing to see more of them in time in a busy fortress.

Selection size is now shown when designating, creating zones and stockpiles

Long press z-level up/down buttons to show list of Points - this allows to quickly zoom to various parts of the fortress

When adding jobs in a workshop, swipe to add a job and set it repeat

When viewing a cage, swipe a contained animals to release them without loading the full Assign Animals screen

On the announcements and reports screens, "today", "yesterday" and "X days ago" are now shown alongside the dates

Clutter status and number of contained items are now shown when viewing a workshop

Swipe a server in the server list to clear caches and connect - useful if you experience map corruption issues

Changelog is shown in the bottom of the server list screen to keep you informed about fixes and additions being made to the server plugin and in-app help

Zone information view can now be opened by pressing OK button when a zone is selected. Also, zone status is shown in the information bar.

Fixed orientation of horizontal axle and water wheel shown incorrectly when placing these buildings

Fixed an issue with loading noble view after leaving a position vacant

Close button is removed from trading screens to prevent accidental closing and losing status of all the items marked for trade

Support for iOS 8.0 - iOS 8.2

[mifki]

On DF versions supported by Dwarf Fortress Remote

So, Toady released DF 0.43.01 today, which means 0.42.06 is the last build of the 0.42 version. There now will be several more builds of 0.43 after which I believe there will be a long period without new releases when Toady will experiment with 64 bits and new compiler. And, most importantly, we don’t know how long it will take to make DFHack compatible with these changes.

Saves from 0.40 and 0.42 are compatible with 0.43, so I’m not sure if I will support 0.42.06 in DF Remote or just the last build of 0.43 if it’s finalised while I’m working. Ideally I wish I could drop support for 0.40 altogether because you can just upgrade and continue playing, but unnecessary complications with upgrade may upset some users.

On the other hand, I was going to add support for DF 0.34.11 because there are lots of saves and community games not compatible with newer DF versions, and, well, to disable features that were not available in 0.34 is not that hard.

[mifki]

Three ways to follow the development and/or get involved

I’ve set up a dedicated Twitter account @dfremote to post changelog for the Dwarf Fortress Remote server plugin, iOS application and in-app help. Between application releases with major changes, I keep fixing issues I encounter in the plugin and working on help articles, but usually the changes are too small to mention in the blog. Now you can follow @dfremote to know when something is fixed, or check it to know what’s new in the plugin update that the application is offering to install.

I’m also sharing the Dwarf Fortress Remote Roadmap. It is a part of a huge to-do list I’m using during development, just without minor and internal/not publicly interesting items.

And last but not least, I remind that the in-app help is hosted in a public repo on GitHub. Anyone can help to improve it by submitting pull requests.

[mifki]

Just a quick update to let you know that a new version of Dwarf Fortress Remote for iOS with multilevel rendering, UI improvements and few other things will be submitted to App Store in the next few days after final testing and screenshot making. I’ll make a detailed post about the changes closer to the release.

After that, I will work on supporting DF 0.42, probably other missing screens and features, and sound. Support for 0.42.06 is a priority, however I’m sure Toady will release another version or two while I’m working on it, so we’ll see what version will be considered stable and worth supporting by that time.

[mifki]

Multilevel rendering, well known to users of TWBT plugin, is coming to Dwarf Fortress Remote app. Also I’ve improved appearance of the top status bar and announcements, along with other UI tweaks.

[mifki]

Status update & 3D view demo

A new version of Dwarf Fortress Remote for iOS is available. It adds support for all levels of stockpile settings, and has a new status bar on top of the screen. It shows current z-level, number of idle dwarves, current date, unread combat/hunting/sparring report notifications, and siege alert.

Also, I continued working on 3D view, and got acceptable performance and memory usage on iPhone, so this feature will be added to the application at some point. I was also thinking about a WebGL-based online map viewer, but so far the performance in browsers isn’t very good.

Anyway, I think I’ll put it aside for now, as I need to get back to more important things from my big to-do list for the iOS app. And I wanted to try adding a sound system (using SoundSense sound packs).

[mifki]

More experiments with 3D for Dwarf Fortress Remote iOS app on Sketchfab

[mifki]

Experimenting with 3D rendering for Dwarf Fortress Remote for iOS. Ultimately I want to add a 3D viewing mode to the application - intentionally not as fancy as Armok Vision, but rather fast and with simpler graphics. It’s early experiments as you can see, so have no idea, whether I will succeed and when.

[mifki]

Do you know that you can run Dwarf Fortress Remote server on Amazon Web Services for 12 months completely free and play Dwarf Fortress on your iOS device from anywhere? The offer is available for new AWS users.

Unfortunately, configuration is a bit difficult for users without Linux experience, so I’m working on writing as simple instructions as possible. In the meanwhile, you send a support request from within the app or from the support page, and I will guide you through the setup process.

[mifki]

Third level of stockpile settings with search

[mifki]

Submitted an update for Dwarf Fortress Remote to App Store. It contains improvements to Status/Animals screen (it now shows vermin), ability to assign work animals to units. Spatters are now listed on the unit inventory (now Inventory & Spatters) screen, and some other bugs are fixed.

I’ve got a lot of useful feedback recently from several players. First, right now I’m working on making all levels of stockpile settings available in the app. Then will add C/H/S notifications for unread combat/hunting/sparring reports, option to show number idle dwarves, maybe also current date and happiness. All this will likely lead to main view UI changes because I was also going to provide quicker access to all query/look modes other than cycling through them with one button.

[mifki]

An issue has been reported preventing goods to be moved to a trade depot. The fix requires application update so it will take some time for the new version to be approved. In the meanwhile, I will fix it temporarily on the server side. This fix will allow items to be marked for trading, but distance shown on the Move Goods screen will be wrong.

The next application update will also have support for assigning work animals to units, and several crash fixes.

As for the issues that require only server update to be fixed, they are being fixed as soon as they’re automatically reported to us. In the last few days there were fixes related to look mode, unit assignment to buildings/zones, points/notes, and applying uniform to entire squad.

[mifki]

[mifki]

Workshop profiles.

I’ve made some fixes to the networking code, so that more users should be able to connect to their home servers over Internet in the next version.

Also, thanks to ReplayKit on iOS 9, you will be able to record and share gameplay videos. Who will start making “Let’s play Dwarf Fortress on iPhone” first?

[mifki]

EDIT: The fixed version is already approved and available. Many thanks to the app review team for accepting an expedited review request once again.

New version has been submitted to App Store fixing the following bugs:

* Fixed crash when closing designations/buildings menu with Close button * Fixed map not being shown until tileset is selected in settings * Fixed "All" always being shown for some categories in stockpile settings * Fixed crashes when manipulating rows in servers list view * Fixed crash when selecting the currently selected civ on embark * Fixed crash when adjusting FPS before current value has been loaded from server * Fixed crashes when pressing Confirm button on some of the military screens without selecting an item

Now it’s all in hands of the review team. I’m sorry about all these crashes present in first versions.

[mifki]

Fixed several more app crashes. This time it will take some time for the new version to be approved.

Most notably, there’s a nasty crash when closing a designations or buildings menu with the Close button. If you want to close the menu without selecting a designation, just select any and cancel it to avoid the crash for now.

Also, some users reported an issue when the map stays black after connecting to a server, but buttons and menus work. Reportedly, this can be fixed by going to Settings menu and choosing a tileset (even if there’s only the default one in the list).

I’m also fixing things in server code if needed, you will be asked to update next time you connect to a server.