Honestly, apart from the streamlined menus (pens/pastures, being able to import and export stockpile settings, etc), I mainly just use it for being able to designate building jobs before the materials are ready. It's such a relief to be able to start orders for some doors and furniture and then designate placement for them without waiting for the orders to finish. Or you can just make a bunch of designations and it will tell you how many items you need to order to build it all.
Ask a working parent, my time and what I want to enjoy doing in a video game are priority. I would recommend DFhack to anyone in a similar situation. As others have mentioned, some of the Brute force tedium is fine in short supply for a small to medium normal fort. Anyone building in 3D it really becomes not fun anymore and just takes away from what you really want to be doing. It also is wonderful for forcing someone to deal with the random rotting item that isn't being picked up in the tavern despite a bunch of idle dwarfs....
And that's why these tools exist. Just cause I disagree on the tedious parts and find them to be a puzzle I get to work out does not mean you have to do the same.
Playing my 1st Fort with the help of your playthrough/55 video playlist of all the niche things about the game was really fun. I had one of the most memorable characters to date with 87 hours of gameplay (1st fort took around 60 hours). It was lots of fun. I had DFHack enabled but NOTHING in it was enabled as I still had no idea what it does. Then on my 2nd Fort I actually got accustomed to keybinds of DFHack and what it does. And I was like BRO THIS IS A GODSENT! Instantly imported all the jobs, instantly automated everything. wrooom wrooooom, my fort had 180 people in a year 6 and highest noble. Then I died to Cavern Dwellers because I never sent my troops to claim some artifacts, because I never had a problem with drunk humans that started killing my dwarves so I took revenge on them by destroying 2 of their settlements in my 1st fort. The forst was perfect, if I never opened that passage to Cave Dwellers it'd be probably still alive, but was it fun? No. Not a single person was memorable from there, I haven't had a single annoyance, in my 1st fort kids kept getting mad at me because I told them to carry all the dead bodies so like 70% of my dwarves were angry lmao. It made me kinda think if it was worth it. Was it worth automating everything, was it worth importing everything? Not really... One thing I'm glad I've learnt from DFHack is how to properly set up work orders. Like with all the different ways you can configure it. Now I'm playing my 3rd fort with as few automations as possible. I did configure all the work orders myself, I did read every new dwarf's bio in hopes of finding a new hero of my Fort that I'll remember. But I find myself turning on more and more features overtime. Automated clothing, automated cleanowned. And... I don't like it. Feels like I'm going to the same pit I was before with my first fort. So now, for the 2nd time I came to your video that before I thought was weird, to learn what settings you're using to make DF feel as vanilla-like as possible, while still having some useful features. My 2nd fort taught me that chasing automation and optimization is in A LOT of cases not the best idea. It could be "the best" to progress the "game". But even in games where you wanna progress as fast as possible sometimes it's not the best idea. I play Genshin, mostly for the story and Lyre (I love playing on the instruments in games, mainly because I'm too lazy to buy one IRL and I generally think of real life things as a waste of money), but recently I also had a problem in that game, where I optimized everything. Had META characters and without any problems started beating the "endgame", which ended up being boring af, because characters I used are boring, even though they're meta. So couple days ago I decided to go for a new character that came out, even though she's sub-optimal, simply because I liked her personality from the story she was in. And now I finally have a reason to log in to Genshin everyday, because the game became so much more fun. Because I got that new character, now I need to build another character, so I have full hands of things I need to do, now I have a goal and a reason to play the game. And just gameplay is fun. Same thing in Dwarf Fortress. Automation and optimization is good if you wanna progress as fast as possible, but... Will you have fun? What are you progressing to? There's nothing to chase, there's no endgame boss. The things you're trying to chase are right in front of you in every mad dwarf you see, in every new migrant that arrives to your fort, in every raid you send. Before embarking on my current fort I read the lore of the new world I created and I learnt about some female necromancer dwarf that obtained a slab that taught her secrets of life and death from some dwarven god. She was a queen of a civilization I'm currently a part of. And she for some reason started corrpting herown fortresses in order to gain more power, and eventually she got killed by a three-headed demon during a defense of a fort she was trying to corrupt, some goblin stole that slab and put it in a vault. So after reading that story, now I have a goal to learn where that artifact is, in which goblin vault and try to get it back to my civilization.
couldn't agree more with your selections, though I do use Autochop and Autobutcher, as imo they should be vanilla. autochop due to forestry not really being a thing in DF in spite of dorfs being able to learn all about trees and seasons and stuff, and autobutcher as farm hands would realistically have a headcount of their livestock and wouldn't need the great pointing finger of their omnipotent god to tell them what to butcher and when lol. Cheers for another great video!
I also intend to use auto butcher as having to manually tell my people to kill 120 chickens everytime there is a chicksplosion is not compelling gameplay imo. I want meat and eggs not a clicker chore every few days.
That should be in the base game, besides all the search functionality (and need more in places it currently doesn't exist) QuickFort^1, gui/design (need more shapes, and maybe a save feature) the building manager/selection (extremely useful for proper floors, just a global 'use this material only' when placing would be sufficient), trade screen search functions. Also the pasture search/mass assign feature is a deity send feature. ^1 on quickfort, maybe not the blueprints that are provided, but just the ability to load/save room designs.
Search overlays has been a real game changer. Unfortunately they don’t have a search for work orders. I like setting up and tuning my work orders and have pages of them.
Just the fact it makes a mod list has made it that I won't ever play without DF hack again. Nothing was more annoying than adding all the mods every single time I wanted to make a new world
Since i have a limited amount of time to play DF, i sometimes use fastdwarf 1 0 so i can do more in my playtime. I love the way DF is in terms of speed, but i wish DF hack had some better ways around it, since superhuman speed is not cool most of the time
I briefly used DF hack early on when i first started to see my forts in stonesense and promptly removed it because I wanted to not have all the cheaty stuff to skip over learning how the game works on its own. I will probably set it up later as my current fort gets nearer to completion since I imagine it'll be quite a spectacle to see in 3d, or maybe use the other tool for seeing df in 3d i heard of.
I mostly use df hack to immediately dumpt tattered clothes instead of laboriously going through the stock menue and ticking each and every piece of clothing that has an x next to it. And every now and then there is a necromancer raising every dead thing in sight tanking my fps to single digits.
usually dfhack only messes with saves if you use the stuff that very explicitly goes into your code like the gm unit ui which has caused me to crash a few times
I make liberal use of prioritize with DFHack just because it makes the game more fun. I love placing an order and watching all my little guys immediately swarm the area
on this point i wonder why they didn't copy most of it in main game. On plus UI mess in DF inspire me to start writing a documentation on common UI flaws.
There are too many bug fixes directly attached to DFHack to justify encouraging new players not to immediately install and learn how to use it. Nevermind the quality of life. Yes, you can use it to cheat as well. But thats a choice. Bugs that will likely never be addressed by the "vanilla" team arent and killed the game for me until coming to this "mod"
Honestly, apart from the streamlined menus (pens/pastures, being able to import and export stockpile settings, etc), I mainly just use it for being able to designate building jobs before the materials are ready. It's such a relief to be able to start orders for some doors and furniture and then designate placement for them without waiting for the orders to finish. Or you can just make a bunch of designations and it will tell you how many items you need to order to build it all.
Ask a working parent, my time and what I want to enjoy doing in a video game are priority. I would recommend DFhack to anyone in a similar situation. As others have mentioned, some of the Brute force tedium is fine in short supply for a small to medium normal fort. Anyone building in 3D it really becomes not fun anymore and just takes away from what you really want to be doing.
It also is wonderful for forcing someone to deal with the random rotting item that isn't being picked up in the tavern despite a bunch of idle dwarfs....
And that's why these tools exist. Just cause I disagree on the tedious parts and find them to be a puzzle I get to work out does not mean you have to do the same.
I like building with specific materials for the items to avoid the changes in color and material. That allows for more consistent room layouts.
the rows x columns overlay just saves so much repetitive brain power for me that I get little endorphine kicks every time I am aware of it.
I know, right!?! it was using an altogether shocking amount of cognitive load for me.
Playing my 1st Fort with the help of your playthrough/55 video playlist of all the niche things about the game was really fun. I had one of the most memorable characters to date with 87 hours of gameplay (1st fort took around 60 hours). It was lots of fun. I had DFHack enabled but NOTHING in it was enabled as I still had no idea what it does.
Then on my 2nd Fort I actually got accustomed to keybinds of DFHack and what it does. And I was like BRO THIS IS A GODSENT! Instantly imported all the jobs, instantly automated everything. wrooom wrooooom, my fort had 180 people in a year 6 and highest noble.
Then I died to Cavern Dwellers because I never sent my troops to claim some artifacts, because I never had a problem with drunk humans that started killing my dwarves so I took revenge on them by destroying 2 of their settlements in my 1st fort. The forst was perfect, if I never opened that passage to Cave Dwellers it'd be probably still alive, but was it fun? No. Not a single person was memorable from there, I haven't had a single annoyance, in my 1st fort kids kept getting mad at me because I told them to carry all the dead bodies so like 70% of my dwarves were angry lmao. It made me kinda think if it was worth it. Was it worth automating everything, was it worth importing everything? Not really...
One thing I'm glad I've learnt from DFHack is how to properly set up work orders. Like with all the different ways you can configure it.
Now I'm playing my 3rd fort with as few automations as possible. I did configure all the work orders myself, I did read every new dwarf's bio in hopes of finding a new hero of my Fort that I'll remember. But I find myself turning on more and more features overtime. Automated clothing, automated cleanowned. And... I don't like it. Feels like I'm going to the same pit I was before with my first fort. So now, for the 2nd time I came to your video that before I thought was weird, to learn what settings you're using to make DF feel as vanilla-like as possible, while still having some useful features.
My 2nd fort taught me that chasing automation and optimization is in A LOT of cases not the best idea. It could be "the best" to progress the "game". But even in games where you wanna progress as fast as possible sometimes it's not the best idea. I play Genshin, mostly for the story and Lyre (I love playing on the instruments in games, mainly because I'm too lazy to buy one IRL and I generally think of real life things as a waste of money), but recently I also had a problem in that game, where I optimized everything. Had META characters and without any problems started beating the "endgame", which ended up being boring af, because characters I used are boring, even though they're meta. So couple days ago I decided to go for a new character that came out, even though she's sub-optimal, simply because I liked her personality from the story she was in. And now I finally have a reason to log in to Genshin everyday, because the game became so much more fun. Because I got that new character, now I need to build another character, so I have full hands of things I need to do, now I have a goal and a reason to play the game. And just gameplay is fun.
Same thing in Dwarf Fortress. Automation and optimization is good if you wanna progress as fast as possible, but... Will you have fun? What are you progressing to? There's nothing to chase, there's no endgame boss. The things you're trying to chase are right in front of you in every mad dwarf you see, in every new migrant that arrives to your fort, in every raid you send.
Before embarking on my current fort I read the lore of the new world I created and I learnt about some female necromancer dwarf that obtained a slab that taught her secrets of life and death from some dwarven god. She was a queen of a civilization I'm currently a part of. And she for some reason started corrpting herown fortresses in order to gain more power, and eventually she got killed by a three-headed demon during a defense of a fort she was trying to corrupt, some goblin stole that slab and put it in a vault. So after reading that story, now I have a goal to learn where that artifact is, in which goblin vault and try to get it back to my civilization.
couldn't agree more with your selections, though I do use Autochop and Autobutcher, as imo they should be vanilla.
autochop due to forestry not really being a thing in DF in spite of dorfs being able to learn all about trees and seasons and stuff,
and autobutcher as farm hands would realistically have a headcount of their livestock and wouldn't need the great pointing finger of their omnipotent god to tell them what to butcher and when lol.
Cheers for another great video!
I also intend to use auto butcher as having to manually tell my people to kill 120 chickens everytime there is a chicksplosion is not compelling gameplay imo. I want meat and eggs not a clicker chore every few days.
Man, your channel is a treasure trove of DF tips and info, absolutely brilliant, much appreciated !!
Been waiting for this video! :)
That should be in the base game, besides all the search functionality (and need more in places it currently doesn't exist) QuickFort^1, gui/design (need more shapes, and maybe a save feature) the building manager/selection (extremely useful for proper floors, just a global 'use this material only' when placing would be sufficient), trade screen search functions. Also the pasture search/mass assign feature is a deity send feature.
^1 on quickfort, maybe not the blueprints that are provided, but just the ability to load/save room designs.
Plenty of things would be nice to have yes.
Search overlays has been a real game changer. Unfortunately they don’t have a search for work orders. I like setting up and tuning my work orders and have pages of them.
I need this! To make these tree-huggers elves happy …
LETS GOO IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO
Just the fact it makes a mod list has made it that I won't ever play without DF hack again. Nothing was more annoying than adding all the mods every single time I wanted to make a new world
There are a few DF Hack functions that make the game so much better.
I didn't know about hide tutorials, thanks!
DF has come a long way. I remember not being able to play very fast without dwarf therapist. Now I don’t really need it
Very useful, thanks 🙂
Since i have a limited amount of time to play DF, i sometimes use fastdwarf 1 0 so i can do more in my playtime. I love the way DF is in terms of speed, but i wish DF hack had some better ways around it, since superhuman speed is not cool most of the time
The only thing I needed DF hack for is using the mouse to select dig squares. Auto clothing I use now.
I briefly used DF hack early on when i first started to see my forts in stonesense and promptly removed it because I wanted to not have all the cheaty stuff to skip over learning how the game works on its own. I will probably set it up later as my current fort gets nearer to completion since I imagine it'll be quite a spectacle to see in 3d, or maybe use the other tool for seeing df in 3d i heard of.
I mostly use df hack to immediately dumpt tattered clothes instead of laboriously going through the stock menue and ticking each and every piece of clothing that has an x next to it. And every now and then there is a necromancer raising every dead thing in sight tanking my fps to single digits.
I mostly just use it to unstuck buckets
usually dfhack only messes with saves if you use the stuff that very explicitly goes into your code like the gm unit ui which has caused me to crash a few times
does anyone know how to use assign_skills i got it to remove skills but i cant add any
I make liberal use of prioritize with DFHack just because it makes the game more fun. I love placing an order and watching all my little guys immediately swarm the area
What do you think of the quickfort functions? That and the planner are the two things I really like DFHack for.
Should I download the DF hack through the steam mod list or is using a download from elsewhere still the same?
I'm having a problem where dfhack is not recognizing work orders and ignoring them. Any idea how to fix?
I'd jump on the dfhack discord and ask them.
auto brew? so many overlaping comands. are the plump helmate seeds being consumed by brewing now? not sure why my seeds disapear.
on this point i wonder why they didn't copy most of it in main game. On plus UI mess in DF inspire me to start writing a documentation on common UI flaws.
Huels Dam
Ilene Tunnel
Fanny Terrace
I have been avoiding DFHack because of the regular improvements that have been happening over the last year.
Paxton Curve
Susanna Ports
Satterfield Crossroad
😊❤
There are too many bug fixes directly attached to DFHack to justify encouraging new players not to immediately install and learn how to use it. Nevermind the quality of life. Yes, you can use it to cheat as well. But thats a choice. Bugs that will likely never be addressed by the "vanilla" team arent and killed the game for me until coming to this "mod"
Treutel Spur
Cronin Lane
Hall Steven Hernandez Brian Lewis David
New fort and starting the game again are two different things..
Naturally.
Davis John Thompson Matthew Moore Melissa
Mauricio Spurs
Hernandez Kevin Moore Michelle Taylor Sharon
Allen Laura Davis Amy Wilson Scott
exterminated 347 REPTILE_MAN , from 1-2 Frames back up to 50 , the game is just not playable without DF hack