

Locked doors won’t keep out stronger creatures like trolls, who can easily bash their way through.įor a dwarf, one tile is one tile, whether it’s flat ground, stairs, or a ramp. But if you want to keep something locked down, you’ll need a perfectly boxed-in area made of natural or constructed walls. They’re able to move diagonally and even shimmy through tight spaces between filled tiles. Let’s get down to business and talk about Dwarven ergonomics, shall we? To start, units in Dwarf Fortress move across tiles at different speeds based on their species and other factors. Channeling creates a ramp on the floor below, and it may be challenging to visualize how this works across multiple levels, but don’t worry, you’ll soon get the hang of it. On the other hand, channeling a tile means removing both the block and the floor or just the floor, if the block was already gone. When you mine a tile, you remove the block, but leave the floor intact. Essentially, a tile comprises two elements: the block and the floor. If you want to make it far in Dwarf Fortress, you need to grasp the fundamental concept of how tiles are structured. This will give you more time to react and make decisions, especially during the game’s early stages. If things start moving too quickly for you, consider adjusting the run speed to 60 FPS or lower in the settings. It’s worth noting that Dwarf Fortress operates on a frame-by-frame basis, meaning that the simulation is synced to your computer’s frames-per-second (FPS). This will provide a solid foundation for your fortress and make it easier to defend against potential threats. When starting out, build your base in the first few layers of pure stone. The key to a successful fort lies in digging deeper. Instead, focus on expanding your knowledge and taking things one step at a time. Don’t blame your dwarves if things go south, they’re doing their best. But don’t worry, I’m here to give you some advice that will help ease you into this world of wonder.Īs a beginner, one of the most important things to remember is to take your time and be patient with yourself. With many buttons to push and intricate systems to uncover, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It can also be useful to slow down the game in order to handle other activities while still allowing the fortress to complete previously assigned tasks, reducing the need to babysit the game.īy default, the FPS cap can be modified in-game by using Alt- = to increase the FPS cap and Alt- to decrease it.Congratulations! You’ve made it through the tutorial, but your journey into the depths of Dwarf Fortress is far from over. This also requires more attention from the player since designated jobs will be completed or cancelled more quickly, and potentially harmful events─such as wild animals, thieves, and invasions─will occur more frequently in a given span of real time.ĭecreasing the FPS cap will slow down the progress of a fortress, though it may be useful if the framerate undergoes large, rapid changes, as it will smooth out the play experience. Increasing or disabling ( ) this setting will allow a fortress to progress more quickly, though eventually there will be a maximum reached as a result of CPU speed limits. This is especially true if one or more of the caverns have been unearthed.īy default, the framerate is set to not exceed 100, though this can be changed in the init.txt file, under.

These can be crucial, as a common reason for abandoning forts is that the framerate becomes too low from all the dwarves, animals, and explored tiles having to have calculations performed each tick.

There are many methods to increase one's framerate, which can be found on the maximizing framerate page.

The first number is the current frame rate, while the number in parentheses is the current graphical frame refresh rate. To check your FPS (frames per second) in Dwarf Fortress, simply change to in init.txt, and your FPS will be displayed on the top row of the screen. Ticks are also known as game calculation steps, but note these are not equivalent to creature movement steps. (With the default settings in a new fortress, one graphical frame occurs every two computational frames.) Graphical frame rate (the typical definition of frames per second) is the speed at which the display refreshes, and is typically slower than the computational frame rate. Each tick requires the calculation of unit movement, fluid movement, and many checks for different events, such as cave-ins, damp/warm stone, weather conditions, and much more. For other uses, see Stairs.įrames per second in Dwarf Fortress, often referred to as FPS or framerate, is the measure of the amount of computational ticks the game calculates in one second.
