This is a late announcement about new features available in the latest DF Remote app update which was released couple weeks ago.
The biggest change is support for manager orders conditions, which allow to automate a great deal of the fortress life.
Also, when searching for job types to create a new manager order, individual words will be matched instead of whole strings. This means you can type "smelt platinum" or even just "sme p" to find "smelt native platinum ore" job:
Digital Ocean is a great way to run Dwarf Fortress Remote server in the cloud — it's cheap, easy to set up, and provides decent performance, especially for newer players who don't have very big forts.
Recently I got wonderful news from Digital Ocean in my inbox. They've updated their pricing and doubled the amount of memory available on $5 and $10 plans. Also, apparently in the very end of the last year, they introduced a $15 plan with even more memory. Dwarf Fortress is single-threaded, so here I'm talking about plans with 1 CPU only.
So, current plans best suited for running Dwarf Fortress Remote server are the following:
| Monthly Price | CPU | Memory |
|---|---|---|
| $5 | 1 | 1GB |
| $10 | 1 | 2GB |
| $15 | 1 | 3GB |
| $15 | 2 | 2GB |
The $15 plan is flexible and although I said that DF is single-threaded, it may make sense to have less memory but one core just for simulation and another one for everything else. More testing will be needed to find out what's actually faster.
Remember that by signing up using this link, you will receive a $10 credit — that's up to two months of playing Dwarf Fortress.
Version 1.70 released today is a huge update that adds support for many Dwarf Fortress features there were not previously accessible via the app:
Bug fixes:
Support for configuring manager order conditions didn't get into this release but will also be available in the next update soon.
In preparation for an upcoming big app update, new server update fixes activity/job titles shown for units in some cases, fixes issues with job/order details specification and shows the currently set image for a job/order.
Also, support for DF 0.40.24 has been removed, and support for 0.43.03 will be removed soon as well. If you're still using those and having troubles upgrading, feel free to contact support for help.
It looks like it's time to discontinue support for DF 0.40.24 in Dwarf Fortress Remote, and probably 0.43.03 if analytics shows that no-one is using it nowadays.
On the other hand, DFHack 0.43.05-r3 is now likely to be the last release of DFHack for 0.43.05, support for it will be added soon.
DF 0.44 is out now, with the biggest and exciting new feature is being able to send dwarves away from your fort to raid other sites, or recover people or artifacts. This is done using what before was Civilizations screen, which now also includes world map, news, known world artifacts, and missions sections.
As usual, I'm not planning to support this version officially until bug fixing is over for it and there's a stable release of DFHack. However this time I may consider adding experimental support once this new screen is reverse-engineered so that its functionality can be implemented in Remote.
Dwarf Fortress Remote 1.67 is now available, bringing support for iPhone X and iOS 11, and fixing number of other issues and crashes.
The following bugs are fixed in the latest version 1.66:
3D view is one if the "bigger" features (alongside sound effects, command bar/voice control, unattended operation and ████) that I ultimately want to add to Dwarf Fortress Remote.
Last year I've already experimented with 3D rendering of Dwarf Fortress maps ([1], [2], [3]) but then took a long break because I wasn't satisfied either with the performance or something else, don't remember. This month I started again from scratch and did things right, so there's more chance Remote will get this feature.
However there was also another part to that project - to make an online 3D map viewer/map archive, sort of a 3D version of DFMA. This is because mobile and browser/WebGL environments are somewhat similar - both are OpenGL ES-based and have constrained resources. Basically I can take iOS rendering code (shaders, mesh building), make just minor changes to convert C to Javascript, and then it works in browser.
So here it is -
You can export your map by copying/pasting a command from the page to DFHack console, or just upload a save if not using DFHack. In either case you'll get a link that anyone can use to view your fort in 3D. I've exported several community games as an example: Constructivory, The City of Air, Breadbowl.
This is a work in progress, some models are missing (namely most of the workshops and furnaces) but otherwise I'm quite happy with it. Obviously a modern browser with WebGL support is required, and right now it won't work on mobile devices becuase I need to support touch controls.
In the latest version of Dwarf Fortress Remote app, I added some colours to group designations related to mining, nature-related, cancel/removal, and submenus. Initially I was going to keeps items in all menus ordered exactly as they're on desktop however now I really like the new look, so I will probably reorder the building menu slightly as well at some point.
Recently I released several new Remote server plugin versions, and one iOS app update. They fix number of gameplay and stability issues (including a plugin crash when it's active for a very long time), and also improve error reporting so I can fix further problems faster.
However I ask users to report any issues they stumble upon using the built-in support/feedback functionality. Due to the complexity of the game, there's a lot of in-game situations that I've never seen when playing or testing myself and which may also be impossible to recreate at will.
So if you open any screen, and the data can not be loaded or something doesn't work, please report this (I basically will need to know what was happening in the game and what you were doing in the UI), and with enough information I will likely be able to fix any such issue within a day or so, and make DF Remote a better experience for everyone.
