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v0.31:Time
| This article is about an older version of DF. |
Time in Dwarf Fortress can be a somewhat complicated subject, but learning the ins and outs of the system is essential for modders and can be of great use to players, as time tracks everything from syndromes to crop growth.
Breakdown
Time is measured in unnamed units, which are often colloquially referred to as "Time Units." Time units are equal to different lengths of day, depending on the mode.
In fortress mode, a time unit is equal to 1.2 In-game minutes. There are 1200 time units in a day, 28 days in a month, and 336 days in a year. A year in fortress contains 403200 time units. In adventurer mode, a time unit is exactly 1 In-game second. Thus, adventurer mode is 72 times slower than fortress mode. The conversion between Time units and seconds in Fortress mode, it's not precise, but it's been calculated that a time unit is about 0.01s(with an average of 100 fps), so a day in the game is equal to about 12s, a month to about 340s (5.7 mins) and a year to about 4032s (67.2 mins).
The average human (with 1000 agility attribute) takes 10 time units, regardless of mode, to move one square. The average dwarf (with 900 agility) takes around 11. Template:L take 40 time units to raise/lower. Other delayed mechanical actions (like Template:Ls, Template:Ls, and resetting Template:Ls) take 100 time units each.
Syndromes
Syndromes use time units. A syndrome that lists its effect as starting at "5" means that for all but the fastest characters, you will begin feeling the effects as soon as you take a step. "50" means 50 time units (or about five steps), and "500" reliably suggests that you'll be able to stagger all the way back to the hospital before your brain pours out of your ears.
Plants
Plants use a tag called GROWDUR. The GROWDUR value is generally set to 300 or 500, which is actually 30000 T.U. or 50000 T.U. 1 growdur = 100 time units.
Hives
Template:L in Template:Ls which produce items (namely Template:Ls which produce Template:L) have the HIVE_PRODUCT Template:L, whose second parameter is the number of time units it takes for a hive to produce the product.
Fortress Mode and Adventurer Mode
Days pass more quickly in Fortress Mode than Adventurer Mode, specifically, 72 times more quickly. It takes an average dwarf around 13.2 minutes to take a single step in Fortress Mode. In Adventurer Mode, the same dwarf would only take 11 seconds.
Clocks
Based on the fact that Template:Ls take 100 steps to reset, some people have built various time-keeping devices to do various things around the fort, like flooding a trap once a month, or just for fun.