v50 Steam/Premium information for editors
  • v50 information can now be added to pages in the main namespace. v0.47 information can still be found in the DF2014 namespace. See here for more details on the new versioning policy.
  • Use this page to report any issues related to the migration.
This notice may be cached—the current version can be found here.

Tile attributes

From Dwarf Fortress Wiki
Revision as of 18:19, 2 June 2015 by 71.220.163.23 (talk) (→‎Light vs. Dark and Above Ground vs. Subterranean: As said in the previous sentence, an above ground + light tile will remain that way. Ice and glass are no more transparent than gabbro in this sense.)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is about the current version of DF.
Note that some content may still need to be updated.


Every tile in Dwarf Fortress is described as Outside or Inside, Light or Dark, and Above Ground or Subterranean. These attributes can be observed from the k menu, when the cursor is located over any single tile.

There are 8 different combinations, and only 3 of them occur naturally:

  • Outside Light Above Ground - Outdoors
  • Outside Light Subterranean - Impossible
  • Outside Dark Above Ground - Impossible
  • Outside Dark Subterranean - Impossible
  • Inside Light Above Ground - Constructed buildings on the surface, below-ground-level chambers with ice or glass floors (possibly walls also[Verify]) above them
  • Inside Light Subterranean - Impossible
  • Inside Dark Above Ground - Impossible
  • Inside Dark Subterranean - Underground tunnels, including most of your fortress

Being in the dark increases cave adaptation, and being outside causes it to decrease (along with stunning/nausea if the sun is out).

The entire fortress site starts out as Inside Dark Subterranean. After that, a ray for Outside and a ray for Light Above Ground falls straight down from the highest z-level for every (x,y) position on the local map, changing each tile's modifiers until something that blocks that particular "ray" is encountered. Due to this behavior, any of the previous three tile combinations will never be encountered in the same (x,y) position on a lower z-level than a higher numbered combination.

Outside vs. Inside

This attribute is determined by whether there is a roof of some kind over a tile. Weather only affects tiles which are Outside. Almost any kind of geometry will block the Outside ray including natural and constructed walls, floors, stairs, and fortifications, and open and closed bridges, floor grates, floor bars, and hatches. A tile which is Outside will always be Light Above Ground, but an Inside tile may be either Light Above Ground or Dark Subterranean.

Light vs. Dark and Above Ground vs. Subterranean

Currently these two attributes are determined in exactly the same way. Once an area is exposed to the outside world, it is Above Ground and Light (and thus channeling this tile will make the tile below it also Above Ground and Light). Even after being covered up again, it will remain this way. This allows growing outdoor crops inside safely.

A farm with mixed light and dark tiles may show plants as "available" when only a tiny fraction of the tiles in the farm are valid for planting them.