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Author Topic: Material emission shenanigans  (Read 3177 times)

Shook

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Material emission shenanigans
« on: February 18, 2012, 06:27:35 pm »

So yeah, you're bound to have seen the MATERIAL_EMISSION interaction that's now possible. I've been doing a bit of !!SCIENCE!! (quite literally too) with it, and here's what i've found out so far:

- Breath types are the same as before (as seen here), but with the new SPATTER_LIQUID and SPATTER_POWDER types. They follow the same syntax, except with CDI instead of MATERIAL_BREATH_ATTACK. An example is seen in "file changes.txt".

- Emitted vapors (and possibly gases) are as hot/cold as the materials boiling temperature, meaning that rock vapors will melt your shit pronto, now that temperature works properly. Freezing cold substances will also freeze you over rather quickly, as my poor dorf found out with the worst teeth icings ever. In fact, his whole face froze over, including eyeballs, which rendered him completely blind.

- Any of the TRAILING breaths are almost impossible to control, since you also get hit by the vapors. It may kill foes, but you're going down too.

- SOLID_GLOB and LIQUID_GLOB work as described on the wiki; they're projectile attacks. Sadly, LIQUID_GLOB remains a solid glob. I suspect either of them might be able to impart contact syndromes, but i haven't tested that yet.

- The new SPATTER breaths just place a liquid/solid pile of the material in question on the target. As in, SPATTER_POWDER with basalt creates a pile of basalt powder, and the liquid version creates a harmless pile of molten basalt. This also has potential for contact syndromes, but it doesn't seem to cause injury when done with hot/cold materials. It doesn't seem to create spatter on creatures either.

- The FLOW type of emission seems to only work with fire-type breaths, like FIREBALL, FIREJET and DRAGONFIRE. It's kind of hard to explore without a list of other possible breaths. I tried putting in the other breath types from the wiki, but nothing happened. It doesn't seem to support materials either, since it calls for a breath token immediately after FLOW.

- The fire breaths seem to override any other tokens in the breath attack, turning it into the given fire breath, even when not preceded by FLOW. It is also entirely possible to incinerate oneself with these if one isn't immune to fire.

I can't seem to make dorfs breathe proper magma, though. I have succesfully made them fire a blast of dorf alcohol (which probably has the side effect of making dorfs brewable, but i digress), but actual liquid breaths/controllable vapors evade me. Any input on that part? I'd quite like to have this interaction explored, since i believe it has crazy potential.
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IT 000

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Re: Material emission shenanigans
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2012, 06:38:19 pm »

Great science work!

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- Any of the TRAILING breaths are almost impossible to control, since you also get hit by the vapors. It may kill foes, but you're going down too.

Thankfully you can make them immune to their own diseases, so as long as it isn't superheated/cooled you should be fine.
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Shook

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Re: Material emission shenanigans
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2012, 07:45:26 pm »

Oh yes, good idea! Sadly though, the gaseous breaths don't behave anywhere near as neatly as the fire breaths, what with the gas diffusing almost immediately. Sometimes it results in a great big billow of gas/vapor in the direction you want, other times you end up blocking the whole cloud yourself. The range is quite shoddy in general, though i guess that isn't as big an issue if you're immune to the syndrome it causes. Also balancing issues, since a long-range cloud of doom would render any opposition null and void. Except (cross)bowmen. I shall experiment further tomorrow, and see if i can combine the two types of interactions to make something spit a ball of something at someone that transforms the victim into something. If that's even possible. Else i'll just make some kind of silly syndrome to go with it.
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It may be worthwhile to have the babies fall into ring of fortifications or windows, to prevent anyone from catching and saving them.
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[01:27] <Octomobile> MMM THATS GOOD FIST BUTTER

Shook

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Re: Material emission shenanigans
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2012, 11:47:33 am »

OK SO... FURTHER RESULTS.

- SPATTER_LIQUID and SPATTER_POWDER can both transmit contact syndromes, but it's not guaranteed to work. They can, however, function as actual landmines with the correct setting (i've set melting point to 10040 and boiling point to 10050), which releases a cloud of gas when being stepped on, which so far has had a 100% transmission rate. This, i suspect, has quite a few uses!

- Contact syndromes caused by any breath attack can indeed polymorph people, as the duck witnessed when it suddenly turned into a platypus after stepping on a dorf alcohol landmine. I suspect they can also carry any number of curses, so you can make cursed landmines if you so please.

- VAPOR breaths, both trailing and undirected, always end up covering you in the liquid substance. If the substances boiling point is lower than your body temperature/ambient temperature, it will also release a subsequent cloud of gas fit for both contact and inhalation. On the flipside, if the melting point is higher than whatever temperature, you get covered in a frozen layer of the stuff.

- Vapors also carry the possibility of multiple syndromes; one for contact, one for inhalation and one for ingestion. I tested this by making the dorf alcohol have an ingested syndrome that causes unconsciousness and nausea. The dorf in question subsequently collapsed in a pool of his own vomit after ingesting it, while the breathed-on victims got paralyzed by the contact syndrome that dorfs are immune to. Gases can obviously also be both contacted and inhaled, but they leave no liquid covering on anything.

- The GLOB breaths don't seem to transmit syndromes, for reasons unknown.

That's about it so far. I was moderately surprised by the landmine-ish behavior of the SPATTER breaths, but it has potential!
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Quote from: Girlinhat
It may be worthwhile to have the babies fall into ring of fortifications or windows, to prevent anyone from catching and saving them.
Quote
[01:27] <Octomobile> MMM THATS GOOD FIST BUTTER