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Author Topic: DFHack Script: Procedural Creature Hacking  (Read 2196 times)

Fayrik

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DFHack Script: Procedural Creature Hacking
« on: August 12, 2017, 03:11:23 pm »

For the past few days I've been pondering at a few little nagging problems. Problems like "How come Boogiemen are so tough for their tiny size?" and "Can my adventurer be a demon and breathe fire?"

So, after a few days of feeling irritated that I couldn't find the information I wanted in the game's available raw files, I started digging around in memory, and found that the entire creature raw files are cached in memory. A little bit of curiosity lead to these two new yet simple script files.

dumpraw: This script will save a creature's raw data to a .txt file, allowing you to see how that creature works. Unlike the game's actual raw files, this works on procedurally generated creatures like forgotten beasts and night creatures.
Spoiler: dumpraw.lua (click to show/hide)

loadraw: This script will take a saved raw txt file, and load it back into the game, allowing you to modify procedurally generated creatures. (Potentially regular creatures too, but I have not tested it to see if it takes priority over the main raw txt files.)
Spoiler: loadraw.lua (click to show/hide)

In order to run the scripts, you'll need to have a world loaded in fortress, adventure or legends mode. Legends mode does not save the game when exited, so loading in a raw in legends mode will have no effect, as you need to save the game and reload it before a loaded raw takes effect.
Both scripts use the raw-styled .txt files, you'll notice they're formatted a little differently - this is how they're formatted in memory, so if you are loading in a raw make sure to format it in the same way.

And in case it wasn't obvious, these scripts work on the game's memory, and they're not exactly polished, so I take no responsibility for the horrible things they could do to your save games. (Always back up your saves, and all that!)
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So THIS is how migrations start.
"Hey, dude, there's this crazy bastard digging in the ground for stuff. Let's go watch."

Max™

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Re: DFHack Script: Procedural Creature Hacking
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2017, 09:06:38 pm »

Seems like it would work well with this: https://github.com/maxthyme/scripts/blob/master/generventurated.lua (gener-ated adventurers, gener-ventur-ated) actually.
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Clyybber

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Re: DFHack Script: Procedural Creature Hacking
« Reply #2 on: August 31, 2017, 03:43:17 pm »

This is awesome! I cant wait to boss battle against my own forgotten beast creation! Thanks!
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