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Combat magic (frost storms, rite of pain, etc.)

69 (27.5%)

Ritual magic (weather, timeflow, etc.)

53 (21.1%)

More high end industries locked by looted blueprints or trade (post ideas in thread?)

52 (20.7%)

GUI option to activate more nonplayable slaver civs (ashlanders, deep legion, etc.)

50 (19.9%)

Other (post ideas in thread?)

2 (0.8%)

Needs nothing, just fixes and tweaks are fine!

25 (10%)

Total Members Voted: 128

[Amostubal]

Post so you know I edited my last post and the following:

And here's another thing, I was kicking around with Fedor the other day... Do we really need 5 coins(copper, silver, gold, platinum, and bonemold)?  Do we really need them in stacks of 500? the lowest cost items are still sold and bought at what is either equivalent to [500] silver in copper, or the removal of copper would increase the item count from 4 to 10 for potash and wicker blocks to buy them at [500] silver?  whose buying wicker blocks?  Also if everything is a multiple of 500 anyway, why not have a single unit called a bag of coins.  I played with the concept and its easy to create a bag of <INSERT METAL> coins item.  so there isn't stacks of 500 items everywhere(that somehow get split all the time) just 1 item. so here's what I was thinking...
1. toss coppers make silver the smallest coin in orc currency.
2. toss coin stacks and go with the singular item concept.
3. toss platinum, too maybe so that wee don't have so many reactions for coinage.
4. set the value of bags to single bars so you don't go to the trade depot buy 5 bars of gold for 1 bar worth of coins... really the traders suck at negotiations.
5. Make a set of coin exchanges at all the trade shops so you can use any of them to switch silver to gold to bonemold and visa versa.

And how many people actually use the whole bonemold/bloodsteel system?  by the time I get it going I already have raiding going and regular steel from raiding is better all around... I mean it does give you a reason to make it because of all the work at the dismemberment theater to make a couple of grade Z doctors... but after I have the bars, I just either sell it to the traders or make weapons and trade them for coins... or make all my furniture out of it... We discussed using iron in exchange for bonemold in coins, but I'm not totally sold on it.  but I wanted to pass it around the community before I added it to the stack. 

[Weirdsound]

I might have more to say later, but two comments on what you have said:

I agree that the word foundry seems to imply heavy military industry... I still don't like the gear making reactions though. Perhaps let it keep the rare metal making, but other than that have it serve as a version of the Orcish factory that works with better materials and produces better gear types. Perhaps it could even output large batches of some kind of high value block in place of bricks.

---

I personally like the Bonemold/Bloodsteel industry. Its great if you lack the micromanaging skill or wood supply to shoot straight for heavy raiding right out the gate like you advocate for. A few ideas to make the industry more useful though...

A: Bonemold/Bloodsteel daggers at the factory as an alternative to copper
B: More uses for Flux (Bonemeal). Perhaps it can be sold, or required by Ancient Foundry reactions. (Combine with a reduction in flux drop rate at the Dwarf Labor Cell)
C: Perhaps an Infernal Forge. Raid the plans from this building from the Succubi. The infernal forge could use various combinations of bonemetals and corpse byproducts (perhaps some souls as well) to produce the upgraded Succubi versions of Bronze and Steel (can't recall the names), magical ammo, and perhaps even animated constructs.
D: Perhaps add a lightweight, high value, and awesome colored decorative bonemetal. Perhaps Bonemeal + Ash + Tallow to make a white aluminum stand-in Glossbone. This way it is both easier to craft and haul the furniture made from the bones of your enemies.

[Amostubal]

I might have more to say later, but two comments on what you have said:

I agree that the word foundry seems to imply heavy military industry... I still don't like the gear making reactions though. Perhaps let it keep the rare metal making, but other than that have it serve as a version of the Orcish factory that works with better materials and produces better gear types. Perhaps it could even output large batches of some kind of high value block in place of bricks.

I was thinking... you put those reactions back down on par with what they would (and do) cost to make at a forge... and put them in batches of say 5/10 at a time... (set up your stockpiles so they don't drag away all the metal bars made at the shop and the time for moving items is virtually 1 tick/bar)... maybe even reduce the cost by 1 or 2 bars.... Was considering setting up an entire category system similar to say the forge:
Use {Metal} in molds
.Mold armors (a)
.Mold weapons (w)
.Mold other (o)
repeat for orichalcum, deepbronze, bloodsteel, etc.  set up the orc foundry to do the base metals and the ancient foundry for the upper metals. 

and yes keep the valuable metal making... was thinking of changing the bar ratio or adding something to it.  I want to make it accept mithril as dust, so as to remove the multiple step process of grinding, using, melting objects to get to mithril bars.  it will make the 2 more equal in production. maybe adding in another ingredient to the mix for deep bronze as the value of the bars to make deep bronze is less than half that of orichalcum, but the bar value of both is 40.  basically the value of the materials to make each is 100 for 120 in deep bronze, 200 for 120 in orichalcum.  Orichalcum is by far the harder to make,so maybe adding say 3 bloodsteel bars to the deep bronze reaction... to up the value put into deep bronze and to make them more equal in reaction/production restriction.

Maybe do both of those (i.e. the bloodsteel in deep bronze, and the mithril dust straight in orichalcum).  The mithril dust idea makes mithril items found be melted and then grinded(adding one step to them), but eliminates 2 steps from processing raw mithril for orichalcum.  the bloodsteel adds further versatility and end game use to bonemeal/bonemold/bloodsteel reactions...  then with what I add to your later suggestions...  the industry becomes involved in many stages.

I personally like the Bonemold/Bloodsteel industry. Its great if you lack the micromanaging skill or wood supply to shoot straight for heavy raiding right out the gate like you advocate for. A few ideas to make the industry more useful though...

A: Bonemold/Bloodsteel daggers at the factory as an alternative to copper

See I was considering the orc foundry needed a more robust list of reactions... one of the things I was thinking was that bonemold could be used as.... Bone Mold...
simply put you could fashion molds with it that are used at the orc foundry and the ancient foundry.  The molds would have 90% salvage rate, so you wouldn't need to keep making thousands of them, just 5 or so on hand.  each mold could be for a different item, daggers, axes, etc.  the mold plus x metal bars would return a 5 count of items and the mold 90% of the time.  This would make sense as foundries require molds that are potentially breakable.  again you would basically build a category menu as your production possibility would go up... could cross platform the molds from the orc foundry up to the ancient foundry and use them there with higher end goods... or not... discussion is fun.  but then yeah you could have bloodsteel daggers... It also would slow the easy access into mass weapons for raiding making raiding less overpowered.

B: More uses for Flux (Bonemeal). Perhaps it can be sold, or required by Ancient Foundry reactions. (Combine with a reduction in flux drop rate at the Dwarf Labor Cell)

Like the mold idea for bonemold, flux from bonemeal is interesting.... flux is a high phosphorus containing material... and bonemeal should contain plenty as why its a part of various fertilizer products...

C: Perhaps an Infernal Forge. Raid the plans from this building from the Succubi. The infernal forge could use various combinations of bonemetals and corpse byproducts (perhaps some souls as well) to produce the upgraded Succubi versions of Bronze and Steel (can't recall the names), magical ammo, and perhaps even animated constructs.

Stygium and Afelsteel...  They are in the raws... they can get them from traders occasionally(as anvils, bars, etc.), but there is no specific reactions of making them.  They are not currently in use in the succubus mod.  I'd hate to add anything more to the orcfort/succubus reactions until I know more about the future of the succubus mod from Boltgun.  I'll message him... but he's been moving them away from the whole corpses and body parts industry on the whole.  currently bonemeal/mold/bloodsteel is really only an orc thing.
the only other "specialty" inorganics in use in the succubus mod are slade(not really added in, just actually accessible easily), tempered glass, and layered glass.
I added slade furniture to one of the raids, slade is base value 1 so its not highly valuable, but it is REALLY cool for rarity.
so in the end I like thee idea of the infernal forge, but I don't think stygium and afelsteel is going to making a come back, in the succubus.  and I'm not sure the cross over value of these materials in comparison to deep bronze, orichalcum, bronze, steel.  If boltgun is going to remove them completely they could become a part of the bonmeal->bonemold->bloodsteel chain....
bonemeal->bonemold+copper+souls->stygium
bonmeal->bonemold->bloodsteel+stygium+souls->Afelsteel
Require the new Succubus Captive in the shop, make it a spiteful thing to force them to work with such vile metals since the current succubus have seemed to abandon working with corpses.

D: Perhaps add a lightweight, high value, and awesome colored decorative bonemetal. Perhaps Bonemeal + Ash + Tallow to make a white aluminum stand-in Glossbone. This way it is both easier to craft and haul the furniture made from the bones of your enemies.

That's an awesome idea all together.  What would be the color?

and to add one to this... I was thinking that maybe a low weight byproduct could be made that would be a "wood" replacement for ship building, for embark locations where wood is scarce/non existent.  this material could be such a thing.

-------------

back to the money thing.  It was suggested to me that maybe skullcups should be a replacement for orc money, either of platinum coins or bonemold coins.  basically 1 skullcup would equal say a 500 stack of bonemold coins.  Skullcup would be a special inorganic material added in so that cups made from it would be called skull cups, description this is a cup made from skull, lol. This would then replace the bonemold coins as pay to orc soldiers for raiding, and bonemold transactions.  they would also be usable as actual cups, being dragged around the taverns, etc.  We could even have gold/silver versions to replace those coins, and
the soldier version be iron skull or bonemold skull.  We set up reactions at say the craftorc for turning 1 bar+1 skull into the {inorganic bar skull} cup. No forging coins, and having quality would make sense. 

additionally... I was thinking that we could have civ raids bring back corpses/bones/skulls/etc too, say 1 to 4 but average at 1 (4 products of 1, all of them at 25% chance).  These corpses could then be used in the production line as its sometimes hard to hunt for enough animals in early to midgame for enough material for the industry.  I'm wondering what the product line would have to be for a corpse to drop.  a corpse would then be dragged to the butcher chopped into meat, bones, and a skull.  the skull goes to be made into a cup, the bones can be used in the dismemberment theater (or the corpse, another interesting realistic addition, your doctors actually practicing on a humanoid corpse!), the meat can be squeezed for blood, the entire raiding industry becomes entrenched in the bone industry.

-------

Kick those ideas around while I go start working on the foundry reactions.

[Weirdsound]

I'm on my chromebook, so I don't have the raws handy, but I'm 90% sure Bonemeal is already a flux. If not, disregard any ideas considering expanding flux use to buff the bonemetal industry.

back to the money thing.  It was suggested to me that maybe skullcups should be a replacement for orc money, either of platinum coins or bonemold coins.  basically 1 skullcup would equal say a 500 stack of bonemold coins.  Skullcup would be a special inorganic material added in so that cups made from it would be called skull cups, description this is a cup made from skull, lol. This would then replace the bonemold coins as pay to orc soldiers for raiding, and bonemold transactions.  they would also be usable as actual cups, being dragged around the taverns, etc.  We could even have gold/silver versions to replace those coins, and
the soldier version be iron skull or bonemold skull.  We set up reactions at say the craftorc for turning 1 bar+1 skull into the {inorganic bar skull} cup. No forging coins, and having quality would make sense. 

additionally... I was thinking that we could have civ raids bring back corpses/bones/skulls/etc too, say 1 to 4 but average at 1 (4 products of 1, all of them at 25% chance).  These corpses could then be used in the production line as its sometimes hard to hunt for enough animals in early to midgame for enough material for the industry.  I'm wondering what the product line would have to be for a corpse to drop.  a corpse would then be dragged to the butcher chopped into meat, bones, and a skull.  the skull goes to be made into a cup, the bones can be used in the dismemberment theater (or the corpse, another interesting realistic addition, your doctors actually practicing on a humanoid corpse!), the meat can be squeezed for blood, the entire raiding industry becomes entrenched in the bone industry.

If you want to do skulls = currency, why not just save the effort and use totems instead of making a new 'skull' material? We already know 1 Totem = 500 Bonemold Coins, you can sell em at the freelancers guild for that amount as is now.

As for the idea of raiding for corpses, why not just add 'Slaughter Captive' options to the Ghetto Overseer, so you can just turn any spare captives your raiders/kobold thief find into useable body parts.

D: Perhaps add a lightweight, high value, and awesome colored decorative bonemetal. Perhaps Bonemeal + Ash + Tallow to make a white aluminum stand-in Glossbone. This way it is both easier to craft and haul the furniture made from the bones of your enemies.

That's an awesome idea all together.  What would be the color?

and to add one to this... I was thinking that maybe a low weight byproduct could be made that would be a "wood" replacement for ship building, for embark locations where wood is scarce/non existent.  this material could be such a thing.

I suggested white, if you read the bit you quoted carefully. Another idea would be to give it bloodsteel's color, and make bloodsteel less visually interesting.

We must be on the same brainwave or something, because I was also considering boat parts made from light weight metals, including the decorative bone-metal. Metal boats would also give some purpose to making alluminum at the Blacksmoke furnace.

I am torn on how this could be implemented. I think the best solution, albeit one that could be a heavy nerf to raiding, would be a complete overhaul of the boat building system, and a slight change to raid mechanics.

There are now only two boat types: Galley and Sailboat.

Galleys Require a hull (made from a bunch of wood at the carpenters, or some lightweight metal at the factory), a siege part, and eight oars (made from almost any material at the metalsmith's forge or craftsorc shop).

Sailboats require a hull, a siege part, a single log (the mast), a rope/chain, and a unit of cloth.

Boats could inherit the material of their hull, perhaps allowing for metal boats as an additional requirement for some of the more advanced raids.

If any mechanical difference between metal and wood boats is implemented, I'd change out the 'Ship Laden with Loot' for 'Crate of Loot', especially if If any mechanical difference between metal and wood boats is implemented, and merely not consume the boat in the raid reaction if it survives. This system would also allow for situations where the raid fails but the boat is not destroyed, thus giving you more control over the odds and outcomes of a raid while trying to balance raiding. This would also free the boat up for another raid right away (no more waiting for unpacking), and the crate of loot could be opened at that customs house of yours.

If this system is implimented, the additional steps to boat building would serve as a further nerf to those who go straight for heavy raiding right out of the gate. If the nerf proves too much, simpily increase ship survivibility or raid loot drop chances to compensate.

[Amostubal]

okay so yes bonemeal is in reaction_class:flux.. never noticed.  not sure if its actually functioning... need to test it, does it actually work as a flux... I've not seen it in the stone lists, and I think it has to show up there for it to function.

It was suggested to me... we have this whole coins coins coins thing going on everywhere... It needs some sort of consensus and it needs a little revamp.  I want to setup conversions up and down, make it a little mini menu at the end of each shop list.  so you can make coin exchanges at any shop.  But I'm rather waiting to see if the fedor concept of coin bags is accepted by the Meph and if it is, well any item could become a new 'currency' and many groups have used various items besides coins (ingots, skullls, teeth, etc.)  Just running ideas by people, I'm not writing into my scripts anything that is complete change from the standards of most of MWDF without at least some guidance.

Love the kill captives idea... adding it to my list of future reactions.  somewhere in all the rewrites of the reactions of shops.  When I do, I may double captive drops.... just so the bodies can pile up.

lol... I saw white aluminum it didn't dawn on me you was thinking white.  So glossbone will be the lightest 'bone metal' (the category I will now call all the bonemeal------bloodsteel industry).  so it will be basically useless for most things other than light weight furniture, and boat building. lets add in grinding into a dust for glazing, since its called glossbone.  It becomes a multipurpose metal increasing the versatility of the industry.

I was thinking about the whole boat thing.  yes currently the weapons kit drops when the raid is accomplished.  The boat is 100% drop from the crate(wtf) so basically the raid is completed and a boat is just sitting there with all the goods(food, gear, resources, captives) sitting inside it.  some orc runs over drags it to the stockpile it sit for 2 years, suddenly the raiding player remembers hey wait I raided the mountains a few years back.  he opens it and everything comes out pristine and nothing wrong with it...captives alive, food fresh, nothing rotted.  and the whole time a boat tied up holding it all together.   The orc literally just picked the whole boat up and dragged all of that stuff around the base.  either we set unpacks to automatic, so the only way someone can stop them from being unpacked is to have workshop slots open or at least free up the boat at the raid reaction not the raid unpacking.  personally I think the weapons kits and the ships need to have a higher return rate than the raid success rate.

Below is just a ramble on what raiding could be but not what I am going to do anytime soon.  its to toss the concept around.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Currently the boats material is transferred to the crate then returned to the boat when the crate is unpacked.  all the boats actually are 1 standard boat, called the longboat.  the construction materials are different (there's 3 different ways) but the end is a boat with the given material of what wood was used(if your not using standard wood mod you could have oak or apple wood boats, lol). 

currently the only raids that require anything more than 1 longboat are the assaults, they take 3... and 3 weapon kits...

I agree that raiding is rather O.P.  I was thinking that 3 different raid boats would be more effective at limiting the rush to the end game... also getting rid of the kobold map search reaction, as it really speeds up reaching pillages and assaults, which isn't even necessary really, without having to trudge through all the low level raiding.   say 3 different levels of boats(5 man size, 10 man size, 20 man size) and 3 different levels of raid kits(5 weapons, 10 weapons and 10 shields, 20 weapons/shields/armors). the increased cost of the items, could be offset by raising their return rate(i.e. you loose them less from raid to raid).  The larger raid kits could be fed by the lower raids(as most efficient raiders do now), basically just unpack shop feeds a special stockpile that feeds to a raidkit producing shop.

The idea that with a map, one can effectively send 3 small boats with 15 weapons and get 100% return of the main target.... haha... no no no you need to send 3 large boats, with 60 shields, 60 weapons, 60 armors!  thumbs up thats how you get a your big target.  A large target should have 100+guards in full gear with 300 to 500 citizens, traps, and all sorts of surprises.  they are going to rush in and grab what they can and rush out.... if they had 15 daggers and 3 small boats... they aren't going to be returning with anything but a handful of dead friends, lol.

So say all boats need a hull, 1 of 3 sizes, out of either wood or light metal, use the orc factory, boat hulls are big.
All boats need propulsion:
1 of 3 kinds, manual(oars wood or metal), sails(1 wood/metal beam with 4 cloth and 2 ropes) or mechanical engine(magma safe - 4 blocks, 2 mechanisms, large screw).
1 of 3 sizes, manual(4, 8, 16), sails(1 sail, 2, sails, 4 sails), or mechanical (1 engine , 2 engines, 4 engines).

basically build the hulls, oars, sails, engines separately at the factory, and combine them at the drydock.  End boat will have same material of the hull, specific name for the size of boat (small boat, long boat, and raider's ship).  the actual call for propulsion will disappear, that part is only to assist with making boats.  if you live in an area with less wood then using metals over wood would be preferable.  Oars could be made singles at the carpenter shop from wood, or in batches of 4 from 4 bars and 1 fuel at the factory(reduces cost for areas strained on wood and fuel).  Oars could also be considered basically hammers... nah that's just too much fun having an oar fight on a dock against an undead invasion.... or would it.

On the whole we should get the boat back at the raid reaction the loot crate should be separate.  That crate could be automatically busted into captives, food, "resource crate", and "reward crate". so the idea the food and captives are just sitting around waiting for an unpack for 2 years is gone. "resource crates" and "reward crates" would be named for the raid.  now you can gather just the reward items, or the resources and stack the others.... or the food and captives could be written into the raid reaction, along with the resource crate, reward crate and that way some raids don't drop resources or rewards crates, but hey we caught a guy with a bag of vegetables... lol.

the biggest problem with automatic reactions... the shop that does it can't have anything set in its work orders, one suspended reaction stops all the automatic reactions until the shop is cleared...  I need to investigate automatic reactions and see if there is a way to force automatic reactions...  I have an idea... but I'm not really looking at this right now.  I've already wasted 10 minutes on this digression... yeah I type too fast.

so on other notes, I've had a couple of people interested in seeing my work... so I'm going to pack it later today, and link it to them.  If anyone else wants to see how its coming along or test it, send me a PM.  I've been taking a few hours here and there to run the reactions... but I can't be sure they are all working correctly... I've still got a few that seem to be working, but have an issue with dfhack workflow seeing them, that I'm trying to figure out.

[Weirdsound]

okay so yes bonemeal is in reaction_class:flux.. never noticed.  not sure if its actually functioning... need to test it, does it actually work as a flux... I've not seen it in the stone lists, and I think it has to show up there for it to function.

I'm pretty sure it does, and it is on the stones list. Could be wrong. At the very least I vaguely remember dicking around with Bonemeal trap components at some point.

Love the kill captives idea... adding it to my list of future reactions.  somewhere in all the rewrites of the reactions of shops.  When I do, I may double captive drops.... just so the bodies can pile up.

I don't think doubling captive drop from raids is necessary. You can get as many as you want from the Kobold Thief without much difficulty. You already intend to take away the map/assualt plan reaction there. If anything, I'd slightly lower raid prisoner drops to ensure the Thief is still used.

I agree that raiding is rather O.P.  I was thinking that 3 different raid boats would be more effective at limiting the rush to the end game... also getting rid of the kobold map search reaction, as it really speeds up reaching pillages and assaults, which isn't even necessary really, without having to trudge through all the low level raiding.   say 3 different levels of boats(5 man size, 10 man size, 20 man size) and 3 different levels of raid kits(5 weapons, 10 weapons and 10 shields, 20 weapons/shields/armors). the increased cost of the items, could be offset by raising their return rate(i.e. you loose them less from raid to raid).  The larger raid kits could be fed by the lower raids(as most efficient raiders do now), basically just unpack shop feeds a special stockpile that feeds to a raidkit producing shop.

The idea that with a map, one can effectively send 3 small boats with 15 weapons and get 100% return of the main target.... haha... no no no you need to send 3 large boats, with 60 shields, 60 weapons, 60 armors!  thumbs up thats how you get a your big target.  A large target should have 100+guards in full gear with 300 to 500 citizens, traps, and all sorts of surprises.  they are going to rush in and grab what they can and rush out.... if they had 15 daggers and 3 small boats... they aren't going to be returning with anything but a handful of dead friends, lol.

So say all boats need a hull, 1 of 3 sizes, out of either wood or light metal, use the orc factory, boat hulls are big.
All boats need propulsion:
1 of 3 kinds, manual(oars wood or metal), sails(1 wood/metal beam with 4 cloth and 2 ropes) or mechanical engine(magma safe - 4 blocks, 2 mechanisms, large screw).
1 of 3 sizes, manual(4, 8, 16), sails(1 sail, 2, sails, 4 sails), or mechanical (1 engine , 2 engines, 4 engines).

basically build the hulls, oars, sails, engines separately at the factory, and combine them at the drydock.  End boat will have same material of the hull, specific name for the size of boat (small boat, long boat, and raider's ship).  the actual call for propulsion will disappear, that part is only to assist with making boats.  if you live in an area with less wood then using metals over wood would be preferable.  Oars could be made singles at the carpenter shop from wood, or in batches of 4 from 4 bars and 1 fuel at the factory(reduces cost for areas strained on wood and fuel).  Oars could also be considered basically hammers... nah that's just too much fun having an oar fight on a dock against an undead invasion.... or would it.

On the whole we should get the boat back at the raid reaction the loot crate should be separate.  That crate could be automatically busted into captives, food, "resource crate", and "reward crate". so the idea the food and captives are just sitting around waiting for an unpack for 2 years is gone. "resource crates" and "reward crates" would be named for the raid.  now you can gather just the reward items, or the resources and stack the others.... or the food and captives could be written into the raid reaction, along with the resource crate, reward crate and that way some raids don't drop resources or rewards crates, but hey we caught a guy with a bag of vegetables... lol.

the biggest problem with automatic reactions... the shop that does it can't have anything set in its work orders, one suspended reaction stops all the automatic reactions until the shop is cleared...  I need to investigate automatic reactions and see if there is a way to force automatic reactions...  I have an idea... but I'm not really looking at this right now.  I've already wasted 10 minutes on this digression... yeah I type too fast.

A few thoughts:

I think low level raids directly feeding high level raids will always yield some sort of rush to the end game. If anything, I'd argue for making the low level raids easier to accomplish, keeping mid-level raids about where they are now (if not making them a bit harder), and ratcheting up both the requirements and rewards of end game raids to make them more of a rare treat than something you can base your entire economy on.

I like the idea of multiple kinds of raid kit, and multiple kinds of hull. This can be used to accomplish both easier early raids and harder late ones.

Low tier raids can be made easier by putting the wood hull making reaction at the siege workshop (bigger than a carpenters workshop) instead of the factory, and having the lowest tier raid kit not specifically require metal weapons. This way you can round up workers and raid for food without necessarily having to establish a metal industry or factory first. All one would really need is furniture to set up the freelancer and drydock, and some stuff to sell to supply the raiders.

Mid-tier weapons kits would require metal scimitars and any shields. It seems impractical to send out serious raiders with only daggers, and calling for bigger weapons means that raids cost a bit more in raw materials. Scimitars were chosen in particular because they can be purchased from the freelancer, so if a player really wants to, they can still skip the metal industry here.

High-tier weapons kits call for firearms, ammo, and quivers. Guns are nice and pirate themed, and also something that even a fairly well established fortress would have to go through some effort to make. I'd call specifically for muskets, as pistols can be purchased from the Freelancer, and we don't want players bypassing the manufacturing entirely at this point. If pistols are chosen instead, perhaps require metal bucklers to go with them. Some guns and ammo can be obtained from earlier raids of course, but the player would be responsible for establishing a more dependable source if they wish to attempt high end raids often.

Finally I'd consider adding Naval Weapons, which are used in addition to traditional weapons kits on missions where the ships themselves are likely to fight (merchant shipping and the assault missions). There are three recipes for naval weapons: Handcannons + Cannonballs, Ballista Parts + Ballista Arrows, and Catapult Parts + A whole bunch of stone. If you go this route, I'd consider making sure that all raids that drop firearms require naval weapons, to ensure an extra step between exists between players and late game raids.

[Amostubal]

I don't think doubling captive drop from raids is necessary. You can get as many as you want from the Kobold Thief without much difficulty. You already intend to take away the map/assualt plan reaction there. If anything, I'd slightly lower raid prisoner drops to ensure the Thief is still used.

note taken... I was thinking of just changing the drop rates of the thief... currently its higher than the drop rates of the raids... and WAYYYYY cheaper.  I was thinking that the thief shop should have equal drop rates with the raids, and keep its cheap cost, as it only targets the specific thing.  personally the only goblin/kobold shop that really seems to be completely useless is the poisoner and I hate to move the thief shop to that level...  I think the thief skills should be designed to allow access to specific targets while avoiding all the extra loot, but at similar rates to the raids.
 

A few thoughts:

I think low level raids directly feeding high level raids will always yield some sort of rush to the end game. If anything, I'd argue for making the low level raids easier to accomplish, keeping mid-level raids about where they are now (if not making them a bit harder), and ratcheting up both the requirements and rewards of end game raids to make them more of a rare treat than something you can base your entire economy on.

yeah I changed the drop rates of the treasure maps(pillages raised the rate a little) and assault plans(lowered a little), to better reflect a need to move the later farther down the chain.  I also removed them completely from pillage level raids.

my separation of the materials received from each race group was to push the raid system away from the base your entire economy on the mountain homes assault, lol.  I've done a few others have agreed they did it too.

I like the idea of multiple kinds of raid kit, and multiple kinds of hull. This can be used to accomplish both easier early raids and harder late ones.

Low tier raids can be made easier by putting the wood hull making reaction at the siege workshop (bigger than a carpenters workshop) instead of the factory, and having the lowest tier raid kit not specifically require metal weapons. This way you can round up workers and raid for food without necessarily having to establish a metal industry or factory first. All one would really need is furniture to set up the freelancer and drydock, and some stuff to sell to supply the raiders.

lol, in other words you want a long canoe and some rock hammers for tier 0 raids (resource raids, mining camps, logging camps, fishing villages, farming villages)?  I'd say make them out of 3(1 hull, 2 oars) log of wood or 3 bar of metal (or 3 bar of glossbone?), make a 3 weapon resource raid kit that didn't check for metals, and go for it.

Mid-tier weapons kits would require metal scimitars and any shields. It seems impractical to send out serious raiders with only daggers, and calling for bigger weapons means that raids cost a bit more in raw materials. Scimitars were chosen in particular because they can be purchased from the freelancer, so if a player really wants to, they can still skip the metal industry here.

why not just sell Scimitar weapons kits....

I've thought about that, in a raid kit a orichalcum great axe is equivalent to a copper dagger.  I had thought about restricting the metals for higher end raid kits.  but your ideas on maybe requiring a particular weapon (hammers(rock or metal)-> daggers -> scimitars and shields -> scimitars, shields, {guns, maybe}, breastplates) is interesting.  I'd prefer weapons that aren't in the raids but at least are at the orc foundry.  This way the 5x reactions help, and keep the player from feeding directly from the raids.  leaving the raid weapon rewards as either gear sent to the military or melt sources. Right now after I get fully going on the tier 1 raids, I just feed the weapons from unpacking into the same stockpile I'm feeding daggers from the orc foundry in and package them into the weapons kits.  block high end metals such as  steel, mithril, orichalcum, and deep bronze.  Under the older version, this was all that was needed, because weapon drops were so high that several raids dropped 6 to 10 weapons on average (merchant fleet, treasure fleet, elven village, human village, all assaults). New averages is closer to 3 to 5 max all raids. Now a constant fresh source of weapons is required.  restricting it as I stated above would require all weapons to be produced by the players as none of these drop from raids (I think the scimitars drop in merchant and treasure raids, but rarely 1-3 per raid).

High-tier weapons kits call for firearms, ammo, and quivers. Guns are nice and pirate themed, and also something that even a fairly well established fortress would have to go through some effort to make. I'd call specifically for muskets, as pistols can be purchased from the Freelancer, and we don't want players bypassing the manufacturing entirely at this point. If pistols are chosen instead, perhaps require metal bucklers to go with them. Some guns and ammo can be obtained from earlier raids of course, but the player would be responsible for establishing a more dependable source if they wish to attempt high end raids often.

Finally I'd consider adding Naval Weapons, which are used in addition to traditional weapons kits on missions where the ships themselves are likely to fight (merchant shipping and the assault missions). There are three recipes for naval weapons: Handcannons + Cannonballs, Ballista Parts + Ballista Arrows, and Catapult Parts + A whole bunch of stone. If you go this route, I'd consider making sure that all raids that drop firearms require naval weapons, to ensure an extra step between exists between players and late game raids.

Humans drop guns.  maybe adding cannons to the requirements of assault tier raid boats.  I severely reduced the drop rates. original raids usually had 2 times the options for drops with an average of 20 to 30 items.  I reduced them to an average of 16 for all the raids, with the progression of stronger gear appearing later in the game.  the alternative route is outposts (another kind of rarely used set of workshops) were guns appear at.... not sure where else. 

[Weirdsound]

High-tier weapons kits call for firearms, ammo, and quivers. Guns are nice and pirate themed, and also something that even a fairly well established fortress would have to go through some effort to make. I'd call specifically for muskets, as pistols can be purchased from the Freelancer, and we don't want players bypassing the manufacturing entirely at this point. If pistols are chosen instead, perhaps require metal bucklers to go with them. Some guns and ammo can be obtained from earlier raids of course, but the player would be responsible for establishing a more dependable source if they wish to attempt high end raids often.

Finally I'd consider adding Naval Weapons, which are used in addition to traditional weapons kits on missions where the ships themselves are likely to fight (merchant shipping and the assault missions). There are three recipes for naval weapons: Handcannons + Cannonballs, Ballista Parts + Ballista Arrows, and Catapult Parts + A whole bunch of stone. If you go this route, I'd consider making sure that all raids that drop firearms require naval weapons, to ensure an extra step between exists between players and late game raids.

Humans drop guns.  maybe adding cannons to the requirements of assault tier raid boats.  I severely reduced the drop rates. original raids usually had 2 times the options for drops with an average of 20 to 30 items.  I reduced them to an average of 16 for all the raids, with the progression of stronger gear appearing later in the game.  the alternative route is outposts (another kind of rarely used set of workshops) were guns appear at.... not sure where else. 

Guns are also at the Goblin Tinker, which you should be building anyway to mass smelt the ore the molten pit cannot if you are employing dwarf cells. Again, don't have the raws in front of me, but I recall they require some sort of sulphur/fertilizer type product to make in addition to several kinds of metals, including brass and lead which are rarely used elsewhere.

I don't think doubling captive drop from raids is necessary. You can get as many as you want from the Kobold Thief without much difficulty. You already intend to take away the map/assualt plan reaction there. If anything, I'd slightly lower raid prisoner drops to ensure the Thief is still used.

note taken... I was thinking of just changing the drop rates of the thief... currently its higher than the drop rates of the raids... and WAYYYYY cheaper.  I was thinking that the thief shop should have equal drop rates with the raids, and keep its cheap cost, as it only targets the specific thing.  personally the only goblin/kobold shop that really seems to be completely useless is the poisoner and I hate to move the thief shop to that level...  I think the thief skills should be designed to allow access to specific targets while avoiding all the extra loot, but at similar rates to the raids. 

Perhaps you could drastically increase the amount of time a thief reaction takes to complete. It makes sense that a single tiny Kobold would take longer to complete a mission than a bunch of orcs on a boat.

[Amostubal]

wow I was playing the old school orc fort... whatever happened to that?  besides the raiding causing invasions being a dead thing.... I know I can't create an invasion.... but I can create several hostile units of a target race to appear when an unpacking is attempted, but its not the same.  that is of course the reason that raiding is so overpowered because there should of been a random chance of an invasion every time you accomplished a raid.   The magic was an awesome and robust system, it took me several hours of play and several walks through the raws to figure out how to accomplish it but before you knew it, I had a couple of units tossing ice balls and fire...

Was there really so many changes between the 2 DFs that the entire system had to be trashed?

anyways... I've been plugging away and making interesting changes to what I have... I was looking at the old version to see if their was any way to just port the magic over.  but I still don't understand fully what it was doing... I'll come back to that next week.  Besides, its too quiet around here and I'm missing Meph...  even boltgun has gone rather quiet lately.

[zmw907]

I do not know if this is the right place to post, and I realize this is a bit of a necro but the most recent MW release has messed up all the orc caste natural skills (I believe orcs are only good at threshing and woodcrafting now).  I don't think it was intended, but how do I change it back to how it used to be?

[smakemupagus]

wow I was playing the old school orc fort... whatever happened to that?  besides the raiding causing invasions being a dead thing.... I know I can't create an invasion.... but I can create several hostile units of a target race to appear when an unpacking is attempted, but its not the same.  that is of course the reason that raiding is so overpowered because there should of been a random chance of an invasion every time you accomplished a raid.   The magic was an awesome and robust system, it took me several hours of play and several walks through the raws to figure out how to accomplish it but before you knew it, I had a couple of units tossing ice balls and fire...

Was there really so many changes between the 2 DFs that the entire system had to be trashed?

anyways... I've been plugging away and making interesting changes to what I have... I was looking at the old version to see if their was any way to just port the magic over.  but I still don't understand fully what it was doing... I'll come back to that next week.  Besides, its too quiet around here and I'm missing Meph...  even boltgun has gone rather quiet lately.

Glad to hear you appreciate parts of the old magic system, some of the things were subtle and interesting to develop, like frost magic.  Yes, there really were so many changes! 

Anyone have a suggestion what is the best version of orc fort related to play these days?  Have you guys fixed everything?