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[Venatius]

So, I'm batting around the idea of making a new civ (as I'm sure every DF player does before long), which has hit a stumbling block that may or may not be surmountable. I'd really appreciate all help/input on it, even if just to say it can't be done. My specific idea is a civ that, though industrially backwards and low-tech in almost all spheres, has honed an understanding of genetics to the point of being able to utilize limited biotechnology. The specific spot where this hits a problem is in material. The idea I've been batting around is creating one or two new materials, probably "Blubber" (composed of a large quantity of smelted fat) and "Muscle" (smelted chunks and meat), that can be used for weapons/armor/furniture/whatever. Now, getting them to be unable to use advanced metals should probably be as simple as removing their ability to have stone prefs, it looks like. But is there any way to specify that their non-clothing equipment should primarily be made from these materials? Also, is it at all possible to restrict the ability to create items from these materials to their civ? If they're used purely as NPCs and I can make them use blubber/muscle items then that's probably one easy way, but ideally I'd love to be able to include appropriate reactions so one can switch over to them as a fortress race with a minimum of fuss. Thanks for any and all help!

[xaque]

What you can do is create an weapon item that isn't actually used in combat, but is required for all civ-specific reactions. Say you wanted a reaction to create a "bar" of blubber material. You'd specify a weapon, say ITEM_WEAPON_DNA_SEQUENCER. Then your reaction would look like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[REACTION:MAKE_BLUBBER]
[SMELTER]
[REAGENT:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_DNA_SEQUENCER:METAL:NO_MATGLOSS]
[REAGENT:1:GLOB:NO_SUBTYPE:RENDERED_FAT:ANY]
[PRODUCT:100:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_DNA_SEQUENCER:METAL:IRON]
[PRODUCT:100:1:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:BLUBBER]

This would take a DNA sequencer and a glob of fat as input, and output a blubber "bar" and a DNA sequencer. Then, in entity_default.txt, add the line [WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_DNA_SEQUENCER] to the biological race. That way, the biological race will have access to reactions requiring a sequencer, and the other races won't.

Hope I explained that well enough.

[Venatius]

I like it! That sounds like a perfectly fine way to do it. Thank you very much. I knew it'd take some kind of indirect workaround like that, but I wandered "outside the box" and ended up just getting lost.  I'll give it a shot, and it sounds to me like that'll do the job fine.

EDIT: Although, come to think of it, this wouldn't prevent other races from buying/plundering such an item and using it in such reactions, would it? For instance, dwarves can't use pikes/whips/etc., but they can still acquire them, and could still use them in reactions if called for, couldn't they? I mean, it's still a step further in the right direction. There might not be a perfect way to pull this off.

[xaque]

EDIT: Although, come to think of it, this wouldn't prevent other races from buying/plundering such an item and using it in such reactions, would it? For instance, dwarves can't use pikes/whips/etc., but they can still acquire them, and could still use them in reactions if called for, couldn't they? I mean, it's still a step further in the right direction. There might not be a perfect way to pull this off.

Yes, that's true. There are a couple of solutions I've thought of. One is make it so the civ is always at war with everyone, or otherwise incapable of trading. If you give it a weird skill like [SKILL:SOAP_MAKING] then you should never see anyone wielding them in Fortress Mode, so you won't have to worry about them being brought along in sieges.

Another solution is to make the reaction consume the reagent, but make it so new ones are easy to produce (but only for that race). For example, if you made it a ranged weapon (something like [RANGED:SOAP_MAKING:BOLTS]), then you could make them in a bowyer's shop out of bone or wood. So you'd basically need one DNA sequencer or whatever for each reaction. Then, if a couple get traded to another civ, they could only make two or three bars of blubber. They wouldn't be able to mass produce it.

I guess it really depends on how they fit into your game world and how determined you are to stop other races from using them.

[Stargrasper]

EDIT: Although, come to think of it, this wouldn't prevent other races from buying/plundering such an item and using it in such reactions, would it? For instance, dwarves can't use pikes/whips/etc., but they can still acquire them, and could still use them in reactions if called for, couldn't they? I mean, it's still a step further in the right direction. There might not be a perfect way to pull this off.

While that may possibly be true, there's also nothing stopping you from acquiring, say, the elves wooden weapons(commonly used for training).  If they have the power to take it, that's the spoils of war.  I vote you let them.

[Untelligent]

EDIT: Although, come to think of it, this wouldn't prevent other races from buying/plundering such an item and using it in such reactions, would it? For instance, dwarves can't use pikes/whips/etc., but they can still acquire them, and could still use them in reactions if called for, couldn't they? I mean, it's still a step further in the right direction. There might not be a perfect way to pull this off.

While that may possibly be true, there's also nothing stopping you from acquiring, say, the elves wooden weapons(commonly used for training).  If they have the power to take it, that's the spoils of war.  I vote you let them.

The problem here is that it's not the final product they'd be getting from the spoils of war, but an item that, supposedly, they shouldn't have the technology to make into the final product. Having it be a soapmaker skill should prevent them from bringing the DNA sequencer or whatever into battle, though.

[Venatius]

Untelligent has hit the nail on the head. Heck, if people want to plunder their organic weapons, absolutely. No problem with that. It's an issue of CREATING them that's the problem. That's meant to be a technological asset of their culture (one paid for in not being able to make steel or create/use a number of weapons/armors).

[Stargrasper]

Untelligent has hit the nail on the head. Heck, if people want to plunder their organic weapons, absolutely. No problem with that. It's an issue of CREATING them that's the problem. That's meant to be a technological asset of their culture (one paid for in not being able to make steel or create/use a number of weapons/armors).

Okay, yeah, I missed that.  Sorry.

The suggested method is mostly workable but isn't airtight.  I'm not enough of a modder to suggest much beyond that, I guess.  So, if you ever get an airtight method, I'd love to hear it.

[SolarShado]

Hmm...

At first I thought "Hey, if dwarves can get their grimy hands on a DNA sequencer, why shouldn't they be able to use it?"

Then I came up with an idea to expand your mod... no clue how it'd work, but what if the dwarves could reverse-engineer the DNA machine (destroying it in the process, and likely requiring more than one in all) to gain the ability to make more?

And BTW, I'm opposed to the idea of calling it a "DNA sequencer" if it changes fat and meat into "metal" "bars". I love the idea, but am deeply opposed to the name. I'm sure it's far from finished, and it's JMO anyway.

[xaque]

Actually, DNA sequencer was just was what I was calling it based the idea that his civ was genetic engineers. I didn't notice the "has no other technology" bit. It can really be called anything, I was just using that as an example.

Edit: I just discovered something while messing around in modding. If you remove pack animals from a civ, they will be unable to trade and won't send caravans to other races. This has obvious side-effects, but it completely removes access to the technology for other races.