Topic: .31.01 - Various modding experiments (Read 1323 times)

FACM · « **on:** April 04, 2010, 10:13:05 am »

Long time reader/player, first time poster. I've been waiting for the new release to start working on a mod, but it seems like there's going to be a lot of experimentation going on first. And since a lot of people want to experiment on all sorts of little things, perhaps there should be a place for notes from experiments.

This isn't meant to be the sole basis of a mod, though I would expect that several mods would end up re-creating several of the same notes, and hopefully this thread will let us get some of the not-obvious assumptions collected together in one place. Feel free to contribute your own discoveries, or suggest quick raw changes to be tested, and I'll keep an up to date list in this post.

My discoveries:

-Creatures using the default magma template have their durability almost entirely defined by the [RELATIVE_THICKNESS:#] tag on the outer 'crust' layer. Magma men have this set to 1, and most larger creatures take one down in arena mode with little issue. Set this to 2, and they become significantly harder to drop. I tested with this creature:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Using [RELATIVE_THICKNESS:1] resulted in a quick 1- or 2-shot death against similar sized attackers, but using [RELATIVE_THICKNESS:2] made it nearly unstoppable, to the point where it had every body part broken, and was rolling on the ground pushing against a dragon to try and attack it. This may be related to the same issue with bronze colossi and undead being nearly unstoppable.

-The [DEEP_SPECIAL] tag might only apply to one material at a time. I made a quick mod where 2 materials had the tag (effectively the same as adamantine with a different name and color), and only the new one showed up in a test area. This isn't enough testing to confirm this behavior, but it leans towards the idea that the last material in a file with the [DEEP_SPECIAL] tag is the only one that the game actually treats that way.

-Tested out metal trees. Swapped the [trEE:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:WOOD] tag on the candlenut tree to say [trEE:INORGANIC:ADAMANTINE]. The tree's color did not change to match the metal. (I think the color of trees is controlled by the [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE] tag). Cutting down the tree did not take any extra time, so material doesn't affect that any. The tree did drop adamantine, however it was in log form. The adamantine log appeared to have all the properties of adamantine, except it was treated as a log rather than ore/bars/wafer/thread. I made an adamantine bed, which worked like a normal bed but was ridiculously heavy. I then made adamantine training weapons, which were 36kgs vs other wooden training weapons at <1kg. I did not successfully get them to test out the training weapons, and the adamantine training weapons didn't show up at all in arena mode. I didn't see any separate entries for wood-adamantine items at all, so they may be identical to bar/wafer items.

Multi-creature civilizations: I added the [CREATURE:X] tags for humans, goblins, and ant-men to the [ENTITY: MOUNTAIN] object, and generated a new world. Modifying this object (in this way, at least) on an existing world has no effect. The results were not quite was was expected: Several more mountain halls were created, but each race kept to itself. That is, there were a couple of goblin-only mountain halls, a couple dwarf-only mountain halls, a couple antmen-only mountain halls, etc. The ant-men mountain halls only appeared in the Legends up until year 3, so I suspect they're missing a couple of tags to be playable properly. All creatures used dwarven names, since the [trANSLATION:DWARF] tag wasn't changed. No race ever had the other races within the civilization settle in the same location. In adventurer mode, all of the creatures but antmen added were playable, which isn't a change at all. Overall, it doesn't seem that this change works the way it was expected to.

Suggested/upcoming experiments:
-Edible plants being made of other materials: Will dwarves eat ice? Will they freeze doing this?
-Coins: Can we mod in our own currencies and values now? Raw tags exist, but do they work?

robfd · « **Reply #1 on:** April 04, 2010, 10:34:54 am »

Raw Adamantine trees?

On a serious note, you could try Knockout breath attacks. Made of magma. well who doesnt like magma anyway?
Also> my brain has thought of an amazing idea. a MAGMA FOUNTAIN!? lmfao a creature that squirts magma.. no idea if it's possible but would be totally funny to see in the arena. Oh and Bronze Collosi + Magma = Bronze puddle

now pitting a dragon vs Magma creature of doom. that would be hilarity insured not to mention 50 elves in the middle going: "

WHO TO KILL. oh i'll kill my ~~meatshields~~ friends.."

Also why not creature the Mystical beast? 600 arms? maybe? can fly? Dragon breath? Made of adamantine? would be funny to watch it tearing things to pieces.

Ioric Kittencuddler · « **Reply #2 on:** April 04, 2010, 10:36:24 am »

Elephants are covered in hair. Have you ever seen one?

Am I somehow missing the point?

FACM · « **Reply #3 on:** April 04, 2010, 10:38:23 am »

Quote from: Ioric Kittencuddler on April 04, 2010, 10:36:24 am

Elephants are covered in hair. Have you ever seen one? Am I somehow missing the point?

A: That's the default elephant descriptor. I borrowed it for mine.
B: Compared to dogs, monkeys, squirrels, and pretty much any other land mammal besides humans and pigs, elephants are practically hairless. Yes, they have some, but it's not exactly fur.
C: Yes, you might be. Notice this creature isn't exactly a mammal anymore, either.

Eagleon · « **Reply #4 on:** April 04, 2010, 10:51:36 am »

Quote from: FACM on April 04, 2010, 10:13:05 am

-The game uses only the existing raw filenames, and you cannot add your own files to make modding easier.

Suggested/upcoming experiments:
-Edible plants being made of other materials: Will dwarves eat ice? Will they freeze doing this?
-Coins: Can we mod in our own currencies and values now? Raw tags exist, but do they work?
-Playable civilizations: Can more than one race exist in a player civilization? Beastmen tags imply this will work, but they aren't playable in adventure mode.
-Metal trees: Can trees drop ore instead of wood? Bars? Does being made of metal affect how long it takes to cut them down?

First isn't true, at least for creatures. Can you post the file you attempted to add here or on pastebin? What type of file are you trying to create?

Plants - I believe whether a material is edible or not is controlled by the [EDIBLE_RAW] and [EDIBLE_COOKED] tags. You can add tags to a material by just inserting them after their reference in a plant/creature. So you might even be able to make boulders, sand, etc. edible.

Since trees are officially plants now, and they have references to wood mats, setting their own names, I'm betting it'd be simple to replace a tree's material with something else. Dunno about cut times or that sort of thing.

Untelligent · « **Reply #5 on:** April 04, 2010, 11:05:29 am »

Quote from: FACM on April 04, 2010, 10:13:05 am

-The game uses only the existing raw filenames, and you cannot add your own files to make modding easier.

Absolutely untrue. I've made an alternate file for body detail plans, body parts, creatures, descriptor patterns, item_weapon, material templates, and tissue templates so far, and I expect the rest of them will work too.

However, it appears to me that the first word of the filename must remain the same. For instance, mod_creature.txt does not seem to work, but creature_mod.txt works.

Deon · « **Reply #6 on:** April 04, 2010, 11:08:46 am »

Quote

However, it appears to me that the first word of the filename must remain the same.

This. It is just how DF compiler works.

You can have each creature in a separate file.

You can have all types of armor, pants and helmets in the same file.

It doesn't matter.

FACM · « **Reply #7 on:** April 04, 2010, 12:33:24 pm »

Untelligent and Dion: Yes, you're correct. I missed that I needed the [OBJECT:CREATURE] tag at the very top of my file, after the filename. I've fixed my main post.

robfd: Tested out metal trees. Swapped the [trEE:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:WOOD] tag on the candlenut tree to say [trEE:INORGANIC:ADAMANTINE]. The tree's color did not change to match the metal. (I think the color of trees is controlled by the [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE] tag). Cutting down the tree did not take any extra time, so material doesn't affect that any. The tree did drop adamantine, however it was in log form. The adamantine log appeared to have all the properties of adamantine, except it was treated as a log rather than ore/bars/wafer/thread. I made an adamantine bed, which worked like a normal bed but was ridiculously heavy. I then made adamantine training weapons, which were 36kgs vs other wooden training weapons at <1kg. I did not successfully get them to test out the training weapons, and the adamantine training weapons didn't show up at all in arena mode. I didn't see any separate entries for wood-adamantine items at all, so they may be identical to bar/wafer items.

FACM · « **Reply #8 on:** April 04, 2010, 08:20:22 pm »

*double-post to keep discoveries separate*

Multi-creature civilizations: I added the [CREATURE:X] tags for humans, goblins, and ant-men to the [ENTITY: MOUNTAIN] object, and generated a new world. Modifying this object (in this way, at least) on an existing world has no effect. The results were not quite was was expected: Several more mountain halls were created, but each race kept to itself. That is, there were a couple of goblin-only mountain halls, a couple dwarf-only mountain halls, a couple antmen-only mountain halls, etc. The ant-men mountain halls only appeared in the Legends up until year 3, so I suspect they're missing a couple of tags to be playable properly. All creatures used dwarven names, since the [trANSLATION:DWARF] tag wasn't changed. No race ever had the other races within the civilization settle in the same location. In adventurer mode, all of the creatures but antmen added were playable, which isn't a change at all. Overall, it doesn't seem that this change works the way it was expected to.

soul4hdwn · « **Reply #9 on:** April 04, 2010, 08:53:55 pm »

did you try adding in the races to the caste as well or only adding to caste yet? (refering the the above test or a new one)

FACM · « **Reply #10 on:** April 04, 2010, 10:31:33 pm »

Quote from: soul4hdwn on April 04, 2010, 08:53:55 pm

did you try adding in the races to the caste as well or only adding to caste yet? (refering the the above test or a new one)

I added the races to the [ENTITY:MOUNTAIN] object in entity_default.txt, which is where playable races are defined. I wasn't messing with anything with castes, which is another step down, in the actual [CREATURE:RACE] objects in creature_standard.txt. I know that there's another forumgoer that's working on getting multiple races together by messing with caste-level tags. I wanted to see if this simple shortcut would work, and it does, sorta, but not the way he wants it. I'll be watching his experiments with the caste-level tags to see if he gets anything going with them.

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Author Topic: .31.01 - Various modding experiments (Read 1323 times)

FACM

.31.01 - Various modding experiments

robfd

Re: .31.01 - Various modding experiments

Ioric Kittencuddler

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FACM

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Eagleon

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Untelligent

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Deon

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FACM

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FACM

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soul4hdwn

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FACM

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