Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[smjjames]

Few more examples:

http://eol.org/pages/2508593/data Guava (includes some numbers on wood density, which is VERY useful)

http://eol.org/pages/1154718/data Cassava. Although the data seems primarily from the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) and what the heck USDA, green flowers?

Some things may have to be double checked, but in general the data should be reliable and there should be more than one set of data in there or something.

[monk12]

Wary is what was meant.

Anyway, that followed Muphry's Law like clockwork.

Aaaah, I thought he was just sick of the discussion and phrased it oddly.

[Snaake]

Congratulations to Lordbaal, Th4DwArfY1 (had to copy-paste that...), monk12, and Dwarf4Explosives for spotting all of my mistakes, which were intended to be obvious, and obviously intentional. Also to Putnam for getting the joke, such as it was, and to Lordbaal for spotting his own mistake.

My apologies for the sidetrack, let's rerail this thread:
■...═▲══
..■.═▲══
....■▲══
....═▲■═
There we go!

[Dirst]

If it werent for all the paywalls everywhere for anything even remotely scientifically significant, i would happily start looking into statistical spreads on botanical morphologies as they relate to biome types.

Sadly, Elsevier and pals make that basically impossible. (and people wonder why our culture is gravitating toward anti-science biases. hah.)

Strike that, looks like there is a very comprehensive list of plant species that can be freely browsed.
However, the data is NOT in a big-data processing friendly format. Will require significant effort to process.

Will also require outside datasets to determine biome coverage statistics (how commonly found are the plants listed, etc.)

http://eol.org/ Will also be of help, lots of information in there.

Edit: LOTS of data for Pineapple for example. http://eol.org/pages/1126520/data Including links to other databases.

Not suitable as a christmas tree product is included in there, lol....... However, it seems to be in agreement that it is not a viable wood producing plant.

Flower color green though?

This looks like an excellent starting point.  The data are either unrestricted or under an attribution-only license, so there's no problem with using it in a game.  An API is in the works, but for now someone with an account can download the data a chunk at a time with careful queries, maybe division-by-division.  A passing knowledge of botany would make sure nothing gets missed.

The only problem I see is that my spot-checking didn't give any indication of whether the plant is suitable for dye production.  Since this is DF, we can assume anything edible can be brewed 

[smjjames]

Well, whether something is capable of producing dye probably isn't high on USDA's priority list.

I tried to look at some things that are on the list that MIGHT produce dye.

http://eol.org/pages/1278046/data Carrots for some reason don't have the data stuff in, though maybe its because it's domesticated carrots in general and as the overview image shows, they come in many colors. Carotene is a well known pigment which is used by other plants. Don't know how viable of a dye it is though.

http://eol.org/pages/38372/overview Blueberries. Well, um, the specific one that Toady One is using don't seem to be in there on first glance and the Vaccinium genus itself is huge. I did do a quick look in google for blueberry dye and there are ways to make a purple dye from it. Edit: Found it http://eol.org/pages/5251339/overview It really only has the wiki info though.

As for dyes, there are LOTS and LOTS of natural dyes out there, we just have to look.

*idea comes while looking around*
Hey Toady One and modders, any chance of making vampires allergic to garlic? Of course though, since they aren't your standard vampire (don't take damage from sunlight, cave adaption is another thing enturely), we could choose not to use that vampire stereotype.

[Putnam]

yeah shouldn't be too hard

[thvaz]

I really liked the idea of randomized vampires...I hoped we could have vampires with random strenghts and weakness, and some false ones too...so the vulnerability to some substance wouldn't be more than a gossip, and players would fill their fortress with that substance in the hope of catching vampires...to discover later that they aren't affected at all by it.

[Dutchling]

Speaking of vampires: are Werecreature moon-phases (as in, when they're active) random or always at full moon? Also is the moon cycle tied to months or (like on Earth) not?

[Putnam]

Speaking of vampires: are Werecreature moon-phases (as in, when they're active) random or always at full moon? Also is the moon cycle tied to months or (like on Earth) not?

Current version? Always full moon, exactly one month per moon cycle AFAIK.

[wierd]

Carotenoids and anthrocyanins make poor quality dyes, because they break down on exposure to UV light sources, and or, react with changes in pH in the environment.

Plant pigments that hold up well usually have either an amine group bond, an aromatic ring structure, or have compound double bonds in the molecular structure.

Pigments that break down on exposure to UV are said to be non-lightfast (carotenoids are in this category), or they react strongly to changes in pH (anthrocyanins are in this category) and are said to not be wash-fast.

If you look at indigo dye, for instance, it is a dimeric molecule of two indigotin monomers that come together with a strong double bond and two hydrogen bonds, and each monomer is itself made with a strong aromatic ring structure.



The dimeric complex is remarkably stable, and requires a strong alkaline solvent to break it down into the monomers again in order for it to be absorbed into the matrix of plant fibers. Once in, the very stable molecules strongly resist UV degredation (ring structure harmonics), and strongly resist changes in pH (double bond, and hydrogen bond structure between monomers, nonpolar molecule with high weight.)

The production of complex molecules like that is very uncommon, which is why quality dyestuffs commanded high prices. Many dyes of antiquity were actually metallic salt complexes that used mordants to help the dyestuffs cling to the fiber, and used strong ionic bonds to resist chemical degradation.

The ancient egyptians are often given credit for independent discovery of mordanting with metallic salts to improve natural dyestuffs, and to create synthetic dyestuffs, but china also discovered this independently.

The limited selection of quality dyestuffs is one of the reasons why "Royal purple" was "royal"-- Purple was a very difficult color to produce, because quality blue was hard to produce in antiquity. (indigo is just about the ONLY plant based blue that is both wash and lightfast.) Royal purple was produced from the extractives of a special variety of shellfish, and required special processing. It wasnt until the industrial revolution that the color Mauve was produced from coaltar, (as are all other synthetic analine dyes) that purple was commercially available in great quantities.

I can give you a short list of classical dyestuffs and even some recipies, as antique dye chemistry is a bit of a hobby of mine.

[CaptainArchmage]

I’ve been looking back through the devlogs (we haven’t seen one recently, actually, since the 6th and so that’s a bit longer than average).

Tunnels: So according to the devlogs they are back in (AW YEAH). If we embark over a tunnel will the tunnel be open or sealed at the map edges?

To be honest the tunnel should just be open in that case, and traders should come through it once we’ve dug down and have a depot accessible from there. Like really, just have them spawn in the tunnel rather than on the surface. In that scenario you do not have a depot accessible from underground you probably deserve to get yelled at by the outpost liason - given that choice why would you force dwarves to take a long journey beneath that HORRIFIC EXPANSE OF OPEN SKY?!

I really liked the idea of randomized vampires...I hoped we could have vampires with random strenghts and weakness, and some false ones too...so the vulnerability to some substance wouldn't be more than a gossip, and players would fill their fortress with that substance in the hope of catching vampires...to discover later that they aren't affected at all by it.

As it is vampires and werebeasts don’t have weaknesses to any specific material for reasons not associated with the physics. However, they do have a weakness from lack of blood or alcohol and they slow down because of it.

Really vampires should be able to preferentially feed from blood in barrels, which, in the absence of a local production method, would require us to buy blood from caravans.

Speaking of vampires: are Werecreature moon-phases (as in, when they're active) random or always at full moon? Also is the moon cycle tied to months or (like on Earth) not?

The randomly-generated werecreatures always transform at full moon and not during any other lunar phase, but the tags allow other creatures to transform at a certain lunar phase. There are 13 lunar months in a year, and the full moons in each month will fall on the same day each year.

Edit: Here are your full moon dates from the dwarf fortress wiki. They are the same for each year.

25th granite
23rd slate
21st felsite
19th hematite
17th malachite
15th galena
13th limestone
11th sandstone
8th timber
6th moonstone
4th opal
2nd obsidian
28th obsidian

[Vattic]

Spoiler: dyes (click to show/hide)

Carotenoids and anthrocyanins make poor quality dyes, because they break down on exposure to UV light sources, and or, react with changes in pH in the environment.

Plant pigments that hold up well usually have either an amine group bond, an aromatic ring structure, or have compound double bonds in the molecular structure.

Pigments that break down on exposure to UV are said to be non-lightfast (carotenoids are in this category), or they react strongly to changes in pH (anthrocyanins are in this category) and are said to not be wash-fast.

If you look at indigo dye, for instance, it is a dimeric molecule of two indigotin monomers that come together with a strong double bond and two hydrogen bonds, and each monomer is itself made with a strong aromatic ring structure.



The dimeric complex is remarkably stable, and requires a strong alkaline solvent to break it down into the monomers again in order for it to be absorbed into the matrix of plant fibers. Once in, the very stable molecules strongly resist UV degredation (ring structure harmonics), and strongly resist changes in pH (double bond, and hydrogen bond structure between monomers, nonpolar molecule with high weight.)

The production of complex molecules like that is very uncommon, which is why quality dyestuffs commanded high prices. Many dyes of antiquity were actually metallic salt complexes that used mordants to help the dyestuffs cling to the fiber, and used strong ionic bonds to resist chemical degradation.

The ancient egyptians are often given credit for independent discovery of mordanting with metallic salts to improve natural dyestuffs, and to create synthetic dyestuffs, but china also discovered this independently.

The limited selection of quality dyestuffs is one of the reasons why "Royal purple" was "royal"-- Purple was a very difficult color to produce, because quality blue was hard to produce in antiquity. (indigo is just about the ONLY plant based blue that is both wash and lightfast.) Royal purple was produced from the extractives of a special variety of shellfish, and required special processing. It wasnt until the industrial revolution that the color Mauve was produced from coaltar, (as are all other synthetic analine dyes) that purple was commercially available in great quantities.

I can give you a short list of classical dyestuffs and even some recipies, as antique dye chemistry is a bit of a hobby of mine.

You also have lichen based purple dyes. I remember reading that they were used with royal purple to cut down on cost. Can't say I had much interest before, but have since doing research for an unfinished dye expansion mod. I'd strongly suggest the Bechtold Handbook of Natural Colorants if you've not read it already.

Talk of light-fastness makes me wonder if we'll see sun-bleached clothing.

[DG]

would require us to buy blood from caravans.

Buying blood in barrels is ridiculous so I'd be surprised if that bug isn't fazed out eventually.

[smjjames]

I really liked the idea of randomized vampires...I hoped we could have vampires with random strenghts and weakness, and some false ones too...so the vulnerability to some substance wouldn't be more than a gossip, and players would fill their fortress with that substance in the hope of catching vampires...to discover later that they aren't affected at all by it.

As it is vampires and werebeasts don’t have weaknesses to any specific material for reasons not associated with the physics. However, they do have a weakness from lack of blood or alcohol and they slow down because of it.

Actually, if you ask around in adventure mode, they'll say that the werebeast has a weakness to some sort of metal. Not that it helps you any in fort mode since unless you got to know the werebeasts in the neghborhood before founding the fort, you're not going to know what the weakness is anyway.

[Maolagin]

If it werent for all the paywalls everywhere for anything even remotely scientifically significant, i would happily start looking into statistical spreads on botanical morphologies as they relate to biome types.

Sadly, Elsevier and pals make that basically impossible. (and people wonder why our culture is gravitating toward anti-science biases. hah.)

Strike that, looks like there is a very comprehensive list of plant species that can be freely browsed.
However, the data is NOT in a big-data processing friendly format. Will require significant effort to process.

Will also require outside datasets to determine biome coverage statistics (how commonly found are the plants listed, etc.)

According to the docs, theplantlist.org provides CSV file downloads. They are per-family, but it wouldn't be too hard to crawl the site and fetch them all.

E.g.: http://www.theplantlist.org/1.1/browse/A/Posidoniaceae/Posidoniaceae.csv