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[reality.auditor]

Next step is making monsters that can be defeated by befriending them.

I... it... this is... crazy talk.

[Parisbre56]

Next step is making monsters that can be defeated by befriending them.

I... it... this is... crazy talk.

Why not? You could mod in a race of classic evil sci-fi robots that are trying to kill everybody. And then you'd be all like *hug* "I love you mister robot! I want us to be friends!" and the robot will be all like "DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!" *beep boop sparks* and then its head will explode from the confusion.

[LordBaal]

Next step is making monsters that can be defeated by befriending them.

I... it... this is... crazy talk.

Why not? You could mod in a race of classic evil sci-fi robots that are trying to kill everybody. And then you'd be all like *hug* "I love you mister robot! I want us to be friends!" and the robot will be all like "DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!" *beep boop sparks* and then its head will explode from the confusion.

As long the exploding head shrouds elves in deathly shrapnel I'm in for it.

[Zavvnao]

The end of the Developement log seemed like the end of a comedy show or movie with what he described happen.

[CaptainArchmage]

The end of the Developement log seemed like the end of a comedy show or movie with what he described happen.

I’m thinking, how are these even bugs? It is not that uncommon for drunks to behave like that. i.e. Lets get to the release .

Next step is making monsters that can be defeated by befriending them.

Defeating monsters by befriending them? A few of us are thinking Monster, meet Lava. Lava, meet Monster. It would be helpful to be able to tame more monsters in fortress mode though.

[Dirst]

Next step is making monsters that can be defeated by befriending them.

I... it... this is... crazy talk.

Why not? You could mod in a race of classic evil sci-fi robots that are trying to kill everybody. And then you'd be all like *hug* "I love you mister robot! I want us to be friends!" and the robot will be all like "DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!" *beep boop sparks* and then its head will explode from the confusion.

More like a loyalty cascade in which the robots must kill all friends of humans.  And now it is one.

[dwarf_reform]

I checked through the (probably outdated!) dev roadmap page and didn't see a section for "Legends" mode plans, so I was wondering:

Is it possible, in the future, to add what would amount to a "high scores" page to Legends, or filters/searches for any other interesting bits? Like sorting entities by total kills, longest lived, shortest life, most destructive war, basically anything else brag-worthy?

Sorry if this has been answered or asked in the past 600+ pages haha Legends are so interesting, just hoping for an easy way to find the most interesting of it all easily

[Footkerchief]

Is it possible, in the future, to add what would amount to a "high scores" page to Legends, or filters/searches for any other interesting bits? Like sorting entities by total kills, longest lived, shortest life, most destructive war, basically anything else brag-worthy?

Sorry if this has been answered or asked in the past 600+ pages haha Legends are so interesting, just hoping for an easy way to find the most interesting of it all easily

There's a built-in Legends export tool, and there are community-made tools for processing the exported information.

[PeridexisErrant]

Is it possible, in the future, to add what would amount to a "high scores" page to Legends, or filters/searches for any other interesting bits? Like sorting entities by total kills, longest lived, shortest life, most destructive war, basically anything else brag-worthy?

Sorry if this has been answered or asked in the past 600+ pages haha Legends are so interesting, just hoping for an easy way to find the most interesting of it all easily

There's a built-in Legends export tool, and there are community-made tools for processing the exported information.

Note that Legends Viewer (one of the linked processing/viewing tools) can indeed sort units by just about anything, display most destructive wars, filter based on criteria, etc.  It's awesome. 

[DG]

I think the release should be put off for just a few more months so that the hug code can co-opted by the wrestling code which would allow our superhumanly strong adventurers to give spine breaking bear hugs.

[Lolfail0009]

I think the release should be put off for just a few more months

Do not prolong our suffering.

[EnigmaticHat]

I think the release should be put off for just a few more months so that the hug code can co-opted by the wrestling code which would allow our superhumanly strong adventurers to give spine breaking bear hugs.

I feel like that would take Toady two days tops if he wanted to do it...

[Sadrice]

Spoiler (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.

Dyeing and dye chemistry is also a hobby of mine, and as we speak I am procrastinating on working on my organic chemistry term paper on the synthesis and properties of 6,6' dibromoindigo (Tyrian Purple), so I feel I have a bit to contribute.
Long winded organic chemistry spoilered:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think you are incorrectly describing the dyeing process used for indigo, although I suppose there could be more than one process.  The process I have read for inidigoid dyes is to make them soluble not by using a strong base to break them into monomers, but to use a reducing agent (ammonia or zinc in european indigo, bacterially generated H2 in Japanese indigo, lead or tin (language is ambiguous, both work) in Tyrian Purple) to protonate the carbonyl to a carboxyl, giving you leucoindigo, which is colorless and soluble:
Part of the reason for indigo's extreme insolubility and intense absorption at such a long wavelength given it's small conjugated system is that the carbonyl oxygen and the amine's H of the two monomers hydrogen bond, locking the molecule into a rigidly planar shape and interfering with potential hydrogen bonding with a solvent (you mentioned this in your comment, I know), and reducing the carbonyl to a carboxyl makes it impossible for the molecule to hydrogen bond in a satisfactorily planar way, so conjugation is broken, color is lost, and solvation in water is vastly improved.Since conjugation is so stabilizing, leucoindigo is not stable on contact with oxygen, and will immediately convert back to indigo upon removal from the dye bath, but at this point it has penetrated the fiber and is now indelibly fixed.

For more information about dibromoindigo chemistry and history, and a brief but informative survey of indigoid chemistry, my current favorite is probably "Tyrian Purple: 6, 6’-Dibromoindigo and Related Compounds" by Chris Cooksey in Molecules, 2001.  Cooksey also happens to be my favorite author about Orchil, despite his website being about as user friendly as dwarf fortress.

As for other purples, another commenter mentioned lichen purples used to extend dibromoindigo dyes.  He was referring to orchil, which is a deep reddish magenta dye produced by soaking certain lichens in ammonia (traditionally obtained from stale urine) for several months with frequent incorporation of oxygen. Orchil is a substantive dye, meaning it does not require a metal salt as a mordant, rather it directly bonds to the fiber.  This makes it somewhat selective in fiber, only bonding well to protein based fibers like wool and silk, as well as leather, feathers, and to a lesser extent bone, but due to the strong bond it is very washfast.  Unfortunately, it is not light fast, and is known for fading dramatically with excessive exposure.  It was used to extend Tyrian purple as it is much cheaper, has a similar color, is intense and solid (Tyrian purple had a tendency to be blotchy), and the lightfast Tyrian purple would help disguise the fading of the orchil.

True orchil is made from Rocella tinctoria, but any number of lichens can be used to produce similar dyes, which have been called cudbear, litmus, and a handful of other things.  I have actually made purple dye from at least 3 species, Umbillicaria spp., Evernia prunastri, and a Xanthoparmelia.  I got an intense blood-magenta from Umbillicaria, a not very saturated delicate gem tone violet from Evernia, which has since faded to nearly grey, and a slightly dirty/brownish rose from the Xanthoparmelia.  Here's a photo of a few dye samples, spoilered for size:
[/size]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The three socks at top are Umbillicaria, and closely approximate the color of both true Orchil and Tyrian purple (it was more of a wine red with magenta hues than a true purple, and was sometimes described as "ox blood").
The sock underneath is Evernia, heavily faded.  It was never all that saturated, but it was better.  The Umbillicaria is the same age, and while the fabric is heavily worn and holes are developing, the color is essentially as good as new.  Of course, these are socks, so they don't get as much sun as would, say, a hat. 
The rosey purple yarn sample on the white bone is from Xanthoparmelia treated with ammonia, while the yellow sample on the dark brown rib is also Xanthoparmelia, but boiled in water with alum mordanted wool.  Excess boiling gives more of a green brown tinge. 
The bones were soaked in a tannin solution prepared from oak galls, and the brown rib is just that, while the glossy blue/black scapula was subjected to a further treatment with an iron mordant (I used rust and vinegar).

Of course, the colors look much better in person in full sun than in my kitchen on a cell phone camera.

(I expect elves to REALLY hate the color purple. Made either from boiling their beloved trees, or from boiling poor innocent little ocean snails. I expect them to really like indigo blue, tannin based browns (from leaves and acorn hulls), and lichen based yellows, because they are atrocity and cruelty free.

So actually, with orchil, you can get good lichen based purples for the elves, as well as various reds and even a pale baby blue from Xanthoria (treat it like an orchil dye, but exposure to UV soon after removal from dye bath changes it from rose pink to pale blue), though they won't be extraordinarily lightfast  Since they only work on protein fibers, you won't be able to dye elven rope reed, but it really seems that they ought to prefer wool or spider silk, nonviolently harvested from beloved animal companions.  However, lichen dyes are usually by no means elf friendly.  Rock lichens tend to provide more intense dyes so are the most used, but are the slowest growing and harvesting usually means scraping the rock clean of lichen.  Overharvesting of dye lichens was typical wherever they were widely used, and the decline in abundance of dye species with overharvesting was noted even in ancient times (I'll have to look for the citation to that, but I know I read it somewhere).  I actually had an old hippie lady who was a mushroom dye enthusiast give me a very angry lecture on Destroying the Environment and Murdering Innocent Lichens and pretty much shun me from her table after I tried to show her my spiffy purple socks (this was at a mushroom fair, and she was an elf if I've ever met one).

You can produce elf friendly lichen purples, by using tree growing species and gathering them from the ground or from fallen dead branches (I do this because it is a lot less work than scraping rocks, aside from being less destructive).  Unfortunately, this limits the intensity of color that you can achieve.  In my dye samples shown, the first and most intense one was rock growing, while the other, less saturated (and lightfast) were quick growing bark dwellers.  You can get some pretty good yellows from found lichens, though.  Usnea will give various yellows potentially ranging from clear golden to sherbertey orange when boiled gently in water with optional alum mordant (overheating tends to brown the colors), and Xanthoparmelia gives a nice green-gold with a pleasant sheen and softness when treated the same (as opposed to the rose purple from the ammonia method).

To finally actually get to a more or less relevant topic, here are the colors you can achieve from plants currently in the game, with sources for most colors:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

TL;DR: most of the dyes available are some variant of yellow-beige-orange with alum and green-grey with iron, which is pretty typical of any given sampling of plants (that's by far the most common category of vegetable dye).  The brightest yellows are probably from pomegranate husks, mango leaves, and chicory, with alum for all of those, the best green is probably from Chicory with iron, but I know you can get a good green from fennel greens with iron, so I might have to look into relatives of fennel, like carrot greens with iron.  The best orangey color is probably from persimmon, but it's not very bright.  Perhaps carrots or carotenoid rich yams might be made to work.  With a good red, orange could be made from a bright yellow, but aside from beets, I can't think of any in the real world plants we currently have on hand.  Blues can be gotten from black beans, if those can be included under the category of string bean (same species), but we don't have any indigotin sources in game yet, and I think our only good blue is dimple cups.  Purples can be gotten from beets, which doesn't work well, or from lichens which haven't been added, or snails which haven't been added.


Banana sap (and presumably Abaca) - brownish to reddish, from tannins.  The Fe'i banana is apparently used for a reddish dye.  One source suggested it is useful as a mordant for other dyes, which is typical of tannins, though of course they also contribute their own color.

Coffee - browns, from tannins

Guava - pale rosey brown with alum or no mordant, slate grey with iron mordant (as with any iron mordant, this will be destructive to protein based fibers, making them scratchy and brittle) [source]

Rambutan - can be used to dye fiber a sunny yellow, using alum I assume [source].  Iron will give greys or greens.  "Young shoots are used to dye yellow silk to green. A dye     called ayer banyar, made from rambutan leaves and fruits     and combined with other ingredients, is used for dyeing red     silk black." [source]

Tea - has been popularly used to make reddish browns, especially for making paper look old.  Iron mordant will give dark greys

Avocado - beige yellow from fruit skins, beige rose from pits, no mordant [source] or pale rose pink, no mordant [source]

Pomegranate fruit husk and pith - beige brown unmordanted, intense mustard yellow with alum [source], as usual with yellow dyes, darker greys can be achieved with iron, at the possible expense of fabric softness

Cherry bark, also apple, apricot, peach, plum, and any other fruit tree in the rose family - creamy yellow to rose pink with alum or no mordant [source], greys and grey greens from iron

Persimmons (unripe fruit) - somewhat brownish earth toned rose [source] probably grey with iron

Walnut - a very deep intense chocolatey brown, very wash and light fast [source]  This dye was widely used because it fixes very well to most fibers and has the benefit of being somewhat toxic, so it inhibits insect damage (though not at all dangerous to wear)

Black Beans (not mentioned, but a cultivar of Phaseolus vulgaris) - a nice strong blue, like a slightly less intense indigo, alum mordant [source]

Beets - magenta red, more or less what you would expect from the color of beet juices, mordanted with vinegar.  Color can be adjusted by varying pH, but the solution must be acidic for the dye to bind to the fiber. [source] Presumably you could also vary the color by starting with differently colored beet cultivars.  I have my doubts as to the light fastness of this dye, as according to wikipedia, betanin, the primarily pigment molecule, "degrades when subjected to light, heat, and oxygen" [source]

Carrots - I don't know about orange carrots, I don't think it works well, but apparently purple carrots give a very nicely colored purple dye [source], but I have strong suspicions about wash and lightfastness

Chicory - mustard yellow (alum), yellow-green (copper), bright yellow (tin), forest green (iron), creamy biege (no mordant).  There are reports of a blue dye from the leaves, but this seems to be untrue. [source]

Onions - give a nice warm orange yellow from the skins

That's all the new plants, I haven't looked through the old plant list, but I know it has some worth mentioning, like an intense yellow from mango leaves and deep browns and blacks from oaks.  I'm sure I missed lots of stuff too.

I've been thinking I should go to the suggestions subforum and start or revive a thread on dyes, if anyone is interested.

Also, since linseed and it's oil has been added, all we need for oil paints is a job to mix powdered pigment with oil (we might want to conveniently ignore any other binders or additives that might be desired in real paint, and maybe ignore the necessary boiling of the linseed oil (or maybe not)), and a job to paint something.  I know there have been lots of suggestion threads about paints, I might go pick one to necro.

Also, the sizes of text throughout my comment got all screwed up, and I can't seem to fix it by just selecting it all and setting it to a size.  Anyone know how to make that work?

[Inarius]

my eyes are bleeding.

[wierd]

traditional reds in europe are from beets and madder, usually fixed with an alum mordant. the red coats that were used by the british were dyed wool, dyed with madder.

logwood was the "cheap and easy" source of violet. (madder overdyed with indigo from woad was not a particularly pretty thing, and was prone to blotching.)

from north america, you can use hopi red amaranth, and cocheneal (sp?) beetles.

a synthetic blue can be made by sintering bloodmeal and iron filings together in a sealed ceramic crucible. (prussian blue). this wasnt discovered until late in the game, as far as dye chemistry is concerned however. another blue is pthalo blue, which is made from copper, but that's pretty damned modern.