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[voliol]

What's the difference between PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER and PLUS_TL_GROUP? Going by the arguments given by the wiki, they both look like they add a set of tissue layers to the ones already selected.

Edit: Nevermind, I think I solved it, SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER/PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER is used for non-cosmetic purposes (e.g. heart arteries), and SET_TL_GROUP/PLUS_TL_GROUP for cosmetics. Or at least that's how they are used in the vanilla raws. I'll do some !science! to see if they're really interchangeable or just strangely redundant.

Edit2: SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER seems directly superior to SET_TL_GROUP, the former works with both non-cosmetic and cosmetic tokens (SET_LAYER_TISSUE and TL_COLOR_MODIFIER tried) while the latter only with cosmetic ones. I should put this in its own science thread if there are any more edits.

[Strik3r]

What's the difference between PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER and PLUS_TL_GROUP? Going by the arguments given by the wiki, they both look like they add a set of tissue layers to the ones already selected.

Edit: Nevermind, I think I solved it, SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER/PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER is used for non-cosmetic purposes (e.g. heart arteries), and SET_TL_GROUP/PLUS_TL_GROUP for cosmetics. Or at least that's how they are used in the vanilla raws. I'll do some !science! to see if they're really interchangeable or just strangely redundant.

Edit2: SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER seems directly superior to SET_TL_GROUP, the former works with both non-cosmetic and cosmetic tokens (SET_LAYER_TISSUE and TL_COLOR_MODIFIER tried) while the latter only with cosmetic ones. I should put this in its own science thread if there are any more edits.

Want the kicker? this:
(can you spot what's off about these PLUS_TL_GROUP tokens?)

Code: [Select]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:UB:HAIR:FRONT]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:LB:HAIR:FRONT]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:LB:HAIR:BOTTOM]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:RUL:HAIR:LEFT]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:LUL:HAIR:RIGHT]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:TAIL:HAIR:BOTTOM]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:POUCH:HAIR]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CHEEK_TUFTS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:PATA:HAIR:FRONT]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:WHITE:1:ROSE:1:DARK_PEACH:1:TAN:1:PEACH:1:PEARL:1:BUFF:1:FLAX:1:CREAM:1:BEIGE:1:IVORY:1:PALE_BLUE:1:LAVENDER:1:PERIWINKLE:1:LAVENDER_BLUSH:1:PALE_PINK:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:ventral fur:SINGULAR]
[TLCM_TIMING:ROOT:17:0:21:0]
Does NOT throw an error of any kind in the log. I'm not sure what the implications are, but it is possible that the two (SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER and SET_TL_GROUP) tags are aliases or at least use the same class, if not the same function.

[voliol]

Want the kicker? this:
(can you spot what's off about these PLUS_TL_GROUP tokens?)

Code: [Select]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:UB:HAIR:FRONT]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:LB:HAIR:FRONT]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:LB:HAIR:BOTTOM]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:RUL:HAIR:LEFT]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:LUL:HAIR:RIGHT]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:TAIL:HAIR:BOTTOM]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:POUCH:HAIR]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:CHEEK_TUFTS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:PATA:HAIR:FRONT]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:WHITE:1:ROSE:1:DARK_PEACH:1:TAN:1:PEACH:1:PEARL:1:BUFF:1:FLAX:1:CREAM:1:BEIGE:1:IVORY:1:PALE_BLUE:1:LAVENDER:1:PERIWINKLE:1:LAVENDER_BLUSH:1:PALE_PINK:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:ventral fur:SINGULAR]
[TLCM_TIMING:ROOT:17:0:21:0]
Does NOT throw an error of any kind in the log. I'm not sure what the implications are, but it is possible that the two (SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER and SET_TL_GROUP) tags are aliases or at least use the same class, if not the same function.

I've stared at them for several minutes and can't figure it out. What am I missing?

[Strik3r]

They have sidedness, just like SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER's can have.
If this is widely known, it isn't documented anywhere. It came as a bit of a surprise to me when i found it out. So if this is widely known, don't yell at me but feel free to call me a noob.

edit: this line:

Code: [Select]

[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_TOKEN:POUCH:HAIR]is a typical PLUS_TL_GROUP without sidedness.

[voliol]

I wouldn't call you a noob, I hadn't considered it before reading into creature tokens this evening and seeing BY_TOKEN/CATEGORY/TYPE pretty much everywhere. And it's true this topic is poorly documented. The wiki even confuses creature-level tissues with tissue layers defined at caste-level, which made getting my head around it so much worse.

It's funny though, I don't think sidedness does anything for descriptor tokens. The only use I could see is visualizers like Dwarf Portrait and Armok Vision, but the feature is so obscure I doubt they actually support it.

[nockermensch]

Is it possible to mod in an entity that goes extinct during world creation? I'm trying to mod in an "ancient" race that dies off before the game start. The idea is to create ruins with awesome equipment (the ancient civ would have access to better weapons and armor). It seems a simple enough idea on paper: ensure that the ancient creatures MAXAGE is smaller than the worldgen's target year, and keep them from reproducing. This second part is giving me a hard time.

I already tried the following:

1) Removing the [MALE] and [FEMALE] tags from the ancient creature castes, This makes worldgen skip placing ancient civs in the world.

2) Put back the [MALE] and [FEMALE] tags on the castes, but use [POP_RATIO:X] tags to make females 100x rarer than males (maybe they're smurfs  ): Doesn't work. There's still plenty of females around, judging by how much their populations keep growing anyway.

3) Add [MAXAGE:1:12] to the female caste, so that they hopefully die off before coming of age. Somehow, this still doesn't work during world gen.

4) Finally, I tried adding a third caste [CASTE:DOOMED_BABY] to the ancient creature, with [POP_RATIO:1000] and [MAXAGE:1:2]. This also didn't work. It produced some funny Legends mode screens, where Ancient civs have a new lawgiver every year (they keep electing doomed babies for the position, it seems), but they still don't die off.


Any ideas on how to fix this?

[FantasticDorf]

You could try hard blocking them with [NO_GENDER], but still determining the male and female genders as distinct visually even if not mechanically, with entity level [SKULKING] and tomb creation to prevent a influx of any immigrants.

They'd appear to be dead but you'd find exclaves of them in limited ever dwindling starting numbers. Tricky problem to solve since DF races aren't actually meant to "fail", failing to provide a foodsource like starving hunterless carnivore societies simply upsets the world-generation. Im sorry i couldn't be more concise on the exact steps, as im quite tired and rusty at the moment.

[TomiTapio]

What if the creatures were made a fragile material, like steam or fire, then they might lose every single battle they get into. And command them to be very aggressive.
In OldGenesis the Illithid (mind flayer) civ has very much problem trying to get their numbers up.
   509 Goblins
   1504 Goblines
   1 Groblin
   4 Illithids
   762 Snakemen

[Eric Blank]

I haven't had any real luck making that happen either. We kinda need a special entity tag for it, that creates civilizations at worldgen start that immediately fall to ruin. It was on the to do list for the distant future iirc.

[Hetsin]

I'm having a BP issue that maybe hard to explain.

I separated out the bones from the various limb segments (eg thigh and femur) in an attempt to not have every low contact area limb attack hit bone. Works great for that purpose. I also relsized them to have authentic masses, as well as BP_RELATIONed them so the fleshy bits surround the bone. However, whenever I have a high contact area attack I think because of the relsizes (eg. 6000 for thigh and 230 for femur) the attack will very rarely encounter the femur. If I put the [CONNECTS] token on the femur BP and have the thigh as the parent, it will never sever because the attack will not damage the femur, which is not ideal.

I realize these are the different sides of the same coin, lowered low contact area-bone interactions and impossible severing on high contact area attacks vs low contact area bone shattering and normal severing. I've tried every combination of CON, BP_RELATION, applied tokens that I could think of. Is there an obvious workaround barring changing the relsizes or do I have to pick one? Alternatively, is there another way to prevent every low contact area limb attack hitting bone in vanilla?

[FantasticDorf]

I'm having a BP issue that maybe hard to explain.

~ snip ~

To paraphrase Hugomancer over on the discord they've been saying that the creature that's being struck is too small, as the overall cm3 of a creature's size (which is volumous for weight and height) & creatures can be a base size but mechanically also be bigger through descriptions of height and broadness for its X/Y axis at that same CM3 that allows elves to be still mechanically taller than dwarves but the same weight and size-class.

• Giant elephants can barely be cut through for instance, their fat is that thick you can't dismember them with starting copper axes in adventure mode, which is exactly the opposite effect of what you've been experiencing of cutting through too quick.

Im have a question of my own too, does anybody know the precise outputs for body appearance modifier fields? There's very little wiki documention mentioning anything relevant unlike the detail you'd find for personalities or attributes that is helpful in reference when working alongside outside lore material to steer the creation of my modded creatures.

There's height and broadness, which would be good to consult on where the exact mechanical cutoff would exist from 0-100-200 since this is a thing that affects gameplay, and more aesthetic things like the closeness/sunk-in eyes that would save on expositionary descriptions without slapping in numbers and hoping for the best. Im aware it does choose one value and then choose another at a time rather than synchronizing them, but i dont really plan on my creatures having a great deal of variation in these regards.

[Atkana]

Im have a question of my own too, does anybody know the precise outputs for body appearance modifier fields? There's very little wiki documention mentioning anything relevant unlike the detail you'd find for personalities or attributes that is helpful in reference when working alongside outside lore material to steer the creation of my modded creatures.

There's height and broadness, which would be good to consult on where the exact mechanical cutoff would exist from 0-100-200 since this is a thing that affects gameplay, and more aesthetic things like the closeness/sunk-in eyes that would save on expositionary descriptions without slapping in numbers and hoping for the best. Im aware it does choose one value and then choose another at a time rather than synchronizing them, but i dont really plan on my creatures having a great deal of variation in these regards.

Are you asking about body appearance modifiers, or body part appearance modifiers? They each have their own separate rules.

Body part descriptions are easy, because they're just set using APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE. Using that, you outline what values fall into what description ranges, which don't even really have to properly represent their actual values at all. For instance using an APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE of 0:0:0:0:0:0 on a part's length should make that part's length be described using the highest length descriptor "extremely long" (that or its minimum, I haven't tested this ) regardless of its actual length value. There are a few different sets of APP_MOD_DESC_RANGEs used in the vanilla raws based on the parts, though you are free to just make up your own. If a range isn't defined, then there's a default range that's used (that I unfortunately haven't got in my notes...). These are my notes on some of the ranges used in the base raws, for quick reference. The first range is the modifier range, the second is the description range:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

- Standard Ranges -
Formats are Modifier | Description Range:
Tight-banded range (use for non-human body sizes, and general head broadness, height, etc.):
   90:95:98:100:102:105:110 | 91:94:98:102:106:109
Looser-banded range (used for human body height, broadness, etc.):
   75:95:98:100:102:105:125 | ?
Wide ranges for values where 0 can apply (used in many things like deep-settedness, voice raspiness, etc.)
   0:70:90:100:110:130:200 | ?
Wide ranges where 0 can't apply (like detail body part lengths, broadness):
   25:70:90:100:110:130:200 | 30:60:90:110:150:190
The lips thickness one (literally just used for lip thickness):
   50:70:90:100:110:130:200 | 55:70:90:110:150:190

Otherwise, for body modifiers, they follow their own unique and slightly janky rules. Here's a post I made previously regarding them:

snip

Alright, I've always known BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIERs play by their own special rules, but until now I haven't really looked into it. Here's a rundown of the general stuff, and how it looks like it works after a bit of testing:

• As with any *_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER of LENGTH, BROADNESS, HEIGHT, the values are a percentage modifier for that given axis. For example, a value of 125 for height means that body / body part is 25% higher than usual (I assume creatures in dwarf fortress work on the spherical cow principle, so in this case this the creature would be modelled as a sphere that's 25% longer on one axis ). I think these apply extra volume to their bodies, rather than just altering how their body's volume is distributed (this is going off of how butcher yields work, I've not properly checked this).
• Unlike with BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIERs that have APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE tokens to custom-set what values get what descriptors, the descriptor ranges for BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIERs are hardcoded and can't be modified.
• The descriptors in the regular status menu (the one where you see all their noteworthy body / body part descriptors, their thoughts, personality, etc.) are based off of how much the individual's value for the modifier deviates from the average for their creature (i.e. the 4th argument provided), rather than any ranges. It works best if you mentally append "... for a [creature name]" to any of the body modifier descriptions. For shortness, the descriptors are "short" when the creature's value is -10 from the average value, "very short" when -25 from the average value, and "incredibly short" when -50. So for a creature with an average height of 100, an individual who rolls 90 for their height would be described as "short". Weirdly these seem to be based on fixed values, rather than relative percents of the average - even if the creature's average height is 20, an individual who rolls 10 for their height will be described as "short" (because their height is -10 from the average of 20), even though that value means they're half their creature's average height!
• The total body size in the adventurer status menu operates on different logic entirely. Despite the label of "____ for a [creature name]" this value is the one that doesn't account for the creature averages whatsoever! Instead, it seems to only care how much each of their modifiers deviate from 100. If dwarves only had 50 as possible values for their height, this descriptor would never describe a dwarf with a value of 50 for their height as "Average sized for a dwarf", despite them being exactly that...

tl;dr - Because the body descriptors in the regular status menu are based on how much a creature deviates from the "average" value (the 4th argument), you can't make every individual of that creature be described as "short", though you should be able to make a decent few of them such if you plan out the distributions well enough (without really thinking about it, I think a range of BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:80:80:80:100:80:80:80 would make 5/6 individuals described as "short"?).

[FantasticDorf]

~snip~

Are you asking about body appearance modifiers, or body part appearance modifiers? They each have their own separate rules.

Former.

snip

Alright, I've always known BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIERs play by their own special rules, but until now I haven't really looked into it. Here's a rundown of the general stuff, and how it looks like it works after a bit of testing:

• As with any *_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER of LENGTH, BROADNESS, HEIGHT, the values are a percentage modifier for that given axis. For example, a value of 125 for height means that body / body part is 25% higher than usual (I assume creatures in dwarf fortress work on the spherical cow principle, so in this case this the creature would be modelled as a sphere that's 25% longer on one axis ). I think these apply extra volume to their bodies, rather than just altering how their body's volume is distributed (this is going off of how butcher yields work, I've not properly checked this).
• Unlike with BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIERs that have APP_MOD_DESC_RANGE tokens to custom-set what values get what descriptors, the descriptor ranges for BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIERs are hardcoded and can't be modified.
• The descriptors in the regular status menu (the one where you see all their noteworthy body / body part descriptors, their thoughts, personality, etc.) are based off of how much the individual's value for the modifier deviates from the average for their creature (i.e. the 4th argument provided), rather than any ranges. It works best if you mentally append "... for a [creature name]" to any of the body modifier descriptions. For shortness, the descriptors are "short" when the creature's value is -10 from the average value, "very short" when -25 from the average value, and "incredibly short" when -50. So for a creature with an average height of 100, an individual who rolls 90 for their height would be described as "short". Weirdly these seem to be based on fixed values, rather than relative percents of the average - even if the creature's average height is 20, an individual who rolls 10 for their height will be described as "short" (because their height is -10 from the average of 20), even though that value means they're half their creature's average height!
• The total body size in the adventurer status menu operates on different logic entirely. Despite the label of "____ for a [creature name]" this value is the one that doesn't account for the creature averages whatsoever! Instead, it seems to only care how much each of their modifiers deviate from 100. If dwarves only had 50 as possible values for their height, this descriptor would never describe a dwarf with a value of 50 for their height as "Average sized for a dwarf", despite them being exactly that...

tl;dr - Because the body descriptors in the regular status menu are based on how much a creature deviates from the "average" value (the 4th argument), you can't make every individual of that creature be described as "short", though you should be able to make a decent few of them such if you plan out the distributions well enough (without really thinking about it, I think a range of BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:80:80:80:100:80:80:80 would make 5/6 individuals described as "short"?).

Alright, these are good to acknoweldge i suppose 5/6 i can live with, assuming i have a cm3 of a creature described as small correct that would make the outlier the odd one out. Scamtank helped me out on the discord with some of their notes, here's more what i was asking about but with this new information i suppose i can re-interpret it as the code-blocks of where the average takes place. Every section you put the average in shifts by about 25% of current cm3 / 4 imagining 200 to be a full vertical 1/4 on the y axis for height but maybe my math just sucks.

Soo, i want a creature who's 90 average, but only stretches down to mechanically or 80 before they physically lose Y axis mass for the descriptor and then make 100 be tall (rather than 100-centric which wouldnt work as well) but level with my other humans as their nomal range.

Code: [Select]

>150: gigantic
>125: very large
>110: large
91-109: average size
<90: small
<75: very small
<50: tiny
Something like this would suffice then if i have the math correct, all in the small physical code range with 4/6ths chance of describing small with no mechanical difference but the 1/6th tall person is mechancially y axis as tall as their cm3 human peers.

Code: [Select]

[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:80:80:80:90:80:80:100]

[9joseph9]

I'm currently messing with an entity of spouse converters, but I have yet to test it out. Before I do, my question is: Is there a way for the [CONVERTED_SPOUSE] caste retain their original appearance? As in, rather than a converted human looking the same as their night creature 'spouse' they look like a human from their original civ? Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Prince of Cinders]

Is it possible to mod in an entity that goes extinct during world creation? I'm trying to mod in an "ancient" race that dies off before the game start. The idea is to create ruins with awesome equipment (the ancient civ would have access to better weapons and armor). It seems a simple enough idea on paper: ensure that the ancient creatures MAXAGE is smaller than the worldgen's target year, and keep them from reproducing. This second part is giving me a hard time.

I already tried the following:

1) Removing the [MALE] and [FEMALE] tags from the ancient creature castes, This makes worldgen skip placing ancient civs in the world.

2) Put back the [MALE] and [FEMALE] tags on the castes, but use [POP_RATIO:X] tags to make females 100x rarer than males (maybe they're smurfs  ): Doesn't work. There's still plenty of females around, judging by how much their populations keep growing anyway.

3) Add [MAXAGE:1:12] to the female caste, so that they hopefully die off before coming of age. Somehow, this still doesn't work during world gen.

4) Finally, I tried adding a third caste [CASTE:DOOMED_BABY] to the ancient creature, with [POP_RATIO:1000] and [MAXAGE:1:2]. This also didn't work. It produced some funny Legends mode screens, where Ancient civs have a new lawgiver every year (they keep electing doomed babies for the position, it seems), but they still don't die off.


Any ideas on how to fix this?

I was planning to ask the exact same question!

Have you tried:

• Just giving them [MALE] or [FEMALE]?
• Increasing max age and lowering (greatly) maximum population density at a site?
• Increasing max age and also increasing baby age? As far as I am aware, they can't have kids when they still have a baby?