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[Maklak]

Limiting spell schools is worse in some ways and makes for some tough choices. I guess I'll just have most ponies learn Restoration.

For some limitations of DF, there are no work-arounds. For now all I can do is to set one spell on repeat, choose all the Unicorns in the profile and remove them one by one once they learn the spell. Then move to the next spell. The only method I can think of that's not micro-managy is to set all spells on repeat and not care, but that way some unicorns won't get theirs and others will camp the terminal and do nothing useful.

Replica: Once you have a Kiln, that broken glass from salvage gets automatically melted into green and some clear glass at no fuel cost, but to have enough of it for projects, you'll still need to make some. I'm surprised you can afford it, though, with ash being useful for gunpowder.

Yes, lava lamps are a crazy idea
http://parallaxmlp.deviantart.com/art/Derpy-Loves-her-Lava-Lamp-270265125

In other news, training gunnery at a Stable-Tec terminal is surprisingly effective. I also got a "scrap hologem of binding" artefact, but can't use it to learn that spell. Also, I have spell hologems now and can learn spells. It is quite easy to go overboard on preparations and burn through batteries when doing research.

[Indigo_Surprise]

I've no idea why rehabilitated slaves can't join the military. I have a caste in a custom race that has [TRAINABLE] and [PET] and I can put them into the military at will as regular soldiers.

[Crazy Cow]

I've no idea why rehabilitated slaves can't join the military. I have a caste in a custom race that has [TRAINABLE] and [PET] and I can put them into the military at will as regular soldiers.

It has something to do with starting out as members of the slaver civ, I think. Because they are in another civ before yours the game has a hard time finding them.

[Replica]

I think DF likes me now, things have been going unusually well as of lately.

Food is abundant, I have plenty of materials, items, gear and stuff to keep everyone happy and supplied for strange moods.
Engraving everything has made everyone super happy, I have 53 ponies (majority group) who are ecstatic, 49 who are happy and 35 who are content, I have no fine or unhappy ponies in my fort. Those who are content are mostly ponies who still haven't claimed a room or gotten a lover yet, and at this point I have more couples than I have rooms, so the future of the fort is secured with the amount of foals being born a year.
In terms of population I have reached the point where migrants are relatively infrequent, making surface defense less of an issue, I am considering just blocking myself off from the surface and leaving new migrants for dead, buuuut I kinda like migrants and I welcome the extra ponypower, especially since I need fresh specialist recruits for my growing militia.
Just now I also saw 4 ponies doing archery practice at the same time, I feel lucky just seeing one, 4 is just... wow.
And as icing on the cake, another titan showed up on the surface, a minotaur reaver, I tried taking it on but it just murdered everything I had, so I rewinded and left it on the surface, not even a season after it's appearance it uncovered a hidden ambush on the mountain and utterly murderized two squads of raiders, it is severely wounded so it is only a matter of time before another attack shows up for it to decimate before falling, and that makes the survivors easy pickings even for my shitty copper militia.

I'm going to try and ride my luck and see if I can conquer a piece of the 1st cavern layer so I can begin a proper scavenging industry, I'd like to try and follow Maklaks advice on the scrap metal which I so desperately need now that my copper ore has run out completely.
And hey, with any luck I'll find a water talisman, and that means infinite water, and that means scavenging farms ahoy down at the 3rd layer.

But luck can't run forever, I just know that something really bad is going to happen any second now, DF has a way of finding out about these kind of things, I don't know how Toady did it, but the game is goddamn telepathic, it can sense when things are looking up for you.

Another thing to mention before I pass out is my collection of Forgotten Beasts on the 3rd layer. :)
Today a new face showed itself, I can't see the newcomer right now, but I know that there are at least 4 FTB's scurrying around just outside my underground walls.
Every now and then they come close enough for me to see them, kinda like they come by to say hello and ask me how my stable is doing. It's neat.

[Maklak]

Well, good for you, but I agree. When it it too quiet for a long time in DF, one disaster or another is always coming.

My updated advice is that while bronze is cheap and OK for starters, you should try to get steel at least for weapons and helmets.

An OK way to do that is to buy steel bars and steel anvils from caravans, it should be enough for a few helmets.

Fortunately for good steel weapons you only need steel chains from salvage and charged batteries. Mechanisms and bars can be from bronze. Just remember to set your workbench to only accept your best mechanics.

Unless you have Prismatic smelter or magma smelter, the fuel-cost of steel is quite prohibitive. "Smelt scrap" has a 60% chance for an iron bar. Add that to the cost of making steel with no magma or prismatic smelter and you need on average 3.67 charcoal per steel bar.

I've never got that high a population in any of my forts. 60 I can manage. 90 I can cope with. 130 is just a big crowd for me. That many ponies can do a lot of things quickly, but the micro managment on pause becomes too tedious for me.

I think I really lucked out with my Minotaur. If it wasn't for the caravan guard meat shields, my soldiers wouldn't live long enough to score hits with their =steel rippers= and =steel chainsaws=.

My scouting party on the first cavern layer didn't encounter any resistance, but there were some ghouls lurking about and mutilated corpses of glowing ghouls and cave crocodiles. In general you should expect groups of ghouls, glowing ghouls and mirelurks. Whatever those are. I think it's those things from FNV that lived on shores and shoot blue stuff at you.

There is a stupid dwarf trick called "Forgotten beast zoo", where you wall off a corner of the lowest level cavern and FBs only spawn there.

Can anyone other than Lycaeon describe his experience with magic spells in this mod? After milling down hundreds of rocks I have about enough gems to produce most basic spell hologems.

I may post a fort update tomorrow. Nothing exciting happened, just normal progress.

[Lycaeon]

Update: Fire and Steel

Final Part I of the Ministry of Wartime Technology

Lacking the spells and telekinesis of the unicorns, and the cloud-shaping and flight of the pegasi, earth ponies persevere through hard work and ingenuity, qualities that ensured their place at the foundation of pony society. So it was with the Ministry of Wartime Technology, which, under Ministry Mare Applejack, spearheaded the majority of Equestria's technological advancements during the war. From rockets and heavy machine guns to the renowned Steel Rangers, the Ministry's achievements embodied Applejack's hope that earth pony determination and strength would save Equestria. But in the end, it was not enough...

Changelog

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

•   Steel Rangers
     o   Three varieties of earth pony ranger.
               •   Heavy gunner: General purpose ranger. Carries a minigun battle saddle.
               •   Demolitions Expert: Carries a rocket battle saddle.
               •   CQC specialist: Specializes in melee combat.
     o   Killed rangers will drop a custom corpse that can be scavenged for damaged pieces of power armor.
               •   Damaged power armor pieces can be repaired using a functional power armor processing matrix, a spark battery, and steel bars at the workbench.
     o   Unicorn scribes will occasionally accompany Steel Ranger patrols
               •   Well-versed in pre-war technology, they can cast a spell that will temporarily disable robots. However, they are flimsy and rely upon the earth 
                    pony rangers for protection.

•   Power armor boxes are now opened at the armory.
     o   Each yields a suit of power armor and a single power armor training drink that gives the drinker minor radiation protection, increased strength, toughness, endurance, healing, and a re-breather apparatus.
     o   Power armor training is mutually exclusive with ordinary minigunners, flamethrowers, and assassins.
     o   You may choose to equip a pony with minigun power armor or melee power armor (CQC). This choice is permanent.
     o   Ponies without power armor training can still wear power armor; however, they will be much less effective with it.
     o   Due to the weight of power armor, armor training is vital.
     o   Scorpion power armor training only provides minor attribute bonuses and no minigun, though ponies in scorpion PA are faster and more agile.

•   Reverse engineering
     o   Advanced conventional weapons may be reverse engineered at the workbench to yield design notes and scrap parts.
     o   Design notes for a weapon can be put together to yield a schematic at the scriptorium.

•   Biofuel Refinery
     o   Refine (25) alcohol, (5) oil, or (25) tallow into biofuel.
     o   Biofuel may be converted to flamer fuel or (5) coke.
     o   Flamer fuel can also be refined into biofuel, but at half the return.

•   Virtual Reality Simulator
     o   Allows the use of military and engineering hologems to train

•   Flux converter
     o   Allows limited charging of spark batteries by unicorn ponies.
     o   Produces clouds toxic to earth ponies.

•   New rocket launcher that fires incendiary rockets.
     o   Used to upgrade protectaponies and rocket turrets.

•   MWT Prismatic Forge:
     o   Uses steel and plasteel.
     o   New products: Major furniture items, blocks, mechanisms, chains, trap components, steel combat armor, riot shields.

•   Sprite-bots can now be rigged with explosives
     o   Explosives can be found in explosives crates
     o   Rigged sprite-bots will home in upon dangerous enemies and explode
     o   Explosions are VERY !!FUN!!

•   Radiation exposure now has a low chance of turning exposed ponies into hostile ghouls.
     o   Nonhostile ghouls have been delayed until the next version.

•   Chainsaws, rippers, and chainswords can now be disassembled at the workbench.
     o   Yields spark batteries, frayed wiring, and scrap parts.
     o   Scrap parts are automatically converted to scrap metal at the salvage yard.
     o   Kinetic sledgehammers can be assembled and disassembled as well.

•   Talon mercenaries, cyberdogs, robobrains, and other features delayed until part 2 of this update, set for next week.

•   Preliminary ASCII version released using Taffer's tileset. Full ASCII version also delayed until next week.
     o   This version remains untested, so feedback will be used to improve the full version.

•   New armor user training reaction at the armory.
•   Prismatic smelter can now melt down steel plates and steel/plasteel chests.
•   Coiled wiring can now be produced at the smelters out of copper bars.
•   Kinetic sledgehammers can now be assembled/disassembled at the workbench.
•   Ordinary unicorns can now only learn apprentice level spells from a single school, determined by the first spell they learn.
•   Apprentice unicorns can learn one additional school apart from their talent.
•   Terminal, soda vendor, and destroyed robot dismantling reactions moved to the salvage yard.
•   Forge terminal and processing matrix renamed to MWT.
•   Ghoul strength, toughness, and natural skills decreased.
•   Feral ghoul reavers nerfed.
•   Batteries, Canisters, Wiring, and Deflated balloons divided into separate stockpile categories.
•   Paper yield from a single log cut in half.
•   Vegetable cans drop 3 leaves.
•   Grinding rocks has a 2% chance of dropping saltpeter.
•   Reduced drop rate of coiled wiring.
•   Increased coiled wiring required for buildings.
•   Reduced scrap metal yields from salvage.
•   Plywood is now classified as a stone, allowing sorting in stockpiles.
•   Plasteel and plasma are also classified as stone
•   The bug causing robots to berserk some time after a successful upgrade has been fixed.
•   Redundant clothing items removed from all entities, and scrapyard burning reactions added for ones that remain.
•   Number of items needed for burning reactions reduced to five.
•   Numerous minor bugfixes.

As always, I greatly appreciate feedback on any issues encountered as well as suggestions for improvements. I hope everyone enjoys the new update!

I will be leaving on a trip this weekend, so when I return I will check feedback and release the second part of this update with the remaining features.

Credits for the Steel Ranger symbol go to Sirhcx!

[Kel the Oblivious]

Yay! Delicious new version!

Sorry Searing Sword, your time for termination has come. You've been a good Stable.

Handled that forgotten beast like a boss. Only lost to civvies when it came bursting into the commons proper. Glad my militia trains just a floor up, right next to my central "Elevator" (Just a 3x3 stairwell.)

[Replica]

I totally nailed it.
If there is one thing that is really really bad for old forts and stables it's new updates.



Musicalgrotto is now obsolete.
Time to start from scratch again.

[Firehawk45]

My ponys just got slaughtered, so nice timing for this update

[Maklak]

Well, I'll stick with my 0.88 fort for a while, since I just got to learning spells. I'll just give you some feedback on the patch notes.

Does Power Armour training only work for Earth Ponies? It should. Yeah, (that was a joke) there is Stronghoof, but for the most part Power Armour is for Earth Ponies.

> Power armour training is mutually exclusive with ordinary minigunners, flamethrowers, and assassins.
If I'm reading this correctly you still get a minigun or other weapon with Power Armour training, so OK.

> Scorpion power armor training only provides minor attribute bonuses and no minigun, though ponies in scorpion PA are faster and more agile.
I agree with this. Is it mutually-exclusive with battle saddles?

> Refine (25) alcohol, (5) oil, or (25) tallow into biofuel.
> Biofuel may be converted to flamer fuel or coke.
> Flamer fuel can also be refined into biofuel, but at half the return.
25 tallow is too excessive. It should be 5 or 10. Even after a year or so of being besieged by feral dogs, I had maybe 150 tallow with 3 kitchens. This is especially true if one were to get 1 coke for 25 tallow.
Flamer fuel is a high quality (bio)fuel, so the conversion should be 100%, both ways. Also, you should need more stuff to make 1 flamer canister than to produce 1 coke, in my opinion. Otherwise it becomes feasible to equip most ponies with flamers... Heck, I could take 10 mudponies, make them into a squad called "The Burning Raiders", upgrade them with flamers and sent them on patrol around the camp.

> Virtual Reality Simulator
> Allows the use of military and engineering hologems to train
The Stable-tec terminal does this already, right? 

> New rocket launcher that fires incendiary rockets.
Sounds like a lot of !fun!, but I thought rocket launchers would fire projectiles that make exploding dust.

> Explosions are VERY !!FUN!!
Lol. Especially when there are friendlies around.

> Radiation exposure now has a low chance of turning exposed ponies into hostile ghouls.
Finally a good reason to have my ponies run away from dust clouds. I don't want my best armourer to turn feral.

> Chainsaws, rippers, and chainswords can now be disassembled at the workbench.
> Kinetic sledgehammers can be assembled and disassembled as well.
Energy Lances?

> New armor user training reaction at the armory.
Yay. This way I can have 10 or so Armouries and add all my soldiers to their profiles, so they'll train even when off-duty.

> Ordinary unicorns can now only learn apprentice level spells from a single school, determined by the first spell they learn.
> Apprentice unicorns can learn one additional school apart from their talent.
I'm not saying that I'm happy with this change, but it is in-line with the show. Few Unicorns are magic powerhouses, most just have telekinesis and a couple of spells related to their talent. This should be even more true when most magic was forgotten and it has to be re-discovered by Unicorns with hardly any background in magic. As for Apprentices, Magic Apprentice should still be able to learn all basic spells. 
The biggest downside is that now I need a terminal for every school of magic and I still have to keep track of who knows what as otherwise there is no stopping ponies from trying to learn what they can't or what they already know.
Still, looking at how powerful the spells are, there is enough reward in soldiers knowing them for all the micro-management pains.

> Terminal, soda vendor, and destroyed robot dismantling reactions moved to the salvage yard.
I approve. I was a bit perplexed by Salvage Yard opening damaged civilian crates and Supply Depot handling everything else.

> Ghoul strength, toughness, and natural skills decreased.
Good, although I think I can handle them better now that I know how to make chainsaws early... and keep those frenzied bastards out of my shed. (That was a joke.)


> Batteries, Canisters, Wiring, and Deflated balloons divided into separate stockpile categories.
If I have more minor issues with stockpiles, I'll let you know. It is all in the usage schemes and wanting to have the things that go into a reaction next to a workshop.

> The bug causing robots to berserk some time after a successful upgrade has been fixed.
If there remained a small chance of them going homicidal after some time, it would still be !fun! Such a chance should definitely be implemented for brain-bots, which I assume will be at least on-par with other security robots. After all our spiritual liege, master Red Eye, said this on the subject: "Once you abduct a pony against their will, remove their brain and put it in a mighty body of a powerful robot, the pony may be somewhat upset about it and use the new body to, kinda, enact revenge or something. So in fact the brains were only a middle layer between some AI and the actual motors - they handled image recognition, some memory, motion, balance, reflexes, speech, all the secondary functions while it was the simple AI that would dictate what is to be said, where to go, consume the abstract data of recognized images and actual meaning from processed audio and so on."

> Redundant clothing items removed from all entities, and scrapyard burning reactions added for ones that remain.
If there was redundant clothing, I haven't even noticed.

[Replica]

Does Power Armour training only work for Earth Ponies? It should. Yeah, (that was a joke) there is Stronghoof, but for the most part Power Armour is for Earth Ponies.

inb4 Crazy Cow bonehead bias jab.

[Lycaeon]

PA training works for both earth ponies and unicorns at the moment, but I'll probably change it to earth ponies only later. Scorpion PA training is mutually exclusive with all of the above and doesn't provide a minigun, as it was designed for use with energy weapon battle saddles (Which aren't in yet).

Actually, 1 unit of biofuel produces 5 units of coke, so it's 5 tallow per coke. I'll think about a 1 to 1 conversion ratio for biofuel/flamer fuel.

The military training reactions have been moved from the Stable-Tec terminal (Which is really only a placeholder for the Ministry terminals) to the VR simulator.

Exploding dust rockets were a bit impractical to mod in, so they're on hold for now.

Energy Lances require a bit more advanced technology than what is currently available.

See you all later! I'll be back next week, but in the meantime I'll be keeping track of feedback.

[Maklak]

Replica:
Hey, the "Unicorn master race" has spells and two more grips. Earth Ponies have physical stat boosts and an adrenaline rush that has a debuff afterwards. They should have more things going for them and MWT is the answer.

> Actually, 1 unit of biofuel produces 5 units of coke, so it's 5 tallow per coke. I'll think about a 1 to 1 conversion ratio for biofuel/flamer fuel.
That pretty much solves my wood and fuel issues and gives me a reason to have lots of farms, as well as a use for over-abundant alcohol. It also makes me less determined to look for magma. The hauling effort included in having a magma factory is grater than having a biofuel refinery and spamming coke with this conversion ration. (I was never able to build a giant magma pump-stack before FPS death, so my magma factories are always far from the main fort.) Thanks.

[Replica]

Please, we all know that earth ponies are vastly superior to unicorns.

DF only respects strength, and earth ponies have it in ample supply.
Unicorn flimsiness and prissiness when it comes to blood and combat doesn't work well with the kind of meat chopping intense action the DF combat system has.

My new forts starting seven are going to be named after some of FO: Equestrias players.
The six lucky winners are Lycaeon, Maklak, Crazy Cow, Indigo_Surprise, Khenal and P(ony)SI.
Congratulations guys, you are now in the army, squad "Bay 12 Modding", prepare to get killed and resurrected repeatedly as I send you to fight black radscorpions.
I will use swords, Maklak will use axes (chainsaws, hacksaws, your favorite), Crazy Cow hammers (blunt and racist), Indigo_Surprise knives, and Lycaeon spears. Khenal and P(ony)SI will use maces.

If you are still around Lycaeon I'd like to ask a question.
We are nearing the version our little planned community game is aiming at, v1.0, and I was wondering when you had intended to get the GPEnclave in?
Also would it be possible to ask for robobrains and cyberdogs for v1.0? Just for us?
Me and Crazy Cow would love ourselves some more robot power, and you know how he feels about robots and dogs.
I already love you long time for the robots, but still, pretty please? :)

[P(ony)SI]

Well, I'm planning on doing an embark in a haunted temperate sand desert because I've felt I haven't challenged myself enough.

Anybody want to be part of the pony squad? I can't guarantee you'll survive, however

We have:
Intricate Rhymecoast, the earth pony miner. Her cutie mark is a red cross and a stethoscope, so she will also be the doctor. Unfortunately, she can't be the chief medical doctor due to not having a horn.
Wing Bincreek, the earth pony mason/mechanic. His cutie mark is a forge, hammer, and anvil, so he will later become the jack-of-all-metalsmither.
Seed Soulsaffron, one of the axeunicorns. His cutie mark is a star surrounded by magic swirls, which means...he's a magic master! He will be the lucky stallion to be the militia commander.
Dell Peakpaper, another axeunicorn. Her cutie mark is a horseshoe and anvil. Because of Wing, she won't be able to use her talent unless he dies.
Raven Botherpoet, the unicorn farmer. His cutie mark is the same as Dell's, so nothing really special about him. He will become the chief medical officer, not because of any doctor skills, but just so that we can get the health screen up.
Sun Slapgrape, the unicorn carpenter/brewer. His cutie mark is an oak chair, which will make him an excellent carpenter. Unfortunately, we don't have any trees, so we will have to bring our own logs for the time being. One day we'll go to the caverns.
Armor Slipcreature, another earth pony miner. Her cutie mark is a smiling flower, making her the best candidate for expedition leader. She will also be the manager, broker, and bookkeeper.

I was extremely unlucky with the points system (only getting willow splints/crutches/etc), maybe because I got a magic master. I've sold a lot of the unnecessary stuff to make room for better stuff. Thankfully, our civilization has hematite available so we don't have to get iron bars, but no bit coal or lignite, so we'll have to make do with charcoal. Thank Armok that Lycaeon added the biofuel refinery.
I took 2 sprite-bots for the observational skills and moral support. Not enough points to get a turret, let alone a protectapony.

So, any takers? I'll show the personality screens later.

Fake edit: I see that Replica is doing the same thi-wait, I'm a macepony? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
And unicorns are better defensively. They can hold moar shields.