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[Thirtyeight]

I've tried placing a cage near a pinkamena and releasing the prisoner via lever. Unfortunately, the prisoner seems to be stuck in the interrogation stage and is not becoming a memory orb. This is frustrating as I was able to convert several prisoners in my last stable without any problems, so I'm trying to figure out the best way of doing things.

[Neowulf]

Latest fortress has gotten decently situated (on my 10th year) so I'll put these thoughts up.
It's not the pier fort I was trying for, but limiting some of my usual behaviors has turned it into an interesting lesson.

After testing more, bakelite is nice and hasn't overtaken any other industries. So far it just saves wood and/or glass for cabinets, pipe sections, and vials.

Concrete tweaked to 3 common + 1 flux input and 20 blocks/5 furniture output is really nice. Drab concrete cells apartments for everypony!

3 expeditions so far, only one completed (a deathlands) and only then after stationing a full squad of 10 in a locked room. Suspect it's the syndrome chain getting screwed up (probably by my vertical base setup, though only ponies in my containment area get caught in it).
What about single pony expeditions?
And what about autosyndrome dolling out syndromes/salvage based on a skill level? I can't find any documentation on autosyndrome so I don't know if it's possible stock or if it would require some coding, but all the info is there so it is theoretically possible.

Idea: Ministry crates (plus ironshod/clad, robronco, and stable-tec) should have a chance of dropping notes that can be combined into a ministry specific expedition map. Expeditions to those locations bring back crates and items specific to the location.
It's like finding reports and ledgers that help determine which of the 30 piles of rubble in a nearby city ruin is a MWT office building.

Idea: Reusing maps. Probably not worth it since it doubles the expedition reactions, but it's an idea.
When you send an expedition somewhere you receive a Used Map item to the place. Used maps let you revisit the area with decreased risk but also decreased salvage returns, your ponies are picking over a site they have already cleared out atleast once. Used maps only have a 75% chance (or whatever) of dropping from the expedition reactions, simulating the area getting picked clean.

Kinda annoying you can do everything dealing with reverse engineering spark batteries, kinetic talismans, and basic robot processors with the normal arcane buildings except get the prismatic hologems needed to turn notes into blueprints... For that you need a rare drop from a rare crate only found in high quality salvage.
MAS has once again proven a limit on my progress.

Idea: As for magic, conjuration doesn't have to create units. Conjure insects and rodents, gives the pony short and long ranged attacks related to the animal/insect without actually creating it. Like conjure radscorpions will poison the enemy with radscorpion venom, without having to create the animal and have it attack the enemy.
Versatile but long cooldowns.

Idea: Maybe changing the bonemeal/flux stuff up a little?
New item, flux canister. 1 bone = 1 canister, or 1 flux boulder = 2 canisters, made at the rock grinder. Used in the prismatic smelting operations for steel and pig iron as a replacement for the flux boulder (therefor doubling what you get out of a boulder of flux) and in the cement reactions instead of flux boulders (2 required to keep the cost up). Can turn 2 into a boulder of bonemeal.
Could also be used as a reagent in the drug system.


Going to stop rambling now.

[Treason]

Proper way to use a Pinkamena?  Debatable.

I don't bother with levers and mechanisms.  I keep a stockpile of caged prisoners (that can have memory orbs extracted from them) in a convenient location.  I then dig a ramp down one level and create a single tile wide hallway, within which I station a Pinkamena.  I leave an exit on one end.  I then remove the ramp and designate the hole above as a pit.

Drop prisoners into the pit.  They will attempt to go to the nearest exit.  They will run into the Pinkamena and be interrogated.  Collect the leavings, wait until a week has passed, repeat the process.

Example:

wwwwwwww
w.P+++++++
wwwwwwww

w = Walls
. = Place where the ramp used to be.  One Z-level above is an area designated as a pit.
+ =  Floor.

[Thirtyeight]

It looks like raiders can't be interrogated. I will need to find another use for them.

[Mura]

Interrogator: "So, tell me about your mother."

Raider: "BURN CRUSH KILL MAIM"

Interrogator: "Fascinating. Thank you."

[Thirtyeight]

>Mura

I suspect that is exactly what happens.

[Maklak]

> Concrete tweaked to 3 common + 1 flux input and 20 blocks/5 furniture output is really nice. Drab concrete cells apartments for everypony!
While quite efficient, I'd still say it's a bit on the underpowered side. In heavily forested areas, plywood and wooden blocks are still a more attractive potion. I think either fallout or modern mod made 10 concrete blocks or 2 furniture out of 1 stone, but that's too much.

I don't recall getting any salvage from the expeditions I used for miracle cures, but then I wasn't paying much attention.

> And what about autosyndrome dolling out syndromes/salvage based on a skill level?
This would require a specialised script by someone like Putman and isn't likely to happen.

> Idea: Ministry crates [...] should have a chance of dropping notes that can be combined into a ministry specific expedition map.
Seconded.

> Idea: Reusing maps. Probably not worth it since it doubles the expedition reactions, but it's an idea.
Some maps can be sometimes reused. In reaction_expedition.txt "assault a regional slaver base" has 0.5 chance of giving you a map to slaver base and talon expedition have 0.25 chance for another map. Those are the only two expeditions that do this.

> Kinda annoying you can do everything dealing with reverse engineering spark batteries, kinetic talismans, and basic robot processors with the normal arcane buildings except get the prismatic hologems needed to turn notes into blueprints.
Ah yes, the design hologems. I find the need for clear diamonds quite limiting too, but they have 0.08 chance of being found from rock grinding. This just doesn't work in-fluff, but is needed to get those clear diamonds. What alternative bottleneck on reverse engineering spell talismans or a way to get clear diamonds would you propose?

> Idea: As for magic, conjuration doesn't have to create units. Conjure insects and rodents [...]
No. The Conjuration school is really necromancy with a different name. All the radbursts and necromantic transmissions are in "interaction_conjuration.txt", so it may be better that stable ponies don't get this, for now at least. I'm mildly annoyed that we get the reactions to research it and make lenses, though. Well, I guess the few ghoul Unicorns that some of our test subjects unlucky citizens get turned into by radiation could get some buffs or attacks that only work well for them and irradiate normal ponies around them (well, without protection anyway).

> New item, flux canister. 1 bone = 1 canister, or 1 flux boulder = 2 canisters, made at the rock grinder.
Reactions other than "make bone pellets  R" don't separate bone, so pellets are a necessary step in the middle. Since a dog or something usually produces 5-10 bones, Lycaeon said, he'll nerf bonemeal production.
I'm against introducing intermediate items that we can do without. If you really want to, just use flux blocks instead of boulders. My proposed efficient steel production reaction is more sensible than flux canisters: 
4 iron bars + 1-2 flux + 1-2 coal -> 4 steel bars


> Drop prisoners into the pit.  They will attempt to go to the nearest exit.  They will run into the Pinkamena and be interrogated.  Collect the leavings, wait until a week has passed, repeat the process.
Ah, the enemies are stunned from getting dropped 1 z-level. Clever. With this setup, you could place 8 pinkamenas around the dropping point and not have to worry about their recharge. Of course having this many is only feasible after reverse-engineering neural interface talismans.

> It looks like raiders can't be interrogated. I will need to find another use for them.
I think it was even in the patch notes that raiders are too crazy for this.

> Interrogator: "Fascinating. Thank you."
The joke here is that the r-word is missing, but let's not go there. Moderators don't like the subject.


Hm, I don't know if I'm sick from disrupted sleeping patters, carbon monoxide from the heating or playing around with lead, cadmium and other elements. Oh well.

[Neowulf]

> Concrete tweaked to 3 common + 1 flux input and 20 blocks/5 furniture output is really nice. Drab concrete cells apartments for everypony!
While quite efficient, I'd still say it's a bit on the underpowered side. In heavily forested areas, plywood and wooden blocks are still a more attractive potion. I think either fallout or modern mod made 10 concrete blocks or 2 furniture out of 1 stone, but that's too much.

Easy enough to bump the output up. I'd considered 1.5 out per boulder instead of 1.25, but part of my rebelled against breaking away from the nice multiples of 5.

I don't recall getting any salvage from the expeditions I used for miracle cures, but then I wasn't paying much attention.

I got 5 medium and 4 high salvage from the single expedition that worked. Since then I watched another expedition try and do nothing at all (no error alert, they just grabbed the stuff, ran the reaction, and walked away when no syndrome boulder was produced).

> And what about autosyndrome dolling out syndromes/salvage based on a skill level?
This would require a specialised script by someone like Putman and isn't likely to happen.

Mind pointing me to any documentation there is? The readme has nothing and searching the forums is a bit overwhelming.
If it can call an arbitrary LUA script, and LUA can apply syndromes, I should be able to whip something up.
If it requires C++ I'd have to figure out a build environment, and my desktop is was too cluttered to get one setup smoothly right now.

> Idea: Reusing maps. Probably not worth it since it doubles the expedition reactions, but it's an idea.
Some maps can be sometimes reused. In reaction_expedition.txt "assault a regional slaver base" has 0.5 chance of giving you a map to slaver base and talon expedition have 0.25 chance for another map. Those are the only two expeditions that do this.

Wouldn't mind seeing that applied to all the map expeditions

> Kinda annoying you can do everything dealing with reverse engineering spark batteries, kinetic talismans, and basic robot processors with the normal arcane buildings except get the prismatic hologems needed to turn notes into blueprints.
Ah yes, the design hologems. I find the need for clear diamonds quite limiting too, but they have 0.08 chance of being found from rock grinding. This just doesn't work in-fluff, but is needed to get those clear diamonds. What alternative bottleneck on reverse engineering spell talismans or a way to get clear diamonds would you propose?

Ministry of Awesome high energy workbench with a reaction to turn a bunch of biofuel (carbon feedstock) and discharging a bunch of spark batteries (or using a power talisman, but spark batteries are plentiful and need more uses) to make a synthetic diamond? Already done IRL using methane gas as a carbon feedstock and microwave emitters to turn the feedstock into carbon plasma.
Seeded rock farming? Seed gem + boulders = 1  seed gem + possible more of the same type.
We're already putting noted on data hologems, why not just take the 4 design note hologems, add one more blank one and some wiring, and call it good?

> Idea: As for magic, conjuration doesn't have to create units. Conjure insects and rodents [...]
No. The Conjuration school is really necromancy with a different name. All the radbursts and necromantic transmissions are in "interaction_conjuration.txt", so it may be better that stable ponies don't get this, for now at least. I'm mildly annoyed that we get the reactions to research it and make lenses, though. Well, I guess the few ghoul Unicorns that some of our test subjects unlucky citizens get turned into by radiation could get some buffs or attacks that only work well for them and irradiate normal ponies around them (well, without protection anyway).

Eh, just a thought. The magic schools are identical to the elder scrolls ones, but the other conjuration possibilities from there don't really work either (what use would a bound sword have?).

> New item, flux canister. 1 bone = 1 canister, or 1 flux boulder = 2 canisters, made at the rock grinder.
Reactions other than "make bone pellets  R" don't separate bone, so pellets are a necessary step in the middle. Since a dog or something usually produces 5-10 bones, Lycaeon said, he'll nerf bonemeal production.
I'm against introducing intermediate items that we can do without. If you really want to, just use flux blocks instead of boulders. My proposed efficient steel production reaction is more sensible than flux canisters: 
4 iron bars + 1-2 flux + 1-2 coal -> 4 steel bars

Bah, tested a theory and was wrong. Why can't bones follow the same stack bug as other reaction reagents? Plants have no problem splitting as long as you work solely with the plant stack.
I like intermediary steps if they have multiple uses, like possibilities with the drugs. Just seems weird a pony would drag a boulder to a chemistry set when they need a base for their solution.

[tahujdt]

Lyc, you still out there?

If yes, what's the ETA on the next edition? If not, what would you like your gravestone to say?

[Thirtyeight]

He said it would be two weeks. I don't know about him, but I like pepperoni and ham on my tombstone.

[tahujdt]

He said it would be two weeks. I don't know about him, but I like pepperoni and ham on my tombstone.

Lol. I loved those commercials.

[Lycaeon]

My last post was but yesterday. You seek to put me in the earth too soon, though I'll take the pepperoni and ham.

Life's been busy, and work on the next update will begin in two weeks once there's a lull in my schedule. It'll be catch-up, most likely...there's a long list of fixes and small changes to make, as well as new dfhack features to examine and implement. Methinks I've spoiled you all with my old schedule of an update every two weeks.

> Pikamenas
The interrogation reaction won't work if you bring a still-caged prisoner within a tile of the Pinkamena. The Pinkamena will interrogate him inside the cage, but that freezes the process and prevents the creation of a memory orb (You'll need to kill the interrogated creature yourself). The second rule is to have a chicken within 15 tiles of the room when the interrogation takes place (Same z-level, but no need to be within line of sight). The third is to make sure the prisoner is stripped before release. Beyond that the process is up to your imagination. I do like Treason's idea, though it may not work for the griffons.

Destyvirago: Glad you enjoy the mod! My recommendation is to read the novel...you'll gain a better appreciation for the wasteland, and your !!FUN!! will improve for it.

Maklak: Nice work on the shotguns; they'll work well as light battle saddle armament. The only question is their source; the wastelanders can sell them, but should Stables have them from the outset?

> Well, an alternative would be to target all friendlies with healing spells that boost their recuperation, doing this often, indiscriminately and without any ill effects, like in Regen mod.
That sounds a bit too powerful for my tastes.

> ShowUnitSyndromes.rb now works for me.
Interesting, though I'll have to weigh the advantages of knowing which spells your unicorns know against the clutter of various other interactions.

> a pony not using an interaction when she can.
All reaction-based interactions have FREE_ACTION attached and shouldn't be bound to actions. I do have a suspicion of what's causing the problem...there's another effect that slows them down, long enough to stay in range of the target creature.

Thirtyeight: All robots should be repaired with that reaction. Were you setting it on repeat? Otherwise, you can upload the save if you still have it.

> Lastly, how do I make concrete?
Four boulders and a flux at the stone foundry.

Neowulf: Was the room small enough that all the expedition squad members were within 5 tiles of the workshop center? You mentioned no syndrome boulder was produced, but that shouldn't be the case. Can you upload the save so I can take a look?

> What about single pony expeditions?
Those will be scouts, needed to map out the wasteland regions and the ruins of cities for future expeditions.

> And what about autosyndrome dolling out syndromes/salvage based on a skill level?
Not possible, I'm afraid.

> Ministry crates (plus ironshod/clad, robronco, and stable-tec) should have a chance of dropping notes that can be combined into a ministry specific expedition map.
I was thinking memory orbs more, though notes can work.

> When you send an expedition somewhere you receive a Used Map item to the place.
Certain expeditions have a small chance of returning the map to you, but making decreased risk expeditions with reduced loot will take too much work.

> Kinda annoying you can do everything dealing with reverse engineering spark batteries, kinetic talismans, and basic robot processors with the normal arcane buildings except get the prismatic hologems needed to turn notes into blueprints.
I'm happy with the bottleneck as is. The process to make synthetic diamonds sounds too advanced even for this mod.

> We're already putting noted on data hologems, why not just take the 4 design note hologems, add one more blank one and some wiring, and call it good?
Fluff-wise the data can only be used when transcribed together into a prismatic hologem.

> As for magic, conjuration doesn't have to create units.
Conjuration is more dark magic, the kind that infuses ghouls and balefire hounds. The zebras specialized in it, but ponies know little about it...for now...

> Maybe changing the bonemeal/flux stuff up a little?
I have my own plans for revamping the steelmaking system.

Thanks for the ideas!

[Roan]

I don't know if this is a bug, but...
I've got a unicorn that's reached the Hero level of notability (Adventure Mode). I've avoided doing any major time-wasting 'grinding' exercises, and have simply been adventuring as one would normally do. I think.
I just killed a titan (without being asked to do so), which was quite broken because its shrine ended up putting it smack dab in the path of some radioactive clouds most of the year. That's not the problem.
After making a pilgrimage to Overtress, my failed attempt at acquiring Star Metal (I do not know how lava works), the game started lagging. Not really a problem, as it doesn't seem to happen in biomes that are not similar to that fortress.
Then I got bumrushed by a group of raiders... and... this happened.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Treason]

Cloudsound, the beginning.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

..we all thought he was crazy, but thought ourselves even more so for following him into the ruins.  I suppose we were all a bit mad for the treasures that they must have contained.  After all, who in their right minds would head directly into the center of the Deathlands?

Our madness was apparently a stallion-thing as we could only convince two of our mare-friends to join us.  Goes to show why the mares are the ones in charge, eh?  Still, we set off anyway, we seven, to see if we could "make it" on the outside.  The stories can't all be true about how hellish it is, right?

..ruins are a creepy place.  Overgrown with weeds, trees and plants.  Hot.  Must have been one of the first places hit, being this close to a jungle.  Zebras come from jungles, right?  Here's hoping they're all dead! ..or not.  Not sure I want to meet a zebra ghoul.

Still, Bastion was right and the place is ripe for the picking.  Must have been some epic battles over this place, since I'm seeing lots of broken tanks, cloudcars and what I'm sure are ministry terminals scattered all over.  My hooves and tail are fairly twitching to find out what secrets they might hold after all these years.  Just as we're rolling up for the night, it starts raining.  Kinda pretty, actually.  Bastion takes it as some sort of inspiration (rain, really?) and says we'll call this place "Cloudsound."  I like it.

...place is a nightmare, but we're all good so far.  Peach managed to dig out a good pit around where Bastion told us to stop the wagon and it's kept most of the feral dogs away.  What was most disturbing was the creepy looking ones.  Only caught a quick glimpse but I'm sure I saw one with scales skulking about.  I can't tell for sure since I was running from a pack of ghouls.  Damn glad I'm quick on my feet; gave them the slip into the tunnels Peach has dug out for us bellow.

..spotted another one of those creepy looking dogs a night or two ago.  Nasty looking bunch, seem to be more bold when the sun is down.  Maybe they're nocturnal.  I'm setting up some traps, just in case.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

..Can't believe how this place has changed in just a couple years.  Peach is a master at that drill and Thunder and Euphoria have been right behind, chipping and smoothing the rock, putting in small cubbies and such for candles and just making it more..homey.  Our central hall is impressive, we've got plenty of food, a great set-up for salvage and the furnaces are running smooth.  We're number over twenty of us, now.  Seems our madness had touched a few back home and a family group joined us not long after we arrived.  We've had some wastelanders join us, poor sods who got lost in the ruins and were pathetically happy and grateful for a safe place to live.

For the most part it's been quiet.  We've had the occasional trader group wander through, looking for shortcuts through the ruins.  Never do get over the looks on their faces when they find us actually living here.  Wasn't too sure about letting those slavers in a while back, but Bastion didn't want a fight and we did manage to pull a few prisoners from them in exchange for some bronze.  Hate seeing the wrecks as they are, but we'll give them some time and treat them right.

Lost a couple farmers the other month.  We've been having trouble from some particularly bold ghouls flying in from above through the tunnels to the berry farms.  Most of the flesh-eaters have left us alone, but these ones seem particularly..ravenous.  Had to install some extra traps to keep them away.

Love me some traps!  Those creepy dogs I saw on those first few nights?  Wastelanders call 'em "Nighstalkers."  Nasty pieces of work, they say.  Will jump you at night and like sneaking into settlements.  This I saw when the traps I set up managed to get a whole pack caught!  One of those mares that joined us after we got settled, Numberpot, got it into her head that they might respond well to some kindness and has been feeding and watching them for a while now.  They hiss and spit at the rest of us, but seem to adore that girl.  We keep 'em caged up, anyway.

[Thirtyeight]

>Roan

That technically isn't a bug. The game checks age only periodically, its not unusual for opponents to drop dead in the middle of combat.

How does one interrogate rangers safely?