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[Nighthawk]

I can agree with the ability to survive a skeledog, but Mi-gos?
Those can be deadly to even a veteran character with some bad rolls.
They have a reduced sight range, so in most cases it's gonna be your own fault for aggro.

I'll agree with that one. If you walk into a Mi-go you probably deserve to get ripped apart.
Still not sure how they end up right on the outskirts of the first town I walk into, though. I always assumed they were only supposed to be in labs and other late-game places.

Nah, I'm not tryin' to guilt trip nobody. Just want to get more people into creating and tinkering with the game, and by proxy more people programming things in general.

I appreciate you being cool about my slightly accusatory reply.

If I can get past the wall that is my laziness, I might look into some basic file-editing and see if I can figure out how it works. I have always been curious about modding things into roguelikes.

[n9103]

According to the wiki, they can also be with science/military corpses.

[gimlet]

Then I dunno what you're doing differently than me.   Blunt weapon with block, throw a few things, start with good physical stats, don't be encumbered.  As always use terrain and movement - try to get behind a bush at least, and I can almost always beat Mi-gos and Zombears on day 1 right outside the shelter as long as I don't have much pain from other fights.   I can't remember specifically encountering a skeledog right outside the shelther, but I know I've encountered em on the 1st or 2nd days.

Anyway, yeah, edit their stats down if it's game breaking to you.  Or use the cheat menu - one of the reasons it's there is to let you "fix" things you think are wrong...

[Greiger]

Sure roleplaying is fine.  But part of that is that you know you will have a disadvantage from the beginning.  I also make a roleplay char from time to time as myself.  No melee, no dodge, 4 in computers, 3 in electronics, low strength, low perception, average intelligence.  And a modded in profession that's just a backpacker with electronics tools instead of survivalist stuff.

I often get wrecked early, I expect to.  You are always going to have a harder time with a build intended for something other than survival.  But I've also beaten skeleton dogs and the like on day one with rocks and shelter bits.  Luck will be a factor, player skill can mitigate bad luck choosing where you fight a sdog and having a few throwables like rocks in your inventory can turn a 100% lethal sdog tangle into a bad but survivable situation, but especially when building a character for roleplay.

If you are limiting yourself to not carrying things like rock in your inventory, that makes it even harder of course, but at some point the game needs to be kept in balance for people who are willing to use everything at their disposal.   

You can make reasonable accommodations for people who do not wish to use certain things, but at some point the standard game will have to take precedence.  Making everything so easy that a shower victim can win most of the time would make the game effortless for somebody using basic equipment.  And many people already argue that the game is too easy.

EDIT: Maybe someday there will be a system implemented that will adjust the game's difficulty dynamically based on how well you are doing like Rimworld or like what L4D were reported to do, but I would sure feel sorry for the poor sap coding it.

[Tawa]

One of my favorite builds jacks up my intelligence, but lowers my strength and keeps my dexterity average, while only increasing the two most useful skills. It's really tough until your melee skill is at a sufficient level to kill zombies by looking at them funny.

[Tomcost]

Mi-Gos have reduced sight range? I've started a character, opened the shelter door, and found a Mi-Go standing somewhat away, which ended in a pretty terrifying (if you can imagine it) chase through the woods. Anyway, I always end up with my character dead because of me getting impatient (I've had characters last up to two years, but nowadays I just can't grind stuff and want to do stuff, something that gets me killed quite often)

[Teneb]

All this talk about the skeledogs got me wanting to mod the game. Is there anything like the raw token pages on dfwiki for this?

[Arcvasti]

Finally went to that nearby mine.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Found the Amigara Rift and got 5-6 artifacts from it. Most of them can't be worn with my power armour, but a Bloody Harp and a Grotesque Ring are usable and the latter gives a useful clairvoyance effect with relatively minor drawbacks[Rattling noises, Speed penalty and Bad Weather.]. Now to mininuke some fungus...

[Sharp]

EDIT: Maybe someday there will be a system implemented that will adjust the game's difficulty dynamically based on how well you are doing like Rimworld or like what L4D were reported to do, but I would sure feel sorry for the poor sap coding it.

Dunno about dynamically based difficulty but if you have dynamic spawn on then you can have a safe period of looting until 9:30am and then you will get zombies spawning in waves with the special zombies coming in later. Certain areas will still have zombies though like hospitals and malls even before 9:30 and you can run into lots of non-zombie monsters.

Makes it a lot easier for new characters to get started but you can get surrounded pretty easily and you can't really keep an area safe but the grace period of looting and that not all the zombies will be spawned at once so you can just run through cities early on so you can have more of a strategy of how you want to play rather then trying to find some good bashing items and clearing out a city luring one zombie at a time.

Tbh I haven't played dynamic spawn in a while though but it does make it more game like and less sandbox like so you are more likely to survive the first day, although you might not be able to survive to day 30 as easily as static spawn because of zombies spawning in waves and increases difficulty over time.

[i2amroy]

All this talk about the skeledogs got me wanting to mod the game. Is there anything like the raw token pages on dfwiki for this?

Just crack open the files in data/JSON, it's all rather self explanatory. If you are really confused the doc folder (which might not be in the actual release version) has some more explanations (though some might be a tad outdated).

[n9103]

I think they're mostly looking for a list of flags and their explanations.
I couldn't find one on the DDA wiki, and such a document would be useful to anyone interested in the data files.
(Don't know about the doc folder, as I don't currently have a copy of DDA.)

[Micro102]

Yes dogs are a pain in the ass. But throwing deals with them easily. Get something heavy, and throw it at them from one spot away. Yo are more likely to deal more damage dropping a jack onto a dog then trying to hit it with a stick. Then you pick the jack up again and drop it on another (jacks are heavy enough to kill dogs in one hit when thrown). I've taken out packs of dogs with this.

Definitely needs to be fixed either way. They shouldn't be that hard to hit, shouldn't show up that early, or you shouldn't be able to chuck a jack in the air over and over as an effective means of fighting.

[Blaze]

One of the newer commits makes skeledogs slower (150 -> 125), albeit other dogs are unaffected.

[Rez]

I'm imagining the classic road-rage scene where the guy gets his tire iron... but instead he gets the jack to throw at his antagonist.

[Farce]

I swear the last couple times I fought dogs I was literally unable to hit them.  This was an early character, but it was not a quick death - I'm sure that character lasted at least thirty turns.  It's not like it's a tiny invisible gnat or whatever, it's a dog.

On a related matter, I don't understand how encumbrance is so brutal.  I shouldn't become incompetent at hitting stuff with sticks just because I'm wearing, like, a shirt, a trenchcoat, and a backpack.  My understanding of it is that like ~4 points is considered a 'newly-trained professional' level of competence in a skill or so, too, so it's weird to hear like "oh you can't wear layered clothes until you've got a couple points in melee and dodge", because I sorta parse that as "you can't fight in melee with encumbrance because you're slightly less skilled than a new pro boxer".

And EVEN IF it's one of those big-ass military backpacks, it's just a damn backpack.  It's resting, presumably centered, on your back, relatively secure, your arms and shit are free and mobile.  I mean, it's not as if you're this dude.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then again, I assume most of the zombies aren't opposing you with any skill, disregarding their vulnerabilities, dumb-awkward-shambler style.  Maybe they're more gainly than that, batting attacks out the way or whatever.  I'm also slightly assuming optimal conditions - like, not the whole getting-tied-up-in-melee stuff, but just the first sorta hit, between a rested person and a regular zombie.


Would it perhaps be a good idea to reduce some item's encumbrance and make encumbrance-increases with how much weight you're carrying?  Kinda like Elona, where as you hold more crap - even below your max weight value - you get Burdened and your speed lowers and stuff.  Kinda like that, except the penalty would be Encumbrance, not speed, I guess.