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Total Members Voted: 69

[WillowLuman]

Whether it's a non-webspinning spider or a giant desert scorpion, the object of the game is still keeping out giant bugs in every region. Filling everywhere with monsters just makes everywhere into a savage James Cameron jungle by another name. We should make each region more unique, far moreso than vanilla DF.

It just wouldn't feel like a desert if it was teeming with life, because no matter how you slice it, deserts do not have as much life as other areas. If you want to say "why follow reality?" and make deserts teeming with life, then why not just call them "sand jungles?" I personally think vanilla DF deserts have too much life in them. If you want to fill them with monsters, then we should at least fill them with something other than giant bugs, because right now everything is giant bugs. Even half of the civs are giant bugs. If we had "near-lifeless wasteland" as the theme of our deserts, we could still have all kinds of other threats, like various undead or evil spirits.

I think it would be more interesting to try something new, like nasty dust storms and region interactions that simulate dehydration, rather than just bringing out the monsters. Perhaps deserts are somewhere people flee to escape the many monsters infesting the rest of the world, only to face the extreme harsh conditions. When playing in deserts, we should have to work hard to avoid "Halfling Carpenter has been found dead, dehydrated," unlike how easy it is to keep everyone hydrated in vanilla DF.

EDIT: Oh, adding [LIMB] to the "Armbase" body parts connecting the arms to the mantle causes the cephalopods to wrestle. Huh.

BTW, cephalopods are built much like IRL, so instead of a central brain, theirs is divided up into segments located at the base of each arm. May cause weird effects, yet to be seen though.

[kopout]

So I was going to add in coconut cheese (made from coconut milk of course) as a joke. It turns out its a real thing. Vegans are weird   

[WillowLuman]

BTW, speaking of deserts, your apple trees seem to be the dominant feature of deserts right now 

[kopout]

BTW, speaking of deserts, your apple trees seem to be the dominant feature of deserts right now 

I'm fixing that. Its an artifact from when they were the only trees and were found in any land biome at 100 frequency. the latest version is found in teprate brodleaf forest, teprate grass/shrublands, and temprate marshes and swamps at a frequency of 80. and only away from water so it shouldn't show up that often in swamps

[WillowLuman]

Alright, I've removed the ability of hounds to appear in the wild and replaced them with these. Now we can have both friendly civilized canines and vicious feral ones, with different flavor text. Also, far less frequent.

I've also reduced Mallards from [ANY_LAND] to [ANY_LAKE], [ANY_RIVER], and [ANY_POOL]. This causes them to appear only on the edges of freshwater areas and ponds.

Code: [Select]

[CREATURE:HOUND_FERAL_HUGOL]
[DESCRIPTION:Hounds abandoned by civilization, turned vicious to survive in the wild. Rarely, some are descended from the original beasts from which the peoples bred their strains.]
[NAME:feral hound:feral hounds:feral hound]
[CASTE_NAME:feral hound:feral hounds:feral hound]
[CREATURE_TILE:104][COLOR:4:0:0]
[PREFSTRING:cooperation]
        [PREFSTRING:will to survive]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:3:12]

[CREATURE_CLASS:ALL][CREATURE_CLASS:QUADRUPED][CREATURE_CLASS:CANINE]
[CREATURE_CLASS:MAMMAL][CREATURE_CLASS:VERTEBRATE]
[BIOME:MOUNTAIN][BIOME:DESERT_BADLAND][BIOME:TUNDRA][BIOME:TUNDRA][BIOME:ANY_TEMPERATE_FOREST][FREQUENCY:20]
[LARGE_ROAMING][LARGE_PREDATOR][PACK_ANIMAL][WAGON_PULLER]
[MUNDANE][DIURNAL][TRAINABLE][PET_EXOTIC][LIKES_FIGHTING]
[PETVALUE:200][LITTERSIZE:3:10][MAXAGE:10:20][NATURAL]

[POPULATION_NUMBER:100:1000]

[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:CLEANS_SELF_DAILY_HLG]

[HAS_NERVES][GETS_WOUND_INFECTIONS][GETS_INFECTIONS_FROM_ROT][BABY:1][HOMEOTHERM:10070]
[GENERAL_BABY_NAME:whelp:whelps]
[SWIMS_INNATE][SWIM_SPEED:2000]
[BODY_SIZE:50000]
[BODY_SIZE:0:0:3000]
[BODY_SIZE:1:0:50000]

[BODY:CORE_HLG:BACK_LEGS_HLG:DOG_ARMS_HLG:EXTERNAL_EARS_HLG:TEETH_HLG:TAIL_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:CORE_MATERIALS_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:CORE_TISSUES_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:CORE_LAYERS_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:TEETH_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:BACK_LEGS_LAYERS_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:DOG_ARMS_LAYERS_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:EXTERNAL_EARS_LAYERS_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:TAIL_LAYERS_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HAIR_HLG]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HAIR_ALL_OVER_HLG]
[BODYGLOSS:FOOTPAW_HLG]
[BODYGLOSS:ANKLEHOCK_HLG]

[TENDONS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:TENDON:400]
[LIGAMENTS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:TENDON:400]
[BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:BLOOD:LIQUID]
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:BITE_ANIMAL_HLG]
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:SCRATCH_PAW_HLG]
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:APPEARANCE_VARIABILITY_EYE_COLOR_HLG]
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:APPEARANCE_VARIABILITY_BODYSIZE_HLG]
[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:APPEARANCE_VARIABILITY_BODY_HAIR_HLG]
[CASTE:FEMALE][FEMALE]
[CASTE:MALE][MALE]

[Timeless Bob]

If you guys really do want to go "more realistic" with your biomes. Here's a list of "Kilocalories per square kilometer" that I put together some years ago. (For a program I was writing that was supposed to create alien/fantasy ecologies.) Which actually drew me to finding out about dwarf fortress via the "procedural history generation" aspect.  Anyway, here ya go:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Amount of Kcals (food calories) available per year per m^2 in plantlife (primary producers):
Each trophic tier reduces the kcals stored in biomass by a factor of 10. (herbivores = 10% plant kcals, herbivore predators = 10% herbivore kcals, ect...)
This is why there are usually between 3-5 tiers of predator in any particular biome, and why predators usually have a smaller mass than thier prey.

Hot deserts: 200
Tundra: 600
Cold deserts (alpine/arctic): 800
Grassland: 5,000
Deciduous forest: 6,000
Temperate Rainforest: 9,000
Tropical Rainforest: 15,000

(1lb = 2.2kg)
24 (hours) x (0.45 x body weight in kg) = kcal requirement per day (+ ((8.5 x body weight in kg) x  (every hour spent not resting))

So: animals need @ 5 kcals/lb per day

avg. ant weighs 0.0000003kg (0.0000015 Kcals/day)
avg blue whale weighs 136,364kg (681,820 Kcals/day) @1.5 tonnes of krill/day

[StLeibowitz]

Whether it's a non-webspinning spider or a giant desert scorpion, the object of the game is still keeping out giant bugs in every region. Filling everywhere with monsters just makes everywhere into a savage James Cameron jungle by another name. We should make each region more unique, far moreso than vanilla DF.

It just wouldn't feel like a desert if it was teeming with life, because no matter how you slice it, deserts do not have as much life as other areas. If you want to say "why follow reality?" and make deserts teeming with life, then why not just call them "sand jungles?" I personally think vanilla DF deserts have too much life in them. If you want to fill them with monsters, then we should at least fill them with something other than giant bugs, because right now everything is giant bugs. Even half of the civs are giant bugs. If we had "near-lifeless wasteland" as the theme of our deserts, we could still have all kinds of other threats, like various undead or evil spirits.

I think it would be more interesting to try something new, like nasty dust storms and region interactions that simulate dehydration, rather than just bringing out the monsters. Perhaps deserts are somewhere people flee to escape the many monsters infesting the rest of the world, only to face the extreme harsh conditions. When playing in deserts, we should have to work hard to avoid "Halfling Carpenter has been found dead, dehydrated," unlike how easy it is to keep everyone hydrated in vanilla DF.

Everything is giant bugs right now because my mod turn's goal was literally "make giant bugs", and I'm fairly sure that was an unqualified success

I'm not saying we should make deserts into some kind of sand ocean, teeming with krill and shai-hulud and erg whales; I acknowledge they should be less "alive" than other areas. They would still, however, be plausibly able to support a large predator under the scenario I proposed - sparse life, with predators adapted to survive long periods of fasting. One species of giant scorpion is not filling the deserts with giant bugs, and even if I submitted eighty subspecies of them, deserts could still be given a lifeless feel by just lowering cluster and population numbers - fewer creatures overall, and fewer on the map at once. Zombies and spirits, however, are more the province of evil biomes.

Also, if you can get magic dust storms working, please, add them! And maybe fix my sandstorm, too I'd love to see those, but for whatever reason there has been no evidence of them working consistently in terms of actually showing up. Furthermore, the dearth of alcohol has already made arid, hot regions into very harsh embarks - when I started a test fort a while back, to see my sandstorms in action (I didn't), everyone died of thirst because the ponds boiled off. It got to the point where I tried to make basins adjoining the dry ponds so the spring rains would flow in and prolong their suffering for a few weeks.

Also, I can't help but feel you bear some sort of hostility towards large insects . Live in Australia, perchance?

[WillowLuman]

Nope. Had a naked encounter with a Hobo Spider whilst stepping out of the shower XD

If the scorpions were few and far between, that would make sense, as desert predators tend to be fairly spread out due to limited availability of prey in a small area. I was just bugged (no pun intended) by mention of "larger food chains" that the giant ambush scorpions would not be on top of.

Perhaps they could have some form of immobility, so that if you happen to embark with one on the map, it would be there until you found it and dealt with it, waiting in ambush the whole time. I still think there should be something supernatural about them, though.

[StLeibowitz]

Hm...giant sponges manage to be immobile and do a good deal of damage, so that could work. Maybe have an immobile caste that they switch to by interaction to hide; that way, when not burrowed they can move around a bit and wander off the map, so you wouldn't have to find them just to get another group of creatures to spawn (I think it works like that).

I should probably start making these guys. Also, reading about that spider, I am very glad I live nowhere near their range. *shudder*

[Gnorm]

Part 4: In which the first areas of Fort Mastertea are dug
-----

From the Journal of Gnorm Foul Psyche:

14th Galena, 555

Today, a forested caravan has braved entry into this forsaken town. For once, I feel that we might have to trade with them, if no halflings come.

19th Galena, 555



Thank the gods! We may be saved after all.

2nd Limestone, 555

A group of the halflings that eluded entombment scared off the caravan from Gall Pumpkin, thus I was forced to make do with the elves.



All I did was give them some of the cloth we had stolen from a previous caravan in exchange for all of their pumpkins. The four of us will need them to survive.

3rd Limestone, 555



I met with the liaison today, and I demanded that he escort the four of us back to civilization. He refused, and told us that, due to the expanding boundaries of Gall Pumpkin, we are to remain an outpost for migrants. I told him that he was mad, and showed him all of the corpses in our meeting room; he still refused. I told him then, that if we were to stay, we would need lots of food, tools, and building materials.

24th Sandstone, 555



Something has come over me; I cannot quite explain  what is going on. I no longer feel a desire to continue working. Instead, I must get to a workshop immediately!

25th Sandstone, 555

The voice inside of my head ordered me to take the metalsmith's forge, so I did so. I feel that I must do exactly as it tells me.

28th Sandstone, 555



Some more migrants are coming, but I don't care. Right now, I just need gems!

From the Journal of Gnorm Foul Psyche Witch

11th Moonstone, 555



Whatever evil spirit possessed the mayor and forced her to abandon work and to demand gems has left her, but it has also damaged her. Whatever it did, the strong-willed and determined mayor I knew is gone, replaced by the childish thing that now babbles in her place. She is no longer fit to be mayor of this town, that is a task that I, for the sake of my wife and daughter, must undertake. I am nervous; since the death of the one called Gnorm Greenwitch, his successors have been dropping like flies.

18th Obsidian, 555



This site is haunted, I swear of it. I can hear the cries of the dead and the damned all day and all night. I've got to get my family out of here.

21st Obsidian, 555

I've not seen the former mayor for a week now. It's probably for the better, as the sight of the broken soul saddened me.

1st Granite, 556

If what I've heard is true, then five hears ago, this very day, Gnorm Greenwitch and his followers arrived at this site to establish Mastertea. Now, five years later, my family, a broker, and I are the only ones that remain alive and sane in this broken settlement.



I've had a small underground bunker dug, this should help protect us from what lurks outside. I have chosen to name it "Fort Mastertea," in honor of the old town. This journal contains the thoughts and plans of those who tried to build this city up; I hope to find a means to escape it. No halfling can say for certain how things will turn out in Mastertea.

[WillowLuman]

Balloon animals. Just think of balloon animals and everything will be alright...

[Halfling]

Sorry about my slight absence now and ongoing, all. University business. Newest installment of Mastertea added to front page as always.

Feral hounds replacing hounds in nature is a-okay by me. In addition to feral hounds you could also make feral halflings. "Tribal halfling", not intelligent but otherwise similar, curiousbeast that steals your items and eats your food, added bodypart: wooden club.

@Timeless Bob - very interesting list. What's it based on?


Some news:

- Hugo's turn is due to end tomorrow. How's things looking? After that it will be Zanzetkuken.

- I'm thinking we could later have extra "balancing" and "ecology" teams so modders can just work on adding stuff and somebody else can figure out how it fits into this at large... if there's interest and if this goes that far.

- I contacted sackhead by pm, and it appears there was some confusion about whether you are required during your turn to add bugfixes that aren't to your own things as new bugs are found. You are.

Three reasons:
1) The bugfix may depend on things that were added later/not by the author of the bugged thing
2) If we all implement out fixes in our own uploads, then you actually have to download them all, apply them all (and this is bad, as they may contain outdated other files, so you can't just overwrite when we've made changes to some old stuff now), and then upload, which is impractical
3) You are supposed to be able to leave this thread at some point without causing problems for everyone else

Considering he knows the matter, knows the fixes required, the fact that there's one more day left of his bugfixing turn is not an acceptable escape.

...you must provide a fix for any bugs that appear during this time in a reasonable amount of time (asking for help is fine), or your turn will be voided. Your bugfixing duty ends after a week...

Whatever content we have is useless if it's buggy and broken, whatever rules we have are pointless if you can stall as much as you like. I will make the point that not fixing during your bugfixing turn is absolutely unacceptable, and unless the fixes are delivered in 48 hours his contribution will be removed from the first post and should be deleted from the mod, as it says in the rules that he agreed to.

List of files to be removed:

Code: [Select]

b_detail_plan_SKH.txt
body_SKH.txt
creature_SKH.txt
c_variation_SKH.txt
inorganic_stone_mineral_SKH.txt
material_template_organic_SKH.txt
reaction_SKH.txt
tissue_template_SKH.txt


[Timeless Bob]

The list I posted is from ecological theory.  If you look up "food pyramid" or "energy pyramid" you'll probably find some of this in one place and some in another.  The metric at the bottom, however, is the result of my own research, culled from several sources that look at one aspect or another of the "Net Primary Production" of plants (producers) in a given biome and the resulting caloric expenditure of an average non-plant creature (consumer).  Detrivores, (those creatures who consume dead animal and/or plant matter) often exhibit a tangential "layer" to food pyramids not usually shown or accounted for in net biomass and caloric calculations for some strange reason, indicating a massive loss of energy as the calories are consumed up the food chain.  (When in reality, only about 10-15% is lost in total.)

I've been researching this stuff on and off for a couple decades now, so there's quite a bit rattling around in my noggin waiting to spill out.

[Halfling]

I suppose that if you wanted to simulate that in DF, where you only get some clusters of creatures on the map, then creatures living in tropical forests should have very large clusters so there are always many on the map, and creatures living in cold regions should have very small ones. Hmm...

If you wanted to make there always be a large variety of creatures on the map, I suppose you would instead make such as ecosystem creatures, like a creature called RAINFOREST, which would contain eg. castes
IGUANA: POP_RATIO 100
TREE_SNAKE: POP_RATIO 350
SLOTH: POP_RATIO 45
JAGUAR: POP_RATIO 5
and a cluster size of 100. Define all bodies and all possible tokens inside castes. So then on average when you have 1 cluster on the map, you would have 1 jaguar, 9 sloths, 20 iguanas and 70 snakes on the map. Maybe that's a bit overkill on the snakes but you get the idea. Then set the jaguar to CRAZED so it kills the other castes. RAINFOREST_1 would be the creature most prevalent in rainforests containing that, while RAINFOREST_2 could be another sample with a pack of monkeys among them that you may alternatively get.

This could also be used to remove extinctions, because if one member of the cluster escapes it gets regenerated in entirety I've heard. So add a "nature spirit" caste to any such creature with a middling population ratio, that is indestructible, flying, and set to always run, always hide. Even if you kill all others you can't actually extinguish life in the biome that way without some clever tricks killing the spirits too (an obsidianizing/caving-in spawn trap would eventually do it).

[The Urist]

Had just a fight between 202 spider-centaurs and 17 halflings.
Spider-centaurs won, but lost 52 centaurs and managed to kill only 8 halflings.