I, my modus operandi for modding is simple, I do what I think is fun. (and read the forum and record all the bugfix/balancing reports, and write the manual, which is less fun)
But I do have a plan. Its just that so many little random parts popped up that my Todolist looked odd. The list has 1 line per topic. Thats from "- Typo in reaction xyz", which takes 10secs to fix, to "- Make new disease and immunization system", which takes probably 20-40 hours. Usually I have a group, a goal I work for, which should be "Inner Threats". What I really WANT to do is these, plus Skaven, Shades and Chaos, three rather special civs.
But I cant. I am travelling, only have a netbook, cant alter my UI, and have to wait. I am adding random features and smaller "testing-versions" of features, like the Supernatural (which will be scrapped most likely) and the custom Siege-Engines (which will be expanded). I cant do the hardcore-inner-threats, because I cant make it optionable atm, and I dont want to force players to use it.
Anyway, what I was getting to: The One-Line topics... about random stuff... they were 16 (!) pages long. I dont even know how many topics that is. But I am down to 1,5 pages of this till I do the next release, and in total its ~8 pages left. So I widdled down on half of the random ideas that showed up over the last... half year or so.
Just in case you are interested, the "Inner Threats":
Next big thing: Inner threats
- Regional interaction (or interaction for all dwarves) that raise dwarf corpses as wormfolk/maggots.
- Needs either a priest to sanctify them, or a dwarven morque / mortician / undertaker.
- All dwarves can affect dwarvesn corpses with a syndrome that adds a slow animation/transformation into wormfolk, 10x 15% chance.
- Takes max 2 ingame years. Problem: Resurrection cant be done with syndromes, only interactions. Corpses cant resurrect themselves.
- Maybe a regional interaction? But then it would affect all corpses at regular intervalls.
- Undertaker adds syn_class to corpse, possible? Or adds cannot_undead... or not_living.
- Inner threats section in the manual.
- Warlocks could be shape-shifters, done when fleeing. Transformed creature has material_weakness.
- Fleeing warlocks could get prone-to-rage to make them come back.
- Orcs could get prone-to-rage to stop their fleeing.
- All warlock items are cursed, dwarves cant use them, need to be purged => religion.
- Replace batmen (bugged pathfinding): Skaven have super high recuperation and are very fast.
- Skaven have leather armor, and leave itemcorpse: Warpstone boulder.
- Shades insta-kill, but die instantly. Can spawn army inside fort, after affecting a dwarf that did not die.
- Make priests detect possessed dwarves.
- Make medical guilds detect sick dwarves.
- Make a reaction that cures a single possession.
- Remove telltales from possessed dwarves.
- Add standard description back to dwarves.
- Raise sick dwarves pop-ratio.
- Make single reaction in Apothecary to cure sick dwarves. Patient 0 only.
- Make sure sicknesses subside naturally if untreated, except for Patient 0.
- Add several causes for sicknesses. Migrants. Archeology. Expeditions. Warpstone. Vermin-bites. (see bog crawler)
- plague bearing rats
- Archeology needs to be rebalanced, with the new itemssyndromes/autosyndrome/truetransform reactions.
- Add raise+transform reaction. Necromorphs. Fungus. Undead.
- Make secret vampire caste. Transforms dwarves into bloodsuckers.
- Make secret werebeast caste. Transforms dwarves into werebeasts.
- Make secret necromancer caste. Raises undeads now and then.
- Make zombie plague that can be stopped, or waited out for Apocalypse.
- Make evil lich transformation.
- Make shade civ, 5:5:5, skulking.
- Make shade army teleport into fort.
- Make aggressive thallids/fungi/myconids that transform your corpses.
- Make maggot-men that can raise from your corpses. Maybe regional interaction, very rare? (what about coffins?)
- Make saboteur. Stops trade. Drow kill him. (How to detect/cure?)
- Make friendly guzzler/curiousbeast/leverpuller/buildingdestroyer. (How to spawn?)
- "Make talisman against vampires" and he can detect them for 1 month.
- Sudden raise all dead curse
- Sudden raise all dead, transform into necromorphs
- Demonic Possession from inorganics, demon-stone.
- Mutations from warpstone / warpstone lab
After that I plan a overhaul of the mod. Dont add new features, but go through every single one and improve it. Many features are smallish, and only made as a proof-of-concept and test if people like it. Or unfinished, like the Megabeast Reward System, it only works on 50% of the beasts.
After that, a new playable race. If it will be something traditional like Humans, or with a crazy gameplay like Zerg, I cant say. I only know that 4 months ago this happened: Smake started on Elves. Putnam started on Drow. Deathsword started on Goblins. Guthbug started on Wraiths. Fire1666 started on Shades/Revenants. ... ... ... and today? I havent seen anything playable, besides the alpha-release of fires1666 revenants, which was quite buggy.
Back on topic: Adding these skills is a matter of maybe 1h, max. This discussion about it probably took longer. ^^