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[Meph]

I got pylons to show if they are active. The have a blinking cyan 'P' on them. I used the same timer as the interaction they use to control undeads. It should overlap. I couldnt give them anything when unpowered, so when unpowered, they are simple the normal pylon, nothing blinks.

I might make their control radius larger, but restrict it to line of sight.

I started working on a workshop for skills for skeletons. Current idea is using 1 small gem and 1 soul to give them 1 skill. You can level them up in any labor, till legendary with this, but no combat skills. Any thoughts on that?

NO_GENDER. I kinda forgot about that. ^^ lol. Thanks Boltgun. I give it a try, but I guess it will fix everything.

[shadowclasper]

The problem with making it LoS based is the whole mining thing like you brought up.

Skeletons don't eat.

They don't sleep.

They don't do anything that would bring them back to centralized areas. Miners won't do anything except mine.

Unless you can give them something they need to return to a centralized location for regularly, and will do so regardless of player input, thus allowing us to set up traffic areas and such, skeletons will just putter around, doing their labors and nothing else won't they?

So miners will just keep mining for all eternity without stop until they're ordered to turn themselves in for upgrades or something else. In winding passages they'll get out of the LoS of the pylons regularly and for long periods of time. And if you have an efficient build for your fortress, it's likely that pylons will have to be placed every single room and even then it's going to cause problems.

As for the skill upgrade, sounds good! Though I'm wondering about gemless embarks.

[Meph]

Just, but undeads roam. They walk into line of sight sooner or later. Better solution: Strip mine the area. Mine big rooms.

[shadowclasper]

true. Make a giant warlock's tower on the surface. Massive caverns below. And I guess you're right about the wandering, but I still think LoS is a bad idea.

And how do we deal with situations like the embark having no gems or not enough gems? (Besides the super risky summoning building). Will warlocks have alternative means of getting gems besides mining (which might not be possible) and trade (which warlocks aren't supposed to get)?  I suppose you could burrow down into the 2nd Cavern and pray you don't get over run from below...

edit: Something just hit me.... would dreadnaught skeleton miners be magma proof? And can skeletons work underwater? Cause it just hit me that a lot of the underground dangers are simply not there provided you keep your warlocks out of the way...

[Kaos]

isn't there a tag that made vampires and werebeasts infertile couldn't it be used for warlocks/witches to prevent reproduction? alternatively having child:0 wouldn't work?

[shadowclasper]

Also, another question. Are the fortress guard and royal guard sprites currently used for anything?

If they're not, then perhaps they could be used for the Butchers (working for the Fleshmonger) and a squad serving under the mistress?

[Meph]

Skeletons should be magmaproof already, but the AI wont path through magma/water.

Tag for infertility is STERILE, which I already use. But they still marry, and its not a creature tag, its an interaction tag. It doesnt affect worldgen. All fort members have it, but worldgen creatures dont. I removed the child and baby tags from them completely, I hope thats enough.

Gem-free embark: Doesnt exist. Impossible. Without removing all gems from the raws you will never have an embark with no gems. I have genned thousands of worlds, never seen one with no gems.

I just added personality traits to the castes.

Ghouls are shy, angry, furious, untrusting cowards that like to hurt people, but have low selfconfidence.

Skeletons are super nice guys. They have strong sense of duty and friendlyness, altruism, helping others, high confidence and dont take breaks. They also have extreme love for art, nature and trust others completely. They are like curious, but naive kids. "I love nature and art, and want only to help" "Cut this tree in half" "ok, if you say so Master. "

Warlocks are normal humans will all ranges of personalities, but generally distrustfull bastards that dont like to help anyone and think that they are better and smarter. Supreme Egomaniacs with a liking to intellectual discussions.

Are the fortress guard and royal guard sprites currently used for anything?

these are noble sprites. I can make unlimited of those. I have to check how it works with soldiers that serve in specific squads.

EDIT: seems that squad members that are lead by the law_enforcer (sheriff) get a different sprite then other soldier. I could possible make a squad for the mistress that looks different from the rest. Not sure what to use this for, because the members of the squad will still be skeletons, ghouls and mages. Maybe call them Inquisition or Jailors or Turnkey.

[shadowclasper]

Are the fortress guard and royal guard sprites currently used for anything?

these are noble sprites. I can make unlimited of those. I have to check how it works with soldiers that serve in specific squads.

EDIT: seems that squad members that are lead by the law_enforcer (sheriff) get a different sprite then other soldier. I could possible make a squad for the mistress that looks different from the rest. Not sure what to use this for, because the members of the squad will still be skeletons, ghouls and mages. Maybe call them Inquisition or Jailors or Turnkey.

Call them Gaolers.

Yeah. Those lead by the Sheriff take their sprites from that second pair of rows of military.

Royal guard take them from the last row, but I'm not entirely sure that they're still used since I can't find mention of them on the wiki at all. They used to be activated by having any governing noble (usually the baron) arriving. You needed them to be about 1/20th of your fortress to work.

So I dunno, Maybe you can somehow get the royal guard sprites to function as special sprites for the Butcher? Have skeletons covered in gore and flayed skins, especially bloody ghouls, red robed warlocks?

For the gaolers, I dunno. But the sprites for the warlocks should be female looking and just roleplay it.

edit: Also maybe change the child and baby sprites to ghouls rather than skeletons? I know that the ghouls are supposed to be undead and sterile too, but they make more sense as having children than anyone else except the warlocks who we don't want reproducing for power reasons.

[razorback]

Just for propper understanding:

If a warlock came in the range of a pylon and then immediatelly leaves it again it will nevertheless be powered for a certain amount of time AND power adjacent pylons for this time aswell.
If a skeleton leaves a pylons reach it will stay controllable for a certain amount of time.
Right?^^

So it wouldn't be practically necessary to spam the whole map with pylons, but just the most frequented traffic areas...


Also: are skeletons not even going to meeting areas when unemployed?

if so, i could imagine a workshop reaktion 'warlocks call' wich lures the uncontrolled (or EVERY will-less creature for the fun) on the map to the workshop

[Meph]

The alternate military sprites.

If a warlock once powers a pylon, all pylons will power themselves, yes. Its not even temporary, once powered up, they are fine. (until all warlocks die)

If the skeleton leaves the area, you have 1-2 weeks before it goes opposed to life. yes. So only the main area needs coverage. And things that are far away... you cant mine adamantine 100 z levels below, if the hauling takes too long.

Skeletons go the the meeting area, like everyone else.

You cant bait uncontrollable opposed to life creatures. ^^

[Gamerlord]

Question; can you set up pylons in a circle so they power each other in a repeating loop?

[Grimmash]

Gamer - i think onve powered pylons stay so until all warlocks die.  It is just chaining them that requires LoS/range.  So you could have one built far away, run a warlock by it, and you are good to go.  Is this right Meph?

Another question - youmay have covered this, but can skeletons have tantrums and moods?

[Meph]

If you have 1 lone pylon, and a warlock powers it, then runs away, the pylon will unpower after a while. If you have 2 pylons, the warlock will power one/both, and they will power themselves forever/till all warlocks are dead.

I havent quite figured out a way to make more than one Pylon unpower, if no warlocks are in the network. Its pretty difficult to do. ^^ A lone pylon will unpower, but as long as you have 2 or more in an area, they power themselves. (EDIT: I would have to send impulses through the networks now and then, to check if a warlock is in the chain at some point, then disable the parts that dont have contact to at least one. But damn... that would add quite a bit in terms of interactions)

Skeletons cant tantrum. No idea about moods.

I also cant get these damn graphics to work. -.- It took quite a while to make them. ^^

[razorback]

I don't really understand the mechanics behind these...

but how i imagine it could be possible:
everytime a warlock comes near a pylon he makes something that gives that pylon the information (a tag?) wich lets it power every adjacent pylon for a certain time but that won't give those other this tag aswell.

a warlock would perform this action on every pylon he passes by (maybe limited times a year), so the total time thats left is always set from the last pylon he visited.

[Meph]

The problem is that you could only power ONE pylon with this. This pylon couldnt power the second one.