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[Urist McTeellox]

I know that orcs have a little japanese touch, with katanas and such. It seems to fall short a bit under the raiders, pirates and clan features. I had to think of it, when I saw this in the mod releases: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135172.0 Its a mod that adds all kinds of japanese weaponry. Maybe you can add a workshop for this. "The honourable forge of the East" or something. Just a suggestion.

It's a good really suggestion, especially since we've had a few requests for new weapons. I'll pop them into milestone 2 (M2). I want to make sure I've got the basic raiding/scalping/dreamwalking changes working first, and will then work on more flavoursome changes. I imagine a lot of them could be added to the existing damasc workshop.

Right now my changes are coming along nicely (see changelog below). I've still got to figure out orichalcum, since the cheap and unbalanced raiding option is going. That could be left as a shadowbroker transaction (the shadowbroker will be harder to unlock in the rebalance) or a lucky smelting reaction, but I'm thinking of a transmutation reaction along the lines of "Bloodsteel + Mithril + Gold + Silver + Greater Soul = chance for orichalcum".

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Updated all orcish rituals for new soul-based talismans (#86) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Soul updates for orc rituals. (#86) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Druid codexes are now easier to craft (#13) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: All buildings now use architecture to build (#61) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Orcish industry buildings can be built from rusty iron/steel (#61) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Orc sorcers will no longer spam bone-armour buffs. (#70) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Fix REACTION_CLASS:SCALP typo. Fix scalp naming. (McTeellox)
• Orcish embark profiles fixed (wolves -> dire wolves) (McTeellox)
• Added prepared scalp tools and reactions. (McTeellox)
• Added scalps to the Great Races (human/elf/drow/dwarf) (McTeellox)
• Orcish raids now come with the risk of triggering siege. (McTeellox)
• Orc: #51 - Added costs to reaction names. Raided crates now auto unpack. (McTeellox)
• Orcs now have access to brass bullets from all reactions. (McTeellox)
• Add orc fortress cheat reactions for testing. (McTeellox)
• GH #63 - Drydock, Storm Altar, Sun Orrery, and Stone circle are outside only. (McTeellox)
• entity_orcfort_taigaorc: Whitespace only and reordering changes. (McTeellox)
• GH #62 - Added 'corsair arms' (pistol + dagger) to freelancer (McTeellox)
• GH #51 - Added orcs ability to raid farmlands for food. (McTeellox)
• Orcs: Blacksmoke furnaces now require ironbone rather than iron to build. (McTeellox)

~ T

[Urist McTeellox]

Hmm, looks like the ancient foundry already has reactions for deep bronze (bronze + gold + mithril), and orichalcum (bloodsteel + iron + silver). They seem a little too easy to achieve (although the ancient foundry requires two orichalcum bars to build), but it means I have reactions to start from.

~ T

[Urist McTeellox]

(Sneak preview from the revised manual:)

Orcish Honour and Rituals

Taiga Orcs have a strong sense of clan honour, and true honour is only earned in combat against powerful foes. Orcs can and will butcher their enemies, and while the meat can provide a feast in victory celebrations, Taiga Orcs will collect the scalps of their greatest foes to display the honour of their clan. The scalps of humans, dwarves, elves, and drow are particularly prized.

Scalps will be automatically preserved at the tannery, and have multiple uses in your camp. Ten preserved scalps and a bolt of cloth can be sewn into a standard of honour. By displaying their honour, Taiga Orcs can attract valuable trade partners to assist in the building of Caravanserai in your camp. The greatest of clans will build a Warrior's Meadhall.

A great clan may write one or more codexes, either on the art of battle or the art of magic. The construction of a codex is a great ritual and honour, and incoprorates the scalps of great enemies into the design.  Scalps are also used in the initation of great warriors into socieities, and in the construction of fearsome battle masks.

While Taiga Orc warriors value the scalps of their great enemies, the clan Dreamwalkers are able to work with the very essence of the fallen themselves. Dreamwalkers weave talismans from the fleeting soul of defeated enemies. These talismans are central in the Dreamwalker's rituals, and it is said they may even allow them to explore the dreams and memories of the soul that was used. There have been rumours of dreamwalkers who have been able to design powerful workshops and libraries which they have only seen in their dreams.

[Gamerlord]

That sounds fucking awesome.

[Urist McTeellox]

That sounds fucking awesome.

Thanks! I've just implemented the dream-walking reactions for unlocking blueprints, and am testing them now.

I know I'm going to need play-testing feedback when this is done to make sure I've got the balance right, but I'm really liking how it's turning out. We now have a good use for:

* Scalps, to unlock warrior buildings, craft codexes, attract traders, and initiate society members
* Souls, to walk dreams for blueprints, to conduct rituals, craft dreamwalker codexes, and forge items at the arcane forge
* Raiding, to collect foreign tools and codexes (only available from raids), and to provoke enemies into glorious battle!

I'm cautiously optimistic about getting milestone 1 (which is all the most important gameplay changes) out in the next couple of days. 

~ T

[Gamerlord]

I can playtest if you need someone to.

[Urist McTeellox]

I can playtest if you need someone to.

I was hoping you might say that!

So, at the time of writing, my milestone 1 list only has 'needs testing' items remaining, except for figuring out how to balance orichalcum. I feel that removing it from the shadowbroker (and reducing the cost the build the shadowbroker), and requiring a greater soul when creating it in the ancient forge is going to be the best option here. That's a pretty easy change to make.

Oh, and I need to write all the docs. So many docs.  The manual has been updated a little, but it needs a lot more to go.

In any case, I think we're in a state where we can do some playtesting, but be warned there may well be some broken bits around the edges.  You can download a zip of 4g + SWP + Orc Rebalance, although if you've already got 4g you might be able to get away with just downloading the changes and extracting them over the top.

If you're feeling more adventurous, you can also follow the SWP contributor's guide, do a `checkout orc_rebalance` to switch to the appropriate branch, and play there.  That has the advantage that it's easy to get any changes I make, and if you make any fixes (or write documentation!) then I can merge it in really easily.

If you look in the raw/objects/entity_orcfort_taigaorc.txt file and search for 'CHEAT', there are some cheats you can enable by changing the minus signs to square-brackets, in case you need them.

I'm particularly interested in confirming that scalps and souls work if you get a live kill.  Likewise if something feels too easy or too hard, let me know.

Many, many thanks for this! I really do appreciate it!

~ T

[Gamerlord]

I'll get on this in a few hours.

[Urist McTeellox]

I'll get on this in a few hours.

Thanks!  I should note that:

* Scalps and souls are produced at the butcher's shop. Currently only elves, dwarves, drow and human produce scalps.
* Scalps are prepared into a non-rotting form at the tannery (tanning labour, automatic)
* 10 scalps along with cloth can be sewn into a 'standard of honour' at the craftorc's workshop. (leatherworking)
* Souls are woven into spirit talismen at the totem pole (automatic)
* "Walk the dreams of" reactions at the totem pole unlock buildings (one per race)
* Rituals now *require* talismen, rather than producing them
* There are no more spirit shards. Greater souls are the only talisman source. (They're woven from the dreams of fallen sentients)
* Iron, Rusty Iron, Steel, and Rusty Steel are all fine building materials now. This should make industry easier.
* Talismen are show as 'Human soul soul dreamwalker talisman'.  I have no idea why the 'soul' part is appearing twice, but the reaction is below:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[REACTION:CREATE_TALISMAN]
    [NAME:Weave soul into dreamwalk talisman]
    [BUILDING:ORC_TOTEMPOLE:NONE]
    [REAGENT:A:1:PLANT:NONE:NONE:NONE][REACTION_CLASS:GREATER_SOUL]
    [PRODUCT:100:1:TOOL:ITEM_TOOL_DREAM_MEDIUM:GET_MATERIAL_FROM_REAGENT:A:NONE]
    [AUTOMATIC]
    [SKILL:EXTRACT_STRAND]


If anything seems weird, here's my changelog. Most recent changes are at the top, and may overwrite or alter the changes below them:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Orcfort: Update most coin reactions to return stacks of 500 coins (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Weaving souls into talismen is now automatic. (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Disabled overpowered raids on ruins (GH #12) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Fixup: Lower blueprint chances to 15% on dreamwalk (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Fixup: Corrected chapter codex reaction errors (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Blueprints now unlock by walking the dreams of fallen enemies. (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Many reactions now require scalps (rather than totems) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Preparing scalps uses the tanning skill, banners are made at Craftsorc (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Updated manual with details on honour and rituals (McTeellox)
• Orcs can sew standards of honour and use them in building unlocks (#60 #61) (McTeellox)
• Updated all orcish rituals for new soul-based talismans (#86) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Soul updates for orc rituals. (#86) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Druid codexes are now easier to craft (#13) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: All buildings now use architecture to build (#61) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Orcish industry buildings can be built from rusty iron/steel (#61) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Orc sorcers will no longer spam bone-armour buffs. (#70) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Fix REACTION_CLASS:SCALP typo. Fix scalp naming. (McTeellox)
• Orcish embark profiles fixed (wolves -> dire wolves) (McTeellox)
• Added prepared scalp tools and reactions. (McTeellox)
• Added scalps to the Great Races (human/elf/drow/dwarf) (McTeellox)
• Orcish raids now come with the risk of triggering siege. (McTeellox)
• Orc: #51 - Added costs to reaction names. Raided crates now auto unpack. (McTeellox)
• Orcs now have access to brass bullets from all reactions. (McTeellox)
• Add orc fortress cheat reactions for testing. (McTeellox)
• GH #63 - Drydock, Storm Altar, Sun Orrery, and Stone circle are outside only. (McTeellox)
• entity_orcfort_taigaorc: Whitespace only and reordering changes. (McTeellox)
• GH #62 - Added 'corsair arms' (pistol + dagger) to freelancer (McTeellox)
• GH #51 - Added orcs ability to raid farmlands for food. (McTeellox)
• Orcs: Blacksmoke furnaces now require ironbone rather than iron to build. (McTeellox)

Many thanks again!

~ T

[fasquardon]

I'll try testing it out as well.  Will let you know how it goes.  :-)

Scalps will be automatically preserved at the tannery, and have multiple uses in your camp. Ten preserved scalps and a bolt of cloth can be sewn into a standard of honour. By displaying their honour, Taiga Orcs can attract valuable trade partners to assist in the building of Caravanserai in your camp. The greatest of clans will build a Warrior's Meadhall.

It seems strange to me that the Orcs would be attracting trade partners with their standards of honour to help build the caravanserai, it seems much more orcish that the limitation should be that the Orcs simply would not build a trade building or a meadhall without a standard of honour, since doing so would be showing weakness.

Just my take on the flavour.  Things are looking pretty cool overall.  :-)

fasquardon

[Urist McTeellox]

I'll try testing it out as well.  Will let you know how it goes.  :-)

Thank you!

It seems strange to me that the Orcs would be attracting trade partners with their standards of honour to help build the caravanserai, it seems much more orcish that the limitation should be that the Orcs simply would not build a trade building or a meadhall without a standard of honour, since doing so would be showing weakness.

I like your take on the flavour!  If you ever fancy helping with manual writing/copyediting, then let me know.

I did a little work this morning (all available via the download links above), but nothing with major gameplay changes. (So don't go restarting just to get different blocks from the factory!)

• Orcfort: Added missing reactions and removed obsoleted ones. (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Male corsairs now have as good an eye for loot as their female counterparts (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Factories now produce earthenware blocks, not greenware (GH #43) (McTeellox)
• Orcfort: Lamellar wargear now includes gloves at the tribal wargear workshop (McTeellox)

~ T

[Meph]

human soul soul = PLANT:SOUL (1xsoul), MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:TORCH_TEMPLATE (1xsoul). The torch template is used, because its the first try I made with material that withers away, a torch for Rendermax. You get two soul names, because both plant (item type of the reagent) and the material the plant is made of (material of reagent) is called soul.

You can change that by replacing the soul in the torch templates name (material template default) with anything you like. even [NAME:] is ok, it would just leave it blank.

[Urist McTeellox]

human soul soul = PLANT:SOUL (1xsoul), MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:TORCH_TEMPLATE (1xsoul). The torch template is used, because its the first try I made with material that withers away, a torch for Rendermax. You get two soul names, because both plant (item type of the reagent) and the material the plant is made of (material of reagent) is called soul.

You can change that by replacing the soul in the torch templates name (material template default) with anything you like. even [NAME:] is ok, it would just leave it blank.

Aha! Names coming from the template is indeed what I missed! It's not going to mess up anything you're doing if I change it to [NAME:], is it?

(Also, it looks like the TORCH_TEMPLATE is only used for souls... Do we want to rename it to SOUL_TEMPLATE?)

~ T

[Meph]

Make a copy of it please, leave the torch template with NAME:torch, and make a SOUL_TEMPLATE (check if there is one already for something else), with [NAME:]

The blank name doesnt hurt, especially considering that they dont even show in stockpiles. Worst thing that can happen is an extra ' ' in the names, like ' human soul'. If you find a nice adjectice, take it instead, but shorter names are better names.

[Urist McTeellox]

Make a copy of it please, leave the torch template with NAME:torch, and make a SOUL_TEMPLATE (check if there is one already for something else), with [NAME:]

Done! Here are the changes, but in summary, the soul template now looks like this:

Code: [Select]

[MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SOUL_TEMPLATE]
        [STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL:]
        [REACTION_CLASS:SOUL]
        [ROTS]

As far as I can tell, all the other values in the template are the defaults listed for material material tokens, and so I've omitted them.

I've also put the reaction class on the template (so we can't accidentally have a soul without the required reaction class), and updated the torch template to have a name of 'torch'.  (Although as far as I can tell that template isn't used anywhere, so I presume torches are made of other materials, or magic!)

~ T