Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Prudent Viper]

No, it won't. Doing this will only improve blunt weapons. Steel and Iron are the 2nd and 3rd best materials for weapons and armour, period (Excluding divine materials). No other metal is anywhere near as good as them, with the exception of blunt weapons.

Nope. Bronze is better than iron also as armour, not only as blunt and ranged weapons. There's no point in making iron warfare items, go straight to steel if you have a source of iron.

I forgot about bronze. It is not better than iron though, in fact it has very similar properties to the point where if it is better, it's only a very slight difference. It's generally used as a substitute for iron, not to replace it as a superior material.

[frightlever]

No, it won't. Doing this will only improve blunt weapons. Steel and Iron are the 2nd and 3rd best materials for weapons and armour, period (Excluding divine materials). No other metal is anywhere near as good as them, with the exception of blunt weapons.

Nope. Bronze is better than iron also as armour, not only as blunt and ranged weapons. There's no point in making iron warfare items, go straight to steel if you have a source of iron.

I forgot about bronze. It is not better than iron though, in fact it has very similar properties to the point where if it is better, it's only a very slight difference. It's generally used as a substitute for iron, not to replace it as a superior material.

Historically bronze was preferable to iron because it was easier to extract from the ores. Iron required a higher heat to smelt and so consumed more energy to produce. There's no analogue in DF to account for this, that I'm aware of (haven't played for at least a year but just about ready to get back into it now DF2014 looks solid) so iron is "better". Similarly, making steel was hit and miss for centuries and once someone lucked into the formula they kept it a trade secret. eg:

http://io9.com/ancient-roman-tech-cache-shows-how-horror-movies-would-1623375040

[Graknorke]

Bronze is denser that iron it seems from the raws, so there's that.

[Deepblade]

Not to mention that not all sources of Iron were very high quality. I remember hearing a story of some warriors having to straighten out their iron swords after a few swings because the ore was so impure. I also seem to remember a thread where the data suggested heavier armors were a little better at protecting the wearer from blunt damage. I can't for the life of me remember the thread name.

On to the topic though. The changes I make are
1. I remove unnecessary clothes, add coifs, and a cloak with armor level on it so it won't wear out on my soldiers.
2. I simplify creature materials. Essentially I made a mod that works just like Veok's Leather replacer(see link in signature), except it does it for ALL the creature parts. Not just the leather. Anything above a certain value, or intelligent, is left alone.
3. Along with #2  I change skins to be a glob and change the tanning reaction so I can get more than one piece of leather from a creature.
3. Mammoths! I add mammoths to my game and have them be domesticated. Why? Because mammoths are cool. Raws for the mammoth in spoiler if anyone wants it.

Spoiler: MAMMOTH (click to show/hide)

[CREATURE:MAMMOTH_WOOLLY]
   [DESCRIPTION:A huge woolly mammal, found grazing in remote taigas and tundras.  Its long, greasy hair keeps it warm as it wanders the frozen landscape.]
   [NAME:woolly mammoth:woolly mammoths:woolly mammoth]
   [CASTE_NAME:woolly mammoth:woolly mammoths:woolly mammoth]
   [CHILD:10][GENERAL_CHILD_NAME:woolly mammoth calf:woolly mammoth calves]
   [CREATURE_TILE:'M'][COLOR:6:0:0]
   [PETVALUE:500]
   [PET]
   [GRAZER:12] don't have browsing trees yet
   [MOUNT_EXOTIC]
   [TRAINABLE]
   [LARGE_ROAMING]
   [BIOME:FOREST_TAIGA]
   [BIOME:TUNDRA]
   [POPULATION_NUMBER:15:30]
   [CLUSTER_NUMBER:3:7]
   [BENIGN][MEANDERER][NATURAL]
   [SAVAGE]
   [PREFSTRING:strength][PREFSTRING:great size]
   [BODY:QUADRUPED:TAIL:2EYES:2EARS:TRUNK:2LUNGS:HEART:GUTS:ORGANS:THROAT:NECK:SPINE:BRAIN:SKULL:MOUTH:TONGUE:2TUSKS:GENERIC_TEETH:RIBCAGE]
   [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
      [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:IVORY:TOOTH_TEMPLATE]
         [STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:ivory]
         [STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:ivory]
      [SELECT_MATERIAL:HAIR]
         [STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:BROWN]
         [DISPLAY_COLOR:6:0:0]
         [STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:wool]
         [STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:wool]
         [YARN]
   [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
      [USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:IVORY:IVORY_TEMPLATE]
         [TISSUE_NAME:ivory:NP]
      [SELECT_TISSUE:HAIR]
         [SELECT_TISSUE:HAIR]
         [TISSUE_NAME:wool:NP]
         [INSULATION:200]
      
   [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:BODY_HAIR_TISSUE_LAYERS:HAIR]
   [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SKIN:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]
   [SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:HEART:BY_CATEGORY:HEART]
    [PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SKIN:BY_CATEGORY:THROAT]
      [TL_MAJOR_ARTERIES]
   [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
   [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RIBCAGE_POSITIONS]
   [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SINEW:SINEW_TEMPLATE]
   [TENDONS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
   [LIGAMENTS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
   [HAS_NERVES]
   [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:BLOOD:BLOOD_TEMPLATE]
   [BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:BLOOD:LIQUID]
   [CREATURE_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
   [GETS_WOUND_INFECTIONS]
   [GETS_INFECTIONS_FROM_ROT]
   [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:PUS:PUS_TEMPLATE]
   [PUS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:PUS:LIQUID]
   [BODY_SIZE:0:0:500000]
   [BODY_SIZE:2:0:2300000]
   [BODY_SIZE:5:0:5010000]
   [BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
   [BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
   [BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
   [MAXAGE:70:80]
   [ATTACK:KICK:BODYPART:BY_CATEGORY:FOOT_FRONT]
      [ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
      [ATTACK_VERB:kick:kicks]
      [ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
      [ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
      [ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
   [ATTACK:GORE:BODYPART:BY_CATEGORY:TUSK]
      [ATTACK_SKILL:BITE]
      [ATTACK_VERB:gore:gores]
      [ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
      [ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]
      [ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
   [DIURNAL]
   [HOMEOTHERM:10066]
   [SWIMS_INNATE][SWIM_SPEED:2500]
   [MUNDANE]
   [CASTE:FEMALE]
      [FEMALE]
   [CASTE:MALE]
      [MALE]
   [SELECT_CASTE:ALL]
      [SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SKIN]
         [TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:GRAY:1]
            [TLCM_NOUN:skin:SINGULAR]
      [SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:HAIR]
         [TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:BROWN:1]
            [TLCM_NOUN:wool:SINGULAR]
      [SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:EYE:EYE]
         [TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:IRIS_EYE_BROWN:1:IRIS_EYE_GOLD:1:IRIS_EYE_YELLOW:1]
            [TLCM_NOUN:eyes:PLURAL]
   [SELECT_MATERIAL:ALL]
      [MULTIPLY_VALUE:5]

4. Display case, because craft artifacts are actually useful this way.
5. One I've been toying with is giving the elves a reaction for "Ironwood", so they can make iron quality weapons out of something that has the wood tag.
6. I make Aluminium usable for crossbows.

[Spehss _]

On the subject of blunt weapons being underpowered, blunt has a benefit edged weapons don't: they can be good regardless of the metal they're crafted out of. Except candy, obv. A copper hammer can be about as good at killing things as a steel hammer, while a copper sword is less effective than a steel sword. Whenever I have an embark with lousy metals I always go with blunt weapons.

As for raw changes, I relocated various raws to their own files, like separating item_weapon.txt into item_weapon_axes.txt for all axe skill weapons, item_weapon_sword for all swords, etc. Also did with all civs and civ creature files, so there's entity_dwarves and creature_dwarf, entity_goblin and creature_goblin, etc, instead of everything being wedged in together and harder to find.

Also buffed two handed weapons to get double the velocity of one handed weapons, and various other weapon tweaks to add variety to dwarven armories and make various weapons more viable or balanced.

Also made various cavern creatures have giant versions, including giant cave crocodiles, giant trolls and giant cave ogres, giant draltha, giant jabberers and rutherers, and giant cave dragons. Giant cave dragons come out to be even larger than bronze colossi or rocs, at 30,000,000 cm3 compared to their 20,000,000.

Also made various creatures shearable, so dwarves can now have rutherer fur clothes and draltha mane fur caps. Or nothing but giant rat hair cloaks.

Changed rock tiles so that all ores have the same ore vein symbol and all rock has the same color and same tile as '#'. Easier on my eyes.

Made dimple cups brewable to cheap booze, because otherwise they're useless to me.

[Miuramir]

I forgot about bronze. It is not better than iron though, in fact it has very similar properties to the point where if it is better, it's only a very slight difference. It's generally used as a substitute for iron, not to replace it as a superior material.

This is complicated.  However, in the real world, bronze was clearly superior to copper, but required rare and/or expensive raw materials, such as tin.  If you think of bronze as "copper, plus crazy expensive additives, plus skill, equals superior swords", you're not far from wrong.  DF doesn't do a good job of handling relative material abundance, so this doesn't come out in gameplay very often. 

Iron was harder to work, usually required more fuel to make, and gave weapons and armor that were inferior to bronze due to problems with brittleness vs. ductility... but iron ore was *everywhere*.  Suddenly, equipping a metal-clad, sword-wielding military was within the reach of any reasonably functional despot, probably with resources available in their own little kingdom.  Sure, over a long campaign, the iron stuff bent, broke, or shattered a lot; but if you could field several times the number of iron-clad warriors than your neighbor's bronze-clad warriors, chances are you would win before that became much of a problem.  In DF, this would only matter when we have a functional armor-damage system. 

Steel changed things again... it's a "miracle" technique to turn all that crappy iron low-bidder stuff into a wonder metal, using fairly common other materials.  Compared to above, it's "iron, plus cheap additives and extra fuel, plus more skill, equals superior swords".  Steel isn't always the best metal to make things out of, but it's usually "good enough", so societies eventually gravitate toward "steel everything", except for special cases. 

RPGs and video game RPGs in particular seem to have driven a generation of kids to think that metals have a simple upgrade path, with each improvement being superior to the previous.  This was somewhat necessary in the early days of 8-bit console RPGs, but has been an oversimplification for a long time.   If "Fluff" is a +2 material, and "Lint" is a +3 material, then a Lint Sword will be better than a Fluff Sword, Lint Armor would be better than Fluff Armor, ... heck, a Lint Cooking Pot would be better than a Fluff one.  The world doesn't work that way  

[Urist McShire]

Recently I've also been adding [NATURAL_SKILL:DISCIPLINE:1] and [NATURAL_SKILL:SWIMMING:3] to my dwarves so I don't have to worry about them always running away in fear whenever they see a single corpse or drowning by accident.

[gunpowdertea]

[..]
As for raw changes, I relocated various raws to their own files, like separating item_weapon.txt into item_weapon_axes.txt for all axe skill weapons, item_weapon_sword for all swords, etc. Also did with all civs and civ creature files, so there's entity_dwarves and creature_dwarf, entity_goblin and creature_goblin, etc, instead of everything being wedged in together and harder to find.
[..]
Made dimple cups brewable to cheap booze, because otherwise they're useless to me.

The first one seems a lot of work... I mean, really a ton (metric or whatever). I use clever tools like grep to find stuff, so everything could be mashed together in one huge file...
Brewing dimple cups sounds good, I might steal this idea! But then it is nice to have a plant that is expensive to use, just 'cause you want fancy pants.

I usually do the [Pet] and [Tameable] thing, I like having exotic animals around. I also greatly prefer peregrine falcons to cats, so if they are actually available to my civ I can just bring them on embark. However, when I install a new version I usually forget doing this... so at the moment I'm playing vanilla DF again. I'll get the Mammoths from above for my next game, though!

[clownwolf]

After countless arena fights, I realized that maces, warhammers, and morningstars are almost as bad as whips and scourges when it comes to cheap 1-hit kills. While I am happy that even copper warhammers seems to always break bones against full steel armor on the first hit, this leads to very unsatisfying combat.

Breaking a bone results in an instant kill vs humanoids (pass out + head smash combo) due to overloaded pain receptors on bones. I reduced the pain receptors on bones from 50 to 25, so now it takes a minimum of 2 broken finger bones before a legendary fighter keels over. Its kind of weird that a torn heart still gives less pain than a broken finger. Skin + Fat + Muscle + Heart = 20 pain.

[Repseki]

Just be happy DF doesn't have paper cuts or splinters, dwarves would be running around screaming in agony not getting anything done because you forgot to make a few pairs of tweezers!

[Bumber]

I think it might be a good idea to remove the [GNAWER] tags from any vermin the elven caravan might bring.

I'm on to your subversive plot, elves. Trying to induce tantrum spirals with hated vermin.

[Spehss _]

The first one seems a lot of work... I mean, really a ton (metric or whatever). I use clever tools like grep to find stuff, so everything could be mashed together in one huge file...

It wasn't really too much work. Just copy pasted from the raws in 40.01. I only did that to make it easier to fine tune my weapon balancing mods and because I wanted the different civilization creatures to be quick to open and change. Like if I wanted to quickly add a new weapon I made to their civ. Or if I wanted to make changes to the goblin creature raws. It's not like I made every single creature get its own text file or something, that'd be insane. I just put on some music to listen to and had the free time to do it, so I did it.

Brewing dimple cups sounds good, I might steal this idea! But then it is nice to have a plant that is expensive to use, just 'cause you want fancy pants.

I don't bother with dying clothes at the moment. Dimple cups usually weren't grown in my forts. That's why I made them brewable, and I figured it'd be cheap valued booze since dimple cups can be grown year round and making the booze as valuable or more valuable than plump helmet wine would seem overpowered. At least to me.

Spoiler: here's the raws for them, if you want (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[PLANT:MUSHROOM_CUP_DIMPLE]
[NAME:dimple cup][NAME_PLURAL:dimple cups][ADJ:dimple cup]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE]
[MATERIAL_REACTION_PRODUCT:DRINK_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:DRINK]
[MATERIAL_REACTION_PRODUCT:SEED_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:SEED]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:2]
[BASIC_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
[PICKED_TILE:3][PICKED_COLOR:1:0:1]
[GROWDUR:500][VALUE:2]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:MILL:PLANT_POWDER_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:dimple dye]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:MIDNIGHT_BLUE]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:1:0:1]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:20]
[POWDER_DYE:MIDNIGHT_BLUE]
[PREFIX:NONE]
[MILL:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:MILL]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:DRINK:PLANT_ALCOHOL_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:frozen dwarven moonshine]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:LIQUID:dwarven moonshine]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:GAS:boiling dwarven moonshine]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:1]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:1:0:1]
[STATE_COLOR:LIQUID:MIDNIGHT_BLUE]
[EDIBLE_RAW]
[EDIBLE_COOKED]
[PREFIX:NONE]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SEED:SEED_TEMPLATE]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:1]
[EDIBLE_VERMIN]
[EDIBLE_COOKED]
[SEED:dimple cup spawn:dimple cup spawn:5:0:1:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:SEED]
[SPRING][SUMMER][AUTUMN][WINTER]
[FREQUENCY:100]
[CLUSTERSIZE:5]
[PREFSTRING:soothing color]
[WET][DRY]
[BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_WATER]
[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:1:3]
[SHRUB_TILE:58]
[DEAD_SHRUB_TILE:58]
[SHRUB_COLOR:1:0:1]
[DEAD_SHRUB_COLOR:0:0:1]

If you're gonna use this, make sure you replace the code in plant_standard for dimple cups with this to avoid raw duplication errors. Should work, last I checked. Haven't played DF much recently.

[TacoSundae84]

Breaking a bone results in an instant kill vs humanoids (pass out + head smash combo) due to overloaded pain receptors on bones. I reduced the pain receptors on bones from 50 to 25, so now it takes a minimum of 2 broken finger bones before a legendary fighter keels over. Its kind of weird that a torn heart still gives less pain than a broken finger. Skin + Fat + Muscle + Heart = 20 pain.

Does this change work after worldgen? I just had a marksdwarf knock out a minotaur in one shot to the lower leg due to a chipped bone. This change is a must.

[clownwolf]

I'm not sure, but I think already created creatures will already have that 50 receptors in their file. I actually thought that the '50' pain receptors might be a typo, since every other tissue part only has 5 pain receptors.

Anyway I found the issue on the bug tracker, and one guy set his bone pain receptors down to 17. I agree since 25 still results in instant faints quite frequently. Bring it down to around 10-20. I personally have mine to 12. Guys usually faint after 1 fracture + 1-3 chips on arena fights.

[Thormgrim]

how do you guys manage all these tweaks?
I have a long list of them, including the creation forge, some placekeeper reactions, veoks, adding pet and trainable tags, changing grazer to reasonable numbers, adding an extra broker and an extra bookkeeper and now a host of other new ideas from this thread.

I use notepad++ to find and replace for some things (like adding pet and trainable tags to animals) but a lot of the other stuff is just a ton of manual changes.

do you guys use some sort of tool?