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Afro

1 (0.7%)

Duerer

8 (5.4%)

GemSet

14 (9.5%)

Ironhand

29 (19.6%)

Jolly Bastion

5 (3.4%)

Mayday

15 (10.1%)

Obsidian

17 (11.5%)

Spacefox

35 (23.6%)

Wanderlust

11 (7.4%)

Other (please specify)

13 (8.8%)

Total Members Voted: 148

[Salmeuk]

My main point was that 150-ish scorpion or fly or slug eggs would feed as many dwarves as 150 elephant steaks. 1 meal is 1 meal ingame, regardless of size.

Okay, that does sound extremely game unbalancing. I don't have any problem with reducing those absurd amounts to something reasonable (in terms of clutch size vs. egg food value).

However, if this discussion leads to reducing the clutch size of domestic poultry in the base Modest Mod (like in the old Legacy versions) - even by a little bit - I would have a problem with it. That is, unless it was made an optional module. (Also, see the Wiki page for the Poultry industry for a comparison of egg layers and clutch sizes.)

Actually, I would be unhappy about reducing the clutch size of most non-domestic animals - like Alligators - even by half. Maybe something like 5-20, but a reduction to 5-15 is too few. (The Alligator is a big animal with big eggs and I think their egg production should feed a Fort better than mere Chickens!)

That said, I'd agree that Saltwater or Cave Crocodiles do need be reduced. A maximum clutch of 70 and 60, respectively, is way too much! Though, I guess one could counter-argue that, while Alligators become adult at just 1 year, both Crocodiles take 3 years to become adult. So it is slightly more investment in getting the latter industry going.

I agree with your point about using the mod "without reservation," but I don't think that anyone seriously auto-installs the mod because they read that line. Most everyone can judge for themselves, and will!

I think that eggs are broken in the current state of the game. It's not like food is all that difficult to acquire in DF, and when you can comfortably feed a fortress of fifty with just chickens it feels a bit strange. I think that lowering clutch sizes would fall right in line with this mod's history of change-towards-realism, and hardly impact most fortresses. Those that are impacted would be reliant on highly specialized and "alternative" food industry, like your referenced Alligator farms. This is ok, and since those playstyles are mostly about seeking challenges and breaking up the tedium of the normal farm-based food management I don't think it's exactly unreasonable to nerf their viability.

Do you perhaps have another argument for the absurdity of eggs in their current state, beyond the personal convenience of an infinite food source? Do you really, really like chickens? Or are you a shill from the AEB, sent to ensure the availability of virtual-eggs so as to promote RL consumption?!

[Thundercraft]

I think that lowering clutch sizes would fall right in line with this mod's history of change-towards-realism, and hardly impact most fortresses.

This is not a mod with realism as the focus. The name itself implies modest changes. When one considers that this term is subjective, it's obvious that making changes that most everyone agrees to can be a tricky balancing act.

I agree with your point about using the mod "without reservation," but I don't think that anyone seriously auto-installs the mod because they read that line. Most everyone can judge for themselves, and will!

I don't think using Modest Mod "without reservation" means what you think it means. It's not about carelessly installing based purely on the mod's name. Nor is it about someone with a personality disorder who has difficulty in making simple decisions, such as whether or not to use this mod.

In the OP, Button (and Igfig, before him) describes this mod as, "an indispensable mod" and states:

The Modest Mod is a collection of vital bugfixes and tweaks that everyone should be able to use comfortably and without reservation. This mod doesn't add anything new. It doesn't do anything controversial. It's just like vanilla DF, but a little better.

The whole premise is to create a mod of essential bug fixes and tweaks that, almost without exception, everyone can agree to.

Do you perhaps have another argument for the absurdity of eggs in their current state, beyond the personal convenience of an infinite food source?

Actually... I'll freely concede that the current egg situation is absurd.

However, one of the stated purposes of this mod is serve as a foundation of bug fixes and minor tweaks from which mod authors can build their own mods.

Modest Mod does have certain extra tweaks and changes which some may not like or may feel deviates from Vanilla a bit too far. (Again, it's subjective.) So, to make this mod appeal to as wide an audience as possible, these are available in the form of optional Modules that are easy to either install or leave out.

Personally, I consider Modest Bodies, Pedestal, and Tooltips to be so incredibly modest that I still don't understand why they're not a part of Modest's base code. (Pedestal, in particular: Players aren't forced to build a pedestal, even if it's an option.) For the most part, these will not impact gameplay. But I do respect that this is a matter of opinion and I have little problem with these remaining as optional modules.

Likewise, while I consider Accelerated (a massive reduction in stone types under a poorly-tested theory that it helps with FPS) to be a radical change from Vanilla that I do not want, I recognize that this is beloved by some players who feel it is essential to them. I suspect there are even a few who fail to understand why Accelerated is controversial or why it's not a part of Modest's base code.

My question is: Why do some take issue with having radical changes to most egg-layers as an optional Module instead of as part of the base code that all mod users are forced to accept? Either that, or we must track down changes we don't like by comparing to Vanilla, file by individual file, creature by creature, line by line, and manually edit the code, ourselves. To either give up using Modest Mod or edit the code ourselves are not appealing options. And it seems quite unfair, merely because a few dislike the comparatively minor inconvenience of installing such as an optional Module.

I think that eggs are broken in the current state of the game. It's not like food is all that difficult to acquire in DF, and when you can comfortably feed a fortress of fifty with just chickens it feels a bit strange.

I realize that eggs are broken. (Pun not intended.) The fact that egg size does not impact food quality speaks volumes. It's ridiculous that a giant Roc or Megabeast egg has the same food value as a small Crow egg.

But, mucking about with clutch sizes for dozens of creatures could be the start of a slippery slope. Where do we draw the line?

This is a matter of game balance and unfinished features. Do you realize how many aspects of DF beg for tweaks or fixes? I don't think Modest Mod should endeavor to fix any and all bugs and balance issues. Instead of expecting Modest Mod to be a Swiss Army Knife, aren't certain fixes better suited to optional modules or other mods that players can install?

Most everyone will agree that crop seasons needs some adjustments. Toady himself acknowledged this in a recent Future of the Fortress reply, admitting "...we come from a family of botanists and gardeners, so you'd hope we get there." However, while there have been several 'seasonal farming' mods over the years, not everyone uses them.

You wouldn't suggest that Claije's Seasonal Farming mod be merged into Modest Mod's base code, would you? Assuming, Claije is okay with that, not all players may appreciate Claije's approach to rebalancing crops. Some may like certain aspects of his changes, but dislike certain other aspects.

Those that are impacted would be reliant on highly specialized and "alternative" food industry, like your referenced Alligator farms.

To change clutch sizes in general - not just for creatures that are obviously broken, like crocodiles and giant insects - is to impact every mod user who ever raises one of the many creatures so adjusted. Granted, depending on how much it is nerfed, the impact could be positive or negative and it could be major or minor (and everything in between). But to claim that it will have no impact to players in general is inaccurate.

This is ok, and since those playstyles are mostly about seeking challenges and breaking up the tedium of the normal farm-based food management I don't think it's exactly unreasonable to nerf their viability.

How much it gets nerfed will determine whether it's detrimental to players in general or to certain extreme play styles. As the saying goes, 'The devil is in the details.'

To put this in perspective: There are over 60 egg-laying creatures listed on the Wiki's page on egg production, which the page itself admits is incomplete. All told, there are probably closer to 100 egg-layers.

It would be a monumental task to make changes to several dozen creatures in a way that even 90% of players will find completely satisfactory. Such a rebalance is probably best attempted by Toady. At least, players would have to admit such changes are Word of God.

If you want to rebalance the clutch size for all egg-layers, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you from making your own mod or a new optional module for Modest Mod.

But, how would you go about this? Would you make all the changes yourself? Would you test, in-game, every creature to make sure each is still worth raising for food? Would you at least create a poll to get the input of others - a giant poll, with clutch size options for each creature, several dozen creatures in total?

Do you really, really like chickens? Or are you a shill from the AEB, sent to ensure the availability of virtual-eggs so as to promote RL consumption?!

Was that meant to be a joke? Otherwise, wasn't that a bit uncalled for?

[Igfig]

Yeah okay that's a pretty good argument. I'll put my support behind the "egg changes as a module" camp.

[Taverius]

The worst offenders are giant versions of certain insects, which have no default egg behavior & which I filled in values for with real-life clutch sizes. These are definitely up for reduction, though I'm inclined to leave giant thrips in the game-breakingly high range (because their prefstring is "prolific breeding").

I finally got over the hump at work, and am getting to work on v43.04-1 now.

Scorpions can be handily bypassed by making them (ovo)viviparous, if necessary, so there's that at least.

Also, giant anything should come with a commensurate reduction in reproduction compared to the base creature, as is (generally) the case in dreary old real life, but in have faint memories of this already being the case for various creatures - in which case non-compliance can be considered a bug.

[Button]

FYI, I've started using GitHub for the Modest Mod in earnest. Please take a look at the issue list and let me know if there's anything I've missed.

[Maltavius]

Each week I go into this thread and read "Don't use Accelerated"...

How would I go about making the accelerated changes myself?

I'm specifically looking for all leather being just "leather" and meat being "meat", "pork" "poultry".
That's about it for me. The amount of stones/minerals is fine.

I'm guessing I need to change the RAWs' and I've been looking around in the objects folder but I can't seem to find where I should begin

[Button]

If you need Accelerated in a super hurry, I recommend you use Masterwork.

I've got what I think is a fix implemented, but it needs more testing before release.

[Taffer]

Personally, I consider Modest Bodies, Pedestal, and Tooltips to be so incredibly modest that I still don't understand why they're not a part of Modest's base code. (Pedestal, in particular: Players aren't forced to build a pedestal, even if it's an option.) For the most part, these will not impact gameplay. But I do respect that this is a matter of opinion and I have little problem with these remaining as optional modules.

Agreed. I second that Modest Bodies, Pedestal, and Tooltips be merged into base, leaving only two modules: accelerated and "everything is tameable". This minimizes workload and better standardizes the mod. A third "rebalanced" module can be added for changes such as egg clutch sizes that aim to rebalance the game. This should also make it easier to rebalance other things without worrying about stepping on anyone's toes.

Of course, this is assuming that somebody actually makes it: I see a lot of discussion, but people seem to be assuming Button will do it. An easy solution would be to simply revert all (or most) clutch sizes back to what vanilla uses. The fewer unnecessary RAW changes the easier it is to maintain and merge into other mods.  What else did Meph not like besides clutch sizes? I personally dislike even the "modest mod" comments in the files: if people want to know what changes were made then a graphical diff is already superior. It's not always intuitive exactly what was changed and what the original RAWs were without it, even with the comments. As it is, they just clutter my list of "lines changed".

In any case, thank you again for the work involved, and for the mod!

[Urist McRhaidsaugh]

Hi Button,

I really love what you've done with this mod, especially Accelerated. To me, it is an absolute essential for playing DF.

Any word on when Accelerated will be working again? I am on the fence on whether to wait for it to be fixed, or roll back to the last stable combo of DF+Accelerated+Modest.

Thanks!

[Taffer]

Thought I'd post a small progress report. I've been putting effort into my description work lately, pushing to get things closer to completion. My "first pass" is currently complete up to the end of creature_large_tropical but I expect that will improve today. I hadn't worked on it for a few weeks and when I returned I started revising and trimming my previous work. That second pass is currently complete up to the end of creature_large_riverlake. There's more done that you might expect: the biggest, most tedious files are already done. I also started gendering humanoids by moving their descriptions into their gender castes, referring to ungendered humanoids as "it". I quite like the result: descriptions are more concise and relatable.

It will still take me some time to finish but at least the end is in sight. My rate of completion has improved as has the quality of my writing. There's bound to be typos and errors that I miss, but hopefully I can find all of those and fix them. Referring to yetis and such as "man" and "woman" seems odd, but it also seems arbitary to refer to narwhal women as women but draw the line at yetis. Things are simpler when I'm describing natural creatures or derivations of them.

Don't delay any release for me: I don't mind bringing things up to date with the next modest mod release.

This really makes a difference in-game, especially in savage biomes. I love scrolling around the map, seeing what creatures are where and getting a sense of what they look like and what they're up to. Even if you don't care about their appearance, at least you can now get a sense of what size they are. The size of giant elephants is definitely underappreciated.

[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic elephant almost twice the size of a sperm whale. It towers over everything with legs thicker than tree trunks and immense tusks larger than most people. Beware its size!]

[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic monster in elephant form.]

Beware its size indeed. What does it eat?

[Dirst]

[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic elephant almost twice the size of a sperm whale. It towers over everything with legs thicker than tree trunks and immense tusks larger than most people. Beware its size!]

[DESCRIPTION:A gigantic monster in elephant form.]

Beware its size indeed. What does it eat?

Squads.

[gchristopher]

Personally, I consider Modest Bodies, Pedestal, and Tooltips to be so incredibly modest that I still don't understand why they're not a part of Modest's base code

Since 43.05 includes more joint injuries in combat, Modest Bodies might have bigger-than-intended consequences? That's a pretty solid reason to leave it as a module until the implications are thoroughly understood. (And without dfhack to look at things in detail, it's unlikely that anyone is expert yet.)

I'm on the fence about Pedestal. The argument "just don't use it if you don't want it" can be applied to dozens of mods out there, even large sections of Masterwork. That's the wrong question to ask for core Modest Mod, where the idea is that it only makes changes that are so obvious that there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't be in vanilla. However, even for that strict test, I think Pedestals are worth considering being in the core mod. Isn't Toady working on his own version of display cases for artifacts?

I haven't seen Tooltips in detail, but something that just adds informative text sounds firmly within the mandate of Modest mod and worth moving into the core module.

[PeridexisErrant]

FWIW vanilla DF will have pedestal-like artifact displays in the next version:  http://bay12games.com/dwarves/#2016-08-23

[Taffer]

Here is Modest Bodies with everything except for the renamed body parts left out. It's 100% in line with vanilla 0.43.05 apart from the renamed body parts. Combat will be unaffected aside from readability. This might be more palatable to people than having extra joints and such in combat. Combat is much more readable with this file: hitting somebody in the chest with your right forearm, for example, rather than in their upper body with your right lower arm.

Since 43.05 includes more joint injuries in combat, Modest Bodies might have bigger-than-intended consequences? That's a pretty solid reason to leave it as a module until the implications are thoroughly understood. (And without dfhack to look at things in detail, it's unlikely that anyone is expert yet.)

I agree that the joints are probably an unnecessary change.

[Taffer]

Here is the Modest Mod updated for DF 0.43.05 and put on a diet. Originally, I made this for myself: I tried to update the Modest Mod, but was frustrated by the many changes made to the game's files, with a few minor changes generating a lot of diff noise for little gain. This made me not want to use the Modest Mod for a while. I found it tedious to update or merge it. I view Modest Mod as a base for further modding more than anything, so some changes were reverted for no reason other than to make integration easier. The vast majority of the Modest Mod's fixes are still in place, I've just removed a few of the particularly noisy, undocumented, or no-longer-necessary fixes.

General Notes
 • The mod has been brought up to date with every DF 0.43.05 change.
 • Every "changed by modest mod" comment has been removed. If you want to know what has been changed, download DF 0.43.05 and compare the raw folders yourself in a diff utility. The comments are the cause of a lot of diff noise, but the comments are also unreliable: the Modest Mod made many "undocumented" changes.
 • The tissue file fixes has been brought in line more with DF Wanderer's changes. I preferred Wanderer's values here, and this also removes some more minor conflicts.
 • As per my above post, Modest Bodies has had every non-textual improvement removed, and this module has now been integrated.
 • The tooltip module had a typo fixed, and has also now been integrated. Meph made many improvements to the tooltip module, and these changes have been included with permission.
 • The only remaining two modules are Everything is Tameable and Accelerated. I have no interest in supporting these, as it's a lot of extra work (particularly Accelerated!). If you want these updated, note the changes they make to the modest mod and apply them to my files. I remain skeptical that this does much for FPS apart from disabling temperature and the smaller default embark.

Things removed from the Modest Mod
 • All ORIENTATION changes have been removed: this fix is no longer necessary. This cleaned up the Modest Mod significantly.
 • Helmets are no longer shaped, deferring to the vanilla RAWs. This seems to have been a deliberate change on Toady's part, and it was the only item file the Modest Mod edited: unnecessarily conflicting with mods that edited items.
 • Giant creatures now live just as long as their originating species again as all MAXAGE changes have been removed. These changes are pervasive and, due to a bug, difficult to apply, for very little gain. This was also inconsistently applied across the Modest Mod already: some giant creatures removed the original MAXAGE tag before adding a new one, some did not.
 • Pandas now graze normally again: I couldn't find this bug in the bug tracker nor did I find discussion of it anywhere.
 • I removed the new reptile scratch attack, because scratch attacks are silly.
 • The fake seed template changes have been removed. The bug tracker reports that this bug is fixed already.
 • Modest mod added egg laying to many creatures in the game: this has all been reverted. I know it's more accurate, but the point of eggs is to support an egg laying industry, and hardly any of the eggs being laid were of a large enough size. Urist isn't going to feast on tiny spider eggs. I suspect this also drained FPS somewhat, and I had concerns about balance.
 • The leather changes have been removed, mostly because they conflict with DF Wanderer. I'm also concerned about balance: it's more realistic, but increasing leather yields for large animals is, to me, undesirable.
 • After some thought, I reverted underground populations to their normal values. Yes, a little genocide might wipe out creature populations, but in my opinion the underground becomes too densely populated with these changes. This bugfix was also particularly noisy, and therefore tedious to copy to other mods.
 • For easier maintenance, the data/init/announcements.txt file has been removed.
 • To fix the issue described in this post, the additional "magma-safe" and "non-magma-safe" masonry menus have been removed. They will be restored if this problem can be fixed.

Things added
 • Every NAIL_SCRATCH_ATTACK in the raw files has been removed: this has always been a silly attack. Talons and claws still scratch, just not nails. The NAIL_SCRATCH_ATTACK itself remains for compatibility with other mods.
 • Dwarves, elves, and goblins will no longer scratch or bite people in combat. This fix was inspired by Stal's Armoury Pack.
 • I borrowed a few fixes from Grimlocke's mod: the velocity of all unarmed attacks has been decreased. Unarmed combat should not be as deadly as it is currently.
 • Head tissues are adjusted to make heads slightly less fragile.
 • Animal people with legs can now always jump. Animal people also retain their GRAZER tags, just like the regular game. SPECIFIC_FOOD is removed from animal people to help make pandas more playable.

There are, almost certainly, more changes than these. I generate no errors with this mod. If I screwed up, please let me know.
EDIT: Last updated on November 15, 2016.