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[than402]

okay, guys, slight update: pretty much everything but the creatures is done, but I need help with the spawn unit script:

how can I make a syndrome stone that will spawn a hostile creature? I'm completely dfhack illiterate and I don't know how the new system with the onLoad and the syndrome/reaction triggers works.

[Dirst]

okay, guys, slight update: pretty much everything but the creatures is done, but I need help with the spawn unit script:

how can I make a syndrome stone that will spawn a hostile creature? I'm completely dfhack illiterate and I don't know how the new system with the onLoad and the syndrome/reaction triggers works.

Spawning units in DF has gone from impossible (you made your creature naturally occurring and thanked Armok if it actually appeared) to Rube-Goldberg-complexity raw modding that involved syndromes and interactions and transformations that wouldn't even work most of the time to what we have at the moment which is merely non-intuitive DFHackery with some bugginess.

Setting this up isn't actually that hard.  The problem is that no matter how careful you are it won't work the first several tries, so you need to build for troubleshooting.

Step 1: Create the material that will carry your triggering syndrome. 

Add this to the material in your tree:

Code: [Select]

[SYNDROME]
[SYN_NAME:anger dryad]
[SYN_INHALED][SYN_INGESTED]
[SYN_AFFECTED_CREATURE:DWARF:ALL]
[CE_FLASH_TILE:TILE:'*':7:7:1:FREQUENCY:100:100:START:0:END:600]

It doesn't really matter what the symptom is, so long as it has one that lasts long enough for you to see it.

Step 2: Check the syndrome.

Put a log (or five) on the same tile as one of your dwarves. 

Code: [Select]

createitem WOOD PLANT_MAT:SNEAKY_TREE:WOOD
Things created by DFHack aren't always checked for temperature immediately, so it might take a few tries to get it to poof.  And it might take a couple poofs to get the dwarf to inhale the infectious gas.  Eventually, you should have a flashing dwarf... or something worse depending on what you set up.

Step 3: Make a dummy script. 

It can have one line in it.

Code: [Select]

print("You disturbed a dryad!")
Or "hello world" if you're an old-timer.  Save it as /raw/scripts/dryad.lua in both your basic raws folder and in your savegame folder.  The scripts folder doesn't exist by default, so you'll have to make it.

Step 4: Set up a syndrome trigger.

Make a textfile in your raw (and savegame) folder called onload.init and include this line:

modtools/syndrome-trigger -syndrome "anger dryad" -command [ dryad ]

Step 5: Trigger your dummy script.

Reload your game and create some new logs on your dwarf.  This time you should see a flashing tile AND some text in the console window.

Step 6: Spawn a dryad.

Either replace the syndrome-trigger with

modtools/syndrome-trigger -syndrome "anger dryad" -command [ spawn-unit -race DRYAD -position  [ \\LOCATION ] -civ_id \\-1 ]

or add the bit between brackets to your dryad.lua file.

Now create some logs on your hapless dwarf and verify that a dryad actually spawns.  This is the point you usually realize that your creature is a coward and runs away from an embark party of dwarves.

Step 7: Make a sneaky tree.

Manipulate the raws to make sure you have a high likelihood of getting your tree, making it visually distinct so you can find it (cyan or something), and embark there.  If you find some, copy the save so you can resume at this point.  Cut down the tree.  Determine if the dryad is tough enough to pose the intended level of challenge.

Step 8: Clean up.

If you actually got this far without you or your computer bursting into flames, you're all set!  Clean up the raws to make your sneaky trees, and test them out on your unsuspecting dwarves.

Edit: Typo, and fixed a mistake in Step 6.

[than402]

thank you very much, Dirst. that was very helpful. I will start working on it, then. Hopefully we'll have murderous trees when the mod finally comes out

[Urist McCoder]

Spawn-unit is a mess to work with, I think I actual was creating two creatures last time I worked with it...I might need to go fix that.

[TomiTapio]

Good regions, eh? How about some faery hounds (high speed, high dodging skill) and fae crows and dryads and hamadryads. Winged monkeys. Helicopter-tailed capuchins. Oompa-loompa civ.
Harmful rains: slows you down, tripping, admiring (induce sickly-sweet vomiting perhaps, and dizziness). Workshop reactions to process the good-region-only plants, with good and bad random side effects to the one processing the happyshrooms/lolliflowers.

Slow-moving animal that has a bush/plant tile as its tile. Area burst attack of dizziness or sleep (too long sleep causes death?)

[Dirst]

I like tge idea of a grass tile for the creature tile.  I imagine it like a turtle-like creature with grass on its shell.  Big. And stealthy.  Like the elephants of old...

[than402]

Good regions, eh? How about some faery hounds (high speed, high dodging skill) and fae crows and dryads and hamadryads. Winged monkeys. Helicopter-tailed capuchins. Oompa-loompa civ.
Harmful rains: slows you down, tripping, admiring (induce sickly-sweet vomiting perhaps, and dizziness). Workshop reactions to process the good-region-only plants, with good and bad random side effects to the one processing the happyshrooms/lolliflowers.

Slow-moving animal that has a bush/plant tile as its tile. Area burst attack of dizziness or sleep (too long sleep causes death?)

dryads are in. they will only spawn if you cut certain trees and will be always berserk

I like the idea of a plant animal. I've also added new regional interactions and new plants, some of which will have bad side effects.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

I like tge idea of a grass tile for the creature tile.  I imagine it like a turtle-like creature with grass on its shell.  Big. And stealthy.  Like the elephants of old...

Partial to pizza and with the ability to shrink elephants?
^{I apologize for my horrible Discworld joke.}

[MDFification]

I like this thread. This is a good thread.

If I may contribute some ideas;

1. More mischievous/guzzling or item thief creatures is a good thing. Especially if they're trapavoid. Or sneaky. Magical creatures stealing things/playing pranks on you is rather common in folklore, but also has the capability to make things difficult for the player.

2. Curses are magical too! Some magical creatures (perhaps the ones your most likely to want to kill, because they're sabotaging/stealing from you) should upon death leave no corpse. Instead, they should leave a boulder of syndrome producing stone that evaporates at almost any temperature, resulting in a cloud of syndrome inducing smoke. Whatever kill them should thus face the consequences of doing so - eternal sleep, loss of the ability to talk, blindness, wounds no longer heal etc.

3. The local Fey should emit a syndrome that is harmless to fully grown dwarves... but kills dwarven infants as its long-term effect. If the syndrome can turn the infant into a changeling, a dwarf that looks normal but upon death leaves a log of stock/fetch wood, that'd be even better. This is basically to replicate the changeling myth in the game - fairies steal the child, and leave an enchanted piece of wood in its place that appears to grow sick and then die.

With these three suggestions in place, you'd have a constant need to capture and safely dispose of the more cheeky wildlife, which is a challenge currently found nowhere else in DF. You'd also have morale problems from dying children if you don't keep your parents secure. Overall, a much more hostile environment than it was before.

[Dirst]

The Overseer's Eye.  A floating monster that is basically invisible but makes the dwarves near it feel watched, and therefore work a bit faster at the cost of a bit of stress.  Not sure exactly how to implement that in an interaction or even DFHack, but the creature's tile is, or course, a bright yellow X.  Make it not have to breathe, then DFHack it so that it meanders around the fort without regard to walls and floors. 

If it's a flying vermin but not hate-able, the dwarves' AI should basically ignore it, allowing its interactions and/or scripts to do their thing.

[TomiTapio]

Creatures that are FLEEQUICK, but VIEWRANGE 3 (very short). Short viewrange should make different behaving, foolish / taunting wildlife.
Maybe I'll add to OldGenesis a stealth snake that heads for the booze pile.

[than402]

okay guys, thanks for the suggestions.

slight update here: I've been trying to make the trap trees, but I find the syndrome way too unreliable for my tastes. I'll try toying with it a bit more, but I'll focus on the creatures now and if I can't make it activate regularly enough, I'm afraid I'll have to cut it out altogether.

[Dirst]

okay guys, thanks for the suggestions.

slight update here: I've been trying to make the trap trees, but I find the syndrome way too unreliable for my tastes. I'll try toying with it a bit more, but I'll focus on the creatures now and if I can't make it activate regularly enough, I'm afraid I'll have to cut it out altogether.

Glad to hear you got it functioning with minimal loss of sanity.  It's reasonably reliable in a mine shaft, and I was hoping the sheer volume of logs would make up for the lack of containment.

There is another way to accomplish the same idea, but I haven't actually done this one: set up an event listener in DFHack that gets called upon the completion of a Woodcutting job.  Maybe 10% of the time spawn a dryad creature at the job location.  Not sure if that's where the lumberdwarf was standing or the trunk of the tree.  Also not sure if each tree is a job (my guess) or a whole Cut Trees designation.

But the whole thing can definitely wait until after you get an initial version out the door.

[Meph]

You cant use surface trees that evaporate. The worldgen civs will not know the difference and bring buckets, barrels, wagons, etc made of that material, which is fine until it arrives on your map. Then they vaporize and the caravans leaves again.

You can only use such trees/woods in cavern 2 and 3 or in custom reactions.

[than402]

okay guys, thanks for the suggestions.

slight update here: I've been trying to make the trap trees, but I find the syndrome way too unreliable for my tastes. I'll try toying with it a bit more, but I'll focus on the creatures now and if I can't make it activate regularly enough, I'm afraid I'll have to cut it out altogether.

Glad to hear you got it functioning with minimal loss of sanity.  It's reasonably reliable in a mine shaft, and I was hoping the sheer volume of logs would make up for the lack of containment.

There is another way to accomplish the same idea, but I haven't actually done this one: set up an event listener in DFHack that gets called upon the completion of a Woodcutting job.  Maybe 10% of the time spawn a dryad creature at the job location.  Not sure if that's where the lumberdwarf was standing or the trunk of the tree.  Also not sure if each tree is a job (my guess) or a whole Cut Trees designation.

But the whole thing can definitely wait until after you get an initial version out the door.

if only I knew more about dfhack... well I'm adding dryads anyway, they'll just be wild beasts rather than surprise woodsmen killers.

You cant use surface trees that evaporate. The worldgen civs will not know the difference and bring buckets, barrels, wagons, etc made of that material, which is fine until it arrives on your map. Then they vaporize and the caravans leaves again.

You can only use such trees/woods in cavern 2 and 3 or in custom reactions.

well, you're right but if I get them to work they will have the GOOD tag. shouldn't that make it near impossible for civilizations to bring?