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1. I don't know how to do... I dunno, "serious" modding. This is a problem because lacking certain skills entirely, I can't implement things like power generators, robots, or automatic weapons and molotovs.
With the aforementioned script, automatic weapons are easy. Robots require a bunch of custom tissues and such but there isn't really anything radically difficult about them. Molotovs...if you don't mind having a "bag" weapon that creatures throw molotovs out of, then you could probably adapt the rocket launcher script from the Musket mod and get something workable.
- I have only a very basic understanding of modding. I can do creatures and items to an extent, and thanks to workshopdraw, I can readily make workshops. I dunno what goes into making custom graphics, interactions really, or anything of that nature.
Interactions you can do by looking at the interactions from other mods and mimicking how they do things. Custom graphics are easy so long as you already have a sprite sheet with the images you want on it (actually drawing the sprites is another issue altogether unless you happen to be an artist).
- Magic is functionally a thing. I don't know how to fully implement this.
If by magic you mean personal spellcasting for immediate defensive or offensive purposes while in combat, you implement it with lots of interactions and probably some dfhack syndrome giving scripts. If you mean something else then, well, it depends on what you want.
- Firearms and energy weapons exist side by side. While I can simply pull gameplay and story segregation for the energy weapons, the fact remains guns are United States levels of commonplace, and that means for anything besides pump, bolt, and lever action weapons, I need to know how to DFhack. Which I don't.
Again, autofire script. Happy to be of help. Here is a sample script call for a 20 round mag assault rifle with various melee attachments that fires in 3 round bursts.
ranged/ranged-rof -name "service rifles" -reqWeaponType [ ITEM_WEAPON_RIFLE_COMBAT ITEM_WEAPON_RIFLE_RIPPER ITEM_WEAPON_RIFLE_CHAIN ] -timeBase [ 5 5 -30 5 5 -30 5 5 -30 5 5 -30 5 5 -30 5 5 -30 5 -40 ] -timeMult [ 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 ]
Neat, huh?
- Means of providing power besides wind and water wheels. ... I don't know how to make power generation buildings. I know it's doable, but don't know how.
I am not familiar with how to screw around with power through dfhack. Hopefully someone else can help you here.
Same issue as for guns
Guns end up being projectile weapons (i.e. crossbows) with custom ammunition and reactions to make them, along with scripts as necessary. There is only one serious caveat with this - civs that are given weapons also get access to vanilla style reactions to make them. This isn't a problem for non-playable civs, but if you give a playable civ power armor, rifles and ammunition for normal use, then the player will be able to produce those items using only a handful of metal bars. There might be a way to dfhack around this, I don't know enough about how the inbuilt metalsmithing/bowyer reactions and entity equipment system works to say for sure.
- I don't know how anything regarding item-syndrome or unit creation works, so I have no idea how to implement things like power armor, hazard suits, or creating robots.
Again, go crib off Fallout Equestria. With the exception of anything involving radiation (which is in desperate need of an overhaul), there is stuff there available as a guide for you.
Now for some comments on the details.
Bolsheviks - A stand in for communists/socialists. This faction's main thing would actually being excellent for doing megaprojects, high numbers, and dominating trade via being able to bulk produce basic things from fewer materials. As a consequence though, they take hits to skilled labor such as bone carving or armoring, relying on cheaply made junk more than skilled craftsmanship. Due to periodic famines, most are often a bit stunted in height and weaker than average, but make up for this with a bit of natural determination to carry on for the good of those around them.
I don't know how well this would play out in practice. The ability to mass produce cheap junk isn't particularly useful when there are so many ways to accumulate enormous amounts of wealth if you care about it enough.
Otherkin - Based upon animal-kin. Extremely skilled craftsmen, they are mainly comprised of people with what could be considered mental illness or harmless quirkiness, depending on who you ask. Some among them however due to the nature of the setting, can turn into powerful animal-man beasts to fight their enemies (think werecreatures, but on demand and not opposed to life/berserk.)
I would suggest not making them like werecreatures - if I remember correctly, transformations reset attributes which is not particularly nice when it happens to a high attribute military commander. Combat triggered attribute buffs/beneficial tag giving is straight forward enough, though.
Due to their general ineptitude they have a harder time providing food for themselves, but have an easier time producing fine goods (being often shut away from others to practice the craft they enjoy,) and are at peace with wildlife. They would as a consequence have a stronger affinity for melee combat than other factions besides one of the omitted ones.
Similarly, I don't know how much their downside of lower production rates will actually matter. Not much, I suspect.
Circle G - A megacorp faction sporting the most advanced weapons and armor, as well as medical treatments for all that ails ya - nerve damage, blindness, missing organs? No problem!
Either syndromes or the full-heal script for the medical stuff, depending on you are just removing damage or providing permanent buffs through cybernetics or whatever. Reasonably easy.
Want a plasma blaster or a shoulder-fired mass driver?
Energy weapons are non-trivial, but hopefully by the time you get to the point of implementing them I will have done a script that can handle that with no issues.
A crysis-style suit of power armor?
Custom armor RAWs +
item-syndrome item-trigger
A reconstructive stasis pod
Would full-heal plus a paralysis + NOBREATHE sydrome do the trick?
, or nuclear batteries to make your own fusion generators?
Again, hopefully someone else can chip in when it comes to power generation.
A Circle G matter fabricator?
Is this going to be implemented as a custom building with custom reactions that is built with a tool only available from Circle G? If so, then it is straight forward.
Then Circle G's got you covered. Assuming you're willing to pay extortionate prices.
You will need to do trickery with high value custom materials if you want high prices for armor and weapons - they aren't manually settable but are based off their protective/offensive properties.
Or you could steal from them, but they tend to respond poorly to such behavior, and have the best weapons in the setting, so take precautions if you intend to start a fight with them.
A word of warning - against a committed player who is willing to resort to tactics like magma chambers and cave-in traps or who just manages to field a few squads of legendaries, a Circle G siege sounds like an unusually well armed pinata full of juicy technology.
Yoruu - The Russia of megacorps. Where Circle G deals in the super advanced, Yoruu deals in what people know works in the setting - Cloning of parts, ballistic weapons, advanced filtration helms, some robots, and the schematics to make their equipment under license at your very own Yoruu fabrication stations. Like Circle G, they charge heavy, but not as much. Like Circle G they dislike you trying to stiff them.
You will need to make separate items for circle g/yoruu if you want differing prices afaik. Otherwise, all of the above sounds more or less doable.
Lost Servitor - cybernetic combat husks sporting guns, melee weapons, or both. Imagine a feral ghoul spliced with guns or sharp things. If captured, they can be tamed and brought to programming stations for repair into regular combat servitors.
Changing unit allegiances is non-trivial, but
should be doable. It will probably be a source of lots of exciting and exotic bugs before you get it working right, though. You might have an easier time doing something like turning the old servitor inactive with a script (effectively removing them from the map) and spawning a fort owned servitor in it's place.
Now, the setting has room for all manner of craziness, and what's in the factions is just what I came up with off the top of my head, or is based on existing setting notes. Among the things I'd like to implent is, particularly for the Datajacks, some things to backfire, creating explosions, fires, or creating code-based entities like Corrs and Coderats as possible failures or even just because of bugs in thier equipment.
The difficulty of this will depend on how complex you want it to be. Fires are easy - a custom reaction that drops an object above burning temperature a certain % of the time will do it. Creating creatures will be a bit more difficult, but I think modtools/random-trigger + modtools/create-unit will get the job done. Evaporating syndrome boulder style "explosions" are easy, actual explosions with fragments inflicting projectile damage are hard.