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[Mu7e]

Hi. Though pretty much non-existent on the forum since like 2013 on a different account, a large thing that kept me coming back to DF is that I could easily make my own mods or download one from the forum, and the stuff people have made just with just scripts and raws is amazing.

However, as it stands, while native support is amazing, it is, as you all know, limited.

This is understandable, and it's likely to stay this way for years to come, regardless, I would like to ask what the community thinks would be great tools Tarn could eventually implement in the future, however far it may be.

I have a few, though I haven't modded since 2013, so bare with me if I mention things that already exist:

CUSTOM WORLD GEN STRUCTURES

Okay, so hear me out. Y'all know the txt file that contains the arena layout? Just that except it transfers over to world gen

XXXXXXXXXXXXX
X++++++++++++X
X+^++++++++v +X
X++++++++++++X
X-------------------------X
X-------------------------X
X-------------------------X
XXXXXXXXXXXXX

I can't remember for the life of me the actual legend for this (and I'm on my phone atm) but this is the one I came up with:

X = Wall
+ = Floor
- = Channel/Pit
^ v = Up and down, y'all don't need an explanation, probably a variant for staircases.

This obviously needs to be expanded upon, but it's the jist. Make one of these for each z level, and define a bottom level to start from, or perhaps make a [SURFACE_LEVEL] and a [BOTTOM_LEVEL:0] to differentiate  a surface structure from a cavern structure by making [SURFACE_LEVEL] relative to the surrounding topography while [BOTTOM_LEVEL:0] can be used to define semi-subterrenean or fully subterranean. Other useful tags like [LOOT_SCATTERED] and [LOOT_STORED] could be used as well as [INHABITED:CREATURE_NAME_HERE], [INHABITED:CIV_NAME_HERE] or [ABANDONED] to classify something that is always abandoned like a crypt or otherwise lifeless monument, then again you could inhabit it with presumed "previous inhabitants" if you know what I mean.

One could also seperate floors by using a tag, example: [LEVEL:0] where, as with the previous bottom level tag, the zero represents the number of the elevation relative to [SURFACE_LEVEL] or [BOTTOM_LEVEL:0]


Future me speaking, for now I'll keep my other ideas to myself since this took way longer than it should have to write this, I might speak about the others in length soon, but I encourage you all to post your own little tag/tool ideas that can be applied easily, ones via the Raws are best because they are pretty much the only ones fully-ish supported by the game.

This is, again, just speculation/imagination, don't want everyone to perceive this as "I want this and if Tarn doesn't do it I'm uninstalling" which, while I doubt from this community, the internet is always wild so I felt I should make the disclaimer anyway. Remember to have !!FUN!! and...

STRIKE THE EARTH!

[MC]

I agree. I also love how freely we can mod the game, and that freedom is so addicting I'm constantly wishing I had even more lol. Personally tho I'd prefer having more control over entity links and historical figures before custom worldgen structures, but being able to define custom geography, buildings, dimensions and the like would be awesome.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Maybe the Suggestions forum is a better place. Toady actually reads that. Or at least, don't forget to post over there too after you get some cool ideas from modders.

Toady often says that the plan is to make the game as moddable as possible (much more so than now) putting everything in the raws, but also going as far to remark that worldgen could be made open-source.

[Mu7e]

Maybe the Suggestions forum is a better place. Toady actually reads that. Or at least, don't forget to post over there too after you get some cool ideas from modders.

Toady often says that the plan is to make the game as moddable as possible (much more so than now) putting everything in the raws, but also going as far to remark that worldgen could be made open-source.

That's actually great to know, as for posting on suggestions, I could work on a thread for suggestions dropped here, though I thought input from the community in this specific circumstance to be more my objective with making this post. What do my fellow modders think? If that makes any sense, so I could use this to further educate myself in what the community wants and what I'm just being wildly speculative about.

Again, the fact Toady has expressed interest in this stuff is elating, hopefully we get more tools to work with in the Raws in the (relative to DF update schedule) -near future.

[Mu7e]

I agree. I also love how freely we can mod the game, and that freedom is so addicting I'm constantly wishing I had even more lol. Personally tho I'd prefer having more control over entity links and historical figures before custom worldgen structures, but being able to define custom geography, buildings, dimensions and the like would be awesome.

Custom historical figures? That actually sounds super interesting, never really put much mind to it myself but it could be a powerful tool for conversion mods.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I agree. I also love how freely we can mod the game, and that freedom is so addicting I'm constantly wishing I had even more lol. Personally tho I'd prefer having more control over entity links and historical figures before custom worldgen structures, but being able to define custom geography, buildings, dimensions and the like would be awesome.

Custom historical figures? That actually sounds super interesting, never really put much mind to it myself but it could be a powerful tool for conversion mods.

Fixed World Editor is part of the Mythgen releases roadmap. Will allow you to add your own historical figures, artifacts, gods, etc. Create your own Middle Earth or whatever if the map rewrite gives that much site flexibility.

The future is interesting for sure. A push towards completely procedurally generated content and unique lore for every world along with the ability to customize very specific settings. Might take another 30 years but still...

[MC]

Custom historical figures? That actually sounds super interesting, never really put much mind to it myself but it could be a powerful tool for conversion mods.

Yeah currently worldgen is super tricky to actually do anything with. You can technically do quite a bit with syndromes, but actually applying them or making them affect somone's actions can be tricky and kinda random. Pretty much all goals aside from "immortality" do jack (toady plz) and outside of wars and some gameplay interactions a lot of ethics seem pretty binary (I once set a civ to SLAVERY:REQUIRED and their ratio of free people to slaves was 10000/1 and I think lower than some vanilla civs). You also can't affect jobs/entity links right now, but with personality changes and transformations you can still make a decent impact in worldgen.

Sadly actually getting people affected by your custom worldgen position syndromes is a pain. You're effectively limited to applying them via major curses (werebeast/vampire type deals), necromancer secrets (most targetable choice given you can specify the sphere of the god who gives the secret and limit a single civ to that god, as well as ensuring that civ will always worship a god of that sphere. still limited by someone having to actually want to be immortal tho), and creatures being able to apply a syndrome in battle.

Honestly toady making the other GOAL tags work in worldgen would be huge, even if they don't do anything outside of custom interactions.

[Kyubee]

The biggest thing that holds back MY modding, personally, is that only animals get to have descriptions. it means any mod i make that adds plants or items needs to come with a reference document, which nobody would ever read.

[Shonai_Dweller]

The biggest thing that holds back MY modding, personally, is that only animals get to have descriptions. it means any mod i make that adds plants or items needs to come with a reference document, which nobody would ever read.

Yeah, it would be great if item descriptions, or the ability to mod them in were added for the Steam release as part of the "user-freindliness" additions.