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[Kagus]

Yet another faulty reference has been fixed.  This time, humans decided that they were, in fact, dwarves.  

I haven't combined ice wolves with regular wolves, but a lot of other stuff has been changed.  For instance, all birds have been combined into one species, "bird".  All fish have been combined into one species, "fish".  Ocean-dwelling lobsters and oysters have been kept in to add some variety.

Plants have been reduced, but not by as much as I'd like.  Some others have simply had their names changed, in order to be more generic.  Wild strawberries can no longer be farmed (that always struck me as strange), but you can still harvest them from the wild.  Grapes have been added with just about identical stats, in order to have a farmable variant.

Ultra-rare plants have been removed until I can find something interesting to replace them.  For now, you'll have to do without gnomeblight and golden salve.

Rat weed can now be grown underground, as it should.

[Kagus]

Well, this is fun.  I appear to have created 'nullstone'.

I found this only recently, and I'm not sure if it's due to a recent change or not.  Here's the scoop:

On ocean shores, there is a sand layer to denote the beach.  Underneath that sand layer, the game wigs out and creates its own rock type.  On the embark screen, this shows up as a layer of "sand", only in the white letters of a sedimentary layer.  In the game, it appears as a completely uniform light grey.

This layer is called "rock".  When rough unmined, it is light grey.  When dug out or smoothed, it is bright white.  The useable boulders are invisible.  They also weigh a staggering 14466 weight units.  It is also an aquifer.

This, although somewhat cool, is a bug.  I'm not entirely sure what's causing it, but I'll look into it.

[Kagus]

Fixed it.  It was the game panicking when it couldn't find an appropriate stone for a layer it absolutely had to have.  Namely, [SEDIMENTARY_OCEAN_SHALLOW] and [SEDIMENTARY_OCEAN_DEEP].  

This caused it to spit out a rock type which is most likely the only natural occuring source of the fabled large .

[grelphy]

quote:  This caused it to spit out a rock type which is most likely the only natural occuring source of the fabled large .  

And you FIXED it? Why??!  :eek:

[Kagus]

Well, okay, so it doesn't actually have any large s in it.  Or even medium-sized s.

However, the bug is easily reproducable.  If someone else wants to have their very own nullstone, it's perfectly possible.  Why you'd want to do that, I'm not sure, as it's not really all that much fun to play with.

Sure, an invisible rock sounds cool, but it weighs a ton.  Getting a dwarf to haul a single chunk of it can take quite some time.

[Pickerel]

Exercise!  Their stats will skyrocket!

[Kagus]

Recent testing has been made so much easier now that reveal.exe works in the latest version...

Anyways, I've decided to do something about cave river and chasm creatures.  I want to shave off a few random ---man creatures, and make the ones that are left behind capable of breeding.

I've only got one problem.  I don't know which ones to take out.

Ratmen seem to be the most suited for chasm environments, but batmen are the only ones that can actually move around in there and antmen are so much fun to blast apart.

Frogmen seem to be the most suited for river/pond environments, but I'd feel bad about taking out lizardmen and snakemen just seem so cool.

Help?  I may just have to move snakemen and lizardmen from cave environments to swamps and rivers, but that still doesn't fix the chasm critter problem.  Should I make flying creatures for such areas?  But that would make adventure mode cave-crawling a bit strange.  Also, is anyone emotionally attached to troglodytes, or should I change them out?

It's harder to make a molehill out of a mountain than you may think.

[penguinofhonor]

Take out something else. Nobody likes giant rats, large rats, troglodytes, or naked mole dogs.

[Kagus]

I took out giant moles, if that helps.  I happen to like naked mole dogs, so I'm not planning on getting rid of them unless more people suggest they be removed.

Troglodytes are indeed rather dull.  But I was hoping to turn them into bruisers that can actually hold their own in a fight, something that would make a perfect arena brawler.

Giant rats and large rats...  Well...  I've tweaked some things about large rats, so they breed larger litters, and I figured I'd gotten them to a point where they might make an interesting underground cattle.  Who doesn't like ratburgers?  Giant rats are just thrown into the mix as much larger versions of large rats, who only move around as lone rats.

I do think that flying creatures are the way to go for a chasm...  It just makes more sense than having a bunch of creatures that can't get anywhere from where they are.

[n9103]

this is definitely pretty cool.
I adore DF in all it's glory, but the bazillion different varieties of something that's functionally the same in every case does get a bit annoying, especially when looking at the stocks.

I'll be sure to install this one at some point when I finally upgrade, (still running 33g!) when the army arc's finally in to the extent that a fortress can field one. (not too long away I'll guess. A LOT closer than the first of the recent updates, and probably closer than the last of the .33x series)

Anyways, keep up the refinements!

P.S. flying things in chasms.
And if ya need somewhere to pop your favorite, if redundant monsters, stick em in caves.
They're rare enough that the majority of forts won't end up on one, but still there for adventure mode.

[Kagus]

quote:Originally posted by n9103:
<STRONG>P.S. flying things in chasms.
And if ya need somewhere to pop your favorite, if redundant monsters, stick em in caves.
They're rare enough that the majority of forts won't end up on one, but still there for adventure mode.</STRONG>

But that's just it, the biome for caves is the same as for chasms.  A creature will either appear in both, or it won't appear in either of them.  If it was simply a matter of chasm vs. cave, this would've been finished in a heartbeat.  As it stands now, I have to find something that will look like it works in both areas.

EDIT: Quote for new page.

[ March 09, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

[Kagus]

Well, I've gotten around to giving this thing a little update.  It's not much, but I don't know what else I can shave off to streamline things.  Plants would be the obvious choice, but that's kinda tricky to pull off without potentially detracting from the game.  I'd really, really like to remove dye-only plants (I'm watching you, dimple cup), but I can't get rid of the dyer's workshop, so there will be a loose end lying around.  I guess I'll just have to make one dye, and have that be for both above and below ground.  I think red would suit dwarves more than blue...

Heh, maybe I should give them brown dye, so they can spice up their leather clothing.

So, should I make a simpler set of cave plants and surface plants, or should I make one set of plants that grow both above and below ground?  You'd have the same types growing with or without sunlight, which would be simpler, but could be a little strange.

[n9103]

main post needs the update. (curses to the forum gods for not giving strikethrus to this forum!)
NVM, seems you edited it shortly after I pulled the page up

had no idea cave == chasm where biomes are concerned!
makes a bit of sense for simplicity in populating... but seems like a minor fix that Toady should make, to fix/allow things like the favorite monster being tucked away. Not to mention that there should be different biomes for them period.

Decided to pick up the 38c version... most for S&G, but also to try an idea I had before I forgot, and I don't trust myself to be able to decipher notes into a workable idea a month down the line... So I'll be dropping this mod in for the next world I make!

Personally, I think the above ground plants could stand to be trimmed heavily, and to a lesser degree the subterra plants as well. I'd still prefer 2 groups, though I don't think either group needs more than 3-4 plant types.

[ March 18, 2008: Message edited by: n9103 ]

[n9103]

Aww man....

As of minutes ago, the version on DFFD is broken.

Tested from brand-spanking-new folder as well.
"..compressed file has errors in it." error.  

[Kagus]

What?  Damn.  It probably has to do with my brilliant idea of changing it to a zip file instead of a rar.  I'll run a couple tests to see if that's it.

Hmm...  It works fine for me, don't know what the problem is.  Did you overwrite the previous installation of dwarf fortress with the new one, or did you make a clean install?  Also, what program are you using to unzip the file?

[ March 19, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]