Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sean Mirrsen]

Update on the test version. Thanks to the testers that provided info.
The crashes are still here. I'm going to go ahead and try some drastic measures, but in the meantime you can get a glimpse of what I'm trying to do.  
Added magic weaponry and artifact boxes of various shapes and sizes - thanks goes to Deon for the idea.

Features:
Improved natural attacks and attack messages of most creatures.
Numerous and extensive changes to body structure of most creatures.
Numerous added creatures, weapons, armor, and misc items.

It is advised to delete the contents of the "data\objects" directory after installing the mod.

Additionally, IF YOU WERE USING THE MOD'S PREVIOUS VERSIONS - delete all text files beginning with "creature_" in the "raw\objects" folder" prior to installation.

Also, a new generated world is required to correctly play the game after the installation of the mod.

================================
THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR

This version is released to test for possible solutions to the problems I encountered when testing the mod.

The most prominent problem - the "first-step-crash" syndrome.
Every once in a while, when you enter a site, or are ambushed in travel, the game will crash as soon as you try to take a step. I did all I could to stop the crashes while keeping the mod's features, but it still happens.
What I'd like to know is - does this happen for everyone, and how often does it happen for you? If you are an experienced DF modder and can help me solve this problem, I'd be very grateful.

Other problems revolve around the changes made to the creatures. With it being impossible to check the body trees of creatures in the game without damaging the bodyparts, I can hardly test each and every creature for correctness. Players who concentrate on adventure mode can help me by just playing, and noticing any oddities or message errors, and reporting them here.

Thank you all in advance.

DFFD file page for download.

Alternative Rapidshare link

[ May 08, 2008: Message edited by: Sean Mirrsen ]

[The Hidden]

Here's my test runs.

Started out as a human wrestler.  There's alot of giant tarantula webs in the human town, there was even a web in the mayor's house.  Walking into the webs didn't do anything, except have them disappear.  Leaving the town, and into the wilderness, once again, I see more tarantula webs.  I eventually encountered a pack of wolves, took them out in interesting ways.  I encountered another pack, and got mauled.  The whole ribs bodypart sounds cool, makes combat messages more awesome, but I think it just adds on to the pain when they're injured.

On my second run, I played as a human swordsman.  Tried to take on a dark elf fort, had to retreat as I lost an eye from one of their archers.  Also, during the course of this, again there were spider webs clusters randomly placed.  My game ended abruptly when I got a random encounter in a forest and the game crashed.

On my third run, played as a human swordsman.  Attacked the mayor, he broke my cervic joint with a lucky roundhouse kick, and eventually killed me.  LOL

On the fourth run, played as a dwarf swordsman, and attacked my own fort.  Got lucky and severed someone's neck, it seems like it kills them instantly like it should now.  For some reason, the game crashed while I was moving about inside the fort.

[ April 22, 2008: Message edited by: The Hidden ]

[Greiger]

Hmm that sounds alot like something that happened to me now that I think about it.

I made a grass assassin creature.  Then mysteriously the game started randomly crashing.  After some experimentation I narrowed it down to the grass assassin silk webs on the surface.  Once I removed webber the game stopped crashing.

Maybe something is happening with large creature capturing webs on the surface that is causing crashes?

[Earthquake Damage]

Maybe they're trying to build a GCS-style megaweb, but without the constraints of an enclosed space (i.e. a chasm or cave), they decide to cover the whole map, breaking the game.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yeah, come to think of it, I was surprised that I always see giant/large tarantula spiderwebs scattered about, but never get a single encounter with either them or the other 3 new spiders..

I'll check that out, thanks for the tip.

As for the ribs...  well, they don't (or shouldn't) add to the bleeding, since they're SKELETON parts, like horns would be. But supposedly yeah, they add to the pain. Makes sense to me.. <_<

[Deon]

Are you sure the town isn't in the evil area? THere're random webs there.

No problems for beholders, Sean. If you don't want to include them now, I can do it myself, I just wanted to share.
I played with them for a long time by the way, and they seem ok.

Also I noted that some crashes could happen if you have TOO many creatures/entities/weapons (entities generally) and it's in the code then, maybe there're some functions which are buggy with bigger than default number of something.

[ April 23, 2008: Message edited by: Deon ]

[Sean Mirrsen]

There's random webs everywhere. It seems to generate those webs for every biome where a suitable creature can live, and it so happens that some of the spiders I added aren't very picky as to where to live. That, and dark and feral outcasts are also spiders, to a degree, and they settle everywhere.

Anyways, webs weren't the problem. I still got a first-step-crash eventually at a random encounter, even after I've removed all WEBBER tags from creatures I added, though the webs were, of course, gone. Something else is amiss.

Since I went to some great lengths to compactize the mod's changes, and make them more or less unintrusive because of this problem, I guess I have no better (or indeed, any other) way now but to systematically remove the parts I added, part by part, until there's nothing left but original entries... If THAT doesn't make the crashes go away........................

[Deon]

SOmetimes it doesn't. I figured out that on some installs my mod crashed the game often, but on other I was O.K. The only thing I can imagine is some functions using randomized variables and crashing games at some weird outputs caused by new content. But I don't know how the mod can ruin the total installation...

[Torak]

Spiders have a huge population max.

[Deon]

What about "let's see now..." in the body_addition?
I know that the text besides the tag "[]" brackets is considered like comments... But in the unstable DF modding anything can cause a bug.
So try to remove unneeded comments first.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Even excessive amounts of text outside brackets have caused me no trouble yet. I'll look into that possibility though - really, who knows?

I did narrow down the cause of the crash to the three files - body_addition, creature_addition and entity_addition. I mean, I removed them from the raws and ran a hydra adventurer for a full year of non-stop travelling and ambushes. No crashes. I don't think it's just luck, but I'll do some more testing just in case. Interestingly, the most extensive changes done to the hydras and humanoids don't seem to be the cause...

[Earthquake Damage]

The entity file is probably not a problem.  The only trouble those've ever caused me are world gen errors (sometimes crashes, usually an infinite reject loop).

[Sean Mirrsen]

Some things you only find through testing...

quote:The grizzly bear bash You in the left hand with his maw!

I don't remember grizzly bears being humanoid, why'd I stick a BYTYPE:GRASP to their attacks? That, and "Grizzly bear bash! Grizzly bear smash!".. heh heh...  

Also, somehow the crashes have subsided since I removed the WEBBER tags from the new spiders, and lowered their appearance rates... I'm putting the webber tags back now. Although, since the spiders themselves have also appeared now (and I have been successfully mobbed, as an ettin, by three Giant tarantulas) adventuring life might become rather difficult...  we'll see how that turns out.

[Kagus]

I haven't tried out this latest bugtest version, but unless you've already fixed it since the last version sharks don't bite.  Tail-slaps only.

[Sean Mirrsen]

If there was any problem with that, I did not see it or fix it. In fact, in 1.5b sharks are absolutely the same as in vanilla, I have not altered them in any way. The tail slap is their alternate attack, so if they use it, it means their mouth is somehow disconnected.

That, and there's one shark - the basking shark - that only has the tail-slap as a weapon. Whether ot not it was intended by Toady, I don't know.
(edit: was intended. Basking sharks don't bite, their mouth is for other things)

In other news. Bringing back webbing abilities of the spiders prompty caused a crash. Will conduct more extensive testing later, will probably also update the test version.

[ April 25, 2008: Message edited by: Sean Mirrsen ]