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[Alfador]

A... ghrm. We don't really know how that system will work, but logic dictates that every creature will start out with default materials for flesh, bones, and all applicable tissues. If your question is of the "what if I call a material belonging to the creature from another material belonging to the same creature" variety, then my answer would be that you will get a default material if the material in question has not been initialized yet, or the actual material used for the creature if that material was already defined by that point. It would be an obvious loophole to plug, and Toady would probably think of that.

I presume the actual question you were trying to ask is "what would happen if I wanted to make a borgle, with bones made of borgle's borgle". The answer is: depends on whether the borgle's borgle is initialized before or after the borgle's bones; in one case you get a default material with average properties and a default name, in the other you get the borgle's borgle.

Initialize: dwarf lungs, material default_dwarf_flesh. Result: Success.
Initialize: dwarf pancreas, material dwarf bone. Result: Warning, no such material. Defaulting to default_dwarf_flesh for pancreas. Success.
Initialize: dwarf skeletal structure, material default_dwarf_bone. Result: Success.
Initialize: dwarf left eyeball, material dwarf bone. Result: Success, dwarf bone defined by dwarf skeletal structure.

[G-Flex]

I imagine all the materials are initialized first, and then the creatures. After all, if you're making creatures out of materials, obviously you want to load the materials themselves before making the creatures. Otherwise you have problems no matter what.

It's not as if "dwarf lung" material has anything actually to do with dwarves; dwarves just happen to use it. That's my guess, anyway.

[The Minister]

A... ghrm. We don't really know how that system will work, but logic dictates that every creature will start out with default materials for flesh, bones, and all applicable tissues. If your question is of the "what if I call a material belonging to the creature from another material belonging to the same creature" variety, then my answer would be that you will get a default material if the material in question has not been initialized yet, or the actual material used for the creature if that material was already defined by that point. It would be an obvious loophole to plug, and Toady would probably think of that.

I presume the actual question you were trying to ask is "what would happen if I wanted to make a borgle, with bones made of borgle's borgle". The answer is: depends on whether the borgle's borgle is initialized before or after the borgle's bones; in one case you get a default material with average properties and a default name, in the other you get the borgle's borgle.

Indeed.  The problem here is that the original problem invovled an equivocation of terms.  Making a material out of "dwarf" is just fine, but the material "dwarf" and is a completely different object from a dwarf.

We can define the creature, dwarf, to be an object composed of bones, flesh, skin, and hair.  We can also design a material called "dwarf."  The material is not equivalent to the creature.  It is not even a material that is a part of the creature we designed, as dwarves are composed of the list above which does not include the material "dwarf."  Thus, would be a kind of strange abstraction, and there is no real reason to believe that the material "dwarf" actually has any connection to the creature, dwarf, unless you want to imagine it that way. It seems that material class objects and creatures could be designed with the same names, but the fundamental difference in their identity based on what they are really can makes things confusing.

And there is nothing wrong with imagining the material "dwarf" that is, actually, a bunch of dwarves holding hands, or some kind of essence of the dwarf creature, but the material "dwarf" would not have any definitional relation to the materials used to define the creature dwarf.

[Neonivek]

Even then... how the world would the Dwarf even know the creature's bones were oddly stretched and mutated Dwarf Bones? Psychic powers boarderlining on Oblivion Guard ESP? I am sure if I replaced a Dog's bones with that equal in consistancy with that a humans you wouldn't be able to tell, and even if a scientist identified it I doubt they would attribute it to someone smashing human bones into that of a dog's.

I will say however that there is something to be said about materials being set up to be recognised as a material in the creation of Zombies and Amalgamations... but I am not sure the game benefits from it too much outside curses.

[Duke 2.0]

 I think somebody mention gems made of wolves. This would lead to miners digging out the bones of some dead beast, and it coming to life!

 Or veins of friendlies. Or even layers of worms.

 I want to make a fortress out of a worm soil layer!

[KaelGotDwarves]

I'm going to laugh like hell if we can do what we can in the current version, which is put small body parts inside body parts until that something is indestructible...

I'll call it the "soul", and when the containing being is killed, I'm going to use that Soul in a smelter reaction to create something truly sinister.

Damn, as a modder I'm way too excited for this release...

[Willfor]

I'm not sure anything can become indestructible so long as it has a parent part. Eventually the soul will be struck. ...Which would lead to a very hilarious message.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Anything with both APERTURE and EMBEDDED cannot be destroyed other than by destroying the parent body part. There's just no way to target it.

[Arkose]

Mind you it would be a bone made of metal, not a hunk of solid metal in the general shape of a bone. Anything organic has lots of pockets of emptiness to decrease the weight and need for that material while keeping the strength. It is not beyond me to think of a carver shaving off bits of metal if it is like a sponge. A really fine sponge, but a sponge nonetheless.

Good point. I would really expect Iron bones to provide excellent blood production. (The more you know: Bones provide most of the human bodies blood production)

I guess the carver would saw it open and make the carvings out of the bone marrow huh?

Having bones made of iron isn't such a great idea, really; your blood would cause them to rust. (Assuming your blood uses transports oxygen; although if you are respiring something at least as oxidizing as iron [which some microbes do 'breathe'] you're probably going to have the same problem.) Maybe if instead of blood the monster used hemolymph (like insects), since it isn't used to transport oxygen. The monster wouldn't be able to have very thick skin though (in order to get oxygen from the air to its inner tissues), and it'd still probably need to build membranes between its flesh and its iron bones in order to keep them from rusting out. Calcium and silica are really a lot easier for realistic living creatures to build rigid structures with in the first place. (Which really just means that our iron skeleton monsters had to have been built, forged, and/or cobbled together by MAD SCIENCE.)

About the bone carver: What makes you think the bone marrow of an iron bone is going to be regular bone marrow? It could be made of woven dwarf beards for all we know. Literally, if I understand Toady's material system correctly.

[Duke 2.0]

 Well, if the cells constructing the bones have an inner wall of iron and an outer wall of some other elements then you could avoid the whole rust problem. Then they would be more like plants than animal cells, but this is a fantasy setting. We can do whatever we want.

 I wish to construct a giant fly made of hundreds of smaller flies. Actually, can the updated system support multiple materials for one thing? Like a feathers layer made of down feathers and full feathers? Or 50 dwarves making up the dwarf golem?

[TettyNullus]

Having bones made of iron isn't such a great idea, really; your blood would cause them to rust. (Assuming your blood uses transports oxygen; although if you are respiring something at least as oxidizing as iron [which some microbes do 'breathe'] you're probably going to have the same problem.) Maybe if instead of blood the monster used hemolymph (like insects), since it isn't used to transport oxygen. The monster wouldn't be able to have very thick skin though (in order to get oxygen from the air to its inner tissues), and it'd still probably need to build membranes between its flesh and its iron bones in order to keep them from rusting out. Calcium and silica are really a lot easier for realistic living creatures to build rigid structures with in the first place. (Which really just means that our iron skeleton monsters had to have been built, forged, and/or cobbled together by MAD SCIENCE.)

About the bone carver: What makes you think the bone marrow of an iron bone is going to be regular bone marrow? It could be made of woven dwarf beards for all we know. Literally, if I understand Toady's material system correctly.

Well, there are multiple alloys based on Iron, like stainless steel, and I believe there're a low-carbon iron alloy that resisits rusting fairly well. And that's not even getting into the possiblity that said iron-based bone might just be wrapped with some kind of biological film that protects it from oxygen and whatnot. 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Heh. At least now we can make proper dwarves, 50% beard, 40% ale, 10% traces of various consumed vermin.

[Patarak]

I'm not believing that you can't make materials out of creatures until I hear it from the toad's mouth.


Another question, though; how are materials going to be defined? What kind of variables will they have that will set them apart from each other? Weight and hardness are the only things I can think of, which if you think about it only has so much potential.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Do you know HOW MANY parameters do current materials have??? Temperatures for the three state transitions, weight, value, damage/block modifiers, plus special parameters. I don't expect anything to be added there except group controls for item creation, because those were mentioned.

"Materials out of creatures" doesn't make sense. A creature is a physical object defined by several hundred parameters. A material is a collective definition of properties that make up an item. If you want to have a "dwarf" material, you can just make a "dwarf" material in any of the matglosses (wood, plant, stone, metal, plus suspected "flesh", "leather", "cloth" and various derivatives) and use that. You cannot make a dwarf into a material, you can only get a specific material from a dwarf. So that if you chop off a leg from your megamonster, there is no way for it to instantly become a dwarf unless that kind of behavior was implemented.

[Footkerchief]

Do you know HOW MANY parameters do current materials have??? Temperatures for the three state transitions, weight, value, damage/block modifiers, plus special parameters. I don't expect anything to be added there except group controls for item creation, because those were mentioned.

Toady also mentioned that a bunch of new mechanical properties are coming in, although it's not clear how extensively they'll be used in this release.