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[Toady One]

Solid breath can take the form of a forward moving dust puff that accidentally knocks people out due to some cave-in code.  When I fix that, KOs make or may not be a parameter.  Solid breath can also take the form of a solid glob (a small one right now) that is hurled like a stone.  It might as well be a thrown stone of the solid.  Solid breath can also be an undirected dust puff (also accidental knockouts).

Right now it's something simple like
[MATERIAL_BREATH_ATTACK:<mat tokens>:<breath attack form>]
where breath attack form is one of eight choices: powder/liquid/gas forward puff, powder/liquid/gas undirected cloud, liquid glob, solid glob.

It's all very lackluster, but quite easily improved (bp links, numbers, etc.), and it works for now.  Aside from the accidental KOs.  You can have as many of those as you like, and they'll pick one out at random when they are fighting (they'll use forward puffs and projectiles at a distance, and add in undirected clouds when in close quarters).

[Willfor]

... I honestly wish I could afford to donate again right now. I was satisfied with being able to make a single breath attack, knowing that having a random selection from multiple entries probably wouldn't be in the cards. I was so wrong. In a very good way.
 

[Zai]

Everything noble/appointment related is going out into the raws.  So you can have various properties, and if you want to unite all the responsibilities of the bookkeeper/manager/broker under one position you can do that, or change the names, or succession properties, caste restrictions, all that sort of thing.  The main point for this time around was to add some structure to the military, as the current set-up of having any dwarf under any dwarf in weird nested squads is weird.  These changes were especially required for strategy/army AI on the world map post-world gen, and that's necessary to get to improved sieges/sending out your own armies.

...

O,O

Holy shit. I didn't realize this and everything else was coming this release.

I love this game. And if I had the money to donate, I would. Believe me, I would.

[Footkerchief]

Thanks again for all those answers.

Seconded.  These walls of answers are so dense and meaty that I can't even read them all that fast.  I don't want to think about how long it takes to write them.

It's great to hear that creatures will have some AI for their new attacks.

[Neonivek]

Wow I didn't think you would answer me toady... Thanks *Blinks in surprise*

[Toady One]

been in an answering mood today.  Question threads handled, inbox empty...  no programming yet.

[Neonivek]

been in an answering mood today.  Question threads handled, inbox empty...  no programming yet.

So I guess the Material Breath is one big step towards expanding the system towards ranged attacks of all forms. So will we see natural ranged attacks in the not so distant future beyond fireballs and breath?

I know your removing Good and Evil in the not so distant future... but what would be your guess of the Spheres which would be closest to good and evil? Actually undertaking all the Sphere related Spherical Land conversion of the Evil/good lands seems like a lot. I am guessing the dev item refers to you taking the first steps? What exactly does that entail if I am allowed to ask.

Uhhh... For some reason... I feel like I am doing something innapropriate... (Not a joke... I feel like I am making someone angry)

[umiman]

That feeling you are feeling is known as grovelling. You may be familiar with it in other terms such as, "brown noser", "sucking up", and other variations of the sort.

It is a demonstration of innate human submission: that when someone of authority steps up, we transform into a humble, overly polite thing that bows before the power. Other examples would be folk who spend their entire waking lives criticizing someone like Bill Gates but when actually given an opportunity to meet the man, their opinions temporary make a u-turn.

[Neonivek]

That feeling you are feeling is known as grovelling. You may be familiar with it in other terms such as, "brown noser", "sucking up", and other variations of the sort.

It is a demonstration of innate human submission: that when someone of authority steps up, we transform into a humble, overly polite thing that bows before the power. Other examples would be folk who spend their entire waking lives criticizing someone like Bill Gates but when actually given an opportunity to meet the man, their opinions temporary make a u-turn.

I feel like I am being insulted... 

My feelings are hurt, I am going to crawl into a corner and eat a OhHenry bar... MmMmmm Ohh Henry

Though mostly it was because I didn't know if it was appropriate to ask... if Toady was inviting me to because he honestly wanted to answer... or if he was just being polite

[umiman]

No no, I wasn't insulting you.

It's just an explanation of the feeling you experienced. It's normal for people, usually those relatively new to internet-ing, to feel completely awkward around internet bigwigs. The explanation I gave is my theory on why.

If I were insulting people, it would usually be damn obvious because it's really hard to be sarcastic online.

[Mephansteras]

Will the new body raws let us get shells from non-vermin creatures now? And possibly from vermin that aren't fish that have been prepared?

Yeah, you should get shells from everything that has a shell that is large.  From vermin...  I'm not sure.  You could never really butcher them, right?  Just extract or eat when starving?  It probably wouldn't work, but there are still outstanding items on the list so it's not 100% settled.

I just finished some extensive testing of non-fish vermin with shells. Looks like the only thing that works is prepared fish. I did have a few interesting findings, though. If you remove the non-butcherable flag you see traders show up with trade items made up of it. You also get leather or chitin made of them, although you still can't butcher them yourself.

I posted some raws in the dev update earlier.  I don't think that part has changed, but here are the relevant values in the current raws:


[INORGANIC:IRON]
   [SOLID_DENSITY:7850]
   [IMPACT_YIELD:1080000]
   [IMPACT_FRACTURE:1080000]
   [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:635]
   [SHEAR_YIELD:130000]
   [SHEAR_FRACTURE:200000]
   [SHEAR_ELASTICITY:159]

[INORGANIC:BRONZE]
   [SOLID_DENSITY:8250]
   [IMPACT_YIELD:1080000]
   [IMPACT_FRACTURE:1080000]
   [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:600]
   [SHEAR_YIELD:137000]
   [SHEAR_FRACTURE:241000]
   [SHEAR_ELASTICITY:200]



This puts bronze as a slightly better cutting weapon and a slightly heavier hammer, with the same resistance to denting (I didn't have numbers on impact for bronze, if I remember, so those are copied).  I didn't have any edge values for them, so you can put the same maximum edge on either one.

Are you going to give us details about how all the numbers work in the raw files?

[Sunday]

Damn.  I could use an Oh Henry right now.  My roommates ate all my ice cream before I got home tonight and now I have no sweets.

That breath weapon stuff looks amazing.  Conceivably we could make that spitting dinosaur from Jurassic Park now, eh?  Or a similar creature whose venom instead causes the spittee's eyes (or brain!) to dissolve, but leaves the rest of them intact?  This is going to be sweet.

[Footkerchief]

Are you going to give us details about how all the numbers work in the raw files?

There are some details in the material template preview.

[Dareon Clearwater]

On multi-tile trees:

I get the mental image of them being basically mining for Sequoia.  You've got this big round tree, and you can designate a woodcutter to go over and, say, hollow it out and carve an up staircase.  Without some kind of fall-directing code, I imagine just "mining" out the entire tree would be both fatal and amusing.  With fall-directing code, I picture some enterprising players using big trees as siege defense.

"Lord Unwelcomeballs!  Goblins on the march!  They're making their way through our earthworks!"
"On my signal, unleash wood!"
If a tree falls on a goblin, and no one has hauling enabled, does he drop socks?

Smoothing a axe-hewn wooden wall would probably be easy enough to wedge into the Carpentry skill set, but I wonder if engraving it would use Carpentry or Woodworking.

Thinking about fall-directing code, I see some extensions of Mechanics: fulcrums and hydraulics.  You mine out a tree partially, place hydraulic jacks under one edge, supports under the other, and a fulcrum(s) in the middle, then mine out the rest of the tree.  Link up the hydraulics and supports, and you have a tree that falls in the direction you want on command.

Thinking about breath weapons:

The Gold Dragon breathes gold!
The spinning gold nugget strikes You in the third finger, left hand!
It is mangled!

Also, the Bonnacon.  Although Pliny's description gives it as leaving a trail behind it as it runs, the illustration I saw had it firing !!dung!! like a cannon.

[Chandrasekhar]

"Lord Unwelcomeballs!"

As an aside, this is how to properly parody dwarven naming conventions.  None of this freakin' Scottish prefix crap.  Similarly, goblin surnames should be mock-sinister, and elven surnames should generally imply carnal relations with foliage.  Every time you make dwarves out to be taller, more sober Scots, Armok releases a caged elf into the wild.  Please, think of the caged elves.