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[Neonivek]

Well I was thinking more around what IVAN does and less what Elona does.

Yes I hate saying "Lets do what another game did" as much as the next guy... but when you got something that works so well it is hard to go around it.

It has sparkles, stains, and rust for just about every object all visually represented. You don't need to read that an object is covered with blood or blood and water. You just have to look at it. You can even tell how wet it is.

There isn't any game I know of that does what IVAN does better.

[Footkerchief]

It has sparkles, stains, and rust for just about every object all visually represented. You don't need to read that an object is covered with blood or blood and water. You just have to look at it. You can even tell how wet it is.

That sounds interesting.  Do you happen to know how it's implemented?

[Neonivek]

I think it just super imposes a set sprite onto the object without going out of bounds.

Either that or it just adds random splotches.

Rust, Blood, and Water all use the same visual style just different colors.

Sparkles is an animation that is set to appear in random places on the object

There are others... for example it has "Glow" which uses an object's outline.

To my knowledge it isn't source protected anyhow so you could check it out. I am hardly an expert.

If I am allowed to link you to a download Ill do that too. The game is crushingly difficult and in order to win the game you have to use an extensive source of spoilers. It also includes limb damage and loss but in a way I doubt Toady will ever support (as it is extremely complex in DFs case)

[Footkerchief]

To my knowledge it isn't source protected anyhow so you could check it out. I am hardly an expert.

If I am allowed to link you to a download Ill do that too. The game is crushingly difficult and in order to win the game you have to use an extensive source of spoilers. It also includes limb damage and loss but in a way I doubt Toady will ever support (as it is extremely complex in DFs case)

Thanks!  I went ahead and grabbed the source from the download page.  Found some relevant stuff (AddLiquidToPicture) in Main/Source/fluid.cpp.  It does look like the fluid pixels are randomly overlaid on the item tile, as you guessed, although I have no clue what's up with the Shadow stuff.

That approach could definitely work well in DF for item and terrain graphics, although handcrafted (non-random) overlays still might end up looking better.  Spatters are one area that really highlights the shortcomings of pure ASCII -- now that we have splatters of arbitrary materials, materials that could poison or cause burns, it's important to actively present that information to the player without menu crap, whether you draw a splatter on the item or take the more interactive-fiction-y approach of textually telling the player, "Here is a sword covered with dragon blood."  DF should probably do both, depending... how to bridge that gap might be good Suggestions fodder.

[Neonivek]

You can ask the forum yourself or the Unofficial forum www.attnam.com (which is more popular I don't know)

I don't know how helpful they would be though.

[G-Flex]

I tried messing with IVAN's source code once and it was damn near impossible for me to comprehend any of it; it seemed like a complete mess to me, and a lot of it seemed to rely on weird hacks and probably a lot of compiler-specific stuff. Rather impenetrable, although some of it's certainly easier to understand than other parts. There are some things in it I simply couldn't find no matter how hard I looked, even when looking for the same of a specific function or some-such. It was weird.

IVAN does a good job of graphics, though. You get to follow enemies by following dynamic blood trails and stuff. One issue, though, is that anything with severable/damageable limbs is assumed to be humanoid in order for the graphics (and probably other things) to function properly. This would be a whole lot more difficult to accomplish if creatures could have arbitrary body parts like in DF, especially such finely-detailed ones.

[Toady One]

I think I missed this from last time:

[BODY_SIZE:0:0:10000000] - clearly related to body size, but what do the numbers do?
[HAS_NERVES] - Is this to create a central nervous system?
The function of these attack flags would be good to know as well:
   [ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
   [ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
   [ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]

BODY_SIZE is <year:day:size>.  Size is formerly arbitrary, now it is cubic centimeters I think.  I used weight <-> water <-> volume for most of the animals, since volumes are harder to find.

HAS_NERVES says whether or not motor/sensory nerves can be damaged.

ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC says what size to use for the body part in the attack calculations, as a percentage of the part's total size.  It's all sort of iffy since everything is blobby (ie sizes are used in 1/2/3 dimensional calcs), so I either use 100 for things like punches/kicks and 1-10 for things like toothy bites.

ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC says how deep the attack can penetrate versus body part size in the same way.

ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE tells the game to use whatever edge the body part material can support in the attack.  It either defaults to 50% or 100% of the theoretical maximum -- it should probably accept a number.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[FEATURE_BEAST] - What exactly does this do, how does it relate to biomes?
[GENERATED] - what does this do?
[TITAN] - is this for random body parts?

FEATURE_BEAST/TITAN is just a specific tag for GENERATED creatures.  GENERATED should probably be implied by it right now, but it might not always be that way.  The practical effect is to place the creature into similar category as a mega beast when it comes to historical importance and so on.  These tokens won't even be recognized if you try to put them in your own raws.

--

It's quite possible I missed questions this time too, especially ones that weren't green.  Feel free to ask again.  I also skipped ones that I thought were handled in the discussion (thanks Footkerchief!)

Are some of the extracts (Golden Salve, frex) going to be able to cure/help cure certain venoms?  If you have a venom that shuts down something's heart, could you feed it an extract to kickstart the organ?

At some point this was the idea.  I'm not sure what the idea is with them now.  They continue to languish.

Will it be possible to define blood as a body-pervasive tissue for the purposes of toxins and disease without creating targeting weirdness in combat? I understand that the current system can get at damage to blood cells and vessels in a roundabout fashion, but it would be pretty cool to have cyanide-style toxins that render the blood unable to carry oxygen (maim the blood?) without just directly killing the lungs.

I think combat weirdness would be inevitable.  If you drop the thickness of the tissue down to zero, it'll be skipped, but assigning any kind of useful properties to the tissue might be bad then.  It might be best to wait for me to get to the redded out Venom goals involving the body systems.

how do tissue layers interact with environmental effects, like temperature and gases?  Do outer layers insulate and protect inner ones?  Can poisons and wounds affect that by, say, changing tissue permeability or exposing inner ones?

Temperatures are still tracked by BP, so insulation uses tissue properties but still just determines the overall number.  There are some pervasive ramifications in extending it, so it's not necessarily an easy project.  Wounds have some exposure effects, but not on temperature.  I think contact poisons do a bit with it, but there are also some BP-pervasive effects where there shouldn't be.

Toady, will the new underground caverns affect the way goblins and dwarves build tunnels during worldgen?  In the current version, they'll build bridges over rivers or pits, do they still do this?

Also, will bottomless pits still look the same (giant cylindrical shafts,) or will they be more organically integrated with the new caverns?

Tunnels might be out for the time being until they play nice with layers.  The entire underground has changed in terms of pits/chasms/connections, though the square-by-square nature forced by time constraints + the tile map mean there are still squarish/roundish properties to some things.

Will the currency in Dwarf Fortress ever receive an official name?

Reading the discussion, it seems like we are talking about the symbols instead of any of the actual currencies.  I dunno.  The symbols might be replaced by entity specific measurements, at which point there might no longer be a notion of absolute currency value.

What kind of effect are all these new caverns having on the pathfinding load?

Aside from the underground flying guys which I've got to fix anyway, it shouldn't make much of a difference unless there's flowing water cutting across them, since it'll have to do path components in the larger empty spaces at that time.  I'm going to have to play some longer games to poke around for unintended hiccups, but it's been good so far.

With the addition of new skills (wrestling and health care being broken down into various sub-skills), will the embark skill point system (a) still be the same as in the current version (where we would assign points to say, wrestling, and the dwarf would automatically get points in all the associated sub-skills such as biting, kicking, punching, etc.) or (b) will we have to assign skill points to each of the new skills (so instead of assigning points to wrestling, we would assign points in each of punching, kicking, etc.)?  If (b) is the case, will the embark point system have been changed to make it easier (so that, for instance, we don't have to have a physician who can set broken bones at high level, but barely know how to suture a wound)?

I'm wondering if these sub skills show up in the embark skill list, and if so will the embark points and/or skill selection system be different in the new release.

Biting/kicking etc. aren't sub-skills of wrestling.  There used to be a single "unarmed" skill that has now been broken up into several skills.  There are skills like "archer" and "fighter" (I think those are the names), and these will pick up some slack, but there isn't anything really interesting going on yet.

With the fleshing out of inter-civ wars, are you planning to revise inter-race balance in war?  Specifically in the case of elves: will we in the near future see them actually win an offensive battle in Legends for once? 

I imagine when they are thinking a little bit more about things, it'll change a bit.  Elves in particular will need some advantages.  Right now, there are world gen skill caps that prevent them from using one of their only advantages (living forever in a relative safety compared to the murder-rich environment the immortal gobs have), so even the best elves are subpar compared to a better equipped dwarf or elf.  Their animal buddies are severely underutilized, and that will probably come up as well.  Not this around though, as inter-civ wars haven't gotten their revamp yet.

Toady, are there still plants that grow underground like towercaps in the current version?  Also, will they still grow on muddied stone underground, or will they need real soil?  Do they just grow in the open layers, or will they grow anywhere underground?

There are still underground plants, and there are areas that start with them.  I haven't placed soil tiles deep underground, so they grow in mud.  I don't think it knows how to pull an underground plant population outside of a layer.  At this point things like tree farms aren't quite as important as before, since there are lots down there that will regrow, but it should probably learn how to extend to other subterranean layers at some point.  There are a few little issues like knowing where it should be drawing the spore populations from -- if you are in between a cavern and a magma layer, it should probably know that the cavern layer is always the source, but if you are in between two cavern layers but really really close to the upper one, it probably shouldn't give you spores from down below.  Perhaps an upper default is the best.

So will versions of those massive caverns from a few months ago be the general replacement of our current caves or merely an addition?

The layers have forced a shrinking of caves, due to the way the features are currently set up, but there will still be caves connecting the outside to the inside.  The shrinking is probably welcome, since you can locate megabeasts more easily while still having the expansive layers to explore.  Right now, there aren't any dead-end caves that skip the top layer (unless you have no layers), but there should be.  I've made cave entrances a little better looking than the giant sinkhole things with stairs, but I'll still need actual cliffs before I can make neat entrances.  Right now I'm using fake cliff bulge things.

So, now that the aquifer behavior is somewhat different now, how are you handling quifers as far as saltwater goes? Since in real life, aquifers on islands are freshwater, although there would be some mixing along the coast.

Also, how are the caverns going to be handled as far as surface sources of infinite water? I'm mainly wondering about oceans and lakes as there may be a possibility of the cavern system breaching such features. Although a surface river plunging into a cavern would be pretty cool. Provided it doesn't catastrophically flood the caverns.

I wouldn't mind some caverns bieng partially flooded though.

It hasn't changed.  Some caverns have preexisting water.  Making the salinity/water grime variables work more sensibly has a processor/memory load problem, but the initial settings shouldn't be as hard to fix at some point.

Will be possible to edit the adventurer apperance or at least know about his apperance?

You can look at yourself and others.  Changing the appearance would be an interface to write, which isn't the end of the day.  You should certainly be able to customize yourself later on, at least in one version of the start setup (versus historical scenarios or whatever), since it's good to be able to be whatever you want to be.  It'll probably depend on prodding or just me eventually doing it.  Since you pick out where you are from first, it'll probably be constrained by the entity/race settings, with options to break convention or something.  Breaking reality (ie making a blue-skinned human) is more difficult because of how the appearance variables are indexed, and there might even be some issues there with breaking out of entity stylings, though I don't think there are.

How does the [DRAGONFIREBREATH] tag work now? Is it going to be replaced with a poison breathe that burns people?

It's still the same as ever.  It is hot.  Fire is kind of a weird thing.  The critters that are made from fire have a weird material for it, but the breath is still a materialless flow.

Toady, which release are you intending to implement custom fluids?

I have no idea.  They aren't crucial to anything, so it's just going to be an act of excess when it happens.  It's something I often want to do, but the technical stumbling blocks which will potential slow down the flow code are the thing stopping me from suddenly doing it.  Getting the flows to run at a decent speed and getting them to interact with each other in any way (instead of just the magma/water interaction) are the issues.

Could it be possible to get full list of different dwarven features (face shape, body build, hairstyle etc.)? I can get most(?) of them from 08/08/2009 update, but it might be handy to have some kind of word of god list. This would help developing visualizers.

It'd take a bit of time to distill it down, so for now I'll just throw a raw at you.  It's still preliminary in a few ways, mostly just the fingernails, but I haven't done my last-minute check on it before the release.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

creature_standard

[OBJECT:CREATURE]

[CREATURE:DWARF]
[DESCRIPTION:A short, sturdy creature fond of drink and industry.]
[NAME:dwarf:dwarves:dwarven]
[CASTE_NAME:dwarf:dwarves:dwarven]
[CREATURE_TILE:1][COLOR:3:0:0]

Many of the following tags are actually caste-level tags (in this case, male and female), but because there are no differences between the castes for these tags in a dwarf, you can add them earlier.  Any caste-level tag that occurs before castes are explicitly declared is saved up and placed on any caste that is declared later, unless the caste is explicitly derived from another caste.

[INTELLIGENT]
[TRANCES]
[BENIGN]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[PREFSTRING:beards]
[BODY:HUMANOID:2EYES:2EARS:NOSE:2LUNGS:HEART:GUTS:ORGANS:HUMANOID_JOINTS:THROAT:NECK:SPINE:BRAIN:SKULL:5FINGERS:5TOES:MOUTH:FACIAL_FEATURES:TEETH:RIBCAGE]

Next we use body detail plans (which have their own raw file) to streamline the addition of some of the common materials, tissues and their relationships with each other.

[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SKIN:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HEAD_HAIR_TISSUE_LAYERS]

Eyebrows and eyelashes are manually added here.

[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:EYEBROW:EYEBROW_TEMPLATE]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:EYEBROW:ABOVE:BY_CATEGORY:EYE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:EYELASH:EYELASH_TEMPLATE]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:EYELID:EYELASH:FRONT]

And nails.

[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:NAIL:NAIL_TEMPLATE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:NAIL:NAIL_TEMPLATE]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:NAIL:FRONT]
[TISSUE_LAYER:BY_CATEGORY:TOE:NAIL:FRONT]

Set up some major arteries that couldn't be handled in the raw templates.  The selection commands can be used to grab tissue layers to adjust their properties after they have been created.

[SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:HEART:BY_CATEGORY:HEART]
[PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SKIN:BY_CATEGORY:THROAT]
[MAJOR_ARTERIES]

Then back to some more body detail plans.

[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:FACIAL_HAIR_TISSUES]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_HEAD_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RIBCAGE_POSITIONS]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:HUMANOID_RELSIZES]
[RELSIZE:BY_CATEGORY:LIVER:300] Of course!  Standard relative size for humanoids is 200.

Tendons and ligaments are currently very abstract, but adding these flags will let wounds occur that damage them.  The number afterward is the healing rate.  Lower is faster.

[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SINEW:SINEW_TEMPLATE]
[TENDONS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]
[LIGAMENTS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SINEW:200]

This makes the creature susceptible to severed nerves when muscles are torn in limb, grasp and stance parts.

[HAS_NERVES]

This controls the bleeding behavior.

[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:BLOOD:BLOOD_TEMPLATE]
[BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:BLOOD:LIQUID]

These classes are used by syndromes (such as poison).  You can name them whatever you want.

[CREATURE_INTERACTION_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]

Some tags to control the overall infection behavior.

[GETS_WOUND_INFECTIONS]
[GETS_INFECTIONS_FROM_ROT]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:PUS:PUS_TEMPLATE]
[PUS:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:PUS:LIQUID]

These tags establish the growth phases of the creature's life.  The format is (BODY_SIZE|<year>|<day>|<average size>).

[BODY_SIZE:0:0:3000]
[BODY_SIZE:1:168:15000]
[BODY_SIZE:12:0:60000]

These body modifiers give individual dwarves different characteristics.  In the case of HEIGHT, BROADNESS and LENGTH, the modifier is also a percentage change to the BODY_SIZE of the individual creature.  The seven numbers afterward give a distribution of ranges.  Each interval has an equal chance of occurring.

[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]

In order to set properties for body parts, first you select them.  In this case, we select all body parts of category EYE, then we add a few modifiers to them.

[SET_BP_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:EYE]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:CLOSE_SET:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyes:PLURAL]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:DEEP_SET:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyes:PLURAL]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:ROUND_VS_NARROW:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyes:PLURAL]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LARGE_IRIS:25:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyes:PLURAL]

[SET_BP_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:LIP]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:THICKNESS:50:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:lips:PLURAL]

[SET_BP_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:NOSE]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:25:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:25:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:UPTURNED:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:CONVEX:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:nose bridge:SINGULAR]

[SET_BP_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:EAR]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:SPLAYED_OUT:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:ears:PLURAL]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HANGING_LOBES:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:ears:PLURAL]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:700]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:ears:PLURAL]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:700]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:ears:PLURAL]

[SET_BP_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:GAPS:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:teeth:PLURAL]

[SET_BP_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:SKULL]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HIGH_CHEEKBONES:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROAD_CHIN:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:JUTTING_CHIN:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:SQUARE_CHIN:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]

[SET_BP_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:NECK]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:DEEP_VOICE:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:RASPY_VOICE:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]

[SET_BP_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:700]
[BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:90:95:98:100:102:105:110]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:700]


These are as before.

[STOUT]
[MAXAGE:150:170]

Attack definitions are formatted as follows:

[ATTACK:PUNCH:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:punch:punches]

This means that the attack will use as much of the available tissue as possible, rather than, say, thrusting with a spike.

[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]

[ATTACK:KICK:BODYPART:BY_TYPE:STANCE]
[ATTACK_SKILL:STANCE_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:kick:kicks]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_FLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:SECOND]

This causes all of the nails on the fingers of a given grasp to be used.

[ATTACK:SCRATCH:CHILD_TISSUE_LAYER_GROUP:BY_TYPE:GRASP:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:NAIL]
[ATTACK_SKILL:GRASP_STRIKE]
[ATTACK_VERB:scratch:scratches]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:SECOND]

This causes all of the teeth on a given head to be used.

[ATTACK:BITE:CHILD_BODYPART_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH]
[ATTACK_SKILL:BITE]
[ATTACK_VERB:bite:bites]
[ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
[ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
[ATTACK_PRIORITY:SECOND]
[ATTACK_FLAG_CANLATCH]

Here, GENERAL_BABY_NAME is at the creature level, and BABYNAME is at the caste level.  These names could be gender-specific but aren't right now.

[BABY:1]
[GENERAL_BABY_NAME:dwarven baby:dwarven babies]
[BABYNAME:dwarven baby:dwarven babies]
[CHILD:12]
[GENERAL_CHILD_NAME:dwarven child:dwarven children]
[CHILDNAME:dwarven child:dwarven children]
[EQUIPS]
[CAVE_ADAPT]
[DIURNAL]

This is the new format for making specific unit names for a creature.  Any unit token can be used.  If you want to add a caste-specific profession name, use CASTE_PROFESSION_NAME instead, once the caste has been declared.

[PROFESSION_NAME:CRAFTSMAN:craftsdwarf:craftsdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:FISHERMAN:fisherdwarf:fisherdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:HAMMERMAN:hammerdwarf:hammerdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:SPEARMAN:speardwarf:speardwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:CROSSBOWMAN:marksdwarf:marksdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:AXEMAN:axedwarf:axedwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:SWORDSMAN:swordsdwarf:swordsdwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:MACEMAN:macedwarf:macedwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:PIKEMAN:pikedwarf:pikedwarves]
[PROFESSION_NAME:BOWMAN:bowdwarf:bowdwarves]
[SPEECH:dwarf.txt]
[HOMEOTHERM:10067]
[ALCOHOL_DEPENDENT]
[SWIMS_LEARNED][SWIM_SPEED:2500]
[PERSONALITY:IMMODERATION:0:55:100]
[PERSONALITY:VULNERABILITY:0:45:100]
[PERSONALITY:STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS:0:55:100]
[MANNERISM_FINGERS:finger:fingers]
[MANNERISM_NOSE:nose]
[MANNERISM_EAR:ear]
[MANNERISM_HEAD:head]
[MANNERISM_EYES:eyes]
[MANNERISM_MOUTH:mouth]
[MANNERISM_HAIR:hair]
[MANNERISM_KNUCKLES:knuckles]
[MANNERISM_LIPS:lips]
[MANNERISM_CHEEK:cheek]
[MANNERISM_NAILS:nails]
[MANNERISM_FEET:feet]
[MANNERISM_ARMS:arms]
[MANNERISM_HANDS:hands]
[MANNERISM_TONGUE:tongue]
[MANNERISM_LEG:leg]
[MANNERISM_LAUGH]
[MANNERISM_SMILE]
[MANNERISM_WALK]
[MANNERISM_SIT]
[MANNERISM_BREATH]
[MANNERISM_POSTURE]
[MANNERISM_STRETCH]
[MANNERISM_EYELIDS]

Now we'll declare the specific castes.

[CASTE:FEMALE]
The gender tag lets it know how breeding works.
[FEMALE]
[MULTIPLE_LITTER_RARE]
To add beards, put square brackets around the following:
BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:FACIAL_HAIR_TISSUE_LAYERS
[CASTE:MALE]
[MALE]
[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:FACIAL_HAIR_TISSUE_LAYERS]

This command lets you select all of the castes again.

[SELECT_CASTE:ALL]

Now we'll select all of the hair tissue layers we can find so that we can add colorations to them.  Even if the castes have different tissue layers, it'll find the layers and establish modifiers for each of the castes properly.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:HAIR]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHEEK_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHIN_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:MOUSTACHE]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:SIDEBURNS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:EYEBROW]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:EYELASH]

A color modifier takes a list of color patterns (every color is associated to a monotone color pattern of its color, so you can also use color tokens) and frequencies.  I haven't filled out this list yet...

[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:BLACK:1:BROWN:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:GRAY:1]

This gives the start and finish time in <year>|<days> for the color change to occur

[TLCM_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TLCM_TIMING:ROOT:80:0:130:0]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:WHITE:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TLCM_TIMING:ROOT:130:0:150:0]

Now we'll select the eyebrows and eyelashes and give them variable lengths.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:EYEBROW]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:50:80:90:100:110:120:150]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyebrows:PLURAL]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:DENSE:50:80:90:100:110:120:150]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyebrows:PLURAL]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HIGH_POSITION:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyebrows:PLURAL]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:EYELASH]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:50:80:90:100:110:120:150]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:eyelashes:PLURAL]

All of the other hair is selected and started at length zero.  It's fine to group them all together like this -- the creature can still accomodate different lengths once hair cutting/styling goes in.  I used one modifier here because the growth rates and starting length are all the same.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:HAIR]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHEEK_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHIN_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:MOUSTACHE]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:SIDEBURNS]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:0:0:0:0:0:0:0]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]

Here we set the growth rate.  This will change the modifier (LENGTH) by 1 each day up to a maximum of 1000 from the start of the dwarf's life (early beards!) for as long as the dwarf is alive.  The format is (APP_MOD_RATE|<rate>|<scale>|<min>|<max>|<start year>|<start day>|<end year>|<end day>) where the final two tokens can be replaced by NO_END if the growth is to continue indefinitely.

[APP_MOD_RATE:1:DAILY:0:1000:0:0:NO_END]

[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:CURLY:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:GREASY:0:70:90:100:110:130:200]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:DENSE:50:80:90:100:110:120:150]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:HAIR]
[TISSUE_STYLE_UNIT:HAIR:STANDARD_HAIR_SHAPINGS]
[TSU_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHEEK_WHISKERS]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:CHIN_WHISKERS]
[TISSUE_STYLE_UNIT:BEARD:STANDARD_BEARD_SHAPINGS]
[TSU_NOUN:beard:SINGULAR]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:MOUSTACHE]
[TISSUE_STYLE_UNIT:MOUSTACHE:STANDARD_MOUSTACHE_SHAPINGS]
[TSU_NOUN:moustache:SINGULAR]

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD:SIDEBURNS]
[TISSUE_STYLE_UNIT:SIDEBURNS:STANDARD_SIDEBURNS_SHAPINGS]
[TSU_NOUN:sideburns:PLURAL]

Here we handle nail length.

(need a new style to keep these short and need to make the entity def say to keep them short)
[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:FINGER:NAIL]
[PLUS_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:TOE:NAIL]
[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:100:100:100:100:100:100:100]
[APP_MOD_RATE:1:DAILY:0:1000:0:0:NO_END]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:nails:PLURAL]

Here all of the skin is selected and various colors are listed.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:ALL:SKIN]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:BROWN:1:BURNT_UMBER:1:CINNAMON:1:COPPER:1:DARK_BROWN:1:DARK_PEACH:1:DARK_TAN:1:ECRU:1:PALE_BROWN:1:PALE_CHESTNUT:1:PALE_PINK:1:PEACH:1:PINK:1:RAW_UMBER:1:SEPIA:1:TAN:1:TAUPE_PALE:1:TAUPE_SANDY:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:skin:SINGULAR]

[TISSUE_LAYER_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:WRINKLY:0:0:0:0:0:0:0]
[APP_MOD_RATE:1:YEARLY:0:100:60:0:NO_END]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:skin:SINGULAR]

Now we do the eyes, using the somewhat clunky eye color patterns.

[SET_TL_GROUP:BY_CATEGORY:EYE:EYE]
[TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:IRIS_EYE_AMETHYST:1:IRIS_EYE_AQUAMARINE:1:IRIS_EYE_BRASS:1:IRIS_EYE_BRONZE:1:IRIS_EYE_COBALT:1:IRIS_EYE_COPPER:1:IRIS_EYE_EMERALD:1:IRIS_EYE_GOLD:1:IRIS_EYE_HELIOTROPE:1:IRIS_EYE_JADE:1:IRIS_EYE_OCHRE:1:IRIS_EYE_RAW_UMBER:1:IRIS_EYE_RUST:1:IRIS_EYE_SILVER:1:IRIS_EYE_SLATE_GRAY:1:IRIS_EYE_TURQUOISE:1]
[TLCM_NOUN:eyes:PLURAL]


Toady, I know you don't want to spoil the underground stuff, but could you at least let us know about the rope ladder type thing? As that is well known and probably important (if not critical) for the cavern stuff.

It's still white, so I haven't done the consider part yet.  The main hurdle is the multi-z nature of such things, since all buildings currently reside on a single z level and the ramifications of that are quite pervasive, so there is quite a temptation to flub at this point, rather than engage in what could be a relatively long rewrite.

I've plenty of mods that add things like coloured glass, which is all well and good, until your nobles demand ONLY blue glass. Could mandates be less specific sometimes (glass object, rather than specific type of glass object, or specific colour of glass object)?

Glass is currently odd in that each glass is a separate material, so it hasn't been possible.  Now there's a "is glass" flag for the material definitions, but I don't think mandates have been updated to support that flag.  I'll do one or the other for this time:  get rid of glass mandates or support the general mandate.  I think getting rid of them would be easier until there's better local material detection (Req452).

I was thinking about the swamp-water grime mentioned in DF Talk 3, and it occurred to me that, while having grime on your skin should certainly raise the chance of an infection, getting gunk inside wounds should be even worse.  Does the game have any notion of grime getting inside wounds, or just a general grime level?

It checks the grime level on the body part versus the body part where the wound is located, but it doesn't jam the grime inside the wound specifically, so it doesn't matter if the grime was there before or after the wound happened.  Specific contaminant syndromes have more information about their wounds (such as a poison on a blade) so it can control local effects more sensibly, but I don't think contaminants themselves know about that.

Will it be possible (not necessarily in the upcoming version) to have a site directly affiliated with a particular guild/religion/other political entity? Like a training center for the mining guild or a commune of pilgrims or something like that.

Every site has an entity affiliation independent of the type of entity.  It just always happens to be one of the site-style "group" ones now.  It kind of points to the decision making capacity of groups again.  Once an entity's various responsibility holders can make decisions, it should make this sort of thing more relevant to throw on the queue.  I need to do that before I improve sieges, so hopefully I'll have more and more precise answers for questions like this soonish.

Since an exploration team of dwarves (or whatever race you're playing) could take a season or more to return to base, will there be a way to have them gather food or whatever or will it be limited to how much they can stuff into the backpacks and how many waterskins they can carry?

You'd have to micromanage it right now, with base camps and so on.  If some seems ultra-necessary, I'll probably put it in before the release.  I haven't gotten a chance to run a long exploration yet.

Will the new control over z-levels influence adventure mode?  Will flying creatures have some actual sky to work with, even in flat areas?

The constraint I lifted was the overall z-size of the cube that the loaded world fits in, but sky allocations still only happen when needed.  So as you build your giant tower, it allocates more levels.  That doesn't happen in adventure mode.  It needs to be able to semi-allocate areas or understand what it means to be in an empty allocated space above the ground before the fliers are more satisfying, and there are various hurdles there.

What are the current average heights for the sky z-levels and the ground z-levels?

I know you have specifically mentioned in the past how the 15 z-level thing is "gone", and we've seen screenshots of layers that are 40, 50, 60 levels deep. But where did you end up landing when deciding on the default values?

So I am assuming that underground features can take place at those extra allocated Z-Levels, right?

Presumably it'll try to space out the underground "layers" among the available Z-levels.

The number of sky z-levels can now be set, but they vary as they do in 40d based on the total elevation differences on your map.  The number of ground z-levels depends on how you've got your layers set up.  You can determine the spacing, and elevation differences on the map also spread the layers out (it has to guarantee that they don't hit each other).  If you add extra spacing, it can be used for layers, but it's mostly for adding some rock.  If you space out two of the cavern layers, connecting features like pits and internal vertical caves will be much larger.

Oh yea, what is the cave diggers thing all about? I thought digging creatures weren't really implemented in this release?

Right now (40d), mining entities expand their site sizes over world gen years, and that impacted their generated size.  It's not crucial, but there are a few things I need to look at there regardless, with how the caves are expanded out.  It shouldn't be super long when I get to it.

hey tarn(toady) any chance of the peotry generater you threatened us with on the dev pages?  in this release or the next one?

I have a lot to do with language first before I'm able to do that.  I think the list on dev_next has to be done in order, but I do want to get that started (not for this release) just so I can have names outside the current format.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I feel like you've covered this already, but how do the raws vs. the generated critters interact?

Was there a specific need to preface all of those body parts in the posted raws with "RCP_"?

Yes, an RCP_HEAD does not exist in the raws. Remember, these are all generated on-the-fly. RCP_parts probably only exist in the game data (which makes me wonder, will deleting the data/objects contents still be safe?), or even in the executable itself, and cannot be modified.

Alternatively, the RCP prefix is required to let the game know which available parts can be used for creating these custom critters, as no doubt they require some special tuning to work right.

I wasn't sure how the bodyparts and generator were going to play together, and I know that people like to change the basic pieces (say for the martial arts mod).  So the RCP stuff is all down in the raw text, but they shouldn't be altered very much.  You need to maintain the tokens anyway.  As more random generator stuff makes it out into the raws, it'll become easier to change things and eventually it should all be exposed.  So it's in a sort of weird spot right now.  RCP is for "random creature profile" body part.  The RCPs themselves are hard-coded.

It also stands upright?  What's with the humanoid plan position tags?

Yeah, what people said was right here.  It uses it too much though and needs to be removed from certain creatures.  It's pushing their facial features forward and giving them rib positions I think, and sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad.

Is there a correlation effect in the random creatures creation?  Are creatures with wings more likely to get the flying tag (and vice versa)?

Right now it's probably too strong, but yeah, wings determine things like flight (if I remember, there are some that fly without them, but maybe not).  The body parts determine lots of other things as well (attacks, etc).

how will materials from these random titans be handled? Like will there be a fixed value or will that be variable since I would rather mount the hide of such a thing rather than allow it to be used for crafts since the skin of a titan like the new ones don't deserve to be put onto a dang earring or idol artifact.

There are variable values, but I think a lot of them aren't set yet.  It uses the material templates that are sitting in the raw folder now to determine most of the properties.  These didn't get RCP copies because I thought they'd be less apt to change.  If you remove something it needs for generation, it'll give you an errorlog message and skip random creature generation.

So Toady, why don't use use dead humans, dwarves, elves, and other races for the captives within the HFS or generate for them? It is a bit weird to see "Human" unless they are somehow native, or created, to the HFS and never given a name. Is it just unimportant?

Though unlike for you to answer this (as it is a HUGE spoiler anyhow) are there any plans on allowing demons to come back to life simply by walking out of open hell gates?

There are lots of issues with having them come back once they are dead, in terms of legends and so on, but an eventually hope is to explore various afterlife options since the notion is very important for myths and many stories in general.  The old dead raising code is pretty useless by now, so it'll have to be handled from scratch more or less, but we'll be very happy when your adventurer can go to some sort of underworld and rescue a dead relative or something.

[InsanityPrelude]

Holycrap, these new raws are detailed.

[Osmosis Jones]

This is so incredibly awesome.

One question though;

Regarding

Since an exploration team of dwarves (or whatever race you're playing) could take a season or more to return to base, will there be a way to have them gather food or whatever or will it be limited to how much they can stuff into the backpacks and how many waterskins they can carry?

You'd have to micromanage it right now, with base camps and so on.  If some seems ultra-necessary, I'll probably put it in before the release.  I haven't gotten a chance to run a long exploration yet.

I think I missed something, but what's this referring to? I'm guesing sending dwarves into the caves?

[Chronas]

Another beautiful wall of text!

Dwarf Fortress: now with 150% more liver.
And optional female beards in one easy-to-manage format!

[Toady One]

There isn't anything super-special going on, like sending dwarves off the map, but just using squads to press into the new unexplored area/fog of war thing.  At least I think that's what the subject was, since you might spend several days if not a month on an expedition down there.

If it was about going off the map, then I'm not really sure how food and all that would work.  I imagine foraging would be an option.  I'm hoping to have supplies for armies because I think it makes wars and so on more interesting.

[Osmosis Jones]

Fair enough. 

[smjjames]

There isn't anything super-special going on, like sending dwarves off the map, but just using squads to press into the new unexplored area/fog of war thing.  At least I think that's what the subject was, since you might spend several days if not a month on an expedition down there.

If it was about going off the map, then I'm not really sure how food and all that would work.  I imagine foraging would be an option.  I'm hoping to have supplies for armies because I think it makes wars and so on more interesting.

It was about exploring the caverns and expanding the fog of war down there, or removing it rather.

[Grax]

There isn't anything super-special going on, like sending dwarves off the map, but just using squads to press into the new unexplored area/fog of war thing.  At least I think that's what the subject was, since you might spend several days if not a month on an expedition down there.

If it was about going off the map, then I'm not really sure how food and all that would work.  I imagine foraging would be an option.  I'm hoping to have supplies for armies because I think it makes wars and so on more interesting.

It would be great to have a feature to take the miner/builder/smith into the army to mine ore, build smelters and smith/repair weapons in the wilds during the conquest expedition.

[keith.lamothe]

At that point I think the dwarves would simply carve out a couple floors of mountain, carve out some wheels under them, make a really wide ramp, and roll the mini-fort towards the intended destination.  Why leave your logistical support behind?