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[chinkeeyong]

Steam Machine: what happens when Dwarven Science catches on.

SM is a major mod for Dwarf Fortress which is an attempt to bring the tech level of DF to steampunk, prioritizing humor and fun over realism. The scope of the mod, when it is essentially done, will be a complete overhaul of all equipment, races and items, as well as a not insignificant part of the creatures and flavor. It's currently at v1.0.

Get it here.

Finished developments:

• Dwarves and humans have new equipment
• New speech files with more lulz
• Firearms
• New race, automatons

Current developments:

• New megabeasts and some creatures
• Get automatons to make civs
• More guns and bigger

Future developments:

• New symbols
• Overhaul of language handling with more theme-appropriate words
• Tech-update elves, goblins and kobolds in some way
• Officially convert all leftover vanilla things to SM with new prefstrings and flavor

Comments?

[woose1]

Do the dwarves get Mohawks as dictated by steampunk-style fantasy worlds?

[chinkeeyong]

That has to go in the prefstrings.

[Endemion]

Interesting idea. 

At it's current level, DF isn't really moddable enough to give you too much milage out of this change, though.  It would really seem like this was more of a graphical change than anything else, but...  DF doesn't have graphics... so it seems that this will mostly change the way the text is?

Steampunk doesn't really scream farming at me, and I certainly don't see the advent of a dungeon master heralding new technology for the generators.

All that said, I'm interested in what all you are going to change, and I will definitely keep an eye out for the release.  Good luck to you.

[Deon]

Steampunk doesn't really scream farming at me

But people still need to eat . And hydroponic farms seem fine.

Also, about text... Yes, it changes text, because it's ASCII game. How else would you tell the difference between a dwarf and an elf? And they are considered different species.

2Chinkeeyong: I approve . I like stylized conversions, and I have to try yours (in a few days, currently I'm writing my diplom).

[DennyTom]

Windmills and pums are hard-coded, are not they? No way to force pumps work as steam turbine?

[chinkeeyong]

At it's current level, DF isn't really moddable enough to give you too much milage out of this change, though.  It would really seem like this was more of a graphical change than anything else, but...  DF doesn't have graphics... so it seems that this will mostly change the way the text is?

Steampunk doesn't really scream farming at me, and I certainly don't see the advent of a dungeon master heralding new technology for the generators.

About that: Take a look at the farming system of just about every major player fortress, with all the irrigation and muddying of soil and engineering and whatnot, and tell me that isn't exactly the kind of thing you'd see in a steampunk setting. The rest of the points you raise are still valid, though, and I'll have to look at that once I get adventure mode finished.

Windmills and pums are hard-coded, are not they? No way to force pumps work as steam turbine?

No, but I don't plan to do that.

Also, about text... Yes, it changes text, because it's ASCII game. How else would you tell the difference between a dwarf and an elf? And they are considered different species.

No, he means that the gameplay itself will mostly be unchanged, and mostly things like speech and names will be different.

All that said, I'm interested in what all you are going to change, and I will definitely keep an eye out for the release.  Good luck to you.

2Chinkeeyong: I approve .

Thanks. 

---

So far, I've been working mostly to balance automatons. They're size 5, severonbreaks, and don't have can_learn, so even with all the extra iron man tags they get slaughtered like cattle. After a lot of buffing, they are a lot tougher than your standard human peasant in melee, but will still die quickly to anyone actually trained in weaponry. Also, I managed to gen a world in which automatons formed a historical civilization, so at least I'm getting somewhere...

In another note, I ran into another of vanilla DF's little surprises: As an automaton adventurer, I got ambushed by a horde of skeletal carp which I had yet to replace. Damn buggers.

[Deon]

You take out carps?! N000OOOoooo.....

[chinkeeyong]

OR I could leave them in and create an uber buffed version called the mecha-carp.

[Grimlocke]

I like the idea of this mod, though I wish the current modding options allowed for things like custom mechanical buildings (magma poweres steam engines would be awesome, but oh well)

Creatures should give you plenty of options though, you can do cool things like adding mechanical bodyparts (pistons, flywheels, engines...) or giving your automatons a variation of mechanical mounts, like some huge mechanic spider with a flamethrower on it 

As for making automatons more powerfull, giving them damblock in the creature file, and some custom armour type in in the civ file should work.

after downloading and looking the mod, lol at this: [BP:GUTS3:hamster-powered generator]
and, what the blazed did you do with the wagon??? there are like a whole bunch of different craeture files all churned in there, it has 6 different definitions of its body, its... milkable? and... [PREFSTRING:sweat-secreting tongues]?

[jaked122]

OR I could leave them in and create an uber buffed version called the mecha-carp.

that MUST be a civ!
add as you well know [CAN_LEARN] and [CAN_CIV] but never add [CAN_SPEAK]. that should make the dwarves' head's ache

[chinkeeyong]

As for making automatons more powerfull, giving them damblock in the creature file, and some custom armour type in in the civ file should work.

I gave them damblock 100, but I left them without armor, since letting them equip would cause things like retired automaton adventurers which wear clothing. And everyone knows a true robot doesn't hide its luster.

after downloading and looking the mod, lol at this: [BP:GUTS3:hamster-powered generator]

Yeah, automaton guts are generally tongue-in-cheek. There's also a floppy drive and an internal hamster to go with the generator.

and, what the blazed did you do with the wagon??? there are like a whole bunch of different craeture files all churned in there, it has 6 different definitions of its body, its... milkable? and... [PREFSTRING:sweat-secreting tongues]?

No, that file is now wagon and domestic creatures combined. Dogs secrete sweat from their tongues.

[DennyTom]

Dogs secrete sweat from their tongues.

Yeah, but that is what we hate about them...

[chinkeeyong]

Dogs secrete sweat from their tongues.

Yeah, but that is what we hate about them...

Then the dwarves are clearly considerably more hardcore than we are.