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Author Topic: Questions about monster tags  (Read 1121 times)

RandomNumberGenerator

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Questions about monster tags
« on: January 12, 2010, 12:23:48 am »

Rather simple question. I always thought the HFS was too easy(and too rewarding; Adamantine is so valuable, Reward >>>>>>>>> Risk), so I'm thinking of ways to make it harder. One of the ideas I had was to make it so in addition to three different types of HFS, there there three types of bosses(Is this even possible?). One was essentially going to be a massive suit of armor; I wanted him to take no damage from ordinary weapons, and reduced damage from masterwork steel, with enough health to stand up to several ballista bolts. I do not want him to be invincible, or only vulnerable to some obscure cave-in trap(though a way to make him immune to the infamous cave-in trap would be nice...)

So what would be an appropriate value for this? In the DF wiki I see that a full set of platemail has ~320 armor, while a Bronze Colossus, which has the most out of any creature, only has 8 damblock. Does the Colossus just have a really low armor value, or is this proportionally different?

Also, I know that some creatures can drop items other than a corpse, i.e. magma men. Could I do the same with this guy, essentially turning him into a giant suit of armor(too large for dwarves to wear, obviously, but cool anyway)
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Halmie

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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2010, 12:48:59 am »

Impossible to make him immune to some weapons.

Use the [ITEMCORPSE:X] tag to make them drop things on death.

Not sure/cant be bothered with rest.

Give something SPEED:0, it'll zoom past your traps
« Last Edit: January 12, 2010, 02:52:05 am by Halmie »
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Deon

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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2010, 02:47:11 am »

Beeri Bawl :). You know a lot about hell.

Ahem. Now seriously.
DAMBLOCK is very different from armor value. There was a formula I've posted on the forums which should explain it partially. Basically armor value is a part of a big and obscure part of formula where it's multiplied and divided a few times, while damblock is almost a clean + size difference.

Also the size of a droppable item depends on a size of a creature. So if you make a dwarf-sized creature with high enough damblock it will act as if it was of much bigger size but will drop a usable armor.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2010, 02:50:26 am by Deon »
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darkflagrance

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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2010, 03:51:42 am »

It is possible to make the armor so tough that only lucky hits will damage it.

I think size 160 and higher creatures cannot be damaged by legendary weaponskill dwarves wielding masterwork adamantine weapons, except by the damage formula occasionally allowing the dwarf to do one damage when it cannot do damage any other way. So just decrease the size of the creature a little or use the damage formula to translate size into damblock, and give a ton of armor bodyparts that don't have any importance to the life of the creature but decrease the chance that the weapon will hit anything vital, and you have a true threat.
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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2010, 08:29:46 am »

And yes, regarding the other bit of your question, if you have multiple possible demon-leaders (or whatever you want to stick in) then one will be randomly chosen for the pit. The same applies to the horde of mini-demons. It cannot be chosen beyond pure chance, so it's not possible to always have an Adamantine Giant appear with an army of Adamantine Golems, so long as you have more than one in the leader/horde categories.
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sunshaker

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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2010, 09:17:53 am »

Rather simple question. I always thought the HFS was too easy(and too rewarding; Adamantine is so valuable, Reward >>>>>>>>> Risk), so I'm thinking of ways to make it harder. One of the ideas I had was to make it so in addition to three different types of HFS, there there three types of bosses(Is this even possible?). One was essentially going to be a massive suit of armor; I wanted him to take no damage from ordinary weapons, and reduced damage from masterwork steel, with enough health to stand up to several ballista bolts. I do not want him to be invincible, or only vulnerable to some obscure cave-in trap(though a way to make him immune to the infamous cave-in trap would be nice...)

So what would be an appropriate value for this? In the DF wiki I see that a full set of platemail has ~320 armor, while a Bronze Colossus, which has the most out of any creature, only has 8 damblock. Does the Colossus just have a really low armor value, or is this proportionally different?

Also, I know that some creatures can drop items other than a corpse, i.e. magma men. Could I do the same with this guy, essentially turning him into a giant suit of armor(too large for dwarves to wear, obviously, but cool anyway)

Attack Formula from Toady One http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=37546.0

As far as I understand the attack formula (which means I could be wrong) damblock is proportionally different from armor in roughly the same way weapon damage is proportionally different than creature damage, basically a factor of 10, and then further modified by creature size. So a typical animal bite of 1 to 6 damage (max of 6 x 10 = 60) is roughly equal to a large dagger hit of 70. The BC damblock is 8 (x 10 = 80) is roughly equal to quality less iron plate armor with a block of 70/50. Your dwarf is size 6 and the BC is size 20 (a 14 point difference, which means if the BC hits it does extra damage = 140 x a random number, if the dwarf hits the BC it does less damage = 140 x a random number).

The item quality (skill of the maker and material the item is made from) plays a huge roll in combat effectiveness (Masterful Adamantine Plate has a Block of 700/500).

Basically the BC has natural armor roughly equal to common Plate Mail (most civs will only be equipping their troops with iron equipment, with dwarves (steel), elves (wood) and kobolds (copper) being the exceptions).

[Edit] Adding a additional [DEEP] minerals and metals with different (lower) values from Adamantine will increase the difficulty by reducing the effectiveness of the weapons and armor (Mithril at say 250% would be half the strength of Adamantine). There were some mods done to the tentacle and Frog Demons that were interesting and increased their effectiveness, but I don't have them, I'll see if I can find them.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2010, 09:31:44 am by sunshaker »
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Arrkhal

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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2010, 10:02:47 am »

Quote
In the DF wiki I see that a full set of platemail has ~320 armor

Windmills do not work that way.  First of all, armor pieces on different parts do not stack.  Gauntlets only protect your hands (maybe forearms), leggings only protect the legs, etc.  So torso protection is 93.1/66.5 for steel plate, head is 79.8 with a steel helm.

Second, divide that by 10 to get approximation of damblock.  So masterwork steel plate is about 18.6/13.2 for the torso, 16.0 for the head, etc.  Weapons are the same way, divide by 10.  A 100 damage masterwork iron spear is the equivalent of a 1:20 piercing natural attack.

Each unit of size difference also basically acts as 1 damblock.  So a size 6 dwarf attacking a size 20 bronze colossus has to overcome 22 damblock.  Each size difference also adds 1 to damage.  That bronze colossus gets 1:14 damage for size on top of its 1:2 punch.

Hopefully this helps balance the mod before playtesting.  There is such a thing as too much Fun, after all.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2010, 10:17:59 am by Arrkhal »
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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2010, 08:25:54 pm »

Impossible to make him immune to some weapons.

Use the [ITEMCORPSE:X] tag to make them drop things on death.

Not sure/cant be bothered with rest.

Give something SPEED:0, it'll zoom past your traps
Except I don't want this boss to be fast. I was actually going to make him move at 80% of a dwarf's speed, so they could actually out-run him. The idea is to make a slow, powerful hulking monster that is nearly impossible to kill, but not much of a threat unless you get up close.


The other ones will be faster though they will also be somewhat weaker and have different abilities.
Beeri Bawl :). You know a lot about hell.

Ahem. Now seriously.
DAMBLOCK is very different from armor value. There was a formula I've posted on the forums which should explain it partially. Basically armor value is a part of a big and obscure part of formula where it's multiplied and divided a few times, while damblock is almost a clean + size difference.

Also the size of a droppable item depends on a size of a creature. So if you make a dwarf-sized creature with high enough damblock it will act as if it was of much bigger size but will drop a usable armor.
I certainly do know about hell. Several of the ideas I'm using come from Agares...

Anyway, I don't want dwarves to use the armor. It's supposed to be just too large(and heavy). They could melt it down though... assuming they could carry it.
It is possible to make the armor so tough that only lucky hits will damage it.

I think size 160 and higher creatures cannot be damaged by legendary weaponskill dwarves wielding masterwork adamantine weapons, except by the damage formula occasionally allowing the dwarf to do one damage when it cannot do damage any other way. So just decrease the size of the creature a little or use the damage formula to translate size into damblock, and give a ton of armor bodyparts that don't have any importance to the life of the creature but decrease the chance that the weapon will hit anything vital, and you have a true threat.
Adding a additional [DEEP] minerals and metals with different (lower) values from Adamantine will increase the difficulty by reducing the effectiveness of the weapons and armor (Mithril at say 250% would be half the strength of Adamantine). There were some mods done to the tentacle and Frog Demons that were interesting and increased their effectiveness, but I don't have them, I'll see if I can find them.

I was actually going to make the new [DEEP] metal only worth 175%, though I may add in a 225% alloy of it and another metal. So...

160 / 5 = 32
32 * 2.55 = 72

If I made this guy Size 60, with a Damblock of 20(Which, according to the damage formula, deducts between 1-20 damage instead of a flat 60 from size), only rare hits would damage him, correct? Hmm... That could work. It would also make him have very powerful attacks  :D

What about special attacks? If I gave something(else) fire breath, webs, and paralyzation, would it use all three randomly? Or just use what it determines to be the strongest one?

EDIT: Hmm... could I make the HFS ride special HFS mounts?
EDIT 2: Could I also change what each HFS looks like? I.E., frogs have mud, tentacles have... white stuff, etc. Could I add in new levels to match the new HFS?
« Last Edit: January 12, 2010, 08:32:30 pm by RandomNumberGenerator »
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Deon

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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #8 on: January 13, 2010, 01:43:37 am »

Yes, I forgot to mention that Damblock is a random number rather than a "pure" size, thus size is much more effective. Also I think critical hits ignore armor, so be careful with internal organs, or bolts (which have in-built increased critical chance, that's why ranged weapons are overpowered) would kill it easily.

If you give the creature webber and ability to spit fire, it will use both.

Now I wonder what determines the "content" of HFS. Probably it's hardcoded in spheres, I should experiment with it.
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i2amroy

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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #9 on: January 13, 2010, 02:57:53 am »

If a creature has multiple special attacks it will use all three whenever they are useable. The only two attacks that override each other are fire breathing and dragonfire breathing, in that case I believe that they will only use the dragonfire.

As for the mount question, that one is a no.

No you can't add in new levels to match the new HFS, however, a person is currently testing to see what matches what in the HFS, check out the post called "what determines the contents of the parade?" by deon on the first page of posts.
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Deon

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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #10 on: January 13, 2010, 03:24:22 am »

Yeah, I will test this evening all possible spheres. I hope there is something hidden there, like an easter egg or unimplemented feature :).
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RandomNumberGenerator

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Re: Questions about monster tags
« Reply #11 on: January 13, 2010, 01:55:53 pm »



Now I wonder what determines the "content" of HFS. Probably it's hardcoded in spheres, I should experiment with it.
Hmm... I'll have to watch your work with that. I had plans for 7 different HFS(including the original three), though if I can't use mounts I guess I'll have to drop that to 6. If changing the spheres dows create different features, I'm sure I can find something to match each group.
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