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[rufio]

So, going through the Legends for one of my worlds, I notice several "historical figures" near the end of the list.  They are (according to the detail screen) wagons named "", and are "one of the first of their kind".  There's then usually just one entry about being scuttled in some city or other, but I think they are listed as members of a civ.  They are also listed in the exported world info as being residents of the cities they were scuttled in.  And, looking at the raws, it appears that wagons are actually defined as creatures with a lot of special flags to prevent you from butchering them and stuff.

This begs the question - what if you modded those raws to make the wagons butcherable, or breedable, or civable, or something?  Would we have entire wagon civs that are scuttled away as soon as adventurers visit them?  Would we be able to cage and tame the wagon we start with in Dwarf mode?  Would it breed through spores with the traders' wagons?  Would the elves be upset at being sold a nice *wagon meat roast*?  Should we try it, for science?

[Jay]

The tag that makes them wagons implies all the tags that prevent those things, unfortunately.

[rufio]

And the wagon tag is what makes it possible for them to show up with traders/on embark/etc?  Oh well, it was a thought.

Why are wagons defined as creatures, anyway, though?  Wouldn't it have made more sense to treat them like some kind of mobile building?

[Lord Dakoth]

Well, if they weren't creatures, what else will there be? Unless I am sorely mistaken, there is no "vehicles" category as of yet, and mobile buildings would likely require quite a good deal of work on Toady's part to implement.

Keep in mind that the game is still in alpha. My guess is that a new category of units will be created, including wagons and siege devices (catapults and ballista, maybe rams.)

Of course, who can know the mind of the Toady One?

[rufio]

Well, they can be deconstructed for materials, like buildings, and they don't do anything creatures do - the wagon that actually belongs to your fortress doesn't even move, IIRC.  If there's not a dedicated vehicle class, you're going to have to make it something else and add a lot of exception tags to it, but the choice to make a creature seems strange.  If nothing else, it'd be much more natural to see it listed with the buildings in Legends mode than the historical figures.

Personally, as a programmer, it seems to me that making a vehicle class or mobile building subclass is much simpler and less time-consuming than, say, making elaborate simulations of body parts and how wounding/removing them affects the way multitudinous creatures with a wide variety of different body structures behave.  I'm sure the reason why that is implemented and a mobile building class is not has much more to do with which parts of the project are most important to Toady One, and less to do with a mobile building class requiring too much work.

[3]

The wagon that shows up on embark isn't the same thing as the other wagons, as far as I know. It's a building made out of 3 wood, whereas the wagons traders show up with are creatures with a wood racegloss.

Any wagons you come across in Adventurer mode are of the latter type - the only time the former type is generated is when the player embarks to a location. Also, any and all wagons you come across in Adventurer mode will immediately scuttle, probably as a failsafe to make sure you don't go over and try to speak to them or something.

[Luna]

I made a wagon civ once. Pagefulls of "Candlenut peasant has been scuttled" as soon as I entered town.  I've been tinkering around trying to find a way to stop it but I've been unsuccesful.

[rufio]

Heh - they still get modifiers based on the type of wood?  Do the oak wagons only mate with other oak wagons, or is it random?  Do they trade with you in dwarf mode?

The wagon that shows up on embark isn't the same thing as the other wagons, as far as I know. It's a building made out of 3 wood, whereas the wagons traders show up with are creatures with a wood racegloss.

Yeah, that would make sense.

[3]

Raceglosses are a bit strange, but they'll work on any creature, so you could technically have a race with HAS_RACEGLOSS:METAL and you'll get steel ones, copper ones, and so on. I'm not sure if the specific materials that appear have anything to do with biomes or whether the material is actually ever naturally generated or not (say, it's an alloy).

Give them the proper material tags and they'll all have individual qualities based on the properties of the metals as well. Fun.

[valcon]

Every time I see a wagon "scuttled", I imagine a dwarf with a really curly mustache lighting a bomb on it and running away screaming "YOU'LL NEVER HAVE ME LUCKY CHARMSSSSSS!"

[Biag]

Even better than a wagon civ- give them the [MOUNT] tag or whatever horses have, and watch humans show up on their new chariots!

More surprising than that they showed up in Legends at all is that their names were empty strings. I would have figured they'd be handled like pets.

[Doomshifter]

Raceglosses are a bit strange, but they'll work on any creature, so you could technically have a race with HAS_RACEGLOSS:METAL and you'll get steel ones, copper ones, and so on. I'm not sure if the specific materials that appear have anything to do with biomes or whether the material is actually ever naturally generated or not (say, it's an alloy).

Give them the proper material tags and they'll all have individual qualities based on the properties of the metals as well. Fun.

Ah, that racegloss tag is fun.
Back when I was working on my Pokemon mod, I had Magnemite with that tag. My friend (who was play-testing for me) found two adamantine Magnemites, and killed them for two adamantine wafers.

[G-Flex]

Personally, as a programmer, it seems to me that making a vehicle class or mobile building subclass is much simpler and less time-consuming than, say, making elaborate simulations of body parts and how wounding/removing them affects the way multitudinous creatures with a wide variety of different body structures behave.

You know he doesn't have to do both at the same time, right? Toady has plans for mobile building-like things and so forth.


But yeah, the reason wagons are implemented as creatures is that it's just the best way to do it before things like mobile structures get implemented as a whole.

[Lord Urist]

@Doomshifter: in the actual name of the Magnemite, did it say 'Adamantine Magnemite', or did it just say 'Magnemite', and you find out that it's adamantine after you kill it, and it drops some wafers? Because from what I've found, the metal racegloss doesn't change the name, unless I'm doing something wrong, and I'm really hoping I'm wrong.

[G-Flex]

I believe it might, as I've seen a lot of "Kapok Wagons" and such in the game.