Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[deoxy]

OK, didn't see anything on this, but I'm sure it must have been suggested a thousand times:

"either/or" reaction results.  That is, a chance to get something, and a chance to get something else, but not both.

Actually, I think it would be pretty easy to implement a much more powerful system than that - simply have a way to make several products share the same random percentage number result, then assign "success" ranges.  They could overlap (or not) as desired.

Example: Lead to gold
-reagent: 1 bar of lead
-product: 1-50: 1 bar of lead
-product: 51-100: 1 bar of gold

This would give a 50% chance to turn lead to gold, but if it failed, you'd still have your lead to try again.  This is obviously a very simple example.  You could have the ranges overlap (where you could one, the other, both, or neither) as you like, producing reactions where you usually get X but might get Y instead, but you can only get Z if you get X, etc.

The other idea is closely related, and has surely also be suggested: some skill level that changes the chances of success.  Easiest example: Alchemy.

So, our lead to gold example would mark one of them as "success", and some type of skill modifier would skew the results.

So, I'm sure these must have been suggested before, and I'd be surprised if SOMETHING like this isn't on the list somewhere... but I'm just not seeing it.

Anybody more knowledgeable about development plans care to share some info?

[praguepride]

I thought there was something like this in place already? that certain materials have a chance of producing great stuff instead of just normal stuff...

edit: http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Galena

Check it out. It produces lead with a 50% chance of producing silver.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think what he means is that he wants, for example, galena to produce one bar of lead OR one bar of silver, not a chance at producing two bars, with lead being a certain outcome.

Something like an if-else statement.

----

I would also like to see a chance-of-success modifier based on skill levels.  There's already something of a model in the way that crops can fail if you have a low-skill grower.  One could simply make a quality check, and make anything below a certain grade of quality fail and produce nothing but useless byproducts.

[Capntastic]

The problem here is that in the future a crummy worker might have a reaction fail, which in your alchemy case, would result in the lead bar not changing- not changing into an entirely new lead bar.   Also, reactions aren't something that 'may go one way, may go another'.   If you add baking soda and vinegar in the same amounts, you're going to get the same reaction.

The galena thing is because it's an ore and that's the best way to simulate different levels of impurity.

[deoxy]

Also, reactions aren't something that 'may go one way, may go another'.   If you add baking soda and vinegar in the same amounts, you're going to get the same reaction.

reactions are exactly what they are made to be.  If all you can think of is baking soda and vinegar, yes, that's all you'll ever get.

However, some of us want to be able to do other things.

Here's another simple example: a gift box.  What's inside?  Well, currently, to "unwrap" such an item would require a reaction, it would always have to give the same thing, OR there's a chance you could get everything it could ever give, all at once (or any combination of some of them... including none).

There are countless ways in which it would be useful to be able to have exclusive choices (exactly one of these, no more, no less).  Being able to overlap them in interesting ways would be even better.

I'd be shocked if this hasn't been suggested several times before... anyway, I wasn't soliciting feedback (it would be a VERY useful thing, even you some people don't understand why), I was asking people in the know what the status is.