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[Tinker Thinker]

I've been looking all over for explanations of various things, but nobody seems to know, or if they do know they haven't codified it anywhere, so I ask you all in general:

My biggest issue with modding is that my mods are fairly in depth, and so require an unusually intense comprehension of what exactly does what when dealing with a wide variety of situations. This isn't typically a big issue when the code in question is written. [INTELLIGENT] and [TRANCES] aren't exactly difficult to figure out. But when it comes to numbers, I find myself hopelessly lost as to their meaning, and perhaps more importantly, scale. To demonstrate:

[PERSONALITY:IMMODERATION:0:55:100]
What do these numbers mean?

[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
I can see these are the same, but does that mean (being dwarves) that these are the defaults, or is it coincidental?
And what on earth do the pluses and minuses mean?

Others that confuse me as to their meaning:
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]
Further, I assume BROADNESS has an inherent meaning, or is there some way to insert custom modifiers?

Bone has:
   [IMPACT_YIELD:200000]
   [IMPACT_FRACTURE:200000]
   [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:100]
Wood has:
   [IMPACT_YIELD:10000]
   [IMPACT_FRACTURE:10000]
   [IMPACT_ELASTICITY:1000]
I can gather, from what I know of bone and wood, that the lower numbers are worse, and the higher numbers are better. But is 1000 10x more powerful than 100? Further, what values (and I gather it isn't just these. Does density have an effect?)  can be expected to produce results that are in the same range, as far as combat hardiness goes, for bones, but are not simply bones? Obviously, this goes for the several other stress types that each material has defined.

So far, those are the values that are eluding me. I might add further later when they come to my attention. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

[Max White]

[PERSONALITY:IMMODERATION:0:55:100]
What do these numbers mean?

[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]

I had A LOT of trouble with these too trying to figure them out, don't worry, your not alone. For the [PERSONALITY:IMMODERATION:0:55:100] the three numbers are equal to the range that that race will display. All three numbers will always be between 0 and 100, think of them as being as a percent. The first number is for the lowest they can show. In this case the 0 means they they can show no immoderation at all. The last number shows the MOST they can be, so a 100 will mean they can be immoderate off the charts. The middle number is like the average of the race. Right now it is at 55, meaning they will often show a fair amount of immoderation. IF you changed that to a 20, then some of the race will still be off the chart at 100, but a lot more will be a little relaxed down closer to 20.

[Max White]

[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:75:95:98:100:102:105:125]
Further, I assume BROADNESS has an inherent meaning, or is there some way to insert custom modifiers?

This is a fun one to work with. Remember how in your dwarfs appearance, then will some things like extremely slim, or slightly tall, or very broad? This is what controls that feature.
This time, 100 is normal, everything above it is more, and everything below is less. So if a dwarf happened to have a 200 is height, he would be twice as tall as the average dwarf, and would be kicked out for being an elven spy.

Unlike the personality modifier, this one doesn't work with an average. There is an one in seven chance to get any of the numbers added, but no chance of anything in between. So a dwarf could have a broadness of 75, or 95, but could NEVER have 80.

So lets say for example, you wanted MOST of your dwarfs to be not very broad at all, but once in a while an EXTREMELY broad dwarf turns up, you could do it like this.
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:75:75:75:75:75:75:125]

This would make 6/7 dwarfs have a broadness of 75, and 1/7 have a broadness of 125.

[Vester]

As to the appearance modifiers, I do wish we could mod them. Or at least change the eye modifier from "Slit vs Round" to "Narrow vs Round", so we could use it for someone else.

I tried using the eye shape modifier on a dwarf's head. "His somewhat short head is slit" is not something you want to hear.

[Untelligent]

The yield, fracture, and elasticity things are a bit more complicated. They're based on real-world engineering properties, but if I remember correctly, they're not quite the same units as real-world properties (like DF temperature vs farenheit temperature), and nobody seems to know exactly how to convert from RL to DF units yet (I swear I saw a thread or post somewhere about it, but now I can't find it).

Yield and fracture have to do with how well a material can take damage, but they also affect how well it can give damage.

Elasticity is a particularily tricky one. Though the other two are generally more=better, but with elasticity it seems it can go either way depending on the situation and the other properties of the material. Adamantine has elasticities of 0 across the board, mind you.

[Tinker Thinker]

@Untelligent: Let me give you a hypothetically hypothetical (that is, entirely real) scenario (this should be easier than working out a reasonable scale for the numbers):

Want to create a creature that is, for the most part, one substance. This substance should be such that they can stand up fairly well to whatever a dwarf can throw at them, whilst still ensuring they have the physical stats to pummel dwarves into the ground 1:1 (that is, a skilled fighter creature versus a skilled fighter dwarf would have near 50/50 odds). Given that this creature is a fungiform, I was looking into wood for the physics, but judging from that, going with direct transfer from wood will make them about as pathetic, intrinsically, as the plump helmet man. I'm still not entirely decided about the basic construction of the creature, though. That's something for elsewhere (and something I can for the most part do without assistance). The idea is, however, that it won't be straight bone, but will be reminiscent of plant/fungal matter. I likes me my realisms.

Hmm. I wonder if there's some way to allowing scarring in creatures without skin?

[Max White]

Oh yea, you can do scaring in any tissue, there is a tag for it. You could make the gray matter of your brain scar if you wanted.

[Baneslave]

[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
[MENT_ATT_RANGE:MEMORY:450:950:1150:1250:1350:1550:2250]
I can see these are the same, but does that mean (being dwarves) that these are the defaults, or is it coincidental?
And what on earth do the pluses and minuses mean?

1000 is average for human and pluses and minuses are just comments.

[Tinker Thinker]

Thanks all.

I'm not done yet, though.

Particularly, the information about the Ranges still has a few questions about it:
STRENGTH/MEMORY/ETC. <- These are hardcoded? One couldn't make, (now this is an example), a [MENT_ATT_RANGE:HILARIOUSNESS:VARIABLES] ?

And further, do the numbers themselves hold an inherent meaning? I recall reading that the various numbers affect their description, reaching a certain value displaces you that much from the normal, etc. - However, for these numbers, does it matter which numbers it is? Would
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:75:75:75:75:75:75:125]
hold a different meaning than
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:3:3:3:3:3:3:5] (a simplified proportion)?

Now, a question about Castes:
What information cannot be caste specific? I want to know how far I can push it with various castes of a single species. For instance, can they have unique tiles, personalities, body constructions, intelligence, tissues, sizes, appearances, mannerisms, frequencies, etc. ?

Another way of looking at the question: Is there anything in the "Dwarf" all-caste information that could not be made caste specific?

Further: I'm going to assume that combat values and abilities can be caste-specific. So, this means one could create natural weapons and such for a specific caste. . .

[Deon]

STRENGTH/MEMORY/ETC. <- These are hardcoded?

Yes they are, because they are real stats, and you cannot add new stats (and I don't see why would you want, because you cannot change stats' roles).

Would [BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:75:75:75:75:75:75:125]
hold a different meaning than
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:3:3:3:3:3:3:5] (a simplified proportion)?

The scale here is in percent, so it's not just a proportion. In the second example, you will have always extremely thin creatures.

[Tinker Thinker]

Okay, thanks, that makes sense. However, this means certain values ("extremely" and "somewhat", etc.") are tied to certain percentages? What percentages are these?

[Deon]

0 = extremely low, 100 = normal, 200 = extremely high. You could guess it because 100 is a median .

I think different names change at 25*x values (0,25,50,75,100 etc.).

[Vester]

In that vein, is there a descriptor for "big" and "small"?

EDIT:

Or are we really just limited to the stock descriptors? Because "His extremely tall head is extremely broad" is a bit clumsier than "His head is extremely big".

[Deon]

Hardcoded it is.

[Vester]

Darn. Oh well.

What is it that makes something "average-sized for a dragon" or "extremely gigantic"? Just the body size modifiers?