I'm allowed to double post to announce an update, right? Megaprojects are in. I got it done today, after all, by procrastinating on my CS homework. Good to know I've got my priorities straight. What do you guys think of the writing style here? I'm thinking it's a fair bit better (and I should go fix the Legends section, because it sounds like it was written by a completely different person), but tips are solicited!
The Bloodfist is mostly stone, right? Or is it wood? Or metal? I'll change it to whichever is accurate.
EDIT: And yeah, don't worry about it Itnetlolor, time is no issue, especially for work of the caliber you seem to be putting in. Kickass, man.
Bloodfist contents:
80% wood
10% metal (statues and boilers)
7% stone (mechanisms and symbol)
3% blood and dwarven souls.
As for my caliber of work, I'm quite skilled and all (and not to brag, this is quick and clean work I can get done in less than an hour with full commitment), and I do work frighteningly quickly. I'm just lazy. I mean, look at just how long it took to get Bloodfist done (or just about anything else). Part of it was a temporary give-up, but much of it was also laziness and being distracted with real life and work. It took me a year to get 4-6 months (probably even less. Make that weeks instead) tops of work done. Kinda the same reason I've been procrastinating the community fort for the Bloodfist.
If anything, I ironically tend to get more work done when I'm bored or in the right "lazy" mindset, than I do when I need to get something done. It's odd. I mean, anything I plan or promise, I continue to put off rather often. Unplanned things or whims seem to get done at amazing speeds.
So to put it, I get moods rather often any given day (where I get tons of random crap done within 12 hours; I timed it myself) however, if at best, I get 1 or 2 planned things (out of maybe 4-8) done. Hell, I have to-do lists I intentionally leave blank nowadays. Basically, if I really don't want to do something, I'll plan on it. I know I'll procrastinate no matter what; of course planning around that, my mind tends to put it off.
(Bloodfist pic)
If I had one of these, I guarantee the Treasury would pay attention to my suggestions.
The Bloodfist is the Dwarven way of kicking physics in the balls. This masterwork boat is suspended in midair by windmills. Morbo would have an aneurysm. Standing completely free when its docking bridges are raised, the Bloodfist is armed with enough ballistae to stick an elephant to the far side of the Grand Canyon (that's actually just one ballista, they're pretty much badass). This is a steampunk airship carved from stone and bearing a uranium-ore reactor. That's right. If some hypothetical god-being were to smash this doomsday ship to the ground in a puff of sudden natural laws, the damn thing would only go nuclear. It's pretty clear that the Bloodfist is blackmailing Mother Nature.
Actually, I have all the features listed in the OP of the project. It's got 2 ballistae actually. It was built from wood, through and through, built with copper boilers to keep it working with fluctuating pressures, it theoretically uses the pitchblende (like red dust in minecraft) as a catalyst for the boilers to work overtime with over 200% efficiency; oh, and you forgot about the psychic computer technology I have established on the command centers/(bridges, as they're also known as), AKA- the Chenjesu computers. Well over 300 lives were spent making this monster get built. And the souls were so damn stubborn, even when the only connection to the dry-dock was severed, and there were no engines yet (boilers weren't even finished (as logged somewhere)), the ship defied physics entirely, and was supported by the spirits of at least 100 souls that worked on it previously. The reclaimers of that (and this was a year after the previous downfall) and wandering adventurers were baffled beyond reason, and claimed the land cursed. That is, until the next wave of workers decided to take on the death trap, and finish it once and for all.
Everyone that worked on that project defined badass one way or another. I mean Lucca is still one of my favorite to talk about because she calmed and rebuilt the entire fort (and retained the supplies) after a rather violent tantrum spiral took on the whole fort, and infected even her. She was the only sane dwarf left, and managed to restabilize, re-evaluate, and rebuild, and FINISH the project. Her insanity that broke her mind allowed her to communicate with the spirits of the site and her old mentor (of the original original team that started the project in the first place) and got everything done (with her fine touches here and there) and working better than expected. Oh right, and she still continues to live, and has exchanged her mayoral services for at least a season in order to dedicate herself wholeheartedly to the project.
EDIT EDIT:
Correction. Just peeked at my notes. Make that a tally of 350 lives total that were spent making the ship. Think of it as 1 soul-per-cubic meter.