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[Kipi]

FFUUUUU.....

Apparently there is no possibility of producing bones, shells and skulls from reaction. 

It seems that I have to get around this problem. The easiest way would be to have inorganic minerals which use the appropriate template, like SHELL_TEMPLATE or BONE_TEMPLATE. Those minerals can be used in corresponding reactions, like creating bone bolts or being used as shell material in mood... right?

The basic idea is to create new mineral type, called amber. Each fossil creatures have own amber mineral, but the name is same for everybody, so there is no way to know which creature the amber will hold before extracting the fossil. 

EDIT: On the other hand, there is no way to tell the reactions to check the type of amber and give correct products basing on the amber type. This means clutter of "extract amber" reactions in manager and workshop. The possibility is, of course, make it automatic, so the player doesn't have to bother with assigning the reaction every single time new amber has been mined. To avoid the clutter in workshop I think I should make new workshop to the task, so that no other workshop gets cluttered.

[Kipi]

Okay, while working with new features I decided to finally upload a version which contains only the files in raws, init, NO AQUIFER and Manual -folder. While being smaller package it's also Mac and Linux compatible!

You can get the new package here, the link is also in the first post.

So, back to modding! 

[Kipi]

Status update:

I have been working with archeology, and so far I have four different type of ambers, one for each of the following creatures: unicorn, dragon, turtle and sasquatch. Each amber, when extracted, will have a chance of producing bone, shell or horn depending on the type of amber. Each of these fossiled are handled as gems, as that's the best way to implement them and fossils are in fact mineralized organic materials. So, while there is no rough fossils there will be cut fossils, which can be either used in respective reactions (shell fossils for shell decoration, bone fossils for bone products and so on) as well as encrusting.

I have also new workshop, called Archeological stand (name may be changing if I figure out better one), where all the processing of ambers and other excavated things will be processed. Processing uses strand extracting -skill for now.

I have also created new soil layer, called Archaeological layer (the only okay name I was able to figure out, anyone has any suggestion for replacement?), and from that layer you can find all the things (furnitures, items and so on) which has been left by intelligent creatures. There will be several "artifact" like weapons and armors which can only be get from excavating the layer.


In other news, I have found out few small bugs as well, like vikings suffering from the same graphical problem as vampires some time ago. The problem is caused by SOLDIER_ALTTILE. Also there is some naming issues, like most of the vikings sieging the fortress labeled as "a viking the viking". This may be caused by culling, haven't managed to fix it yet.

Speaking of vikings, I have finally been sieged by them. The sieges come quite early, and they attack with huge armies. Fortunately they usually aren't much of threat, I had one soldier equipped with copper axe and iron armor, and he was able to crush three consequent sieges without taking too many injuries. When the fourth siege came he had over forty notable kills under his belt, and the only reason the fortress fell was because he decided to go to sleep just when the fourth siege came. With no other soldiers (I had few warriors but no equipment for them) and my heroic defender being slaughtered in his bed the fortress had no chance against 40+ vikings. Even my traps were not enough to hold the siege at bay, as approximately half of the attackers were able to infiltrate the fortress. The blood ran everywhere, and within minutes my grand fortress of 140 dwarves crumbled to dust. 

[Talanic]

Bugs:

One of the Runes comes out as "Stone" when made. Can't remember which one, sadly.  Edit:  It's the one that starts with "I", I think.

The version on the front page has temperature off.  I'm assuming that's why Cursed Stone doesn't evaporate in the version I'm playing.  Attempting to turn it back on got a crash, possibly because there's so MUCH cursed stone to evaporate now.

Smelting Native Platinum results in Palladium Bars.

Edit:  Attempting to make Rune Steel results in nothing every time I try.  I've looked at the reaction and it appears to have no failure chance...any insight?  Another edit:  Praying for blessed Axes works.  Praying for Blessed Shields gets me Steel Bayonetted Crossbows.  Weird.

The following aren't actually bugs but are my feedback on the mod.

I had a Viking Siege that I couldn't handle, so I walled off.  The next Siege arrived and the current one hasn't left yet.  I currently have approximately 300 Vikings (or thereabouts - counting mounts, about 25 pages of invaders in the U-menu) and 75 dwarves, three of whom are Military caste.

Edit:  Some of them *have* left, so I'm not in quite as bad a situation as before.  Still, kinda funny that I only ever got two caravans before having to seal myself in.

I understand the idea behind the Castes and think it can be cool, but penalizing all non-Military dwarves to 20% or lower combat skill gain is a bit harsh.  Similarly, Nobles are of sharply limited use; considering that under a Feudal system, which is what the Dwarves appear to be, Nobles were often defined as "the guys who owned the best armor and weapons, so nobody else could tell them that they DIDN'T own the land", this seems harsh.  I'd actually consider giving Nobles a boost towards learning military skills, possibly even faster than Military dwarves, but without the physical enhancements that make the Military dwarves superb.

Similarly, the Bone Meal Flux occurs at a horrible rate of exchange.  Because dwarves don't separate out bones, it translates to one fuel and three skeletons per unit of flux; I understand this may be realistic, but I'd increase the proportion some.  Also, Bone Meal Flux is considered to be a low-value Stone that goes to any Stone stockpile and can't be restricted. 

I think it would be better to simplify the Religion section a little.  There's too many steps to Rune Totems for me to want to hunt through the runes each time I want to make one totem that may or may not result in me losing an axe, or getting one that's been 'blessed' but has been reduced from Masterwork to well-crafted.  Can you force it to use a Masterwork axe - perhaps take two of them, bless one, and sacrifice the other?  I think it's unwieldy to make the player bless ten stones, hunt down which runes he needs and make ten runes, make two totems, make holy water, then convert an axe to a blessed axe. 

Honestly I think the Runes are the biggest problem I have (other than the bugs, which happen, y'know?).  Having to queue up twenty-four different combines for one item that may or may not be worthwhile is frustrating, especially with the different runes not appearing in any particular order in the runecrafting screen.  Making the totems directly out of sacred stones (and having the totem names reflect what they're for - otherwise you have to check RAWs to learn) would streamline the process.



All in all, I'm enjoying this mod quite a bit. 

[Kipi]

Thanks for the feedback!

Those bugs have apparently evaded my attention. As saying in my field of study (IT and especially software development) goes, "The coder is usually blind to bugs and mistakes he has made himself". That's why it's always good to get some feedback.

Bugs:
One of the Runes comes out as "Stone" when made. Can't remember which one, sadly.  Edit:  It's the one that starts with "I", I think.

It was "Isa" rune, which was missing part of the [IS_GEM] tag.

The version on the front page has temperature off.  I'm assuming that's why Cursed Stone doesn't evaporate in the version I'm playing.  Attempting to turn it back on got a crash, possibly because there's so MUCH cursed stone to evaporate now.

The temperature left off was mistake of my side, as I uploaded version which I used for testing. Basically I keep two version of each release, one in folder label ie. "DFA 0.3.3 - Copy". In this case I used the original version in testing, and I usually play temperature off due my laptop being bad (which is not the case anymore as I have new laptop. YAY!  ).

The problem of game crashing is most probably due the high amount of cursed stone evaporating simultaneously, just like you suspected. How much is too much depends the computer though.

Smelting Native Platinum results in Palladium Bars.

Not exactly, the mod just had wrong name for Native Palladium. You were really smelting palladium, as I never touched Native Platinum. It's fixed now...

Edit:  Attempting to make Rune Steel results in nothing every time I try.  I've looked at the reaction and it appears to have no failure chance...any insight?  Another edit:  Praying for blessed Axes works.  Praying for Blessed Shields gets me Steel Bayonetted Crossbows.  Weird.

The steel problem was more elusive. There was one extra ":" in the product line, making the tag to start like [PRODUCT::100:1...]. THis caused the game to think that there was 0% chance of producing 100 bars of steel. The same problem applied to every rune metal.

For the Blessed shield, well, the only problem I was able to locate was that the product line used WEAPON instead of SHIELD as item token. Otherwise I can't see why the game would mistake the product to Bayonetted Crossbow.

I had a Viking Siege that I couldn't handle, so I walled off.  The next Siege arrived and the current one hasn't left yet.  I currently have approximately 300 Vikings (or thereabouts - counting mounts, about 25 pages of invaders in the U-menu) and 75 dwarves, three of whom are Military caste.

Edit:  Some of them *have* left, so I'm not in quite as bad a situation as before.  Still, kinda funny that I only ever got two caravans before having to seal myself in.

In 0.3.3 version Vikings only required 50 dwarves to lay a siege, which basically causes them to siege during second year. I have changed the production trigger to 2, so that should hold them back a bit. Also, I made them active only during winter, so you should get those sieges less often.

Now, the [SIEGER] tag may be the cause of the siegers lingering near the fortress so long that new sieges manage to arrive before old ones have left. Now that they are active only during winter this shouldn't be such a problem anymore.

I understand the idea behind the Castes and think it can be cool, but penalizing all non-Military dwarves to 20% or lower combat skill gain is a bit harsh.  Similarly, Nobles are of sharply limited use; considering that under a Feudal system, which is what the Dwarves appear to be, Nobles were often defined as "the guys who owned the best armor and weapons, so nobody else could tell them that they DIDN'T own the land", this seems harsh.  I'd actually consider giving Nobles a boost towards learning military skills, possibly even faster than Military dwarves, but without the physical enhancements that make the Military dwarves superb.

Lots of good suggestions in that section. Yes, I have been wondering myself how balanced those learning rates are. So, for now, I'm changing commoners learning rate to 50 and nobles learning rate to 120, which is a bit higher than what warriors have.

One of my future plans is, when Toady makes it possible, that certain positions can only been filled by certain castes. So, when that's possible, only nobles will be able to fill the military leader positions. But that's something probably in distant future.

Similarly, the Bone Meal Flux occurs at a horrible rate of exchange.  Because dwarves don't separate out bones, it translates to one fuel and three skeletons per unit of flux; I understand this may be realistic, but I'd increase the proportion some.  Also, Bone Meal Flux is considered to be a low-value Stone that goes to any Stone stockpile and can't be restricted. 

I changed the reagent requirement to 1 bone, so it's 1:1 now. But yeah, the handling of bones is quite buggy currently. Hopefully Toady gets around to fix that.

The reason why Bone Meal Flux didn't appear in stockpile settings was because it was missing the [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STONE_TEMPLATE]. It's fixed now.

I think it would be better to simplify the Religion section a little.  There's too many steps to Rune Totems for me to want to hunt through the runes each time I want to make one totem that may or may not result in me losing an axe, or getting one that's been 'blessed' but has been reduced from Masterwork to well-crafted.  Can you force it to use a Masterwork axe - perhaps take two of them, bless one, and sacrifice the other?  I think it's unwieldy to make the player bless ten stones, hunt down which runes he needs and make ten runes, make two totems, make holy water, then convert an axe to a blessed axe. 

Honestly I think the Runes are the biggest problem I have (other than the bugs, which happen, y'know?).  Having to queue up twenty-four different combines for one item that may or may not be worthwhile is frustrating, especially with the different runes not appearing in any particular order in the runecrafting screen.  Making the totems directly out of sacred stones (and having the totem names reflect what they're for - otherwise you have to check RAWs to learn) would streamline the process.

Yes, you are right, the rune section needs a lot of tweaking. As far as I know the runes are listed in the workshop in the order they appear in raws, though I'm not sure. So, as all the rune reactions are in single file I could try to rearrange them to proper order. I have also been thinking of removing the runes which are not used right now, there are lots of those currently. And rune totems could be made to require only blessed stones, the number of stones required could depend on how long the word is, currently ranging from 2 to 6. The production probability is a leftover from the time when the runes didn't exists, I should definitely tweak those up. Basically all the reactions that require runes or rune totems would have 100% chance for the production, and only those that don't require runes may have lower. How does that sound?

All in all, I'm enjoying this mod quite a bit.

Nice to hear that people are enjoying this! 

So, I'll upload new version later today or early tomorrow morning, depends on if I manage to make all those tweaks in religion this evening. The new features must wait a bit longer as I have been rather busy with university, work and now that I have new laptop I need to spend some time to set it up properly. But fixed version is definitely coming out soon! 

EDIT:
"Engraved on the forum is a superiorly designed image of Kipi the modder and laptop. Kipi is staring at the laptop. Kipi is drooling. The artwork relates to the buying of Lenovo laptop by Kipi in the later spring of 2011."

Sorry, couldn't resist...

[Talanic]

No problem, and as a former programming student myself, I know exactly what you mean about bugs.

Totems coming straight from Blessed Stones would be the biggest step in the right direction, but increased percent chances of success would be nifty too.

Edit: I can't make Titanium.  I suspect this may be deliberate, and only Drow are supposed to be able to do that, but thought I'd mention it just in case (and, while I'm at it, curse my Baron and his hunger for the material...)

[Kipi]

Edit: I can't make Titanium.  I suspect this may be deliberate, and only Drow are supposed to be able to do that, but thought I'd mention it just in case (and, while I'm at it, curse my Baron and his hunger for the material...)

Only for drows. Just hope they siege you with equipment made from it or accident is required... 

[Talanic]

Or a Deluxe Jail.  Includes a high-priority food stockpile (prepared meals only), booze stockpile, bed, throne and table for each inmate.

Also, I'm wondering exactly what Blessing does - since the game doesn't actually rely on damage rolls or the like (doesn't it?), how does it enhance the shield or weapon?  Is Rune metal more dense, harder, lighter?  Does it make better armor, or just better weapons?

Lastly, very intriguing...wands can be used in Weapon Traps.  As I don't think Holy dwarves are common enough to risk, I suspect that's where I'm going to use them most.  This should be very fun.

Edit:  I probably just suck at genning worlds, but the last two attempted embarks have found that one had no dwarven civilizations that had access to booze, and the other with a lava spout that reached 280 Z-levels above ground level.  It had a *cotton candy* vein inside of it, with a *funhouse slide* almost the entire length, resulting in 12,000 *raw cotton candy* ore on the propsector screen.  Of course, immediately after I unpaused, the lava started to drain, both into the underground cavern layer and onto the surface, enveloping all dwarves within about a hundred or so frames (4 fps). 

[Talanic]

I just ran into an issue, of sorts.  Basically, the value of Rune metals needs to be tweaked; one of my immigrants in my first wave was a hunter who showed up with a full quiver of Rune Steel Bolts, which was nearly enough dwarfbucks to buy the entire first caravan.

[Kipi]

Also, I'm wondering exactly what Blessing does - since the game doesn't actually rely on damage rolls or the like (doesn't it?), how does it enhance the shield or weapon?  Is Rune metal more dense, harder, lighter?  Does it make better armor, or just better weapons?

From top of my head the rune metals have better MAX_EDGE stat as well as cause syndrome when stuck inside creature (currently only affects vampires, but going to expand it a bit later).

Blessed axe has at least higher velocity multiplier, which causes it to do better damage. Blessed shield has higher block chance.

Those are what I can remember immediately, going to check the raws when I get a chance.

Lastly, very intriguing...wands can be used in Weapon Traps.  As I don't think Holy dwarves are common enough to risk, I suspect that's where I'm going to use them most.  This should be very fun.

And why didn't I think THAT before? 
But seriously, the whole wand/spell system may be a bit broken. First there is that issue of wands being used in traps, nothing in there that I can do. Another problem, which I haven't yet been able to neither confirm nor deny, is if the alchemy skill actually raises. Haven't seen such thing yet, though haven't done much testing with the latest version in that feature.

Edit:  I probably just suck at genning worlds, but the last two attempted embarks have found that one had no dwarven civilizations that had access to booze, and the other with a lava spout that reached 280 Z-levels above ground level.  It had a *cotton candy* vein inside of it, with a *funhouse slide* almost the entire length, resulting in 12,000 *raw cotton candy* ore on the propsector screen.  Of course, immediately after I unpaused, the lava started to drain, both into the underground cavern layer and onto the surface, enveloping all dwarves within about a hundred or so frames (4 fps).

Haven't had any problems with genning, besides one occasion when there was one single collapse announcement, but nothing visibly happened.

I just ran into an issue, of sorts.  Basically, the value of Rune metals needs to be tweaked; one of my immigrants in my first wave was a hunter who showed up with a full quiver of Rune Steel Bolts, which was nearly enough dwarfbucks to buy the entire first caravan.

Ah, going to fix that one too. Never actually decided to use rune metals for trading, and dwarven caravans hardly ever bring any.


EDIT: All the bugs and balance problems mentioned have been fixed. I'll spend an hour or so to check if there some others which I haven't noticed before and then I'll upload the new version.

[Kipi]

Okay, decided to upload the new version already. Thanks to Talanic for extensive testing and suggestions!

Changelog:

Code: [Select]

v. 0.3.4
   - Fixes:
      -> Several problems relating to runes and rune metals
      -> Bug which caused Blessed shields reaction return Bayonetted Crossbow
      -> Native Palladium was named Native Platinum
      -> Bone Meal Flux was missing [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STONE_TEMPLATE] tag.
      -> Viking invaders are now displayed properly
   - Tweaks
      -> Removed all the runes which weren't used
      -> Making rune totems now require Sacred Stones instead of runes.
      -> All reactions that use runes have 100% chance of giving the product.
      -> Vikings come later and only during winter.
      -> Bone Meal Flux now only require one stack of bones.
      -> Rune metals have lower material value
      -> Sacrificing metals in temple gives now 2 bars of the new metal. This is to balance the fact that altars produce one bar every time.
      -> Commoners now learn fighting skills with rate of 50, while nobles have learning rate of 120.
Just note that this upload doesn't have manual updated, as I stated already in the original post. The Word -version of it is in my old laptop, so had no access to it. I'll update and put it online later.

[Kipi]

Okay, version 0.3.5 is up!

This is only a small quickfix, removed the unused reactions of removed runes as well as fixed few of the broken rune metal reactions.

[waerth]

Quick question. Which dwarf will use the crematory? I have loads of vermin on my refuse pile.

I tried making:
Furnace Operator
Wood Burner

as those seemed the logical ones but nothing is happening

It is working now. It was Wood Burner LOL

Also I just started in 3.3 in what I feel is a kickass location if I upgrade do I get all of the new stuff or not because the world is already genned?

W

[Kipi]

Tweaked reactions should work as well as the changes affecting viking sieges.

Removal of several reactions from Dwarf entity should work as well, though I'm not entirely sure about that. Learning rates are the same, those should work but I don't know before testing.

The removal of several runes may cause some serious problems, though not sure.

Now, if you don't have played your current fort too much you could export the world details, then gen exact same world in the new version. Geographically the world should be identical, as I have not touched anything that affects it. Civilizations could be affected a bit though I suppose not much.

[waerth]

Damn decisions decisions decisions.

I am only in the second year but am building a nicely carved out fortress with a building on top for my dwarfs to life in.

Like in all my other games (which usually get deleted by the beginning of the 2nd year sofar as I am not satisfied!) no sieges ambushes or anything like that.

I now feel I have the perfect embark. Most metals, flux, a volcano, a high nice mountain towering the volcano and a deep valley where 2 rivers meet. I really do not want to give up on this one. I dont know how to export world details and I wouldnt know how to find the exact location back on the map

Funny thing is, first time I genned a world with your mod and bingo I find this sweetspot. I have genned 30 worlds or so in Vanilla in the past month since I found DF.

I still have to learn how to build a military though ...... I limited my fortress entrance to 1 tile and learned how to use burrows just today.

I just started preparations for a skybridge from the mountain to the top of the volcano to make a downward staircase in it to the magma to build a floating platform of forges above it (protected from magma creatures off course) the idea is to build a magma carrying pipe or bridge in conjunction to bring magma to above my entrance in case I get attacked .......

This embark is perfect for all of that and also for my tower of gold project it has enough gold :p

W