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More tech tree!

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Total Members Voted: 137

[Lovechild]

I don't know if this has been reported already, but nephilim traders can't unload their goods, they just abandon their pack animals and fly around the depot for a while before leaving. The pack animals follow them off the map.

Anyway, very nice mod.

[Lexx]

Just wanted to say what your doing is great. I was starting my own mod but this mod has most of what i want in a mod. As a suggestion would you add in orcs? I can send the basic orc creature and civ I have made if you want to add them to your mod.

[Pan]

Nephilims are not here to trade, and are merely stopping by your fortress as a resting station. That's the lore. The technical part is that fliers cannot path with their merchant animals, so they won't trade.

Just wanted to say what your doing is great. I was starting my own mod but this mod has most of what i want in a mod. As a suggestion would you add in orcs? I can send the basic orc creature and civ I have made if you want to add them to your mod.

 It's always nice to have another different race to throw into the arena. Although, thinking on that, orcs are already in a ton of other mods... maybe you could change their race and appearances, but keep the raws for the whole 'proud warrior race' theme?

[Lovechild]

I see. Well, their first appearance at my fort inspired me to a story:

It was just another day at Cruxboulder. Dwarves were running to and fro, working on the fortress' mighty battlements. Suddenly one of the masons shouted, "Angels!"

The dwarves dropped their work and looked to the skies. Two winged beings, tall yet beautiful, soared effortlessly high above the ground. Between themselves they were carrying a water buffalo, heavily laden with packs and bags. They nodded approvingly at the dwarves, then dropped the water buffalo.

The animal fell screaming and hit the ground, blowing apart in an explosion of blood and limbs. The wares it was carrying scattered everywhere. Above, the angels flew away. The dwarves gazed at them in wonder, until they disappeared in the clouds.

Then, the dwarves ran out of the fortress to gather the goods strewn about the buffalo's remains. "The gods have blessed us!" they cried. "Praise to the angels!"

[narhiril]

Just wanted to say what your doing is great. I was starting my own mod but this mod has most of what i want in a mod. As a suggestion would you add in orcs? I can send the basic orc creature and civ I have made if you want to add them to your mod.

Bog trolls are basically my version of Orcs, but much larger.  They draw pretty heavily from the Warhammer universe, but use more traditionally orcish graphics (jet black skin and horns).  That being said, I have set up LFR so that it does not conflict with other civilization mods, so you're free to put Fortress Defense or your own civilization in on top of it without causing any technical problems.

I am a bit fed up with civilizations at the moment, to be completely honest.  They're very fun to make, but a nightmare to try to balance, especially when you start getting more than 5 or 6 of them.  My current stand on civilizations is best summed up as follows.

-LFR has all of the civilizations it needs to utilize its current features.  As new features become possible, new civilizations will be looked into as an option for exploring them.

-LFR's current number of (mostly) balanced civilizations is restricted by hard limits on inter-civilization relations and my desire to make LFR challenging, but not as overwhelming as the constant attacking armies of Fortress Defense.  If these limits are expanded, civilization development will also follow.  The "military arc" that Toady has planned will likely factor into this, but it is too early to make any serious speculation.  A token to force hostilities between specific entities would allow some relief from the pressure of constant siege by forcing armies to fight each other when both arrive on your doorstep, but this is currently impossible to do.

-The (currently theoretical) diplomatic tokens would allow some previously impossible or horribly unbalanced features, such as a civilization of extreme power that is hostile to everyone (the "common enemy" or "greater evil"), or a civilization of "peacekeepers."

If, however, you sent me your Orc creature raws, I would be more than happy to include the creature and create graphics for it.  It would not be a full civilization as of yet, but it would be complete and usable in the arena.  Credit, of course, will be given.

---


Trivia: There is actually a language file for the originally planned "extreme power" civilization included as part of LFR, but it is not used by any current civilizations.  This civilization was meant to be based in the deserts/savannahs and attacked in vast numbers.  Though the original idea was shelved pending further developments, occassionally a world may generate with a name taken from this language file.  If the tokens necessary for it are developed, I will revisit this concept and consider others.

[thatkid]

Wait, wait, wait

Voidwalkers weren't meant to be a supreme evil "here to destroy the world but taking their time about it" race?

[narhiril]

Wait, wait, wait

Voidwalkers weren't meant to be a supreme evil "here to destroy the world but taking their time about it" race?

They're a technologically superior race who looks down on everyone else, but they are only aggressive when threatened or when a civilization starts to accumulate too much technology and power.  They are not evil for evil's sake, though they certainly aren't the most friendly bunch.  The voidwalkers have a secret motive for their unusual pattern of actions, but this has not yet been explored in the mod and is strictly lore-based at the moment.

The unreleased civilization was more like the Tyranids from Warhammer 40k in terms of behavior.  They are more of a virus-like civilization, which exists only to consume the resources and lives of other civilizations for the sake of creating more of themselves.  Unlike the voidwalkers, this civilization would attack indiscriminately with no regards for complex strategy or even weapon technology.  Their strength would come from overwhelming numbers, anchored by a few "champion" units of extreme size.  When an army or "swarm" of these showed up at your door, they were meant to viciously attack anything they saw, including animals, merchants, and other armies.  Unfortunately, due to the somewhat bizarre way DF currently handles interspecies relations, forcing them to be hostile to everyone proved impossible, and they were far too powerful to be allied with any other civilizations.  In the end, I had to axe them, and I put the unfinished raws and graphics aside until I, hopefully, get some new tokens to make them work propoerly.

It's a pity, really.  They would have been pretty awesome.  But maybe they'll make a comeback as DF grows some more.


---

Voidwalkers = small number of extremely powerful units, motivations unclear (rational, but based on facts and concepts that have not yet been released in LFR), extremely advanced civilization and heirarchy.

Unused Civ = extremely large number of weak units, no motivation other than to expand and consume, no societal structure whatsoever.

[narhiril]

Oh, and the new zinger test raws are up at DFFD

Frigid and pyrophoric zingers have been axed due to technical problems.  Flashbang zingers will no longer cause death by suffocation.  Fragmented zingers now actually do something (lol).

[Pan]

Wait, wait, wait

Voidwalkers weren't meant to be a supreme evil "here to destroy the world but taking their time about it" race?

They're a technologically superior race who looks down on everyone else, but they are only aggressive when threatened or when a civilization starts to accumulate too much technology and power.  They are not evil for evil's sake, though they certainly aren't the most friendly bunch.  The voidwalkers have a secret motive for their unusual pattern of actions, but this has not yet been explored in the mod and is strictly lore-based at the moment.

The unreleased civilization was more like the Tyranids from Warhammer 40k in terms of behavior.  They are more of a virus-like civilization, which exists only to consume the resources and lives of other civilizations for the sake of creating more of themselves.  Unlike the voidwalkers, this civilization would attack indiscriminately with no regards for complex strategy or even weapon technology.  Their strength would come from overwhelming numbers, anchored by a few "champion" units of extreme size.  When an army or "swarm" of these showed up at your door, they were meant to viciously attack anything they saw, including animals, merchants, and other armies.  Unfortunately, due to the somewhat bizarre way DF currently handles interspecies relations, forcing them to be hostile to everyone proved impossible, and they were far too powerful to be allied with any other civilizations.  In the end, I had to axe them, and I put the unfinished raws and graphics aside until I, hopefully, get some new tokens to make them work propoerly.

It's a pity, really.  They would have been pretty awesome.  But maybe they'll make a comeback as DF grows some more.


---

Voidwalkers = small number of extremely powerful units, motivations unclear (rational, but based on facts and concepts that have not yet been released in LFR), extremely advanced civilization and heirarchy.

Unused Civ = extremely large number of weak units, no motivation other than to expand and consume, no societal structure whatsoever.

About those unused civs, when you do use them, perhaps they could be related to those forlorn forgotten civilizations that made the damascus sentinels? Maybe that hive minded flood of parasites destroyed the forerunning advanced civilization?

Halo references aside, it would actually be pretty cool, if unoriginal, to fight them.

One complaint I have with huge numbers of enemies- no clothes please. Just armor, or if you want to be mean and don't give us armor to melt, skin with metal properties. Clothes are a bitch to clean up.

[narhiril]

They were intended to be without clothes, weapons, or armor.  Their weapons were built in.  They are also unrelated to the Damascus Sentinels and the civilization that built them.  I have other plans for those...

Though they behave as one force, they were not "hive minded."  They have no concept of a greater cause or purpose.  They exist only to consume, and they seem to band together only because they do not find each other fit for consumption.

They were called the "Shedim" in early testing, though this name is not set in stone.  They even have a partial lore file (not included with LFR- yet, at least).  Early concepts for their appearance and physical properties were recycled and modified to create the Incubi, which are in game, but very rare due to exclusively appearing in an extremely uncommon biome.  Pray that you never embark on top of them, because they'll tear you apart.

Lore for the Shedim places them as a very young race with minimal societal structure.  Their existence in the world of LFR has been brief, but they have proven to be resilient due to their numbers.  Almost impossible to wipe out entirely, their threat can be managed by thinning their ranks and forcing them to rebuild their population.  Deprived of new resources, their growth and territory can be managed by a well-trained and well-equipped army, but unchecked, they will spread like a plague to devour everything they touch.  All other races attack them on sight, even the Voidwalkers, who know that their technical prowess and objectives in the world of LFR can only prevail as long as the numbers are kept in check.

That being said, the Voidwalkers do not fear them.  In fact, during tests, they were hilariously efficient at killing them as long as the numbers stayed within reasonable limits.  They started to lose momentum at about the 5:1 population mark.  Against an average Voidwalker siege, both sides would sustain pretty heavy losses - at least, in theory.  I never got an opportunity to really test this because I couldn't make them fight everyone else, and I anticipate that population tweaks would be needed to get it finely balanced.  It is my hope that the military arc will flush out some of these setbacks and make the original concepts possible.

[thatkid]

I see. That actually sounds pretty cool.

On the note of Voidwalkers attacking only when you grow too powerful: I've been seeing voidwalker thieves and ambushes right alongside bog trolls and goblins. So either they're showing up too early, or I'm just getting very lucky in that the other dudes are showing up too late. I'm going to be starting a new fort soon, maybe, and I'll try to get hard numbers on pop, wealth and year the next time they show up.

Also, a question about the megabeasts added by this mod: Do they have unique hides/bones/teeth/etc? I've found that this is a pretty good way to keep stuff alive in world gen, maintain a sense of danger when fighting them in adventure mode, and also provide a reward in the form of unique leather armor and bone weaponry and the like.

[Carn]

Huge swarms of 'nids sound amazing, and might finally give people a reason to use siege weapons. Maybe those (and traps) will be revisited and revised with the army arc. I can dream.

[thatkid]

Currently watching the sixty remaining adults in my fort zerg rush two voidwalker ambushes while nude and carrying nothing more than an iron spear and tower shield. It's glorious. We're winning.

Even more awesome: Nephilim arrived mid-fight, cut a path to the trade depot, and are now just sitting there while a battle rages just around the corner.

[Pan]

Hope you like tantrum spirals and coffins, thatkid 

[thatkid]

The fort was already dead from FPS issues, I was just going out in style.
It was hilarious though. The voidwalkers killed a few cats, and started to make their way towards the entrance when a flood of smiley faces surged forward. A burst of yellow gas appeared as an annihilator became a living (and then dead) pin cushion, but it barely slowed the smiling typhoon. Soon the voidwalkers were running.

And then the Nephalim showed up, and then several thieves were revealed and the ambushers were like "Oh. Wait." and started killing my dwarves again.