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More tech tree!

36 (26.1%)

More ritual tree!

8 (5.8%)

More lore!

12 (8.7%)

More mythical weapons/armor!

22 (15.9%)

Plagues!

28 (20.3%)

More secrets!

21 (15.2%)

More mechanical constructs!

11 (8%)

Total Members Voted: 137

[Pan]

Can't wait to get some free time to try this out 

Say, what are your plans for the next release?

[narhiril]

Can't wait to get some free time to try this out 

Say, what are your plans for the next release?

Second-tier tech advancements, some new minerals and alloys, possibly a new civilization, and, of course, more easter eggs.  I have some interesting plans that I'm not ready to reveal yet.



Some of the concepts on the table for v0.13:


Oil shale - found in layers, can be burned for a 50% refined coal yield.  Very high on the tech ladder, I may improve the efficiency of this process.  Normally, oil shale can be burned as low-quality fuel, but requires intense heat and pressure to be converted into actual oil.  But dwarves have magma...  so I'm considering a later tech tree advance that will yield more fuel.  In an effort to make things as realistic as possible, the [MATERIAL_VALUE] of this stone will double with each subsequent update.

That last sentence was a joke, in case you were wondering.

More mechanical advances, including new trap components (I MAY have accidentally leaked one of these into v0.12a...  Maybe.) and improvements to existing technologies.  Expect improved javelin thrower technology, armor advances, and material science improvements, involving new alloys.  This will likely include hadrine, a metal of immense strength but very high weight.  To prevent this from unbalancing blunt weapons, this alloy will not be available for use in weapons or ammunition.

I am also considering removing [ACTIVE_SEASON:AUTUMN] from all LFR hostile races.  That way, if you keep the map relatively clear of previous ambushes and siege forces, the dwarven and meowkin caravans should be able to get through more frequently.  I think this will make the game more enjoyable, though sieges that last multiple seasons will still need to be broken to allow for trade.  This is a very quick modification and may be released as a v0.12b feature depending on feedback.

I am playing around with using the theme of rituals for a parallel tech tree (that will later combine with the mechanical one).  I haven't decided how to go about it, though - specifically, what skill would it use?  Alchemy was easy, because it was just laying there, unused, ready to exploit.  Rituals would likely involve gems and body parts.

A few new creatures, some with "rare drops" that will be statistically unremarkable, but nevertheless cool and fun.

The new civilization is still very much in the design phase.  I need to determine what role I want them to fulfill before I go further with them.

That's all I'm willing to share at the moment.  It's only been hours since I put 0.12a up, I need some time before 0.13 starts to take more shape.

[Carn]

Perhaps I am terrible at this game, but early bog trolls sieges (3 in one year) are devastating.

Instead of weakening them, though, perhaps we could reuse an idea I remember from another mod some time ago - defense golems you could buy at the embark screen (or from dwarf merchants).

I think they were set up as pet animals, basically, but when they died they broke into rock blocks, and didn't reproduce. Essentially super war dogs without the need for training, but more expensive and lacking reproduction or ability to be butchered. This gave forts starting off in extremely brutal areas a chance to get going, as the golems could potentially hold off initial undead / savage animals / thieves.

As it stands now, early defenses are limited to stone fall traps and war dogs, both of which seem completely useless. Perhaps slightly buffing one or both of those would help?

Perhaps golem creation could also be worked into the tech tree, with more advanced golems being researched, and only basic ones available at the embark or from merchants. They could also have different qualities, so some would not be strict upgrades over others. Maybe obsidian has more damage potential with blades on it, granite is tougher? Perhaps a difficult to build high tech one with some kind of range attack?

Golems wouldn't replace your militia or other defense options as you can't order them, they can't train, and can't use gear. Care would have to be taken to balance them, but it's an idea. Having one bog troll get through my traps only to butcher an entire nephilim caravan plus guards, and then all thirty dwarves I conscripted into the military and set to kill him made me really wish for some early defense with a kick to it. Granted, they were largely untrained and unarmed dwarves, but still.....I'm still watching them go at it as I write this after conscripting the entirety of my fort into the militia, and the troll is healing as fast as he is hurt. He now has half a dozen scars, and basically every bone in him is broken, but it doesn't seem to phase him at all. I'm not sure how he can swing a club with two broken arms and two broken legs, to say nothing of the other injuries.


If caravans are ever fixed to bring their full compliment and wagons again, this would be somewhat less of an issue as they would have more guards and animals, as well as bringing much needed materials to an early fort. Still, bog trolls are complete death machines and can't really be handled by a militia unless they have some training and decent gear, neither of which a fort has to begin with.

Another way to mitigate this could be to limit the frequency and amount of migrants. I don't know if it's DF2010 or this mod but I seem to get boatloads of the idiots showing up very rapidly, which naturally brings the bigger threats along. I don't know if migrants can really be controlled, as I don't remember a mod ever doing it. This is probably the single biggest issue - without constant migrant waves, sieges wouldn't show up until later, giving more time to prepare traps, forge weapons, and train militia. This would also make individual dwarves more important, as well as medicine, as replacing dwarves would be more difficult. I really like the idea of caring about dwarf wellbeing. Of course, if forts grow more slowly they would have a greater need for early protection, too.

Perhaps have another race that attacks early, but in smaller numbers or smaller individuals, and move bog trolls up the threat timeline a bit? Perhaps a race that doesn't use items, and relies on natural weapons/defenses, so they could provide a threat without giving the fort any resources upon defeat.



Anyway, some ideas. And tears.


TLDR Bog trolls beat my ass, boohoo.

[Carn]

A way to melt ice without magma would be fantastic. I don't know if it's possible to rework a spike or weapon trap so that it requires fuel, and creates fire when triggered (by lever, pressure plate, whatever)

Or even just a brazier or stove that creates heat without spewing flames, just enough to melt ice.

I don't remember, can elves trade you more fearsome animals capable of being war-trained and bred? It would give you a reason to care somewhat about trading with them. I am of the opinion that while walling yourself off should be an option, trade should be important enough that hiding from the world is a big setback. Obviously the caravans are currently a bit broken, so that hurts their importance. Still, if they brought something besides a million cloth and wooden piccolos it would be worth caring about. Elves are the biggest offenders here, but other races do seem to bring plenty of useless crap. Perhaps give the elves and meowkin merchant liasons so you could order from them, as the humans and dwarves have?

Another Idea I had was for some kind of sapper class that could accompany some race's sieges, that could sneak and ahead of the assault break traps without triggering them. This would mean the race as a whole couldn't ignore traps, but would mean you couldn't rely completely on traps to stop them either. Traps would remain a viable addition to defense, without being overpowered or requiring all high threat enemy races to avoid traps. I know some races tend to mill about for a while as they gather morale or whatnot for their charge during a siege. I'm not sure how that works, but it would be the perfect time for sappers to slip in. Perhaps assassins could be done in a similar fashion to target nobles or powerful military dwarves.

Thanks again for your work on this mod! I know there are plenty of people throwing out tons of suggestions, but that is simply because of the fun and potential for growth your mod has shown.

[Pan]

...defense golems you could buy at the embark screen (or from dwarf merchants)...

 Golems remind me of the Damascus sentinels, except made out of rock. But anyway, Carn raises a fine point on the need for early defense, so I second his opinion.

 By the way, an alchemist's results is based purely on luck, right? If not, what skill does alchemy govern?

[narhiril]

...defense golems you could buy at the embark screen (or from dwarf merchants)...

 Golems remind me of the Damascus sentinels, except made out of rock. But anyway, Carn raises a fine point on the need for early defense, so I second his opinion.

 By the way, an alchemist's results is based purely on luck, right? If not, what skill does alchemy govern?

It only determines quality of the product.  Since most alchemy reactions aren't affected by this, it's kind of irrelevant, but it does have an effect on the reverse-engineering reactions.  A skilled alchemist performing the "sentinel core research" reaction will have a better chance of kicking out a masterwork weapon.

A way to melt ice without magma would be fantastic. I don't know if it's possible to rework a spike or weapon trap so that it requires fuel, and creates fire when triggered (by lever, pressure plate, whatever)

Or even just a brazier or stove that creates heat without spewing flames, just enough to melt ice.

I don't remember, can elves trade you more fearsome animals capable of being war-trained and bred? It would give you a reason to care somewhat about trading with them. I am of the opinion that while walling yourself off should be an option, trade should be important enough that hiding from the world is a big setback. Obviously the caravans are currently a bit broken, so that hurts their importance. Still, if they brought something besides a million cloth and wooden piccolos it would be worth caring about. Elves are the biggest offenders here, but other races do seem to bring plenty of useless crap. Perhaps give the elves and meowkin merchant liasons so you could order from them, as the humans and dwarves have?

Another Idea I had was for some kind of sapper class that could accompany some race's sieges, that could sneak and ahead of the assault break traps without triggering them. This would mean the race as a whole couldn't ignore traps, but would mean you couldn't rely completely on traps to stop them either. Traps would remain a viable addition to defense, without being overpowered or requiring all high threat enemy races to avoid traps. I know some races tend to mill about for a while as they gather morale or whatnot for their charge during a siege. I'm not sure how that works, but it would be the perfect time for sappers to slip in. Perhaps assassins could be done in a similar fashion to target nobles or powerful military dwarves.

Thanks again for your work on this mod! I know there are plenty of people throwing out tons of suggestions, but that is simply because of the fun and potential for growth your mod has shown.

Traps are hardcoded.  Believe me, I'm as sad about that as you are. 

I believe the animals that elves bring are random, but I'll look into the liaison idea.  I might be able to make that work.

Sappers are an interesting idea that might actually be possible, to an extent.  I believe there is a somewhat obscure token present on gremlins that causes them to break through and cause mischief.  I might be able to give this to a specific caste, which would then work in a similar fashion.  This idea has never, to my knowledge, been done before, and will require a ton of testing, but the technical aspects seem within limits.  I'll look into this.

It is impossible to create or use a non-vermin creature in a reaction.  This was an idea that surfaced very early in the tech tree design, that's been bugging me ever since.  I think the problem is that Toady doesn't want people modding in reactions that consume cats and kick out bars of compressed felinium, or reactions that consume babies and kick out piles of ash.  While I understand his concern for limiting possibilities based on ethics, it is a frustrating problem for those of us who need those tokens for some very in-universe mod ideas. I should also note that any vermin produced in reactions have broken AI.

Bog trolls are the only race that isn't quite balanced yet.  I'm looking into possibilities for them.  Right now, they're using wooden weapons.  This should make it a little bit easier to out-gear them.

Perhaps I am terrible at this game, but early bog trolls sieges (3 in one year) are devastating.

Instead of weakening them, though, perhaps we could reuse an idea I remember from another mod some time ago - defense golems you could buy at the embark screen (or from dwarf merchants).

I think they were set up as pet animals, basically, but when they died they broke into rock blocks, and didn't reproduce. Essentially super war dogs without the need for training, but more expensive and lacking reproduction or ability to be butchered. This gave forts starting off in extremely brutal areas a chance to get going, as the golems could potentially hold off initial undead / savage animals / thieves.

As it stands now, early defenses are limited to stone fall traps and war dogs, both of which seem completely useless. Perhaps slightly buffing one or both of those would help?

Perhaps golem creation could also be worked into the tech tree, with more advanced golems being researched, and only basic ones available at the embark or from merchants. They could also have different qualities, so some would not be strict upgrades over others. Maybe obsidian has more damage potential with blades on it, granite is tougher? Perhaps a difficult to build high tech one with some kind of range attack?

Golems wouldn't replace your militia or other defense options as you can't order them, they can't train, and can't use gear. Care would have to be taken to balance them, but it's an idea. Having one bog troll get through my traps only to butcher an entire nephilim caravan plus guards, and then all thirty dwarves I conscripted into the military and set to kill him made me really wish for some early defense with a kick to it. Granted, they were largely untrained and unarmed dwarves, but still.....I'm still watching them go at it as I write this after conscripting the entirety of my fort into the militia, and the troll is healing as fast as he is hurt. He now has half a dozen scars, and basically every bone in him is broken, but it doesn't seem to phase him at all. I'm not sure how he can swing a club with two broken arms and two broken legs, to say nothing of the other injuries.


If caravans are ever fixed to bring their full compliment and wagons again, this would be somewhat less of an issue as they would have more guards and animals, as well as bringing much needed materials to an early fort. Still, bog trolls are complete death machines and can't really be handled by a militia unless they have some training and decent gear, neither of which a fort has to begin with.

Another way to mitigate this could be to limit the frequency and amount of migrants. I don't know if it's DF2010 or this mod but I seem to get boatloads of the idiots showing up very rapidly, which naturally brings the bigger threats along. I don't know if migrants can really be controlled, as I don't remember a mod ever doing it. This is probably the single biggest issue - without constant migrant waves, sieges wouldn't show up until later, giving more time to prepare traps, forge weapons, and train militia. This would also make individual dwarves more important, as well as medicine, as replacing dwarves would be more difficult. I really like the idea of caring about dwarf wellbeing. Of course, if forts grow more slowly they would have a greater need for early protection, too.

Perhaps have another race that attacks early, but in smaller numbers or smaller individuals, and move bog trolls up the threat timeline a bit? Perhaps a race that doesn't use items, and relies on natural weapons/defenses, so they could provide a threat without giving the fort any resources upon defeat.



Anyway, some ideas. And tears.


TLDR Bog trolls beat my ass, boohoo.

I can knock their triggers back a bit.  I'm looking into possibilities for civilizations to fill the gap.

1) A weak, equipment-free race that attacks early.  Fortress Defense does this, so I can probably get it to work as well.
2) A strong but peaceful race whose caravan guards would be formidable.
3) A new underground, tribal race.  I haven't played with this idea yet, but I have some ideas.

[Alem]

For Carn, I have had elf caravans in vanilla bring me lions, tigers, and bears so they are definitely capable of bringing the heartier animal stock. I think it has to do with what area they end up making their cities in, I recall someone mentioning that if you manage to get them to settle in a jungle you have a chance of them bringing you a Tigerman to be your next mayor. I for one strongly support war animal options, as I found dogs woefully ill equipped to do more anything than distract the target while the dwarf attacks.

[Carn]

I liked the sapper idea as soon as I thought of it because as it stands now, cage traps are very easy to build and eliminate all threats that don't trap_avoid. They're not as effective against large numbers of enemies, but you can catch megabeasts in glass and wooden cages. Having a way to reduce the auto-kill potential of cage traps against tough targets without invalidating other, less overpowered traps sounds great!

Dreams of mechanized dwarven death machine legions are crushed. So sad. Well, perhaps merchants/embark golem guards would still be a possibility. Or more powerful animals. The golem idea I like simply because it's easier to balance - you can't breed them. You pay for what you get. This also adds more value to trade caravans! Simply adding bigger guard animals could work too I suppose. Basically something to help fill in the gap before you have a trained and equipped militia.

How does war-training an animal work? It does change the animals stats, right? Perhaps a new kennel type building could be used to upgrade store-bought golems with advanced tech/magic? It could require higher tech parts to build the kennel/magic/tech upgrade building, even if you can't make the kennel require resources for training. Can workshops be made to deconstruct after use? Perhaps a small explosion, enough to break the upgrade building if it is made of out very fragile parts, but not enough to damage the golem or operating dwarf too much, would mean that this would be a significant investment each time. Perhaps it's both tech and magic, and as far as story goes, the sacrifice of the dwarf in the resulting explosion is necessary for the construction, as their spirit is transferred into this powerful new body.

So - siege weapons are hardcoded, and traps are hardcoded. Are all lever-activateable (or pressure plate) items hardcoded? Gears, floodgates, whatnot? If that isn't possible to modify for defense or heat production, would it be possible to add a delay on a new workshop? If the alchemy lab can explode, perhaps a new workshop could be made to generate heat on purpose. Even without a delay on it, it would be useful, you'd just have to sacrifice some beards to get the party started. (Probably don't want to set this to repeat...)

Are migrant chances/numbers hardcoded as well? I like having dangerous or even suicidal options for my dwarves such as alchemy or golem creation or suicide fire creation or whatever, but it feels easy to throw away migrant peasants when they flock to my doorstep.

I am excited about the possibilities of you mentioned. Also, I saw my first easter egg today and did a double take. Can't wait to find more!

Thanks again for your work!

[Carn]

For Carn, I have had elf caravans in vanilla bring me lions, tigers, and bears so they are definitely capable of bringing the heartier animal stock. I think it has to do with what area they end up making their cities in, I recall someone mentioning that if you manage to get them to settle in a jungle you have a chance of them bringing you a Tigerman to be your next mayor. I for one strongly support war animal options, as I found dogs woefully ill equipped to do more anything than distract the target while the dwarf attacks.

Thanks! I know I used to play with a mod in 40d that had more guard animals available from dwarves (giant beetles and such) which is also where I saw golems. I remember getting the elves to bring a variety of animals sometimes, it's just that 99% of the time they seem to bring only the rope reed cloth we all know and love. I've never had a tigerman mayor, that sounds hilarious. How does that even work? You can have non-dwarves as citizens?

If that's the case, perhaps that opens up some kind of mercenary option. I'm not sure how that would really work - as it stands now I guess you can only have things delivered in cages. Perhaps another modified trade depot that a mercenary liason would come to, selling contracts? With my luck trade depots are hardcoded as well.

At some point in the FAR future, perhaps toady will put in more diplomatic and military interations between civs, but for now.....like most things, I'm looking for workarounds.

[Patchouli]

Lever items are hardcoded.
Workshops can't be made to deconstruct after use. Burn, maybe.
You can't make a new kennel.
You can't add a true delay on a workshop. Only via workarounds, like a chance of making the dwarf using it unconscious, or burning a stone to make the workshop unusable.
Migrant numbers are hardcoded.
You can't modify trade depots.

Read the wiki to get a better idea about what's hardcoded.

[TwilightWalker]

You could always use Warlord's Bonfire Mod for your personal fires. I'm currently sticking it in now with a few suggested edits to see if I can do that weaponized poison booze thing.

[Carn]

Thanks! The bonfire mod looks like just the thing for those glacial forts and booze bombs! It baffles me that toady hasn't put something like this in the game already.

[Pan]

Looks like poisoning the voidwalkers with atrophic bliss have once again became a viable option to me... }:) (since I hate magma pumping ops)

[narhiril]

You could always use Warlord's Bonfire Mod for your personal fires. I'm currently sticking it in now with a few suggested edits to see if I can do that weaponized poison booze thing.

Toady has stated repeatedly that he plans to include this in the future.  That combined with Warlord's very capable bonfire mod have led me to conclude that my own version isn't necessary.

Warlord's bonfires can be easily installed over LFR, as long as you remember to permit them in the entity_default file.

Dreams of mechanized dwarven death machine legions are crushed. So sad.

Not crushed entirely, but definitely delayed.  The great thing about DF is that it's still very much in development.  Every time a new version comes out, I get new tools for the LFR toolbox.  Rest assured that I will monitor these developments closely and play with any new tokens that come out.

I am excited about the possibilities of you mentioned. Also, I saw my first easter egg today and did a double take. Can't wait to find more!

Thanks again for your work!

PM me about that easter egg.  You're the first person to ever actually report finding one, and I'm curious what it was.

Or just post and spoiler tag it.

[Alem]

As far as mercenaries go, that does sound particularly awesome and I would love to see something like that. I am unsure how the tigerman situation works, but I've read about it enough times to know it happens somehow. It might be something to do with an intelligent tag, I have found that adding can learn to my giant dobermans has had some... odd side effects, such as importing a giant dog Animal Trainer from the caravan, them learning to be comedians as well as negotiators, and responding to civilian burrow restrictions.