Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

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

[sigefread]

Why give the voidwalkers steel? Why not just voidshard? Is it to give us more of a chance of defeating them?

Civilizations do weird things with metals.  I found, during testing, that they always seem to show up with some assortment of the three best metals they are allowed.  If steel and damascus steel were removed, they would show up with voidshard, iron, and tungsten, which was weird and made them much easier than intended.  Steel and damascus steel were added to their permissions to partially resolve this issue.

I'm playing with some alternatives for this.  I haven't explored what happens if I change their voidshard-generating reaction to another labor and forbid the furnace operator job.  If this has the result of only giving them voidshard, I'll consider implementing it.

...But I do like the way that the mix of steel, damascus steel, and voidshard limits the amount of usable voidshard pieces obtained from defeating a single ambush, so I'm a bit inclined to leave them the way they are.  They're still quite challenging, even for well-equipped and well-trained military dwarves.  So I suppose the best answer to your question would be "sort of, but also to limit the influx of voidshard items to the player."

An Idea (Sorry if I'm bugging you I'm good with concepts not so much with actual modding) Voidwalkers are the only ones who can make voidshards without having to melt down things that are already in existence right? They also as far as I know have to go through the process of making it. Why not have a few different grades of it with names accordingly and make the the stats like weight sharpness etc different enough to be noticeable but close enough to not make any one better. From there you could have all of it be void gear but with the different levels of it it would still be hard enough to get a good amount to actually make anything out of it yourself. Just a thought to try and keep them more with the lore

[Pan]

What sigefread is trying to say, in case anyone didn't get it, is that since voidwalkers can only use the three best metal they can get their hands on, then why not mod in three different types of voidshards that have a slight difference (that causes them to be roughly the same), so the voidwalkers will use voidshards exclusively. (since the three different types of voidshard will be the best material for them, they won't touch anything below.)

[SirAaronIII]

Plus, since they're technically different metals, it's still difficult to get your hands on a lot of voidshard.

[sigefread]

What sigefread is trying to say, in case anyone didn't get it, is that since voidwalkers can only use the three best metal they can get their hands on, then why not mod in three different types of voidshards that have a slight difference (that causes them to be roughly the same), so the voidwalkers will use voidshards exclusively. (since the three different types of voidshard will be the best material for them, they won't touch anything below.)

But you would also want to make them different enough so they are not just copy pasted, Like for instance one type has better sharpness and is somewhat light weight making it better for edge and worse for blunt attacks or one is light weight but not very sharp making it useless for weapons but decent for armor. From there hope the AI for the voidwalkers makes the items accordingly or else this plan would back fire and it would be really easy to beat them half the time

[thatkid]

What sigefread is trying to say, in case anyone didn't get it, is that since voidwalkers can only use the three best metal they can get their hands on, then why not mod in three different types of voidshards that have a slight difference (that causes them to be roughly the same), so the voidwalkers will use voidshards exclusively. (since the three different types of voidshard will be the best material for them, they won't touch anything below.)

But you would also want to make them different enough so they are not just copy pasted, Like for instance one type has better sharpness and is somewhat light weight making it better for edge and worse for blunt attacks or one is light weight but not very sharp making it useless for weapons but decent for armor. From there hope the AI for the voidwalkers makes the items accordingly or else this plan would back fire and it would be really easy to beat them half the time

Well, no. Even if you made the voidshards better than each other in various categories each individual type would still need to be superior to all other metal on their own in order for the voidwalkers to use them. It wouldn't make sense from a tactical direction to use, say, lusterless voidshard for a reaver and glittering voidshard for a bastion but it would still be better than if they used damascus steel for those two things because the lusterless voidshard, though it has less of an edge than glittering voidshard, would still need to be superior to damascus steel in virtually every way in order to prevent them from swapping it out.
(I'm using Lusterless and Glittering descriptors just because, the three types could be separated in any way)

[sigefread]

What sigefread is trying to say, in case anyone didn't get it, is that since voidwalkers can only use the three best metal they can get their hands on, then why not mod in three different types of voidshards that have a slight difference (that causes them to be roughly the same), so the voidwalkers will use voidshards exclusively. (since the three different types of voidshard will be the best material for them, they won't touch anything below.)

But you would also want to make them different enough so they are not just copy pasted, Like for instance one type has better sharpness and is somewhat light weight making it better for edge and worse for blunt attacks or one is light weight but not very sharp making it useless for weapons but decent for armor. From there hope the AI for the voidwalkers makes the items accordingly or else this plan would back fire and it would be really easy to beat them half the time

Well, no. Even if you made the voidshards better than each other in various categories each individual type would still need to be superior to all other metal on their own in order for the voidwalkers to use them. It wouldn't make sense from a tactical direction to use, say, lusterless voidshard for a reaver and glittering voidshard for a bastion but it would still be better than if they used damascus steel for those two things because the lusterless voidshard, though it has less of an edge than glittering voidshard, would still need to be superior to damascus steel in virtually every way in order to prevent them from swapping it out.
(I'm using Lusterless and Glittering descriptors just because, the three types could be separated in any way)

I haven't quite gotten far enough along to get damascus steel or the current Void shard yet how big is the gap between the two? If from what I have read on here is true it should be large enough to change up the stats a simi-noticeable amount and still have it be better shouldn't it?

[thatkid]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What sigefread is trying to say, in case anyone didn't get it, is that since voidwalkers can only use the three best metal they can get their hands on, then why not mod in three different types of voidshards that have a slight difference (that causes them to be roughly the same), so the voidwalkers will use voidshards exclusively. (since the three different types of voidshard will be the best material for them, they won't touch anything below.)

But you would also want to make them different enough so they are not just copy pasted, Like for instance one type has better sharpness and is somewhat light weight making it better for edge and worse for blunt attacks or one is light weight but not very sharp making it useless for weapons but decent for armor. From there hope the AI for the voidwalkers makes the items accordingly or else this plan would back fire and it would be really easy to beat them half the time

Well, no. Even if you made the voidshards better than each other in various categories each individual type would still need to be superior to all other metal on their own in order for the voidwalkers to use them. It wouldn't make sense from a tactical direction to use, say, lusterless voidshard for a reaver and glittering voidshard for a bastion but it would still be better than if they used damascus steel for those two things because the lusterless voidshard, though it has less of an edge than glittering voidshard, would still need to be superior to damascus steel in virtually every way in order to prevent them from swapping it out.
(I'm using Lusterless and Glittering descriptors just because, the three types could be separated in any way)

I haven't quite gotten far enough along to get damascus steel or the current Void shard yet how big is the gap between the two? If from what I have read on here is true it should be large enough to change up the stats a simi-noticeable amount and still have it be better shouldn't it?

I haven't really done any in-game testing, and I haven't really delved into the Forlorn Realms RAWs yet for fear of ruining any surprises for myself...so I don't know. But in order for it to work, I think you'd need them all to be fairly similar anyways with only basic changes.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To use an analogy of another game, it would be like picking between Tails, Sonic, or Knuckles in Sonic Riders for the Wii. They all start with the same base racing stats (that of Sonic), but then two of the three (Tails and Knuckles) are slightly worse in one area and slightly better in another. But either way, nobody but that weird kid picks Big the Cat because he's just not as good in any of the three areas (Which are like speed, technique, and power IIRC. It wasn't a very good game). Where Sonic is the original version of voidshard, and tails and knuckles are new types. Big the Cat is, oddly, damascus steel (though I thought mithril was better than damascus steel? Maybe I'm wrong there).

(spoilered because I didn't see a reason to have a wall of text post)

Of course, this is all hypothetical and it all comes down to whatever narhiril decides to do. I'm interested in hearing what changing the skill of the reaction does, to be honest. If that works, I think it would be a lot more elegant of a solution and it would also open up some other interesting possibilities as far as customizing what materials, and maybe even items, an entity has access to.

[narhiril]

I'm not liking the complexity and confusion associated with having multiple reactions and forge trees for different variants of voidshard.  The numbers on voidshard are going to be tweaked in the near future - specifically weight and syndrome durations. 

Voidshard is currently a bit lighter than intended, coming in slightly lighter than mithril.  It will likely be moved to be a midpoint between damascus steel and mithril in terms of weight.  This will make blunt voidshard weapons a bit more effective.  Its statistical comparison to damascus steel is a bit complex.  It's about a 20% better armor material, but holds a much sharper edge.  In testing, it slightly outperforms damascus steel as an armor material, but these effects are difficult to quantify.

My concern here is that I'm throwing a lot of time and attention at something that I'm not fundamentally convinced is broken.  I could go in and add new variants of voidshard or play with the furnace operator job permissions, but I'm not convinced that the end result will be any better than what I've already got.  The question is, how worthwhile is the complexity of these proposed changes to the game experience?  Is it better to have an advanced race that has access to an exclusive material, but does not use it exclusively (current version), or is it better to force them to only use exclusive materials and weave complex and confusing webs of reactions to prevent the player from obtaining too much of it too fast?  All in all, I feel like it's kind of a moot point, because voidshard is already outmatched by adamantine, so further efforts to complicate its acquisition are unnecessary.

From my perspective, I'm leaning a bit towards leaving things the way they are (aside from the slight voidshard stat tweaks).  There are all sorts of reasons I can imagine why the voidwalkers would not use voidshard exclusively, especially considering that nothing is really revealed in the lore files about how voidshard is obtained.  Perhaps even the voidwalkers cannot drum up unlimited reserves of the stuff, and so are forced to rely on strong but otherwise "primitive" alloys to round out their arsenals. 

I don't currently feel that the proposed changes add enough to the immersion value of the game to warrant the added development time and complexity.  By all means, I welcome new ideas, but that's my current perspective on it.  I will go ahead and try tweaking reaction labors and furnace operator permissions to see what happens in the interim - at the very least, that's information that could be useful to other modders.

EDIT: It seems that the tweak to the furnace operator labor and custom reactions is something darkflagrance has already tested and employed in Fortress Defense.  It *should* be possible to force the voidwalkers to only use voidshard for their metal equipment.  The question of whether or not they should is another matter entirely, and is something I'll give some more thought to.

[Pan]

Hell, I couldn't care less about voidshard (or anything related to them) myself, since I usually go for the shiny blue stuff asap, and I'm only looking forward to the new animals you might add in the next update. EDIT: Oh, and also that whole ritual stuff. That too.

(cotton candy really isn't hard to extract. Just carve fortifications into them before mining them out, and you won't breach HFS)

[narhiril]

Hell, I couldn't care less about voidshard (or anything related to them) myself, since I usually go for the shiny blue stuff asap, and I'm only looking forward to the new animals you might add in the next update. EDIT: Oh, and also that whole ritual stuff. That too.

(cotton candy really isn't hard to extract. Just carve fortifications into them before mining them out, and you won't breach HFS)

It's going to be a busy weekend for me, but I should have some sort of a preview to that effect in the next few days.

[Carn]

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I can't seem to get dwarves to use the obstacle course or sparring partner. The manual says to use the workshop profile, so I've tried turning on one dwarf, enabling all dwarves, or going down the list of dwarves and turning them all on one by one. Nothing seems to entice them to get on their treadmills and make with the training.

I haven't seen anyone else mention it, so they must be working. I just don't know how to make the dwarves get in them. This is the first time I've tried using them (in previous versions I was always steamrolled by bog trolls before I could build any).

What am I missing? Anyone?

EDIT: Sparring partner works fine. Obstacle course still troubling.

[Pan]

Sparring partner works for me. Not sure about obstacle course. Sorry for not being any help.

[Carn]

Just built a sparring partner to test that - seems like the sparring partner works as advertised. It's just the obstacle course that's weird for me then. Anyone else have any issues with dwarves refusing to use the obstacle course?

I can live with having to manually go in and pick what dwarves I want to use the sparring partners - I can just build different rooms for different weapon skills to make it easier. I'm really not sure what to do about the obstacle course though. I feel like I'm missing something since other people haven't mentioned trouble with them.

Or have others not built them yet either?

[Pan]

I... actually haven't used obstacle courses yet, so I wouldn't know.

By the way, narhiril, could you make your mod compatible with Pheobus graphics mod? Or Mayday? Cuz while I do like some sprites in Ironhand, I really dislike the floor tiles and the dark feeling it gives.

Also, I remembered back in Dig Dwarfier, there is a plant which takes a long time to grow, but can have a reaction for the plant to be pressed together (with a reaction) into a tower cap log. They were called Tower Husks, and the in game description for them were that they were a breakthrough on dwarven botanists. Anyway, the whole 'dwarven botanists' thing got me thinking, and perhaps you could add in this into your whole tech tree thing? Being able to grow wood would be advantageous in glaciers where lots of wood is needed for certain industries. I, for one, cannot live in glaciers or deserts (like, without a woodland bordering it) cuz I MUST have clear glass windows and constructions (aesthetics) and soap (I feel guilty whenever I have not prepared soap and I see a soldier get an infection). The caravan and cavern wood are just not enough for a big enough industry.

[Carn]

I think the wood problem is more because of the way the game can't distinguish between the amount of wood needed for a huge bed, and the amount needed to make a crossbow. If the game handled wood the way it handles metal and cloth (in pieces, with each bar/log/bolt of cloth being worth X resources) then much of the problem would go away.

Not entirely though, since SO MANY industries rely on wood, and plenty of important things can ONLY be made from wood. Even objects that can be made from other materials usually need wood to power furnaces in order to make them. In addition, it's often the only resource you have early besides stone. Wooden cages and stone mechanisms mean cage traps!

In 40d I refused to play unless I could start next to a surface source of lava - even with a 100% chance to find lava if you dig deep enough these days, I'm starting to think I'll go back to that.

Wood is so important even when you have lava nearby I don't really consider it cheating or nitpicking too much. Plus, building around a volcano feels pretty dwarfy. Magma makes everything better.

EDIT: Also, if the caravans ever get fixed, we'll be able to import a LOT more wood as well, especially since there are extra races in this mod that will trade.