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Total Members Voted: 137

[BackgroundGuy]

How balanced would a Nephal Commune be, and what would you recommend I add to it to make it more balanced?

[73]

So, today I found that one of my dwarves likes trout of Kogut tooth. I'm going to assume that's one of the fish from the fishing pond, since I haven't used it once I determined it took ages to get anything. I'm also going to guess that they don't actually have teeth.

Thank god he's not a noble.

In other news, I got ANOTHER damascus arbiter. And I'm very much inclined to agree with them needing tweaked. I've fought this guy twice (savescum), and here are my results:

Military of 10 legendary miners, all iron armor, 1 iovium pick and 9 irons picks. 1 talented macedwarf, damascus steel mace. 5 marksdwarves, wooden crossbows, iron armor, using forgotten beast bone bolts.

Result set 1:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I charged all my military at him as soon as he appeared. Iron was completely useless against him, so the miners were unable to do anything. Mace was also completely ineffective. The one miner with an iovium pick occasionally got lucky and dented something. He managed to fracture a few spots as well. Interestingly, the forgotten beast bone bolts had the highest rate of effectiveness (which was still about nill), managing a few dents and fractures.

The arbiter himself didn't have much combat effectiveness. He occasionally broke a bone, and did manage to kill a few dwarves by breaking their spines. He also ripped an iron gauntlet away from one dwarf, smashed his brain in with it, and proceeded to wear it.

I sent an untrained axe dwarf into the fight with an iovium battleaxe, as it was the only other edged weapon I had higher than steel, and although I know iovium is supposed to be terrible for anything but blunt, I was ridiculously effective with an iovium spear in an adventure mode run, so I figured it might work. The axe did successfully cause some dents, which was more than most of my weapons, but the arbiter quickly targeted and disabled the dwarf wielding it.

Savescummed as my military began to die from dehydration. Seriously. They fought that thing for so long they used all their supplies (I periodically cancelled the orders for a second to let them eat/drink), and were passing out from exhaustion constantly.

Result set 2:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Knowing my weapons were hopelessly ineffective, I left him alone and ordered my weaponsmith to make some mithril and damascus steel picks, figuring that since those were capable of severing the limbs of most creatures in the hands of a legendary miner (I had a lot), they might work.

Unfortunately he was a lazy ass and decided to sleep, eat, and drink before doing anything, despite micromanaging, so the arbiter started chasing people and I was forced to send out the same military squad as before, with much of the same results, except for a lot more wrestle moves on the arbiter's part (chokeholds).

When he finally managed to do it, half my military was dead or unconscious. I quickly equipped two remaining miners in armor and a mithril and damascus steel pick, respectively, and told them to go fight. Both were legendary, so it definitely wasn't a skill issue.

The result was an endless spam of 'attack glances away'. Unlike the iovium weapons, they didn't even dent anything.

Conclusion:

This thing is fucking INVULNERABLE. The only weapons that even touch it are iovium and FB bone bolts; everything else just glances away or breaks away some of the gas-emitting stuff (which doesn't show up, but eventually it says the gas-emitting pieces in all the body parts are gone; no apparent effect).

It looks like the only possible way to kill this would be with adamantine weaponry. Mithril and damascus steel are supposed to be equallish, if I remember correctly, and neither work. Only things above that are voidshard and addy. This world has no voidwalkers, so that's out, and I'm not sure if that would be effective either. The iovium working is odd; I suppose the game considers it technically 'better' than D. Steel. Unfortunately it's probably impossible to cut something made of d. steel in half with an iovium axe even at legendary.

The beast bone's no good either, since bolts won't sever anything, and you can't make bone javelins (at least, I don't think so). Even if you could, I suspect the results would be similar to the iovium.

So, yeah  - this thing is overpowered on a fort-decimating level, and is definitely the strongest enemy I've ever seen in DF that wasn't deliberately designed to be unkillable (like a slade colossus).

Excuse me while I savescum and hope my artifact door distracts it long enough to drop the roof on it; I doubt anything else will kill it.

[narhiril]

Finally found time to grow thyme, and soon wondered why my stockpile was full of bluebells - looks like those two plants, once picked, share the same sprite.  Is that intended?

No, thyme is supposed to be green instead of cyan.  I'll fix this for the next version.

How balanced would a Nephal Commune be, and what would you recommend I add to it to make it more balanced?

Not very balanced since they use a cheat reaction to produce steel, and I don't know how well flying player civs work (I would imagine not too well, foreseeing problems with animal hauling).

I'm deliberately not responding to 73's post right now because I don't have time to do so adequately.  I'll address that when I get home later.

[Man of Paper]

I am late to this fantastic party.

Gonna get this, even though I can just manage a vanilla fort and can't last for more than a couple years in Genesis (though to be fair, my Genesis world gens have hated me).

[Putnam]

The cheat reaction to produce steel won't be available unless there's a building associated with it.

[narhiril]

The cheat reaction to produce steel won't be available unless there's a building associated with it.

[PERMITTED_BUILDING:METAL_CHEAT]

[Mandango]

So I've found my fortress getting heavily overflowing with various technology slabs from putting documentation on repeat, which I need to do in order to get rid of all records I get from autopsies, mechanical sparing, and medical dummy training.  Could there be a way to say, add hastily scrawled weapon designs to an already existing Weapons concept laboratory in order to make production at the workshop a tad faster?  I know there's the trash compactor but I can't get over the thought that I'm destroying !!SCIENCE!! Though I would possibly be willing to sacrifice !!SCIENCE!! to the blood god.  Just a thought I've been tossing around.  Could there also possibly be a technological advance that would give you a trap that voidwalkers would trigger?

[Putnam]

The cheat reaction to produce steel won't be available unless there's a building associated with it.

[PERMITTED_BUILDING:METAL_CHEAT]

Well, then that's all you have to remove to balance it

Besides, so far as I can tell, you don't actually need cheat buildings for cheat reactions to work. In my mod, I have cheat reactions but no cheat building, and it mostly works fine.

[Ishar]

I've just downloaded this thing, but the new buildings and things like that confused me a bit. Is there any documentation, or maybe even a beginners' guide somewhere, or does the mod have a 'discover for yourself' policy?
Sorry, I didn't read all the 60 pages of this topic, only a few random posts, so what I'm asking for might be redundant.

[73]

I've just downloaded this thing, but the new buildings and things like that confused me a bit. Is there any documentation, or maybe even a beginners' guide somewhere, or does the mod have a 'discover for yourself' policy?
Sorry, I didn't read all the 60 pages of this topic, only a few random posts, so what I'm asking for might be redundant.

There's a manual included with the file. Check the LFR Manual and Lore folder that came with the download. The manual doesn't have everything, but it'll at least explain the basic concepts.

On an unrelated note, today my alchemist suffocated while being carried from his workshop after vomitting all over the entire place. I wasn't paying attention, so I don't know exactly what caused it, but he was performing standard experiments, never been in combat, and no synodromes around. First time I've seen an alchemist die from experiments.

More Damascus Arbiter results:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rather than kill it with a cave in, I used the artifact door created by my alchemist (the one who suffocated) to trap the sentinel with a few caveins with only minimal casualties. I then used him to train my marksdwarves to legendary, breaking everything in his body but, of course, he wouldn't die.

Javelin throwers didn't help, with any type of ammo. Also, where are my adamantine javelins? That's the only ranged weapon I would assume could hurt him, and I went and mined some only to find out that there's no way to make any addy javelins. I know using adamantine as ammo is a stupid idea 99% of the time, but it'd be nice to at least have the option.

He was also completely unharmed by seige weapons, including iovium ballista arrows. Predictable, but I wanted to test it anyway.

I eventually resorted to addy picks. He managed to kill one, but eventually lost, his lower body severed. Interestingly, I got multiple reports of both my damascus steel mace and addy picks passing through on attacks to all his body parts excluding his head. Scratches also did this, but not punches.

I then went and created a mechanized crossbow and gem from the body. Too bad my alchemist was dead so I got crappy quality. By the way, the core refuses to be stockpiled and won't register at the alchemist labs; I had to use the manager to give the order. I have yet to test the effectiveness of the crossbow.

With the death of the damascus arbiter, my cavern research continued. Since I used the time he was on the map, when nothing else could spawn, to cover all the edges in cave traps, I got a ton of stuff almost immediately after his death (including a cave dragon). The only creature specific to your mod (at least, I don't recognize them from vanilla), however, was a

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

devourer of the depths.

I'm not sure if she spawned on a trap that had yet to be reloaded (couldn't keep up with the captures), or was trapavoid; she spawned right next to my military and the combat happened immediately. Despite webbing a few people, she was unable to injure my iron armored dwarves, and died fairly quickly.

I also wanted to mention that javelins may be overpriced. 15 stack of masterwork iron javelins is 41400 (broad), which is, again, worth a bit more than some addy items. Plus, masterwork javelins are common due to using the furnace operating skill, since legendary furnace operators are a regular occurence.

I'll keep testing and see if I can't catch one of those

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

devourers of the depths

if one shows up again, since I got a GCS. Or maybe even capture an arbiter... But first things first. Gotta kill enough creatures they start spawning again, since I think I hit the pop limit (or gremlins are hiding somewhere).

[SirAaronIII]

Could there also possibly be a technological advance that would give you a trap that voidwalkers would trigger?

No, traps are hard-coded. Every creature either sets off a trap or doesn't, using TRAP_AVOID.

[narhiril]

I was planning on finishing up a few things today and releasing sometime tomorrow, but things have been pushed back a little bit because my copy of Windows 7 decided today that it wasn't genuine (I've had it for several months).

Basically, either Microsoft screwed up and didn't test their damn patches before release (wouldn't be the first time) or Best Buy sold me a duped copy of Windows.  Either way, someone is getting a nasty letter.

Hope to have things up and running for 0.14d by Monday.  I have this week off, so that shouldn't be a problem.

[73]

You know how there's almost always a dead Greater Demon of Wrath or two on the units screen? I think the explanation you gave was that they weren't friends with anything down in the circus and were getting killed, if I remember correctly.

Turns out that's not quite it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

They spawn in the magma sea. And then they drown in an extremely anticlimatic fashion.

I've seen them in the circus too, but usually magma sea.

Found that by using runesmith to delete all the magma crabs that kept showing up, in an attempt to get more cavern creatures to spawn. Since they didn't, it looks like I killed everything in the area and need to start a new fort. Oh well.

[narhiril]

On an unrelated note, today my alchemist suffocated while being carried from his workshop after vomitting all over the entire place. I wasn't paying attention, so I don't know exactly what caused it, but he was performing standard experiments, never been in combat, and no synodromes around. First time I've seen an alchemist die from experiments.

More Damascus Arbiter results:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rather than kill it with a cave in, I used the artifact door created by my alchemist (the one who suffocated) to trap the sentinel with a few caveins with only minimal casualties. I then used him to train my marksdwarves to legendary, breaking everything in his body but, of course, he wouldn't die.

Javelin throwers didn't help, with any type of ammo. Also, where are my adamantine javelins? That's the only ranged weapon I would assume could hurt him, and I went and mined some only to find out that there's no way to make any addy javelins. I know using adamantine as ammo is a stupid idea 99% of the time, but it'd be nice to at least have the option.

He was also completely unharmed by seige weapons, including iovium ballista arrows. Predictable, but I wanted to test it anyway.

I eventually resorted to addy picks. He managed to kill one, but eventually lost, his lower body severed. Interestingly, I got multiple reports of both my damascus steel mace and addy picks passing through on attacks to all his body parts excluding his head. Scratches also did this, but not punches.

I then went and created a mechanized crossbow and gem from the body. Too bad my alchemist was dead so I got crappy quality. By the way, the core refuses to be stockpiled and won't register at the alchemist labs; I had to use the manager to give the order. I have yet to test the effectiveness of the crossbow.

With the death of the damascus arbiter, my cavern research continued. Since I used the time he was on the map, when nothing else could spawn, to cover all the edges in cave traps, I got a ton of stuff almost immediately after his death (including a cave dragon). The only creature specific to your mod (at least, I don't recognize them from vanilla), however, was a

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

devourer of the depths.

I'm not sure if she spawned on a trap that had yet to be reloaded (couldn't keep up with the captures), or was trapavoid; she spawned right next to my military and the combat happened immediately. Despite webbing a few people, she was unable to injure my iron armored dwarves, and died fairly quickly.

I also wanted to mention that javelins may be overpriced. 15 stack of masterwork iron javelins is 41400 (broad), which is, again, worth a bit more than some addy items. Plus, masterwork javelins are common due to using the furnace operating skill, since legendary furnace operators are a regular occurence.

I'll keep testing and see if I can't catch one of those

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

devourers of the depths

if one shows up again, since I got a GCS. Or maybe even capture an arbiter... But first things first. Gotta kill enough creatures they start spawning again, since I think I hit the pop limit (or gremlins are hiding somewhere).

Right, let's take this from the top.

Alchemy can be lethal, though this is extremely rare ("acute radiation sickness" destroys the brain, if I recall correctly, but it's a rare, fast-acting syndrome attached to a rare byproduct).  I mourn your loss in the name of !!SCIENCE!!

Damascus Arbiters are some of the most powerful creatures in LFR, outmatching most megabeasts easily.  They were supposed to be underground megabeasts, but this idea was scrapped (custom underground megabeasts seem not to work properly, in my experience) in favor of the more secretive "rare wandering creature."  Ether, adamantine, and voidshard are the only materials that can kill them with any sort of consistency (iovium whips seem to work well also, but iovium hammers don't).  The Damascus Arbiter and Sentinel see some significant revision in v0.14d, where a brain-like appendage ("control module") is added that can be shattered in order to kill them - this is intended to make them slightly more vulnerable to blunt weapons.  However, the entire concept of a Damascus Arbiter is that it's a titanic (roughly 160 times the size of a dwarf) construct of a long-dead civilization.  While the sentinels were built for patrol and guard roles, the arbiters are very rare and thought to have a more important purpose.  There are usually fewer than a thousand of these in existance in even the largest of worlds.   From a balance standpoint, they're supposed to be tough as nails.  They match up pretty evenly with greater demons - whoever takes off or smashes the head first tends to win these match ups.

Devourers are much larger variants of giant cave spiders, with more power and more valuable silk.  They also avoid traps, but are not immune to stuns, so it's conceivably possible to capture one.

Javelin values are a complicated issue stemming from the [SIZE:xxx] token.  I have not thoroughly tested how (or even if) this value effects combat performance - if it doesn't, I'll reduce it to bring their value back down to earth.  Adamantine javelins don't exist because adamantine bolts were so terrible, but after doing some testing, I've actually found that adamantine javelins aren't that bad.  I will add reactions for creating adamantine piercing and broadhead javelins for 0.14d - but be aware that the value of these is likely to be obscene until I can sort out the size problem.

The energy flux modulus does not stockpile properly because it is, technically, a "toy" item made of a gem.  Since gems are not usually used for toys, there is no stockpile option for it (you may notice this if you ever get an artifact gemstone toy).  I am not sure why the workshop itself would not recognize the reagent - though weird things sometimes happen with workshops with reagents in different burrows.  I'm glad you were able to get it to work via the manager, it's really a fun weapon.  It's basically an extremely powerful crossbow that has a bayonet melee attack.  Expect more technical advances along these lines in future tech tree updates.

You know how there's almost always a dead Greater Demon of Wrath or two on the units screen? I think the explanation you gave was that they weren't friends with anything down in the circus and were getting killed, if I remember correctly.

Turns out that's not quite it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

They spawn in the magma sea. And then they drown in an extremely anticlimatic fashion.

I've seen them in the circus too, but usually magma sea.

Found that by using runesmith to delete all the magma crabs that kept showing up, in an attempt to get more cavern creatures to spawn. Since they didn't, it looks like I killed everything in the area and need to start a new fort. Oh well.

[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:4:5]

What do you know, eh?  Not intended, I'll get that fixed immediately.  Also nabbed a bug with the trash compactor that was causing the blueprint reaction to use the wrong item (I noticed it when I started getting flooded with blueprints).

0.14d is waiting on one last thing, which I'm testing now.  I'll have it up for download late tonight or early tomorrow.

[73]

Not to be a pain, but...

Devourers are much larger variants of giant cave spiders, with more power and more valuable silk.  They also avoid traps, but are not immune to stuns, so it's conceivably possible to capture one.

[THICKWEB][WEBIMMUNE]
[LARGE_ROAMING][AMBUSHPREDATOR][PARALYZEIMMUNE][NOPAIN][TRAPAVOID]
[NO_SLEEP]
[NOPAIN][EXTRAVISION][NOSTUN][NOEMOTION][NONAUSEA]

I checked that after my capture attempts failed. It appears to be completely impossible to capture one, due to them actually being immune to every sort of unconsciousness and also being immune to webs. Rather disappointing after I set up a GCS and cave-in trap to see if I could get one.

Also, you've got NOPAIN in there twice, for whatever reason.