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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]

Shedim brings no profit but their useless dead bodyparts, refuse hauling jobs and the joy of killing itself. Basically, goblins without clothes. Good idea, these shedim!

 I'm still more interested, however, in technology development. Higher technology tree = better weapons? And not just random weapons like the weapon experimental ones? I was thinking weapons with, for example, crossbows attached to it or something. So high tech dwarven soldiers would be dressed in hadrine and voidshard, shoot volleys at charging enemies, then engage in melee when the distance is closed. A bit like redcoat musketeers, actually. With voidwalkers and shedim and everything out for blood, this wouldn't be too far fetched, right?

 I've also been thinking, technology enhancements seem a bit... random. Once you find advanced mechnisms (which requires you to work for it, one way or another), you are pretty much set for technology tablets that comes tumbling out through the training workshops. Perhaps you should make the later stages of the tech tree a bit more challenging? Like, make a 'Research Lab' workshop with reactions like 'Research weapon concepts' 'Research more efficient ___' 'Research ___ of ___' etc etc. Different ones of these reactions take different, rather valuable resources (bars of specific types of metal, rare animal products or rare plants') and has chances of success.

Just some thoughts I had during math class.

[narhiril]

Shedim brings no profit but their useless dead bodyparts, refuse hauling jobs and the joy of killing itself. Basically, goblins without clothes. Good idea, these shedim!

 I'm still more interested, however, in technology development. Higher technology tree = better weapons? And not just random weapons like the weapon experimental ones? I was thinking weapons with, for example, crossbows attached to it or something. So high tech dwarven soldiers would be dressed in hadrine and voidshard, shoot volleys at charging enemies, then engage in melee when the distance is closed. A bit like redcoat musketeers, actually. With voidwalkers and shedim and everything out for blood, this wouldn't be too far fetched, right?

 I've also been thinking, technology enhancements seem a bit... random. Once you find advanced mechnisms (which requires you to work for it, one way or another), you are pretty much set for technology tablets that comes tumbling out through the training workshops. Perhaps you should make the later stages of the tech tree a bit more challenging? Like, make a 'Research Lab' workshop with reactions like 'Research weapon concepts' 'Research more efficient ___' 'Research ___ of ___' etc etc. Different ones of these reactions take different, rather valuable resources (bars of specific types of metal, rare animal products or rare plants') and has chances of success.

Just some thoughts I had during math class.

Future tech tree advances are going to focus more on prototypes, which match your "research" idea pretty closely.  While the alchemy lab lets you screw around with plentiful resources, the advanced alchemy lab is going to require reagents that are not early as easy to come by for some of its advances.  R&D is expensive, after all.

That being said, I really like the way the training and documentation cycle worked out, allowing you to passively move the tree forward while using the new features.  I don't have any plans to back-adjust this, though that doesn't at all mean that you won't see a different set of mechanics in later tiers.

Your idea for hybrid troops (i.e. melee shock troops with some ranged ability) is one that I very much had planned to explore.  I had originally looked at Roman legionnaires for the inspiration here, who would attack by unloading their javelins before closing the distance.  Of course, it won't actually be javelins, because we have the javelin thrower for those, but hybrid ranged/melee weapons are right around the corner for the tech tree.  Other advances planned for the next leg of the tech tree include new forms of ammunition, new decorations, and a new shield (this one is highly ambitious and needs testing out the wazoo before I say any more about it).

It's going to get fun.  Well, hopefully it already is fun, but it's going to get REALLY fun.   

[astianax]

i'm already excited just reading about your plans. two things i can't wait for, but need to, alas (toady's release itself being the other)

as for the ah tels, another mod, i believe it's direforged, has a megabeast called the iron devistator. it's got four arms, three of which are weapons (it's a statue, too. and i know at least one weapon-arm is a sword). so, maybe dissecting the author's methods may help you make shorter work of your own? i dunno. just figured i'd mention, in case it has the potential to reduce headaches

also, also, my latest embark, first mood:

¢k Etost–thir, High Priest-Baron Candidate has created Fikod Asrer, a tungsten reactive chest plate!

Fikod Asrer: The Glaze of Appearance (value: 55800 dorfbux)
this is a tungsten reactive chestplate. all craftdwarfship is of the highest quality. the object menaces with spikes of tungsten


so, not much in the way of decoration on it (it *was* the first mood, after all) but quite a lovely surprise, nonetheless

[Pan]

Tungsten is heavy, I believe. Still, how much protection you think would this be worth, Narhiril?

[Putnam]

Tungsten is heavy, but it must be noted that it's also one of the strongest elemental metals.

It should be better than iron.

[Pan]

Anything worse than voidshard is useless after the first couple of years.

[narhiril]

One of my longer-lived test fortresses survived for many (20+) years on mithril and d-steel.  Tungsten is a pretty decent material aside from its weight, so an artifact reactive plate of that is going to be useful for some time, more because of its superior coverage than anything else.  The best way to find out is to just run with it.  I find that artifact armor tends to outperform its material more often than not.  Also, it is a chest plate - you can always put the chainmail of your choosing underneath it.

Tungsten is, as Putnam mentioned, a remarkably hard metal.  Tungsten carbide, an alloy of equal parts tungsten and carbon, is harder than steel, and is used in modern machinery and armor-piercing rounds.  Unfortunately, it takes very high temperatures to manufacture (hotter than magma).  Lower temperature synthesis is possible, but requires some very advanced technology (flourine gas, teflon gaskets, lots of risk of dwarves being melted by acid, etc).  That's not to say that tungsten carbide won't ever be a part of LFR, but it will need some serious tech advances beforehand and some creativity on my part to make it seem reasonable.  If it does come, it won't be until a very late tier, at which point I must weigh the possibility that the required investment might outpace the potential reward, as I'm not sure how tungsten carbide would compare to something like voidshard - there doesn't seem to be a natural place for it to fall.  At this point, it might or might not be included - we'll see how things work out moving forward.


---

For now, the advanced alchemy lab is focused on investigating new materials (with some help from the experimental materials workshop), specifically looking at the first dwarven forays into magnetism and limited use of electricity, which will get a foot in the door to what has always been the sort of "end goal" of the tech tree - mechanical constructs.  This tier of the tech tree will look more like traditional, almost steampunk research and development, with investment of highly varied reagents, trial, and error.  Mad, bearded scientists test their hypotheses with alcohol, elaborate contraptions, and unstable prototypes, a la Da Vinci or Tesla (much of the inspiration comes from these two inventors).  What that means for you is hybrid weapons, experimental combat technologies, more potential disasters and lab accidents, and some other stupid dwarf tricks thrown in for good measure.

Imagine a dwarf tinkering for years with a new weapon/contraption, whilst all of his colleagues think him insane, who goes down in history not for his contribution to the military, but for some very unusual cheese that he accidentally created as a byproduct of his research.  That's kind of what this tier is going to look like.

[Jilladilla]

Imagine a dwarf tinkering for years with a new weapon/contraption, whilst all of his colleagues think him insane, who goes down in history not for his contribution to the military, but for some very unusual cheese that he accidentally created as a byproduct of his research.  That's kind of what this tier is going to look like.

lol
and btw, are you planning on making it so a construct will sometimes be hostile when its made? just seems natural for some screw ups to happen that way 

[Irenices]

Im really enjoying this mod so far but im having a crash issue that stops my progression, its happened 3 times now and i have no clue whats causing it as i was doing totally different things each time, none of them out of the ordinary.  Its not truetype as i have that disabled and wasnt looking at anything, about 15mins after i load my seasonal save it just bites it, the 3rd time it happened i was tabbed out even.

-the errorlog.txt in the main folder says

path fail: dwarf,Store Item in Stockpile,97,130,118 -> 88,108,121: Id #5951:Path Goal Store Item:Station Milling Flood at 98,122,118

[narhiril]

Imagine a dwarf tinkering for years with a new weapon/contraption, whilst all of his colleagues think him insane, who goes down in history not for his contribution to the military, but for some very unusual cheese that he accidentally created as a byproduct of his research.  That's kind of what this tier is going to look like.

lol
and btw, are you planning on making it so a construct will sometimes be hostile when its made? just seems natural for some screw ups to happen that way 

Oh yes, of course

The logistics of how I planned to make some friendly and some others hostile are hinging pretty heavily on some clever manipulation of castes.  However, I can't say anything for certain.  It's hard to know how you're going to build a golem when your toolbox hasn't even arrived yet, if you get my drift.

---
I'm hoping against hope that caste-level graphics make it into this next version of DF.  This comment has been isolated from the rest of the post due to its complete irrelevance to your question, but I thought it was worth noting anyway.
---

Im really enjoying this mod so far but im having a crash issue that stops my progression, its happened 3 times now and i have no clue whats causing it as i was doing totally different things each time, none of them out of the ordinary.  Its not truetype as i have that disabled and wasnt looking at anything, about 15mins after i load my seasonal save it just bites it, the 3rd time it happened i was tabbed out even.

-the errorlog.txt in the main folder says

path fail: dwarf,Store Item in Stockpile,97,130,118 -> 88,108,121: Id #5951:Path Goal Store Item:Station Milling Flood at 98,122,118

That error has nothing to do with anything related to LFR, and I seem to get those pathing errors dumped into the error log periodically without any sort of crashing.  I'm sorry I wish I could be more helpful, but without being able to reproduce the problem, there's not a lot I can do about it.  If you don't seem to be able to link it to any specific action, it's probably not a raw issue, and if it's an issue with the program itself, I can't do anything for it.

In the meantime, the only thing I can suggest is to save really, really often, and see if you can't find a consistent, specific moment when it seems to have trouble.

Also, how does the game behave when it crashes?  Does it fully crash and kick you to desktop or does it just hang and force you to kill the process?

[narhiril]

I'm getting to the point with this mod where even I'm forgetting about some of the little nuances I threw into it.  I was pleasantly surprised today to run into a nephilim caravan carrying a large load of prismatic essence - a rare and valuable dye from a plant that often goes almost entirely unnoticed.

Which brings me to my point.  Vines of Xanadu - do these things actually work?  I haven't ever stumbled on them during my play testing (admittedly, they only show up in savage-good biomes, and I tend to test in savage-evil), and I'm curious to know if their long growth cycle is working properly.  Of course, I can just tweak some numbers on a copy and make them as common as dirt for testing purposes, but if anyone has actually gotten these things growing and has any experience, I'd love to hear about it - it would save me a lot of time.  Every other plant seems to be working properly, at least.

[astianax]

sadly, to my knowledge, we still aren't getting to see any good or evil plants or trees grow anywhere. they somehow got broken, no glumprongs or featherwoods, sunberries or sliver barbs for quite a while, and that's just in the standard game. haven't even seen the tentacle or eyeball grass in ages, and i always start in areas that have good and evil biomes crossing.

i'm gonna modify a few reactions later on, see if i can get any of the good or evil seeds to pop out and see if can plant those. but, i've noticed the vine of xanadu and its prismatic essence when setting up stockpiles (i usually do an "all milled plants but dyes" and a "just the dyes here" stockpile in different areas) and want to use it at some point

i've even started using df hack's prospector option just to see what plants are around. still haven't seen any of the good or evil ones from any of the mods i've got crammed together under the lfr hood, in any of my saved worlds. it's rather disappointing, really

[Putnam]

sadly, to my knowledge, we still aren't getting to see any good or evil plants or trees grow anywhere. they somehow got broken, no glumprongs or featherwoods, sunberries or sliver barbs for quite a while, and that's just in the standard game. haven't even seen the tentacle or eyeball grass in ages, and i always start in areas that have good and evil biomes crossing.

i'm gonna modify a few reactions later on, see if i can get any of the good or evil seeds to pop out and see if can plant those. but, i've noticed the vine of xanadu and its prismatic essence when setting up stockpiles (i usually do an "all milled plants but dyes" and a "just the dyes here" stockpile in different areas) and want to use it at some point

i've even started using df hack's prospector option just to see what plants are around. still haven't seen any of the good or evil ones from any of the mods i've got crammed together under the lfr hood, in any of my saved worlds. it's rather disappointing, really

Huh. I just started a succession game where there are tentacle/eye grasses, though they don't have the correct tiles.

[astianax]

(un)lucky you! i've been trying for ages (and many, many more worlds than i care to admit) and haven't seen any of the 'evil' grasses other than the brain tissue and clattering teeth i snagged from another mod, both grow all willy-nilly in the caverns, not caring if it's good or evil areas, yet both are flagged to only grow in evil caverns. on the surface, still no sign of a good or evil plant of any kind

[narhiril]

(un)lucky you! i've been trying for ages (and many, many more worlds than i care to admit) and haven't seen any of the 'evil' grasses other than the brain tissue and clattering teeth i snagged from another mod, both grow all willy-nilly in the caverns, not caring if it's good or evil areas, yet both are flagged to only grow in evil caverns. on the surface, still no sign of a good or evil plant of any kind

Ok so this seems like a DF bug rather than a LFR bug.  Disappointing, but good to know.

sadly, to my knowledge, we still aren't getting to see any good or evil plants or trees grow anywhere. they somehow got broken, no glumprongs or featherwoods, sunberries or sliver barbs for quite a while, and that's just in the standard game. haven't even seen the tentacle or eyeball grass in ages, and i always start in areas that have good and evil biomes crossing.

i'm gonna modify a few reactions later on, see if i can get any of the good or evil seeds to pop out and see if can plant those. but, i've noticed the vine of xanadu and its prismatic essence when setting up stockpiles (i usually do an "all milled plants but dyes" and a "just the dyes here" stockpile in different areas) and want to use it at some point

i've even started using df hack's prospector option just to see what plants are around. still haven't seen any of the good or evil ones from any of the mods i've got crammed together under the lfr hood, in any of my saved worlds. it's rather disappointing, really

Huh. I just started a succession game where there are tentacle/eye grasses, though they don't have the correct tiles.

LFR doesn't add grasses (at least not yet), so that's probably an Ironhand issue.  That would be reasonably easy to fix, though - I'll mention it on the relevant thread, but you can open up plant_grasses and edit the tiles of the culprit(s) in [GRASS_TILE] and [ALT_GRASS_TILE] yourself.  Shouldn't require a new world, either.