Print

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

[m4davis]

I find my self wondering if when you lose a limb you could zombify it and sew it back on to your old stump

[Footkerchief]

Awesome info, thanks!

Since zombies need a head or grasping body parts to be reanimated, what happens to a resurrected zombie that gets its head and hands chopped of in battle? Does it fall "dead" (and if so, could that be why the zombies are being defeated so easily?), or does it continue "living" without the head and grasp parts?

Yeah, it collapses, but it's generally the animation hitpoint thing that's causing the trouble (coupled with the move/attack speed issue and no compensation for zero skills).

Yeah zombies definitely need some inherent biting skills.  Chops, if you will.

Will world gen "heros" ever assume the role of treasure hunter and go after these items, or will they just be looking for kills?

Probably when we go for the treasure hunter role stuff on the dev page, but perhaps before, just to get artifacts flowing around a bit.  The movement of artifacts should be one of the main potential driving forces of events.  It would be fun to develop a rivalry and to hunt them down once we've got tracking and interrogation, if it comes to that.

does this mean there will be artifacts created during worldgen? how soon do you expect to work on it?

It's the first item on the dev page under the 'Artifacts' section.  As usual, there is no clear timeline.  The clearest prediction Toady can give is probably the one he already gave -- that it'll coincide with Treasure Hunter stuff when that happens.

[Glanzor]

We are hoping to get to constructed undead and the stalkers.  You can't mix and match pieces though -- that will take significant work (and should also lead to proper centaur-style critter generation).  Having weapons tacked on to the constructed undead is about as far as we'll be able to take it this time (since that can more or less co-opt the stitch-as-inventory-item code).  Player involvement there is unknown.  It may even end up being in dwarf mode first as a mood before anything else anywhere, since they practically do it already, although there is an atmosphere question there.

What about Intelligent Undead? Aren't they necessary for the necromancers' armies so they can execute organized attacks on fortresses without risking their masters' lives?

[Footkerchief]

We are hoping to get to constructed undead and the stalkers.  You can't mix and match pieces though -- that will take significant work (and should also lead to proper centaur-style critter generation).  Having weapons tacked on to the constructed undead is about as far as we'll be able to take it this time (since that can more or less co-opt the stitch-as-inventory-item code).  Player involvement there is unknown.  It may even end up being in dwarf mode first as a mood before anything else anywhere, since they practically do it already, although there is an atmosphere question there.

What about Intelligent Undead? Aren't they necessary for the necromancers' armies so they can execute organized attacks on fortresses without risking their masters' lives?

No, they aren't necessary yet, because attacks on fortresses aren't organized and attack leaders already risk their lives anyway, and half the point of the necromancer attacks is to have the necromancer on the front lines raising the freshly dead/severed.  "Intelligent" undead (in the sense of having intact souls) do exist, though, in the form of resurrected mummies:

A reanimated body doesn't have the same historical information (or a soul/skills).  A resurrection (which exists, for use by mummy disturbance currently) does bring the soul back.

[Mephansteras]

When hilldwarves are in, is there a chance we could end up with a town map like the one you posted, but with our own fortress at the center?

Seems unlikely - the hill dwarf settlements probably will use different structures from human towns. Perhaps if you mod the game to have dwarves use towns rather than mountain halls.

It won't be identical, since the different races (humans, elves dwarves, etc.) are getting unique stuff in army arc. But I'd imagine that's the general idea.

Yeah, it's definitely going to be some analagous setup, with some dwarfification.  Hopefully all of the army stuff and hilldwarf/extending settlement management and road management and trade and whatever else will see those maps and the scale one higher come up in some uniform and combined way.

I've been wondering what your idea of a Hill Dwarf settlement is. Do you have a specific idea in mind right now for what those settlements will look like, or is that something you haven't really gotten too far into thinking about yet? The dwarven ability to combine above and below ground aspects seems like it lends itself to a lot of variation.

For those that are interested, we've started a Hill Dwarf Challenge over in the community games section. Not too far along yet, but it'll be interesting to see what everyone's settlements end up looking like.

A couple questions that arose from rereading the dev page:
Will we get population sprawl with farms and whatnot growing up around adventurer-created sites?
I feel like that should happen based on the adventurer's reputation and what stuff the site actually includes.
Will merchants come to adventurer sites?
It would be a good reward that makes sense for building a nice site, both traveling caravans like in Dwarf mode and potentially markets formed by the population.

They aren't going to be any different from other sites, technically speaking.  It'll require the fluxuation of sprawl post-world-gen, unless it's handled as a special case first, but, yeah, your site is a site.  We haven't discussed specifically about you being able to establish places like markets, but there's no reason it wouldn't make sense for them to arise or be created, assuming you have a place the trade AI would see a reason to travel to once caravans can move around.  There's also the matter of very local traders like peddlars that wouldn't even require markets to operate, and you might see those almost automatically once they go in, since you'd almost certainly have a resource pool and a population from the outset.

With adventurer sites, are we going to see people building their own homes/shops/farms/etc? Or is it going to end up like fortress mode, where the player designates everything and then the people go and do the work?

If they do end up building their own stuff, will that eventually be an option in fortress mode? It'd be interesting, especially as the fortress gets larger and the player is focused more on world/army stuff, to be able to give your dwarves a lot more autonomy.

[monk12]

Having weapons tacked on to the constructed undead is about as far as we'll be able to take it this time (since that can more or less co-opt the stitch-as-inventory-item code).  Player involvement there is unknown.  It may even end up being in dwarf mode first as a mood before anything else anywhere, since they practically do it already, although there is an atmosphere question there.

That's pretty awesome- I think it would fit the atmosphere if it was a "Macabre Mood" kinda thing, although obviously this depends on how prevalent necromancy gets in dwarf mode to begin with.

Urist McWolverine has completed an artifact! Urist McWolverine has completed Sabrefangs, an adamantine skeleton!

His hands menace with spikes

[jimi12]

So Toady, what else do you plan on implementing before this release is over?

[Sanure]

my question is, will you be able to, as an adventurer, become a Dullahan?
if so, how will it be handled? would it be a random event, a necromancer's power, or would it be an act of a god or goddess deciding its necessary to have a headless person running around with head in hand to fight evil?
also, are outside forces (gods, goddesses, and forces) going to have temples dedicated to them or has that already been asnwered?

[Dienes]

Yeah, it collapses, but it's generally the animation hitpoint thing that's causing the trouble (coupled with the move/attack speed issue and no compensation for zero skills).

It sucked, but the zombies are all so bad now it's hard to tell the difference.  It calculates weight of bodies for punches and so on, so all the missing bulk should make the skin kind of embarrassing as a striker.  As a wrestler I think it will be harder than a normal critter if we make all the animated stronger and faster than they are now, if you aren't skilled enough to get away.

Is there any plan to have undead scale with the power of the necromancer?
I feel like it would make sense for an incredibly powerful age old necromancer to have more powerful servants than an initiate who just raised his first zombie. My thought was of giving the raised creature something like natural skill levels based on the necromancer's age or overall skill level or something which would also help make undead more of a challenge. I would kind of like to see this implemented as raised undead having a quality level so if you you found a bunch of no quality zombies you knew they were much less dangerous than a handful of masterwork zombies.

And will there be any way to connect interactions to something like a crafted item type or building type?
I was thinking it would be cool to mod in a building that would do interactions. Either in the area around the building or as some kind of product from a reaction in the building. This would give moders a lot of opportunity to create magic-like effects and provide a good way to make use of interactions without having to give them to all dwarves or hope you get lucky and your fort learns a secret somehow. You could make a building like a cleric's shrine that would have a reaction to sacrifice (butcher) an an animal consuming the corpse and causing an interaction to speed up healing of everyone around the shrine for a bit. Or a necromancer's lab with a reaction requiring a corpse that's not consumed and some other ingredients that are consumed (ichor, silver barb, a precious/rare gem) and uses the necromancy interaction on the corpse so you could raise the dead but it would be an expensive thing to do rather than it being 'free' once you got the interaction like if you turned a dwarf into a necromancer who could raise the dead at will.

[YetAnotherStupidDorf]

I would kind of like to see this implemented as raised undead having a quality level so if you you found a bunch of no quality zombies you knew they were much less dangerous than a handful of masterwork zombies.

I think "quality levels" in this case are completely unappropriate. Use better skill levels.

[erissian]

Will raised undead have the clothes, equipments and weapons they had when they died? Or will they be naked?

The way it currently works I would think they would be naked, but it would be nice to have them using the equipment they had when they died.

The corpse-as-container is a little messy for dwarf mode, since you want to get those items back into circulation and they'd be one step removed from all the current code that addresses ground objects.  Because there are bag/bins/etc., and dwarves dip into them regularly, I don't think it is an impossible change, but I'm pretty sure lots of things would break if I just went ahead with it, so I've avoided it this time around to prevent further delays.  It has been on my mind and is really necessary for them to work well, and for the game to make sense.  I'm not sure when it's going to happen.  It has been a desired feature for a long time, and the zombie animation makes it moreso.  It's kind of like the move/attack speed split.  Necessary, with a sort of nebulous fix-up time that constantly sees it pushed off for years.

I always thought it was weird that a dwarf's possessions explode off of him when he dies. Is it possible to drag a dwarf and everything on them to a corpse stockpile before looting their body for socks? Could it be treated like a special case of moving an injured dwarf? Can properly buried dwarfs be raised?

[Knight Otu]

Thanks, Toady!

Will special attacks such as firebreath or webs be handled under the interaction system?

It has not happened yet.  That is the plan though.  It's still in the "hopeful" category for this release.  Fire is annoying because it might not work quite right as a "gas" material, so there'd need to be some kind of alteration for a material breath weapon to work as the template.  Webs are also a bit strange the way they come into being as items.  If I get it done it'll make the game neater though, and allow more options, so it isn't pushed off yet either.

Oh, I hadn't considered that adding webbing to that framework could kinda-sorta lead to "item breaths". Should be interesting if it comes in.

Skulls themselves are an odd case, because they don't have teeth or even a head flag, so they don't animate, and they don't get lumped with the other bones.

Aw, no Morte yet.

[Neonivek]

Thanks for answering our questions Toady

It took me quite a few minutes to understand what you were refering to when you mentioned the "thread of discussion" and I can only guess you meant when I went into the rant where I wanted things in the world to shift wildly.

[Jiri Petru]

Aw, no Morte yet.

You tell me.

[Yoink]

Hey... Wow, I can just imagine with these 'constructed undead', Urist McStrange going into a fell mood, murdering a bunch of his fellows and then splicing them together into some kind of giant, blood-crusted fleshy monsotrosity, tasked with defending the fortress in its agonizing state of un-life!
It's kinda worrying that that idea actually got me really excited.