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[Meph]

Hi guys, after my latest addition is kind of complete, I wondered what should be next. I have following things to choose from:

- Make a list of possible Easter eggs                  
- Collect more ideas about the negative value system            
- Devise a tech tree system that is intuitive; prob. using magma-buildings   
- Devise an alchemy system that is intuitive               
- Redo, or advance the religion system                  
- Make new industries, like paper making               
- Reward system for people who explore caverns   

The religion is being worked on... the rest ? No idea. If you have anything to add, go ahead One could mix paper making + religion = holy dwarf book, or add special animals to the caverns that drop items needed for better armor/weapons. (sry narhiril, sounds familiar to damascus stentinels, I know, but it is a good idea )

I would collect everythin that turns up in this post and see what can be implemented             

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Paper industry +mail.
Lost explorers that drop steel equipment.
Religion sacrificing + alchemy = O.O
Hm....power core tech that powers firearms.

[Meph]

About the cavern exploring rewards: Adding blobs, slimes and jellys, (from a existing mod) These drop jewels upon death. Make them spawn in groups in the caverns. Now you militia will go hunting 

[Trapezohedron]

Rare plastic ore, for making pleather armor.
Plastic swords!
(If you're going to make a plastics industry workshop, ignore the above.)
Hell fauna and flora
Cave snails: Source of dwarven shells.
Totally invulnerable, totally harmless, totally untameable orbs. (hint: can be killed by cave-in)
Jewel weaponry?
Self-replicating metal drones (lays eggs, flies and has weaponry like flamethrowers and saws.)
Making a reaction that involves putting a bag of holding or some kind of mystical artifact into another of the same type, which creates an artifact, and kills the user of the workshop?

Those are all that's in my head, for now.

[narhiril]

I've done a fair bit of research firsthand on hell fauna...  A few discoveries (some obvious, some not so much).

-Setting [UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:5:5] and [BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_CHASM] gets them down there.
-World populations of a creature that inhabits hell (even if it also appears elsewhere) is always set to infinite.
-Creatures compete with procedural demons for spawns.  A world with more procedural demons will see less custom creatures.
-A world without procedural demons will see only custom creatures.
-Procedural demons will attack anything on sight.  This can be avoided by adding [AT_PEACE_WITH_WILDLIFE] to anything you put down there that you don't want fighting with them.
-The [AT_PEACE_WITH_WILDLIFE] tag seems to override the [LIKES_FIGHTING] and [LARGE_PREDATOR] tokens to some degree.  To get the creature down there to attack dwarves, but not demons, give them a high [PRONE_TO_RAGE] value.
-Anything that falls into a chasm will die instantly.
-Creatures in hell respect the [FREQUENCY] and [CLUSTER_NUMBER] tokens.


Some ideas for creatures down there...

1) Scrap the procedural demons and add your own version of hell.  I have done this with LFR, giving powerful creatures down there unique item drops.  This has proved to be a great way to do easter eggs without significantly affecting the balance of the game.

2) Add a creature that naturally fights with procedural demons.  Think the Lightbringers from Guild Wars, fighting in the realm of torment, or the Legion of the Dead in DA:O, fighting the darkspawn until their own deaths.  This is a planned future addition to LFR, but I by no means have any sort of monopoly on any of these ideas.  As long as you use your own work or ask for permission if you want to use mine directly, I have no quarrel with any of your objectives here.

3) Add a tameable war creature unique to hell as a reward for successfully breaching it and capturing a pair.  Note that this might not work very well if procedural demons are present, as giving [AT_PEACE_WITH_WILDLIFE] to a war creature is somewhat undesirable.


I am currently doing research on hell flora.  The theory is that putting a plant in hell should permit it to grow on suitable surfaces once hell is breached, as a sort of reward.  High value alcohol, perhaps?  I just need to confirm that this actually works.

I am currently testing hell civilizations - theoretically they function identically to animal people.  What will be really exciting is if I can get them to work and to spawn with unique items from their permissions list.  Imagine breaching hell only to find a group of hopelessly lost aliens from another plane of reality.

I have not yet tested hell megabeasts.  I sincerely hope they work, but I won't have any evidence for a while.

[Reudh]

Manohmanohman.

A weapon that's entirely harmless. Perfect for justice. Hit them with a squishy hammer.

A creature that's beneficial in some way to dwarves outside of being food. I dunno, milk booze from it or something?
A syndrome that causes numbness in all parts of the body?

[Meph]

Thanks a lot for the long answer, narhiril. Most of it was completely unknown to me, I never paid much attention to depth 5:5.

And here is my idea for a tech tree that is simple to understand. I hope to add most things without the need for a manual. In general you can build a magma-version of many known buildings, and refine (make better) a item. You get either a higher value, or a special property. The would increase every industry by one building and one step. Any Comments ?

TECH TREE:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Magma Based Tech Tree


Magma Brewery, 3x3 (or 3x5), smelter
Refine drink: Produces high value booze.
Needs: Brewing labor, magma access
Reagent: Booze item
(This building is essentially a refinery, that adds one workstep to raise the value of the booze)


Magma Kitchen, 3x3 (or 3x5) smelter
Improve food: Produces high value food.
Needs: Cooking labor, magma access
Reagent: food item
(This building is essentially a refinery, that adds one workstep to raise the value of the food)


Magma Armory, 3x3 (or3x5), smelter
Make fireproof armor: Produces an armor piece with fixed temp. Other values stay the same.
Needs: Armorsmith labor, magma access
Reagent: Armor
(This building is essentially a refinery, that adds one workstep to adds extra protection to armor)


Magma Weaponry, 3x3 (or3x5), smelter
Make flaming weapon: Produces syndrome inducing weapons. Only on: Weapon lodged in wound:hits.
Needs: weaponsmith labor, magma access
Reagent: weapon
(This building is essentially a refinery, that adds one workstep to adds extra power to weapons)


Magma Ammo Caster, 3x3 (or3x5), smelter
Make flaming ammo: Produces syndrome inducing ammo. Only on: bolt lodged in wound:hits.
Needs: weaponsmith labor, magma access
Reagent: ammo
(This building is essentially a refinery, that adds one workstep to adds extra power to ammo)


Slade Factory, 3x3 (or 3x5), smelter
Compress stones into slade: Produces a slade boulder.
Needs: Mason labor, magma access
Reagent: 10 random stones
(This building is essentially a refinery, that adds one workstep to adds extra power to catapult ammo and stonefall traps)


Obsidian Factory, 3x3 (or 3x5), smelter
Produce obsidian: Produces an obsidian boulder.
Needs: Mason labor, magma access
Reagent: Bucket full of water, one stone boulder
Produce obsidian block.
Needs: Mason labor, magma access
Reagent: obsidian boulder
(This building is essentially a refinery, that adds one workstep to raise the value of stone)


Magma Refinery, 3x3 (or 3x5), smelter
Refine leather into tough leather: Produces harder leather for armor
Refine bone into tough bone: Produces harder bones for armor/bolts
Refine wood into tough wood: Produces harder wood for ammo/shields
Needs: Leather/Bone/Wood-crafter labor, magma access
Reagent: Leather, Bone or Wood
(This building is essentially a refinery, that adds one workstep to improve materials)

[Reudh]

For the magma bolts, you would have to make them out of a material that melts or sublimates at body temperature (10067U) but is stable at just below that. They'd only bear the syndrome when lodged in.

Same with the weapons.


Though... that'll hopefully change next month when the release comes out.

[Deon]

If I had a choice to pick anyone to advance DF modding for new versions in case I die, it would definitely be Meph .

I really like how you're thinking.

Now don't think that I consider myself to be a major modding community contribution, I am one of many, but still... I consider this hobby very important, and while DF has people like Mephansteras, Knight Otu, IT 000, darkflagrance, Lofn, narhiril, Phoebus, Ironhand (and many others, I don't want to list all for obvious reasons) I feel that the modding community has a chance to have a looong life .

After reading your ideas I want to remake major parts of Genesis. It still has so much from my early modding when I was a total newbie so I was unable to make everything I want . I will probably start a new mod after the new DF version is out, from the fresh.

The magma workshops are great ideas . You could also make improved weaponry, like axebows (crossbows with cutting attack) avaliable through a research in inventor's workshop.

About the cavern exploring rewards: Adding blobs, slimes and jellys, (from a existing mod) These drop jewels upon death. Make them spawn in groups in the caverns. Now you militia will go hunting 

That's a great idea. I've already made gem golems to drop gem statues, but they are really deep and they are hard to kill enemies, so nobody hunts them for statues. Weaker enemies like jellies (which I planned to add to the 1st caverns and swamps) is a great choice.

[Meph]

Wow, thanks deon

I tend to move away from simulation and to strategy game. I only try to add things known to me from other games. Features that are based upon gamedepth, not realism. Not very DF-like, but I havent seen many mods doing this. But I guess I wait with the special ammo/weapons till next version with the new syndromes. Fireproof metals are done though and I will definetly use some of narhirils ideas of rewards for hellbreaching. Super high value plants/trees, maybe I add a trainable benign pet creature to hell...

Anyway, just ideas...

@narhiril: If I want to replace all the original hell demons, do I need as many new creature types that spawn in 5:5 as the number of demons at the world generator ? Any guess how many that would be for the simple world generator ?

About weapon refinery: I might use the blob item drops for that. They drop high value gems, that can be used for decoration/trading AND as a reagent for alchemy. People who dont like the alchemy can leave it out, and still benefit from the cave blobs. And vice versa.

I'd inlcude syndrome inducing weapon with the standart stuff: fire, ice, acid, toxic... hope the next version allows that. The deeper the cave blob race, the better the item. Small, Medium and Grand-whatever-item. For weak, medium and strong syndromes.

Any comments ?

[Meph]

Sry for double post - bump-

Just wanted to say that the fireproof metal upgrade, the cave blob creatures that drop gems, the gems themselves, 15 new materials for special ammo, the buildings to use everything and all syndromes for the ammo is DONE.

- 15 Types of blobs in the caverns. small/normal/big * fire/ice/blood/acid/toxic
- 15 Types of gems, only dropped by blobs. small/normal/grand * fire/ice/blood/acid/toxic
- 15 kinds of metals, only aviable through a reaction using the gems.
- 15 types of ammo, imbued with magic power, using syndromes to harm enemies.
- Every metal has a fireproof upgrade.

Next ideas: Make two more upgrades for metal. LIGHER metal, so your military can move faster, and STRONGER/HARDER metal, to make the armor  better. You could only choose one. That way you can create highly specialiest squads.

- A 3 man fireproof squad with spears to battle magma creatures and light fire-traps.
- A fast crossbow-squad with necrosis ammo to snipe goblins
- A tank squad, towershields and battleaxes, sowly advancing on the invading army. 

[Deon]

Also a heavier metal would be better for hammers.

Regarding demons: it's safer to have a few types. Mostly because if the game cannot find something it tried to generate, it may crash. It may happen with anything.

For example, I had steady world gen crashes when I removed quarry bushes because the game needs at least one plant with leaves (for some reason).

[narhiril]

Also a heavier metal would be better for hammers.

Regarding demons: it's safer to have a few types. Mostly because if the game cannot find something it tried to generate, it may crash. It may happen with anything.

For example, I had steady world gen crashes when I removed quarry bushes because the game needs at least one plant with leaves (for some reason).

I've never had a problem with it, but for reference, I have four types finished at the moment.  In LFR, each of them drop unique items on death - hellions attack in swarms of 20+ and have a chance to drop a unique weapon called "razor knuckles," and the three greater demons each drop an extremely high value token.  When the next version of DF comes out, I was planning to finish the other four greater demons and add some reactions to "redeem" tokens, for both adventurers and fortresses.  It should make for some interesting stuff.  If I can get a civ to work down there, it will be even more interesting.

[Abregado]

Regarding Tech Tree stuff

My idea was to have these buildings require "Advanced Tools" items that are created from all the other industries. These items are used at building materials and include such things as glass vials, cut diamonds/gems, steel bars and are available from a tool makers workshop.

Then have all the high tech magma building reactions require "Machine Oil" which is pressed from a plant that can only be grown outside/on the surface during one month of the year.

This way you have to master all the other industries, plus have a fort that is both outside and at magma level at the same time (encouraging the much bugged burrow system).

Feel free to use this idea. My modding skills are insufficient to implement it.

[Meph]

4 Greater Demons ? Sounds like Khorne, Slaanesh, Nurgle and Tzeench

I had a similar idea, giving them item drops that are unobtainable otherwise, but I did not really get to that.

@abregado: If you dont embark on a volcano, getting a entiry industry down to magma (or magma up to you) is quite difficult already. I like the idea of adding an extra reagent to the reactions, but NO custom made tools. I dont want people to get confused. They should be able to use it, even without reading a manual. So far the magma reactions require:

10 stones + magma  => slade boulder
1 stone + bucket full of water + magma => Obsidian boulder and empty bucket
1 ballista bolt +1 slade boulder => Slade ballista bolt (I really want to try them out)

1 metal + flux + magma => metal upgrade(might change that)
25 ammo + fuel + special gem => special ammo
25 ammo + magma + special gem => special ammo