Hey everybody!
I had a really bad scare this week, when I thought my computer had imploded. It wouldn't start up at all for several days, and I actually called the company and had a startup disk sent out, but when I tried using the disk I discovered that my computer was just faking, or in a temporary coma, or something...
Bizarre, and possibly indicative of some kind of sleeper virus I'll need to dig out, but atleast I didn't lose anything on my computer, and it gave me time to get my house cleaned, so my wife and I can better enjoy Valentines day (I'm making fettuccini alfredo from scratch, by the way...).
That's great info about the building sizes, arclance. Thanks!
Lead is in almost any soil, and is therefore very prevalent. It also varies in toxicity, depending on the person, or even community, in question, as well as the person's age. There seems to be some genetics at work, and maybe some build-up of tolerance levels. I've actually read that some biologists and other scientists find it strange that humans *don't* use lead as a mineral, since it's so similar to metals we do use, and so ubiquitous. Still, very unwise to mess around with.
Good job on the water reaction, Pancho Cachondo.
Have you tested it out, though? How does it work, in-game?
To go along with crossbows, I've decided I'm going to rework weapons in general to include several component parts.
Since I've already got tons of modded weapons done, or nearly so, this is work I can crank out by myself, with some satisfaction.
Here's the thread with the more basic mods that I'll be working from, so it's easier for me to find it on the boards, and also for anyone who's interested:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=81681.msg2158708#msg2158708Not all specific types of weapon will require every type of component. Larger, more complex/powerful weapons will require more components, and/or the individual components themselves will require more resources, and various materials, some harder to get than others.
Here's a basic list of required components for each weapon type, off the top of my head.
Axes: head, bit, spike, stirrups, haft, butt.
Swords: edge, blade, crossguard, hilt, pommel.
Maces: head, haft, hilt, pommel, blade, spike.
Spears: head, crossguard, shaft, butt.
Hammers: head, haft, spike, butt.
Picks: beak, awl, stirrups, haft, butt.
Flails: head, spike, chain, handle.
Crossbows: horns, stock, drums, windlass, cord, sight.
Because of the greater complexity of the weapons, this should actually encourage starting Fortresses to trade, since it may actually be a more efficient way to arm your soldiers, at the start of the game, than to set up a weapons industry. Growing Fortresses can then decide when to create their own weapons, when quality becomes more of a factor.
The weapons trade should remain significant for some time, however, in certain situations, since it should continue to atleast be faster, if not cheaper, to buy large volumes of weapons, for traps, training, etc. than it will be to make them, atleast for a while.
Armour can be handled in a similar but more simplified fashion, since the game currently doesn't support a huge amount of modding options in this area, but there's enough room to certainly make things interesting.
I've also decided to borrow an idea or two from Marcus Heitz's 'The Dwarves'. Really great book, by the way, that seems like it would appeal to many DF players. The English translation was good enough, infact, that I'm thinking about buying it in the original German, and puzzling my way though with the use of my nearly-forgotten highschool Deutsch.
Minor spoilers ahead:
In the book, dragonfire can be used to smelt metals that cannot otherwise be melted, and can even be used to alloy metals that otherwise would never combine. So I figure it would be interesting, and enough of a challenge to balance everything out, to give dragons a special organ, or something, that could then be used to create an uber-furnace, which would allow our dwarfs to smelt metals such as iridium, tungsten, etc. possibly in combination with alchemy. So we can maybe do something with that?
Waterclocks, clockworks, hour glasses, bells, telescopes, mechanical statues and fountains, and other such items, while they probably wouldn't have any real use in the game, could be very interesting to manufacture, and could also add a lot of variety and uniqueness to our Fortresses.
Bells, for instance, could be made from a wide range of special alloys that would be easy to mod into the game, but wouldn't otherwise have much use.
These could all help expand the role of casting in the game, though, which I plan to make extensive modding use of.
A lot of these ideas are, naturally, peripheral right now. I want to expand the game from the foundation up, so I want to start simple, but I still want to get a lot of ideas down and recorded, so that this project can continue, and follow ToadyOne's expansions, until it feels as complete and well-rounded as the game deserves to be, as far as we as players can accommodate that desire.
Now that I know how flexible building sizes can be, I'll start doing a real write-up of what I want for buildings. There's going to be quite a few...
Is anyone prepaired to help make the new buildings a reality? It will require some modding experience, along with a decent amount of your free time and patience, since the size of this project is quite big, and still growing, and the buildings will be a major and continuing factor in that.
I promise I'll start you out slow, and I'll do my part to also learn more about how buildings are modded, and try my hand at it personally, when I feel confident enough.
I'm just hoping someone who knows more about modding this specific area than I do will step up and oversee this part of the project, as that will make my own education that much easier, while taking enough of the weight of doing the actuall work off of me, that I'll be better able to oversee balancing, and getting things in the arrangements that I want.