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[sayke]

Hello all -

So I finally got the chance to jump into 6.1, after making a few changes to the raws. It is bloody fantastic. I love all the variety in dwarf mode - you really can build up a beautifully self-sustaining, self-regulating, self-defending machine =D

I've been asked to describe the major pre-embark changes I make, so I'm including them here along with some suggestions.  I use a worldgen file of my own design, that I created using PerfectWorld, and I always embark in the same location in that world, using a consistent embark_profile - so I can recreate my environment under controlled conditions across MWDF versions as much as possible. Here are the tweaks I make (some shamelessly cribbed from http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=139760.0):

• Disable Animalmen in the launcher
• Increase material quality for Succubi, Automatons, etc
• Replace "[BIOME:ANY_LAND][BIOME:" with just "[BIOME:" in all the creature_*.txt files, so biomes matter again
• Move the really ridiculous magical creatures from other raw files into creature_magical_ff.txt, and disable it
• Remove the nonsensical ITEMS_WEAPON tags etc from inorganic_stone_mineral.txt (rose gold armor? pff)
• Remove the REACTION_CLASS:STEEL_COATING from spring steel so it doesn't get used for art
• Tweak leather/wood weights and values in material_template_masterwork.txt
• Add mithril/wolfram vein stones in igneous intrusive, so there's something deep to go looking for besides adamantine
• Add the AUTOMATIC tag to upgrading leather and chitin
• Greatly reduce Guild dwarf population ratio numbers, so they don't show up as immigrants often

During this most recent playthrough I kept some notes on possible ideas and suggestions etc, and I'd love to hear your thoughts - and Meph, yours too, if you're around!

• Should Smooth Wood be worth slightly more than regular wood?
• In the library system, can training reactions be set to accept any type of paper rather than just rock journals?
• Can we do away with rock journals entirely? They seem kind of silly, and they use a lot of rock =P
• Why doesn't training animals in the animal trainer (with bones) train grasp/strike? Many animal attacks use it!
• Is there any point to having copper and silver coins makable from the coin press now?
• The pewter weapon rune should probably become a platinum rune, and have a 25% chance of making enemies dizzy. Right now it seems kinda pretty pointless =P
• The orichalcum armor rune should have a 25% speed increase. Orichalcum is rare and just 10% isn't worth it!
• Can we have reactions to make suits of clothes from the different types of leather, rather than just cloth? We can make leather clothes in the leatherworker, but we can't make suits of clothes that I can see!
• Can generic wood have a [NAME:rough] tag etc so it's actually called rough wood, rather than being blank in the sorting lists? Or would this mess up wood sapling names? We don't want "rough wood saplings"...
• Because many weapons, like "repeating crossbows" and "legendary longswords", are named with an adjective in front of their name rather than just changing the name, they show up in stockpiles as just "crossbows"... This makes it hard to stockpile the different types. Is that necessary?
• Why not give the third-level mages the really powerful/dangerous AoE spells, and keep the first/second level ones useful? Right now the elemental mages are such double-edged swords that there isn't much point in deploying them... If they started out with simpler targeted attacks and then became more powerful and dangerous as you upgraded them, there might be more reason to use them!
• The alchemy wheel should go: Bismuth, Lead, Zinc, Tin, Copper, Iron, Cobalt, Aluminum, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Chromium, Titanium, Wolfram, Mithril... Bismuth... Etc. This is in general order of utility, based on number and type of reactions they are good for. As it stands, bismuth is basically useless, while tin is actually really useful, so this would make the alchemy wheel a lot more important. As it stands, there isn't much point upgrading some of these metals!
• Speaking of metals, some metals (bismuth, lead, zinc in particular) seem almost useless... Am I missing something here? =D

That's all I've got for now - more later though! In general, I'm having a ball with this, and I look forward to exploring the rest of it.

[smakemupagus]

Lead is for bullets!  Zinc is for brass, one of the best value-adding alloys!  Bismuth .... is kind of fun to say!

My only small note so far, is that Limonite and Magnetite don't seem to have an Ore processor reaction, so you're stuck using crude processing.  It's connected to your notes on BIOMEs and LAYERs mattering (which I am in favor of too) because those two ores are sedimentary; they're a big part of the reason that you might take on the mini challenge of an embark aquifer-laden, volcano-lacking swampland.

[Meph]

Thanks for the write up. Yes, I'm still around, but focussed on filmmaking atm. I'm trying to build a camera rig for my bike.

[sayke]

@Smake - Hah! Lead for bullets and zinc for value-adding brass makes sense. I actually haven't got around to using guns yet because I wasn't sure it was worth it. Bayonetted repeating crossbows are pretty freakin' good, so I haven't seen fit to upgrade. How do they compare?

On a related note, how do they compare to hammerhead bolts? I'm looking at the numbers but I have a hard time translating them to how well they work in practice. I was thinking that because my improved longsword+towershield guard-caste line infantry have both cutting and piercing damage covered, it might make sense to set up ranged to do blunt damage, in order to round out the trifecta... Or maybe I should just set up a team of wolfram-maul armed golfers...

@Meph - Hey man! What, you can't just duct-tape a GoPro to the handlebars?? =D

[arbarbonif]

One thing that I do is change the existing gold and silver furniture reactions to be any metal and gem, respectively.  Then I can use the material filter to let me create mithril or diamond furniture sets if I want to.  I wonder if enough people use the material filter to let that take more of the heavy lifting for things, you could change the various leather armors to just be one 'make leather armor set' and use either stockpiles or the material filter to control which kind.  That would shrink the list of reactions and make adding 'create leather clothing' and such less cluttered.

I may play around with that a bit.  Also try and figure out why sometime it limits properly (to the various leather types) and other times kicks you to selecting what creature the leather is coming from.  I'm guessing that is based on it being tied to reaction class instead of item type or somesuch.

[LMeire]

Rose gold being a weapon-metal isn't quite as ridiculous as you make it out to be; it was historically used as a bronze substitute in times of war (Before iron-working was developed), and it's thought to be the real-world basis for Greek and Egyptian legends of Orichalcum.

Bismuth is a component of bismuth bronze, a more valuable type of bronze with identical combat values that requires half as much semi-rare tin as normal bronze. (1 tin + 1 bismuth + 2 copper = 4 bismuth bronze) I find that it's most helpful when playing the Orcs, as they have a few "recycling" reactions that result in a lot of excess copper.

Also, journals are a type of generic craft (IIRC, they're just renamed earrings), so if you run "make rock crafts" there's a chance you could get 2 or more journals out of a boulder instead of just the one. Of course, there's an equal chance of just getting a couple scabbards and an hourglass, but with a good stonecrafter it's vastly superior to making the single journals.

[sayke]

arbarbonif - You're talking about the material filter in workflow, right? I should really use workflow a lot more =P

LMeire - That makes sense about rose gold for weapons - especially blunt ones - thank you! But what about armor? Does that make any sense? I just don't like having really cluttered trade menus etc... =D

[Hefateus]

I would like to put in my 2 cents on lead as a ammo. It works amazing for bodkin bolts. Breaks bones almost every hit and it is a useful way to get rid of it when you have lots of galena at an embark site.

[arbarbonif]

Ctrl-a when selecting a job in a workshop (or alt-a, can't remember which).  I believe it is a different plug in from workflow, but it works well with it.  Basically it is input limiting, while workflow is output limiting.

[slay_mithos]

It's Alt+a You can look at this in the link from my sig, I detailed it a bit more.

[smakemupagus]

@Smake - Hah! Lead for bullets and zinc for value-adding brass makes sense. I actually haven't got around to using guns yet because I wasn't sure it was worth it. Bayonetted repeating crossbows are pretty freakin' good, so I haven't seen fit to upgrade. How do they compare?

Muskets are nice for piercing damage, but not better than a repeating crossbow (one of the best ranged weapons) imo.  Hand cannons do a *ton* of damage but they're really heavy, your cannoneers will lag behind the rest of the army badly.  Good for siege battles, werescorpions, titans, etc.

Pistols, for the most part i'd think of more like a training weapon, although bladed pistols or seawolf kits are fun for guarding a door or blind corner -- blast of lead at close range and then close to do the real damage with their blades.  (... ofc, if you have repeating crossbows, you don't need tactics like this )

....

Spoiler: hunting (repeating xbow) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: big guns (cannons) (click to show/hide)

[Meph]

Yeah, I really have to change the bullets. I think 40.x allows to increase the attack rate, so at the very least you can shoot faster with guns than with bows. Although... that would be very unrealistic. ^^

[Firehawk45]

Yeah, I really have to change the bullets. I think 40.x allows to increase the attack rate, so at the very least you can shoot faster with guns than with bows. Although... that would be very unrealistic. ^^

The list normally goes:

Bows, xbow, gun on how fast they reload (as long as the xbow and the gun arent magazine fed).
reverse for damage/armor penetration.
and straight for how expensive/hard to make ammunition is.

The last point doesnt really factor in DF, as every fort drowns in resources at one point or another, and we have magazine fed xbows, which wipe the floor with enemies, especially with the three different bolt times fitting every situation.

[qorthos]

It's Alt+a You can look at this in the link from my sig, I detailed it a bit more.

This has helped so much, thank you.  I'm using marble blocks for floors and granite blocks for walls and setting a workflow to maintain 150-200 of them.  On the downside, bearing rocks can produce granite, which means that the ore processor stops itself when there build granite blocks is sufficient.  I think that I'll remove block production from ore in future games...

[arbarbonif]

It's Alt+a You can look at this in the link from my sig, I detailed it a bit more.

This has helped so much, thank you.  I'm using marble blocks for floors and granite blocks for walls and setting a workflow to maintain 150-200 of them.  On the downside, bearing rocks can produce granite, which means that the ore processor stops itself when there build granite blocks is sufficient.  I think that I'll remove block production from ore in future games...

You can add a condition for the pure ore as well.  Workflow only stops a job when ALL the conditions that apply are fulfilled.  This does mean that ore processing will start when your block supply is low, but that is less of a problem.