Print

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

[Shoku]

The magma man includes the old tag [CANNOT_UNDEAD].  Is there any plan to add an [ALWAYS_UNDEAD] tag, for creatures like nightwings and foul blendecs?

Jury's out on the Foul Blendec (although I would say it's not), but I've never seen anything that suggests a Nightwing is undead, apart from their alarming staying power.

Nightwings are a type of nightshade in DnD. Thems undeadses.

Dunno if they're supposed to be the same thing though.

[MrWiggles]

Will dwarves automatically choose weapons made of better materials? And by that, I mean better materials for the weapon type. I suppose adamantine would be brilliant for swords, but terrible for hammers. Will dwarves automatically prefer, say, iron hammers to adamantine ones?

The reason I'm asking is that this "different materials for different weapons" thing sounds intriguing, but impossible to remember at the same time. Straight material progression is easy to remember. Materials suitable for some purposes only gets to the area of "user-unfriendly".

My guess would be, that they will respect their uniform requirements over superior material.

[Aqizzar]

Yeah, foul blendecs, being corrupted but not necessarily undead, are kind of a preview of the dev_next item "Generalization of "zombie" and "skeleton" to broader curses/sphere-related alterations."  The CANNOT_UNDEAD tag will probably be removed in favor of more specific relationships between creature and spheres, or something.  An ALWAYS_UNDEAD tag wouldn't have much of a future.

Completely forgot about the future sphere hoopla, which covers exactly that instead of the simple placeholder.  The sphere push sounds like it's a ways off, but those being the only two good examples of a use for such a placeholder, yeah it's not important.

Have you had a chance to actually run a functionally complete program, bug fixes aside?  If so, have you noticed any difference in performance and framerate?  Because I've been afraid of all the new detail to keep track of being a possible slowdown.

It doesn't sound like the "new detail" is much of a problem:

Important Quote

I figured somebody would have asked this before.  I'm sure Toady has a better idea of the effects by now, but I suppose we'll all know soon enough.  It'd still be good to hear Toady's perspective on performance changes.

[Calenth]

Whew, lots of information above. Next question:

Does mass/density of the weapon impact weapon speed? If so, does dwarf strength/agility matter too? Are there caps/diminishing returns, or are the equations linear?

I'm starting to suspect/fear that the best material for, say, a warhammer, might actually depend on the stats of the particular dwarf wielding it. If, say, iron is denser than steel, it might do more damage per hit, but swing less often, etc. If dwarf strength and/or agility factor in, then figuring out the best material for a given dwarf's warhammer could end up being a royal pain.

[Lancensis]

Nightwings are a type of nightshade in DnD. Thems undeadses.

Dunno if they're supposed to be the same thing though.

I wouldn't know. Jackal heads and horns? They always sounded like ancient middle-eastern demons to me; I think Pazuzu was sometimes depicted like that. They look somewhat like Mothmen in Mayday's tileset, which I liked.

[Toady One]

Toady, in your posted Dwarven positions raw, "duchy" is spelled "duchyy".

Ah, thanks, it is now handled.

Are player powers of promotion hard-coded and not reflected in the raws?  I thought we were going to be able to appoint the baron, and I noticed the others we previously appointed (treasurer, manager, etc) are now appointed by the expedition leader/mayor.

All appointments made by dwarves in your fortress are controlled by the player.  This is part of the slow move toward having every action performed by the player be an official action of some dwarf or another.  The land holder appointments from the civ also take input from the player.  I don't think it would react well to multiple land holder positions at a given level.  It's not really resilient there at this point.

One thing about the workshop that puzzled me is that for a given dimension of 3 x 3, the symbols and colors along one axis are defined 0 - 3, and along the other are defined 1 - 3.  This could be an error or a special feature having to do with animation, or something else completely.

85% on the 0-3 index being the multiple stages of construction.

Would make the maps readable, as they're in 3x3 blocks right now.

Yeah, that's right.

Again, with the above quote in mind, I didn't see the Advisor...is he out?  Do the raws also indicate that we will now house the diplomat and liason if we get the king, or are those just for current civ level stuff right now?

Yeah, the advisor used to be a weird hard-coded elevation of the liaison, and I didn't want to mess around with that, so the advisor is gone.

Damn if oi count right my average in Questions-answered-by-toady is going down

I wasn't trying to snub anybody.  If I left out your questions, it is either because I missed them or because I felt they were answered by somebody that replied to them.  I don't remember specifically which ones you asked, and there are way too many posts to go back and check.

Looking through the entity raws, it seems that an entity could conceivably have multiple rulers, a la Roman consuls, or maybe a larger council? I suspect that would currently have unintended consequences, though.

Yeah, you can do that, but since I don't have any examples, it's kind of untested.  I think world gen assumes single hist figs hold responsibilities, but I certainly hope to support the possibilities in the code as we go.  Having multiple dwarves hold responsibilities will probably work for some positions and not others in fortress mode.

There doesn't seem to be any numbers on when a noble would come to a fortress, except possibly LAND_HOLDER. Only the appointed positions seem to have a tag for population requirements. Is it still hardcoded? Or part of the entity raws?

The fortress ratings are still hard coded, and the land holder levels tie to those like they used to (for example, trade, production and fortress (pop+job variety) ratings have to hit 3 to get the first land holder level.  That kind of thing can be brought out over time.  My main focus here was just to salvage as much of the existing system as possible without having to extend the overhaul, while getting the positions themselves all out into the raws.

I know positions can be restricted to certain castes (but a vacancy might get filled during worldgen regardless). Would it be possible to create a general monarch caste that would be replaced by a restricted caste when such a caste can be filled? OK, clunky wording, so an example:
The dwarves have their normal kings and queens. I mod in Ancestral Dwarves, who are rare and unaging, and I want them, and only them, to be able to be emperors. The dwarves should have kings until an ancestral dwarf is capable of taking the emperor position. Would such a structure be currently possible?
--
Yeah, REPLACED_BY is certainly part of the equation. What I'm wary of is things like the monarch position being replaced when there isn't a suitable dwarf around, perhaps because the emperor caste can be restricted by caste, but can't have that caste as a prerequisite.

Replaced by is really just for pop/landholder requirements right now.  It doesn't do any individual population polling.  I imagine that could lead to complicated messes as things ebb and flow, but it's worth exploring, anyway.

What are the options for the RESPONSIBILITY tokens? Can we create positions that have specific labors assigned to them? For example, a Miner's Guildmaster who has room requirements and only the Mining skill allowed as a labor?

I just added them in as I needed them to handle existing mechanics, but the list will keep growing.
List (some of the military ones are place-holders):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

LAW_MAKING
LAW_ENFORCEMENT
RECEIVE_DIPLOMATS
MEET_WORKERS
MANAGE_PRODUCTION
TRADE
ACCOUNTING
ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS
MAKE_INTRODUCTIONS
MAKE_PEACE_AGREEMENTS
MAKE_TOPIC_AGREEMENTS
COLLECT_TAXES
ESCORT_TAX_COLLECTOR
EXECUTIONS
TAME_EXOTICS
RELIGION
ATTACK_ENEMIES
PATROL_TERRITORY
MILITARY_GOALS
MILITARY_STRATEGY
UPGRADE_SQUAD_EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT_MANIFESTS
SORT_AMMUNITION
BUILD_MORALE
HEALTH_MANAGEMENT

For world end events, have you been pondering an ammusing variety of things, or just a sudden "you have dug too deep" sort of thing?  It'd be neat if, for instance, the legends said the world would drown in Armok's blood, and in a certain year, magma pours from the sky, eliminating all civilization/surface life.

Yeah, exactly the sort of horrible whatevers.  The world blowing up, gods coming down to kill everybody.  I think that worlds should be able to follow a variety of arcs, including ones that are final and scary.  Parameters would govern this sort of thing.

Interesting.  I'm guessing CONNECTS means either that it won't leak out, or that it keeps adjacent layers attached to each other (i.e. the fat connects the skin to the muscle).

It isn't really meaningful for things like lungs, but it means that it connects the part to its parent and children.  So SKIN, for example, on the arm has CONNECTS, and that means that even if the muscle and bone and fat somehow turn into mush, the arm will still dangle from the upper body and the hand will hang below, because the skin connects up.  It should probably specify at some point what it is connected too -- if the upper body in the example had lost the skin, then the connection should fail, but we don't have that yet.

Meaningless or not, it seems deeply wrong to have lieutenants above captains.  I guess they're more like lieutenant generals.

He he he, yeah, I'm aware of the typical military ranks.  I do not know how they hold up in antiquity.  These are the "trusted lieutenants" of the general, which occur oftentimes in literature, etc.  It's not exactly a rank here.  And the captains are the captains of squads.  It can be changed by those it bothers, but I'm not inclined to do so.

CONTAINS_LYE, ack.  So close and yet so far...

It was a pre-existing tag, and an update to general materials would take just a bit too long the way things are set up.  There are all kinds of quirky flags that have accumulated over time.  I'll have to put them in the file somewhere.

I'm surprised the position definitions include titles like "chief medical dwarf".  I was under the impression positions would be a universal list that entities would draw from and append their creature-name to, not specific to each civ type.  There's no functional difference aside from programming elegance, but is this the system you plan to stick with?

Appending the name might be weird, "Mayor Dwarf" etc.  And the position intricacies make it extra work to draw from templates in vanilla -- each civilization in the raws is very different (except goblins/kobolds, since I think they are both set on "varied" and that it).  Modders might find templates useful if they have similar civs, but that's true of every part of every raw object, and there are just a few specific templates now, and the creature variations.  The creature variation notion might be expanded to just let you add and subtract tags etc. wherever, which would cover templates for any raw object, but I don't know if we wouldn't just pop over to actual scripting before I start reinventing too many wheels.

Have you had a chance to actually run a functionally complete program, bug fixes aside?  If so, have you noticed any difference in performance and framerate?  Because I've been afraid of all the new detail to keep track of being a possible slowdown.

Load times need to be handled, and there are some weird pauses in world gen that need to be handled.  Actual play itself seems fine so far, but I haven't really gotten into running anything aside from bug tests yet.

Will dwarves automatically choose weapons made of better materials? And by that, I mean better materials for the weapon type. I suppose adamantine would be brilliant for swords, but terrible for hammers. Will dwarves automatically prefer, say, iron hammers to adamantine ones?

The reason I'm asking is that this "different materials for different weapons" thing sounds intriguing, but impossible to remember at the same time. Straight material progression is easy to remember. Materials suitable for some purposes only gets to the area of "user-unfriendly".

Does mass/density of the weapon impact weapon speed? If so, does dwarf strength/agility matter too? Are there caps/diminishing returns, or are the equations linear?

I'm starting to suspect/fear that the best material for, say, a warhammer, might actually depend on the stats of the particular dwarf wielding it. If, say, iron is denser than steel, it might do more damage per hit, but swing less often, etc. If dwarf strength and/or agility factor in, then figuring out the best material for a given dwarf's warhammer could end up being a royal pain.

Skill information gets factored in too, if they are allowed to choose among different types, but they don't think about the density for things like hammers at this point.  I think it focuses on impact yield right now.  Making an adamantine hammer in the first place would just be a big mistake, but when it comes down to comparing fairly similar metals, I'm not sure what the calculation should be in the end, because they'd have to know how fast they can swing the object if it's heavy, etc.  The "best material" would also depend on the opponent, since sometimes a slower stronger hit would give you more than fast weaker hits, and sometimes it wouldn't, depending on the opponent's material, and it gets even worse when items become damageable.

There should probably also be some feedback on the obvious decisions, since it doesn't really tell you anywhere in flashing lights that making an adamantine hammer is bad.  At the same time, I think it's overreaching to say that the principle behind the new system is only user-unfriendly (unless that was just directed at the interface aspect of it).  I think it can be made better while retaining the distinctions, and I think there are lots of positives to come out of this.  The game was never supposed to be about fussing over exact numbers, and good enough might just have to be good enough when setting up your military.  Still, lots of feedback for the player would be useful, as well as dwarves that make good decisions about equipment.

spoilered questions:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With the whole random creature thing, can adamantine be chosen as a material?

I don't think that happens...  it would be unfortunate for you if it does, although I guess a giant steel critter is almost as bad, except that it can be limbed by adamantine swords...  or at least toed.  It depends on the size.

How literal are you being here? Would these just be pointy limbs, or would they be taken from weapon raws and used like weapons? Or somewhere in between?

Yeah, that's correct.  I was talking about somebody with an adamantine sword hacking through the steel critter.

[Aqizzar]

I'm surprised the position definitions include titles like "chief medical dwarf".  I was under the impression positions would be a universal list that entities would draw from and append their creature-name to, not specific to each civ type.  There's no functional difference aside from programming elegance, but is this the system you plan to stick with?

Appending the name might be weird, "Mayor Dwarf" etc.  And the position intricacies make it extra work to draw from templates in vanilla -- each civilization in the raws is very different (except goblins/kobolds, since I think they are both set on "varied" and that it).  Modders might find templates useful if they have similar civs, but that's true of every part of every raw object, and there are just a few specific templates now, and the creature variations.  The creature variation notion might be expanded to just let you add and subtract tags etc. wherever, which would cover templates for any raw object, but I don't know if we wouldn't just pop over to actual scripting before I start reinventing too many wheels.

Does raise the question - "Mayor Dwarf" is out, sure.  But if the lead doctor in dwarven settlements is called the "chief medical dwarf", is the equivalent in a human settlement called the "chief medical human"?  I guess "dwarf" doesn't work quite like other nouns, eh?  This didn't really have a point.

[Calenth]

Does mass/density of the weapon impact weapon speed? If so, does dwarf strength/agility matter too? Are there caps/diminishing returns, or are the equations linear?

I'm starting to suspect/fear that the best material for, say, a warhammer, might actually depend on the stats of the particular dwarf wielding it. If, say, iron is denser than steel, it might do more damage per hit, but swing less often, etc. If dwarf strength and/or agility factor in, then figuring out the best material for a given dwarf's warhammer could end up being a royal pain.

Skill information gets factored in too, if they are allowed to choose among different types, but they don't think about the density for things like hammers at this point.  I think it focuses on impact yield right now.  Making an adamantine hammer in the first place would just be a big mistake, but when it comes down to comparing fairly similar metals, I'm not sure what the calculation should be in the end, because they'd have to know how fast they can swing the object if it's heavy, etc.  The "best material" would also depend on the opponent, since sometimes a slower stronger hit would give you more than fast weaker hits, and sometimes it wouldn't, depending on the opponent's material, and it gets even worse when items become damageable.

There should probably also be some feedback on the obvious decisions, since it doesn't really tell you anywhere in flashing lights that making an adamantine hammer is bad.  At the same time, I think it's overreaching to say that the principle behind the new system is only user-unfriendly (unless that was just directed at the interface aspect of it).  I think it can be made better while retaining the distinctions, and I think there are lots of positives to come out of this.  The game was never supposed to be about fussing over exact numbers, and good enough might just have to be good enough when setting up your military.  Still, lots of feedback for the player would be useful, as well as dwarves that make good decisions about equipment.

Wow, perfect response! Didn't mean it as a slight on the system at all, I think it's a great way of doing things -- just one that means I have to do a lot of wiki work to figure out what's going on. Glad to see you're thinking about the end-user problems, though.

In the short term, as long as all the reasonable choices are reasonably effective, it probably doesn't matter too much. At the end of the day I'm probably just going to make everything out of steel and not worry about it too much.

[Mel_Vixen]

[quote

Damn if oi count right my average in Questions-answered-by-toady is going down

I wasn't trying to snub anybody.  If I left out your questions, it is either because I missed them or because I felt they were answered by somebody that replied to them.  I don't remember specifically which ones you asked, and there are way too many posts to go back and check.

nah Thats not the problem . I just was saying that i hadnt brought up many questions in the last days. I remember times where i cooked up a halfdozen quesions instead of one.

[Mechanoid]

Are the objects like powders corrected, or the raws for reactions and custom workshops advanced enough, so that we can produce arbitrary container-needing objects at a building, and then have that product placed into the correct container?
IE: A custom "Free booze" reaction produces booze for free, and instead of dropping the liquid onto the floor, it generates the liquid in the appropriate container; also if such a container was also a product.

On a semi-related but insignificant note, presumably milking creatures is still terribly broken?

[dnabios]

Again, with the above quote in mind, I didn't see the Advisor...is he out?  Do the raws also indicate that we will now house the diplomat and liason if we get the king, or are those just for current civ level stuff right now?

Yeah, the advisor used to be a weird hard-coded elevation of the liaison, and I didn't want to mess around with that, so the advisor is gone.

I didn't see the Philosopher...did they get cut as well?

I kind of liked them...they added a touch of class and (I liked to imagine) an important cultural element.

[SirPenguin]

I also don't see "Priest", which is weird. Could have sworn we were getting those dudes again, even if they didn't do anything special., though maybe I just misunderstood

And what do you mean about the Hammerer being busted? That's just a temporary thing, right?

[diefortheswarm]

Question about adamantine weapons.

If you wanted to make an adamantine hammer,  you could make a hollow adamantine shell and fill it with molten lead.  This would be a very effective weapon!  Will we be able to do anything like this in the foreseeable future?

[James.Denholm]

I didn't see the Philosopher...did they get cut as well?

Urist McPeasant cancels point and laugh at Philosopher - Philosopher no longer exists.

[SirPenguin]

Question about adamantine weapons.

If you wanted to make an adamantine hammer,  you could make a hollow adamantine shell and fill it with molten lead.  This would be a very effective weapon!  Will we be able to do anything like this in the foreseeable future?

Give this man a raise!