Bay 12 Games Forum

No one asked for it and I've delivered. A fort for those of us with laptops/terrible computers and want to join in on the succession fun is finally here...again. Of course, anyone is allowed to join in on the fun. Just make sure to turn on the pop-cap and remember rule number 1: we're vegans.


A small fort, nestled amongst the elven forest. We've set out on a simple mission: Can a dwarf out-elf and elf?

Greenfingers is a vegan fortress! Be sure to tell everyone that you're a vegan while we keep the FPS high by having no animals mucking up the works. Of course we might need to kill a bear or two along the way, but we'll at least feel really bad about it when we do.

The Adventure, thus far:
Prologue
Turn 1-1 - delphonso
Turn 1-2 - delphonso

Turn 2-1 - yaimen
Turn 2-2 - yaimen

Turn 3-1 - Salmeuk
Turn 3-2 - Salmeuk

Turn 4-1 - delphonso
Turn 4-2 - delphonso

Turn 5-1 - Baprr
Turn 5-2 - Baprr
Turn 5-3 - Baprr
Turn 5-4 - Baprr

Turn 6-1 - Salmeuk


Oveganeers:
Year 1: delphonso
Year 2: yaimen
Year 3: Salmeuk
Year 4: delphonso
Year 5: Baprr
Year 6: Salmeuk
Year 7: YOU??? (Currently open!)
Year 8: delphonso?




Performance Settings!

• Go ahead and set the following in your settings:
  
  [POPULATION_CAP:60]
  [STRICT_POPULATION_CAP:80]
  
  [VISITOR_CAP:10]
  
• You'll notice this is a very small embark. Please use space responsibly.
• There is an aquifer – be courteous when it comes to large water-works.

Rules!

• We're vegans. That means no meat, mead, honey, or leathers. No bone crafts/crossbows/bolts. No hair, wool, or silk. Dwarves do things on their own sometimes, so...you know - at least try and if it happens, ah well. Maybe we can have a strange mood exception rule?
• Please don't intentionally destroy the fort. That's my expertise, anyway.
• Each turn should be completed in one in-game-year or 2 real-world weeks, whichever happens first.
• Animals from migrants or pets that arrive with them should be protected and either die of old age, or sent off to the humane society (gifted to the caravan)
• There are no mods at play. I forgot to edit dwarves to age up at 12, so they're at the vanilla 18. If you want to use DFHack, Dwarf Therapist or make raw edits, discuss it in the thread first and keep a backup save.

The World:

Amethaelathu, The Windy Domain



We've got elves! We've got humans! We've got goblins and a tower! We've even got a dwarven fortress filled with goblins!

First updates incoming! Feel free to sign up already!

Welcome to Endedtreasure, a succession adventure mode game!
After a brief discussion with his peers, delphonso has decided to outsource an experiment with crushing artifacts and whether or not they come back. Mastermind and masterbrewer brewer bob suggested this, so blame him. The true purpose of this game will be to keep track of which artifacts we destroy and if /any/ of them return to the world. Toady says they do, so let's see it happen.

What is Endedtreasure?
Endedtreasure is a succession adventure mode game where we try to collect artifacts and give them a good atom-smashing in the titular fortress "Endedtreasure". See the post below for the backstory.

Can I play?
Please do! Literally we're trying to destroy stuff, so it's not like you're going to fuck stuff up too bad. This is a great opportunity to play a silly, stupid or badly built character/characters.

I have a shitty computer...can I play?
Of course, fellow shitty-computer-haver. I tried setting the world up in a way that should reduce lag. Most sites are pretty light on civilians. This does also make things a bit harder because it seems the undead/nightbeasts have proliferated. Of course places like Dark Fortresses are always going to be rough on your device. (I recommend going in at night because everyone's asleep and therefore, not pathing.) Endedtreasure is a very small site and currently only has about 20 residents.

-=-=- Scoring Rules -=-=-

Scoring will follow this formula:
Slab crushed: 15pts
Weapon artifacts crushed: 10 pts
non-weapon artifacts crushed: 5 pts
Books crushed: 2pts

Historical Figures killed: -1pts
Other kills: 1pts each

Crushing yourself with the artifacts is a x2 modifier - doesn't stack if you're squashing a whole party of adventurers, though I might give bonus points for the mayhem.

Look - it's the ANTI-MUSEUM. These dudes should suck.


Turn order:
Turn 1: delphonso
Turn 2: AvolitionBrit
Turn 3: brewer bob
Turn 4: delphonso
Turn 5: brewer bob
Turn 6: the unbending will of time
Turn 7: brewer bob
Turn 8: Salmeuk
Turn 9: delphonso
Turn 10: you, fair traveller?

Endedtreasure has a few pedestals with steels shields and swords, as well as a few empty pedestals for any /particularly good items/ you consider saving. Keep in mind, someone might just take those and crush them for the points though!

A thread to discuss Morrowind, a very old game but also a very great game.

Mostly, this thread is to discuss the OpenMW project and the revolutions coming out of that. Of course, any modding discussion is welcome.

For those who don't know:

OpenMW (exactly like OpenXCOM) is an open source remake of the Morrowind engine. You'll need a copy of Morrowind from somewhere else to use it, but it fixes several bugs and also allows you to play on basically anything (there's an abandoned, but not useless, Android port, even.) Mods for vanilla (so not MWSE mods) Morrowind also will work, and they're even working on their own version of the construction set.

As of writing, the current version is 0.47. The dev release is 0.48 and opens up some Lua access. Although just the beginning of opening up the game to custom scripts, modders have already made volumetric lighting/clouds which look amazing, and someone even wrote a mod to have enemies pursue you through cells like Oblivion.

OpenMW also has a daughter project called TES3MP - which allows multiplayer. It's really a wild ride that can best be expressed in this video. I've got no time to actually participate in this, but it's constantly on my list.

One of my favorite aspects of Dwarf Fortress are the book titles. They always give me a sensible chuckle when I browse them in legends mode or otherwise. There have been a handful of threads which discuss modding the book title files, but I found all of them lacking in information. That said, here's a brief discussion on previous...discussions.

GM-X released 396 book titles as part of the Dark Ages mod. This document still works, should you want to add...an outrageous number of books to your game. (Also the Gladwell cover cracks me up) - be aware that this is from a much earlier version of DF, so just fully copying the file over will remove a few of the names Toady included since then. It will not be noticed, with the overwhelming new content.
ZM5 also dropped a few book titles some of which are truly hilarious: "[ADJ] [NOUN] Presents [ADJ] [NOUN]'s [NO_ART_NAME], Shut Up and [NOUN] Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the [ADJ] [NOUN] Saga" - many of these are likely to be hard to read or overrun the box for book titles in-game. But, hey - it's just a goof anyway.

Finally, the closest thing to an actual guide is this thread by Dahrk. Which does a good job explaining the basics, but I feel leaves out some important notes.

Inspired by GM-X's file (sent to me by a friend a few years ago), I decided to do some tests on this whole...book thing.

So let's get into the basics.
Books are named from the two txt files found in /raw/objects/text. Those files are 'book_art.txt' and 'book_instruction.txt'
book_art.txt will be used when a poem or song is created both in worldgen and by adventurers.
book_instruction.txt will be used when a book is written both in worldgen and by adventurers/fort scholars.
- - NOTE: book_art.txt is also fair game for book titles because it is always possible to just name a book after a poem/song (as long as the content is that song or poem)

These files are called upon book creation - so you can modify the files in an existing save - altering the names of all future books. It would be possible to directly name your book in adventure mode this way.

There are 7 tokens which can be used in book titling. My method for understanding these was to simply only put one token in the book_instruction.txt, generate a world, and look at the book titles in Legends mode. I also took a stab at what I thought /might/ be a token and failed miserably. As such - I discovered that poem/song names are ALWAYS available to be book titles, even if your book_instruction.txt only contains the instruction, "[ANY_PRONOUN]". I also managed to get a poem with no name at all - which could be a vanilla bug, or the game will accept a misplaced space as a title. Be careful.

These are the 7 tokens for these two txt files:
[NAME]
Examples: The Tower, The Tree, Bronzemurdered, Likot Ubendeb, Animal Behaviours
Notably, these may or may not be plural and/or have an article.
Name is directly related to the content of the book.

[NO_ART_NAME] (no article name)
Examples: Tower, Tree, Bronzemurdered, Likot Ubendeb, Animal Behaviours
Notice that the inserted text may still be plural - limiting its usage.
These likewise are related to the content of the book.

[NOUN]
Examples: Despair, Roots, Scrolls, Wheel-and-axels
Again, may or may not be plural. These seem to have very little correlation to the book's topic. If it has any relationship to the content of the book, it could be words within the author's entity's vocabulary.

[ADJ]
Examples: Boyish, Inky, Angry, Bronzed
Also seem to have little correlation to the book's topic. I also guess it is from the civ, if not purely random.

[ANY_AGE]
Examples: The Age Of Legends, The Age Of Hill Titan and Dragon
Will only pull ages from the world's history, not from all possibilities.

[ANY_PRONOUN]
Examples: He, She, We, They
I believe it only generates subject pronouns (not "Us" or "Them"). Past tense makes this easy to use.

[PHRASE]
Examples: The Fool Laughs, The Day Can Say It In The End, It Foretells Afterwards, The Day Mourns
Due to the wide variety, this is pretty hard to use. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

So, you can let the game do a lot of the work for you and generate more of this style:
The [ADJ] [NO_ART_NAME]
[NAME], [ADJ] [NOUN]
[PHRASE], [ADJ] [NO_ART_NAME]

Or you can be as specific as you'd like:
My Mother Always Said, [PHRASE]
[NAME], And Its Utmost Importance
[NO_ART_NAME], Do You Love Me?
I Once Saw [ADJ] [NOUN], And So I Said, [PHRASE]

You can play the madlibs yourself.

I'll also point out that you only get one roll per name per title. So "[NAME] Is Not [NAME]" will say something like "The Tower Is Not The Tower".
[NAME] and [NO_ART_NAME] are not handled separately in this case. '[NO_ART_NAME] Inside [NAME]' will result in "Tower Inside The Tower"
Rarely, this won't happen and I have no clue why. I generated a hundred books with [NAME], [NO_ART_NAME] and they all behaved as expected except "Jewel, Glories" and "Waste, Bogs". I could see these two being related words - though neither were related to the topic of the book itself. Mysterious.
All other tokens are rolled each instance, so [ADJ] [ADJ] [ADJ] [NOUN] will result in some nonsense like "Good Hungry Flaxen Obsession". Works for all of them, but keep in mind that it is a random roll. So several [ANY_PRONOUN]s is almost certain to have some repeats.

Book titles are fun and easy to add to mods. They can add a lot of tone to the world. For instance, a post-apocalypse mod might want a lot of "Salvation, Only Through [NAME]", "[NAME] And The Collapse", or "The [ADJ] End"

I hope anyone found this useful. Enjoy!
I also uploaded a small version of this type of mod. Feel free to read through it yourself and take whatever you like for your own mods.

First project is done! Capumon!

Second project is done! Sewer Kings!

Gamejam project is done! Sleeper!

Come here to see whatever I'm working on now!
-=-=-=-=-=-

Nearly...three years ago, I posted in life advice talking about wanting to make games and where to "start" and how to make progress. I got some good advice and some useless advice, and I ignored all of it and did things my own way. Namely, wasted time  B)

Now, things are a bit better. In a cloud of depression, I worked through Harvard's CS50 course which did a lot to better lay out convention and how to think programmatically. It had the benefit of being 'easy' because I was familiar with all the actual code work, and instead focused on how to be a good programmer.

Oh hoh - by no means am I a good programmer now, but I'm on the path, maybe? Anyway, games.

I wanna make a game.

I have, technically. Several times, even more technically. There's the progress of the last year or so. But I want to make a game I'm proud of. Well, more proud of - and proud to show people and maybe people will enjoy that game and that's pretty nice.

So, how to make a game? Well, I've been working with Godot for a while and I really like it. It is also conveniently ported to Linux and runs well (except GLES3, but that's my own fault for having old and weak computers). So I'll be working in Godot to make the following two projects. For those who don't know, Godot has its own scripting language which is basically just Python. I haven't started on either project, beyond the pre-planning stages. Join me, friends, in making a game.

Project A:
2D, Pokemon-battler, proof of concept
I read about the original concept for Pokemon - it was called Kapusu-mon (Capsule Monsters) and was more about gachapon machines and getting lucky to find a "good" pokemon. I like this less dressed-up Skinner box. I also think about Pokemon combat and how it is...well, boring.

So the concept is the following:
'mon are gathered by putting money into a gachipon machine.
'mon have 3 attacks: Pure damage, damage w/ status effect, pure status effect.
'mon have an ability that effects the whole team, even when not in play (this is a card game thing)

Project goal:
Make a single room where the player can walk around and battle at least two enemy trainers.
Include 6 'mon with unique attacks and abilities.
Design this to be extensible. If it works for 6, it should work for 600.


Project B:
3D, magic system, stepping stone
Morrowind is my favorite game. Among the many things to love about it, the magic is what sticks with me. I want to make a game where you are some sort of battle mage in an arena, and participate in fights. Before the fight, you craft your spells by effectively slotting in qualities. I'm thinking something like the classic lightning bolt would be "line, shock" or fireball being "ballistic, fire, explosion". This one is much less thought out, but is something I really want to work on. I also think it is necessary to be in 3D, which is totally new to me.

Project goal:
Make a fixed-camera tavern and include a dialogue system.
Make a 3rd (or first? or both?) person arena battle scene.
Design 1 enemy fight, at least.
Have a menu with spellcrafting.
Design the magic system to be extensible.

Lockpicking is a cool hobby where you sit around opening locks you legally purchased. Also we can talk about home security, because that's an important thing and I want to learn more about it.

Locksport, sport
Locksport is a term that a bunch of sweaty nerds came up with to describe opening locks with tools when you dropped your keys and still want to be able to use those keys later. It's a "sport" like bowling is a sport: you can drink a beer during it and not see a dip in your performance. Locksport does have actual competitions in which people race to open a challenge lock or a series of locks. The community is something akin to the speedrun community, doing a certain model of lock faster and faster.

Lockpicking as a hobby is something I dreamed about since being an edgy teenager. Now, as an edgy adult, I recognize it as a very relaxing and rewarding hobby. If you like puzzles, riddles, or puzzle games, I think you'd like it. We all know you like fantasy because this is a DF forum, so multi-class into rogue and get to pickin'.

Picks, the tools of the trade
To get started, you need three things - a tensioner, a pick, and a lock.
Now, locks are the easiest thing to find. I'll go into more detail about the types of locks later, but it's worth noting that the cheaper the lock is, usually, the easier it is to pick. Most people recommend the Master Lock #3 as a beginner lock. It only has 4 pins, is cheap, but not so cheap that it'll break. Also, a see-through lock is a nice thing to have for understanding lock mechanics. If you can find one for a reasonable price, they're cool to have. The leap from being able to see inside a lock to doing everything by feel is pretty rough, so don't get too attached to it.

Picks may be illegal or restricted in your region. Here is a list of the states plus a few countries. Generally, they're only used to prove premeditation on crimes, rather than owning them being illegal in its own right. But, uh...check first.

Picks will almost always come in a set. Most of these sets are bloated, as you really only need a standard pick and a tensioner to get started. I recommend a 8-12 piece set. I bought a 24-piece set and it came with stuff that I'll never use like tools for breaking into legally unlocking cars. I recommend going cheap here. Not...mall-ninja cheap, but cheap enough that you won't feel frustrated if the hobby doesn't suit you. Pick sets come with a variety of rakes and other tools which are low-skill attacks on locks. These are useful for pragmatically opening a lock, but if you're trying to get good at picking locks, don't worry about them.

Tensioners (also called torsion wrenches and tension wrenches) are very important and I found that having several of them is very useful. Different keyways might need different sizes of tensioners to give your pick room to mess with the pins. A pick set that comes with 2-3 tensioners is great.

Locks, I mean they're just sitting there waiting to be opened
In my amateur opinion, there are basically 4 types of locks in common usage. I'm going to address them here in an incomprehensible order.

Disc tumbler/Disc detainer lock:
Common uses:
Bike locks, padlocks, "high security" locks
Benefits:
Cannot be bumped or raked. Requires a special pick.

A disc-detainer lock is something you should avoid as a beginner. In my local shops, almost all padlocks are this type, which has been a frustrating experience. They are pickable, but require a specific pick or incredible skill with regular tools. That said, all that makes them great for home security, such as locking a gate or shed.

Dimple lock:
Common uses:
House locks
Benefits:
The key looks cool.

Dimple locks are extremely common in Asia. The keyway looks similar to a "normal" pin-tumbler lock, but the key reveals the difference. Picking these locks is basically the same as a pin-tumbler, but the narrow profile can make moving your pick around pretty tough. A dimple pick is similar to a standard pick. The flag at the end is meant to be rotated to push up on the pins.

Wafer locks:
Common uses:
Furniture, security boxes, car doors
Benefits:
The wafer design allows tumblers on both sides of the key - making them more difficult to pick.

Wafer locks range from stupidly easy to open (an office desk drawer) to pretty tough (car locks). If your wafer lock has wafers on both sides the general method is to pick one side, keep tension on, then pick the other - which sounds a lot easier than it is. They don't need any more specific tools than pin-tumbler locks. They're also extremely cheap because they're in stuff like desks and lockable medicine cabinets. As such, people often lose the keys and throw these things out.

Pin-tumbler locks
Common uses:
Basically everything
Benefits:
Cheap.

The pin-tumbler lock is the "basic" lock. It's the one in fantasy books and it's the one your level 5 rogue can't mess up thanks to Expertise in Thieves' tools and +4 Dex. These are the bread and butter locks to practice on. The method for picking is that which is used for basically all locks - tension makes it so the tumblers will lock into place when pushed into position by a pick.

I would go into further detail as to how to pick a lock, but honestly, everything I have read hasn't been clear until I actually had a lock and pick in my hands.

Anyway, let's have fun and don't do crimes
Buy a set of picks and while they're in the mail, buy a few locks. ReStore/Goodwill/any thrift store is likely to have a few locks lying around. Check your grand-dad's garage for some old ones he isn't using. Mess around with paper-clips and see if you can crack open your coworker's desk.

Check out LockpickingLawyer and BosnianBill on youtube for two pretty relaxing channels of skilled locksportists.
Remember: Never pick a lock you don't own (it's usually illegal) and don't pick a lock you intend to use (it's possible to break a lock while picking it, so don't lock yourself out of your house)

Advice on home security is welcome.

Killing children of a species should have a harsher emotional impact than killing adults. I would also suggest civilians should have more impact than killing soldiers.

As far as I can tell, dwarves don't like it when their kids die. Dwarves also sometimes don't like it when someone else dies, even if they killed them. Stress clearly needs sorting out, as the thread about it has been going on for months, but I think here, we should see an increase in stress.

It is not an uncommon story trope to be horrified with oneself for killing a child, under orders or by mistake. I think dwarves (really, everyone) should suffer a bigger stress penalty if they kill a kid or see a dead kid - even if they are an enemy, even if the kid starts the fight...which happens in DF.