Bay 12 Games Forum

I started porting my mod and tileset, to future-proof it once SteamDF comes out. But I'm not super happy with the old graphics, since the new ones are so much better. Obviously that's unacceptable, after all I have to improve vanilla DF, so what's better than 32x32 sprites?

64x64 sprites! (Quick ingame test with TWBT using some edited sprites donated from the wonderful Dokucraft Dwarven tileset for Minecraft)



The question is, how many people could actually need/use something like that? It works fine on 3840x2160, but that seems a bit rare.

I'm currently working a bit on furniture, which is more involved in the Steam version than just one sprite for each piece.

For example the spritesheet for a bed looks like this right now:



As you can see there are four materials (wood, stone, metal and glass), and a difference in quality from left to right. Then a selection of pillows for some variety, and different decorations, scratches and spatter.

Some examples:


Right now I'm looking at armorstands and weapon racks; trying to implement a similar system, but there are so few pixels on these thin stands, that I can't show much in terms of quality or wear. Instead I'd go for the armor or weapon on it to show this. What do you guys think? It's technically completely incorrect, since the quality of the armorstand shouldn't affect what armor is shows, but using the armor is the best visual tool I have to easily show the difference to the player.

Hey guys,

The info on the wiki on instruments is a bit wrong, the table for instrument component materials would need to be updated. https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Instrument

When I did the SteamDF sprites for instrument pieces, Toady told me this:

All 7 types (wood/bone/ceramic/metal/glass/stone/shell) are possible. Even shell - that one is just rarer. So that's stand, drum, chime, block, bowl, triangle, bell, bar, ring, mallet, hammer, stick for percussion. Also everything but "string" on stringed instruments. Everything but bellows and bag for wind. And everything but string and bellows for keyboard. All of those pieces can be of the 7 types.

Cheers,
Meph

Hey guys,

One of my tileset-related ideas hit a bit of a hurdle. Essentially I'd love to offer people a choice of multiple Photoshop layers (or .png files if you want) that can be stacked to create a new image.

For example load "background 1" + "texture 3" + "material 6". I'd draw the artwork first, and players could open a little program, pick a list of options from drop-down menus, and  it would save the resulting choices as a new .png for them to use.

I'm not sure what program to use. I mostly have experience with VisualBasics from my mod-installer for Masterwork DF, but that's not working on macOs or Linux, and I don't think it can do what I'd need with the images.

Does anyone have experience with something like that, or can point me in the right direction?

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Warlocks:

This mod allows you to play as evil warlocks, specializing in necromancy and raising hell. Dwarves, elves and humans might still visit, but in force and with an army, to bring down your evil empire.



Warlocks play like dwarves, so you should feel right at home, yet there are changes to the economy of the game:
 - No migrants! Start with 13 warlocks, and create ghouls, skeletons or raise apprentices from other races.
 - No reqular caravans. You want to trade, call traders manually.
 - Metals? Mostly unimportant, make your iron and steel-alternatives from bones, ash and blood. It's a renewable resource, too!
 - Souls. Butchering creatures give you a soul, main ingredient for any magic. Either hunt or keep a pen of prisoners to harvest.
 - Alcohol isn't needed, but you can brew magic potions.
 - Magic. Who needs archers if you have an army of skeletons, with some fireball-throwing warlocks behind them?

To ease you into the mod, I included a large cheat-sheet image, but I'll break it down here into detail.

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Nobles:
Nobles are slightly changed and consolidated into fewer positions.


The Overlord! - Your military leader, responsible for conquest and appointing captains and sergeants. He can lead a squad of 100 units. (Militia captain)


Death, Hunger, Pestilence and War - Your captains; each a 1-man squad. Pick powerful Warlocks with magic abilities. Helps separating fire-mages from the army, or ordering your vampire-warlock into solitary confinement. (Militia captain)


Crypt Lords - Your standard militia sergeants. (Militia captain)


Mistress of Pain - Female-only whip-using sheriff and executioner. (Sheriff, Hammerer)


Fleshmonger - Mends flesh, cares for your wounded. (Chief Medical Dwarf)


Keeper of Knowledge - Manages your treasures, trades and keeps your books. (Manager, Trader, Bookkeeper)


Steward - Stoic and calm, runs the daily tower necessities. (Expedition leader, mayor)


Sorcerer Supreme - The ruler of all Warlocks. (Monarch, King/Queen)


Shady Merchant - In case you need a caravan... (Trader)


Emissary - Keep in contact with other Warlock towers. (Liaison, Diplomat)

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Pets:
Warlocks keep different pets, mostly prisoners, monsters, magical helpers or creatures you create yourself in your fort.


Prisoners - Your main food, skin and soul source. Get them at embark or order some from the caravans.


Mephits - Little mischievous flying imps with elemental powers. Station them wisely.


Gargoyles - Stationary constructions that attack with special powers. Build them in your masonry, pasture, wait for helpless heroes.


Elemental Men - Matter brought to live by magic. Basic melee pets.


Snakes - Who needs poultry if you can farm snake eggs and poison?


Giant insects - Make good guards, with poison to boot. What's not to love?
 

Ravens and crows - Your eyes in the sky.

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Materials:
Warlocks only get a few new materials, mostly decorational or replacements for metals.


Ethereal - Color-coded furniture and construction blocks. Warlocks summon those free of charge, manual labor is optional for powerful wizards.


Bonemold, Bloodsteel and Soulforged metals. Make iron-grade bonemold (bone + ash), upgrade it to bloodsteel (bonemold + ash + blood) or even refine it further by adding valuable souls (bloodsteel + soul) to make soulforged metal, twice as good as regular steel.


Mushrooms - You have access to ten new shrooms to grow in your farms; use them to brew potions or poisons. Check the workshops ingame to see the individual effects. Potions add temporary buffs to your Warlocks, while poisons are used to cover weapons and ammo.


Bone furniture and constructions - Be environmentally friendly and use up everything!


Obsidian furniture and constructions - Because every good evil dungeon needs more spikes.


Slade furniture and constructions - Don't kink-shame demons. With magma-access you can create your own slade.

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Workshops:
Now comes the truly interesting part, your new workshops and furnaces.


Aether Gate - A magic portal that summons free building materials, color-coded for your convenience. If you play with animations on (twbt redraw_all 1), these are glowing.


Obsidian & Slade Factories - Simple mass production of obsidian or slade blocks, boulders and furniture. Requires magma.


Liaison's Office - Offer a soul to lure a goblin or warlock caravan to your tower.


Bone Carver & Forge - Create blocks, furniture, weapons or armor from the bones of your enemies!


Corrupted Forge - Grind up bones for flux, or mix with ash, blood and souls for the new metals described above. Iron-grade, Steel-grade, Better-than-steel-grade.


Gargoyle Mason - Get rid of spare boulders, add a sprinkle of magic ingredients, and voila! A new gargoyle guardian arises. Pasture for them as immobile defences around the fort.


Alchemists - Potion brewing for buffing "alcohol" drinks; poison brewing to cover weapons, traps or ammo; transmutation of metals. Use the poison vat to apply poison to items.


Magic Altars - Soul-based workshops. Once you have enough servants, use souls to power up your units, create elemental men, start strange moods, spawn water or magma, control the weather, raise the dead... and more!


Necromantic Shrines - Soul-based workshops. Use souls to raise corpses as mindless undead, summon imps to do your bidding; or bring the souls of dwarves, kobolds, elves, humans or goblins to be raised as your servants! Create ghouls, skeletons or even resurrect them as warlock apprentices!

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Credits: Mod content by me; - Sprites by me, Vordak (Special thanks for allowing me to use your work once more. ), Redshrike and Denzi.

This mod gives dwarves the ability to reverse-engineer foreign items. Anything from bows and blowguns, scimitars and 2h swords, capes and turbans, sandals or chausses.

You build an Inventor's Workshop; it just needs one original of the item to run a reaction. This adds the item to your crafters, clothier, leatherworker and forge, just like any other item you can make.





It's such a tiny, niche mod that I don't think a pre-installed package would be necessary, but if there is some interest, I can upload one.

Cheers,
Meph

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This mod is allows your fort to get caravans, migrants and pets from the other races: Humans, Elves, Goblins and Kobolds.

It adds five workshops, the Liaison's offices, that accept stacks of gold coins in exchange for their services. You can spawn a caravan, if the civ has access to your site; you can hire a single male or female migrant of a race; or you can buy a single male or female pet: Grizzly bears; Unicorns; Beak dogs; Giant Cave Spiders.

The fifth workshop is the Animal-men Liaison, who gives access to almost 200(!) races of animal people that can populate your fort.

PS: Requires a new worldgen; requries Dfhack; requires TWBT for the graphics. I can make an ASCII version on request.

Changelog:
 - V.1.0 - Initial release.
 - V.1.1 - Made kobolds more intelligent, so that they are civ members instead of "friendly" units, and allowed beak dogs to carry trade goods for goblin caravans.
 - V.1.2 - Added animal-men office and changed the workshop sprites slightly.