Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Gameplay Questions => DF Wiki Discussion => Topic started by: Derekristow on July 30, 2010, 09:44:38 am
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I've seen a lot about the wiki being untrustworthy, and while it mostly seems fine to me a filter wouldn't hurt. So, this thread should be a place to post new findings to be put on the wiki and debunk myths before they get there.
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Yes, there are certainly a few inaccuracies around.
Hence, in proper Mythbuster style, I think we should take on the myth of the exploding booze barrel.
The myth is that, when set on fire, booze barrels will explode in a big fireball. This is believed to be caused by the flammable booze contained within catching on fire and undergoing rapid combustion, which to the layman looks an aweful lot like a fireball or an explosion.
Another explanation is that the apparent explosion is actually merely booze vapor, caused by the booze evaporating when subjected to the heat caused by the fire.
In order to test this myth, we should set up a booze stockpile and set it on fire. After observing what happens in that case, we should mod the raws to set the boiling point of booze much higher and see if we can observe a difference. Another question is whether booze, once vaporized, can catch on fire. The best test I can think of for this would be to start a fire near to, but not touching a booze stockpile, with a barrier such as a channel in the middle, then change the raws so that the booze immediately evaporates. If the booze vapor really can catch fire, then it is likely that the fire will spread over to the other side once the booze cloud touches the fire. If the booze actually evaporates when the barrels are set on fire, and then the vapor ignites, we can still call it a fireball of sorts.
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Wouldn't another way to test it would be in adventure mode?
With the new knapping skill and custom reactions, plus the ability to set things on fire, it'd be much easier to fine-tune experiments in regards to quantities of alcohol, type of alcohol, etc etc.
I've done a quick test and it's definitely possible to create a barrel, and to create alcohol in said barrel, and it will "ignite" (or according to the description of the brown cloud, become "Boiling Dwarven Wine"). As to whether this is damaging vapour, or can set off chain reactions etc, more scientific study is definitely needed.
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we should set up a booze stockpile and set it on fire.
Dwarven science! We do what we must, because we can.
For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead...
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Yes, there are certainly a few inaccuracies around.
Hence, in proper Mythbuster style, I think we should take on the myth of the exploding booze barrel.
The myth is that, when set on fire, booze barrels will explode in a big fireball. This is believed to be caused by the flammable booze contained within catching on fire and undergoing rapid combustion, which to the layman looks an aweful lot like a fireball or an explosion.
Another explanation is that the apparent explosion is actually merely booze vapor, caused by the booze evaporating when subjected to the heat caused by the fire.
In order to test this myth, we should set up a booze stockpile and set it on fire. After observing what happens in that case, we should mod the raws to set the boiling point of booze much higher and see if we can observe a difference. Another question is whether booze, once vaporized, can catch on fire. The best test I can think of for this would be to start a fire near to, but not touching a booze stockpile, with a barrier such as a channel in the middle, then change the raws so that the booze immediately evaporates. If the booze vapor really can catch fire, then it is likely that the fire will spread over to the other side once the booze cloud touches the fire. If the booze actually evaporates when the barrels are set on fire, and then the vapor ignites, we can still call it a fireball of sorts.
Well.. I can say that boiling booze is one of the most awesome weapons for town killing in adventure mode, Nobody tries to kill you afterwards, besides the image of people melted all over the inn is hilarious.
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Wouldn't another way to test it would be in adventure mode?
With the new knapping skill and custom reactions, plus the ability to set things on fire, it'd be much easier to fine-tune experiments in regards to quantities of alcohol, type of alcohol, etc etc.
I've done a quick test and it's definitely possible to create a barrel, and to create alcohol in said barrel, and it will "ignite" (or according to the description of the brown cloud, become "Boiling Dwarven Wine"). As to whether this is damaging vapour, or can set off chain reactions etc, more scientific study is definitely needed.
But the question is: WILL IT BLEND?
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we should set up a booze stockpile and set it on fire.
Dwarven science! We do what we must, because we can.
For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead...
But there's no use crying over every Funstake
You just keep on trying 'till you run out of booze.
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Questions like this make me really wish that Arena mode had a feature to let you place arbitrary items like it lets you place creatures. There are several experiments I'd like to test without having to build a fortress to support them first.
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I was once playing as an adventurer,I found a giant with family issues who resorted to booze.There was booze all around his cave and that was the only thing (no shit it was)
I killed the giant and decided to throw his body in a fire near the booze and sleep.I woke up burning,there was flaming booze clouds everywhere.
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In 40d and earlier, alcohol's ignition point is significantly higher than its boiling point*, and since Dwarf Fortress only allows actual objects to burn (once it boils, it becomes a "flow" just like miasma or cave-in dust) it isn't actually possible for alcohol to burn. It's possible this was changed in 0.31, but I doubt it.
* don't have the exact numbers at the moment, but it'll be simple enough to locate them again - they're initialized right after the game reads the MATGLOSS_PLANT:xxx token
[edit] Just found the stats: booze has an ignite point of 10800 (832°F) and a boiling point of only 10150 (182°F). Booze also freezes at 9850 (-118°F), for those curious.
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I think we should take a look at the Carp.
I've been hearing people say that carp got nerfed in the recent versions because the bite attack strength was reduced. But I seem to recall that carp never were that powerful to begin with (size 3 in the old versions, which wasn't very strong) and the reason they ended up in a lot of dead dwarves was because the dwarves would go to the river for a drink, see the fish, go "Oh shit, pointy teeth" and dodge into the water.
HOWEVER, a few versions ago I seem to recall the way civilians reacted to wild animals changed slightly, so they would be a BIT less nervous around them. Anyone want to check if fish are, as of the latest release, still deadly?
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I think we should take a look at the Carp.
I've been hearing people say that carp got nerfed in the recent versions because the bite attack strength was reduced. But I seem to recall that carp never were that powerful to begin with (size 3 in the old versions, which wasn't very strong) and the reason they ended up in a lot of dead dwarves was because the dwarves would go to the river for a drink, see the fish, go "Oh shit, pointy teeth" and dodge into the water.
HOWEVER, a few versions ago I seem to recall the way civilians reacted to wild animals changed slightly, so they would be a BIT less nervous around them. Anyone want to check if fish are, as of the latest release, still deadly?
Empirically the carp don't seem to be too dangerous anymore. In my current fortress there's a river full of carp and I have yet to lose a single fisherman to them, despite my fishing zone being right on top of what seems to be the carps' breeding grounds.
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we should set up a booze stockpile and set it on fire.
Dwarven science! We do what we must, because we can.
For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead...
But there's no use crying over every Funstake
You just keep on trying 'till you run out of booze.
And the science gets done
And you make a neat fort
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we should set up a booze stockpile and set it on fire.
Dwarven science! We do what we must, because we can.
For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead...
But there's no use crying over every Funstake
You just keep on trying 'till you run out of booze.
And the science gets done
And you make a neat fort
For the dwarven who are still ALLiIIIiiiVE!
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we should set up a booze stockpile and set it on fire.
Dwarven science! We do what we must, because we can.
For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead...
But there's no use crying over every Funstake
You just keep on trying 'till you run out of booze.
And the science gets done
And you make a neat fort
For the dwarven who are still !!ALLiIIIiiiVE!!
Fixed that for you.
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If you're taking suggestions, can someone confirm/deny that building destroyers like trolls etc (type 2 I think) can destroy non-wooden buildings?
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[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2] creatures can destroy nearly anything, including non-wooden buildings (stone/metal/glass doors and floodgates, workshops, etc.) - it's only the [BUILDINGDESTROYER:1] creatures that only destroy specific things.
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A troll just destroyed the floor hatch I placed on a forgotten and neglected backdoor entrance to my fort letting in whole hordes of fun. The hatch was made of the super-durable substance "Microcline", which doesn't grow on trees folks.
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Here's a myth: Creatures with [BUILDINGDESTROYER:2] will deliberately destroy supports, possibly resulting in cave-ins landing on their heads.
It was posted on the Trap design page on the wiki, so I tried a glass pillar (holding up a glass floor) against 2 forgotten beasts. Forgotten beasts all have [BUILDINGDESTROYER:2] in their raws (easily confirmed by viewing an uncompressed save), yet both of the ones involved were content to walk right past the support (and one even went right through it) multiple times without destroying it. In this case, I had also linked the support to a lever so that I could still drop the floor onto the forgotten beasts and kill them (one had deadly blood, and the other had undirected "deadly dust").
Anyone care to provide evidence that this myth may even be plausible?
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Ok here are a few myths:
1)If you compress watter in a confined space like a box using only pumps, you will be able to make a water canon that can literally smash you dwarfs against a near by wall with the force of a hammer blow.
2)If you make a downward shaft that is two spaces wide and drop a block of obsidian down one space then a dwarf standing in the other space will be propelled up out of the shaft.
3)If you mod a creature(THIS HAPPENED TO ME ONCE!!!) that is supposed to have undirected vapors or something and gas blood it will burn its self during sight opon an enemy and the prepare its self!!! The heat must have been so much! If possible to make this action stable and predicable then this would be an AWESOME way to make food for your fortress.
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Ok here are a few myths:
1)If you compress watter in a confined space like a box using only pumps, you will be able to make a water canon that can literally smash you dwarfs against a near by wall with the force of a hammer blow.
We should really be having screenshots of tests in this thread, but I gotta say, this one is a strange one. There is no water compression in Dwarf Fortress. Water cannons in DF are simply about mass and gravity and force. Yes, you CAN literally smash dwarfs against a wall to injure them (and possibly kill them) if they are next to the bottom opening of a tall cistern of water (I used to kill orcs this way during invasions, or soften them up before drowning them), but if you have blocks of 7/7 water and pumps pumping into the area, there is no extra water being squeezed into the area. It has no effect.
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The trick is to get extra flow by using a stack of pumps say, ten wide, with a single-tile-wide exit pipe. This will cause water to flow down said pipe at ten tiles per tick (so long as the pumps stay supplied, which is harder than it looks without simply using a cistern stack), giving a highly convincing simulation of "high-pressure" water flow.
This is still just using the teleportation model of water pressure, of course. I'm not sure whether fast water flow in this manner can crush people against walls, and would be interested to find out (particularly since the canonical hydrodynamics I remember indicates that teleporting water does not push creatures or items, only "flowing" (I.E. diffusing) water does).
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Questions like this make me really wish that Arena mode had a feature to let you place arbitrary items like it lets you place creatures. There are several experiments I'd like to test without having to build a fortress to support them first.
For items, just add a reaction (with [ADVENTURE_MODE_ENABLED]) that has the item as a product and no reagents. For walls and pits and such, you may get somewhere by screwing around with arena.txt.
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we should set up a booze stockpile and set it on fire.
Dwarven science! We do what we must, because we can.
For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead...
Which our experiments will surely increase the number of...
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Myth:
Bronze is better than iron. Many people still believe this yet i find it to be completely false. Only iron, steel and adamantine can damage a bronze colossus. And a dwarf in full bronze vs a dwarf in full iron doesn't win more than 50% of the time in arena.
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The forum wisdom is that bronze weapons are better than iron weapons, but bronze = iron for armor. That is, a dwarf using bronze weapons is better than a dwarf using iron weapons. However, for armor, both are equivalent at defending. (ie, 2 dwarves with iron weapons, 1 with iron armor, the other with bronze armor, will split a duel at 50%. But a dwarf with bronze weapon (and iron or bronze armor) versus a dwarf with iron weapon (and iron or bronze armor) will favor the bronze weapon wielder. The difference between bronze being superior as WEAPON and not an ARMOR versus iron is often left out.
I personally haven't run enough test yet to know if the forum wisdom is correct, and if that is further limited to certain weapon types.
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Extensive testing has in fact been done. Bronze and iron are actually fairly close, but which is better comes down each individual weapon and even what armor material each one is facing. It's really impossible to say which one is better in general, only in specific cases. Zagibu's data is here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=53571.0), you want something with the highest serious wound chance (highest red percentage) generally.
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So, according to that data--- iron armor is superior to bronze armor almost all the time. Bronze armor has a higher pass through rate, meaning more wounds. It has a higher critical wounding rate over iron overall. There are some cases where bronze protects from critical hits better, but which is better? Turning the blow entirely or lessening its damage?
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Looking at those results it is obvious that iron weapons do better against bronze armour than bronze weapons do against iron armour...
However against steel armour bronze maces, hammers and spears are better than iron, but iron swords and axes are better than bronze...
Also from that table it's obvious that hammers are overpowered :s
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Can building destroyers destroy bridges?
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Only dwarves (by direct order from you or tantruming) can destroy bridges.
If you try to close a bridge on a very large creature, that will destroy the bridge.