Bay 12 Games Forum

Inspired by MottledPetrel's Modded Hell and many huge modpacks before it, I've decided to have a go at making my own collection, but with a twist. I don't want a batshit insane world where namekians are slaughtering goombas with plungers. My goal was to assemble (and tweak) as many mods as I could (I'm not really proficient at reading raws) while sticking to the generic fantasy theme.
You know what's the most interesting? The modpack is stable, probably because there aren't that many complex interactions going on, and the error log is only a meter long.

The point is, I want to brag about my creation, and despite being a crappy writer, and not being the most proficient in writing in English, I've decided to do a drow fort story



The save state is gone, and the story is over. Almost.

SQ (me) - animal trainer/caretaker/house overseer
Lunardog15 - brewer/planter
MottledPetrel - fisherman killed by a firebreathing clown with a chainsaw
scourge728 - animal trainer/shearer
Fred the Mitey (Pikachu17) - miner/house administrator
Darkening Kaos - mechanic/weaponsmith/carpenter
Imic - swordsman/craftsman/house weapon master, leader of the Blackguards
ZM5 - stabber/potter
Schmendrick (FakerFangirl) - shearer/spinner/weaver/brewer
Freshcannon - house priestess, leader of the Helmet Snakes
Asin - House captain, leader of the Steel Samurais
Ombragon - cook

Name, profession, special requests, as simple as that.

---

The menagerie and botanical gardens of the drow capital, usually crowded with all kinds of people, were almost completely empty. Caretakers gathered around an empty enclosure, looking at the main gate with excitement.
"This time it has to be something good"
"I dunno, probably a false alarm. Last time they brought another bunch of geese"
"Shut up you two, you're ruining the mood"
"those three false alarms last week ruined my mood already"
"shush! I heard something!"

---

Suddenly the grand gate began to open. The cavern became silent for a moment, nobody dared to breathe, let alone talk. A wagon pulled by four rothe appeared in the gate, carrying a crate large enough to contain a well fed cow. The drow looked at the crate with anticipation. There's no way it's something mundane again, is there?
The wagon slowly moved towards the empty enclosure. People began to whisper.
"Oh, I bet it's a dragon"
"Maybe a dragonne?"
"Perhaps a dragoon?"
The whispering was cut short by the cart stopping. Four rhinotrolls entered the enclosure and placed the crate on soft moss. As they were doing that, the animal inside made a disappointingly familiar grunt. Many of the caretakers rolled their eyes and returned to their usual work, the rest crossed their fingers hoping for a miracle.

As soon as the rhinotrolls opened the crate, every bit of doubt was cleared - this was a huge waste of time. A fat molebull crawled out. The menagerie already had a herd of those, and this one wasn't special in any way - the same pointy horns, the same shaggy fur, the same round belly.

---

A young caretaker barged into the menagerie overseer's office.
"Overseer, you said it was "a beast most ferocious", not a farm animal! You've sent our last draltha for slaughter to replace it with this?"
"Now, now SQ, there's no point of being upset over things like this" the overseer said calmly. "After all we're still getting funded. You know, new animals get in, girls from the palace pump gold into my... our coffers."
"Is that all you care about? The previous overseer would send expeditions to the deepest caverns to capture cave eagles, elusive deep stalkers, even ancient constructs from forgotten times, you just cheat the system in hope that nobody will ever find out!" SQ was struggling to restrain herself. If not for two rhinotrolls standing in the room, she would have probably got violent. "You know, if enough people complained to Valsharess..."
"Is this a threat? I can make sure you all mind your own business, after all I'm only treating you as my equals out of my own good will. Maybe you don't really deserve that, huh, quaggoth girl? Remember, as long as I'm on the higher position, you're no better than a slave." That was true, the line between subordinates and slaves in drow society was blury to say the least. SQ hated that fact.
"What if... what if I stopped working for you? Maybe even become your superior?" asked SQ barely holding back tears. "If... if everything goes well, you won't... won't have the right to object."
"I think I know what you're planning. Alright, remember one thing: if they turn you away, don't expect me to forgive you. If you come here to beg me to take you back, I'll have you whipped until there's nothing left of you, and you know I'm not exaggerating.

---

"Breathe, SQ, breathe..." SQ thought to herself, standing in front of the door to the Surveying and Settlement Ministry bureau "you can do it, just knock on the door, and the conversation will flow on its own. If you chicken out now, you'll have to run away into the caverns where driders would certainly get you. Okay, here goes..."
As she was about to knock, a tired-looking male opened the door "You're gonna stand here the whole day or do you want something signed? If it's the latter, come back in, let's see... next Timber 23. I've got undercoffee to drink and the mistress is on a business trip to Stop-Bothering-Me"
for a moment SQ considered being compliant and going home, but then she remembered the situation she was in. "I... I'm here to... the notice on the wall... please..."
"Ah, that. Can you believe you're the first person to ever ask about this? That's nuts, isn't it? Oh, right, get six more people, supplies, tools and what not. I'll take care of the paperwork." The male slammed the door shut, leaving SQ confused for a few seconds.
"Have I just become an expedition leader?" the girl asked herself "And where am I gonna find six people willing to join me?"

Hi guys, I've got a little question about blunt weapons and materials.

So, blunt weapon's effectiveness depends mostly on the material's density, and copper is denser than iron, bronze, and steel. Is there some material property that makes copper inferior to steel, or is it actually that good for hammers?

In my current fort I decided to play with poison a little bit and the first one I tried was the nether horror (or something like that). There was a wounded giant rhino that has been being mauled by hunting cougars for a year now eating my FPS, so I sent a guy with a poisoned sword to get my precious frames back. Suddenly the rhino turned into a decay brute.

Now the question is: why? Why would anyone use poison that changes stuff into powerful monsters? When is the "right" moment to use something like this?
There's one more point I wanted to make - poison-making reactions should have descriptions explaining how the poison works. The names are not descriptive enough to guess. I guess pinkskin bane does serious damage against humans, dwarves and elves, but voodoo poison? Or nether horror (although now I know what it does)?

Aquifier, the greatest enemy of the dwarfkind. If you don't want to spend your time setting up pumps and mechanisms, you should be ready to embark in the most boring locations you've ever generated. Or you could tinker with advanced settings, which can lead to infinite world rejections. Or you could play with raws for a while... or leave it to someone else!

Here it is: http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=11732

This simple modification removes [AQUIFIER] tag from soil and stone.

So I've been reading Syrupleaf lately and that made me wonder: how many major features were cut/simplified since the earlier versions? I've played maybe since late 2012 and never got to see any of that myself.

-Of course we have the economy removed for being completely dysfunctional, which I'm glad I haven't experienced.
-There were chunks of creatures made by biting off a part of creature's body. That was removed for being pain in the butt to clean and possibly causing FPS drops, wasn't it?
-Nobles some of which served absolutely no purpose, and some doing things that can now be done without them. Philosophers were completely useless and so would be tax collectors without economy, so removing them was reasonable.
-Sending enemies flying - that may be just a physics tweak, but it completely changed many aspect of combat. Wrestlers are no longer spectacular or even useful, a goblin won't fly after being hit with a hammer, especially alive, and we don't see invaders smashing against walls.
-Mandates and demands - I've seen a mayor requesting a green glass window once in my 3 years playing history, but in old playthroughs I've seen people complaining about dwarves demanding things like these constantly. Also, dwarves used to mandate making objects from certain materials, but now they just want their socks made out of anything. What was the reason behind these I wonder.
-Nonexistent treants. Why the hell were they removed if they didn't exist anyway?
-Natural armor and HP system from very early versions were obviously got rid of for realism. Not a simplification, but a massive change.
-Narrow clothes on goblins was a thing.
-Some clownish constructions in candy deposits and non-random clowns.

So are there any more big things that were removed?