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Should've hired dwarves to build it. It might menace with spikes of magma, fling every 37th traveler to the stingray-infested water, or atom-smash anyone who tried to bring a cat over it, but at least it would get you to the other side.


That ground to the left is pretty damn weird, too. Except for a small area next to the bridge, those aren't the tops of walls. Just floors with nothing below them but grass and trees. Also there's a cavern entrance in the bit where the only walls are. Also when I un-traveled to this area I was caught in a burst of loamy sand, and then magma. This place confuses me.

But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story.



The smallish continent known as the Land of Murders has not known the light of civilization for long -- only fifty years ago did seafarers from the distant lands begin to settle it. However, after those mere five decades, the seeds of what may become great histories have already been sown.

For now, let us look at the three fledgling dwarven nations. One, The Quiet Bridge of the frozen south, is mostly boring, aside from their secretive arms-dealing to both sides of a nearby elf-human war. Another, The Pulley of Wringing of the eastern ridges, is also content, aside from occasional raids from the nearby difficult-to-pronounce kobold den of Thlafafablarbin. For a tale worthy of telling, the third Dwarven nation, The Peaceful Viper-Razors of the western spires, seems the most promising, so we shall examine its current predicament.

Once, the Peaceful Viper-Razors were indeed peaceful, but from out of the dark and jagged peaks on the far shore of a nearby inland sea, Smug, the Lilac Demon and Master of the rising goblin empire, has begun to ignite the flames of war. His dark towers of Zonngokang are situated in a fell mountain range known by many names; though officially called the Dour Fingers, some also speak of the range as the Demon's Claw, or the Dark Cross.



Already the goblins have begun expanding to the mountain range on the north shores, no doubt preparing to strike the dwarves from both sides in a pincer attack. In the interest of national security, a small band of bold dwarves have been sent to build an outpost deep within enemy territory. For there, at the tallest Finger at the south end of the Cross, a base camp would be established which would one day aid the dwarves in their defense against the Lilac Demon.

That day, should it ever arise, will likely be long after our tales have reached their conclusion, for Smug has the patience of the immortals and bides his time. Until then, we shall follow the lives of these dwarves who dwell in the shadow of the Demon's Claw. More specifically, we shall follow one Solon Cruxdagger -- Doc Cruxdagger to his friends -- for it is his vision that will, in years to come, drive this fortress to a new, far bolder purpose.

The outpost administrators in the mountainhomes had decided on the name Heavenscrapes**, for the mighty mountains of the Demon's Claw seem to clutch at the very halls of Armok himself. Whether this newly-founded fortress will survive to live up to its name will be determined by a chief doctor who didn't even managed to reach the base camp at the valley floor before being headbutted partway down the mountain by a local goat, breaking two of his limbs.



**My apologies to the fine folks at Skyscrapes. I rarely frequent the Community Games & Stories forum, and if I looked at it BEFORE I finished embarking I'd've used a different name.

---

Doc Cruxdagger's Journal
28 Felsite, 51


The bloody roof still leaks.

It's all that miner Zuntir's fault. It was his brilliant idea to make mud for a mushroom farm by digging a big room underneath a pond and poking a hole in the roof. It worked, but now the only place I can hang around in without tripping over a rock and sending bolts of excruciating pain through my still-mending upper leg has a steady drip. Apparently our fearless leader wasn't aware that ponds don't just appear out of nowhere; something has to fill them up. Something like rain. Something which, apparently, happens here quite a lot. And now he justifies his decision with the reasoning that it'll keep the mud from drying up, and refuses to plug up the hole.

Anyway, we got in a fairly minor argument -- we didn't even sever anything -- and in a fit of anger, he shouted that if I was so smart, I could be the Chief Foreman and Architect. So now I'm in charge of planning out the fortress and designating all the rooms and buildings. It'll be a handful on top of the medical  work I'll be doing in the future, but despite the creepy purplish tinge around the mountain I've yet to see anything more dangerous than that goat, so maybe it won't be as bad as the legends make it out to be.

Zuntir still refuses to fix the leaky farm room, though. I suppose he has a point about the mud, but I still want to get back at him. Maybe I'll design a fortress that can't possibly have a leaky roof. That'll show him... nah, it'd have to be rediculously tall. I'll just start getting us further underground, once we finish getting settled in. Next on the agenda will be getting a hospital set up. I was trained by the finest lumberjack in the whole of the Viper-Razors, I should be able to get this leg patched up.

I started as a marksdwarf with some ambushing skill. I also started in a valley surrounded by level 2 and 3 mountains. I originally started this to see the new features for myself, but this challenge has been brought to me and I shall accept it. I will cross these mountains, drinking from the mountain rivers and eating the mountains and giant eagles I find on the way.

There's also a tunnel, I could take that through the mountains but that would be boring.

I expect to continue on fixing things, with a bit of adventurer skills stuff thrown in.

July should be an interesting month.

In its new, 40d#-based incarnation, it takes up space in a corner used for other things, such as the date on the status screen; the original location may be a better place for it. An option to only show one type of FPS (Action frames and graphical frames) would also be nice, as that would make it smaller (which might be necessary if it's in the original location).

I realize that this is the first release of the merge, and there's still a fair amount of stuff that needs to be ironed out, but I'd just like to let it be known that this is irritating at least one player.

Firstly, I apologize if these observations and research have been covered elsewhere. I did a quick search and didn't see this in the modding board, and that sort of embarassing mistake happens here from time to time. If not, I may have stumbled upon one of the most significant undocumented changes to the way the raws work yet. Anyway...


Shortly after 31_01 was released, I was disheartened by the fact that METAL_PREF no longer appears to help determine metal usage. At first glance, between this and the lack of MINOR_METAL, it appeared a portion of my upcoming megamod would be unimplementable.

However, when I was looking through some other threads (might have been on the bug tracker), someone mentioned that humans can only make use of bronze and a few minor alloys. One observant commenter noticed that humans lacked a permitted reaction tag for steel and whatnot. Another commenter, however, that dwarves can use iron while humans cannot, and unlike steel, iron smelting was defined from the iron ore raws rather than the reaction files, and PERMITTED_REACTION tags do not exist for native ores. Also, my own tests revealed that humans also cannot make things from tin or copper, the two components of bronze. This oddity, along with the rest of the previous two paragraphs, led me to a series of additional tests that led me to a rather startling conclusion or two.

• Firstly, a race's access to alloys -- metals such as steel and rose gold, which are not found in ores -- are determined by a race's [PERMITTED_REACTION:x] tags in the entity file. I think this was implied already, by the information in the last paragraph.

• Secondly, a race's access to ore metals -- metals such as iron and copper, which can be found by smelting ores such as hematite and native copper -- are determined by whether or not the race has the [STONE_PREF] tag.

• The above two are independant of each other; if a race does not have access to the ore metals required for a reaction they can use (as is the case with humans and copper, tin, and bronze), they can still use the alloy. This may not be the case in all situations, but they can embark with bronze, their shops have bronze, and I think their soldiers have bronze too.

As I previously said, earlier this month I was worried that metal availability by race would be much more difficult. However, given the above conclusions. This is not the case; rather, the exact opposite is evident:


In the DF2010 generation, Dwarf Fortress modders have far more control which metals an individual race can use than we ever had before.


Use the information in this thread as you will. Mind you, if anyone can refute my findings, please do so.

One mystery I've yet to solve: when I play a dwarven adventurer, I generally start with bronze. More research may be needed.

While testing various types of material breaths, I noticed that creatures, when using a trailing dust flow, would on occaision be propelled by the heavy dust in the direction of the flow. In other words, I have created rocket dragons.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2128-rocketdragon


After further studies, it appears to me that the creature with the rocket breath must have the ability to fly, lest when the dust propels it upwards it will fall back down and sustain serious injuries.