Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm playing on steam but before I try and make a proper mod I wish to test the changes I'm thinking of implementing
So my idea was to simply edit the raws like we did in previous versions of DF to test the changes before I try and do something more modular.
I would like to add 3 items that are duplicates of  the vanilla cloak, hood and mittens but giving them the armor "tag" so that my civilians stop stealing them before my military can put them on.
I remember I did something like that years ago but cannot remember exactly how I did it. I tried to replicate it but the items never appeared in the game when I launched it, I had no way to craft any of them (existing fortress I didn't try creating a new world)

 I read on the wiki that it should be possible to edit existing saves by editing the vanilla raws (not recommended I get that but possible) if I understood this correctly then the mistake has to be in what I edited.
Could someone help me figure out where I went wrong ?

I edited 4 raws total

3 in SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Dwarf Fortress\data\vanilla\vanilla_items\objects

item_armor.txt  : adding the cloak

[ITEM_ARMOR:ITEM_ARMOR_CLOAK_MILITARY]
[NAME:military cloak:military cloaks]
[ARMORLEVEL:1]
[UBSTEP:MAX]
[LBSTEP:1]
[LAYER:COVER]
[COVERAGE:100]
[LAYER_SIZE:15]
[LAYER_PERMIT:150]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:5]
[SOFT]
[LEATHER]
[STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_WOVEN_THREAD]

item_gloves.txt adding the mittens

[ITEM_GLOVES:ITEM_GLOVES_MITTENS_MILITARY]
[NAME:military mitten:military mittens]
[ARMORLEVEL:1]
[LAYER:COVER]
[COVERAGE:150]
[LAYER_SIZE:15]
[LAYER_PERMIT:20]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:1]
[SOFT]
[LEATHER]
[STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_WOVEN_THREAD]

item_helm.txt adding the hood

[ITEM_HELM:ITEM_HELM_HOOD_MILITARY]
[NAME:military hood:military hoods]
[ARMORLEVEL:1]
[LAYER:COVER]
[COVERAGE:100]
[LAYER_SIZE:10]
[LAYER_PERMIT:100]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:2]
[SOFT]
[LEATHER]
[STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_WOVEN_THREAD]

1 raw in SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Dwarf Fortress\data\vanilla\vanilla_entities\objects

entity_default.txt adding the 3 items to the dwarven civilization

[ARMOR:ITEM_ARMOR_CLOAK_MILITARY:COMMON]
[HELM:ITEM_HELM_HOOD_MILITARY:COMMON]
[GLOVES:ITEM_GLOVES_MITTENS_MILITARY:COMMON]

Thank you all this has been very useful, I'll try and get some of the animals that can be trained for war.

It seems that outside of resurrecting the elven civ that had a ... hum...unfortunate accident ... my best bet would be to get jabberer's in the caves.
I'll give this a try and see how it goes.

I've also just found candy so hopefully this will help a bit.

Unless things have been fixed since the last pre-Steam release, both Forgotten Beasts and werebeasts are completely unable to destroy buildings. Even a simple pair of locked wooden doors is sufficient to contain the most terrifying of monsters (unless they're on fire - then you want something magma-safe like glass).
Just provide it a path into your fortress which takes it through a pair of doors, wait until it's between them, pause the game, and lock them both. Then you can take your time pulling levers to raise drawbridges, walling it in, or just leave it trapped by the locked doors.

If that bug ever gets fixed then you could probably fall back to using more than two doors. It takes time to destroy buildings, so a series of locked doors acts as a time delay giving your dwarves a chance to run over and pull a lever.

thanks this is very helpful advice ! I had an issue with FB previously generated that were coming back into my fort because there is no warning then and so they had time to come in eat the bait and leave before I was aware anything was going on and checking the visitors list every 5 min gets old very fast.
With some doors to occupy it I have time to be made aware it's there, it's a great alarm system even without the bug.

So I managed to wipe all the pits from the goblin civilization near me but I cannot manage to defeat the main fortress.
I have 1 squad of legendary miners and 2 of legendary marksdwarfs all clad in 100% masterful steel with masterful steel weapons too.

Even so they are unable to fight the vomit demon that reigns in the goblin fortress, they loose 2 or 3 members of each squad and are defeated every time I try.
I'm in steam version so the only war animal I have available are dogs and they're really weak so I hesitate to assign any to my military for fear of depression when they all die.
Is there a weapon that's more effective ? should I use candy ? Or do I just need to send more squads at once ? Or any other tactic I could use ?

thanks it's very helpful advice !

In the meantime I've watched a couple of videos and from what I understand pressure plates might not be ideal, for one forgotten beasts are immune to traps, isn't a pressure-plate considered a trap ? so it might be useless
And even if it's not after 99 seconds without input it'll reset and when this happens it sends a new signal if I'm not mistaken ? and if so wouldn't that re-open the bridge and free the beast from the room ?

So I think that having 2 bait animals and triggering the bridges to close the room with levers might be the best solution.
If I'm mistaken please someone let me know

I would like to build a trap in my fort by connecting a tunnel to a room with a bait animal chained in a corner.

The tunnel leading to the room would only be open using a lever when there is a megabeast in the cavern so no other cavern dweller would activate it and eat the bait animal needlessly.
The idea is for the beast to trigger a bridge that will close the room as soon as it's inside so my archers can kill the beast from above, the room would be 3z levels high and have fortifications carved in the walls there to avoid fire/poison from reaching the archers.

The obvious trigger to use would be a pressure-plate but I know there is a delay not only on the pressure plate itself but also the bridge and I was wondering if someone knows how many blocks before the bridge I should place the pressure-plate for it to be effective ?

Thank you so so much !