Bay 12 Games Forum

1) You don't have to write anything special in the reaction itself (see later points). I think there was/still is functionality to do it by naming reactions in certain ways, but I don't know if anyone still does that.

2) IIRC yes, the reaction needs a product, or else the code doesn't actually trigger (even though the documentation says otherwise). There's supposed to be a way to prevent the product from actually being made, but I believe that functionality is broken/removed (though I could be misremembering, it's been ages), so most people set the product to be a boulder of a dummy material that turns into gas instantly.

3) By using modtools/reaction-trigger. You should include each command inside an onLoad init file, so they get automatically run every time a world is loaded (otherwise you'd have to manually type in each command into the console every time you load up the world ).
Here's an example from an old mod I abandoned. When the reaction with the ID "THE_HIVE_SPAWN_QUEEN" is completed, a QUEEN caste of the creature THE_HIVE is spawned that's part of the fort, and uses THE_HIVE entity's naming conventions:

Code: [Select]

modtools/reaction-trigger -reactionName THE_HIVE_SPAWN_QUEEN -command [ modtools/create-unit -race THE_HIVE -caste QUEEN -setUnitToFort -name THE_HIVE -location [ \\LOCATION ] -age 0 ]

4) If I remember correctly, there will be problems in worldgen for creatures that reproduce solely from reactions. create-unit combined with reaction-trigger only spawns the creatures from their reactions when the reaction is used during fortress mode. This means that for all of worldgen, no new creatures are actually spawned, and so that civilisation is left with just their default level of population that the game initially spawns them with (assuming they can't reproduce on their own).

It might be possible to rig something up to have them create more of themselves during worldgen, like say giving them a dummy item that they can create as a craft, and then periodically replacing any of those items stored in a site with people instead. It'd obviously need a custom made script for it (I don't think one such script exists currently), and I'm not sure how possible it is, since I've never touched anything worldgen related before. 🤔

Quote from: FantasticDorf on January 06, 2021, 04:10:57 pm

Given your content, whether it still works needs to be seen but "construct-creature.lua by IndigoPhoenix" might fit your purposes because of the way it transfers the reagent material directly into it.

That does look pretty old, and I'm not sure how well it'll work, but I'm glad I stumbled upon it. I never realised/considered you could just straight-up edit the materials a creature is made up from. I was considering potentially picking up one of my old mod concepts that involves creating golems, and I was going to just cheat making them out of a particular material by colouring their body material based on the colour of the material used, but actually making them out of their material sounds better.

Though actually looking into it, it doesn't look like those changes to a unit's materials are actually saved, so you'd have to reapply them whenever they're loaded, which seems like potentially more effort than it's worth.

2) Would having the reaction emit smoke count as a product? The smoke wouldn't do anything, just serve as a product for purposes of needing a product. (And maybe for dramatic effect.)

4) Ahhh, I have zero coding experience so I'm not quite sure how to write such a script. I'm like a toddler who knows basic math but can't do anything past that to give a decent metaphor about coding.

Given your content, whether it still works needs to be seen but "construct-creature.lua by IndigoPhoenix" might fit your purposes because of the way it transfers the reagent material directly into it.  Im new to writing in DFhack too, but the workshop reactions are fufilled by inputting them (somewhere, anywhere) onto the dfhack.init file in a particular code string to execute when the game is loaded, usually referencing a seperate .lua with the code in it.

I like to use grown.lua (which i picked up as part of a older modification's dfhack spec) which applies a simple grown flag to the output which is useful for elf modifications. etc like a so. My particular example is to process cut logs, then restore them to be grown via elven means of... tree necromancy? Its nonspecific but it ought to work in a way that i can simply launder my logs through the shrine and then not alienate any traders later so long as im careful.

Location, then reaction-product-trigger (pretty typical if you've got DFhack of the latest version out the box, its simply referencing the scope from the DFfilefolder's position, and would change if you added another dfhack.init somewhere else) input a name from the reaction file, then the command references the actual code to apply in square brackets so it works.

The // is just a comment to keep track of what its meant to be doing and anything past // doesnt count as the code will stop reading.

Code: [Select]

modtools/reaction-product-trigger -reactionName DENDROMANTIC_REVIVAL -command [ grownwood.lua \\OUTPUT_ITEMS ]
Feel free to correct me anybody if i've actually got it wrong myself. Its all a opportunity to learn. Notepad++ application is probably the easiest way to open them to look inside any .lua file and also make relevant edits.

I do kind of want to make procedural wood ents now though. Thinking of the hideously strong dryads/ents i could make with custom trees, there's more than enough old abandoncode elf mods to finish it.

Oh!!! Thank you very much. This makes a lot of sense--but I only need one thing (A large gem) to make a rock person, and I'm not sure if you can leave out one thing in the code. I did think briefly about making the rock people bleed gold because the mental image of their scars resembling kintsugi would be cool, but it would be difficult in practice to hunt down literal gold just to expand the fort's population without exploits. I could instead just make it so that they need metal bars of any kind to act as "blood."

I think there just needs to be more ethics tags related to nationality and other social issues such as women's ability to participate in a civ for instance. I know there's a workaround for this in modding, but modders are lazy so having thoses types tags would help. It also add to simlution that's going on as well. More soical simultion is all ways welcome.

I personally feel that would cause a lot of unnecessary fights in the community and I don't think it would be particularly useful addition to begin with. I like dwarf fortress a lot because it doesn't have stuff like misogyny be a thing in it. The closest the game gets to having gender roles is when the female dwarves have to carry their baby around for a year and I feel that's more of a convenience thing, and I personally would prefer it stay that way. I suppose it would be optional if it could be edited in the raws and thus easily taken out by most players, but see my first point. Simulation and realism are only useful for as long as they are fun--if they are hampering the fun, they shouldn't be that way. That's how I feel in my opinion.

Also this isn't the place for suggestions. Go to the suggestion forums for that.

Let's have a topic change before it blows up.

Does the "myth" part of the magic and myths update only include creation myths, or will there be other tales involving the gods as well in the initial worldgen process? Things like that one myth where Amaterasu hid a cave after Susanoo threw a flayed horse at her so the gods had to convene to try to get her out of the cave, for example.

also

Will there be a way to easily understand how a world's magic system works upon worldgen? Obviously there's room for discovery in gameplay, but it wouldn't hurt if there was at least a rough summary of how each world's magic system is set up on worldgen, unless the creation myth is supposed to explain the magic system as well.

I don't believe these are suggestions, just stuff I was wondering.

Edited the post to clarify my question!

I feel like it would be appropriate to give radically different personalities to creatures which clearly aren't just reskinned humans. Dwarves, elves, and goblins could plausibly be seen as being different races of human, or closely related species. But animal people or demons or whatever kind of generated sapient we wind up getting could think drastically differently from humans. IMO it would be a wasted opportunity if solitary carnivore cat people had exactly the same outlook as humans, and demons aren't really even animals, so it would be expected for them to have different priorities from anything living.

It does have to be approached mindfully, but "truly alien beings" are some of my favorite things in fiction.

You could just mod in a civ that has weird morality if you want your fix and put in the carnivorous cat people as the race for that. Fairly easily too, there's a lot of flexibility in the raw entity files for morality and values. (I mean this is a game where the elves by default are down with eating killed sapients but will violently slaughter your fort if you chop down too many trees) But you probably already knew that. I made a civ of animal people that treated trespassing and vandalism like it was a personal matter because the concept of private property wasn't a huge deal to them.

You should be able to embalm bodies in the game. Helps necromancers keep corpses around longer and also can be given one more thing to do. I'm also very interested in the act of embalming itself.

There are some ways they embalmed people! I'm drawing my suggestions primarily from this page, but embalming to me is fascinating. Apologies for the eurocentrism of my source--if people have suggestions about how other cultures embalmed their corpses that you think might be doable, I'd welcome them! I know this has come up a few times, but I've rarely if ever actually seen embalming methods discussed in detail telling from a search in the forums. I’ve taken it on myself to do some research to see how it can be incorporated into the game.

There are multiple ways to embalm, like evisceration where you take out the organs and pack the body with cloth and herbs. In terms of actual embalming herbs I would not bother, at least with the way the game it is now. Hunting down all those herbs feels like unnecessary work for the players (Plus most of them arent in the game, like mint) but the cloth is doable.

There’s excarnation but I don’t feel its something that would be useful in the game since it involves defleshing the bones and burying them. Then there’s immersion (less effective but easier to pull off in dwarf fortress) where they just put the corpse in a specific material like honey.

There's more than one way to embalm that's possible with existing dwarf fortress mats already, I believe. If it were possible, I’d make it so that the most of the following you did the longer the body would keep. (So it would make the rot timer in the code go back) Here are a few of my suggestions. (+ some misc ones)

Honey and Beeswax Immersion In Burial Receptacle
All you needed to do is to have a dwarf put honey in a burial receptacle at a workshop. (No idea which one--farmer's workshop? I feel like there doesn't have to be a separate workshop to do this) This is my primary suggestion (Next to one other that will come up) that I will suggest, because it is fairly easy to do and also gives players a reason to use the beekeeping industry.

It also allows you to prep a coffin ahead of time!

Honey has been used as a way to embalm corpses in ancient times. Alexander the Great was embalmed in a honey and beeswax mixture when he died, and honey has well-known antimicrobal properties. The people in the past might not have known what microbes are, but they knew honey kept the bad stuff away.

Boil the corpse in wine or alcohol[/b]
This would probably be the most dwarfy and easiest way of doing it.

Rock Salt Immersion
Packing a coffin with a block or boulder of rock salt!
For people who don't want to get a beekeeping industry set up or can’t (Gotta stay off the surface in evil biomes!) and still want to prep a coffin ahead of time.

Rock salt is underutilized in the game currently, and sometimes people packed salt in coffins instead of honey. Salt, while not as effective as honey, dehydrates stuff easily and that includes microbes.

Bury in Lead Coffin
Much like the above suggestions, would give players a reason to use something that isn't often used. When smelting galena you get more lead than silver, resulting in a bunch of lead bars you have no use for outside. They would put the dead in lead coffins before putting them in the outside coffins, which could be done in the game in case you want to appease nobles who want a fancy tomb.

Boiling in alcohol
Just like it says. Take five units of alcohol and boil the corpse. That’ll help newer players.

Misc Suggestions
Mummify organ/body part[/b]
Middle age nobles would mummify their organs as well, a holdover from the old days of egypt. French nobles would mummify their hearts. I think it would be a really cool scenario in adventure mode where you had to hunt down the mummified heart of a demon or cursed king that was stolen by a sorcerer. (Okay maybe that’s a huge reason I want this.) Or maybe you killed a particuarly nasty beast and you want a gristly trophy of your triumph on display. Doesn’t only have to apply to organs, could apply to stuff like the head of a forgotten beast one of your dwarves sliced clean off.

But seriously, a mummified heart or organ from a noble could be an artifact in of itself, depending on how important that person is. Or maybe your champion dies in battle so you decide to mummify their heart and put it on display. You’d do it by wrapping it in Cerecloth.

Make Cerecloth[/b]
Cerecloth is a cloth infused with beeswax and turpentine. Since dwarf fortress doesn’t have turpentine yet but beeswax I’d just have Cerecloth be made of cloth + beeswax. (Or maybe you can collect resin from trees to make turpentine at a still). You would wrap bodies and organs in it.

Grinding up Cinnabar Dust
There is evidence to suggest that cinnabar dust was used as a rudimentary embalming method by prehistoric peoples! You can grind up cinnabar blocks or boulders at a craftdwarf’s workshop and have the dwarves scatter them on corpses if nothing else.

Aqua Vitae
If players don’t want to devote precious alcohol at any time, they can make aqua vitae from alcohol (presumably made for this purpose) and have the dwarves use that to boil the corpses instead of precious drinking alcohol. You’d be able to use the detail menu to pick which alcohol you want to use. Aqua vitae was also used a lot in alchemy too, in case Tarn wants to still do stuff with it.

I have a billion questions (A whole google doc of them) but I don't wanna overwhelm Toady so I'll trickle my questions out. (Also I'm not sure if you're allowed more than one question per post)

Will there be a slider for us to determine if magic items exist or not and if so can we determine how powerful they are and how common they are?

For example can I make the following scenario happen?:

Urist Weavercave is weaver and a former wizard. He keeps an enchanted ring on him that he found in a random stockpile. Many rings with the same spell litter the fortress as it is a cheap (Only costs a little bit of stamina on the caster's part), but still price-raising enchantment. Goes out into the caves to collect webs. Runs into a giant cave spider, he snaps his fingers and knocks the thing back. The giant cave spider smacks a wall and Urist goes about the rest of his day.

Generally I'm wondering if it's possible to build a fortress economy based off of selling magic items if the created magic system allows it? I like the idea of running a magic fortress and creating the most obnoxiously powerful magic items I can create for fun