Bay 12 Games Forum

Well, I'd love to play but I can't even keep up with my own threads for now due to RL.

Anyway, if water freezes on the square where the dwarf is standing when he draws water, then it won't stay in the bucket. It will just become "ice" on the floor. You need to create a cistern a level below the highest warm level, and then designate the highest warm level as the collection zone. If you don't build a well or include it in a building, you won't be breaking your own rules.

Said highest warm level is generally the z-level below the first stone floor. Melting ice with magma is cool, but you can't get it to flow anywhere useful because it freezes the second it isn't above a magma square. You will need to drop ice down into the desired z-level with mining, and if you want to avoid strange icicle effects and significant water loss, I suggest you leave the stone floors in place between the z-levels of the cistern you expect to be filled. In other words, dig the cistern without channeling it out.

Learning all of this nearly cost our magma-glacier succession fort a dwarf in the first year.

I'm sorry, but I'm an engineering student and real life has caught up with me. I really want to give more time to this but it's going to be a day or two minimum. Currently for college:

I'm writing and directing a play, we just did a read-through and I have to go back with my co-author and fix the current problems with the script, we have to get our sound director to finish editing music and sound effects, our technical director hasn't gotten his projections set up or even fully selected yet, the set is still in discussion phase, our props aren't ready, our set director left her notes for the set and props with me so that isn't moving forward, one of our major actors doesn't really want to participate and monologues all her readthroughs so that no one else can tell what's happening in the play emotionally...

And I have missed multiple online quizzes I didn't know about so I have to go beg my teacher to let me take them.

And that's just one class. For Calculus 2, I have a quiz Friday on power series and convergence/divergence of all series, also sum estimation and the difference between absolute convergence and plain old convergence.

And I have 6 hrs worth of physics homework due online in 4 hours, and I also have a class during that time and I have to arrive at Lake Martin in 3 hrs and 30 minutes for...

Scuba diving so that I can get certified so that I don't have a 3hr class failure on my transcript.

So, anyone mind waiting a little bit?

EDIT: typo fix

Ok, I almost made an irritated post listing the things people continue to repeat because they can't read 2 pages. But instead, it is better to point out that there are some cool ideas here, and rather than nay-saying and having people continue to repeat the reasons why these things are not as difficult as some people seem to make them (store stacks of wood in bins or allow more than one log on a stockpile tile, for instance), I suggest that we focus on positive feedback unless a potential problem isn't obviously simple or hasn't been covered fully.

Does anyone else feel as strongly as I do about coal being an impossible/nearly-useless feature as it is currently implemented?

Quote from: Jack_Bread on May 25, 2009, 07:52:34 pm

Quote from: Micro102 on May 19, 2009, 05:11:46 pm

someone has to make a MMO zombie survival game

No.

No.

No.

Oh wait, it already exists.

I agree with most of your post, but I'd argue the humble polearm as being a decent weapon. Primarily, it's important to remember that polearms have a lot of variance. Most were designed as stabbing weapons (like the old greek spears), but there are slashing spears. For example, the war scythe would be a ferocious anti-zombie weapon if you had one.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A halberd wouldn't work quite as well, but is still usable as a chopper.

However, even the normal spear would be a decent zombie killer. Fighting has always been focused around effective range. It's no rifle, but a spear keeps zack out of his fighting range. Additionally, if one is sheltered behind an open barrier (like a barred window), a spear has the benefit of letting you dispatch zombies with relative safety and no ammo use.

It's true that fighting can only be done at effective range; zombies can't swipe you from 4 feet away. However, spears are bloodletting weapons. They get stuck at nearly every strike if they hit bone and gristle, requiring time to free, and you won't be hitting soft targets when fighting the living dead. Their only vulnerable spots are protected by bone (the central nervous system). I took this point as a given: you can't use bloodletting weapons against zombies. So any piercing weapon like a spear is useless for its conventional purpose. Didn't feel the need to explain that at first, but it seems it was necessary.

To use your example, if you hide behind a barrier and try to "dispatch" them, you'll just get your spear stuck, and lose it. They don't feel pain, they don't need circulation, and they're going to keep pushing forward with your useless spear in their stomach, chest, or throat.

Scythes are practical, but actually one of the most inefficient (physics- and energy-wise) weapons for decapitation (which DOES require a lot of physical strength), though one of the easiest for anyone to use once taught. Yea, didn't even feel the need to cover the halberd. It's for fighting heavy cavalry, when higher mass and a sharp point/edge was necessary to stop momentum and pierce heavy armor.

As far as the weight of the broadswords...

I set traps and walls if they get past those then I deal with them systematically by duel weilding 20lb broad swords or a wide array of other weapons from throwing axes to dart guns and tonfa not to mention martial arts like Muy thai which has alot of "destroy head" moves.

This guy was spamming a lot of this stuff. I imagine there could be 20 lb broadswords, but there was just too much bullshit in his posts to wade through without choking on it. It's what prompted me to post before finishing the thread.

Alright, I've read up to page 41. And not having yet finished, I just have to say I think wehtamjd92 is full of crap. So you'd rather try to physically dismember 600 zombies than pop them through the head with a no-recoil weapon? You expect someone to run out of .22 caliber ammo before you get tired? And you are 6'1", 200 lbs and well trained in martial arts?

Full of crap.

Anyone with any training or knowledge whatsoever would realize how much force it takes to physically destroy the capability for movement or retaliation in an opponent not affected by internal organ damage nor pain. And they would also realize how ridiculously impossible it would be to do so while not being bitten, or while facing more than 2 opponents at once, intelligent or not.

Broadswords, weighing 20 lbs, are exceptionally tiring to swing, and were never "dual-wielded" for that reason. Also, blunt or not they are still cutting weapons, and when blunt would be *much* more likely to become stuck. You're asking to die, and without something to use as a shield you won't have a large blocking surface nor a practical way of knocking zombies back and creating distance to use your broadsword (which requires some distance from your opponent to effectively swing, by the way). Something along the lines of a short mace, preferably lead-filled and squarish so as to be weighty, have focused impact points and not get stuck -that's what you would want if you HAD to fight at close quarters. If you have the option of not allowing them close enough to infect you, why in hell would you let them get close?

Also, polearms are used for stabbing, and if they had a heavy end the torque required to swing them would exhaust anyone strong enough to even do so. Research the Macedonian phalanx, if you don't understand.

Besides shooting down some ridiculous theories that continue to repeat themselves from the same few writers, I'll offer my own preferred zombie solution later
Oh, and umamin or whatever is right -people are not stupid, lazy, or selfish enough to allow the zombie apocalypse to happen (yes, we are all of those things, but not on the monumental level we would need to be). But assuming people act like they do in WWZ, and rabies somehow turns a majority of the population into biting infections psychopaths, it's fun to think of how to defend ourselves.

In other words, the zombie disease already exists, and were you to infect 1000 people with rabies and release them in NYC, you still wouldn't get a pandemic. (lol?) it's just silly. But fun.

Stone mugs ARE a matter of historic fact. No, they aren't unearthed everywhere all the time, because they weren't used everywhere. Like anything else, they can't be "one of the most unearthed things ever" if they weren't one of the most common objects to exist in the first place...(lol?)

Also, glazed clay tends to weather better than stone, thus the prolific nature of pottery fragments. Stone tends to wear down quickly over time when directly exposed. Come on, let's research before we flame. Toady's use of historic research and fact is to keep the game's technology contemporary with itself and produce a consistent feel in the game, not to only allow the most common objects and techniques (ie wooden jugs and waterskins).

I think there are some crafts which stone is fit for, both historically and practically, such as mugs.

However, some things like instruments should perhaps be restricted.