Bay 12 Games Forum

This... it is beautiful...

What the heck...

Just observed the accursed smoke hit the beach biome and dissipate...only to appear a moment later on the other side of it (it was crossing a corner of it diagonally), 100 tiles later. Do other biomes not stop evil clouds? Do they just prevent new secondary spawns? (No new miasma sources over the biome, but can re-emerge on the other side of biomes??)

I had never seen that before.

Yes, clouds vanish while they travel trough non-evil biomes and appear again when they hit an evil biome again.
For example a 3x3 embark that looks like this: (S=Sinister, U=Untamed Wilds)
SSS
UUU
SSSA weather that spawns in the north will vanish when it travels south as long as it traverses the center third of the map and will reappear when it hits the southern sinister third. I once had great fun with that when I embarked in a 5x5 zone that was evil all around but had a 2x2 neutral grassland biome in the middle of it.

--------------

Been a while that I played around with clouds but if I remember correctly I came to the conclusion that couds will always teleport to the first free tile vertically in front of them when their path is obstructed. When I built a tower inside a clouding evil biome a cloud tile that hit the tower would teleport into the first open "window" above it, or directly onto the roof if there was no window available above the wall tile it hit. Once I had closed all openings with actual gem windows the cloud tiles that hit the tower would teleport directly onto the roof of it.
"Flowing" downward clouds always stay on the upper most "solid" tile, but flow down "soft" stairs and ramps.

(.=air, F=fortification, S=stairs, _=Floor, W=wall, G=ground soil)
z4 ........F___S___F....
z3 ........W___S___W....
z2 ........W___S___F....
z1 ........W___S___W....
z0 GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
A cloud will travel along the ground on z1, if it hits the building from the left the coud tiles that impact the wall will teleport up into the fortification on z4. They will stay on the roof until they hit the open air stairs, then teleport down to z1 again and travel inside the building until they hit the right hand wall, once they do the cloud tile will teleport into the fortification on z2, then immediately teleport to z1 again as the cloud travels further right.

A cloud tile hitting the building from the right will travel at z1 until it hits the wall, then teleport up to z2, move along that z level inside the building towards the stairs and then teleport down to z1 again. Once it hits the left hand wall it will teleport up to z4 into the fortification, then immediately teleport down to z1 again on the next frame.

I say "teleport" because they don't climb or drop, a dwarf on the z3 stairs would be perfectly save from the cloud, even while it goes from z4 to z1.


Thats what I found when I experimented with clouds. That was several years back, when evil weather was introduced the game, so it might have changed by now.

Great, now I have the urge to mod in the guy made of bees, just so I can adventure as him.
And incidentally, now I also want to play Kingdom of Loathing again.

The best random name combination I've gotten was the group "The angry Beards" who founded the fortress "Fistbattles" several versions back. Still reuse them every now and then because I think they're awesome.

Oh great. Now I want to build a fort that specializes in exporting pixie tears.

Third, and this is more of an opinion question than anything, but when designing ships, what weight do you typically shoot for, in regards to class names? Such as cruisers, battleships, and so on. Because I've got 3kT point defense frigates, 6kT area defense destroyers, 10kT beam cruisers, and 35kT beam battleships. I realize it doesn't really make a difference what class name you assign to a ship, but I'd still like to see what might be considered "standard" weight/class assignments. I'm thinking mine may be a bit too lightweight...
Also, the reason I prefer beams to missiles is because for any ship that flings missiles at me, I've usually got more than enough point defense and shielding to exhaust their stores before they can do too much damage_{and also i cant design missiles to save my life}.

Mine are even lighter then yours.
My biggest combat capable ships usually end up at around 15000 tons, 20000 tons tops.
I don't like playing with huge ships because I feel like I'm wasting officers if I do.

Smaller military ships often consist of only a few beam weapons, battlecruiser and larger come in missile or beam variants.
The cheap engine variants also come as minelayer and satellite dispenser versions.

My usual sizes and the names for them: (Copypasta from the Aurora forums)

Military ships:
Fighters: 1 - 500 tons
"Vessel": 501 - 2000 tons (Scout Vessel, Survey Vessel and so on. No combat ships usually have this size)
Corvette: 2001 - 4000 tons (build with fuel efficient or civilian engines as in-system patrol ships)
Frigate: 2001 - 4000 tons ("proper" military ship)
Light Cruiser: 4001 - 7000 tons (build with fuel efficient or civilian engines as in-system patrol ships)
Heavy Cruiser: 4001 - 7000 tons ("proper" military ship)
Battlecruiser: 7001 - 10000 tons
Battleship: 10001 - infinity

Orbital Stations:
Satellite: 0 - 500 tons (military)
Plattform: 501 - 4000 tons (military)
Fortress: 4001 - 8000 tons (military)
Container: 15000 - 30000 tons (armored civilian cargo boxes, to be transported with tugs)
Station/Habitat: "a lot of" tons (massive single-purpose terraform stations or habitats)

Deep space structures: (build from various parts to form stupidly large superstructures)
Light Module: 501 - 4000 tons (military part, often point defense or sensors)
Heavy Module: 4001 - 8000 tons (military part, mostly anti-ship firepower or hangar space)
Core Module: 50000 tons - 150000 (civilian support part)

I rarely make hospitals because I usually can't be bothered to secure a water supply.

I don't care much for candy equipment.

I mod rose gold to be a weapon/armor capable material just so I can have a bearded pink psychopath as my milita commander.

I never completed a doomsday weapon/device (like project FTW) or any suicide device of any sort.