Bay 12 Games Forum

Attractiveness should be based on a few factors. One or two might be more or less universal (mainly on the ugly side), and others would be based on culture. Psychology indicates that people base their subconscious image of an ideal partner on...I forget, something with women or girls they saw while young. I'm not sure how that would be implemented, except as something like a general tendancy towards preferring those who look similar to oneself. Possibly along with certain personality traits causing a preferance for exotic people.

Wow, farts to beauty. We take a troll and derail it into an actual suggestion.

I'll type my ideas and reactions as I read through it.

I have thought about magic and here are my ideas (sorry for my bad English). This is a complete project, so it is quite long. I hope you will read it and give me your ideas about it…i think that would be quite dwarfy and possibly fun.

Good so far.

First as it was said, this is Dwarf fortress. So it has to have a part of fun, it has to be random, and it can be used to be cruel (and use baby, goblins or anything like that).

...
Not so good.
First off, not everything has to be "random." "Procedurally generated," maybe, but not random. And cruelty? You're adding to the misconception that DF players are cruel and heartless.

What is magic ? Magic in DF must be "physical", a bit realistic. By physical I say that it can’t be entirely without numbers  i say that magic raises temperature by X, or raise something with XX strength etc...and be based of numbers. On the other hand, it can’t be limited by "magic XX = things get burned" or Telekinesis = "thing get moved". Of course we all prefer make !!science!! , also with magic.

Obviously it has to be numbers; it's a computer program. And what's wrong with fireballs and telekinesis? As long as magic's properties stay constant, at least in a given world, and with some way to know at least vaguely what they are without experimentation, that's good for me.

What are the main domains of magic ? I like to name it with the 4 elements but one can be added.

"Fire"(temperature) --> magic based on temperature. Freeze/unfreeze things, Make ice walls, launch fireballs, melt ore or weapons. Basically, the ability to change the temperature of something. The size, the power and the duration (and the chance of success) of the spell depends of the level of the Dwarf-wizard.
"Earth"(fields) --> magic based on fields such as magnetic fields. Telekinesis, flying, lightning, powering things. Like the previous, the size, power the duration and the level of the wizard in that field will determine the chance of success of the spell. You could also move bones to repair fracture or (if VERY GOOD) insert a liver which was torn apart...
"water"(transmutation) --> magic based on nuclear level, the ability to change things in another. Transmutation, alchemy, mutation. Works like the previous.
"Air"(time) --> magic based on Time. Ability to create time-stasis (time-trap sending things in the future or "freeze" them, ability to make someone moving 2 3 or 5 faster during a short period, etc.), ability for everlasting life without being undead. Ability to instant kill by aging things. Like the previous the size (sending your first finger in the future is not like a complete dragon, but you should be able to send the goblin's crossbow !), the duration (1 day, 1 month, 1 year ?) and the power, as well as the level of the wizard should determine the chance of success of the spell.
"Evil/good" --> magic based on the evilness. I think that this should encompass the current magic of necromancer. Ability to raise deads (with chance of failure...and making them undead or ghosts, which would for sure no make happy thoughts among dwarves like former wife/husband/children !), to raise army of undead, to kill, necrose part of body, etc...

A bit...average, I guess. Aside from a desire to see broader possibilities, nothing too bad here.

Magician/wizard would use "Willpower" "linguistic ability" "kinesthetic sense" and perhaps focus.

Nice, tying in existing mechanics!

"Civilian" and "military" magic would use the same model. A "magic" menu would allow you to make the following things :

- Enchant an item/area
- Cast a spell

After each of these menus, a submenu would propose the type of magic you can use, i will detail it after.

- Enchant an item/area :
Like for gem workshop, you cannot choose which item you will enchant. Of course, you can link a stockpile to only enchant items you want.
The main idea is that you CAN'T know if the spell has worked, and what is the real effect of the spell unless you try it.

Alright, not too bad, except maybe the inability to choose the enchanted item.

If you enchant a door with fire, it can perhaps raise the temperature of  the hand of its user by 1 °U, as well as completely freeze its user. Not very useful? Perhaps but think of a trap which would make dust of goblins or a repulsive trap ?

Wait, it'll choose a random "fire"-effect when you enchant it? How is that not completely useless or worse? You may use that in a trap, but if you don't know its affects, for all you know it will transform the goblin into a Spirit of Flame.
And for that matter, if it raises the hand's temperature (slightly enough that it doesn't matter, I'll add), why does it freeze the whole creature, and for that matter why wouldn't the hauler putting the door in the trap be affected (i.e. frozen)?

The main idea is that if it's furniture, it takes effect when built, if it's a finished good, when used/worn, if it's a weapon when it's used.

Sensible.

About area, same idea, but it takes longer/more items. The magical area is defined like a burrow. The spell takes effect when cast is finished and will apply to every creature when they come in the room/place. Some creatures are immune to some types of magic, a few to all types.

Sensible.

How does it works ?
The enchanted item will have an EFFECT which will modify the item or its nature, with a % chance of happening, a duration (permanent of last XXX), and a "power" (will determine how much of the item is concerned, if possible and perhaps if it's something worn every how long there is a test). You can then create doors which have a small chance of melting your dwarves (but mostly will have no effect), or changing them into a legendary cheese, or send them 2 days in the future (then they will disappear until 2 days later). Or make bone bolts completely awesome by giving them 30% of chance to instant age of 100 years anything it touch, or necrose the part touched. Or make cage that transmute things in gold...(that is good magic !)

A door that turns your dwarves to cheese? This makes the whole "unable to determine the effects of the item until it's too late" even worse!

Of course, enchanting socks is...well !!fun!!. You take the risk that each 13 days there is a 3% chance that one of your feet is torn away and sent 3 tiles away (fields magic). But it can also make you fly.

...

- Cast a spell :

I skimmed this part; some odd stuff, but not too bad, overall. Just...lengthy. Which isn't bad, as long as it's a good, organised idea.

So, you have chosen your target, and the magus has chosen the power of the strike and duration. Then there is a test of capacity. Even a novice wizard won’t have much difficulty to raise of 1°U a pond of water. Or change a cow in a bull. But shit happens. And the higher you try, the bigger it is. At each spell there is a test of mastery. There is a formula which determine if, considering (for example) the size of the fireball, and the distance of the target, etc. you actually MASTERED the magic. If you failed, then you lose control. Even the noobest magus can produce an enormous fireball of 10x10 which will toast all goblins. And even the greatest mage can make mistakes and change all your soldiers in wool earing. But if you order a noob magus to make and enormous fireball of 10x10 and pick a particularly immodest and not very cautious magus, you take the risk that he will try not to produce a small breeze of 2°U on this area…

Hm...Not sure about the idea that "apprentice wizard creates huge magical fireball on enemies because he's so stupid." Something more like "apprentice wizard creates huge magical fireball that burns himself, his master, and a couple nearby goblins, and sets fire to the grass which burns the slower non-melee goblins."

Now after the types of magic, the way to use it, where does the magic come from, and how to use it ?
Magic doesn’t come from nowhere, it is produced by energy. Energy is produced by sacred potions that the wizard has to drink and bear with him. It’s a sort of “ammo” for him.

One possibility. Or, magic's energy comes from omnipresent mana; or, it comes from within, requiring you to eat more to keep up with the increased caloric usage; or, it comes from magical artifacts, which must be used to direct all magic; etc. It should vary by the specific...schooll? of magic, of which there might be a few in a large/long world.

Stuff about altars and sacrifice-powered magic and stuff.

Alright, blood magic is good for goblins. What about dwarves?

Maybe the game wouldn't throw two moods of the same skill at you in a row? That seems like a simple solution.

(Also: Probability theory suggests that, given a sufficiently large data set, any possible event, even if improbable, will eventually occur.)

Quote from: irmo on June 04, 2012, 04:49:07 pm

Quote from: scionreaver on June 04, 2012, 04:08:48 pm

Did you even read my posts? As I've stated, my problem is with dwarves wasting resources, not "missing out on anything". Now, I can keep micromanaging and killing off the ones that grab things I want to save, but my suggestion, as originally posted, is that wood, bone, and stone crafting should be restricted once enough (I feel 5 is a decent number) dwarves are legendary in those fields.

Strange moods are supposed to be uncontrollable. You're complaining that you can't control them. Diagnosis: working as intended.

Actually, I'm complaining that I need to control them.

You know what I hate about the HFS? You need to kill it!
You're missing the point of strange moods. Dwarf takes items, dwarf makes artifact, you marvel at the result and wish the item was more useful. Losing is fun, whether you lose a fortress or a forgotten beast skeleton. (Why do you need those forgotten beast bones? They're not even worth a lot!)

Jesus, I don't understand how half the people have interpreted my first post as "I don't think moods are useful". It's not that I don't like dwarves getting moods, it's just that after I've had a dozen legendary crafters crop up, I simply don't need any more. Now, with the way the game currently works, I either let the mooder go on if he/she's using resources that I don't care about, and kill the ones who do. However, my suggestion was that after I have 5 legendary bone crafters already, I simply do not need more unskilled dwarves going into that profession. I like encrusting my goods, and I like masterwork, but all you need for that is ONE legendary dwarf, not five, not ten, not twenty, and that's the way my fort is going.

It's not horribly detrimental as I can simply assign them to do other jobs, but I figured if the game slowed down or halted moods in a field that's overcrowded, opting instead to strike less populated professions with a mood, then we wouldn't have to micromanage every single detail (which I understand is a part of the game and half the reason I play it, but why not cut down on parts that are simply tedious?).

First off, why are we misinterpreting your first post?

I've had my fort for a little while now, and I'm starting to get irritated by upstart dwarves constantly getting moods for professions that I already have several experts in...
...
I've just recently moved all of my craft shops into separated, locked rooms so I can kill off moody dwarves if they're consuming a resource I consider precious.

Yes, that doesn't even hint at finding moods irritating and useless. I understand that you don't see why you need so many bonecarvers. Well, a few reasons:
1. You don't have enough bone bolts.
2. It gives you an excuse to slaughter cats.
3. You really don't. DF is like real life: You take what the RNG throws at you and roll with it. The difference is that people in the real world don't ever go crazy to create awesome, legendary lead axes or what-have-you.

Quote from: weenog on June 04, 2012, 04:21:30 pm

I'm just not impressed enough with a subjective problem that you've misidentified anyway to think it warrants screwing up an otherwise good thing.

Whole stacks being consumed for single bone projects is a bug.  Fucking up strange moods isn't a solution to that problem.

Weenog you sure have a funny attitude when it comes to game improvement. Looking at all of your recent, inflammatory posts on other topics, however, I'm just surprised you haven't devolved to name calling yet.

My, oh, my. Someone thinks that the best way to fix a bug ISN'T to screw up another, functioning aspect of the game in a way that has no ability to fix most of the problem? He must be a troll!
In case you can't tell, that was sarcasm. If you are saying he's on the verge of name-calling, actually explain why his post is trolling you and don't assume that we'll agree with you just because he doesn't think your little anecdote suggests a solution that weenog decries as not helping the base of the problem. If you've got a bush that you need to kill, do you trim at some of the twigs and cut yourself while doing so? No, you hack at the root!

Dwarves (especially children) should be a lot less picky in choosing their clothes, unless there's a surplus. If their clothes start to get holes, they should keep them, ideally mending them. If there's no spare clothes, dwarves should keep what they have until it rots off their back.

Also, clothing repair. Repairing xclothesx should require a dwarf with the clothier skill (no reason to add another single-purpose skill, right?), and about as much thread as suturing a wound uses. XclothesX should require about 2-5 times that much thread--I'm not sure about how much--and about as much cloth as is needed to bind a wound, and will lead to the object getting pseudo-decorated with small patches. XXclothesXX should require about 5 times as much cloth as binding a wound, about as much thread as suturing one, and would lead to pseudo-decoration of patches. Damaged clothes would lower in value--say, 9/10 the original (not counting decorations) at xclothesx-level, 3/5 at XclothesX-level, and 1/4 at XXclothesXX level; patches would increase the value (a small patch would be worth about 1/5-2/5 the value of the original garment, modified by quality level, while a normal patch would be worth around 1/4 the original value. Clothes could get patched several times; each time the clothes get patched, the level of damage's lowering of value is saved as an invisible anti-decoration. If this value penalty for cumulative damage reduces the clothing's value to 0 db or less, it will be stuck at 0 and the dwarf will discard it unless no other options are available.
Example: A well-crafted giant cave spider silk sock is worth 72 db. It starts to get worn, but the clothier swiftly patches it up, so no harm done. Then, the clothier gets tied up in a mood for a while, so the sock wears to the X level of wear, reducing its value to 43 db if my mental math is correct. When the sock is repaired, it gets a masterwork small patch, worth (let's say 1/5 the value of the garment) 120 db. Thanks to this masterful patching job, the sock is now worth 163 db; is shows no wear, but has its value reduced by 29 db permanently due to wear. If it is later mangled (XX wear), due to a siege killing all of the clothiers, its value will be reduced to 18+120-29=109 db; if it then gains a well-crafted large patch from a newb clothier, the patch will be worth 36 db (leading to a +156 db modifier to value for the quality of the patchwork), but the cumulative wear will have reduced its value by 83. Okay, that means that the sock is now worth more, but that's only because of the legendary patch job; if it was merely well-crafted, the total bonus from patches would be 56 db, less than the penalty for culumative damage and leading to the value of the sock to be only 45 db.
In short, legendary clothiers would weave the patches into neat, lovely designs, but normal clothiers would just make it useable and less bad.

...Wow, that was long.

Ah, excellent. Sphalerite, how comfortable are you with minecarts?

Ah, I see...

About the first part of your post: Saying "One dwarf tips over the edge" is alright, but unlikely. See, most good thoughts are unlikely to miss a few dwarves. Of course, there are more exceptions here...but unless you're segregating your fort, this won't likely mean much except that some dwarves start tantruming earlier.

Looking at your original post, the big issue could be fixed by making moody dwarves use only one bone in a stack, or only X (up to ~10% of the stack or 10 bones, whichever is higher?) bones and giving X decorations.

I like moods. I try to boost each mood as much as I can. Sure, I get native gold grates encrusted with tons of microcline images and such, but the awesome potential of an artifact outweighs the uselessness of an amulet or whatever for me. I can see why people would want a use for those amulets, though.

Maybe we should consider giving artifacts uses soon. Magical powers are obvious; maybe each material used in the construction of an artifact would have a 10-25% chance of giving the artifact one magical power appropriate for the material, mood type, and item? Say, a bone crossbow made in a macabre mood might have the abiity to create its own ammo, made from the same kind of bone as the firer (e.g. most likey dwarf bone, unless a kobold gets its dirty little hands on it...), plus any other powers granted by the firer. Or maybe a microcline-decorated native gold grate like I mentioned above would shine (due to being made of native gold), and could create water (associated with blue microcline) in its tile if you shone the sun's light on it (e.g. if it was aboveground). A rose quartz bracelet decorated with three types of wood might have two or three powers associated with plants and growth, or the ability to transform one's skin into bark and the ability to set oneself on fire (courtesy of rose quartz), or some other combination of abilities. In this case, obviously, using half the stone in the fortress would lead to an amulet or something with dozens or hundreds of magical powers, so the Planepacked bug would have to be fixed...maybe by removing moody dwarves from burrows for the duration of the mood?