Bay 12 Games Forum

I design modifications for Baldur's Gate, and am something of an idea machine for that game, but am by far a relative newbie to Dwarf Fortress . . . so whatever I think of, I'm sure somebody else has thought of first. So I'll just post my ideas here, and allow others to transfer them to the main Suggestion board if they're both interesting and original enough.

And I'll state my thoughts.

All suggestions are for Fortress Mode only.

Stuff that affects one mode (should) affect the other.

* Inside Dark Underground: How the hell is my Gem Cutter going to find the proper spot to cleave this Rough Claro Opal if he can't even SEE the damn thing, it's pitch dark in here! There needs to be a system of measuring ambient light, and at least one source of underground illumination: Wood Furnace = Fireplace. Logs + Fat (and maybe Cloth) = Torches. Metalcrafting + Glassmaking + Rendered Fat = Oil Lanterns. Beehives + Chandler skill = Candles. Cut gems + vague magical labor = Gem Lanterns, which degrade and consume the jewels that fuel them, but create a ton of happy thoughts in those who view them.

Not a bad idea, but A. planned and B. if dwarves can't do ANYTHING without light, that kinda requires you to make most of your fortress aboveground for the first ~year, or else to immediately start a new required industry.

* Goats and Pigs should willingly eat organic refuse Dumped in their pens. Dead dwaves (elves/humans/goblins?) disposed of in this way should cause the dwaves who feed on those animals more likely to go insane.

Eating dwarves' bodies should also make living dwarves, especially Urist McGoatChow's friends, unhappy.

* All Wooden items should be able to be burned for fuel.

Maybe not "all"...an earring shouldn't be able to power a forge.

* Redesigned Embark: Instead of 7 dwarves, you should get a large pool of candidates, with the number depending on the size of your parent civilization and the distance (and hazards) between it and your embark site. Each dwarf already has his pre-chosen set of skills, plus a certain amount of fluidity in the number of additional skill ranks he can pick up (probably a maximum of 3) before you leave, and a certain amount of goods and capital (see below) he can donate to the expedition. Choose however many dwarves you want--take the Miners and Woodcutters, leave the Clothiers home--and go.

Not a terrible idea, I guess...I just don't see a "why."

     About wealthy dwarves: Picking up a Legendary Animal Caretaker might be worth it if he's rich enough to buy tons of equipment, although his wealth will increase his Ego attribute, meaning he'll be more inclined to have unhappy thoughts from not being appointed a noble, or if he finds his work too exhausting or too menial, or if he finds his room and possessions to be less than what he's entitled to. Such a dwarf just "happening" to die soon after donating all his money might just bring a few angry relatives down on the site.

Heh. Excellent.

* Mail-Order Migrants: Just as you can negotiate with the Liason for certain goods you want imported, you should be able to place High/Low priority on the various professions you would like new migrants to have. It doesn't take effect immediately (distance back to the parent civilization is always a factor) or flawlessly (you might still get a High Master Glazer when you specifically requested Marksdwarves), and the results of your order will last for one full year whether you like it or not. This does not trump family bonds: The Metalcrafter you wanted might bring along the Fish Dissector husband you didn't, as well as their offspring. Dwarves with high skill in professions you placed in high demand are also likely to have inflated Ego attributes.

Aside from the name, good idea. Also commonly suggested, but meh.

* Technology Tree: Related to the previous 2 suggestions, dwarves emigrating to your settlement should have a fairly good idea what kind of a place they're going to, and how long it's been around. Workshop-intensive trades like Weaponsmith, Glassmaker, Leatherworker, Soap Maker, Clothier and the like probably wouldn't want to show up uninvited at an outpost that can't yet support their trade. In short, the time elapsed between embark and the arrival of a migrant with a certain principal labor should be directly proportional to that labor's "distance" from the raw material (such as wood, stone, or live animals).

Are you familiar with what a technology tree usually is? A discredited idea for DF, that's what! Other than the naming nitpick, this makes sense but would impair metalsmithing industries.

* New fluid resource: Oil. Distill it (a Still once used for Oil can never again brew booze) into various fuels for heat, light, and industry, but burning it underground can cause bad thoughts, as well as health problems and even death among dwarves with low toughness.

Animal-fat oil or petroleum oil? The former is fine, the latter violates the 1400s tech limit. For use, that is; the idea of dwarves breaching an underground reservoir of oil seems humorous to me.

* Tougher War Animals: Please. C'mon, it's just sad that a single Goblin Thief can take on an entire barbican of 10 War Dogs simultaneously and suffer only "Her left hand is cut open." More to the point, have the "level" of the Hunting/War Animal reflect the skill of the Animal Trainer who taught them.

What we need is either A. a way to armor war dogs, B. a way to add metal thingies to help the bite (like plastic vampire fangs, except nor plastic, made for dogs, and made for combat), or ideally C. both.

* Party Animals: Dwarves who attend Parties will gain ranks in the Kegstander skill.

What would that do? Give other dwarves happy thoughts when he's partying?
...Actually, that makes sense.

* Idle Time: Give dwarves something fun to do while On Break. Apart from the obvious Drinking, Wrestling, and Lying contests, dwarves enjoy bowling, chess, darts, dodgeball, and card games (gambling strongly encouraged). Additionally, "Make wooden blocks" should apply specifically to the wooden toy blocks given to dwarven babies/children to increase their likelihood of future skill in Carpentry, Masonry, and/or Architecture.

Seconded.

* More Realistic Crops: This world is made of limestone, diorite, shale, clay loam, granite, native gold, etc., all of which are real and can be looked up. This world is full of badgers, racoons, elephants, alligators, trout, squirrels, fireflies, with similarly known properties. Same with maple, ash, alder, pine, oak, and bamboo. So where do all these plump helmets, quarry bushes, rope reeds, kobold bulbs, and pig tails come from? Why not real plants such as grapefruit, potatoes, flax, and cotton? Obviously, these could not be realistically be farmed underground, but that never was one of Dwarf Fortress's more stellar points anyway.

"Where do all these plump helmets, quarry bushes, rope reeds, kobold bulbs, and pig tails come from?" The same place as the giant spiders, dragons, voracious cave crawlers, giants, unicorns, demons, giant badgers, goblins, trolls, beak dogs, hungry heads, fluffy wamblers, jabberers, bronze colossi, rutherers, werewolves, rocs, giant eagles, moosemen, hydras, cave dragons, elves, cave swallowmen, cave crocodiles, giant caves, and DWARVES come from. It's in the name! "Dwarf Fortress!" If we've got midgets who live underground, we can have crops that grow underground!

* Churches: Rooms can be defined as Temples, from either Statues or Slabs that have been carved/engraved in the likenesses of deities. A sufficient number of faithful (to that particular deity) will auto-promote a Clergy noble from within their ranks, helping to promote behavior favorable to that particular god. The Temple designation will strongly reduce the likelihood that walls/pillars within the room will be engraved into representations of any other deity.

I like the idea of temples.

* And Oh Yeah, The Friggin' Obvious: My first fortress died of thirst. While there was a foot of snow on the ground outside. After we'd left our empty barrels sitting out in the rain for an entire autumn. C'mon.

Do YOU want to drink rainwater or snow? Especially if you're an alcoholic dwarf? Granted, it's better than dehydration, but let's tackle the stupider sources of dwarven death first, like NOT NOTICING THAT THEY ARE ON FIRE.

* Moods: Strange Moods should be prompted by a definite (and perhaps traceable) event and result in the production of a related and logical item--not pure random chance on both counts. Instead of Urist McMiner happening to see a badger and suddenly being overcome with an urge to create the most EPIC silk sock EVER, it should be something like Urist McArmorer sees a friend lose a leg, and focuses his talents on making a really good pair of greaves to prevent a repeat occurrence. The stimulus for prompting a Mood might be as simple as visiting the Trade Depot while foreign merchants are present, and being inspired by the cultural exposure, just as long as there IS a stimulus.

Not a bad idea, but fails to account for possible stimuli that aren't represented in-game. I think that alsmost ANYTHING could be a stimulus for an artifact to the right dwarf (remember, they make images of masterful images of masterful images of cheese). I'm not sure how to get this to work, except maybe if they were inspired by some other artifact.

     Moods automatically kicking a dwarf up to Legendary is way too much. Creating artifacts should grant 2x (although different moods could have different modifiers) as much experience as a regular item of that type, multiplied by the number of components used, multiplied by the number of processes each component had to go through before it was ready for the moody dwarf to use.

NO!! The POINT of an artifact is that it's a PERFECT item! They're LEGENDARY artifacts for a reason! An dwarf who creates an artifact and remembers it deserves the title "Legendary!"

* Mining Byproducts: The Standing Orders screen should offer, at the very least, a toggle between "Miners Save Dirt" and "Miners Destroy Dirt." Loose Loam created in this way can be carried (via barrel, wheelbarrow, or multiple Bucket loads) to a tile that's been Channeled from non-arable material, and dumped in. The resulting soil works just like normal dirt, except that it will immediately collapse if the Z-level directly below it is tunneled out.

Not a horrible idea...

     At best, the Standing Orders screen will offer a sub-menu that lists which types of stone/ore are to be destroyed at will, and which are to be carefully saved (possibly giving each material its own rating for the skill level of Miner permitted to attempt to harvest it).

Not sure if this is needed.

Bronze colossi don't...yet.
Even if it's planned for BCs to have a wizard/necromancer/artificer/etc origin, doesn't mean new races can't be added that may also have those origins.

I wonder how hard it would be to make mixing fluids spawn a creature...
"Instant Dragon^TM! Just add to water!"

Or maybe, "Instant Badger[supTM[/sup]! Just add to badger blood!"

And it will be hard to know how many oil jugs are necessary to create 1/7 oil tile as one tile  can be huge or ridiculous small.

How many water buckets does it take to create 1/7 water?

Lets just say for sake of argument that you have this fluid system and the first two liquids you add are:

Ammonia (great for disinfecting the wounded) and Vinegar (great for preserving vegetables).

For shits and giggles you decide to make a pond of both and connect them via floodgates.

What happens when you mix the two?

In the suggested systems they either

mix creating a hybrid liquid
float on top of each other (oil and water comparison)
pollute each other and become generic sludge

Except that is not how they'd behave in the real world.  They'd do none of those things.

Ammonia in NH₃ and Vinegar is (actively) CH₃COOH (diluted with water).

One is an acid.

The other is a base.

I don't actually know what these two do when mixed, but I would be surprised if it didn't foam and produce water as one of the byproducts.

Basically:

Any fluid system you can think up is too simplistic for the sheer number of reactions possible.  Some liquids explode violently when combined.

I like the idea of having such things defined in the liquids' raws. So, water might have [MIX_PRODUCT:MAGMA:WALL:INORGANIC:OBSIDIAN] or something, and ammonia might have [MIX_PRODUCT:VINEGAR:LIQUID:FOAM] while vinegar has [MIX_PRODUCT:AMMONIA:ITEM:BOULDER:NONE:INORGANIC:EXPLOSION], where INORGANIC:EXPLOSION is a pre-defined exploding inorganic material.

Or, embark in summer...

We embark on the 1st of Granite, the beginning of the Dwarven year. I don't mind that in the least.

Or not embark on a lake

I've had dwarves start on frozen rivers and even a couple frozen murky pools, and heard of other such incidents from others. And I like wide, open expanses of water to build stuff on.

The ability for a dragon to eat your dwarves whole would make it rather interesting to fight them in close combat. It'd also be at the very least somewhat amusing to rescue your dwarf after slaying the dragon. It would also be something interesting in adventure mode too.

The idea of rescuing dwarves that have been swallowed immediately reminded me of Tremors 3 for some reason...anyways, I like the idea overall. However, I'm not sure how fun it would be to have to fight a hydra or whatever from the inside in Adventure Mode, and it would be annoying if your best warriors got one-hit-killed by getting eaten, and dwarves/modded races need to be able to gain sustenance from eating creatures whole. Oh, and vomiting up indigestible parts (armor, weapons, possibly skeleton) would be a good idea.

My thoughts: If a dwarf was eaten by a dragon, and still alive and kicking, he would have to be able to cut himself out of the dragon's stomach. That would be both gruesome and undeniably epic.

Undeniably awesome, undeniably necessary.

Quote from: TantrumTime on November 16, 2011, 01:07:13 am

Necromancers should be able to reanimate the various half-digested things in a FB's stomach, command them to tear the beasts innards apart, then have the reanimated FB and its breakfast attack the dwarfs.

Okay, now that would seriously be wicked Fun.

Hm...necromancers animating flesh inside your dwarves' stomachs...oh god that's terrifying.

So I'm fiddling around with the raws and decided to try to make a bunch of new plants like tomatoes and such and look at expanding cooking a bit to have some more flavor to it, though it'd still be functionally the same.  While working on this and on a workshop for mass-producing weapons and armor (though with tweaking to what's needed for a given item) I came across several questions.

Good luck. I'm sorry I won't be able to help much, but I'll do my best.

First off, will moody/possessed dwarfs use a modded in workshop?  If they won't, that kinda puts a crimp in mods that produce workshops to consolidate where things are made (like Genesis and Vanilla DF+) as well as ones that add new shops.  I kinda get the impression that they will, but a quick search didn't really tell me definitively yes or no.

Moods are hardcoded to use hardcoded workshops. Sorry.

What do the seven numbers after the leaf names in the raws mean?  On the quarry bush you have where it specifies the leaf looking like this: quarry bush leaf:quarry bush leaves:6:7:0:0:0:0:1:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:LEAF.  I'm thinking the first number might be the tile used and the second, third, and fourth numbers are the color, but then what are the last three?  And am I completely wrong on the first four?  Where does it specify how many leaves processing the plant produces?

I'm not sure about all of this, but I think that the last three numbers are the background color and that the number of leaves when processed is hardcoded. Sorry again.

Finally, can a reaction be set up for a one or the other sort of relationship on two of the mats?  For example, using my idea of expanding cooking up above, could I have a 'Make Sandwich' reaction and have the dwarf get bread and either meat and some veggies or a fruit paste and peanut butter but not both?  Or would that have to be two separate reactions?

I'm not sure. I think that that's partly because I don't have a clue what you're asking for.

Thanks.

Don't thank me, I'm just doing my job...and not doing it all that well.

Simple idea. Have the wagon placed, and then freeze the water on the map. This would a. make sense, b. keep dwarves from dying because there is a murky pool in the center of the embark that is frozen for the first few frames of every year, and c. hypothetically not require adding a lot of new code, just shuffling around what's already there.

Thoughts?