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This doesn't really seem to mesh with the general feel of Dwarf mode much. DF Dwarves are much closer to traditional fantasy Dwarves than magi-steampunk or plain steampunk Dwarves that are seen pretty often in the fantasy genre today. They don't have gunpowder, or steam, or really much magic for that matter. There are plenty of magical non-Dwarven creatures in the world, but other than the occasional necromancer, Dwarves don't use magic. They don't even have the non-magical technology for it to work. Gears, yeah, but nothing too far beyond what would be available in historical medieval Europe. They're powered by waterwheels and windmills. Mundane stuff. About the farthest they get is powered carts, which is abnormally advanced compared to their other technology. None of this makes sense in the context of the setting. Dwarves have barely-above-average technology and basically no magic, and but you're asking them to jump to advanced technology with huge amounts of magic.

Don't take this to mean I think it's a bad idea. I don't. But I'd make a thread in the modding section and start work on your own mod. It would make a lot more sense and it would have much more direct results. It should definitely be doable with the right reactions.

...Bows were ubiquitous, at least until guns became not-sucky.

You did not have armies of people with nothing but bows, which you would expect if they could easily penetrate any armor of the day, especially given how quickly you can fire one. You would expect a bow that can fire up to 10 times a minute that can very easily penetrate armor would eliminate armor use on the battlefield before a musket that fires 3-4 times a minute that can maybe penetrate armor, especially if that bow is also more accurate, longer-ranged, and can be used to bombard enemies behind walls or other fortifications.

Funnily enough, a sock dropping from 2Z up can kill someone in armor, thanks to bugginess. Don't drop gobbos down the shaft. Drop things down on the gobbos.

If you want a placeholder until you work out interactions, just make ammo with a fairly high contact area but much lower penetration. Say it "showers them in a spray of pellets" or something. It won't hit them multiple times, but it'll do more or less what you would expect a shotgun to in terms of damage. Widespread damage, especially to soft fleshy bits, but less armor penetration/bone shattering/killing things 10 times your size. Because of the low penetration, it'll be especially effective against smaller animals and still effective against those as large or larger than Dwarves. If creatures are too large, it won't penetrate enough to do serious damage, because buckshot is meant for killing bucks. Not dragons. It's good enough until you work out the rest.

The AI wielding these weapons aren't going to throw them. They'll level up throwing when they attack in melee combat. There's no way to make throwable weapons outside of adventurer mode since every ranged weapon needs both a launcher and ammo.

Adding onto this: while you technically can't make a thrown weapon, you can make it look and act like it's a thrown weapon. Basically, you have a melee weapon that acts as a launcher, but you disguise that fact. So you might have:
[ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_SWORD_THROWING]
[NAME:short sword:short swords]
[SIZE:300]
[SKILL:THROWING]
[RANGED:?:?] (Whatever you want to throw will be your ammo)
[SHOOT_FORCE:1000]
[SHOOT_MAXVEL:1000]
[TWO_HANDED:37500]
[MINIMUM_SIZE:32500]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:3]
[ATTACK:EDGE:20000:4000:slash:slashes:NO_SUB:1250]
[ATTACK:EDGE:50:2000:stab:stabs:NO_SUB:1000]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:20000:4000:slap:slaps:flat:1250]
[ATTACK:BLUNT:100:1000:strike:strikes:pommel:1000]

As an example:
[ITEM_AMMO:ITEM_AMMO_JAVELINS]
[NAME:javelin:javelins]
[CLASS:THROWN]
[SIZE:400]
[ATTACK:EDGE:20:5000:impale:impales:NO_SUB:1000]

In the inventory, it will appear as though they have a short sword (which works just as well in combat as normal), and independent of that, javelins. They will throw the javelins and then proceed to fuck shit up with their sword instead of whacking away with a crossbow or something. It's not perfect. If they lose the sword, they can't throw the javelins. Of course, if they lose the sword, they will often still use the ammunition as a melee weapon from what I've seen, which works pretty well. It's about as good as you're going to get, and other than that kink, it works out perfectly. It's also very easy to do.

If you have a bunch of launchers disguised as normal weapons, you might want to add "(t)" or "(throwing)" or something at the end of them so they're easier to distinguish. So your short swords would appear as "short swords (t)" or "short swords (throwing)", so you don't mix up your actual and fake short swords. If you make all throwing weapons in the class "THROWN", then any launcher-disguised-as-weapon will be capable of throwing any throwing weapon. So if you wield the short sword, you could use everything from throwing axes to knives to javelins to giant rocks. Whatever you want.

Quite ironic that you took nine paragraphs to say

What can I say? I'm passionate about game design and I have way too much time on my hands. So yeah. I can definitely be a long-winded asshole. 

@Bertinator.

Also kohaku's posts are ment to be realistic to the point of killing your computer, this isn't really a problem. These ideas are so long term that they require new hardware to be invented. Judging on the current projection for dwarf fortress 1.0's release date, we should have plenty of new hardware.

Except that Dwarf Fortress's demands for CPU power for every other element of the game will also be rising constantly, and much faster. There's also only so much effort Toady can put in. It's not just about improving farming in Dwarf Fortress. It's improving farming but leaving time for everything else.

I don't think you understand. Your sugestion doesn't make farming a constant factor, just a much more annoying task that must be completed before continuing the fort.

...

PS. Trying to be as nice as possible here, you state distain for complex ideas In favor for shorter ones. Quite ironic that you took nine paragraphs to say "hey instead of adding all these compex, intriguing ideas, lets change how long it takes for crops to grow."

It's not that complexity is bad.

...

Well, actually, let me revise that. Complexity is an awful, terrible thing that should be taken behind the shed, shot several times, burnt, buried as deep underground as humanly possible, and never spoken of again. Depth is a wonderful, wonderful thing that you can pretty much never get enough of. Complexity inevitably comes with depth, but a lot of times you can strip out the complexity but keep most of the delicious depth. That's what I'm trying to do here. If I came off rude I apologize, but right now things are way too complicated in these ideas. Which doesn't mean the ideas themselves are all terrible. At heart, a lot of them are fantastic. But they could use some cutting down. Some of the things that would add depth add way more complexity than anything else, so should probably be completely rethought.

I also don't mean to be rude, but I don't think you did more than skim over my post. Increasing how long it takes for crops to grow and how much effort it takes are part of my suggestion, sure. But that's because it's the first, easiest step. It takes very little effort but makes a massive difference. Just changing the numbers to something realistic suddenly makes it so farms have to be 50 or 60 times larger to feed a 200-Dwarf fortress and so you need a small army of growers. That's the basics you iron out before you start making revisions to the system that could literally take months to fully implement.

The reason I think you just skimmed it is because you missed everything else I mentioned. You missed the part where above ground crops are significantly easier to grow than underground crops in terms of time and space, but are vulnerable to being cut off in a siege and could endanger your fortress, forcing you to weigh your dependence on them. That's trivial to implement, but it would contribute a hell of a lot to the depth of Dwarf Fortress without adding complexity. You also missed the part where I agreed with his biggest, core idea, but pointed out that it could be done much more simply without losing anything.

What I'm mainly trying to say is that you don't need to have things like the nitrogen content or acidity of the ground. The problem isn't that it's a lot of detail. It's just not intuitive. Not all detail is bad or makes things overly complicated. A lot of it is good for flourish or adding depth. Like the combat system. It goes into way more detail than a hitpoint system, but it's pretty simple to understand at its core because we can relate to it and digest the ideas easily. We know how a human body works. We know that have muscle sliced open or bones shattered are bad. We know that having your intestines spill out is bad. We know that having your brains torn to pieces is very bad. We also know that bruises on your skin are not so bad. It's detail, but it's not hard to understand because we know how it works without having it explained to us.

Not so with soil quality. Knowing how the acidity of a soil relates to its ability to sustain different types of crops isn't something that just pops to us in an instant. Most people that play will not be agricultural scientists and won't be intimately knowledgeable with how farming works. That makes it much harder for people to pick up, since they won't know what anything in the interface means, no matter how well designed it is. If I want to make my farm, I'll have to go on DF Wiki, and look at what all of the stats mean. I will then I have to look at each individual plant I might grow, figure out how it impacts the soil, the short-term benefits and the long-term benefits, cross-check with the soil I have, come up with some farming plans, and then crunch a lot of numbers to make sure I don't turn my landscape into hell on earth. I will probably have to look through half a dozen pages outside of these to get all the information I need, included different guides and suggestions for farming rotations to maintain soil quality. It could literally take hours for me to familiarize myself with it to the point where I can actually be functional with it. It's one thing to read for 5 minutes and know that one plant replenishes hydrogen and another helps with phosphorous. It's another to fully understand and process the information and use it to form a coherent, long-term farming plan and then merge that with the overall plans for my fortress.

Honestly, as a veteran player, that's already intimidating. But think of a new player. When I was new to Dwarf Fortress, just figuring out how farming and irrigation worked, figuring out what the plants did and how to effectively set up a farming industry. It took me several fortresses to master that. We are talking about something that can be set up in less than five minutes by someone who knows what they're doing and then they barely have to think about it again. It is something I would consider myself pants-on-head retarded for not knowing how to do now. It is also something that's intuitive at its core. Everyone knows that dirt + seeds = plants. Yet it was still difficult to get the hang of. Things like NPK, in contrast, are not intuitive and not easy to grasp at all. I don't even know if I heard of NPK before reading this thread, and I don't consider myself especially stupid or unknowledgeable.

Now, right now, as someone experienced with the game, I could probably learn how to do it and get a grasp of it. I could even do it quickly if it was designed well-enough. But if back then something like that were implemented, I would not be able to get it. Not when I was busy trying to figure out one ASCII squiggle from another and trying to figure out how to mine rock and make a workshop and assign bedrooms. I might eventually be able to get it, but it would add even more to an already steep learning curve. If Dwarf Fortress solely consisted of that, it wouldn't be insurmountable. But when, as a new player, you're already being thrown directly into the game with no tutorial, when you already have to learn how to do dozens of things and keystrokes at once and synthesize it all together into making a well-designed fortress, and when you are pretty much guaranteed to go through several fortresses and plenty of hours before you're even competent at the game, it's a little much to ask.

Which is why I suggested simplifying it to "fertility". Fertility is very intuitive. You don't really need to know much about farming to get it. Fertile soil = Crops grow well. Non-fertile soil = Crops don't grow as well. It's quick. It's easy to understand. But it still has decision-making. It still has crop rotations. You still have to not only expand, but evolve your farms as you get a bigger fortress, going from making underground turnips to fields on carefully developed 4-year rotation cycles. You have to figure out things like whether you go almost purely cash crops with a reliance on fertilizer that will eventually run out, or you keep growing underground turnips to keep your fields fertile and easy to manage indefinitely. You still have short term but high value vs long term but low value, simple vs efficient, and all the other things that make his system good. I even added a new underground vs above ground dynamic to his ideas. The only difference is it's made easier and more intuitive for the player. It's either fertile or not. It keeps every last bit of depth, but without the complexity or confusion.

As a final point, I'd also like to add that it makes a hell of a lot more sense to keep it simpler. Dwarves and other medieval fantasy races will have a very good feeling for the land. They will know how to work it and what crops to plant when and what rotations to use, and they're probably fantastic at it. But it's not a scientific knowledge. It's rough and uncertain and intuitive. They don't know about NPK or the details of soil erosion and desertification. They know what works through a combination of passed down knowledge, common sense, and trial-and-error. Since we're taking the role of a Dwarf overseer, it doesn't make much sense to give us details that the Dwarves themselves would not be privy to. You are literally making it more in-depth for the player than it would be for the Dwarf farmers, who probably aren't taking soil samples to their labs to test them for nutrients and acidity.

Ranged weapons in general are just a big wad of WTF in this version. And yes, crossbows and bows are absurdly overpowered in many ways, while absurdly underpowered in others. Here's my collection of WTFery:

-Ammunition is treated as purely made out of that material, which is why, for example, silver arrows/bolts can be very effective. In real life they'd be mostly wood with a silver tip. Having a silver tip makes it ineffective because it doesn't add much weight but in turn makes it deform instead of pierce. In Dwarf Fortress, they are instead treated as made of pure silver. They also have a ridiculously small contact area. For reference, lightsaber whips have a contact area of 1, arrows/bolts have a contact area of 2, and spears have a contact area of 20. So instead you have ultraheavy slugs of silver moving at 250 feet per second or faster and colliding with enemies, with all the force focused in a single, tiny point. It doesn't need to pierce through the armor. The blunt force alone is lethal, causing silver bolts to easily kill adamantine-clad soldiers. In real life, firing a silver-tipped arrow at someone in copper armor would result in the tip bending and deforming uselessly and the arrow bouncing off with no effect. Instead, it defeats Dwarven supermaterials. This makes no sense.

-Bows and crossbows have way too much force/maximum speed behind them. Wooden bolts have been shown to semi-regularly pierce adamantine armor in arena tests.

-Bolts and arrows are constantly dodged/parried by Legendary Dwarves. Bolts/arrows are treated as equally difficult to parry as any other weapon. As a result, if you fire 100 arrows simultaneously at a legendary Dwarf at once, he will miraculously knock half or more out of the air and dodge the other half. Even if they're engaged in melee combat. This is completely ridiculous. A legendary Dwarf should occasionally or semi-regularly swat arrows from the air in heated combat. Even sometimes batting arrows out of the air is pretty much a legendary feat.

-Shield effectiveness against ranged weapons is based purely on skill. You do not use a shield by moving it to intercept each individual arrow. Dwarf Fortress does not take this into account. So the end result is that if someone untrained in shields uses one to defend against projectiles, they will miss almost every single one, despite the fact that just holding the shield in front of them would block most of them. On the other hand, if you gave a legendary shield user a shield the size of a bottlecap, they would miraculously block every arrow fired at them.

All of this combined means:
-Beating ranged attackers means having high skill. The armor is pretty much irrelevant, and the shield is only useful if they have skills in it. That is, a highly skilled Dwarf running around in nothing but his underwear and a buckler is better at defending against arrows than a new recruit in adamantine with a shield the size of his body. That's just plain stupid, but it's also why people don't see crossbows and bows as overpowered. Since most people train their Dwarves to very high skill levels, they simply block or dodge or parry any ranged weapon thrown at them. That's horribly underpowered. On the other hand, when they are used against unskilled Dwarves or get a lucky hit against a highly skilled one, they are horribly overpowered in every way, with wooden bolts chipping bones through adamantine armor.

You should be able to just reduce the minimum size in the raws of the specific save file you want it in. If you change it in the main DF raws it won't change it for your world, but changing it, again, in the save file will make it work.

Quote from: keremet on February 27, 2012, 09:26:03 pm

Quote from: UltraValican on February 27, 2012, 08:30:31 pm

Dat unholy strength man, Dat unholy strength. If you want long time adventurers.

No matter how strong they are, that shouldn't change the fact that iron is harder than bone.

Have You ever Boxed?
Even with Gloves and a Helmet, the Impact penetrates WAY more than You expect it to.
Its no different with Iron Armour. It doesnt STOP the impact, it reduces it. Plus, Armor Dents. Its like how a Bullet Proof Vest will still break Your Ribs.

Rethink things.

I'm pretty sure that bone would still break before iron armor. We're talking physical properties and limits. It's a little like if someone with a copper sword was hacking off the limbs of someone with artifact-level adamantium armor without any issues. It would seem a little silly. Same thing here.

Furthermore, bulletproof vests and iron armor aren't quite comparable. Bulletproof vests work by effectively "catching" a bullet - the fibers bunch up to absorb the energy of the bullet, causing the bullet to expand and distributing the force over a wide area before the bullet can get all the way through. Iron armor does not work that way. It's meant to either stop or deflect edged/pointed weapons. It does not deform to stop an attack. It does, in fact, stop impacts. If someone punches you while you're wearing a breastplate, your ribs won't break in the area that they punch you. Their hand will break and the force will be distributed on your body over the entire breastplate.

That's what we're asking for. Bones should not be able to break through iron or steel armor, period. Not even copper armor. If they do break through, they should be unusable even by undead standards.

This game's combat system is essentially fantasy creatures, but with everything else played straight. It's different from other games because while, yes, buggy at times and not a perfect representation, it tries to be relatively realistic and that helps to make it engaging. You know that instead of whacking a tough enemy for a few minutes until it spontaneously explodes because its HP bar is depleted, you cut off limbs/maim it/break bones/do horrible things to its internal organs until it dies, making it weaker all along the way.

This is a break from that reality that makes it less fun. Make skeletons deadly, fine. But do it by giving them things like warhammers and other weapons. Anything else isn't just unrealistic, it's just kind of stupid and unfun.