Bay 12 Games Forum

It was a toss-up between Ñing an old thread or making an unnecessary new one. In the end, option two won.

So, have we ever devised an effective and tested giant sponge capturing method? Previous threads are full of disagreement and not much experimental science. I need to know the best method. Here's why I ask.

Four giant sponges. With luck, the river doesn't freeze in my location, because four giant sponges. They are in different parts of the river: one is against a shoreline (but it only goes two tiles before turning and the sponge is not in the corner), one is one tile diagonally away from a shoreline corner, and the other two are in the open river. So, we have a few questions.

1. How do catch?
Submerged cage traps could work, but how do you move an immobile creature without getting murdered? Some people suggested gravity. Do cage traps prevent airdrowning? I sure hope so. A method that works from below is preferred, as anything requiring a shoreline only gives me a 25% net sponge gain.

2. How do use?
Can we safely chain a giant sponge? Can they break chains despite being immobile? Can we even train them (NO_THOUGHT)?! My best use for them would be to keep them in an "aquarium" that can be easily refilled. When goblins arrive, a lever (better yet: auto pressure plate, except then kobolds are home free) opens floodgates leading to the main hallway, flooding it (as other floodgates or bridges have sealed it off - are bridges watertight when raised?) and leaving the giant sponges to clean up the rest (amphibious mounts, assuming they're hostile to wild animals or that sponges are trainable).

In fact, using them raises many further questions. For instance, how do we get the goblins to fight them? Well, let's say the aquarium has 1x1 pastures for the sponges in it. Below it is a floodgate for easy sponge caging and subsequent aquarium draining (for maintenance, etc.). This way, we can periodically cage and remove the sponges for animal training, so that invaders don't ignore them and instead try fighting them (and fail).

Of course, the cage-pit-trap-thing should be bigger than 1x1, so that a sponge dodging away won't be unrecoverable. Here's my basic diagram:
Entrance hallway, (S) stands for Sealing Mechanism
╔═══╦(S)╦═══╗
║≈≈≈X+++X≈≈≈║
║≈S≈X+++X≈S≈║
║≈≈≈X+++X≈≈≈║
║≈S≈X+++X≈S≈║
║≈≈≈X+++X≈≈≈║
╚═══╩(S)╩═══╝The sealing mechanism and floodgates are hooked up to the same lever, flooding the area with slightly shallower (but not lethally shallow and still drownable for land creatures). The larger the aquarium is compared to the entrance hallway, the better. Of course, after all the water drains out again (grates after the sealing mechanism hooked up to the caverns maybe, or even better leading to an underground mud greenspace), the overall level will be diminished, requiring more filling up. A reservoir one level up could prevent these issues and maintain 7/7 water throughout.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Because I've got four giant sponges to catch and you could too!

I recently had a compelling idea for a forum game that should fit Bay12 quite nicely, and result in some wacky hijinx (patent pending) that are uniquely Dwarf Fortress. It goes like this.

The Seed
A "seed" image is created with the incredibly handy AsciiDraw to depict a (preferably complex) scene that would be found in DF. Of course, this requires ASCII skillz.

Player A
Once that's done, the players sign up. Let's say the lucky first-in-line is Player A. Here's what he does.
1. Player A observes the seed image, and then either draws a non-ASCII picture (or more than one, which is somewhat likely) or creates some lovely writing describing what is happening in the picture. The picture can be a comic strip or whatever format you like, but try to keep it fairly simple.
2. Their drawing or writing must have a somewhat significant event happen to it when compared to the seed image. Perhaps a character is absent, leaving behind only a sock and a blood splatter. Perhaps an adventurer has arrived on the scene. Perhaps someone has discovered a new room. Perhaps someone is biting off someone else's nose. Imagine it as a pass-it-on forum game story thing.
3. The finished piece is not posted to this thread. It is privately messaged to Player B with no accompanying descriptions of any sort or suggestions on what to do next, and is not posted in the thread. Let's see what Player B does.

Player B
1. Player B receives Player A's work. Their task is to represent it into ASCII again, comparing it to the seed and summing up what happened. ASCII drawings may be accompanied by short character descriptions or names or legends of who's who, but don't go overboard - this is just so that a more complicated storyline can be built up.
2. Player B also makes an event, and messages it to Player C, with the same clause about not including anything other than the work. Basically, we're creating a series of events and only waiting until it's complete to reveal it. Remember, none of this is being publicly posted! Each player only sees what comes directly before their turn and what they make. No one person will know exactly what's happened.

Player C
Player C does the same thing as Player A, except they use B's image instead of the seed. This repeats for a pre-defined number of turns, or until everyone who's showed up dies. Then everyone posts what has been received or made by them in the public thread and we piece it all together. Hopefully, this should result in some awesome stuff. Who's game?

Note about AsciiDraw
It has some powerful features, so press F1 for help and try stuff out before doing your good copy. And we aren't going to worry about variegated floor tiles (,`.'): periods are fine.

The Seed


From now on, this is entirely up to you guys. The limit's sixteen turns.

Good luck!

Turns
1. Empty... FOR NOW.

Double-thread

The Real World
"What's an acceptable community fort gimmick?
*long pause of deep thought*
Oh, I know! CATS."

And so the Cat Town ruleset was born. Here's the deal:
- Cats cannot be butchered or killed intentionally.
- Every dwarf with a pet cat must be relocated to fine aboveground quarters, with a private room. You cannot have more than one-quarter of the cat dwarfs in the same structure - this is a town of cats, not a skyscraper of cats.
- Cat-owning dwarfs must not be drafted into the army if they have no pre-existing WEAPON skills (a Great Tracker with no other combat experience doesn't count). Cat-owning dwarfs that do have weapon skills should be issued the best equipment possible.
- Cats now have four prefstrings instead of one, so dwarfs are four times more likely to prefer, and therefore be adopted by, one.
- With modding, I have also added three new species of cats. See below.

The Cats
- Normal Cat: [NOT_BUTCHERABLE]. 4x the prefstrings. Cute.
- Cave Cat: White cat, also not butcherable. Not available at embark but perfectly tamable. They can naturally be found in the lower cavern layers.
- Giant Cat: Vicious buggers that can be butchered. They weigh over a ton and have a value multiplier on their products.
- Cat Lord: A cat that lives for centuries. A cat that outweighs the bronze colossus. A cat of nightmares. Bonus points if you catch a breeding pair - it's possible!

The Dwarfs
The vast world spinning through space was still fresh. Its magma seas had hardly cooled into continents before the water came, gushing down from the vast glittering expanses of space. Where did that come from? Before this question could be answered, the animals came. Then the humans came, then the dwarfs, then the elves, and then the goblins. And there was a little bit of divine spark left over, but it got lost and eventually ended up as the kobolds while nobody was looking, because who cares? The world Alabelina was complete. Now all it needed was a story...

The children sneak towards the door, rocks in hand. There is a quick flurry of motion, and one microcline pebble bounces off the Hammerer's forehead. He grunts and shambles towards the door, adamantine war-hammer in tow, but all there is to be heard is footsteps echoing through the draughty corridors. His hammer is useless, and his position is a joke ever since the baron died. As Hammerer, he dealt with trauma very well. He had to. But even so, the image of his employer and childhood friend getting slowly drawn into that angry swarm of cave crocodiles, limbs being horribly torn off in fountains of blood... He shook his head. It couldn't be helped. All he could hope was that the little brat who threw that pebble would one day commit a minor crime and be sentenced to the hammer for his trouble. The adamantine hammer wasn't that bad, really, because he could keep using it. Yes. If the first blow caused a bruise, the second one would make it worse, until his victim (the hammerees, he privately called them, or the hammerered) was locked in a carpet of aches and agony with not a single bone broken. And, even better, it was light and easy to clean.

Lost in his own world, he didn't notice when the cat behind him pounced and tore out his throat.

The cat had been scheming a bit, but would soon lose interest and slink off to hunt rats in the food stockpile. The hammerer kept killing the cats' dwarfs, and that meant they had nobody warm to sleep on or good-naturedly bother. Clearly, something would have to be done. Removing him was only an interim solution. For now, they needed something better. Something to provide a safe fortress for catkind forever. The mood here had shifted. The cats were no longer safe. The butcher stared at them with a strange gleam in his eye. But the perfect solution had struck this particular cat in a fit of genius.

It dipped its paw in a vial of dimple ink and began to scratch out a message on the desk of the now-deceased hammerer.

dearr King I hope this Lettere finds you Welle. this fortris is Notte safe I Feel it. a Rebelleious Movemente seeks to overthroww You and Liberate the Peoples wich I think is frankly Ridiculis. i have Overherd their Plannes in the Hallways and already their seeking to Kill ME and strike You down in the Middle of you're Royale Naptime. at Least thirtie or Fourtie Dwarffs are in the movemente and numbere to many to Accuse or Punish. the Solutione which has Ocured to me in the Nite goes as Folows:
1 send Seven or a Similare number of Loyal Dwarfes to a Distant Locationne to start a new Fortris
2 as time Progresses sende Many More dwarfes who you are Assured of theyre Quality and Morals to this Site
3 move into this Fortris when it is Busy, Productif and Safe and leave an Expendable Relativ in yourre Place
I Thinke it is a Good Planne but Allready I feer that they Come for Me remember that Dannger Lies around Every Coridor
- The Humble and Loyale hammerrer of this Mountain Halle

The letter would be found mysteriously deposited next to the king's royal doorstep, along with a dead mouse. Some habits are hard to break.

So, who's up for some cats? Sign up today!

I'm trying to come up with compelling challenge rulesets for community forts. Let me know if you like them or if they could be improved, and feel free to suggest your own!

Cat Town
- No cats can be slaughtered or meet an unfortunate end by complete accident (we're sure you didn't do it on purpose)
- Every dwarf with a pet cat must have an aboveground private residence, complete with a basement farm and outdoor bridge (so they can seal themselves off in an emergency)
- Cat goods in a trade caravan must be met with the same reaction that you get from elves who are offered wood - no trading, and whether you kill the cat-butchers is up to your judgement
- Every year, one dwarf who does not have a preference for cats will be killed (optional)

Blasphemers against Armok
- There are too many Temple to Armok forts, so why not play the subversive atheist movement seeking to overthrow the corrupt Armokian Church?
- Build your trade depot inside a nifty trap chamber.
- The dwarves of your civilization must not notice that your fort seeks to become a rebel base. Caravans and liaisons MUST be killed every year, to a man.
- The humans know what's what and can be traded with freely, as they do not worship the dwarven Armok.
- Elves are still bastards.
- Goblins are special. Let's say they don't oppose dwarves because of their [BABY_SNATCHER], but instead protest against Armok in kind. You must either cage them or drive them back with minimum injuries until they get the hint.
- Those poor little kobolds are merely misguided! Let them flee as they wish, so that they may weaken the corrupt reach of Armok elsewhere by stealing assorted holy baubles.

ASCII Authors
- You'll need lots and lots of cage traps for this.
- Use caged ASCII animals to spell out words. Can't get enough e? Well, phonics is a suitable reason to go to war with an entire civilization, right?
- Every year, one sentence must be completed. Bonus points if they form a (somewhat) coherent story. Extra bonus points if you use the correct case (but not required).
- Little did Steve know that he would soon be captured and humiliated just because some mad god watching from above thought he was a useful capitalized vowel...

Okay, this board is pretty empty, but next to copper on the wiki, we get this lovely ASCII art:
╪    Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω    ╪
Ω     ≡     ≡     ≡    =    =    Ω
Ω     ≡     ≡     ≡    ≡    =    Ω
Ω     ≡     ≡     ≡    ≡    ≡    Ω
╪    Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω    ╪
Who makes these? Is there a simple visual code to them? Are they from DF's code somehow? What do they signify?

First time in a Terrifying embark.

I've heard the stories. But what's it really like? This is valuable practice for my turn in Crossedhorns, although it's not in Suika Fortress.

I'm also using my tiny tileset so get those retinas ready for...

Bronzebow.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cilob Astilush, Record-Keeper and Overall Stuff Manager's Diary

what's wrong with this place

I was almost so in despair that I didn't put the apostrophe in "what's". But that's lazy grammar. And having the cat who accompanied you through a three-month journey get sucked into a fucking ash cloud and turning into a zombie is no excuse for lazy grammar! Ha. Fuck.

Bronzebow. We were supposed to bring back metals so that our poor families back home can fend off the goblins. Well, fuck them. Fuck them all to hell. No, fuck them all to here.

Mosquitoes. No. A giant mosquito. I fucking hate mosquitoes.



Well, I said. Yes. I can handle a giant fucking mosquito. We brought two hammerdwarves. They can kill a giant fucking bug.

Then the clouds. Ha. When we first got there, I said. Yeah, I said "Why is this grass covered in ash? Why is it?". Because "The last forest fire was a couple years ago". Yeah. Where'd the fucking ash come from?

The sun got covered up. Normally, I'd be the happiest fucking dwarf on the planet if it got a little dimmer and easier on my eyes, but no. It's a giant cloud. Of yellow fucking ash. And so I say "Well, it's ash. Fuck." Fuck! Then the giant fucking mosquito buzzes right into that fucking cloud and DROPS DEAD. ON THE SPOT. Things sure are fucking different now, bastards! Everyone rushes into the hallway we dug last week, and the damned fucking thing misses us by about two fucking meters. The casualty was my cat. My favorite cat. It wasn't my pet, but we were probably meant for each other. Then the fucking giant mosquito starts twitching.

"Mosquitoes twitch when you kill them normally, Cilob! Stop complaining!" says that fucking twat Thikut. Well, he turns out to be a fucking dumbass. I knew it. So this giant FUCKING MOSQUITO gets up, covered with this instant you just plain fucking die ash, and buzzes off to whatever goddamn sphincter it crawled out of. Then the cat gets up, too. Its heart falls out through its chest cavity. The way it oozed isn't the thing I'd like to forget most, but it's probably in the top fucking six. No, seven. Fuck! And there was also a fucking zombie rabbit but who the fuck cares about fucking rabbits?!

The cat begins lurching towards us. My cat. My buddy cat guy. Or was it a girl cat? Damn! Now, Urdim is almost done the drawbridge to seal us the fuck off from this hellhole filled with zombie mosquitoes and giant clouds of doom, but he's still hauling a huge fucking boulder up the stairs. So we send the military.

Olin and Litast grab their copper hammers. I'll never forget the look in their eyes. Maybe they were more fucking terrified than I was. Now I'm messing up the tenses! Ha! No, this happenED in the past. But it's still happening. They rush towards this cat, and swing. It blocks their hammer strikes effortlessly. I mean, fuck! It's a fucking cat! It's not about strength, because Litast is burly as fuck! And this cat blocked it! Its arm didn't budge an inch! And it kept going. But hell, it's still a cat. It was too small to do much damage and ran off. It didn't meow anymore. They had probably crushed its throat.

The momentary break gives us a chance to unload the shit from the caravan and seal ourselves off forever. This goes very well until the giant fucking mosquito comes buzzing in from the very pits of hell itself, glittering ash cascading off its wings. That sounds gay. It's not. It's fucking terrifying. And it jabs its pointy hell-pointy-thing into Thikut and he stops moving. Then a fucking hamster man comes and punches straight through his heart. A HAMSTER MAN. I used to have a hamster as a kid. Apparently the man version isn't fucking around. Well, we get the fuck out of there. Up goes the bridge and in go us! Urist the Mad said that the dead come back to life here, before he died of acute brain failure caused by fifty fucking pounds of steel to the face. Our hammerer didn't fuck around when it comes to insane babblings instead of mandates being fulfilled. If Thikut does come back, I want to fucking be there so I can slap him in the fucking face until he pisses his undead panties. And before we can close the bridge, the ash cat comes pouncing in.

Olin isn't fucking around this time. He knows it'll take more punishment than a BDSM expo in a tornado made out of serrated blades. So he hits it until the head is mush. Then he hits the body until it's got a soupy texture too. When he's done, it doesn't look like a cat. It looks like a fucking meat puddle. We really need to get rid of it. If it reanimates too, it's going to have fun flopping around everywhere. It left its entire jaw inside, and we're really hoping there's not enough ash on it to get us, too.



Now, this is a journal, and it's really fucking well-hidden. So to the poor sod who finds this, I leave a final note:

Fuck you! If you're agonizingly dying of starvation while your undead friends are banging on that beautiful gneiss drawbridge outside, then I hope you know that I probably died first, and I bet I did it way classier than you. Hell, pull that fucking lever. If you dare. Twat.

~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, this is fun. This is very fun.

This mod adds two different species of bees in the hopes of making beekeeping a worthwhile profession. These bees can be weaponized and give much more valuable products than boring old honey bees, and each carry a very fun venom within.

The Code
Add this to any available raw with creatures in it, preferably creature_insects.

But what do they do?
Well, you could tell from the raws, or experience the Fun for yourself, but here it is: