Bay 12 Games Forum

Well... I moved the tags around and added Line of Sight.  Dwarves were still being, invariably, suffocated. 

I added [IT_CANNOT_TARGET_IF_ALREADY_AFFECTED] to the effect, in case the syndrome was being reset every time (with a mere delay of 1 and [SPEED:0] creatures) the Shadow embraced.  The dwarves were still strangled to death, and the combat report showed an "embraces" at just about every action.  I removed the tag.

Realizing a syndrome was an ongoing effect, I tried removing [IE_IMMEDIATE].  Dwarves: Still strangled to death.  Combat Log: Still reports "Embraces".  [IE_IMMEDIATE] returned to the interaction.

In the interests of checking that re-application situation, I upped the wait time to 15.  Embraces occurred less frequently in the combat report, as expected, but no syndrome manifested.  Dwarves strangled to death.

At this point, I tinkered heavily: I added an [I_EFFECT:CONTACT] (Immediate and on Target A), made the syndrome [SYN_CONTACT], and changed the range to Touchable (with no specified numeric range).  Same results in the arena.  Removed [SYN_CONTACT] just in case, added back in the 1-tile range, and tried again.  Inexplicably, the first dwarf spawned won.  obsidianizing the victorious dwarf (who had, of course, gained skill) and spawning another pair had the expected result: embraces, no syndrome, dwarf suffocated to being strangled.

I gave the Add Syndrome term an IE_ARENA_NAME.  It appeared in the effect list, but spawning a dwarf with that effect resulted in a healthy dwarf just sitting there -- it seems that the problem exists within the syndrome: for some reason, it does not go, even when the game is told directly to interact.

After all the tinkering, my Raws look like this

multiplied the severity of each symptom by 10000.  dwarves still got strangled to death.  Took out the knock-out symptom, which changed nothing: it's not the syndrome knocking them out, it's pain.  do I need to add [SYN_CONTACT], perhaps?

... mostly because I'm new at this 

I'll read up on interactions, and try that.

Being dismembered easily was intentional -- they're [SPEED:0] and intended to be Glass Cannons, decently easy to kill if you actually get a chance to swing.

Perhaps I could give them solid claws with which to rip and tear their enemies...

Though talking about syndromes reminds me I need to test out the instant-necrosis hydra blood...

If anyone asks about that "Glittering Caves" thing, we can claim that as the last survivor of our old fort, we are naturally its lord, and will reclaim it some day.

Might even be true.

For now, I think we should at LEAST ask Esmar where in this place she (as a fellow migrant, mind) has been able to stay.  If the answer is 'just an unclaimed room' we might be able to return to ours or find another.

While I might put it a little differently than barmaid (We are male, and making a decent impression on at least one dwarfette), temping here does seem like a plausible idea.

So, I've been trying my hand at creating a custom race with their own entity. For my first time modding, it's a flying success: they don't crash worldgen, and actually exist as a civilization.  Everything's fine... except I'm having trouble getting them to war with the dwarves: neighbors shows "No Trade" instead of the red line of the goblins both at the dawn of time (year 5) and with some history (year 100).

Does anyone have advice on how to get them attacking hapless fortresses?

I've never been a tileset kind of person before (I'm proud of my ability to read ASCII outputs) but I clicked on this one on somethign of a lark and... It's gorgeous, and retains a lot of the clean display I get out of ASCII -- the big, colored characters that tell me what something is at a glance rather than ironhand's "little people with something of a color scheme" that I have more problems interpreting when reading the community forts.

Good work.  If I try it and having anything further than a simple "Yeah, it's as good as the screenshots look" to add, I'll chime in again.