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Messages - Shurhaian

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481
DF Suggestions / Re: Metal beads and metal plating
« on: September 29, 2009, 05:49:29 am »
Come to think of it, heavy-metal cores would actually become quite significant if weapons start to do damage by weight, and adamantine is the most striking example.

A super-sharp sword that never loses its edge? Great. Even on a spear. But once you get to the unbalanced weapons things get... iffy. An axe may still be able to work on sheer sharpness/hardness(to some degree), but a blunt weapon is several kinds of useless if it doesn't have some heft behind it.

482
DF Modding / Re: Making more rocks magma-safe
« on: September 29, 2009, 05:45:07 am »
The point, since that seems to have been missed:

It is not only possible, but fairly commonplace, for fortresses to have areas at least tightly-enough sealed that pressure wouldn't equalize quickly across the boundary. Thus, a simplistic model of air pressure is liable to generate as much inaccuracy as it is to add detail, if not more.

483
DF Suggestions / Re: Deconstruct from the inside, Damnit!
« on: September 28, 2009, 02:21:55 pm »
Although it works, it's still an ugly kluge of a workaround and there ought to be a better way to do it.

So - although I'm fairly sure it's commonly come up - it's perfectly valid as a suggestion, no?

484
DF Suggestions / Re: Sheild walls
« on: September 28, 2009, 02:18:05 pm »
The gladius has a point.

Even if it's used to slash, there's a world of difference between a slash with a sword and a swing with an (unbalanced) axe or mace.

485
DF Suggestions / Re: Interspecies breeding
« on: September 28, 2009, 01:42:00 pm »
And there's a lot more rock in the raws than there used to be back in the 2D days...

Throwing the gates wide open to procedural hybrids would be a significant departure from the underlying realism. And lowering the realism bar isn't something that seems to happen very often - certainly not by deliberate intent.

Hybrids are not all that common. Some of the barriers aren't genetic or even physical, but even beyond that, there's not THAT many animals that can breed outside species - that is, after all, the (classical) definition OF a species.

Put short, I'm not seeing a reason why procedural rather than explicitly-coded hybrids would be such a good idea.

486
DF Suggestions / Re: Partial Reveal
« on: September 28, 2009, 01:34:21 pm »
That last point will be eased if dwarves start being able to automatically dig out an entire vein(probably as a togglable option or with some general options, e.g. don't auto-tunnel through damp/warm stone, don't auto-designate through walls that are already seen, whether in the chasm or another corridor).

As for the mechanics - yes, we know it was originally posited as showing up immediately from embark. We're trying to think of ways that would make it other than a blatant cheat.

487
DF Suggestions / Re: Metal beads and metal plating
« on: September 28, 2009, 01:25:27 pm »
Pounding everything into leaf does not, in fact, make sense.

Even aside from bismuth and pig iron, there are plenty of metals too brittle to be worked by that sort of treatment.

Gold, however, is unusually soft for a metal.

As for an iron or steel coating around lead... hm. One possible problem with this is that there's only so much to sharpen. Also, I'm not sure on this one, but the different metals might make it impossible, at least within period, to give the resulting blade a proper temper.

And I'm still not sure you want a sword to be THAT heavy... but I guess there's precedent. Like those... I think they're Chinese swords that have a bunch of rings on them, which, when the sword hits something, flip around and give it a bit of an extra kick. Not QUITE the same mechanism, but nevertheless.

488
DF Suggestions / Re: Interspecies breeding
« on: September 28, 2009, 01:14:38 pm »
Why not just argue for generic rock and simpler body structures while you're at it?

Toady has already demonstrated a commitment to detailed realism. Just because it's a fantasy game doesn't mean it can't be consistent with reality where that fantasy allows.

489
DF Suggestions / Re: Sheild walls
« on: September 28, 2009, 01:12:37 pm »
Quote from: Rowanas on September 27, 2009, 05:21:46 pm
I disagree. Flaming liquids would be very good, but dragon fire truly could be blocked quite easily.

In addition to the point that this assumes there's no force to it, this also assumes it wouldn't flow around the cracks.

Because blocks are all-or-nothing, yes, dragonfire can be blocked. But if it spread more - I hesitate to use the term - realistically, it'd get through even the tiniest of cracks, and billow around.

490
DF Suggestions / Re: New material: pykrete
« on: September 28, 2009, 01:09:51 pm »
Try reading the WHOLE post.

No, seriously.

I talked about the effect when it's hot and ON FIRE often enough that that point should have come across. Subsequent points have already agreed that, yes, it could possibly be used to breach a pykrete wall, but there are probably more reliable ways to go about it.

Lighting pitch on fire doesn't turn it into a magic bullet either.

491
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Engravings have names!?
« on: September 28, 2009, 01:07:36 pm »
Alternately, it's easy to miss the name of an engraving if you're not looking for it. Seeing an engraving commemorating another engraving may have been a tip-off, and that only gets done for... I think masterworks and artifacts, but perhaps sometimes exceptional pieces, I'm not 100% sure.

492
DF Suggestions / Re: Use jet as a minor gemstone
« on: September 27, 2009, 04:28:59 pm »
That's already included in the notion of rough vs cut gems.

"Rough gems" are a pretty massive amount of stone, with gem-quality stone buried in the matrix. Compare the weights, and you'll find that despite the increase in price, cut gems are much, MUCH lighter.

Even for semiprecious stones, not all of the rock is going to be of gem quality. Some of it will be riddled with cracks or impurities, or otherwise flawed in a way that keeps it from being useful as a gem. Some of it will be damaged by the process of excavation. And so on.

On the flip side, it would be rather nice if some gemstones, which otherwise don't have a more valuable variant that can be in the cluster, could occasionally be found as a geode, which could give multiple units of cut gems with a good gemcutter. That's a sidetrack, but it does mean that, well, yes, a given unit of stone COULD potentially yield more than one unit of cut, or in this case polished, gems.

493
DF Suggestions / Re: Metal beads and metal plating
« on: September 27, 2009, 04:21:08 pm »
There is that possibility. A coating(probably not something so thin as electroplating would give, anyway) would work both ways; precious metals protect against corrosion, but harder base metals can protect a softer core.

For many weapons, coating a dense metal like lead or especially a dense AND precious one like gold wouldn't make sense. Maces and hammers could benefit, though, and maybe even axes; all of them rely on the momentum of the heavy head, whereas swords are carefully balanced.

It'd need some reworking to be practical - partial bars would have to be tracked for consumption as well as the yield of melting. But a coating could give an item certain properties of the metal used to apply the coat...

494
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Engravings have names!?
« on: September 27, 2009, 12:49:47 pm »
Engravers are also incredibly vain, and very prone to commemorating their own prior engravings in the ones they're currently working on.

This is probably because, as mentioned, you'll wind up with a LOT of masterwork engravings, relative to anything else that will be produced in the fortress, but it can still be amusing.

495
DF Suggestions / Re: Metal beads and metal plating
« on: September 27, 2009, 12:47:04 pm »
I'm not sure how the first is different from studding something with metal, as it exists currently.

A metal coating definitely shouldn't get the full value of the surface metal. Dwarves, especially, seem much more likely to care about what's at the core than how much the surface shines.

However, a coating of inert metals could protect other metals that are otherwise vulnerable to, say, oxidation(rust).

Take aluminum. In addition to the value of its rarity, due to bauxite being unsmeltable with period tech, it oxidizes immediately on contact with air - but aluminum oxide isn't flaky like iron oxide is; it forms a solid, VERY hard layer. Corundum - ruby and sapphire - is aluminum oxide in crystalline form, and is one of the harder substances out there. Platinum and gold, while too heavy and, in the case of gold, too soft to be worthwhile on large objects, could protect smaller ones from corrosion in much the same way.

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