Bay 12 Games Forum

Thinking of adding some lore to the game, since we're spicing things up. Have no idea how this should be implemented. Add a lore section to the help tag, perhaps?
I'm noticing that centuars rarely go to war with anyone but dwarves. This should be changed, as it makes worldgen even more imbalanced. And also because centaurs need a lot of dice-rolls to go down so far during worldgen. Seeing as I've seen mountainhomes attacked repeatedly for hundreds of years without killing a single centuar, further size-nerfs are probably necessary.
On a random note, I'm noticing that virtually all civs now incorporate the rare sentient being from another civ into their ranks as worldgen progresses. Good! If you ask me, taking over someone's village doesn't happen often enough. Pillaging has no real game effect that I can tell, and its done all the time.

EDIT: Just found out that all the custom reactions (burn bodyparts/corpses, cook blood, etc) were not available due to a typo. This will be fixed by the next release. Sorry y'all don't have the reactions advertized in 0.7.0 

EDIT2: Added some more planned civs and races. These are intended not to kill you, but to ensure even a turtling fort gets some action. Unless you're entirely underground with drawbridges raised. In which case nothing will change.

EDIT3: Worldgen is continuously crashing in 0.7.2, I've only seen it succeed once. 0.7.1 worked, though, so the current release should be fine.
Removed Orc tusks, firstly because who ever heard of an orc with tusks, secondly because I got tired of trying to make goreing mechanics balanced.
Harpy civ basically finished, but I haven't been able to test it due to aforementioned game crashing. Game crashing continued after reverting to 0.7.1, though, so it could just be me.

Okay.  Want to post a backstory for him?  Did he support Lenehan?

Who wouldn't support him? Don't you want to have your culture assimilated by a bunch of cannibalistic, fanatic foreigners? Also have forced plastic surgery to make you look like them?
You'd be a really strange dwarf if you didn't want something like that to happen, right?

I'm so proud of you, Necrochambers.  You've managed to bring absolute horror and misery to two universe.

I've played the modern mod, as well as a very similar but less balanced and elaborate mod I made of my own but didn't release for adventure mode. While it's fun for a short time, I run into the same problems.
The main issue is the rate of fire, which is so slow that unarmed opponents or yourself can pretty much cover the distance on a flat plain from encountering your opponent to touching them in two to three shots if you're lucky.
Bullets also were a huge problem in my mod, as giving them enough power to do the damage a real bullet would required so much force that full sized men would be flung out of the line of sight with more powerful weapons. The modern mod had a much better balance of realism between force and damage than mine, but I still see the issue even in that modern weapon mod.
Also, the AI and current game mechanics, like ambushes, really sucks at dealing with the lethality of firearms. Typically, ambushes even on my very high level dodger character result in me escaping badly wounded about half the time and blown to pieces before I can react the rest of the time.

The questions I have for you more experienced modders:
1. Has anyone figured out ways or tools to modify the game in a such a way that rate of fire isn't super slow and entirely dependent upon the user of the weapon?
2. Has anyone made bullets that behave more like real bullets with very high speeds and penetration but without requiring an absurd amount of force to achieve this?
3. Is it currently possible to fix the AI and game mechanics to improve combat?

Fixing the AI and modding your own form of combat doesn't sound like something you can do without getting into DF's coding and making your own changes to the game engine. So, bar Toady One releasing the game open source due to a sudden change of heart, I don't think that will be possible to mod in the near future.
As for the bullets, I think you can make them fly faster by changing their maximum velocity in the raws. You'd have to ask someone who knows more about the specifics of modding projectile weapons to be certain though; mine are currently broken.

Said elfking is named Ducin... something I forgot. He has FIFTY-FIVE THOUSAND KILLS to his name. Most of them dwarves and elves in the nation capital.

I always wondered what would happen in Cacame turned to the dark side. Now we know.

Not by conventional means, but there are tricks to make a creature generate more creatures. For example you get sieged by 100 goblins, and they spawn 100 trolls, 200 war wolves and 50 ogres... they probably would act like wildlife and dont follow the siege AI, but would attack you. It would use syndrometrigger and spawnunit, two dfhack scripts.

Or, even better, make a goblin siege use the force script to spawn 2-3 moresieges of a goblin2 entity.

This being said, a world with plentiful goblins (they tend to survive and thrive in worldgen. If not, you can increase the number of initial goblins) can send some pretty massive sieges on its own. In a world where goblins haven't tamed any mounts yet, I remember getting sieges of 130 goblins +20 trolls at once.
If you use syndrometrigger/spawnunit to spawn creatures with [BUILDING_DESTROYER:2] and add [SIEGE_IGNORES_NEUTRAL] (<- or something like that, don't remember the tag, you can find it on the wiki token reference) then you'll end up with a siege that ignores the extra spawned creatures and extra spawned creatures that path into your fort. I think that if they have the [LIKES_FIGHTING] tag they won't run from your dwarves and fight them.
Alternatively you could rig up syndrometrigger to give the spawned creatures the crazed tag whenever they see a dwarf. This will cause them to attack neutrals and members of the siege though.

I'm fairly sure the only way to survive being an overseer after your turn is to sleep with the next overseer. 100% of Overseers who've survived a full year after taking their turn have done so.

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This is the Journal of Emdief, located in the Museum of Crime and Punishment. The writing is crisp and neat. There are, remarkable for a dwarf text, no spilled alcohol or blood on the paper. Sections of the journal are speculated to be calculated lies.

Undated

My clients made their first request today. The mechanisms I'm to provide might just be the smallest ever furnished. Demands for beautification of the product implies that at least one of the clients is a noble. Access to large funds for the purchasing of rare resources implies that either the group has access to the treasury or foreign backers.
Will tread with caution. Told them they'd have to find their own mountain gnome - I'm a mechanic, not a zoologist.

Undated

Offered a job by my clients. Their former engineer is implied to be fired, though not explicitly stated as such. Makes sense to me. Why employ a mechanic who can't build the mechanisms their design requires?
Mountain gnome abducted from zoo this week, according to one of the guards. Official sources suspect the Elf Party. It's probably my clients - the Elf Party hasn't been active here for some time.

Undated

The project my clients have undertook is, to say the least, interesting. Nature is a great designer, creating both simple and complex solutions, but has some notable inefficiencies. The need to save energy prevents the usage of many performance-increasing processes. Inefficient levers are used - just look at your arms. Materials that could improve the body's function greatly are discarded due to scarcity.
Uncertain as to the practical application of this project, however. Can't imagine a dwarf  undergoing this surgery and taking these substances of their own violation. It's neither pleasant nor aesthetically pleasing.
Client group disturbed. Apparently, one of their former associates was carted off to some prison out in the provinces. I think I've figured out who specifically amongst the nobility is backing this project - it goes very high up indeed. Must tread carefully.

Undated

Told to alter mechanisms for usage in a dwarven body today. Probably best to go along with it. Must take care to avoid becoming a loose end.
Saw the corpse they were operating on. Looks fresh. Oddly, no report of a dwarf gone missing in the fortress.
Clients are increasingly agitated. Pestering me to make the project more presentable. I doubt that that's possible. Replacing these organs is never not going to involve gore and chronic pain. Nor is it possible for me to completely regulate behavior of the subject with purely mechanical means. Funding appears to be drying up. Not surprised.
Taking the precaution of removing documentation that could indicate criminal behavior on my part.

Undated

Called in to fix broken surgical machinery. Noticed operation was commencing on unconscious dwarf. Assured he was a volunteer, despite never expressing interest in how he wound up on the operating table. Troubling.
Funding has been massively decreased. They've abruptly found new places to conduct their experiments. I have taken the precaution of arming myself. I'll keep providing their mechanisms so long as the money's good.

Undated

The writing is scribbled, as if written very quickly.
Clients appear to be arrested. List of their crimes published. Glad I kept my distance from subject acquisition.
Doubtless guards are aware of my involvement. Mechanisms clearly my handiwork. Confident no evidence of me being involved in the planning of the project or the experimentation will be found. Considering leaving town; don't think the guards will care much that they can't prove I did more than sell them materials.
Backers of the project apparently let off and record of their involvement destroyed. I hope they never find out I know who did it. That kind of blackmail potential could get one killed.

Undated

Informed by captain of the guard that if I don't leave the fortress, I'll suffer an unfortunate accident. Specifically falling down the stairs and into a pile of spears. Not very subtle, our captain.
Only one expedition leaving the fortress within the next month or so. Thankfully, it leaves in a day. Less promising, however, is that it leads to some penal colony in the desert. There's no way out of this "Steelhold" unless you catch a ride on a caravan, and those lead either to foreigners or back to the mountainhome. Possibilty of escape; slim.
Doubtless I cannot take much wealth with me. I can only hope I have a chance to earn it back at Steelhold. No point in living poorly.