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Author Topic: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System  (Read 31875 times)

GregHayes

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Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« on: December 10, 2015, 09:16:31 pm »

Unfortunately, the "secrets" system used for necromancers isn't very extendable. The only motive for learning a secret that the game recognizes as valid is immortality, which only applies to historical figures in their extreme old age, and never to goblins or elves. Additionally, historical figures looking to learn a secret only seem to bother searching necromancer towers for potential mentors. So secrets that aren't about necromancy are pretty much doomed to never spread out beyond the first person to discover them.

The new knowledge system changes everything.

Inspired by thriggle's discoveries here, I created the following secret:

Code: [Select]
[INTERACTION:SECRET_FIRE]
[I_SOURCE:SECRET]
[IS_NAME:the secrets of fire]
[IS_SPHERE:FIRE]
[IS_SECRET_GOAL:IMMORTALITY]
[IS_SECRET:SUPERNATURAL_LEARNING_POSSIBLE]
[IS_SECRET:MUNDANE_RESEARCH_POSSIBLE]
[IS_SECRET:MUNDANE_TEACHING_POSSIBLE]
[IS_SECRET:MUNDANE_RECORDING_POSSIBLE:objects/text/book_instruction.txt:objects/text/secret_fire.txt]
[I_TARGET:A:CREATURE]
[IT_LOCATION:CONTEXT_CREATURE]
[IT_REQUIRES:CAN_LEARN]
[IT_REQUIRES:CAN_SPEAK]
[I_EFFECT:ADD_SYNDROME]
[IE_TARGET:A]
[IE_IMMEDIATE]
[IE_ARENA_NAME:fire mage]
[SYNDROME]
[CE_DISPLAY_NAME:NAME:fire mage:fire mages:fire magic:START:0]
[CE_CAN_DO_INTERACTION:START:0]
[CDI:ADV_NAME:Hurl fireball]
[CDI:INTERACTION:MATERIAL_EMISSION]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:ATTACK]
[CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_CATEGORY:HAND]
[CDI:FLOW:FIREBALL]
[CDI:TARGET:C:LINE_OF_SIGHT]
[CDI:TARGET_RANGE:C:15]
[CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:C:1]
[CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:30]
[CE_CAN_DO_INTERACTION:START:0]
[CDI:ADV_NAME:Spray jet of fire]
[CDI:INTERACTION:MATERIAL_EMISSION]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:ATTACK]
[CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_CATEGORY:HAND]
[CDI:FLOW:FIREJET]
[CDI:TARGET:C:LINE_OF_SIGHT]
[CDI:TARGET_RANGE:C:5]
[CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:C:1]
[CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:30]

The result? Over the course of a two-hundred and fifty year worldgen, an elderly dwarf uncovered the secrets of fire, wrote them down, and stored the resulting slab... in an ordinary library in the dwarven fortress of Hammerlearned, open to anyone to come visit. Over the years, numerous scholars have visited the library of Hammerlearned, and some of them have happened to come across the peculiar bronze slab Gravelglow:



In short, if you mod in a secret that does not grant the animate dead ability (and thus send the historical figure off to build a tower) there is a possibility that they will store the slab in their local library. Scholars who visit the library during worldgen may then learn the secret, causing it to spread. Presumably they will eventually write spellbooks of their own and store them at their own local libraries, but 250 years apparently isn't long enough for that to happen.

This opens up a lot of potential for modding in new magic systems.
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Ysyua

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2015, 09:45:37 pm »

-snip-
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
In short, if you mod in a secret that does not grant the animate dead ability (and thus send the historical figure off to build a tower) there is a possibility that they will store the slab in their local library. Scholars who visit the library during worldgen may then learn the secret, causing it to spread. Presumably they will eventually write spellbooks of their own and store them at their own local libraries, but 250 years apparently isn't long enough for that to happen.

This opens up a lot of potential for modding in new magic systems.

This is pretty incredible. Though worlds of fire-spraying, demon-ruled gobbos gives me pause. I'd be interested to see if people have ideas for relatively innocuous magics that would be appropriate for fledgling dwarf wizards. It would be cool to have support mages who inflict syndromes on invaders.
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Quote from: Ysyua
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They said the walls were impregnable. You didn't have to prove me wrong by giving birth on them.

Spiderking50

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2015, 10:11:00 pm »

heres another interesting technique/bit of knowledge:

In the last version I made a magic mod with different kinds of mages. I made all their secrets learnable via the supernatural slab method, just as necromancers were. But I also made a rare caste which knew the secrets at birth. Occasionally one would write down the secret. I bet now that people read and write more, this quirk may actually have an effect.

I'll do some science on this. It should work wonders because of the mundane recording and researching tokens actually being meaningful now.
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Bearskie

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #3 on: December 10, 2015, 10:34:53 pm »

Thanks for tldr-ing the new knowledge system. :) Can definitely think of some things to do with this...

Untrustedlife

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #4 on: December 10, 2015, 10:39:57 pm »

What, I have made custom secrets and they worked fine and lots of mages were in the towers.

The best part about the new version though?
People will keep reading these books in libraries after worldgen :P
« Last Edit: December 10, 2015, 10:42:37 pm by Untrustedlife »
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GregHayes

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #5 on: December 10, 2015, 10:49:55 pm »

What, I have made custom secrets and they worked fine and lots of mages were in the towers.

The best part about the new version though?
People will keep reading these books in libraries after worldgen :P

Well, yeah, obviously if you're fine with having all the wizards run off to their private towers it'll work. The trick is getting them to mix in with the general population so they can actually affect things.

And yes, this means that these books will theoretically be available to your fortress in gameplay.
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Untrustedlife

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #6 on: December 10, 2015, 11:24:50 pm »

I dont mean your fort, there are NPC libraries, I am porting my lovecraft/skyrim/overlord mix mod to the new version and thanks to your science, I have been able to make the cults more...cultish.


Also, when a person gets turned into a  cultist because of the update that made it so peopel who defile temples dont get revealed, my cultists dont get revealed either... hopefully anyway.
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I am an indie game dev!
My Roguelike! With randomly generated creatures Roguelegends: Dark Realms
My Turn Based Strategy game! Which you can buy on steam now!DR4X
My website untrustedlife.com

Eric Blank

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #7 on: December 11, 2015, 03:52:20 am »

This is good news for me. I don't have to rely on wizards spreading "knowledge" by spraying people near them with their magical mists anymore. :P

Also going to be fun messing with the new syndrome concentration tokens. I'm wondering if more abilities can be unlocked as concentration increases.
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Spiderking50

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2015, 11:38:49 am »

So how do you set the new secrets to be related to the scholarship tags? Thats where I'm a little confused. Or do you not at all and just sometimes a magic book will wind up in a mundane library?
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Isngrim

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2015, 01:58:43 pm »

So how do you set the new secrets to be related to the scholarship tags? Thats where I'm a little confused. Or do you not at all and just sometimes a magic book will wind up in a mundane library?
You don't tie it to the scholarship tags (yet anyways),the Secret is learned the same way as Necromancy (from a god or by searching for the secrets of life and death),but since the mage isn't going off to build a tower the secret will get stored in a library (not sure if it will always be stored in libraries)
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Spiderking50

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #10 on: December 11, 2015, 02:05:18 pm »

But no one is writing these secrets and spreading them? Multiple people just read the slab?
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Isngrim

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #11 on: December 11, 2015, 02:19:19 pm »

i really dont know if they need to be in a tower to write a book that teaches it,havent had a chance to play 42.xx
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08:43 PM The wild animals and insects sang a merry tune and the trees performed a dance. I know you're trying to cheer me up, Vishnu, but that was actually a bit creepy.-Rhons

GregHayes

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #12 on: December 11, 2015, 03:34:44 pm »

My initial test didn't show any historical figure-written spellbooks for the secrests of fire, but it only showed two or three historical figure-written spellbooks for the secrets of life and death, so it's possible that 250 years just isn't long enough. I'm examining the results of a 1050-year worldgen now.
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hagr

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2015, 06:17:53 pm »

Where in the raws would I add new secrets? I found the example secrets folder, but I don't think that is correct.
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Dirst

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Re: Secrets and the 0.42 Knowledge System
« Reply #14 on: December 11, 2015, 07:33:07 pm »

I had non-animating secrets get learned and stored okay in 0.40, and they could even be written into books and taught to apprentices.  The catch was that book-writing and mundane teaching only occurred in towers, meaning you needed an immortality-goal person who got the bait-and-switch "immortality" secret then set off to find a necromancer.  Once a necromancer with his/her own tower, the books and teaching can begin.

0.42 came out when I don't have any time to play, but new secrets should transmit by slab or tower-mentoring just fine.  The question is whether writing a standard book in 0.42 counts as "mundane recording" of a Secret or not.  And whether any goal beyond immortality can be the used if we don't care about towers.
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Just got back, updating:
(0.42 & 0.43) The Earth Strikes Back! v2.15 - Pay attention...  It's a mine!  It's-a not yours!
(0.42 & 0.43) Appearance Tweaks v1.03 - Tease those hippies about their pointy ears.
(0.42 & 0.43) Accessibility Utility v1.04 - Console tools to navigate the map
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