The idea here is to take a vanilla copy of Dwarf Fortress, wipe the raws and templates down to nothing, and then build it back up by hand into an entirely player made universe. A player made universe of new creatures and mechanics, and untold possibilities. As players you've wrought your madness on the world in fortresses, but now you can bring it onto the fabric of reality itself.
A modding (or more like world-building) succession with stories of an emerging reality in between.
Once enough people are interested we can decide to begin.
It would help if you're interested to declare whether you would like a turn as a modder, a player, or both.
How to play:- First of all, feel free to just enjoy the mod without having anything to do with this thread. If you like to contribute:
- You may sign up for a modding turn, share a player story, or just contribute from the sidelines. Modding turns consist of developing the world, adding any creatures, materials, entities and so on that you see fit.
- Modding turns take one week (plus 1 week of bugfixing duty for modding turn). Player stories can be as long or as short as you like.
- Feel free to start a player report anytime after the mod is uploaded, and please give feedback. Your contribution is as important as the modding turns. If it's a detailed report with some play time, I will add it to this first post. If there are several I'll edit the table to contain them all. Reports from older versions are welcome too and may help us improve the new version still.
- Mod turns go in order. First, you have 1 week to make your additions. Then, upload your work. Your bugfixing turn starts immediately. At the same time, the next modder may start adding on his work. Please only sign up for a full modding turn if you are relatively competent at this and can contribute more than just a little content in one week.
Turns:| # | Modders: |
| 1 | Urdothor - Urdothor, Modder has created Bistök-udos Geshud Kes, a community mod. It menaces with spikes of code. |
| 2 | Bearskie - Turn over |
| 3 | Eritzap - Eritzap has been missing for several days now |
| 4 | Cerapter - Cerapter cancels Mod Game: interrupted by combat |
| ~ | Short term Moderator Turn |
| 5 | Baffler - Turn Over |
| 6 | Urdothor(redux) - Current Turn |
| 7 | Trainzack |
| 8 | chaotic skies |
| 9 | Dorsidwarf |
| 10 | hawkwing |
| 11 | Lord_lemonpie |
| 12 | Dwarf4Explosives |
| 13 | DolosusDoleus |
| 14 | Untrustedlife |
| 15 | Cerapter (redux) |
| 16 | Bearskie (redux) |
| 17 | Baffler (redux) |
People who I am uncertain whether they wish to mod or not are italicized for the moment.
We'll do player turns based on a first come, first serve basis. Whoever wants a turn just download the most recent copy and start reporting. We'll leave a player pool here to keep track of interested parties.
Installation:
1. Create a fresh second copy of Dwarf Fortress (This is so you don't lose other mods you have installed if you also want to play DFFS3)
2. Delete the raw file from the copy
3. Drag the raw file and data file over to the copy and allow it to overwrite
4. Enjoy
DFFS is also compatible with vanilla and most mods. If you wish to play it with vanilla complete only step 3.
Overall:
- First, gen a world according to newest version raws. Since this is developing at a fast pace, please, for your own sake first fire up arena mode and see errorlog.txt. If there are any errors other than one reporting a missing RCP_GLOSS_PAW (necessary to eliminate random creatures), report them and don't start yet, unless you know how to fix them yourself.
- Play the game like you would a succession and share the story. If all goes well, you're in for a treat. <3 thanks
- If there's need for a bugfix or a balance fix, report it. It's the previous modder's duty to fix it.
- At the end of your playing turn, make any suggestions for bugfixing or balance you may have.
Please pay attention to the following:
- The game must still run smoothly and without lag
- There must be no unavoidable crashes (worldgen crashing a few times is fine, a reaction crashing the game every time is not)
- It must not generate an error log at worldgen, embark or arena mode start, other than the above mentioned. Pathing and similar minor mechanical errors during game are okay, but should still be fixed if possible. Likewise with IMPOVERISHED_WORD_SELECTOR that sometimes shows up, it doesn't affect gameplay and will be fixed naturally as the language develops.
- it must still be somewhat newb-friendly as in a well managed fortress of: any race the player chooses when not a modder, or when the modder does, a relatively human-like race, can survive for two years. If you're picking a new race, you may need a guide!
- If a player reports a violation of one of the above rules, the modder must provide a bugfix/balancing update (asking for help is fine)
- If a bugfix is not provided in a reasonable amount of time, the mod turn will be voided.
Overall:
- To start, download previous turn's raws. Note that there might still be bugfixes incoming and you must include these with your new raws, so they don't get lost in the process - so download and add updates by previous modders to their work as they come (or at least before uploading the new package).
- Add anything you like, following the rules!
- When you're happy with the result or it's been a week, upload. Please playtest first. I know I didn't do this enough.
- Before uploading, update anything that needs to be updated (see above). Your upload must be a complete, working set of the newest raws (typically the raw/objects folder), not just your additions.
- Next comes a playing turn, to show that your addition works. You may choose to demonstrate it yourself. If there are no players who will take it, it would be great if you did a player report. Either way, it must be played, run according to the player turn rules and you must provide a fix for any bugs that appear during this time in a reasonable amount of time (asking for help is fine), or your turn will be voided. Your bugfixing duty ends after a week but it would be great if you provided fixes as needed anyway.
Rules:
- You are not allowed to copy and paste or include DF or other mods' raws directly (I had to a little to get it to not crash and burn, but that should be the end of it). Getting caught means your turn will be voided. Copying and pasting parts that you were going to rewrite exactly anyway is fine, doing this to an entire creature, object or set of them is not
- You are, however, explicitly allowed to link to previous content, such as use a previous player's templates or interactions. In fact this is probably wise when possible so the raw size doesn't balloon to insanity.
- You are allowed to copy values (tensile strength of iron) from anywhere but a new one would be preferable. On the other hand coming up with new values just for the sake of it is not very sane in the long run, so use judgment.
- You are
not allowed to edit previous content, unless a new crash is discovered or permission is given allowed to edit content according to the editing rules below. If you want to implement a mechanic that must be modded into all creatures (such as something like my contagious disease mod), ask first please. - To make the world eventually more varied, you are, in violation of the above, allowed to reduce the frequency of old creatures or materials or limit them to biomes when new creatures are added, but not remove them entirely - nor assign them to an impossible biome (badgers to the ocean). The new frequency must not be less than 10% of the old frequency, or 1, whichever is greater, and you must mark this edit with a comment to prevent repeating it.
- Suggestion: when defining materials, try to add a [STATE_COLOR:ALL:COLOR] where color is a color of your choice. This is so stonesense can figure out what color a sprite should be.
IMPORTANT:
- To force compatibility with both vanilla DF and other players' contributions, so that raws never clash, and novelty so that copypasting simply does not work, you must add _XYZ to the end of every object that you newly add/define, where XYZ is an at least 3 letter handle that you chose. The exception to this is language words. Not doing this will eventually destroy everything. Referring to other players raws of course does not need this, if XYZ came before me I could use BODY_XYZ in my creature, but if I make a new body... as above.
- Similarly name your files by turn, eg. "creature_domestic_urdothor", so we can keep track of things.
- Lastly, you must not take a week to add only one material. Sorry. I can't really tell you how much you should add, but if you're not comfortable making new objects, you should probably not take the turn. Consider player turn instead.
/* These rules were added as a response to bugfixing taking an inordinate amount of time and mental resources, to keep mod development going more effectively */
After your turn, your content may be edited for: rules violations, balance, language/spelling errors, and bugfixes.
1. This will be implemented by the current modder/bugfixer at their discretion, but may be suggested by anyone.
- Rules violations: such as incorrectly naming your creatures without _XXX
- Language/spelling errors, without concern for whether the misspelling/bad grammar was intentional if it wasn't stated to be
- Balance issues, highlighted by play experience
- Bugfixes and seemingly unintentional behavior, such as a material that wasn't supposed to explode exploding spontaneously
The edit may be applied immediately and removed later if you disagree with it.
2. The fix must respect and preserve the original intention of the addition when it is made clear. If it was meant to be an incredibly powerful megabeast,
it should be preserved as such, even if it's balanced. If specifically intended behavior seems to be the problem, this restriction is lifted, but this should preferably
not be done and the thing should not have been added in the first place.
3. The author may veto any fix, but a general consensus reached after discussion will override that veto.
Posting your unpublished raws in this thread is awesome. Anything receiving general approval will be added into the game between turns. However it would be swell if
- You posted the raws as text
- There's a short description of what it does
- and maybe a screenshot to show it works
Generally Agreed Upon Ideas:
~Standardized creature classes and reaction classes
~Theme: Magical plane, in which extra-dimensional being have invaded, and some inhabitants are taking up technology
~Some kind of passive/active magic system?
~Extradimensional magic being much more chaotic
~From Scratch templates
~New Color palette
Proposals:
Poll Results
The most recent poll asked What should we do for the language_words (We can use custom symbols)?
The results were:
2 votes Keep the vanilla ones
2 votes Use an expanded vocabulary
4 votes Start entirely from scratch
10 votes Cull the words that don't make sense from vanilla, then add words as we go
1 vote Other(post it in the comments)
Culling the words that don't make sense has been chosen
This palette, proposed by Bearskie, is being used for in conjunction with this mod. It presents us with a wider array of colours, and allows us to stand independent of vanilla a bit more.
Baffler's turn has passed. Now it's Urdothors
Here's a wiki that chaotic skies made for us
Poll
Author
Topic: DF from Scratch Redux - An entirely player made universe succession (Read 61564 times)