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Author Topic: Embark sites  (Read 1661 times)

h45hc0d3

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Embark sites
« on: October 31, 2011, 07:36:18 pm »

I've been bingeing on worldgen a little in the new version, and I finally found a site I really like: It's got a magma pipe, ocean, fire clay, sand, hematite, copper. I think sitefinder said it even had flux - I've yet to find that. I'm playing in a 6x6 embark, and I've got about 200 z-levels to play with eventually.

I do have a question, though: if there's no goblin civs listed, does that mean I'll never get a siege? I miss goblin Christmas. It's been five years, I'm near a hundred dwarves, I haven't seen a single goblin or kobold. Not even the rhinocereses, or elephants, or tigers, or jaguars have been any trouble. My woodcutters are a bit scared of cavy sows, though.

I actually have a relatively complicated plan in mind for this fort; I'm trying to see how hard it is to cage-trap mermaids in the new version. So far I'm up to G: set up sustainable glass operations to make corkscrews and glass blocks for screw pumps. H-M or so involve building a giant lattice to drop magma ... well ... everywhere. Stoneware bricks for the scaffolding, holding tank, and sluices, glass and nickel (I have massive amounts of nickel) for the machines, and... yeah. It just doesn't seem hard enough without people trying to come and kill me.

I have lost two dwarves, when I was breaching the magma pipe for the initial flows. They're buried within the center of my ever-growing lava works. Eventually, their coffins will be the only two things in a small room sticking out into a massive magma flow (even though magma doesn't have flow).

U-X in the plan involve building an underwater observation dome out of glass, for adventure mode.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Embark sites
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2011, 07:49:29 pm »

If the civ screen ON EMBARK doesn't mention goblins, you'll never get any. If the civ screen DURING PLAY doesn't mention them, you haven't gotten any yet.

Also, without signifigant modding, mermaid farming is now nigh-impossible and useless, as dwarves won't butcher sentient skeletons and anyways mermaids' bones are only as valuable as cat bones now. Sorry.
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h45hc0d3

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Re: Embark sites
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2011, 08:59:29 pm »

Just because I'm no longer making insanely-valuable bolts out of their bones and encrusting them with gems, doesn't mean that I'm not going to capture them for my menagerie and/or my experiments.

It is a little unfortunate that their bones aren't worth as much now, because I felt a bit like the dwarves were reliving the rich history of scrimshaw - but that is outside Toady's 1400 cutoff.

If I were to mod valuable sea-creature bones back into the game, I'd add whales. Massive tissue layers - they ought to be multi-tile creatures, like wagons. As a bonus, that might end up with them bugging out and beaching themselves occasionally! Life imitates art.
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AWellTrainedFerret

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Re: Embark sites
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2011, 06:34:59 pm »

This doesn't me you can't remove the non-butcher-able tags in the raws. I personally enjoy butchering goblins and setting up 1x1 stockpiles in a grid outside my entrance set to only accept goblin skull totems. I do, of coarse, burn their meat in my Alter to Armok. No dwarf would ever sink low enough to eat goblin flesh.
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Wayward Device

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Re: Embark sites
« Reply #4 on: November 02, 2011, 09:32:07 am »

Quote
I'd add whales.

Already in the game. They can provide years worth if meat of caught and butchered.
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h45hc0d3

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Re: Embark sites
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2011, 01:01:56 am »

Quote
I'd add whales.

Already in the game. They can provide years worth if meat of caught and butchered.

I mean, really add whales - as valuable creatures. First off, despite the time investment and difficulties inherent to setting up a "whale farm," their material multiplier is a measly 1. Giraffes would be easier and more profitable to grow en masse, with their material multiplier of five. They're easier to cage, tameable, pastureable, and butcherable.

Next, I have no idea if DF works like real life in this respect yet, but whales have traditionally been more valuable than giraffes, and take longer to mature. I should spend some time to try to figure out where the raws specify maturation times for animals... The point being, you could conceivably get more meat and bones over time from a giraffe farm if you selectively killed all full grown males and kept females for years to breed prior to butchering.

Thirdly, there should be more than one kind of whale, and there's two easy ways to differentiate them in the raws as it stands without needing toady to make the changes. Change their sizes to reflect the relative size of the whale; change the thickness of their various tissue layers to reflect those of the whale. "Right" whales were called right whales because they were the "Right" kind of whales to hunt, as they generally floated even when dead - due to their higher fat content. Sperm whales are well-muscled and can dive deeper than other whales - perhaps modeled as better lung capacity; they also have rather large teeth, and ambergris could eventually be modded in somehow... I hear some people eat the stuff.

So yeah: when I said "add valuable sea creatures back into the game," I meant every part of that: I'd add whaleS, not whale; I'd make them valuable; and they'd be available in any biome, rather than having to rely on sea serpents or sea monsters for sea-farming needs, which I think are only found in evil and savage oceans.
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rex mortis

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Re: Embark sites
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2011, 11:16:00 am »

Of course my dwarves will not waste the meat after killing goblins or elves or mermaids. They are awesome (and modded) like that.

As long as the only way to make profit off mermaids is butchering them, we will keep butchering them. Perhaps on a smaller scale, but we will. Maybe if we could "employ" them in diving for pearls or fishing there would be an excuse to let them live.

I would love some proper whales, but whaling would benefit from ships. And a whale smashing my ship's hull should be Fun.
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