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Author Topic: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.  (Read 18678 times)

SirHoneyBadger

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I'm currently working on a comprehensive mod that will attempt to reimagine the way Dwarf Fortress handles accumulation of resources, production and processing of materials, and finally, a complete rewrite of the entire economic framework, from the absolute bottom-to-top. And, frankly, it's a vast and exceedingly complex proposition, so any help (which will require actual time and work towards a common goal) would be highly appreciated.

The overarching goal here is to create a stable and sensible framework which captures every current item and aspect of the game that involves dwarfs gathering items, creating objects, trade, and money, so that when modders set out to change the game, they don't necessarily run in to the problem of wanting to rewrite what's already been done.

Smaller goals will involve:
Rewriting material/object Values, so that, for instance, easily gathered gold, platinum, rubies, etc. don't far exceed the value of other goods, without a significant amount of work and processing, while relatively common goods, such as alchohol, timber, clay, etc. have a "place to go" in the economic framework. So that a dilligent player can make a choice between creating many different, but basic, goods, or can seek to specialize, with many steps of rarification, until something as seemingly simple as cloth, taken to it's highest artistic potential, will begin to outweigh in value, the shiny rocks one can pluck from a cliffside in one's first Fortress year.

Creating a very large amount of variety in goods-creation, and many "technological paths", increasing player choice, and replayability. No more of maxing out of everything in the second Fortress year!

Doing what can be done towards making every Fortress an individual, and seeking to give a wide base of players as many options as possible to make their Fortress a place they/we want to return to, again and again, while still wanting to go back and make more Fortresses, "as the mood strikes", by again allowing many more choices.

Making choices matter--with a sharp eye towards A: giving players many more long-term goals, and B: a hope that our work will actually remove the ability to accomplish everything that can possibly be done in the game, in a reasonable time, with a single Fortress.

This will be a war against the game ever becoming boring, to a willing, avid player.

Finally, seeking to create a stronger and more complex framework for weapons and armour, and their production, by adding many steps, and many choices, so that it still becomes relatively easy to create a small but functional, and reasonably (if archaically) equipped, defensive army, but becomes very challenging to transform that small force into a large one, and/or give them the very best possible equipment, while at the same time cementing dwarf arms and armour as, potentially, the absolute best that can be had, with a side effect of giving other civilizations more room for individuality, specialization, and worthiness in their own right.

I've already got some of the work done, myself, and I'm very confident about how things should be organized, and what needs attention, but I'm also a slow worker, and there's just so much to be done. Since I figure this has some potential to help a significant amount of players, and modders, I thought it would be reasonable to ask for help, and see if anyone has the time and drive, and can find it in themselves to share the same goals.

Feel free to reply here, or PM me, if you're interested, have some modding experience (particularly materials and reactions), and really have the time and energy for this project. As of now, I warn, much of the work needed will be "busywork", but work that does require some thoughtfulness and atleast a modicum of skill.

Thank you!
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Meph

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2012, 07:28:10 pm »

Posting to say that it sounds awesome, slightly unrealistic, and that I am in. Any work to be distributed ?
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IamanElfCollaborator

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2012, 08:03:15 pm »

Depends. I'll be making any required workshops,which,from the looks of things, is probably going to go in. Let's see, a marketplace, various shops...

Hugo_The_Dwarf

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2012, 09:22:31 pm »

Hmm... Regen is aimming for a simlar goal, Altho I've been pulled into creatures/civs/weapons side of the goal list.

I would like to offer what help I can. When I can.
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Meph

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2012, 09:26:21 pm »

A thought about making it impossible to create everything in one playthrough: Biomes.

Make certain key elements aviable only to specific biomes. A glacier would lack, what a jungle could provide.
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Hugo_The_Dwarf

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2012, 10:02:19 pm »

A thought about making it impossible to create everything in one playthrough: Biomes.

Make certain key elements aviable only to specific biomes. A glacier would lack, what a jungle could provide.
That would be a brillient start, that would make trading with other civs more of a requirement.
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Meph

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2012, 10:11:24 pm »

And make certain key elements only aviable through a reaction that another civ has. That would have a similar effect, but is controlled more easily.
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Vattic

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2012, 11:01:13 pm »

I'll be following this with interest.

And make certain key elements only aviable through a reaction that another civ has. That would have a similar effect, but is controlled more easily.
There at least seems to be a limit on what you can give a civ through reactions. I couldn't get traders to bring the bread, butter, sausages, or mince meat in my personal mod despite having them right reagents and reactions.  Metals are the only thing I know works for certain but I've not tried anything else besides food.
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Stronghammer

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2012, 11:01:35 pm »

posting to watch and see what happens, though, I suppose I may help, with what little knowledge I have. At the very least I can help with ideas and testing.

edit: also will you be going with the relative value system the dark ages had, or renaissance, or modern? The only reason I ask, is that the relative valuation of things has drastically changed between now and then. This would then result in varying end value systems and beliefs.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2012, 11:07:17 pm by Stronghammer »
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Abregado

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2012, 11:06:26 pm »

And make certain key elements only aviable through a reaction that another civ has. That would have a similar effect, but is controlled more easily.

This.

Also. Every raw material should have at least 2 important products made from it. That way the player must decide what to use each and every resource on rather than Wood = Beds/Barrels every time

dbay

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2012, 01:18:28 am »

If you're going to be making the fortress more reliant on trade, can I recommend adding more active seasons to the other sentient species' entity raws? I recently modded the game to add:
      [ACTIVE_SEASON:SUMMER]
      [ACTIVE_SEASON:WINTER]
      [ACTIVE_SEASON:AUTUMN]
      [ACTIVE_SEASON:SPRING]
to the elves, dwarves, and humans. It made each of the civs send a caravan every season (until the elves declared war on me, then they besieged me nonstop). Until then, it was really nice having a constant flow of traders in and out, if annoying to constantly have to deal with trade liasons. If you want, you could tone things down to two or three active seasons per entity.
One other idea: you could add an optional step to many of the crafts by being able to combine two of something into one better or more valuable version, such as two bags of dimple dye into one bag of 'refined dimple dye,' which is worth more money. That would add time, maybe a workshop, and cut down on the number of crafts being made and thus speed up gameplay. Another thing you could do is drop the frequency drops of the various ores so that not every tile of native gold produces a gold bar, thus increasing scarcity but interestingly, not rarity (depending on how you look at it). Let me know if I can help at all. I've gotten pretty decent at modding entities and materials, but get easily confused modding reactions.

Putnam

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2012, 01:39:14 am »

Sounds great. I'm always open if you need help.

(It's the main reason I tag topics anyway :P)

Veylon

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2012, 03:26:18 am »

Farming ought to require more labor. Right now, a tiny patch can feed a whole fort. There ought to be some labor-intensive preparing that turns mass raw food stuffs into edible meals.

Maybe a dozen plump helmets need to purified and processed to make mushroom paste. Maybe ten sheaves of wheat need to be ground down down to make a loaf of bread. These kinds of reactions would require both that larger areas are set aside for framing and that it can't all be done by one to three dwarves.
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Hugo_The_Dwarf

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #13 on: January 23, 2012, 07:02:29 am »

Farming ought to require more labor. Right now, a tiny patch can feed a whole fort. There ought to be some labor-intensive preparing that turns mass raw food stuffs into edible meals.

Maybe a dozen plump helmets need to purified and processed to make mushroom paste. Maybe ten sheaves of wheat need to be ground down down to make a loaf of bread. These kinds of reactions would require both that larger areas are set aside for framing and that it can't all be done by one to three dwarves.
Make all plants require to be cooked? no more eating raw? That adds a level of "Oh Crap I cooked all my plump helments and there are no more seeds"
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kerlc

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Re: A total reworking of the current Fortress economy, from the ground up.
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2012, 08:55:23 am »

posting to watch. this should be interesting...*brings popcorn*
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