Quote from: Schmaven

It may be too soon to tell, but what are the chances you think existing saves from 44.12 will work with the new villains release?



Quote from: therahedwig

Given that the villains can now start wars, and that civs can now have a claim on artifacts, are you considering getting rid of the siege triggers? Or do you guys still have a bunch of other... fun you want to implement to make sieges a naturally occurring thing? Similarly, will villain-caused wars listen to the invasion toggle in the configuration, or will it be like the raid-response sieges? I'd ask the same thing for the megabeasts, but I already know they live very boring lives outside of initial worldgen.



I've been reading/watching people's DF let's plays lately, and I am noticing a lot of them aren't interacting with the civ screen much despite it being one of the most important screens when it comes to DF throwing dangers at you. And I am wondering if that's not because most of the dangers just kinda come at you out of nowhere. As for the init setting, was mostly wondering because then we can reliably test how good villains are at generating fort mode Fun without the game having to fudge it a bit.



Actually continuing on that thought a bit:





* Are there plans to flesh out refugees a little in the last bits of the pre-magic arc? They seem to be a very underdeveloped symptom of bleak stuff happening in the world, and there's a whole lot of new bleak stuff for them to run away from. Like, is there anything fundamental stopping them from showing up at your tavern like performance and quester troupes do?

* Will we see escapees show up at our forts?

* Do you think worldgen actors will be smart enough to chase after refugees and escapees?



Quote

Quote from: Criperum Will interface changes (especially mouse support and better control windows) be available on classic version or they are steam/itchio exclusive like tileset and sound effects?

Quote from: Shonai_Dweller Is the tutorial you've been thinking of (PC Gamer) likely to be an addition for the paid version of DF like the tileset and music, or is this something for the game in general? (I know the tutorial-by-acheivement idea would have to be Steam only, just meaning the regular 'how to build stuff, restore your woodcutter's arms' parts).



Quote from: Magistrum

We can now request people from our holdings and all, so:

Will we see anytime soon the mountainhome request military aid in the form of soldiers or attack orders?

I could see conscription being pretty easy to implement as it can simply be the liaison telling you to "expel" this or that dwarf or some number of able bodied dwarves back to wherever, but that would probably be too annoying if you couldn't refuse.



Quote from: Criperum

Last time i asked about army bugs but was too uncertain. The exact one I'm concerned about is frequent inability of soldiers to find their armor, weapon and equipment even if they were specifically designated to wear specific part of it. Will this be fixed in some near future?



Quote from: falcc

1.What are the middle-term plans for parrying and shielding?

2.Is it possible to modify together an item that works both as a shield and as something equivalent to a crutch?

3. For adventurer medical improvements, how much will be hardcoded?



Specifically I'm thinking about the fact that some of these rock bracelets ought to be very heavy. And in theory a stone splint, something meant to keep you immobile or minimize movement when you heal, would be pretty cool as a variation on splints. But learning to move with something like that puts me in the mind of crutch-walking taking a lot of time to master. But since I'm not suggesting any of it, I'm curious how moddable something like that could be before the big wait. Either with planned additions or what's in the raws now.



4. Once adventurer medical improvements are in, can you get a reputation for treating people's injuries? Any possibility of being treated like a physician (since the skill exists in a scholarly way already) that is welcome in enemy lands because you're so well known for treating anyone you come across? How about treating someone unconscious from a kill on sight faction in order to build personal/entity trust?



5. Can you get hired to take care of these people being tortured in towers, giving you the chance to free them?



6. Will this mean caring for your pets injuries as well?



7. Could you treat the dead's wounds indefinitely to improve your skills provided you were the necromancer that summoned them? Just getting that out of the way now.



Quote from: PlumpHelmetMan

What exactly was your inspiration for making goblins immortal? I've had trouble finding a precedent for it in fantasy games and literature, indeed they're often shown to have lifespans shorter than that of the average humanoid (vanilla D&D goblins seldom live more than 60 years, for instance). Or is it something just entirely original that you came up with on your own?



Quote from: iceball3

Concerning the fact that modding not only can change the nature of races, but often replace or displace them, are there any concerns that the mythgen update and other planned procedural generation may be too dependent on quadruple supremacy of the goblins, elves, humans, and dwarves to produce sensible results in worlds with different ethical and cultural landscapes?



Will mythgen happen strictly before or after terrain generation?

For example, mythgen happening before worldgen would in theory allow different terrestrial worlds to share a common mythological backdrop via a seed, and the significance of regional disturbances, theological significance, etc would be retroactive.

Whereas mythgen happening after worldgen would mean the terrain that makes up the world could affect creation and/or creation myths, and may even have limited development of their permanent legacy as worldgen time ticks on, and potentially define significant theological figures based on the sculpting of the world itself, in theory.

And finally:

Will we be able to disable any "randomly generated objects" as they are implemented, from mythgen to magic, and make specific raw definitions that worlds would treat as any other generated definition? Similar to how current werewolf, vampire, regional disturbance, and boogeymen can currently be disabled and modded in.

Being able to custom build the world from the ground up sounds like it would work wonders for modding, but I imagine as things get more complex, decoupling things like actual magic from a world's theology becomes too much of a nuisance to allow rewriting from scratch in the raws.



Quote from: Real_bang

1. Should we expect necromancer alliances to take over the world with even bigger zombie army?

2. Should we expect the whole world (or at least most of the world civilizations) uniting before the great danger of the demon king or zombie army?



Quote

Quote from: Death Dragon Will this necromancer villain code most likely be applicable to any body-using, randomly generated magic of the magic update, or is it gonna require some rewrites later?

Quote from: voliol An expansion to this question, and then another one:

1. Do the supernatural villains act according to the interaction tokens given in the raws (so modded interactees are properly supported), or is it currently mostly the vanilla villain types that have hard-coded support?

2. To which degree do the villains consider their own physical properties when making up plans? A giant-beast necromancer wouldn't have any problems with producing corpses for themselves to use in raising, I imagine. Also related are meek dwarves considering physical threats to get their way.



Quote from: therahedwig

Do you guys have plans for player forts to participate in alliances before the big wait?



It's starting to sound like having the diplomat/liason go mad because they can't path out of the fortress might actually be detrimental on the long term next release...



Oh, and what kind of factors are involved with investigating histfigs regarding what kind of investigation technique they use? Are these the same as villain's corruption techniques? Like, for example, can a investigating histfig suspect someone might have been bribed without interrogating them? Or is a goblin investigator more likely to use torture? Do goblins at all care about investigating?



Quote from: Shonai_Dweller

As an adventurer we can follow the villain clues, interrogate the sub-agents and finally take out the big baddie ourselves (I assume), but can we also contribute towards our civ's overall counter-intelligence operations? Like, hunt the clues, find out who's behind the plotting, and then tell the king/spymaster about it and have his armies take out the top plotter hq instead of doing it ourselves?



Quote from: Beag

Since the player adventurer can be a villain themselves with agents will they be able to make alliances with other villains? If so what would the benefits and costs of such alliances be?



Quote from: Schmaven

When might we hope to see siege engines targeting accross multiple z-levels?



Quote from: clinodev

When you work on the greatly anticipated stress, needs, and happiness changes, will you focus more on fixing the little bugs that made your original plan not work, or more on modifying the algorithm to run stress towards "okay" rather than either ecstatic or misery until well-run, safe fortresses stop breaking around the 5-6 year mark (without extreme micromanagement?) Likely some of each, but have you decided a focus?



Note I'm not asking if it'll be fixed, as that's been well-covered, but it would be neat to see the original plan implemented! There was a moment around August when I was actually somewhat excited the needs bugs might encourage the fixing of long-standing but trivial bugs, like allowing dwarves to: enjoy well-made meals, rather than only (secretly) craving Zebra hearts or polar bear brains; seek out their specifically needed temple; seek out friendships and relationships; grab desired high-value clothes and trinkets from stockpiles, etc.



Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960076#msg7960076 PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960179#msg7960179 Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960183#msg7960183 Yeah, they work now, and there's nothing so large coming that that should change. You can never 100% rule it out, but it seems likely everything will work at some baseline level. However, yeah, there won't be any plots in place for history, no mercenary companies or any of that, and all of the new relationship variables will be at default levels, so, as usual, it might be good to wrap up the stuff you are working on eventually and then cook up a new world for the full experience, depending on the project.Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960950#msg7960950 Telgin: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960952#msg7960952 EternalCaveDragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960954#msg7960954 PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960975#msg7960975 therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960996#msg7960996 Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961099#msg7961099 Yeah, overall, we're slowly entering a world where most siege triggers are unnecessary, both as a form of protection and as a form of forcing invasions. The 'c' screen change was a first step, and we should see additional changes as we go through the pre-Big-Wait army changes (even if nothing happens this time.) Ideally, we can almost entirely get rid of them then, but there's still the missing notion of your fort being an economic target, which we don't have any systems for yet. Once you can, say, send out caravans or something, we can get rid of that one too.We had some notes on refugees but haven't gotten to it yet. Not sure about the future. The main issue is that there are too many of them, oftentimes, so they should instead probably join a village outside your fort and then send a representative to talk to you, something like that.Escapees have to go somewhere. But I have no idea if I'll get to any special announcements about it, or if they'll just resume their lives.They aren't smart enough to chase them now, though they can continue to plot against them, which can feel vaguely the same in w.g. sometimes. After w.g., it probably won't feel nearly so timely.PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960341#msg7960341 MrWiggles: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963029#msg7963029 PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963050#msg7963050 Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963084#msg7963084 Yeah, the Classic version should get the mouse stuff and all of the accessibility changes. It's just easier to do it that way, I think, rather than trying to maintain two totally different interface schemes, though we're also going to try to keep the full text console-style version.PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960485#msg7960485 Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960491#msg7960491 PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960553#msg7960553 The alliance dev log came after these questions, but it's probably the biggest angle now. I'm not sure exactly what form alliances vs. fort mode will take this time through, but now that we're actually going to engage in that sort of positive and active politics, I think the chances have increased significantly. And it might even matter in some substantive way in e.g. the fight against the goblins or the dead. There's a kind of betterment to the player's overall military-political understanding of the world implicit in organized villains and alliances and army battles that, if we're lucky, will achieve a kind of happy balanced picture before we go off to do magic. It's also quite possible it'll still be mega-lumpy, like everything else in the game.Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960570#msg7960570 therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960601#msg7960601 PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960613#msg7960613 clinodev: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960844#msg7960844 Death Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960950#msg7960950 PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7960975#msg7960975 The linked bug 535 (in therahedwig's post) has become a container for all equipment bugs, so it might not ever be closed. All the same, we're going to be working a lot with equipment information before the Steam release, as part of the accessibility improvements, and I imagine some bugs will end up squashed once we have better reports on which items have been selected and should be in their hands (or why not, if they are having trouble getting an assignment, due to layering or civ/mil conflicts or whatever.)The raid issue mentioned in the linked posts, as I recollect, was something I tried for some time to fix in the past, and had to add a hacky patch to stop some of the crashing (and apparently not all of it.) I'm not sure if the situation has changed, but, while the end symptoms reproduced, I haven't seen a way yet to reproduce the root cause from start to finish, so it's just been impossible to fix. Kind of like the nemesis load error, this might be one that just gets patched over in more and more ways, and we just never figure out what's up.therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961676#msg7961676 PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961730#msg7961730 1. Nothing I can recall, aside from parrying natural attacks. I'm sure it'll enter into whatever we do with combat styles, but we're far from having specific plans.2. I'm not sure what the modders have done, but generally, the items are pretty separate from each other, which is a failure of the original design. What's likely to happen is the tool items getting more and more features until they are essentially doing an entity component system instead of using hierarchical types, and then we'll be fine, and most of the other item types can be dropped (once various interface etc issues are figured out.) But that's a large project, at least to get it all the way finished. It does have the benefit of being able to piecemeal for a while, but some of the interface decisions probably need a cleaner break, and we won't be there for a while.3. I don't know that we'd suddenly have bracelets emerge with a use like that; it doesn't seem likely. Just getting up to some of what can happen in dwarf mode would be useful, and that just means items that work more or less how they work now.4. I'm not sure if this is worth it just because it'd be so uncommon to be in a position where you can help a random third party, without the ability to accompany them on some dangerous task or something, without a lot of sitting around and waiting and then popping into scenes that aren't currently coded.5. A kidnapping is one of the villainous plots to be investigated, and freeing captives seems natural enough, but we haven't nailed down how the investigations start yet. If you mean in the medical context, then there's currently no notion of hiring for that sort of thing, and it wasn't part of the plan, similar to the answer for #4, since there's not a lot of third-party injuries generally.6. If you mean adv mode medical, rather than the upcoming pet release, it seems possible, in the same way you'd care for your companions, though fort mode is very underdeveloped along these lines, so I'm not sure.7. In the way people throw stones constantly to become legendary throwers? I suppose to some extent it would let you suture them up and so forth, but you might have to rebreak them afterward? Or tear the sutures out? But yeah, as long as you can find a pathway that works, I don't see why it wouldn't work, somewhat. Medical students work with unanimated cadavers profitably, though perhaps the game should be taught that working with the undead isn't exactly live practice either.Random_Dragon: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961944#msg7961944 iceball3: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7961949#msg7961949 Miuramir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963297#msg7963297 Been a while, so I don't recall exactly, though as Miuramir recounts, it's Tolkieny, like a lot of DF, and was perhaps just the default decision for that reason. Afterward, in some of the TT stories, they became more underworld inflected and demon-like, and it fit our general concept that they should die only violent deaths. However, like all of our stuff, we don't actually want to have a canon -- the myth generator is intended to allow for actual different possibilities, and the idea of DF as a 'fantasy world simulator' should allow for the setting to be defined freely, without any pins tacking it here or there, or at least as few as possible (clearly, having a dwarf-style colony is still a strong requirement, though we'd like to lessen that as we can over the long haul.) I mean, I can't tell somebody named PlumpHelmetMan not to be attached to the current canon, he he he, and there will likely always be a default set of raw-type files for people to play with, but I expect mortal goblins and various other possibilities will be generated once we get there. Goblins that starve to death, elves that aren't *that* hungry, etc. The generator will need to know which parts of the default raws are crucial, and which ones are mutable, and that'll likely depend on a txt similar to the current world gen parameters, probably, though there are enough concerns laying on the architecture now that I don't want to commit to anything without looking over all the notes and being careful about it, when the time comes.therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7962006#msg7962006 Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7962021#msg7962021 As stated in the response to the previous question, I certainly don't plan for it to always be dependent on the four main races being represented in as equal numbers as possible.There's no set idea now about exactly how the terrain is going to be defined -- there are abstract stand-in objects that get more detail as it goes, and it seems quite possible for the exact terrain details to pop in either earlier or later in the process, even in stages. I gave a talk at some point (the progmech one maybe?) where I had the granularity of time and space increasing as you go, and the order in which those steps happen doesn't have to be fully determined. It's of course more work to allow for more possibilities, and I'm not sure at this point which option(s) will make sense to try first. And in a sense, due to the ongoing nature of magic etc., myth gen doesn't ever really end, even when the historical years and civs are running, since there can still be interventions or other major mythological events. In the models with cycles or an apocalypse, these events can be just as large as the original myth events, though one does have to be careful about memory/wasting people's time at some point.And yeah, as the responses indicate, you'll be able to shut all the random stuff off and build the world up from scratch if you want. There will have to be a raw format for all of the magic-myth links, but our generators have always generated into a txt format (even if the generators themselves aren't text), so this should be doable.1. We have to explore the psychology of the necromancers a small bit, why they behave so strangely after learning the secrets, and that'll likely determine if/how they interface with the alliance code at all. They seem friendly enough in their apprentice structures currently, but I'm not sure that'll last, or if it extends to like-minded strangers.2. Yeah, that's the idea, even if some of the sides are looking to bail and backstab right when the tide turns.I'm not exactly aiming for future proofing on this particular part of the update - the myth/magic stuff is going to be too disruptive. Just going to have a little fun.1. I haven't been following closely how it currently works, but that'll likely continue. As with the future myth/magic tie-ins, broad support is not the priority here, since most of this is going to be trashed in some form or another later. The myth/magic release is going to be closely interlocked with modding, and we should start to see much more appropriate ai/etc. support at that time (though at some point of course it's impossible for an analyzer to detect how to use an effect and it'll require hints, in what'll possibly be a much-expanded version of the current system, or something else.)2. There isn't much of this at all. Plan-making is rarely able to be that free-form, and I have to spend most of my time on the common cases.Before the big wait? Seems quite likely, yeah. Maybe even for this time, though the word 'participate' might be doing some heavy-lifting.The investigators are pretty half-baked compared to all the time I spent on villains; the interrogations use skills, but they don't attempt to say, bribe or blackmail the suspect, even if they have the power to do it. They can have evidence without interrogation, from witness reports (for instance), but they don't pick up little hints (that would just be made up in world gen anyway, as it is for catching embezzlers, since we don't have granular detail most places.) The goblin justice apparatus is currently too kind on certain issues, but executes for treason. Overall, counter-intelligence needs more work, and might get some as I get into adv and fort mode investigations and start to feel certain absences, but I felt like it was time to move on for now.I'm really not sure yet, but after doing the counter-intelligence stuff, it's starting to look like this might be almost a kind of default quest setup, yeah. The spies/sheriffs/etc. always end up wanting to speak to people beyond their reach - the arms of the law are not very long right now, without some enterprising person willing to go off into other territory, especially because we didn't get to active counter-intelligence plots by the civs. The idea of a final climactic army strike against villains doesn't happen in w.g. right now - it might be one of those things that turns out being so necessary it just goes in (we'll even have a shot presently with the alliance stuff, depending on how the nature of the evil is interpreted by the civs.) Generally, there's this feeling currently that the clean investigative process we were imagining when we started is often going to be more dirty with half-explored graphs etc, as there's so much out there, and this'll possibly integrate well with the civ-led processes. We'll try to identify the most promising game tracks as we go. It's pretty funny how foggy the iterative process ends up being sometimes, even after trying to hash out details for a long time in advance.Shonai_Dweller: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7962863#msg7962863 The current alliance plan operates at the entity level, so there's a sort of gray area there as it concerns the player, since the player can create an entity, but many villains are not inclined to do so. I'm also not sure on this first pass how far the alliance concept will go - it'll be a general state, like most other things, but the triggers for it will begin against these large threats as described. Whether or not we get it working at smaller scales will depend on how easily it feels like it can go or matter that way mechnically right now - if alliances only relate to raising civ-style armies, they mostly won't apply to criminal organizations.therahedwig: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg7963044#msg7963044 On the targeting question specifically, I just haven't addressed it (as I recollect, siege engines predate the Z coordinate and then I just never worked on them again), and (as linked by therahedwig) there have been such grandiose plans for future engines that nothing has happened. That's where we're at still.That might even be mostly the same thing, depending on how much the long-term stress problems depend on broken needs vs. e.g. broken memories. A lot of the notes I've taken down are about several issues with socializing, meal thoughts, etc. I haven't jumped into it yet, which makes it hard to answer your question completely. Issues with long-term memories inside stress-prone dwarves, that kind of thing; I haven't gotten up to speed on all of it yet, and won't until the work begins. I have some threads marked down to look at when the time comes. Ideally, a really poorly run fortress will break over the needs issues, while even an 'okay' fortress won't completely fall apart over the background stressors.