So the latest poll of what I should focus on next has equal voting for 5/6 questions. Guess I'll have to do all of them. I have a few events coming up in my schedule so progress will be slow for the next three days. I'll get started on the reorganizing of values first.

Random notes time :
Metals
 - Useful metals should be more expensive.
 - Decorative metals (ex gold) should be less expensive
 - Alloys should make the player choose between making a lot of low value bars, or making a few higher value bars, but overall, keeping the values similar. Kind of like how pewter is now.
 - Probably should be associated with their use at weaponry. Crucible Steel would be 25% more expensive than iron for example.

Weapons
 - Guns and bullets are super cheap, even with their size. Hopefully either the VALUE tag will work, or increasing the MATERIAL_SIZE will do.

Food
 - I like the idea of having expensive food, not a big fan of how it's handled now. You can rack up 1000+ points by selling all the seeds and taking the plants on embark. Perhaps 10* for seeds, and 15 for the plant.
 - Meat should be more expensive. About 10* for one or 50* for a stack of 5. That's a cheap trade good, but that may make legendary meal problem even more worse.
 - Perhaps I could give some animal 'spoiled meat' or something that's significantly cheaper, but can cause bad symptoms. Probably just a 'sick cow' that doesn't breed or something.

Animals
 - Animals themselves are extremely cheap! A cow should cost a small fortune, might make the player actually think twice before sacrificing that piglet.

Wood / Bone / Stone
  - All these will probably remain the same price, useable ore will probably be 1/4 of what it is as a metal bar.

While I was trying to find another use for zinc. I found out that Zinc (oxide) is commonly used in the manufacturing of rubber. So I decided to make a manufacture rubber reaction.

Well, it turns out rubber is quite complicated to create. You need a resin + coal tar + sulfur + zinc + fuel.

Coal Tar is a result from burning coal. Other uses for Coal Tar include :
Paints / synthetic dye
+ alcohol = soap (used in anti-dandruff and kills head lice probably won't require alcohol as there's a bug where it will use the entire stack of alcohol)
Asphalt Blocks
Fuel

It also requires a 'plasticizer' but I wasn't able to find a definitive answer of what a plasticizer is without having to go ask my chemistry teacher. So I skipped that step.

I was thinking 20 tires was enough to make the procedure worth it. That will equip an entire squad with tire armor.

While we're on the subject, perhaps other items could be made of rubber. Gloves and boots being my primary concern. I think there's a bug with gloves, I'll have to do a quick search on the forums.

Of course the entire process seems very tedious, 'would anyone actually use this?' remains at the forefront of my mind. After all, it's so much easier to just build a forge and get metal armor yourself. I suppose I could make tires just tough leather x2, but still, the effort required is questionable. However, since rubber would be x2 leather, and Coal Tar would be a natural by product of coal smelting. I can see players saying "Well I have all the items, might as well." rather than going out of their way to actually create the thing.

Second issue is materials, you need Coal, Gypsum, and Zinc on the same embark site, and have access to them. This seems like a very specific embark site. Something that I try to avoid is embark specific items as it blocks off a game feature. Furthermore, considering that gypsum, and zinc are both located farther below than most ores doesn't help. By the time you reach them, no doubt you will already have plenty of tire armor just by gathering from the surface.

Coal Tar seems extremely useful though, and I am seriously considering adding it.

Finals are over. There's not enough time for me to update to 31.10 today. I'll get it done tomorrow. Whereupon I will continue to work on random stuff until I get a goal in mind.

There will be quite a few incomplete features in the next release. Feel free to take a look at them. Booster's are in the next release, but there's no way of actually performing them.

Right now I seem to be locked onto metals.

* I want to make rarer metals rarer. Notably gold, in Corrosion, I find that when I hit a gold vein I just make it a non-economic stone and I have my masons play with it for furniture. I've changed that by making them small clusters in stone layers. So in order to increase the amount of your high value items, it's wise to alloy gold with something else.

* I'm still hesitant on 'Titanium' per say, mostly because it conjures up the thought of an impenetrable metal. Yet my stats are very arbitrary. As it stands it's the second lightest metal, but all other stats are 10% stronger than iron. This is kind of kludgy, I'd like to add one of the formal ways of smelting it. But I won't be able to make one before the next release.

* Cupronickel has been vastly improved. It's now well worth making, just slightly less dense than Crucible Steel. It copies all other stats from bronze.

The Release After :

I'd also like to make certain useless jobs less useless. These won't be implemented in the next release, but rather the release after.

Bowyer : I'm leaning towards the removal of metal crossbows. You'd still be able to make xbows out of wood. I believe this is beneficial because it makes the bowyer skill extremely valuable if you use crossbows. Bayonet Crossbows / Heavy Crossbows (need a new name for the heavy crossbow things) will have to be made by combining a large knife and crossbow to produce a metal xbow.

Spinner : Going to experiment with reduced shearing times and greater quantities. The problem is that it has to compete with farming and silk gathering. Both which are automated and easy, as opposed to Spinning which is tedious to preform for very little game. So I doubt the reduced shearing times will solve the problem. It'd be better if I could have it produce more than one hair. The longer you wait, the more hair you'll get. I think this is possible. This way, shearing would be something that rewarded you for waiting, something that silk and crops do not allow.

Animal Caretaker : The apex of useless. it'll need a custom reaction in order to every be useful. If someone figures out an idea for this job, let me know, because you deserve a medal made of cookies mounted on a wreath of bacon.

Architects : While not useless, they are rather use-lacking, an extra job or two wouldn't hurt  Perhaps some complex trap component.

Presser : Similar to the Spinner, lots of work, little gain. Needs to be changed. Truth be told I've never pressed anything in the game. We'll see where this one leads.

I don't know what the focus of the next release is going to be on. So I'll just throw some science at the wall. What's the worst that could happen?

Here's some random stuff.

* Diseases : Common Cold and Flu etc. Don't know what I'll do with it or how they will spread.
* Boosters : I've been looking at Deon's Post-Apocalypse (LINK) and I'm fascinated by the drug system he's set up. So I've been working on some of my own, they will be made in the Lab (don't know how yet), but they will be used in a new workshop. The reaction will require the Alchemy skill, and will create a boulder that will give the person the effects. Here's what I got so far.

• Adrenaline Shot : Increases speed, prevents sleep, and makes the user numb.
• Hibernation Shot : Makes the person go into a deep sleep for an entire season. Doesn't need food or drink. Could be used if the fortress is dying of starvation/dehydration and you want to save someone.
• Vitamin : Provides a 25% boost to all physical attributes.

Shots will probably require something along the lines of
glass + fuel -> syringe
syringe + {something} -> medicine
medicine -> syringe + boulder of effect

Vitamin may be a bunch of plants or extracts or something.

Other medicine that I'm thinking of (names are WIP)

Mettle Shot : Increases strength+endurance, lowers speed by 25% and prevents skill gain for a season.
Raving Frenzy Shot : Adds CRAZED tag and a whole bunch of other things to make the user a fearsome wrecking ball. May not be reversible.
Knowledge Retention : Prevents rusting for a year.
Precision Shot :  Increases chance to hit by 50% for a season. After though, they'll sleep for a little while.
Apathetic Shot : Adds a lot of numbness for an entire season. Essentially makes the user feel no pain. Needs a negative.


Random thoughts : Perhaps the Enlightened could get involved somehow, they'd bring some tool called 'syringe needle' that is necessary to put together the syringe. They could also provide you with 'metal vials of x' that would contain the boosts. Warlords would provide you with more aggressive but dangerous boosts such as Raving Frenzy and Mettle.

I kind of like the idea of traders being the sole source for the medicine. You'll get multiple shots per vials.

1.1.9 Release Notes

PRIMARY GOALS

Scavenging : I want to emphasize scavenging and bring back the 'wasteland' feel to the game. Having to tie together two weapons adds a lot more character to the game.

Tier Weapon System : Where stronger weapons are harder to make. Pitchfork -> Makeshift Spear and Chop Axe -> Limb Hacker are great examples of this. Spears were giving me some hardships though, I defined pikes as 'primarily slashing polearms' in my mind while spears covered the 'primarily stabbing polearms'. Brainstorming became difficult when my choices are stabby stick or slightly less stabby stick. This was made even more difficult because the pitchfork is already a good weapon. So in the future, the pitchfork will have to be nerfed significantly if spears are to evolve.

More Useful Allies : I toed on this a little by adding the shouldered plate and the riot helmets, each is a huge step up from what you can make. I still kinda feel like the Enlightened aren't worth the hassle, and the warlords are still lacking something. So more work needs to be done. I further toed into this by making both sides bring more types of metal. Suggestions are appreciated.

Better Body System : Did you know that the ribs only protect 5% of shots? Only in DF huh. I expended on the body system by making it more durable, and more realistic. There's still much to do though. I'll do some experiments with tissue thickness to see if I can get a good balance. I'm rather disappointing that I couldn't make someone cover their head with their limbs. On top of that, I simplified teeth, fingers, and toes. This should have a major affect on FPS (for the better) as there are 52 less items to keep track of, and on ten humans that's 520 less items!

Better Husbandry : I tried to make raising domestic animals easier, animals grow up faster, pigs have more births, bees produce so much more exponentially. I removed Cavy, Reindeer, Peacock, and Guinacock as they did not add anything to the game except redundant redundancy.

xxxxx Zombie Castes xxxxx

Gora

    [prologue]    This Infected’s right forearm has is nothing but a long sharp bone. It stabs it’s victims with it. Whether it’s arm was snapped by someone or whether it did this to himself is yet to be decided.

  The idea behind this one is to give the Infected a better push against leather armor. I'm leaning towards standard Infected as Vulpine already have metal weapons. The 'gore' attack will basically be a horn from vanilla, but perhaps with an edge attack, it won't do to much damage.

Raker
    [prologue]    This Infected has been cut straight down the chest. His ribs are exposed from months of  wear and tear. Of course, it sees this as a form of efficiency and will attempt to cram you into its chest.

I have two ideas for this one. First, have it be a 'holding' caste, whose job it is to grapple with the foe and slow down their escape. Or two, have it be a wild animal that ambushes civilians. This assumes that AMBUSH_PREDATOR is working like it used to, but even if it doesn't, I think a wild animal would be a better option.

Hazard

   [prologue]    This person tried to help people who were in infected cities. While this suit was durable enough to deal with scratches and scrapes, it was nowhere near enough to deal with the incoming horde of Infected. Now, starved, trapped, and unable to bite, this zombie sprints at foes in desperation to eat.

This zombie will probably be vulpine. It can't bite, in exchange, gets better protection from weapons and higher speed from hunger. It fits with vulpine because they already have metal weapons, so it remains deadly. Instead of a bite it will have a 'bash' with 'helmet' attack on people just so it looks like he's trying.
 

Insane zombie in straight jacket

This zombie's still in the concept phase. It won't be able to use it's arms, so it will have to serve some sort of support roll. Ranged area attack akin to the howler is a possibility. But I'd like to see something new.

Unnamed Idea

This zombie's still in the concept phase. A zombie that has the maximum grass trampling power. So it will trample every blade of grass and tree sapling it steps on. Doing small to moderate ecological damage.

***** HUMAN CASTES *****

Former Prisoner

A strong prisoner who was convicted and found guilty long ago. When the armies fell to the hordes, prisoners were drafted in droves to fight these things. Most died or turned, but some managed to outlive their wardens just long enough to escape. They learn mining, pump operating, siege operating, faster. However they refuse to learn any medical labors. Believing that a bullet to the head cures all.

 Firefighter

 This strong hardy person was one of the many people that tried to help out in the final days. They are excellent at axes, wood cutting, and can safely navigate fires. However, they are clumsy, and mediocre at ranged weapons.

I realized I didn't have any hard labor  castes that learn things like woodcutting/mining/masonry easier. So I've added these two for that purpose.

Coward
This person has survived by running. They are very fit, and can run extremely fast, however, their will is weak. If they cannot run they will curl up and have a nervous breakdown, becoming easy prey for the hordes.

I was hesitant to add an agile class as they would easily overpower the slow zombies. Regular humans can already get in two or three attacks by the time the zombie snatcher swings his +cotton bag+ So I made an agile class that was completely inept in combat. Just in case someone finds a way around it, they cannot learn military skills at all.

Police Officer
This determined person was one of many people that tried to help out in the final days. They excel in pistols and maces. However, they are usually not able to put up with leadership or 'noble' duties.

 Since I weakened the soldier caste, I thought I needed a caste that was moderate at both to make up for it. The 'noble duties' disadvantage seldom gets in the way, but the extra learning is no reason to push aside a well trained soldier caste for. So they serve as a jack of all trades caste.

Teacher
This teacher is very skilled at both learning, and teaching information.  Now that Statistics 101 is no longer in demand, they teach people how to fight instead. However, they learn all other labors slower.

 A great military class, instead of being better at learning, they have better potential. A pair of teachers can easily train new soldiers into fighting machines in a matter of seasons. They are so effective I had to tone it down because my militia commander trained two named elite riflemen who had never fired a gun before in less then half a year.

##### COMMENTARY ON OTHER CHANGES #####

• Shotguns are now great at de-limbing, but bad at piercing metal armor and hurting organs.
  This is to make shotguns and rifles more of a thought. Shotguns are still the go to weapon for Infected fighting. But rifles are arguably better at fights against humans.
• Gunparts are now made in Metalsmith's Forge. Gunpart Workshop removed.
  Now with the metal furniture back in, I no longer need another workshop to add clutter.
• Guns now require 'Gun Barrels' instead of metal bars, Gun Barrels are made in the Metalsmith's Forge.This change was to make it possible to micromanage what a gun was made out of. While a Platinum Shotgun is impressive, having a crucible steel one is kind of frustrating when you wanted it for a machete.
• Make slings and stone pellets in hunter's camp. Sling uses pistol skill.
  Slings are great for early fortress defense, embark with a boulder of hard rock and a unit of cloth. And bam! You can have a hunter while saving many embark points. Naturally, pellets are less effective against Zeds and barely capable of bruising the skin in melee range, as they don't feel pain from broken bones so switching out is a must. I tried to make it poor against armor, but with the way blunt weapons work it's either deadly against everything or 'is it raining out?'
• Gangs added, a new civ. They siege in the summer, weak, slow, and stupid. Relatively easy to beatI haven't tested these guys yet, they're getting a unique mount called [CLASSIFIED] that will [CLASSIFIED] and allow them to [CLASSIFIED] all while [CLASSIFIED] and [CLASSIFIED]. This is their only edge in combat though, as they have much worse stats than your humans. It will be comparatively safe to kill them.

While testing out the Howler in Arena, I plopped down a milkfish next to the river. The Howler charged at it, the milkfish dodged, attacked the Howler, and the Howler dodged into the river and was promptly killed.

I almost removed the howler from the raws in shame.

Updated to 1.1.7

I've been contemplating the idea of another civ of baddies. Simply called 'Gang'. They will only carry melee weapons, things like heavy chains, baseball bats, makeshift spears, clubs, anything that fits a 'Gang' theme. They won't have any ranged weapons.

They will be moderate baddies, I'm thinking they'll hand around the edges of the maps human style and simply keep caravans from visiting. Probably in the summer because they are 'competing' with the Warlords.

They will siege later then usual, 2nd - 3rd year.

Being melee focused, they shouldn't be to hard to dispatch by trained soldiers. I'll see if I can cap their skill at adequate.

However, they might be lacking something unique, I'll play around with it, see if I can give them something special.

Now that metal furniture is requiring more then one bar again, I have removed the Blacksmith's Forge, and the Deconstruction Forge. The reason why I added these is so that it's be harder to make metal furniture. Now that it is harder, there is no reason to use my cumbersome system.

I also have been making some minor changes to the castes. Luddites are less likely to show up, soldiers are worse at melee combat. Made a new coward caste that curls up into his upper body when threatened.

I'm emailing Meph the creator of Masterwork, asking him if I can use a few of his ideas. Namely, simplified leather and the 'Drink of Courage' idea.

Semi/Megabeast graphics are done. Got a little surprise in the next update, adventure mode just got a lot more fun!

Also, I plan on simplifying the guide by dividing it up into parts. Providing more pictures is a must. However this can wait until after the next release.

Once the latest version is out, I will begin making video tutorials to help out beginners.

I've been doing some brainstorming for a flying megabeast.

A hawk with a scorpion tail. Designed to make hunting easier for 3rd world countries, experiment escaped when  the Infection broke out and they've all gone feral.

Poison should not kill directly, but make it considerably easier for a third party to kill.
- Instant Blindness
- Instant impairment of hearing
- Mild Nausea

Special thanks to ArKFallen who fixed the crash.

 Now infected will change you into Infected Humans.

Figured out how to make people turn into zombies forever. It works in Arena anyways, but fortress testing is necessary. These timings are approximate, but pretty accurate non-the-less.

1st stage : 3 min 20 sec : Infected acts as a vampire, praying on sleeping people and draining them of blood.

2nd stage : 5 min 25 sec : Infected transforms into a Scrawn.

Unfortunately, sometimes it crashes when you attempt to 'z' the Infected, I don't know the cause, and I haven't tested this in fortress mode, so it could be an arena only thing. If I can't find the cause, it won't be added in the latest version. Better to be stable and less zombie-like.

Added a more effective way to make bolts, that includes feathers. Feathers now are given regardless of the size of the creature that is butchered.

Nervous Tissue can be turned into Sinew thread which can be used specifically to craft bolts. Happens automatically, as some creatures don't provide Nervous Tissue due to their size.

Next up, metal bolts, slings, and pellets.

I've also been experimenting with turning people into scrawns once they are bitten. However there are a few numbers which I am not aware of what they mean.

        [CE:PERIODIC:MOON_PHASE:27:0]

I'll do some science in my current game, hopefully I don't need to regen in order to see the effects.

First ambush on year three. I suppose you could look at it as the zombies have to 'find' you first. Several sieges by the Vulpine still keep you on your toes though.

There were four people outside, one wood chopper, two haulers, and a berzerker rifleman named 'Soron', the only reason why the three civilians survived is because Soron became enraged and started hammering at the infected with his crossbow.

It took at least three minutes for the Infected to finally kill him. I like the idea that they 'feast' on a corpse for a while, but it should be 30 sec to 1 min tops. I'm not sure if the rifleman was infected or not, as soon as he went unconscious their teeth couldn't bite through his leather beret and they started shaking him around with their scratches.

So I will be adding new attacks to infected, a bite that can penetrate leather but he uses it less, and possibly a 'finishing' move. I'll have to do some more tests.

Graphics are in and looking spectacular. Once I add the new attacks, and make stone sickness only affect Privations, I'll release the new version.

Alright, got my first infected migrant. 2 Things.

While they no longer stay by the side of the map, as soon as he got to the fort, he went straight to the hospital, trailing miasma everywhere, laid down in the bead and started resting his wounds. I could play this off as 'This person didn't knew they got bit and went to the doctor', but I'd rather have my Infected work properly.

This entire process needs to be made more subtle.

Got another one to. They aren't that hard to spot.

-----

Haven't gotten a single ambush thus far, got a handful of snatchers, and one siege but not a single ambush. Perhaps the Infected move to slow to reach your fort in time.

I'll start doing some tests to see if a random army of competent soldiers can beat a good horde sized group now that melee is more viable. It might just work, but we'll see.

Lately, I cannot help but feel spoiled as I sit under a mound of soil, with 80 something infected being held at bay outside by nothing but a stone door that can be tele-locked whenever the Vile Force of Darkness screen appears.

Right now, (at least to me) Infected don't seem 'dangerous' enough. Either they flatten you faster then the Heavy from tf2 can spend $400,000. Or you lock the door, or raise the bridge, and put the crossbowmen on the battlements, losing two people on a bad day.

The problem lies in the hordes. Melee was deadly before the Infected could turn you, simply because 80 infected vs 15 competent guys with bad armor doesn't inspire confidence.

Engaging in Melee should not be a cake walk, but it certainly shouldn't be as difficult as it is. I would like to make melee more viable. Thus I will remove Evasive Infected, and give Standard Infected the ability to ambush and babysnatch. This means you won't receive hordes as often, but you will be able to fight back manageable ambushes of seven or so zombies. This will also take you by surprise, which is very important, as they can kill or at the very least turn some people before being fought off. Hopefully they don't run away at the sight of their leader getting splattered across the grass, but I think NOFEAR and NOEMOTION should prevent it.

I will also make people turn into Infected faster. The trouble will be having them turn fast enough so the player can't build a giant tomb for them before killing them, but slow enough so they can get back to the base.

I will also remove Infected Agility and Dodging bonuses, replacing it with a skillcap in dodging, and low agility, I will then give Scrawns a faster speed.

Finally, all zombies will be able to destroy stone doors, Scrawns will be able to tear up wooden ones.

Squads will be restored to 10 each, because micromanaging smaller squads when tactics consist of 'stand here' or 'zerg here' gets annoying after a while.



Also, I still consider digging to easy, while it is okay to have a little bit of a fort in soil and on surface, it's still way to easy to dig a hidey hole underground instead of building a palisade up above. So I have been considering making a decomposed trash-like it won't be trash because the entire world isn't a giant landfill, but it will be something similar where a non-lethal stone can disrupt digging.

Half-way through the graphical update, just need to rework the new stair tile, move the Privation, warlords, and enlightened over to 16x16, then I will be done! Privations should take the longest, I can probably get Warlord and Enlightened done within a half hour.

Added turtle, jellyfish, and snake tiles as well.
Added Pump Operator, Siege Operator, and Siege Engineer tiles. Changed the Grower tile.
Added Ghoul, Mutated Crow, Wild Dog, Wild Cat, and Chupacabra tiles.

Overall I'm very happy with the update to colors and the update to the tiles, the previous 18x18 tiles blurred on my screen, but the 16x16 has no distortion!

I have a half a dozen new zombie types laying around. I don't know what I'm going to do with them. They aren't powerful enough to be megabeasts, but most of them won't add any new content to the already existing hordes.

Maybe more roamers?

Redid the guns

* Reduced Shotgun/Military Rifle's Max Velocity.
* Changed Gun schematics :
    Pistol : 1 Metal / 1 Gunpart
    Military Rifle : 1 Metal / 1 Wood / 3 Gunparts
    Shotgun : 1 Metal / 2 Wood / 4 Gunparts
* Shotguns are weaker against armored targets now.
* New Weapons :
    Magnum : Slightly more powerful, but slightly more expensive pistol.
        1 Metal / 1 Wood / 2 Gunparts
    Arbitrator : A pistol that Fires shells, but weaker then the shotgun.
        2 Metal / 1 Wood / 6 Gunparts

Did this for a few reasons, to make shotguns harder to make, to make military rifles, and hunting rifles a viable alternative.

Added new pistol types because they needed some variety, made pistols cheaper so if you are in a pinch you can churn them out quickly. The Magnum is a slight step up, pistols will fracture bones while magnums will break it. Barely noticeable in the grand scheme of things so whether or not it's worth it is up to you.

I am very iffy on my decision to add a shell shooting pistol. Rifles are supposed to be focused on range, hence their weakness in close quarters since they are (supposed to be e_e ) two handed. So a shotgun is fine. A shotgun pistol and a cane knife on a skilled fighter? Basically invincible (I will acknowledge that giving up a shield is a big disadvantage, which might make it more worth it) I tried to make them weaker, but without changing the ammo itself, there's not much I can do.

Also gave zombies and semi/megabeasts HUMANOID bodies, so they now have upper/lower arms and legs. Since they don't secrete necrosis pus anymore, there's no reason to make them easier to kill.

I will continue to test weapons. Hunting Rifles and Military Rifles should be better at penetrating armor. While shotguns should be better at unarmored foes. Like spears and axes. Even weakened, shotguns can still flip limbs even on an armored foe, mostly because of horrible armor.

Redoing a lot of the armor system. Things like High Boots really needed to go.

* Helmets now renamed Caps.
* Removed SHAPED tag from hoods, you can now wear hoods and caps* High/Low boots replaces with Footplate. Covers 50% of shots and made of metal.
* Added leather boots.



* Added a variety of hats+




+ They are all identical, they all cover the head completely but can only be made of leather. Part to cover more of your humans, part to personalize your minions a bit more. Because your epic shotgun wielding militia commander deserves a cowboy hat.

The latest version came out a little faster than I had expected. I still have a handful of semi/megabeasts that I need to put in, and I haven't touched the graphical update at all.

I'll move everything to 34.05, release it, then get started on the graphical update.

For the next release I will focus on the following things :
 * Tileset update
 * Megabeast/Semimegabeast update
 * Addition of several exposed, megabeast/semi-megabeast, and a few animal graphics.

Ever since I had to remove the Smokee I've noticed the extreme lack of megabeasts in Corrosion. So I will be working on adding some more, I already have a few ideas. I will also be adding graphics.

In Vanilla Dwarf Fortress, there is very little difference between a semi-megabeast and a megabeast. Why is a roc, a giant bird, a megabeast while an ettin, a giant with two heads, a semi-megabeast? So in Corrosion I will differentiate them more. If you turned one of my megabeasts into a semi-megabeast you should notice the difference.

Semi-Megabeasts are going to have long descriptions that tell you exactly what they will do. They should be able to mow down your unprotected civilians that are outside. However a small team of competent, well armed and armored troops should have moderate to little trouble dispatching these creatures. Thus they will arrive earlier then megabeasts. In a nutshell, they will be larger Infected plus unique abilities. They can all avoid traps.

Megabeasts are going to be much more unique. They will not always be infected, and will require much more thinking to deal with. Their descriptions will be vague and won't tell you exactly what they do. They'll tie into the story, but they'll be more like science fiction creatures.

I believe I've isolated the problem. It has to do with some sort of creation that is more commonly found on maps with oceans (I feel like some detective show right now).

I started by genning a world with  the following stats:

World Size : Medium
History : Medium
# of Civs : V Low
Maximum # of Sites : V Low
Number of Beasts : V Low
Natural Savagery : V Low
 Mineral Occurrence : V Low

I successfully generated a world. I then proceeded to turn each stat up to 'Medium' until I received a crash.

I only receive a crash, when the # of Sites or the # of Beasts is set at medium. Supporting the animal theory.

Trying to solve these crashes. I'm quite stumped as to why they are happening. No errorlog has popped up yet. The world only crashes when it's small, medium, or large. The larger the world, the sooner it crashes. Smaller and tiny worlds gen fine. Which just adds to the frustration. What happens in larger worlds that doesn't happen in smaller worlds?

Large : 3 years
Medium : 10-30 years
Small : 60-80 years

I suspect it might have something to do with entities changing. As the crashes only happen once everything is moving. Specifically something wrong with the civilizations. Other oddities, setting everything to very low except for time will make the world gen fine.

And while I am typing this I just genned a medium region to the year 103 with no crashes. Just did again to the year 100, so it's not an anomaly.

The Medium island crashed at year 50 and the second one at year 2...

There must be some link here. Population problems perhaps? They can't expand anymore because they are no longer starving off in the latest version? I'll continue to test.

Perhaps it's an animal, which would explain why there are more crashes on ocean worlds. But what animal could do such a thing?

Got bogged down with errands and didn't get to work on DF as much as I would have liked to. I got most of the stuff converted over to 34.04, so I expect to release it soon enough.

Other things I should be doing :

I'll be looking into a suggestion by Kerlc involving books, but it won't make it in this update.

I intend to update a few graphics namely;
A new pillar graphic
Exposed creatures
Perhaps some misc animal creatures.

Changed cigars to require 5 leaves to create one : I changed this because my latest fort has gone 2 years without any drinks and without alcohol deprivation because 5 tobacco from traders made 125 cigars. Now only one tobacco can make one cigar. I'll be experimenting with a more aggressive syndrome from exposure to cigar smoke later, but it won't make it into the next version.

Made several cleaning shop reactions AUTOMATIC : For convenience. Suggested by Abregado.

I've also removed a few tags from the infected disease. NO_PHYS_ATT_RUST:NOTHOUGHT, NO_THOUGHT_CENTER_FOR_MOVEMENT, NO_CONNECTIONS_FOR_MOVEMENT NOT_LIVING and OPPOSED_TO_LIFE. In 34.01 I had a few migrant zombies appear, even though they usually just flipped out, killed a few migrants then suffocated. I haven't seen any in the recent version, but I suspect they might be the 'friendly' migrants that linger at the edge of the map and you can't assign labors to. Hopefully removing these tags will allow them to assimilate into your fort a little.

I've also made some other changes to zombies. They now bite more, however I've removed their ability to latch onto targets. So you have a better chance of surviving an attack and spreading the disease.

Personally, I'm a tad disappointed at how rare infection is. Perhaps it's because I don't engage them in melee, or perhaps it's because they bit less, regardless once I release this next version, I will try giving Scavengers and Evasive half-infected the ability to infect you.

I'll do a quick update to Ravenmist and change the location, but I won't need to put it into suspended animation this time.

Changed the zombie interaction a bit. Now they should only rot/swell/blister on the skin, so they don't suffocate, they also should also start coughing blood about 100 steps before they finally turn. Giving you some warning system.

I'm fine with zombies migrating in, but the problem is they come as full zombies, the entire wounds screen filled with yellow text is a bit of a tip off. Furthermore, all they do is kill the migrants and their animals. Only the berzerkers are the problem though, I met a rather benign one that was content with running away.

As an aside. I was playing vanilla DF today when a bunch of Gray Langurs descended on my fort. I'm trying to set up my entire fort in the Caverns, so I was in the process of moving my stuff down. Consequently my only military dwarf was 50 z's under.

Immediately the ten or so Gray Languers charged my food supply as my military dwarf raced up the cave's ramps. The only person guarding my food was one of my miners, SharpDagger . His throat was dry and his will was made of iron and he despite being interrupted by the pack repeatedly, would wander off a few tiles then come back and try to drink again. Scaring away the monkeys in the process. If it wasn't for him I'd have to hunt that cave crocodile that's been lurking about in the caverns.

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Speaking of forts and such. Ravenmist is updating to 1.1.2 and 34.02, hopefully that will get a few more people to join. I'll be transferring the lists over so people won't need to sign up again. After I let Ravenmist fly I'll start the community fort. Once that is over I'll do a Second Corrosion Community Adventure with a conclusion for the first.

Got the syndrome delay to work (thanks to Jay)

Instantly, No Aging is added. Standard infected take a fourth of a year to give small effects. And when a year passes they should go all out zombie. Also the person should keep it secret (of course this secret gets a little harder when the miasma starts pouring out of them. Needs a quick test.

Zombies can now turn other people into zombies. However it's instantaneous, but I'm sure you can delay it somehow.

I'm going to try to change the way zombies rot. Currently they secrete pus which causes necrosis only to them. However this system had a serious drawback, when it rained the pus would cover everything and lag the computer. So if I can get zombies to rot without pus it would be very welcomed.

Spent a lot of time today removing creatures. Mostly giant herbivores*, insects**, redundant creatures (so many parrots***) and a few creatures that didn't fit into Corrosion (lovebirds!?), a few creatures were renamed like grasshopper to locust, and some creatures I had in the past Corrosion, but Toady put into this version.

* In my opinion, giant carnivores provide an extra bit of challenge. Seeing a Giant Lion on the horizon will always make me think twice before sending my trainees against it. Giant Herbivores on the other hand, add nothing but clutter and provide more meat then their non-giant counterparts for little to no additional risk. Also makes your people easier to please (Just how can they taste the difference between crab and giant crab?)

** Seeing a 2 meter long mosquito doesn't fit into the realistic setting.

*** Gibbons had the same problem, having three-fourths of your fort like ten different kinds of parrots that aren't found in your biome always bugged me a bit.

Errorlog is finally clean! Now the real !!SCIENCE!! starts! Where's my lab coat?

I've moved over all the raw files, however my errorlog is a mess right now. Toady has expanded on tissue layers and has changed a few names, so I need to go back to all my creatures and add on a few letters. This is going to be very time consuming.

Also getting some problems with the language, Toady has appeared to have removed multiple scandalous words. A minor inconvienience easily solved by the backspace key.

Furthermore, some creatures are having moving troubles and are giving me tissue related errors, I'll have to do some digging as I cannot recall the problem.

Still unsure on how to mod were-creatures, vampire raws, or mists, but it was a quick glance and I was more worried on getting all the raws moved over today. Tomorrow I'll start ironing out the raws, and hopefully begin tackling were-creatures and vampires by this Friday.

Very, very excited that 34.01 is out, the to-do list to the right is very rough. I haven't had a chance to look over all the changes.

* Mists will not be lethal as being outdoors is extremely important. I might add several environment mists depending on how they act in the game. Sandstorms, snowstorms, and such. But these are a lesser priority. Evil places will get radiation clouds that will probably have effects such as nausea, sleepiness, dizziness and other non-lethal, but annoying enough effects to close down the fort while it blows over.

* Making zombies turn people into zombies is the ultimate priority. I will make the zombies weaker overall to compensate for this effect. This of course means more survivors and more people turning to zombies :D
Standard/skulking zombies will get 25% ish with very visible tells.
Mutated will get 50% with less visible tells.
Lesser Zombies such as Scavengers will not get any ability to change others into zombies. But I will consider it.
These numbers are very arbitrary and will probably be changed later depending on how common it is, I want it to be a surprise without being a guarantee.

* I will be postponing my Blog Fortress until I have updated to 34.01, this way we can all enjoy this wonderful update!

If you have any suggestions please post on the Corrosion Forum!

Because of the long lapse of time that has passed, and the arrival of several bugs, I'm going to be releasing a mini-update to address these. Also to add a few things that I've thought of now that I've resumed playing the game.

* Reduce grow time of Tobacco.
   -Right now I'm having trouble growing tobacco, even if I plant it just as autumn begins. I'm not even sure if it will grow before winter, so I need to reduce the time it takes.
* Increase chance of finding tires, plastic, and concrete.
   -I'm rather content with plastic being difficult to gather. however, tires should be an alternative form of armor, but I just cleared about 80 plants and barely came up with one tire. It's much easier just to forge armor, or even create wooden armor. Concrete also needs a boost.
* Have a chance of finding metal chunks by gathering plants.
   -Making metal slightly easier to get, especially iron, is always a plus.
* Test Two-Handed weapons effectiveness vs One hand and One shield weapons. 
   -I heard that shield+1H will win most of the time, but I'd like to do some testing before I multiply stats ten fold.

First Entry

Welcome to the Corrosion Mod Blog!

I have decided to create a blog for two reasons:

1. A computer error occurred on my last computer and I lost most of my development notes that weren't already lodged in my cranium. Fortunately I had uploaded the latest version a few weeks prior and had made no updates since. I will now be storing my to-do list, and misc notes on this blog, in case something like this happens again, I would rather not lose everything.

2. This allows you to comment and critique my to-do list.

3. I can show off my forts and all the Fun that develops while we wait :D

Some plans for .26

Zombies that turn humans into zombies! With all the inevitable accusation that comes with that! Standard zombies will probably receive a nerf to make them deal less damage, so a properly armored survivor stands a good chance. Of course more powerful zombies will remain the same.

I'm also very excited about the Mist that Toady is developing. Radiation clouds leftover from the haunted bombs would really make the evil areas more lively, or deadly, maybe undeadly? Probably all three!

I'll probably rationalize that Necromancers is an offensive term applied to the creators of the failed vaccine. However no one knows why they are still testing. Are they attempting to spread the disease? Correct their experiment? Or perhaps they are trying to find a cure.

Anyways, thanks for visiting! I'll be starting a new fort soon and providing ample narration. I'm also attempting to work out how Corrosion can be not only Fun, but lasting in the Community Stories, as it seems to fall apart easily.