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?