User talk:Teres Draconis

the sig

(heavily edited for noise reduction. I'm going to keep this info for at least a while longer because it's useful to me.)

EXAMPLE: Three!Zchris13 Four!Zchris13 17:07, 21 May 2009 (UTC) Five!17:07, 21 May 2009 (UTC). Very cool, no?

You are delightfully strange. I like you. ... just, out of curiousity... how did you get it to do that? ... And why would you want to? - jaz

It is the amount of tildes.

• 3 tildes (~~~) Zchris13
• 4 tildes (~~~~) Zchris13 18:29, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
• 5 tildes (~~~~~) 18:29, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

--Zchris13 18:29, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Now you yelling out numbers actually makes sense. I get it... so I shall experiment. What happens at one, two and six?

<Experiment redacted to reduce noise>

The scientific world will be in awe. I know I am. (What a bummer. Couldn't it just, like, throw up a thing that says "Over tildified?" That would be amusing, at least.) - jaz

I am somewhat amused by the fact that "jaz" and "~~~" have the same number of characters. So it's not like typing will be longer, just... different.

Oh, and thanks. You forgot a z after the p. Here, try this:

v>p>z>Enter Zchris13 01:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, you did u. alright, that looks right. Less capitals, there are no capitals in that sequence.--Zchris13 01:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

My personal note taking place

A lot of the following is just for my own personal note taking stuff. Feel free to add or comment or whatever. I don't mind. Some of these questions (are) answered in the forums. I'll go check at some point, until then, this is where I'm storing my questions so I don't forget what it was I wanted to ask. ... the personality tags aught to have one for forgetfulness... which would related directly to how long they continue to think about things that have happened. One who was extremely forgetful might not list "slept in the rain" for as long as someone who had a clear recollection of things long past.

I play three versions of the game, randomly... one, the pure, out of the box, only thing messed with are the init files. Another with minor modifications to things like, oh... domestic cats are spayed when captured (affected by the child tags being replaced with [NO_GENDER])... we'll just pretend that they continue to breed like crazy out in the wilds.

--- For my modding purposes (uh, I've turned the smelter into a store to "buy" stuff from) , if anyone knows the TYPE:SUBTYPE:MATERIAL:MATGLOSS tags for any of the following, please please pretty please share them.

ivory, pearl, coral (I don't care if the creatures still don't drop them. I can "buy" it from my smelter, once I figure out the values for them)

containers with stuff in them. (for example, the cage the cow is in, the bag the sand is in, etc.) I figure the contents have to be listed seperately, but how do you get a barrel full of booze, and not booze in one hand and barrel in the other?... though, hey, now I have the idea for a booze-rfall. Must go attempt.

Sadly, the boozerfall did not work. Nor the blooderfall that I had going in the smelter next to it (I figured, two trials for the price of one)... Even using a smelter to make a waterfall doesn't work. Apparently, any liquid product from the smelter, even if it is not stackable, does not flow out of the smelter, no matter how many you have... and if you unmake the smelter in the attempt to let it flow, it does not, but rather mysteriously vanishes into the unseen ether.... for my trial I used the (seemingly absurd) number 13,263. Strangely, 13263 waters will not overflow the smelter, nor run down the channels next to it, nor anything. They just sit in the smelter, making it nie impossible to use due to the liquid clutter.

It would have been glorious, though. The plains flooded with Dwarven Ale. The gentle nurse lowering her bucket into the giant lake of booze to tote back to the wounded soldiers. The Generator [1] making sweet smelling (and potentially intoxicating) mists... Sadly, this method does not work. I'll see if I can find another...

Perhaps if I fill a room with 10000 barrels of booze, and then go mod the melting tempurature of the barrels to really low? Or, hmmm... wonder if you can make barrels out of ice? No, it acts like rock, and there are no rock barrels... except for... so maybe, hmmmm... ok! Gonna go try that next!

These things all start as "stacks", not flows, so they don't. I've heard mutterings that certain kinds of cave ins can turn fluid stacks into fluid flows but that's it. Whether it works or not, caving in something on top of a smelter containing a million water would be hilarious...--Corona688 16:54, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

"plant cheeses"... like, say, tofu. ... how do I get the plants to let me make cheese from the extract? Twice I've tried, twice I've failed. I can keep experimenting, but... eh.

- For the game designers and those who speak to them (go ahead, claim credit, I'm ok with that)... things I'd like to see in future versions...

a way to mod the workshops themselves. For instance, when I tell the manager I want to make 300 cheeses, I don't want the "make cheese" task to fill up the farmer's workshop I've dedicated to my spinner (making plant thread). I can dedicate /who/ works there. I'd like to dedicate the kinds of tasks that can be performed there, too.

I know I can make a task repeatable... but if I want to save out 100 of my 400 barrels of milk for direct cooking, and don't want to have to forbid them, unforbid them, etc... besides, this was an example... could just as easily be "make stone toys" at the bone carver's shop.

I'd like to see a tag to put on things like sheep that allows for sheering. I want to make wool cloth without having to slaughter my sheep for them. ... and angoras, too. Poor bunnies. Not that I get cloth now... I get leather still, but...

Probably would have the same problem as milking currently does. Perhaps when they get around to fixing that, they may put this one in as well... if someone makes them think of it.

I'd like to be able to make dyes from animal products. For instance, there are snails that produce a lovely purple color when crushed. No, I'm not with PETA, how did you guess?

I'd like to be able to dye worked cloth. The dress was made with undyed cloth? Should be easy to fix. I'd also like to be able to redye dyed cloth. In real life it would simply add color but I'd be ok with a "paint over" kind of effect.

Maybe mix dyes to make new colors? ... The only way I can think of right now to mod that in is to have a plant for each of them and then smelt two dyes into something else, red and blue make purple like iron and pig iron make steel.

I think bones (raw hides, skulls, shells) should be binable. I mean, really. I have 10 fishbones a cat's skull and a turtle shell that take up the same floorspace as 12 beds?!? Put them in a bin. On raw hides: it rots. Ok, two choices. One: don't let me bin this. I'll still be happy if I can bin the friggin' bones, shells, skulls. Or, two: The rot spreads to everything it touches, and, since it's "in" something, it produces miasma. Even if the bin is outside. I don't think that "rat remains" and "dog chunks" and such should be binable. I mean, ew. Also, those don't go into the workshop stockpiles for processing. At least, not in /my/ fortresses. ... again, ew.

... One or two last thoughts before I actually post this...

Is there a way to make a mixed group of creatures that spawn together? I mean, take your average herd in Africa. You're going to have zebras and elephants and girraffs and several other things besides, often all walking together. Sure, often you find a herd of just elephants, but often you'll find one or two in a mix of other things as well. And flocks of birds who travel with them, too.

I'm considering adding a new medium-heavy mod that accounts for things like mixed herds, beehives (worker bees, queen bee, guard bees), maybe beemen... though antmen could use this, too. Antmen could maybe have pet Giant Aphids (who, storywise they milk but who aren't tamable to humanoids)...

And, thirdly (I know I said one or two)... feralization. I can keep my tame but unclaimed pets mostly in one area by defining it as a meeting zone... but if I don't... and if they wander off (even if they don't)... I think that if they don't see one of their caretakers for, oh, two seasons (maybe less... maybe a tag that says how quickly?)... they should feralize. Easy way is just to make them go back to being the wild version of that creature. If it's in the wrong biome... uh, oops? Might die sooner? Might get eaten by a grue, I mean, uh... Another way is to make a whole other classification (wild, tame, feral)... maybe it adjusts how aggressive it is. Maybe not. Maybe it adjusts how easily it goes back to being tame. Would this tag be passed on to it's young? Or would the young just be "wild" to start with? If you were near another outpost, city or whatever, would you have their feral creatures start wandering into your area on occasion? Just what you need, the neighbor's feral dragon has decided your keep is it's new home!

Ok, Done. I'll edit and such later, and reduce the noise as I get answers. Or, you know, you can if you like. Whatever.

-jaz

I would really really like to see a little option pop up. When everything pauses and recenters because the miners struck something new on a level, and it says ... whatever it says... I'd like there to be a (d)ig, (s)trip, (f)orbid option.

(d)ig would just dig the squares you've already designated.

(s)trip would designate for mining squares of that type, on that level, /as they are discovered/, even if they aren't currently designated. If it's done "as discovered", you won't neccissarily know how much you're getting until it's done, thus maintaining the mystery. You should still be able to undesignate squares that have been designated automatically.

(f)orbid would un-designate squares of that type, on that level, as they are discovered.

That way I don't have my newbie miner failing the attempt to mine out the diamonds. I can just leave them there for later. And if I have 4 levels of mining going on, I can't watch every level all the time to see if a new deposite of something already mentioned shows up, or whatever... I can just say "no, not that" as it's discovered, and all the miners know to leave it, and all other instances of it, alone.

Noise Reduction (Should I call this "Zchris13 sets me straight" ?? *Teases*)

Things that got answered... They will get deleted out all together at some point as I don't want this talks page to be 40 bajillion pages long.

Zchris13 distroyed my dreams of milkable cows via the [milkable:33333] tag on 23:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC) I cried. Bad you, making girls cry. He also explained on 17:23, 21 May 2009 (UTC) that "Purring Maggots are VERMIN. Read vermin as Item, because that is what they are in game terms. Items that can teleport. Cows, however, are not items. And it is broken."

I know it's broken. I think /everyone/ knows its broken... I just... I... there you go making me cry again. But thank you for explaining about vermin in short words I can understand. I get it now, I just don't want to. Another question, though... Why are vermin in the creatures raws if they're not creatures? Shouldn't they be in their own raws if they're items?

And... verminous cows... heee! Oh, sorry, just a thought. (Because yes, I'd trade being able to eat them and get leather from them for the ability to milk them every season.) -- jaz

Personal cow modding complete. Cows became Lulu, because it amused me to find that "genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed [...] found them to be a mix of European cattle, zebu and yak." New vermin added : Dairy Cow. -- jaz 20:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

- Name and/or data is in contention....

Zchris13 (apparently did not tell) me there will be a way of saying "creature A and creature B can breed together to make creature C" in the next release. I mean, where do you think mules come from? I have several donkies of both genders, I have several horses of both genders... every once in a while, instead of getting a donkey foal or a horse foal, I (will, next release) be getting a mule foal... and no, mules still can't breed (IRL, anyways. We'll see about IG).

Will there also be a way of preventing such things? I mean, if I keep my horses in one vault and my donkies in another, am I going to get a whole seasons worth of foaling turned into mules? -- the ever curious jaz

I never said that.--Zchris13 17:23, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

It was your sig after the "That will be coming next release" comment. Was that in response to something else? I appologise for attributing to you something you did not say or imply. - jaz

-

Zchris13 suggested I look on/post to the forums for my ideas and wants, game wise... apparently quite a few of them were already mentioned. I've removed some from my list. Not that I think they're neccsissarly upcoming, but well, noise reduction. I've posted some already, and some I don't even know how to search for the thread. Then again, worst is worst, someone calls me an idiot and points to the 47 other threads that I'm repeating. I'll only feel rejected and foolish. What's so wrong with that? ... "Teres Draconis ... is concerned about rejection and ridicule." ... Oh, right. Cry me a river. Do it anyways, Jaz. ... doing, doing, done. ---- jaz 00:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

You're a noise one, aren't you. It's ok, just lurk around the forum for a while. Use search, which is a little odd, until you realize that there is two different search boxes.--Zchris13 18:09, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Chalk & whinging

Nice work, very thorough - but slow down, just for now. On the Main Page discussion, folk are trying to decide whether/how to structure the guidelines, what constitutes "an article" - and they should all be along the same lines. I like your effort - don't want to see it get undone to conform to any new guidelines.--Albedo 07:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll go see if I can find that discussion and maybe point to that in a grab for attention and prase. Yes, the gems. *teases* --jaz 08:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

If you want to add some new information to a page, it can be done without deleting everything that is already on it. I suggest you stick to minor improvements rather than complete rewritings. VengefulDonut 12:11, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

But the only thing chalk had on it before was, like, three bits of information. 1) it was a sedementary layer stone, 2) i could be used as flux, and 3) it had lots of gems/ore that could be found in it. The first two data bits are still there, and the third one is heavily expanded to the point of actually being informative if someone wants to know "well, what can I find?"

Meh, maybe I should put in a redirect here to the convo on the main page's talk tab. ... Not entirely sure how to do that yet, but I know of at least three places where I can find examples so... meh.

Talk:Main Page --Zchris13 18:13, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S. You're a little overenthusiastic. Chill. Stick to the small things. When you understand how things run around here, THEN start rewriting crap. --Zchris13 18:13, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

There was a big long thing here that, upon going away for an hour, and then coming back and reading it again, I realised was mostly whining and "poor me" and "nobody understands me"... So I didn't post it, because this is not the place for that. I have a blog (which I never use) if I want to whine.

I will simply say that I posted /one/ page (and lots of talk, 'cause I'm chatty), and asked for responses. I got several before I could even start on the next page, all of which asked me to hold off, or slow down, or similar. So I'm holding off, and... ok, not slowing down, exactly... but I'll do the work, and keep it for my own use, and if people say "hey, that was good, do it again" I can, and if they say "Change it this way" I /maybe/ can, and if they don't say anything, I can keep keeping it to myself, unless someone asks for a copy of my work, in which case, I can do that, too. (See, I have a "can do" attitude!)

I am done talking about talking about it. I'm mostly done talking about it directly. Time for me to play the game or get off the computer. Besides. I have milkable cows now. My life is complete. =) - jaz

See, there's something that is pure "addition", not rewriting - milkable cows. Make a new article. Be terse and factual, "how it's done". Be objective, no "I". Link from cows and milk - that's more the sort of thing that the wiki needs.

The problem with the chalk rewrite/reformat is that you completely changed a page that had scores of other related pages that used the identical format. You also, by your own admission, "copied and pasted" - wiki's don't like redundant info if they can avoid it, and certainly not that much. If someone wants to know all about a specific gem, they go to the article on that gem, or failing that then the gem page, not the page on the stone where that gem is found along with many, many others.

After you are here a while, you'll get a feel for the overall style - and can branch out from there.

I hear you. I'll... be patient. And, my milkable cows are a mod, and kinda a cobbled one at that. You can't buy them from the embark screen (though I had traders bring them on the first visit... of course, that doesn't help much, since it can't be /tame/ and milked. Argh! Who came up with this mess?!? TOADY!!!), they teleport, and my cats keep killing the wild ones. I'm working on it, ok? But I can milk them. And they're called cows. Once you know that, it should be easy to figure out what I did. Not a hard mod at all. -- jaz

Naming Conventions

(PS - And, I gotta ask - why "jaz" when you just signed up as a User with TD? Why not just sign up with jaz to begin with?)--Albedo 22:29, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Uh, 'cause it's my name? And, as far as the web is concerned, I am Teres Draconis. ... last week, <name redacted> did a search for me, 'cause she's a dope and couldn't remember some minor detail about something completely irrelevant to this conversation. She came up with some orchid sites competely unrelated to how I got my name, and almost everything else was in some way related to me. I use it because it helps people find me, to know that it's me and not some /other/ Jazlyn. ('cause, you know, it's a /really/ common name. *snerk*) Two years ago, /everything/ that came up in a google search for Teres Draconis would have been about orchids or me. And I'm no delicate flower. Sadly.

Some random stuff (you probably don't care about) reguarding my nick and where it comes from...

"Teres" is latin for "rounded, polished, smooth, fine, elegant" (things I aspire to be... and something a dragon would love, since it's both gem related and indicates a certain level of grandois... ishness... oif. Yep, I'm not there, yet.)

Teres Draconis was my first dragon type character. I have used her name for every other genre in which I played a dragon, because the character herself was familiar to me, leaving only the variances of this game vs that one to learn. Much easier (for me) to learn the rules that way. (I use this technique alot. "Tessi" is almost always the name of a kinder/half-elf/small-cute-humanoid-thief character the first time I play a game, "Wudi" for small cute felines, etc.) ((Wudi=extreme cuteness, usually only found in kittens, puppies and those babies you love. Wudi overdose is often diagnosed by people saying such absurd things as "You're a kitty! Yes you are!" to some poor, patiently forbearing feline awaiting rescue or escape, or some other such context-applicable drivel.))

Yeah, that makes me want to puke. The cute overload. When people do that... It's just, augh. Why. Not that I don't, just not when I'm busy doing things. You know, the fey moods? Yeah. I do that. Not quite, but yeah. Lots of fun. --Zchris13 00:39, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I use Teres Draconis because it makes it easier to remember user names if I only have one that I use everywhere I go.... I actually have more than that, because some places (like, oh, my work, school, bank, horticulture society) require that usernames follow their naming conventions. Makes it easier for whoever to find me in the database if they don't have to remember that I go by this funny name, and joe smith goes by that one.... everyone goes by something in their real names, or by some serial code, or whatever. I tend to forget those more, even when I use them twice a day, three days a week for 9 weeks at a time.

So, how did you come up with /your/ name? (open to all, not just Albedo)

P.S. I love etymology, and the related field of where names come from (though I never remember what that's called)... and since online you get to choose your own name, it makes it much more personal... and could potentially tell a lot about who you are. If nothing else, it might just say you're fairly conventional (read:uncreative *teases*) in your naming coventions. (There's a place for everything, even convention. But if the name you get to choose for yourself doesn't say /anything/ about you... ) - jaz (and even the fact that I use /that/ nickname says something about me)

Hmm.. mines something unusual I'd say. (N9103) It's both a mistake and a memory. One of the first game-related things I ever bought for myself (around 1996) was a professionally done editor for Red Alert(1) called Control Center. My Westwood online account for the game followed some time after that, when I had gotten bored with trying new modifications to the game settings. This was probably my first ever handle, though I had lurked on many a forum well enough to know that anonymity is preferable to identity, so rather than trying to find a way to anonymize my name, I simply went with the last set of registration characters for the Control Center program.... Here's the mistake part: About 5 years later, I was breaking down my game boxes and jewelcases into a binder, condensing the 100 or so games I had by that point into a fraction of the size, (took up an entire bookshelf at the time!); And turns out, that the last 5 of my registration code wasn't N9103, it was N9031. Had a bit of a laugh at myself for my mistake, but I've stuck with it ever since, for it's both anonymous and identifying. Seen very few use such an odd and seemingly random name, but trying to search for it will almost always turn up hundreds of other things, from computer chips and resistors, to a boat prop. (last time I bothered checking anyways.. about 3 years ago.) For this Wiki though, I've replaced the username with my own, as this is something I'm happy to be a part of. (I've got another username that's all over the place as well, but I'll leave that for another time.) -Edward

Ah-ha! I'm /not/ the only one. =) (I have a friend who goes by "Edward" online. His name is Kristianos. "Edward" is apparently a bit more anonymous than some other names. =P ) ... I stopped using A37139 as my catch-all user name about ten years ago because I kept having people ignore my stuff as bot generated. Bots that are trying to pretend to be people tend to have names like "Edward" these days, so maybe I can go back to using it, if I ever outgrow Teres. - 17:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, it was the first name of one of my very, very first RP characters from "back in the day" (can you say "Traveler"?) Dr. Albedo Lightrock, combat librarian. And since it has other meanings - percentage of light reflected, etc etc - it seems to work. Nothing beyond that - not the old anthopomorphic comic (tho' that had a quality to it) nor the newer one by the same name. Nothing more than that.--Albedo 12:13, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

OMG! Traveler! I haven't played that in ... forever! One of the (but not /the/) first Teres incarnations was a Droyne. It was odd having em not be a "her" until the humans on the ship insisted ey pick a gender with which to identify. Good times! Thank you! - 17:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey Jaz, do you know you can use Special:Preferences to change your signature to Jaz instead of your login name? That way you get auto signature that says what you want it to say. PS, I also had some "discussions" when I first joined up regarding totally re-organising the to actually be heirarchial. Apparently it was not appreceiated!GarrieIrons 09:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I did know, and that's how I do it now. But thanks for sharing! (It took me a while to figure out, so that was nice of you to tell me!) -jaz 23:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Your user page

I hope you don't mind, I put your personal description in the tags that make it look like it's in-game. You can revert from the history tab if that's not what you were getting at... and my appologies in advance if you don't want other people editing your user page.

BTW, I'm with you on chert etc being their own wiki pages.

The fora aren't for the feint-hearted. I don't think I've actually posted. Isn't it increadible that a single developer has created such a massive ascii game with such a huge community... and he gives it away free because "it's still a beta"? Aparently it's been worth his while thought! GarrieIrons 10:07, 12 June 2009 (UTC)