Mod Ren'Py Abandoned Time For Dragons - Defiler Wings: Deranged Dragon Mod [29-07-2020] [Jman]

[Jman9]

What am I doing wrong?

Trying to impersonate the King while he's still in the Capital and can easily prove that he's the real King. You only have a limited time window to do this (each year).

 

[myxlplykx]

Something is wrong with the diversity in the army. I have an even 100 of each creature and the diversity is only 2 yet earlier when I had like 30 goblins and only 1 or 2 of the rest it was 5

and for the army of darkness quest do i actually need to manually breed 1000 dudes and send it to the army? that seems like asking for a lot without automation.

Another Note doing the final battle, attacking yourself is no different then watching the battle for troop casualties and the battle with the Olympians is not translated. along with attacking the elves and talking with that goddess.

Also is there a witch ending or a ending where we attack the dark lady? I don't seem to have access to them.

 

[Jman9]

Something is wrong with the diversity in the army. I have an even 100 of each creature...

Diversity doesn't mean everything must be present in equal quantities. It means your army is well-proportioned, with mostly grunts, a small (but not too small) core of elites, a moderate amount of servants, etc.

Maybe 'diversity' could use a new name. Dunno what would work better, though.

...do i actually need to manually breed 1000 dudes and send it to the army?

Yep. You should be able to breed several dozen females every sleep cycle by endgame.

That being said, maybe the number can come down a little. The money quest used to be 1 million instead of 200k.

How many have you bred so far?

Another Note doing the final battle, attacking yourself is no different then watching the battle for troop casualties...

Indeed. Find the following in dragon_army.rpy (somewhere below line 200)

        def casualties(self,value = 1):
            self.power += 1

and change it to

        def casualties(self,value = 1):
            self.power += value

and the battle with the Olympians is not translated. along with attacking the elves and talking with that goddess.

The translation is probably broken again due to rewriting adjacent bits. Not much you can do unless you want to go and copy the relevant bits out of the translation file yourself.

Also is there a witch ending or a ending where we attack the dark lady? I don't seem to have access to them.

No. These were very complex branching events in DW 1.4.1, and Eliont didn't port them over. I do have some plans to implement more appropriate versions of those, but ATM these things are way down on my list.

 

[myxlplykx]

Diversity doesn't mean everything must be present in equal quantities. It means your army is well-proportioned, with mostly grunts, a small (but not too small) core of elites, a moderate amount of servants, etc.

Maybe 'diversity' could use a new name. Dunno what would work better, though.

ahh so its a good proportion as you dont want 1 tank for every inf. It would be nice if the wanted proportion was shown somewhere so im not just shooting in the dark, as well the descriptions for the levels of this don't really match up with that as it only talks about variety not how well proportioned it is.

Yep. You should be able to breed several dozen females every sleep cycle by endgame.

That being said, maybe the number can come down a little. The money quest used to be 1 million instead of 200k.

How many have you bred so far?

I don't know haha 100 at tops, its just very tedious without any way of doing it bulk so many clicks /: . im also having trouble with the cash mission as with all the upkeep I only have so much time for cash hunting and the largest cash supply is like 50-100 gold an event as far as I know. I cant imagine getting 1 million 200k already seems like a strech.

Indeed. Find the following in dragon_army.rpy (somewhere below line 200)

        def casualties(self,value = 1):
            self.power += 1

and change it to

        def casualties(self,value = 1):
            self.power += value

ahh thank you!

The translation is probably broken again due to rewriting adjacent bits. Not much you can do unless you want to go and copy the relevant bits out of the translation file yourself.


No. These were very complex branching events in DW 1.4.1, and Eliont didn't port them over. I do have some plans to implement more appropriate versions of those, but ATM these things are way down on my list.

fair enough translation is tough and so is the extra events. I appreciate all the work you've put into this already.

 

[Jman9]

It would be nice if the wanted proportion was shown somewhere so im not just shooting in the dark

I think it's interesting to find out on your own. It's a self-correcting system where adding too many elites tanks your diversity, but boosts the Army's base power. Maxing diversity is not really a goal on its own.

the descriptions

The descriptions are a little off-target, but I'm really not that concerned about them since it's just flavour text. I'll think about them a little at some point, but this is really low-priority stuff.

Also, even current blurbs do not mention variety directly, only what the Army's main combat element is (elites or grunts). You can think of it as how well the elites are supported. Too many or too few of them and not enough servants/grunts - lower force multiplier.

I don't know haha 100 at tops, its just very tedious without any way of doing it bulk so many clicks

I could cut that number down, but I don't want to make it too easy. Plus that 1000 is basically the 'intended' army size for the Final Battle.

...I only have so much time for cash hunting and the largest cash supply is like 50-100 gold an event as far as I know.

Crafting and selling treasures. The Royal Palace. Dwarven airships. Dwarven Halls. Lots of places have some amount of treasures/materials, including potential lairs, raiding an unsuspecting Capital and Darkwood monster dens.

I'm not even sure what the 100 gold event would be. A lot of high-tier extortions/slaughters yield at most [fear/2] gold, which ought to be a maximum of 50 for a fully kitted-out Shadow Dragon. Raiding towns with that same dragon will get a maximum of 40-80 gold. This is all reduced by poverty, however.

Edit: That reminds me, fighting Antelopes/Phoenixes is also a good way to get lots of satiety, loot and XP. Although acquiring enough knowledge probably makes it impractical as a regular activity. Also, exploring the Darkwood can boost your stats beyond normal maximums (encounters with cave drawings or two versions of 'drink water').

fair enough translation is tough and so is the extra events.

Translation as such is not a big problem. Pretty much everything is already translated, even 1.4.1 has a (mostly machine) translation. Proofreading, and writing new stuff is the really time-consuming and tedious part.

 

[myxlplykx]

I think it's interesting to find out on your own. It's a self-correcting system where adding too many elites tanks your diversity, but boosts the Army's base power. Maxing diversity is not really a goal on its own.

The descriptions are a little off-target, but I'm really not that concerned about them since it's just flavour text. I'll think about them a little at some point, but this is really low-priority stuff.

Also, even current blurbs do not mention variety directly, only what the Army's main combat element is (elites or grunts). You can think of it as how well the elites are supported. Too many or too few of them and not enough servants/grunts - lower force multiplier.

I could cut that number down, but I don't want to make it too easy. Plus that 1000 is basically the 'intended' army size for the Final Battle.

I look to flavor text to see what im doing wrong so I think it would be helpful for people like me who are unsure of what they are doing wrong or just think its a bug. As for the final number spending gold to get the troops is way easier and less time consuming, esp compared to the 200k the other mission asks for that's like 5-10k troops on its own if you don't spend it for the army supplies. I don't think cutting the number down would really be the solution just making it easier to breed in bulk so its more of a daunting task due to capturing girls and not daunting because I need to click 10000 times managing everything.

Crafting and selling treasures. The Royal Palace. Dwarven airships. Dwarven Halls. Lots of places have some amount of treasures/materials, including potential lairs, raiding an unsuspecting Capital and Darkwood monster dens.

I'm not even sure what the 100 gold event would be. A lot of high-tier extortions/slaughters yield at most [fear/2] gold, which ought to be a maximum of 50 for a fully kitted-out Shadow Dragon. Raiding towns with that same dragon will get a maximum of 40-80 gold. This is all reduced by poverty, however.

Airship I think is the 100 gold event and even then that's 2000 events that you need to get lucky to proc. I have been doing all the gold things all game and I only have 8k. How long do you expect the player to be at the final stage of dragon grinding gold? 2000 events is about 200 sleeps which would be like 10 hours of gameplay going fast. The jewelry crafting also takes forever I made a macro to do it because clicking 4 times to make one thing 1000 times is tedious so that should be done in bulk too if possible. I know I'm asking for a lot design wise but tedium of this sort really kills desire to play and drives up cheating. there is no novel gameplay or roleplay in raiding the capital for the thousandths time frankly they should have moved by now.

I know grinding is kinda the name of the game here but it was fun when I was a babby dragon getting mauled by dogs trying to get that one level up as it was fast like tiny to small was an hour? 2 tops? and had thematic and statistical impact in my gameplay and roleplay, but things like farming 200k gold really don't fit in when it takes so long, its not a difficulty jump just a jump in how much repetitive gameplay and tedium your willing to put up with.

Edit: That reminds me, fighting Antelopes/Phoenixes is also a good way to get lots of satiety, loot and XP. Although acquiring enough knowledge probably makes it impractical as a regular activity. Also, exploring the Darkwood can boost your stats beyond normal maximums (encounters with cave drawings or two versions of 'drink water').

It takes like 80-150 darkforest visits to get the phoenix so really not worth it for either loot or XP farming the capital is way more efficient. boosting the normal stats is nice to farm though.

 

[Jman9]

I look to flavor text to see what im doing wrong so I think it would be helpful for people like me who are unsure of what they are doing wrong or just think its a bug.

The trouble is that changing the flavour text to reflect the actual situation requires me to create a 'diversity' message system pretty much from scratch. I'm putting this on my list, but nowhere near the top.

As for the final number spending gold to get the troops is way easier and less time consuming...

That's exactly the point of the quest, to make sure you can't just buy your way out of breeding a certain amount of minions.

I don't think cutting the number down would really be the solution just making it easier to breed in bulk...

If I do the 'bulk mate' button, would that be enough? Capturing breeders should really not be automated, since that's a one-time thing. You may need replacements occasionally, but that's it.

Airship I think is the 100 gold event...

Nope, that just gets you raw materials. What you do with them later can change the exact profits significantly.

How long do you expect the player to be at the final stage of dragon grinding gold?

A few hundred sleep cycles dedicated to gold-hunting, tops.

The jewelry crafting also takes forever I made a macro to do it because clicking 4 times to make one thing 1000 times is tedious so that should be done in bulk too if possible.

There's the option to bulk craft up to 10 items. Doesn't the crafting also 'remember' your last item, so you can quickly craft as many of a given item as you can? And change a component with three clicks if you run out?

Also, lots of gremlins cut down on the time expenditure.

What does the macro do?

I know I'm asking for a lot design wise ...

...its not a difficulty jump just a jump in how much repetitive gameplay and tedium your willing to put up with.

Well, I'm not a UI person, so there's a limit on how much effort I'm reasonably willing to put into that.

And you can also think of the excessive grind as a challenge to create the optimal dragon/lair combo to make it through with minimal pain. You can definitely setup 'breeding' or 'crafting' lairs and 'treasure-hunting' or 'crafting' dragons.

Finally, I see the mod as something like Stardew Valley, a game that isn't really meant to be 'completed'. You play your dragon on evenings when you feel like doing some raping and rampaging, and at one point try the endgame to see what happens and to get some closure.

...darkforest ...really not worth it for either loot or XP farming the capital is way more efficient.

Yeah, I could possibly lower the lair-finding costs for each iteration so it becomes easier and easier to find the monster lairs. Would ultimately reducing it down to 5x[2 knowledge] for 5 triple-strength Antelopes and 5*[5 knowledge] for a 20x strength Phoenix still be too much?

 

[myxlplykx]

If I do the 'bulk mate' button, would that be enough? Capturing breeders should really not be automated, since that's a one-time thing. You may need replacements occasionally, but that's it.

Yeah catching is fine the bulk mate would solve most of the issues I think and a bulk throw eggs into hatcheries too would be good.

A few hundred sleep cycles dedicated to gold-hunting, tops.

Darn thats a long time well fair enough.

There's the option to bulk craft up to 10 items. Doesn't the crafting also 'remember' your last item, so you can quickly craft as many of a given item as you can? And change a component with three clicks if you run out?

Also, lots of gremlins cut down on the time expenditure.

What does the macro do?

Yeah but that option only works if you have 2 or more of each item your using to craft the issue is there are so many items, so its not an issue of bulk crafting small silver bars its that i have 20 types of silver bars i need to craft with and they all each take their own click. the macro just clicks on crown, then the first material, then decoration, then the first decoration material, then inlay then the first inlay material then craft and repeat. Because its a very tedious amount of clicking when you can just have it auto craft from most valuable to least letting you know how much stamina it will take to do in bulk.

Well, I'm not a UI person, so there's a limit on how much effort I'm reasonably willing to put into that.

Totally fair, these are just suggestions for a mod of a game your working on for free so you can feel free to ignore me

And you can also think of the excessive grind as a challenge to create the optimal dragon/lair combo to make it through with minimal pain. You can definitely setup 'breeding' or 'crafting' lairs and 'treasure-hunting' or 'crafting' dragons.

Finally, I see the mod as something like Stardew Valley, a game that isn't really meant to be 'completed'. You play your dragon on evenings when you feel like doing some raping and rampaging, and at one point try the endgame to see what happens and to get some closure.

I like the goal of making the optimal dragon for situations, a lot of the boss fights had me doing that but idea of having to do the same events a few thousands times to make enough cash or amount of minions just isn't that fun without like progression of automation or the abilty to get like bigger number per action or event? sorta like how idle games have that progression ramp? Not sure really. To be fair i played it all at once and not more casually like stardew vally so some of my problems are defiantly coming from there.

Yeah, I could possibly lower the lair-finding costs for each iteration so it becomes easier and easier to find the monster lairs. Would ultimately reducing it down to 5x[2 knowledge] for 5 triple-strength Antelopes and 5*[5 knowledge] for a 20x strength Phoenix still be too much?

That would defiantly make me consider doing them more then once for the dark forest questline. I kind of liked how you could get better dark forest events by using knowledge but the fact that it consumed that knowledge made me never use it, Perhaps a different system that as you investigate it more you get less useless events where nothing happens? would make it less tedious for sure.

 

[Jman9]

...bulk throw eggs into hatcheries too would be good.

I'll see what I can do, when I have enough time again.

Darn thats a long time well fair enough.

It's an endgame quest. I'm not too keen on it being completed in less than 100 cycles, even for the most optimal dragon.

Because its a very tedious amount of clicking when you can just have it auto craft from most valuable to least letting you know how much stamina it will take to do in bulk.

I don't really want to re-calculate 'most valuable treasure' all the time (for both performance and bugginess reasons), but an auto-craft button that makes as many items as it can and just picks the most valuable components each time is entirely possible.

Totally fair, these are just suggestions for a mod of a game your working on for free so you can feel free to ignore me

Nah, I like your feedback. I just don't have a lot of free time right now, and am not in a draconic mood. I think I'll get back to making an update towards the end of June, but you're making the todo list grow longer and longer...

...just isn't that fun without like progression of automation or the abilty to get like bigger number per action or event?

Some things do give bigger payoffs, but it's definitely an issue. We'll see how this shakes out after the update.

Perhaps a different system that as you investigate it more you get less useless events where nothing happens?

Knowledge already is that. Maybe knowledge gains needs to scale up with progress, or you could just buy knowledge with... cash? Eggs? Being milked?

 

[myxlplykx]

I don't really want to re-calculate 'most valuable treasure' all the time (for both performance and bugginess reasons), but an auto-craft button that makes as many items as it can and just picks the most valuable components each time is entirely possible.

Yeah I think that would be perfect.

Nah, I like your feedback. I just don't have a lot of free time right now, and am not in a draconic mood. I think I'll get back to making an update towards the end of June, but you're making the todo list grow longer and longer...

Ill make sure to check back in around then and give it a try.

Some things do give bigger payoffs, but it's definitely an issue. We'll see how this shakes out after the update.

yeah its a tough issue, perhaps give more stuff for the rarely regenerating events like taking the dwarf capital and looting the treasury. it feels kind of silly I get more from looting a rich caravan 3 times then the dwarven treasury.

Knowledge already is that. Maybe knowledge gains needs to scale up with progress, or you could just buy knowledge with... cash? Eggs? Being milked?

Yeah those options would help., just the deal with knowledge is to use knowledge to get less useless events uses knowledge so you don't want to use it for that as your main goal of doing it would be to get more knowledge.

 

[Jman9]

it feels kind of silly I get more from looting a rich caravan 3 times then the dwarven treasury.

Huh? I just tried a few times and got around 1000 gold worth of both treasures and jewels, plus some crafting materials priced over 200 gold. Since the jeweler takes a 50% cut, that effectively comes down to ~1100 gold. And you can use the gems and metals to craft, increasing their value further.

Three extra-fat merchants can give you 150 gold if your dragon is very fearsome and the Kingdom is prosperous, or you get lucky thrice in a row. A more reasonable expectation is somewhere around 110 gold, or ~35 per encounter, at least an order of magnitude less than the Dwarves' treasure.

The Royal Treasury gave me 400+200 in trinkets and gemstones, which is worth at least 300 gold. Jumping the jeweler got me a bunch of stuff valued at ~130 gold, still more than any merchant. Raiding a mountain citadel was 15/60/5, i.e. ~40 after selling. Raiding a Jötun's icy home got me 100/20/0. Plundering a town was 40/0/0, demanding tribute with 30 fear got 10-20 gold in direct payment.

It doesn't look terribly unbalanced, and my intention was always to make the loot you get sorta believable, not finetune every encounter against each other.

I did update loot generation a while ago, maybe the current release actually is worse than these experiments. The merchants are still quite competitive, but they should be, they're the only ones who regularly handle large sums of actual money in a feudal setting. And they get depleted after a while.

 

[Yuriski]

Maybe someone mentioned this already, and it has been discussed before, but I would like for the dragon to be able to fly using magic (like you can dive). I bring it up, because I lost my developed lair after my dragon couldn't carry his fat ass up into the sky anymore.

 

[Jman9]

...I would like for the dragon to be able to fly using magic (like you can dive).

But he can, for 5 mana per flight?

...lost my developed lair after my dragon couldn't carry his fat ass up into the sky anymore.

This is intentional, and the only problem is with maximum-size dragons who cannot grow enough wings to retain the lair after evolving. Fixing that has been discussed several times.

 

[Zatrian]

Well, I love this game! But did the last update really came out last year?

 

[Jman9]

...game! But did the last update really came out last year?

The game had its final release almost two years ago. The mod has been kinda on hold for a while. I have other interests and RL responsibilities, as unfortunate as that might be.

 

[Frosch]

I'm curious, is there a way to change what body parts show up in the mutation screen? Because I've done some modding myself, like adding new heads (brown, copper), and while they appear correctly in the evolution and anatomy screen, I can't mutate an existing head into one of these two.

Also, is there a way to change the order in which the body parts (mainly the heads) are listed under evolution?

 

[Jman9]

I'm curious, is there a way to change what body parts show up in the mutation screen?

Add your colour suffix to the 'dragon_creation_avatar_colors' list in script.rpy.

new heads (brown, copper)

Hmm, what do these do?

Also, is there a way to change the order in which the body parts (mainly the heads) are listed under evolution?

AFAIK, the listing order is the same as in evolution.yaml.

 

[Frosch]

Add your colour suffix to the 'dragon_creation_avatar_colors' list in script.rpy.

Thanks!

Hmm, what do these do?

I reworked the entire head/scales section to suit my liking, the new heads filled some niches:

black: acid damage, acid resistance, +2 attack, +1 fear
white: ice damage, ice resistance, +2 attack , -5% rage
red: fire damage, fire resistance, +2 attack , +100 satiety
blue: lightning damage, lightning resistance, +2 attack , +1 move
green: poison damage, poison resistance, +2 attack , +1 virility
brown: sound damage, sound resistance, +2 attack , dig

gold: lightning damage, phys resistance 5, +2 attack, +2 mana
silver: ice damage, phys resistance 5, +2 attack, +1 move
copper: fire damage, phys resistance 5, +2 attack, +2 lust
iron: +2 attack, phys resistance 10, +5 hp, phys attack +3%, dig
mithril: +2 attack, phys resistance 15, +10 hp, phys attack +2%
adamantine: +2 attack, phys resistance 20, +15 hp, phys attack +1%

rainbow: magic damage, magic resistance 5, +1 attack , +5 mana
shadow: magic damage, +1 attack , +1 Mana, +5 fear
tentacles: poison damage, +3 attack, phys attack +3%, +3 fear

I also added some other body parts like webbed paws (swim, +1 move), gills (swim, water resistance), caustic blood (acid damage and resistance), concussive roar (sound damage, +3 fear).

By the way, the damage for lightning is shown to be lower (25%) compared to other damage types (35%). Is this intentional or a bug and where can it be changed?

AFAIK, the listing order is the same as in evolution.yaml.

Sadly, not the case. The order seems random.

 

[Jman9]

white: ice damage, ice resistance, +2 attack , -5% rage

Did you write a new effect for this or reuse Cold Blooded?

Some comments on the changes from my POV:

red: fire damage, fire resistance, +2 attack , +100 satiety
blue: lightning damage, lightning resistance, +2 attack , +1 move
green: poison damage, poison resistance, +2 attack , +1 virility
silver: ice damage, phys resistance 5, +2 attack, +1 move
copper: fire damage, phys resistance 5, +2 attack, +2 lust

Note that I specifically avoided stacking all sorts of effects on the heads, because this way lies balancing madness. A sufficiently large dragon on normal difficulty is already pretty OP. Heads are primarily for elemental damage/resistances, certain special abilities, attack, raw mana and fear.

E.g. the game is balanced against a maximum of 100 fear, but your changes raise that to at least 112. Virility is also very sensitive to small asjustments, and isn't really meant to be gamed by swapping out heads.

gold: lightning damage, phys resistance 5, +2 attack, +2 mana

Gold was already possibly the best general-purpose head.

iron: +2 attack, phys resistance 10, +5 hp, phys attack +3%, dig

Note that the steel head was specifically a defensive head with an attack penalty compared to most others.

adamantine: +2 attack, phys resistance 20, +15 hp, phys attack +1%

You can do with your game as you wish, of course, but isn't that a bit much?

I also added some other body parts...

Adding any significant amount of extra body parts will raise the dragon's maximum level, and thus wreak havoc with calculations that assume the previous max. Knights and thieves (capturing, scaring off, etc) are a prime example.

...like webbed paws (swim, +1 move)...

These may actually be a good idea.

...gills (swim, water resistance), caustic blood (acid damage and resistance), concussive roar (sound damage, +3 fear).

But generic body parts with special abilities or significant elemental abilites are not. This is exactly what the heads' niche is. There are a lot of head slots on a big dragon.

By the way, the damage for lightning is shown to be lower (25%) compared to other damage types (35%). Is this intentional or a bug and where can it be changed?

Can't make it happen myself, even a custom head shows +35% damage and +25% resistances. Note that a second lightning head is always +25% and goes down from there.

Sadly, not the case. The order seems random.

Hmm, yeah, it is.

You could change that by searching for where 'evolution' is invoked and creating a (temporary or permanent) list to use. So instead of

for key in evolution:
    [do things with] evolution[key]

you have

evolution_keys_ordered = list(evolution.keys()) #so it's a new list
evolution_keys_ordered.sort() #alphabetical
for key in evolution_keys_ordered:
    [do things with] evolution[key]

 

[Ambjorn187]

So, I notice there was some suggestions about automating a bunch of things (bulk mating/bulk crafting), so I made a mass mating mod.