New week and less than a week till Halloween.
Weekends nothing gets done around here.
Did try different skeletons from Elven path and many tries stretching the human model for giants; generally I have to stick with human skeletons or the
armors don't fit, at all. I can shrink the skeleton but any other skeleton and armors cover the head or have huge gaps, and white blotches and phantom uncolored eyes sit on the faces. The races now I can live with. This is something different than undead; skeletons concern the placement of textures for arms, legs, face, hands and how far from the center to place each of these. Not sure about adding more; skins 0-11 are in use now, giving 5 races for Phosphor v21 / Perisno 0.8:
Human, Elf, Dwarf, Giant, Undead, and Drow for Phosphor. I suppose there exists capability for 0-15,
but this is the most I've had success with, SO FAR. I'm also out of time for adding races this release, unless I push back to Thanksgiving.
Right now the option to change races for premade characters appears for normal characters; characters choosing vassal etc are presented with a second page of destinations even when they have chosen a valid combination of race and kingdom. So this needs straightening out and testing.
Scouts and auto-created patrols for each kingdom were disabled in Perisno 75, but actually should come back, if the original problem can be solved.
I have a complex scheme on paper to solve it, but it needs time, many hours perhaps, to implement and test, on a day when I am not interrupted every few minutes as is my fate on weekends.
Drow troops were quickly adapted from some other minor troops and need their gear set to "drow" gear.
It would be nice to liberate a warg or spider from TLD as well...
Drow and Giants need troop tree upgrades.
Added a drow city, added merchants, enterprise masters, guildmasters, mayors, tavern persons for cities 28 and 29.
There are 18 factions now instead of 11.
Phosphor: players may start as:
Kings/Queens of the first 6 (native) factions and get the capital (and its garrison) as their city. This option is limited in race choice.
Prince/Princess starts with a castle (and its garrison) with a wider selection of races allowed - some factions are very racist.
Vassal and get a fief on day 1. This option has the loosest restrictions for race but racism still limits some player races in some kingdoms. I still need to adjust the simple_triggers offer of vassalage by race to filter out some offers. the hardest race is Bakhal flavor giant, next is Drow, third is regular giant, with elf and dwarf about equal, in terms of who does not like them very much. It's all quite a bit more opinionated than it used to be; elves dislike dwarves; dwarves dislike both redwood and bluewoods; bluewoods hate just about everybody; tolranians are quite intolerant of elves especially and nonhumans in general (to a lesser extent than elves); Maccavia doesn't like drow but tolerates Sut flavor giants; valhir enjoy giants and dwarves, but are also friends to drow; Drahara and Hakkon tolerate drow well, and Hakkon is eager to trade with the slavers of Bakhal giants; while the outlaw castle held by Cretas is favorable to outlaws and rebels everywhere, and the drow, who they seek to trade with for magic in order to gain an upper hand over other factions. Quite a few minor factions look favorably on the Zann as their chance to suppress those that suppress them, and are quick to attempt to ally themselves to the Zann. The factions to the south are generally wary of the zann but at first offer trade with them. Amazons trade with the bluewood elves for more than just shoes; although elf shoes are magic and boost pathfinding... Pretty much every named minor faction has an updated list of who it will and will not fight or flee from;
don't assume the same behavior as in Perisno .7x or any prior Phosphor.
There are balanced caravan trade routes connecting ALL 29 cities, TO and FROM, with every city spawning at least five and at most 10 caravans each,
meaning that in times of peace and assuming you protect caravans both arriving and departing from each city that city will become more prosperous, unlike before. I went over every script line in the first 10,000 lines where all these are initialized.
This found cities above 25 did not have arena teams defined; did so for dwarf, aruolo, and drow cities.
Moved the cities that in .8 were impossible to get to into the large open area at the south-east corner of the map, and reverted to a base Perisno .7 map as Robin's map assumed sea travel coding, but none such was supplied, and I detest implicit presumption as to what I have to do next. This also isn't a suggestions thread; its just saying what HAS been done. Suggestions (that is, more work you wish to volunteer me for) can go somewhere where under employed volunteers may yet implement it...
Diplomacy needs to have in simple_triggers the check for declaring war moved back 30 days so the game starts out in relative peace while vassals, princes, and kings try to get a handle on their kingdoms. Technically a change of monarchs is an excellent time for enemies to declare war but in general there are too many war declarations on day 1 right now.
Zann should invade sooner, especially if a player chooses the King option at game start.
Zann behavior is changed and may prevent the strange Zann failure to continue wars, as well as huge faction increases from helping the Zann that happen now.
For that matter many of the minor factions, such as amazons, ukundu, mosoru, and others are now neutral to some kingdoms, and you should check if you really are at war or hostile to minor faction parties before attacking them. Generally if they chase you, they're hostile. If they run from you, you're hostile or have attacked them previously. I *should* let players buy their way to peace with minor factions as they can do with major factions, except maybe increase the cost to prevent farming exploits.
I added a quick fix for missing in action spouses, if you meet one and she/he was going to remain forever hostile for having endured captivity after your party was defeated in a siege or in the field; now when you reunite, and first talk, in the special case the character you talk to is your spouse and hates you this much, your relation is boosted 10 points and they are attached to your party so you can send them home or not. Hopefully "kiss and make up" solves everything... I *should* but have not yet adjust dialogs where that fix is made to set relation to at least 10 or the current relation, whichever gives a higher value, as the value could be substantially negative.
Premade (tester) characters forgot to get food.
the Water staff looks to be the best weapon that doesn't friendly kill troops around you; I should hand them out to faction leaders....
(this is a Phosphor item; I'll next release a Phosphor submod for open testing then back port what seems to work to something smaller so the rest of the Perisno team can catch up, if they have time to add anything). As in the past few people actually read the forums and even fewer come test at Phosphor, this will be only for people curious to get their hands on something really different, in whatever state its in. I can assure you I'm willing to sit on it a little longer to make it clean before you see it, but I already think its cleaner than any Phosphor so far and I think it will be better next week. One of my weeks is like a half year from other devs (excepting Robin); its cruel to give them 3 week old source and not babysit further... I probably give code for Thanksgiving well before thanksgiving so they each can add something in time, if they want to. I know Robin did a heck of a lot for .8, and Michadr is genius for finding mounts, models, and such for new things. I wouldn't mind seeing a city model for "silk throat", the Drow cave opening and some sort of structure on top of ground. I can take the throne room from Elven Path so castle scene is able to be lifted quickly. The male drow has pointy ears, and is smaller by intention than the female, who has the easy on the eyes face we are used to in Perisno. I made giant females taller, although they look suspiciously the same as human women. It hasn't happened yet but I expect the price of silk will be low at the drow city; Drow will want iron and food items, as they have limited food from their as yet non existant villages and mushrooms aren't enough to eat from for a city. Drow definitely aren't stupid; strong and stupid describes their neighbors and allies, the cruel Bakhal giants, who tend to eat their prisoners, or at least so I've heqard. The code doesn't YET have them eat prisoners, but its not that hard to implement ... someday "soon" (TM). If I bother to do that I should triple their food consumption as well. They really ARE stupid, and incredibly strong. Ideal for
powerful matriarchs like the Drow to manipulate when possible...
All villages and towns belonging to other races (Elf, Giant, Drow) now have town walkers with the correct skin type (race) for that town/village.
This is done by expanding the troops defined to add other races as town walkers and village walkers.
Expanding the troop trees implies adjusting starting and ending locations for troop trees needed adjustment and testing, which is done.
Prices are already reduced on anything crafting can make, but all other items should be reduced as well.
I should review the rings and enchantments prices also.
I should change the developer cheats as well to add more drow and giant troops for cheat menu voting to add to the player party.
These are the main things holding back a release this week, which would be a remarkably Perisno .77-like game with 2 races added and a .8 Perisno map.
It's not fair to call it Perisno .8 because Michadr and others promised hundreds of features that none of them actually coded, leaving it all to me, and I didn't actually promise that list. I made a DIFFERENT list of stuff I wanted to see by November, some of which probably will be in by Thanksgiving and little of which can get done by Halloween.
I'm told, and it sometimes looks that way, that its bad luck to release during a "falling" moon, where the moon is waning instead of waxing. that means I should release no later than tomorrow for best luck, which seems like I'd get something from the map and giants but none of the features that were uniquely mine, excepting maybe scouts fix, zann behavior fix, and some bug fixes over what Robin made for .8; that's not really enough reason to release early. A Tuesday fix is more of the same, perhaps I can squeeze enough to make a better preview for testing. I'll try that, but that would be a limited release.
The next window of opportunity would then be closed 2 weeks, and open in the two weeks following, closing right after Thanksgiving weekend in USA.
None of this is save game compatible with anything from Perisno .77; Elven path resources are edited so not really compatible with the last Phosphor v21 version I floated last month.
ALL of Perisno .77 is already included with Phosphor v21 r5. Things mentioned as being "in" are finished; thing listed as not yet done are expected to finish this coming week. this isn't the same thing as saying I'm done at that point, just that the first, most elementary layer of changes are done at that point and I can have a release to closed testers begin. I have yet another layer I wanted to get started on but examining so far showed I needed a better base than I was given and better than I so far made for myself this summer. PBOD is merged, the option to increase enemy troops (and your troops and companions) weapons proficiency by another 50% is merged, and a number of recent Rigale 12.40 fixes and improvements made it in so far...
Phosphor has crafting, gathering, and fatigue that is not seen in Perisno. Deal with it or wait a year: I don't care which. I'm just as happy with 300
testers as 20,000 spoiled downloaders that essentially cry buckets. Of course, I shouldn't be so quick to give them reason to cry. This time I'm playing at least 15 minutes each race and city to look for problems earlier; it would take 6 man months to replicate 100 people playing for 3 days each, which is why Perisno gets hundreds of support tickets a few days after a major release. Or at least, used to...
Putting it here just because I intend to push Perisno .8 along, kicking and screaming no doubt, whether it feels like releasing this year or not.
I'm stubborn that way.
- GS
Weekends nothing gets done around here.
Did try different skeletons from Elven path and many tries stretching the human model for giants; generally I have to stick with human skeletons or the
armors don't fit, at all. I can shrink the skeleton but any other skeleton and armors cover the head or have huge gaps, and white blotches and phantom uncolored eyes sit on the faces. The races now I can live with. This is something different than undead; skeletons concern the placement of textures for arms, legs, face, hands and how far from the center to place each of these. Not sure about adding more; skins 0-11 are in use now, giving 5 races for Phosphor v21 / Perisno 0.8:
Human, Elf, Dwarf, Giant, Undead, and Drow for Phosphor. I suppose there exists capability for 0-15,
but this is the most I've had success with, SO FAR. I'm also out of time for adding races this release, unless I push back to Thanksgiving.
Right now the option to change races for premade characters appears for normal characters; characters choosing vassal etc are presented with a second page of destinations even when they have chosen a valid combination of race and kingdom. So this needs straightening out and testing.
Scouts and auto-created patrols for each kingdom were disabled in Perisno 75, but actually should come back, if the original problem can be solved.
I have a complex scheme on paper to solve it, but it needs time, many hours perhaps, to implement and test, on a day when I am not interrupted every few minutes as is my fate on weekends.
Drow troops were quickly adapted from some other minor troops and need their gear set to "drow" gear.
It would be nice to liberate a warg or spider from TLD as well...
Drow and Giants need troop tree upgrades.
Added a drow city, added merchants, enterprise masters, guildmasters, mayors, tavern persons for cities 28 and 29.
There are 18 factions now instead of 11.
Phosphor: players may start as:
Kings/Queens of the first 6 (native) factions and get the capital (and its garrison) as their city. This option is limited in race choice.
Prince/Princess starts with a castle (and its garrison) with a wider selection of races allowed - some factions are very racist.
Vassal and get a fief on day 1. This option has the loosest restrictions for race but racism still limits some player races in some kingdoms. I still need to adjust the simple_triggers offer of vassalage by race to filter out some offers. the hardest race is Bakhal flavor giant, next is Drow, third is regular giant, with elf and dwarf about equal, in terms of who does not like them very much. It's all quite a bit more opinionated than it used to be; elves dislike dwarves; dwarves dislike both redwood and bluewoods; bluewoods hate just about everybody; tolranians are quite intolerant of elves especially and nonhumans in general (to a lesser extent than elves); Maccavia doesn't like drow but tolerates Sut flavor giants; valhir enjoy giants and dwarves, but are also friends to drow; Drahara and Hakkon tolerate drow well, and Hakkon is eager to trade with the slavers of Bakhal giants; while the outlaw castle held by Cretas is favorable to outlaws and rebels everywhere, and the drow, who they seek to trade with for magic in order to gain an upper hand over other factions. Quite a few minor factions look favorably on the Zann as their chance to suppress those that suppress them, and are quick to attempt to ally themselves to the Zann. The factions to the south are generally wary of the zann but at first offer trade with them. Amazons trade with the bluewood elves for more than just shoes; although elf shoes are magic and boost pathfinding... Pretty much every named minor faction has an updated list of who it will and will not fight or flee from;
don't assume the same behavior as in Perisno .7x or any prior Phosphor.
There are balanced caravan trade routes connecting ALL 29 cities, TO and FROM, with every city spawning at least five and at most 10 caravans each,
meaning that in times of peace and assuming you protect caravans both arriving and departing from each city that city will become more prosperous, unlike before. I went over every script line in the first 10,000 lines where all these are initialized.
This found cities above 25 did not have arena teams defined; did so for dwarf, aruolo, and drow cities.
Moved the cities that in .8 were impossible to get to into the large open area at the south-east corner of the map, and reverted to a base Perisno .7 map as Robin's map assumed sea travel coding, but none such was supplied, and I detest implicit presumption as to what I have to do next. This also isn't a suggestions thread; its just saying what HAS been done. Suggestions (that is, more work you wish to volunteer me for) can go somewhere where under employed volunteers may yet implement it...
Diplomacy needs to have in simple_triggers the check for declaring war moved back 30 days so the game starts out in relative peace while vassals, princes, and kings try to get a handle on their kingdoms. Technically a change of monarchs is an excellent time for enemies to declare war but in general there are too many war declarations on day 1 right now.
Zann should invade sooner, especially if a player chooses the King option at game start.
Zann behavior is changed and may prevent the strange Zann failure to continue wars, as well as huge faction increases from helping the Zann that happen now.
For that matter many of the minor factions, such as amazons, ukundu, mosoru, and others are now neutral to some kingdoms, and you should check if you really are at war or hostile to minor faction parties before attacking them. Generally if they chase you, they're hostile. If they run from you, you're hostile or have attacked them previously. I *should* let players buy their way to peace with minor factions as they can do with major factions, except maybe increase the cost to prevent farming exploits.
I added a quick fix for missing in action spouses, if you meet one and she/he was going to remain forever hostile for having endured captivity after your party was defeated in a siege or in the field; now when you reunite, and first talk, in the special case the character you talk to is your spouse and hates you this much, your relation is boosted 10 points and they are attached to your party so you can send them home or not. Hopefully "kiss and make up" solves everything... I *should* but have not yet adjust dialogs where that fix is made to set relation to at least 10 or the current relation, whichever gives a higher value, as the value could be substantially negative.
Premade (tester) characters forgot to get food.
the Water staff looks to be the best weapon that doesn't friendly kill troops around you; I should hand them out to faction leaders....
(this is a Phosphor item; I'll next release a Phosphor submod for open testing then back port what seems to work to something smaller so the rest of the Perisno team can catch up, if they have time to add anything). As in the past few people actually read the forums and even fewer come test at Phosphor, this will be only for people curious to get their hands on something really different, in whatever state its in. I can assure you I'm willing to sit on it a little longer to make it clean before you see it, but I already think its cleaner than any Phosphor so far and I think it will be better next week. One of my weeks is like a half year from other devs (excepting Robin); its cruel to give them 3 week old source and not babysit further... I probably give code for Thanksgiving well before thanksgiving so they each can add something in time, if they want to. I know Robin did a heck of a lot for .8, and Michadr is genius for finding mounts, models, and such for new things. I wouldn't mind seeing a city model for "silk throat", the Drow cave opening and some sort of structure on top of ground. I can take the throne room from Elven Path so castle scene is able to be lifted quickly. The male drow has pointy ears, and is smaller by intention than the female, who has the easy on the eyes face we are used to in Perisno. I made giant females taller, although they look suspiciously the same as human women. It hasn't happened yet but I expect the price of silk will be low at the drow city; Drow will want iron and food items, as they have limited food from their as yet non existant villages and mushrooms aren't enough to eat from for a city. Drow definitely aren't stupid; strong and stupid describes their neighbors and allies, the cruel Bakhal giants, who tend to eat their prisoners, or at least so I've heqard. The code doesn't YET have them eat prisoners, but its not that hard to implement ... someday "soon" (TM). If I bother to do that I should triple their food consumption as well. They really ARE stupid, and incredibly strong. Ideal for
powerful matriarchs like the Drow to manipulate when possible...
All villages and towns belonging to other races (Elf, Giant, Drow) now have town walkers with the correct skin type (race) for that town/village.
This is done by expanding the troops defined to add other races as town walkers and village walkers.
Expanding the troop trees implies adjusting starting and ending locations for troop trees needed adjustment and testing, which is done.
Prices are already reduced on anything crafting can make, but all other items should be reduced as well.
I should review the rings and enchantments prices also.
I should change the developer cheats as well to add more drow and giant troops for cheat menu voting to add to the player party.
These are the main things holding back a release this week, which would be a remarkably Perisno .77-like game with 2 races added and a .8 Perisno map.
It's not fair to call it Perisno .8 because Michadr and others promised hundreds of features that none of them actually coded, leaving it all to me, and I didn't actually promise that list. I made a DIFFERENT list of stuff I wanted to see by November, some of which probably will be in by Thanksgiving and little of which can get done by Halloween.
I'm told, and it sometimes looks that way, that its bad luck to release during a "falling" moon, where the moon is waning instead of waxing. that means I should release no later than tomorrow for best luck, which seems like I'd get something from the map and giants but none of the features that were uniquely mine, excepting maybe scouts fix, zann behavior fix, and some bug fixes over what Robin made for .8; that's not really enough reason to release early. A Tuesday fix is more of the same, perhaps I can squeeze enough to make a better preview for testing. I'll try that, but that would be a limited release.
The next window of opportunity would then be closed 2 weeks, and open in the two weeks following, closing right after Thanksgiving weekend in USA.
None of this is save game compatible with anything from Perisno .77; Elven path resources are edited so not really compatible with the last Phosphor v21 version I floated last month.
ALL of Perisno .77 is already included with Phosphor v21 r5. Things mentioned as being "in" are finished; thing listed as not yet done are expected to finish this coming week. this isn't the same thing as saying I'm done at that point, just that the first, most elementary layer of changes are done at that point and I can have a release to closed testers begin. I have yet another layer I wanted to get started on but examining so far showed I needed a better base than I was given and better than I so far made for myself this summer. PBOD is merged, the option to increase enemy troops (and your troops and companions) weapons proficiency by another 50% is merged, and a number of recent Rigale 12.40 fixes and improvements made it in so far...
Phosphor has crafting, gathering, and fatigue that is not seen in Perisno. Deal with it or wait a year: I don't care which. I'm just as happy with 300
testers as 20,000 spoiled downloaders that essentially cry buckets. Of course, I shouldn't be so quick to give them reason to cry. This time I'm playing at least 15 minutes each race and city to look for problems earlier; it would take 6 man months to replicate 100 people playing for 3 days each, which is why Perisno gets hundreds of support tickets a few days after a major release. Or at least, used to...
Putting it here just because I intend to push Perisno .8 along, kicking and screaming no doubt, whether it feels like releasing this year or not.
I'm stubborn that way.
- GS
