Topics

31

Suggestions / Making location of bird thief quest traps a little bit easier

« on: October 05, 2018, 08:45:28 PM »

The Bird Thief quest can be a real pain when the target area is coniferous, as visibility is poor to start with, and there's a significant risk of the traps being obscured for the player by trees on top of that. The description talks about human footprints, so it would make sense to actually have human footprints in the area, similar to how the Wounded Adventurer quest has animal footprints (but the human wouldn't remain in the area, obviously). I don't know how hard this is to implement, though.

32

Bug reports / Feathers cause tree display order to be reversed (very minor display issue)

« on: June 05, 2018, 11:58:22 AM »

I've noted that sometimes the trunk of a tree can be seen through/on top of the branches of a tree that should obscure it, while most of the time the trunk is obscured. Then I noted that a see-through tree had a feather at its base, removed the feather, and found the display order return to normal, i.e. the trunk of the tree behind it became obscured again. Shortly after that I saw another see-through tree, and yes, it has a feather at its base.
If it's of interest I saved and copied the save just before removing the feather from the first tree.

The issue has no game play effects as far as I know, so it's only a visual oddity.

33

Suggestions / Commands should have a longer range than conversation

« on: May 02, 2018, 12:23:50 PM »

So, once again I've had the frustration of battling robbers and most of the hirelings just twiddle their thumbs when the one they fought was killed, while the last of them is fighting a 1:1 battle against one of the robbers.
The refusal to follow orders in this situation has thankfully been fixed, but I still have the problem that the order range is the same as the conversation range, i.e. about 10 meters. As the robbers tend to come towards you in a string, there can be some distance between your character battling the first one and the hirelings battling the others.

My suggestion is that you should be able to shout commands to hirelings (and dogs) at a considerably larger range, probably about 30 meters (15 tiles), although maximum visual range probably wouldn't be excessive. Instead of the infuriating message that I have to get closer while the abandoned hireling gets hacked to death, only commands should be available if the distance is too large for conversation, with the rest being greyed out. Non hirelings should continue to behave as they do currently (i.e. no reply, "get closer"), as you can't order them around.

In the same vein, dogs ought to hear you at a considerably larger distance than is currently the case, both because you're presumably shouting to increase the range, and because dogs have a better hearing than humans. If the dog is sufficiently far away you may not hear its reply bark, though (range based on character hearing?).

34

Bug reports / Dismissed hirelings not returing properly

« on: April 16, 2018, 12:19:12 PM »

I've copied a save (so it's available if of interest) where my character has encountered "a reemiläis peasant" out in the wild and zoomed in. I'm quite sure the group of people seen to the SE are part of an earlier robber quest posse (the rest are probably just outside the visible area).
The group moves away to the SE (I've move two steps towards them and they move away at the same rate). I've encountered this behavior before, including refusals to be hired until "X" has returned, where "X" wasn't killed, but simply did not return after being dismissed.
I'm not sure of which hireling group this is, as I can't keep track of them, but it doesn't have to be the latest one (but it can be).
Obviously, the buggers should have returned home a long time ago...

35

Gameplay questions / <Animal> in the forest cover quests: Take "forest" literally?

« on: April 05, 2018, 10:38:11 PM »

I just gave up on such a quest after having visited every tile in the search area, except the lake ones (but including the island ones in the lake).  However, the visibility in spruce forests is horrible, and the track area is rather small, so it's very easy to miss them.

Should "forest cover" be taken literally, such that the search can be "limited" to forest tiles?

36

Bug reports / Spoiled spoils?

« on: April 04, 2018, 12:00:51 PM »

3.50: I took up a wounded adventurer quest in the morning and was lucky enough to find the shelter by the afternoon. However, both sets of smoked meat that were there were spoiled, which I don't think is supposed to happen. I destroyed the garbage (literally) immediately, so it's no longer available for examination.

It doesn't matter for my character, as abundant food is available, but I report it as it's odd.

The date is day 5 of the 5:th week before "midsummer" point, if timing might be involved.

37

Solved'n'fixed bug reports / [Fixed - persists in 3.50] Former hirelings not available for rehire

« on: April 02, 2018, 03:44:50 PM »

It seems I'm never been able to hire anyone I've ever hired before (I can identify a lot of them by the fact that they carry equipment they received from me). It's perfectly understandable that people won't join up with me if people have gone missing (although I think they should give some leeway when the casualty was in the robber removal service), but everyone else I've hired previously invariably says "Not now, but maybe in the future".  Apart from losses cutting out villages, it also means all the highly skilled potential hirelings quickly become unavailable, which means higher losses as the trash mobs I have to recruit (villagers, peasants, and old men, as the hunters and woodsmen without missile weapons have all been hired before) die rather easily (although I'll probably get to use the newly introduced blood staunching of others ability soon, if I can find enough bodies).
This issue is on top of 90% of those I try to recruit say "Not now, but maybe in the future" (including the closest village, where nobody has ever wanted to join up, including the adventurer).

38

Suggestions / Spirit relation re-balancing

« on: March 10, 2018, 10:43:34 AM »

The spirit and magic enhancements are good in general. However, there are a few things I think need re-balancing:

1. As far as I can tell, sacrifices now use a joint pool, as opposed to separate pools (and spells) for different targets earlier. I think they need to be split up again, so sacrifice of fish automatically goes towards satisfying the water spirits and meat to appease the forest ones, and these pools being independent, i.e. having made an offering to the spirits of the forest shouldn't block a sacrifice to the spirits of the water. Whether there should be a regional split up as well can be discussed, as I don't know if there are regional differences or not, but if there are, sacrifices to one region/realm spirit shouldn't affect sacrifices to another.
2. Spirit mood feedback should likewise be split up more. I keep getting messages of unity with the water even though my character haven't fished for half a year, and the sacrifices for almost as long have been of meat (I had some roaches that needed sacrificing).
3. The "cost" of kills should be re-balanced so it's possible to live off small game without being hated by the spirits of the forest. It should be contemplated whether the value (in some currency, e.g. amount/nutrients of meat and/or fur value) of a kill and sacrifice should affect the spirit relation adjustment. Currently it seems a sacrifice of a spoiled hazel grouse lump of fat has the same impact as a whole salmon or fresh bear cut.
4. "Special" sacrifices (of which I know a single one) should not be blocked by the standard ones, and given their cost, they ought to give a larger boost to the relation than the standard one.
5. Spirit moods ought to move towards neutral over time if nothing affects them, so a relation of unity should decay towards neutral if you neither sacrifice nor "harvest" from the spirit's domain, and the same should a furious relation.
However, some folklore seems to have rather petty supernatural actors with long memories, so it might not be wrong to let good relations decay a lot faster than bad ones are repaired.

39

Solved'n'fixed bug reports / Cow in forest cover quest

« on: February 21, 2018, 01:51:54 PM »

Left BULL tracks...

Rather minor, of course.

40

Modding / 'During midsummer' not working correctly?

« on: February 21, 2018, 11:07:01 AM »

I'm using Buiodda's craft's sheep shearing (which I believe comes from Rain's Clothing v3), and one part of the recipe is
{[NEARBY_TILE:ground]}          'During midsummer'
This sort of works in that most of the year shearing is not permitted. However, the timing seems to be wrong, as I failed to shear my sheep last year because the recipe claimed the time was wrong, despite UrW showing the time as being midsummer. I was late in shearing due to being caught up in other tasks (as well as not trying before UrW claimed it was midsummer), so I probably tried it after the midsummer point. This year I tried to make sure not to make the same mistake, so I've tried shearing way too early, and managed to shear the sheep at day 1, 9 weeks before the midsummer point. It thus seems the timing actually results in summer before midsummer (but it didn't work a few days earlier, so the cutoff may well be 9 weeks).
A question then is whether it's a deficiency of the mod script or if the mod indication is off, i.e. a bug in UrW's mod support?
I'll try shearing after the midsummer point to find the approximate cutoff time at that side, but it will be some time before I get there.

41

Bug reports / Ending up far up on land when using punt

« on: February 20, 2018, 09:56:21 AM »

I used a punt to cross a river by zooming out, traveling one tile, and then zooming in. I then ended up far up on land (while still on a river tile), presumably because I've gone there during the winter, and thus have zoomed out from the water. The tile is a river bend tile and my location is some 5 tiles diagonally from the river course changing point (on the "outside" of the "knee").

There's a need for a check that the stored zoomed in location is valid for the traveling mode, and use the default one if it isn't.

This is a minor inconvenience as I'm using a punt, but I wouldn't like that to happen with a raft loaded up with logs...

42

Solved'n'fixed bug reports / [Fixed - persists in 3.50b2] Unfair death due to extremely rapid ice melting

« on: February 15, 2018, 10:08:03 AM »

My character saw a reindeer out on the ice on the overland map, moved there (on the overland map), and found it dead by a hole in the ice, move to the hole and butchered the carcass. When trying to zoom out again I was met with the report that it wasn't possible due to the uncertain condition of the ice. OK. Call on the dog and let it carry 65 cuts of meat, push over the meat, and the dog falls through the ice. Still not able to zoom out. Lie down and crawl. The ice makes cracking noises. Drop the rest of the butchered products. Still no zooming out. Crawl. New cracking noises. Fall though. Drop everything carried, but the ice keeps breaking when trying to get up, which eventually leads to death. Given that I had moved there on the overland map I didn't know which direction the closest land was.
I had no idea the ice had grown weak yet (snow still knee deep), and there was no warning when moving up to the carcass, neither on the overland map, nor on the local map. I agree I should have gotten the hell out of there when seeing the reindeer and its hole in the ice, but it's still extreme that the ice melts from no indication of risk to lethal during the hours it takes to butcher the carcass.

43

Suggestions / Bird thief quest issues

« on: February 14, 2018, 10:16:01 AM »

I have a couple of issues with the bird thief quest, and think they can be dealt with reasonably easily:
1. It doesn't make sense to have to "relearn" the ritual in the quest every time: once the ritual is known, it should be possible to bypass the learning steps by getting the dialog option that the character already knows a ritual to get a bird thief to confess. I haven't tried to actually short cut it to see if it works as I'm not sure it might break the quest.
2. It makes sense that a lost victim of robbery is hazy about the whereabouts of the robbers, and it makes some sense that a traveling adventurer doesn't keep detailed note of where his shelter is built, but a bird trapper should know the location well and be able to give fairly precise directions. To make the matter worse with this quest is that the traps are few and not easily seen (they don't stand out like blood scapes, and if they're scattered over the tile I haven't found it), which makes them very easy to miss when placed in terrain with a lot of spruce, as the line of light is rather limited there.
It would be easier to find the traps if they're always placed reasonably close to the terrain feature border (that may be the case already) so you're sure to find them if you pass through the tile along the border.

44

Bug reports / Lost hirelings

« on: February 13, 2018, 11:38:40 AM »

I know I have an adventurer former hireling near my homestead, and I fear he'll drown once it thaws, as he's wandering around on the river for a fair bit. I dismissed him a few kilometers to the south, which is in the general direction of the village he was hired in.

However, this is another strange hireling issue:
3 months ago my character hired a large number of assorted villagers to deal with robbers, and I dismissed them a few kilometers south of my homestead (again, in the general direction of their respective villages). However, I just ran into "a rem hunter", zoomed in, and saw a large number of characters that most probably was the group I had employed. I looked around (on the zoomed in map), and they were suddenly all gone, but there were very fresh footprints, and I followed one set running parallel to another set, until it suddenly stopped, and at that time I followed the other set. I made a save after following footprints for a fair distance, without catching up with anyone (I'm not sure if the save was before or after running out of the first set of footprints).
It's probably unrelated, but I was unable to find any quests on my last attempt, visiting about 8 settlements over two days.

45

Gameplay questions / How do I catch perches?

« on: February 02, 2018, 04:05:23 PM »

Buiodda's Crafting mod calls for dried perch skin for a number of recipes, but I fail to catch the elusive buggers.
I thought you'd catch them (together with roaches, which I don't really care about) in small lakes, but my attempts at setting nets in a single tile lake has resulted in, I think, everything except perches, roaches, and salmon (and the last one shouldn't be available there).
Neither the in game info nor the wiki sheds any light on the issue.