Rules for modders

Please abide by the following rules when contributing to the DF from scratch project:

• You are not allowed to copy-and-paste any raws from vanilla DF or from other mods. (Copying existing code within dfscratch is acceptable, though.) The point of this mod is to create a completely new and different set of raws, not to pick and mix stuff from vanilla.

• Copying specific values (like, say, the tensile strength of iron) from vanilla DF is OK, although you should use common sense in doing so. There's not much point in making a value different just for the sake of being different, but on the other hand, there's also no need to follow vanilla slavishly -- our iron doesn't have to be exactly the same as vanilla iron.

• You are explicitly encouraged to make use of infrastructure (such as material templates, body detail plans, etc.) added by other contributors. However, don't change other people's code without their permission (except for bugfixes). If you want to implement something that requires, say, adding a new tag to all creatures, please ask first.

• To make the world eventually more varied, you are, in violation of the above, allowed to reduce the frequency of old creatures or materials or limit them to biomes when new creatures are added, but not remove them entirely -- nor assign them to an impossible biome (badgers to the ocean). The new frequency must not be less than 10% of the old frequency, or 1, whichever is greater, and you must mark this edit with a comment to prevent repeating it.

• Suggestion: when defining materials, try to add a [STATE_COLOR:ALL:COLOR] where COLOR is a color of your choice. This is so StoneSense can figure out what color a sprite should be.

• Test your changes before submitting them! At the very least, check that:

  • nothing is written into the DF error log (except for the "missing body gloss RCP_GLOSS_PAW" message, which is an unavoidable side effect of the hack used to eliminate vanilla DF's random creatures),

  • any creatures you added or changed work as expected in arena mode, and have an appropriate difficulty level,

  • worldgen works and doesn't crash,

  • any new playable civs, workshops, reactions, etc. work in fortress mode, and

  • any new adventurer races, interactions, etc. work in adventure mode.

IMPORTANT:

• To force compatibility with both vanilla DF and other players' contributions, so that raws never clash, and novelty so that copypasting simply does not work, you must add "_XYZ" to the end of every object that you newly add/define, where "XYZ" is a three-letter (or longer) tag of your choosing (e.g. "HLG" for Halfling). The exception to this is language words.

• Similarly, whenever possible, place all your raws in new files that include your name / tag, (e.g. creature_domestic_halfling.txt for Halfling), so we can keep track of who contributed which files.

• Lastly, you must not take a week to add only one material. Sorry. I can't really tell you how much you should add, but if you're not comfortable making new objects, you should probably not take a turn. Consider doing a playtest turn instead.

(To do: add other stuff from the initial forum post here?)