Topic: The Great Fur-Serpent (Read 1360 times)

Jikkuryuu · « **on:** March 20, 2009, 10:52:58 pm »

Because 'fuzzy' is apparently not a dwarfish word.
I read through Nonanonymous' New World: Beastiary thread today and it inspired me to spend the rest of the day learning how to make a creature. I can finally understand most of the features, and I have produced a creature.
SARAMASTSHETHEL (The Great Fur-Serpent)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Since the best way to learn is the hard way I went and tried to make a snake, that lives in climates from glacial to temperate (but dies in tropical or higher), has an extract with interesting properties, and has a mouth with 10 fingers instead of teeth.

My current hurdle is finding an easy way to test it. I have no idea whether it is working or not and I would very much appreciate some guidance.
I've tried adventure mode but the animal density was just too low to be practical (I did have fun going toe-to-toe with a sturgeon that pulled my swimming hammerdwarf into the river though). I'm currently running a fortress in a nice tundra that is also devoid of non-vermin life, but since it starts in spring I have to wait until autumn before there is even a chance of a new spawn ([NO_SUMMER]).

Since it's my first creature I also need a lot of help on specific values.
He is big, slow, non-aggressive, the NARROW, CAN_LEARN and SWIMS_LEARNED are just for fun. He is supposed to hit like a brick and cling with any/all body parts, but I don't know what good damage values are. Oh, I keep forgetting but he is supposed to produce really good leather but I didn't find any tag for that in the wiki.

I will try to organize my questions a little better here.

How should I set the FREQUENCY so that he actually exists? Lots of spawning is fine since I don't think many things live in his preferred habitats.

Is 1200 SPEED slow enough?

Is having a body full of GUTS a little too fragile?

I intentionally took off a lot of SMALL tags, both for emphasis and out of curiosity, has this caused any of you problems?

I don't know how the game handles digits (neither does the wiki apparently, so asking might be moot). Will they assist the MOUTHs attacks as they are and if not, can you suggest a better way?

Is STANDARD_FLESH some kind of requirement? The wiki has a blank there and it seems everything (modded or vanilla) has it somewhere.

My COLD/HEAT/BOILING values are all just rounded off around the areas I want. Do they make sense? Ooh, I just found a mix-up there, fixing... 1085 is a bit cold to be taking heat damage, changed to 10085.

LAYERING is at 65 because I skimmed a post that suggested 50 was the max if you wanted desert-dwellers. Would even higher be better for him?

Does anyone use VIEWRANGE? Will it work if he has no eyes?
Someone else already asked about laying eggs (not possible right now) so I'll just say it would be neat.

About the extract: I basically read through the whole tag list and selected what I wanted and when I saw the temperature properties I knew what I had to do. It's all there on the tin, Antifreeze. It's probably useless right now but I made a fluid that maintains a temperature above freezing with an extreme heat capacity that in hindsight will probably do more warmth-sucking than providing on anything other than a glacial map in winter but it's a neat idea. EXTRACT_PERMANENT is there in case it's possible (or becomes possible) to apply it to things and melt ice or make permanently warm (err, not-freezing) items.

I've finally run out of newb-gas so I will end my first post with a Thank You in Advance.

woose1 · « **Reply #1 on:** March 20, 2009, 11:05:53 pm »

1. Look at other animals in the raws.
2. A little slower than a dwarf.
3. Uh... no..... As far as I know, guts serve no useful purpose as of yet.
4. What? You mean Vermin tags?
5. 1:6 is a fine attack for this kind of animal.
6. Thats a little too advanced for you right now, cowboy. The next release will feature fully moddable tissue layers, but as of now, just use that tag.
7. They are fine... I think.
8. I can't help you there....

Look at the animals in the raws.
9. Animals without eyes will only 'see' things that are directly next to them.
10. Not possible, go to the suggestions forum.

EDIT: As for the extracts, that shiz is only for vermin. Oh, and also: Welcome to dwarf fortress.

Techhead · « **Reply #2 on:** March 20, 2009, 11:07:21 pm »

So its a giant dwarf-eating legless ferret/ermine/mongoose?

woose1 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 20, 2009, 11:16:00 pm »

You Do realize how strange this must look, right? two forumgoers with near-identical avatars and titles?

Jikkuryuu · « **Reply #4 on:** March 21, 2009, 01:17:31 am »

Quote from: Techhead on March 20, 2009, 11:07:21 pm

So its a giant dwarf-eating legless ferret/ermine/mongoose?

With a mouth full of fingers, yes.

Quote from: woose1 on March 20, 2009, 11:05:53 pm

1. Look at other animals in the raws.
2. A little slower than a dwarf.
3. Uh... no..... As far as I know, guts serve no useful purpose as of yet.
4. What? You mean Vermin tags?
5. 1:6 is a fine attack for this kind of animal.
6. Thats a little too advanced for you right now, cowboy. The next release will feature fully moddable tissue layers, but as of now, just use that tag.
7. They are fine... I think.
8. I can't help you there.... Look at the animals in the raws.
9. Animals without eyes will only 'see' things that are directly next to them.
10. Not possible, go to the suggestions forum.

EDIT: As for the extracts, that shiz is only for vermin. Oh, and also: Welcome to dwarf fortress.

More research through the raws and I get about 200 for LAYERING. I switched the frequency to 100 for kicks and testing. Thank you for the info about the eyes, that works out well enough. I also adjusted his attack like you suggested. The SMALL tags I was referring to were attached to 'themouth' and all the digits inside. The default MOUTH and 5_FINGERS have SMALL tags. Big snake, big mouth.

FoboslC · « **Reply #5 on:** March 21, 2009, 07:27:17 am »

Fur Snake

Kagus · « **Reply #6 on:** March 21, 2009, 09:05:18 am »

A body full of guts means that if any of those body parts gets heavily damaged by a slashing weapon (maybe even piercing, not too clear on that), the thing WILL die. Evisceration is a guaranteed kill, unsurprisingly. However, it is a very awesome way to die. It's up to you, really.

[SMALL] determines if that body part will show up in the parts list and also if it can be directly hit by an attack. When you examine a creature, you will see that it may have upper arms, lower arms, and hands. This is because these parts are of normal size. However, you won't be able to see that it only has three fingers, because fingers are [SMALL] parts. When you attack this creature, you may hit it in the left upper arm, left lower arm, or left hand. You will not be able to hit it in the second finger, left hand, since that target is too small (however, there's a chance that hitting the hand will damage the finger(s). Since [SMALL] parts cannot be directly damaged, they just take some damage incurred to their "parent" bodypart).

However, this has no effect on wrestling. You can still pull their finger or pinch their mouth regardless of how big or small it is.

Your current setup means that a single attack can hit either the mouth or the head, but not both. It's a point of personal taste, really. However, a creature with more non-small parts will have marginally greater survivability, since it will have more non-vital parts to serve as targets for attacks that might otherwise have hit something "important".

[NARROW][STOUT] = mutually exclusive and pointless. The only thing these tags do is determine size of clothing. This is why goblins and dwarves, creatures of the same size, cannot wear each others' clothing (due to the [STOUT] tag on dwarves, which makes their pantaloons a little broader).

[BENIGN][SAVAGE] = can't remember if these get along with each other or not. See if you can find more info on it.

[BIOME:TUNDRA:GLACIER:FOREST_TAIGA:ANY_TEMPERATE] Can biome tags have multiple entries? It's been a very long time since I modded, but I thought you had to make a separate tag for each biome. Check your errorlog.txt to see if it's complaining about anything.

[LOOSE_CLUSTERS] Relatively pointless with such small cluster numbers. Won't hurt anything though.

I've never even seen [VIEWRANGE:~] before. You sure it's a tag? And if you want something to see without eyes, just add [EXTRAVISION] and you're set.

[EXTRACT_PERMANENT] Only has an effect on poisons. This is why (vermin) cave spiders are so nasty, because the venom will never leave the body. This will cause the afflicted to fade in and out of a stunned state for the rest of their lives. Other than that, it has no effect.

A nifty thing to do with that tag is use it on a paralyzing poison. If someone gets it injected into their system and they aren't immune, they will die. Not a damn thing that can be done about it.

5:10 is a very large amount of damage. Max values above 6 should generally be reserved for extra-special-nasty creatures. Remember that damage is scaled with size, so a size 10 creature with a 1:6 attack will do much more damage than a size 6 creature with a 1:6 attack (proven by the damage difference between, for instance, dwarves and camels).

Nothing else pops out as a problem right now. Not to say it's perfectly clean, but at least you'll fix a few of the things you were asking about. Other than that, I'd just like to say that errorlog.txt is your near and dear friend. Consult it after every testing.

Kashyyk · « **Reply #7 on:** March 21, 2009, 10:47:03 am »

acually, I was under the impression that [STOUT] stopped you from being knocked down as easily. But it has been a while since I last modded so it could have been changed.

i2amroy · « **Reply #8 on:** March 21, 2009, 12:13:03 pm »

[STOUT] does help stop you from being knocked down. Surprisingly, it has no effect upon clothing. Dwarves can't wear narrow stuff because they are normal and narrow stuff is, well, narrow.

[BENIGN] and [SAVAGE] determine where a creature can live but are not mutually exclusive. If a creature has both, it just means that the creature can survive in both savage and benign areas.

The [BIOME:... tags need to be separated into [BIOME:GLACIER], [BIOME:FOREST_TAIGA], and [BIOME:ANY_TEMPERATE]

According to the wiki, [VIEWRANGE:X] is a tag, but my personal testing with it has been inconclusive. As Kagus said,[EXTRAVISION] is the best tag if you want something to see without eyes.

Currently your color tag is [COLOR:11:6:0], this, due to the interesting color effects that have been discovered, is exactly the same as [COLOR:3:6:1], or light cyan with a brown background. For more information, check the wiki page on color and look at Interesting Color Effects.

For the [SPEED:?] tag, the speed multiplier of a creature ingame equals 1000/speed tag, meaning that a creature with [SPEED:1200] will be .83 times as fast as a default dwarf.

[DIGIT] just adds some interesting effects like being able to jab in wrestling. At the moment it has nothing to do with attacks, so the digits inside of the creature's mouth are just a scary effect, and will not actually effect the creature's attacks.

I strongly suggest that you reduce the creature's attack at least a little. As Kagus said, size has a large effect upon attack as well.

The creature will never use their second attack because mouth's with [EMBEDDED] and [APERTURE] are indestructible except by destroying the part they are attached to. As that part is the head in this case, it would be an instant kill for it to be destroyed. If you want him to use the second attack as well, I suggest you have them both set to MAIN so their is a chance of either one.

[STANDARD_FLESH] sets some default values for heat and cold damage areas. It is a good idea to use it on anything with flesh, but it is not a requirement. In other words, unless it is a ghost or made of jelly or something like that with weird temperature values, add [STANDARD_FLESH]

Kagus · « **Reply #9 on:** March 21, 2009, 04:40:16 pm »

Are you quite sure that stout has an effect on stability? I remember that there was a rumor about that a long time ago, but I thought it had been debunked.

Also, if you check the goblin entry, you'll see that they lack the [NARROW] tag. The only creatures that possess the [NARROW] tag are elves. If you take [STOUT] away from dwarves, you will find that they can wear goblin clothing. I know it has an effect on clothing, I just don't know if it has the extra effect on stability (Toady has a rather nasty habit of bunching unrelated things into one tag. But he's getting better about it).

And I'm relatively sure that [BENIGN] is a behaviour tag, not a biome tag. [BENIGN] creatures will run away from threats unless cornered, in which case they will turn and fight. Non-[BENIGN] creatures will just attack.

Mind you, I said relatively sure... Like I said, it's been a long time since I delved into this stuff.

Jikkuryuu · « **Reply #10 on:** March 21, 2009, 04:43:36 pm »

Improved Saramastshethel:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That tip about errorlog was very handy, it found a name mixup between the body and creature entries. That was the only complaint at the time though.
Changes:
I exchanged VIEWRANGE for EXTRAVISION.
Separated the BIOME tags.
Dropped NARROW. Kept STOUT just in case.
Set the other attack as MAIN as well, thanks for pointing that problem out.
Adjusted damage.

Is there a better way to test than just generating a new world and starting a fortress in a Taiga? It takes a while and I still haven't even seen one.
When does the errorlog.txt update? I've generated a couple worlds and tried a couple fortresses but it hasn't changed since the error about FINGERTEETH (I was missing the hyphen).

Quote from: FoboslC on March 21, 2009, 07:27:17 am

Fur Snake

So I guess that "In Dwarf Fortress, fur snake is full of you!"

Rochndil · « **Reply #11 on:** March 21, 2009, 05:39:44 pm »

Good evening.

I haven't modded any critters yet, but I can tell you a bit about the error log. SOME things get logged at world gen, like messed up minerals, reactions, and such. You can tell by reading the log after genning and before embarking.

Other things get logged at embark. So, to be sure you've got everything logged, go ahead and embark somewhere.

That said, the error log will only show you ERRORS, not thing-that-don't-work-the-way-you-intended. Lots of "errors" will pass the game's filters just fine, like having an entire, painstakingly-detailed entity file, bypassed because you forgot to update the filename at the top. Whole parts of your creature can be similarly ignored if the formatting is off, or you left out a [ somewhere.

The only real way to see much is to embark and take a look. To make your life easier, in the short term, you might want to set your critter with an insane spawn rate and [any_biome] (or whatever the appropriate tag is) so you can actually FIND one.

Good luck, and happy modding!

Rochndil, who is modding much easier stuff...rocks.

i2amroy · « **Reply #12 on:** March 22, 2009, 12:59:58 am »

You might be right about the stout thing, however, I am positive that [BENIGN] is a biome tag. You can even take a look into the fact that it can be used by trees and plants as well as creatures to show that it is a biome tag. As the first line of the token's description on the wiki says, "Determines whether creature can show up on "tame" maps."

Kagus · « **Reply #13 on:** March 22, 2009, 08:37:31 am »

Didn't find it on any plants or trees, and the Wiki is (as usual) a little unclear. But like I said, it has been a very long time since I worked with this stuff, so you're probably right.

Other than that, it really is just a matter of pumping up the required frequency/population tags to ridiculous numbers and then seeing if they'll spawn at all (also take the opportunity to play around with them a bit, to see if they're doing what they're supposed to). Once that's all been settled, it's down to tweaking the pop and freq numbers until you get the level of scarcity you want. Bit of a pain fine-tuning things like that, but such is life.

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Author Topic: The Great Fur-Serpent (Read 1360 times)

Jikkuryuu

The Great Fur-Serpent

woose1

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

Techhead

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

woose1

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

Jikkuryuu

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

FoboslC

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

Kagus

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Kashyyk

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

i2amroy

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

Kagus

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

Jikkuryuu

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

Rochndil

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

i2amroy

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent

Kagus

Re: The Great Fur-Serpent