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Author Topic: Creating creatures with a reaction?  (Read 6023 times)

SeanTucker

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Creating creatures with a reaction?
« on: March 13, 2014, 05:36:47 pm »

Would it be possible to have a reaction create a new creature? I'm considering modding in a race of stone people who can't breed, but can replenish their ranks by carving new people from solid rock, and I'm curious as to if this is workable.
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BlackFlyme

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Re: Creating creatures with a reaction?
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2014, 06:03:20 pm »

Would it be possible to have a reaction create a new creature? I'm considering modding in a race of stone people who can't breed, but can replenish their ranks by carving new people from solid rock, and I'm curious as to if this is workable.

With DFHack you can directly create creatures through a reaction. You create a new material that has the necessary tokens for the script, and have the reaction create the material when run, which will spawn a new creature. Though it may be a little buggy, depending on your version of DFHack.

Without DFHack it takes a bit more work, but you can still create a creature. You can do this by creating a material that carries a syndrome that will temporarily turn the person running the reaction into another creature. This new creature will have a body part that is designed to fall off immediately, and then the person will turn back to normal. Give your race an interaction that can resurrect the body part and have it transform into your race.

It is important that the interaction resurrects and not animates, as animation creates zombies. It is also important to make sure that only the special creature used to create the body part can be affected by the interaction, otherwise everything that dies can become brought back to life and turned into a stone person.
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Hugo_The_Dwarf

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Re: Creating creatures with a reaction?
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2014, 07:01:07 pm »

Would it be possible to have a reaction create a new creature? I'm considering modding in a race of stone people who can't breed, but can replenish their ranks by carving new people from solid rock, and I'm curious as to if this is workable.

Without DFHack it takes a bit more work, but you can still create a creature. You can do this by creating a material that carries a syndrome that will temporarily turn the person running the reaction into another creature. This new creature will have a body part that is designed to fall off immediately, and then the person will turn back to normal. Give your race an interaction that can resurrect the body part and have it transform into your race.

It is important that the interaction resurrects and not animates, as animation creates zombies. It is also important to make sure that only the special creature used to create the body part can be affected by the interaction, otherwise everything that dies can become brought back to life and turned into a stone person.

Problem with this body parts that are animated/resurrected and transformed are considered "civless" friendly creatures, his best bet would be to have a special pet like this:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Creature can be bought (male and female) but their castes are so rare they never show in fortress mode, however their offspring are not  PET and are INTELLIGENT, thus when the child is transformed to your race it gains sentience in a sense (since the pet IS a part of your civ) side effects are:
-Only origional controlled race can fill noble roles (commanders of squads, brooker, etc)
-They must do something noteable to make them historical if you want them to join the army (sometimes if you wait long enough they show up for recruitment, but making a masterwork item is the fastest way)
-They will have no name (only profession gives them away) and have a <tame> attached to them forever
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