So
that is why there were multiple clones.
Damn, DF y u so tricky.
I am still going to do this though, I am determined and psyked and everything and bored.
I got time to spare so I can deal with this without problem (ca 15 days to be exact), I just need instruction on how you want the thing built, for all intents and purpouses,
I AM the program for the job.
Today then, is planning day, helps if you check in every now and then to give a quick response, I reckon the faster we get this done the better.
The archetype idea/concept is good, great actually, saves me from having to deal with Concentration/Strand Extractor/Various crap.
I do have a question on this genetic diversity thing though, I noticed that every caste has its own descriptor entry, and they are all identical, right?
If DF is programmed to end up with one dominant gene, say, your blue and green earth ponies with uh... a pineapple (called annanas in the list because I am stupid and named it after its european name) cutiemark, doesn't it only affect that one caste based on the descriptor entry?
What I mean is, if I were to share that entry with an unicorn caste and 9 other male earth pony castes would
THEY be affected by the dominant gene or would they randomize their own genes due to them being different castes?
Like, what is the need for having 10 identical color descriptors jamming half the creature file?
I am thinking that if I do dupe the same caste 10 times, I'd be able to use the same caste stats entry AND the descriptor entry for all 10 castes and still get the same results rather than creating 10 castes and 10 descriptor color entries like it currently is, it would save a shitload of space.
Would this work?
1) As long as it is clear from the cutie mark, what a pony's special talent is, I'd keep the "A pony with a spiral horn growing from his / her forehead."
3) I think so, but am at a loss as to what should be more frequent and by how much. In general I'd keep female to male ratio at 2 and the number of alicorns low.
------- Stuff --------
Royal ponies: just clone the castes ten times to get some variety and multiply the frequency of other castes accordingly.
Don't make penalties to learning rates worse than x0.8 and bonuses greater than x2.0 and + 5 to natural skill. Special talents or not, some ponies are going to end up with available jobs, not what they want to do.
1) That is the problem, some cutiemarks don't exactly make the pony's skill obvious, some skills have more obvious marks while others are more complicated to describe in the form of a fancy little symbol plastered on the flanks and on larger forts where migrations can have massive numbers it may be a bit tedious to manually check everyone and then try and figure out what their true skill is based on "a bent metal pipe", "a snake skin", etc. Hence why I ask.
3) Current ratio is at 7500, per caste, the total ratio should be 225.001.
I THINK that ratios work this way, "X amount of Y's per TOTAL RATIO" so alicorn ratio of 1 would mean "1 alicorn per 225k units" and castes go "7500 Unicorn 3 per 225k units" (female caste ratio numbers are higher than male ratios though).
The ratio numbers can be incredibly low or very high and still function exactly the same... I THINK.
What IS a royal pony archetype? Aside from being an all male caste.
Bonus in all combat skills?
Likes_fighting?
??
That is another thing, should ponies have natural skills based on their mark or just skill gain bonuses? (ie Pie Makers with permanent minimum of Novice/Talented in cooking)
Edit:
I managed to set up and organize everything without problems, with the "Replace X with Y" function of notepad this is actually going to be a lot easier than I thought and take way less time than predicted.
All I need now is archetypes to implement, I added a couple to the google doc but eh, it's not really my kind of job.
So far the applebucker, weatherpony, pie maker and bowyer are in and working with their own marks and all. 20 castes each.