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[simoroth]

Out of interest can we deal with Eldritch sort of of stuff ? So we could find artifacts or really deadly creatures which need to be kept in certain conditions at all times sort of like SCP, infact Simoroth you should go read SCP wiki i think you would find some excelent inspiration there for stuff for the game. Anyway but would we be able to research Eldritch sort of stuff and maybe sort work onto occult and evil stuff.

I do have finding strange artifacts, monoliths and the like, and want them to have weird effects. Like driving people insane etc. But nothing overly Lovecraft I'm afraid.

The two creature designs I have at the moment are more like primordial earth creatures (fitting with the state of the planet). No dead space monsters or anything metaphysical.

Are we talking about things like Trilobites and Eurypterid? Or what about those, uh... damn it, can't find the name. The creature with the two mouth-tentacle grabbers. Whatever it's called.

EDIT: I found the name. The creatures are called Opabinia, and their tentacles were a cross between vacuum cleaner tubes and elephant trunks.

Oops I meant primeval. So a Paleogene era on a planet where larger lizards are in competition with large mamalian creatures. Where evolution hasn't killed off some of the stranger lineages yet. Although I'm mixing in some much more recent types of animal.

If your interested, here are the early notes I wrote down for two of the things we are now working on:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Creature one:

The first alien creature the game will have is the "Magpie". Named as such because of their intelligence and passion for stealing shiny things from your colony. They wont be particularly dangerous, just really really annoying.

Visually I see the "magpie" looking a lot like a Deinonychus. Probably a bit smaller in size, but with the same frame and range of motion. Covered in something more like spines than feathers.

Its arms would need to be far larger, to be more use in picking up and carrying things. So opposable thumbs are a must too.

I think Its head needs to be a bit more mammalian looking, so it needs a shorter snout with perhaps a more dog-like nose. A large head, shortened neck and front facing eyes.

Creature two:

The "Brawler" is a large (3m tall), but mostly passive omnivore. They will sit around munching on things and not doing very much. They do however get very angry if provoked and will go on a spree of murderous destruction.

For its design a good starting block would be the extinct giant sloth(Megatherium). Although I'd like it a bit more aggressive looking and the shapes of the body to be more agile (perhaps moving slightly towards a gorilla like posture).

[forsaken1111]

Honestly just download Dwarf Fortress, generate a world, then poke through the history and legends to look at the descriptions of the randomly generated forgotten beasts, titans, demons, etc. Pick 3-5 you like and use those.

[10ebbor10]

Honestly just download Dwarf Fortress, generate a world, then poke through the history and legends to look at the descriptions of the randomly generated forgotten beasts, titans, demons, etc. Pick 3-5 you like and use those.

The randomly genned things usually ain't that good, not from an evolutionary perspective.

It would be nice if the beasts were entirely based on their system of evolution(predetermined or genned on the spot) with fossils allowing you to find traces and stuff, but that would be way to much work for a relatively minor part of the game.

[forsaken1111]

Honestly just download Dwarf Fortress, generate a world, then poke through the history and legends to look at the descriptions of the randomly generated forgotten beasts, titans, demons, etc. Pick 3-5 you like and use those.

The randomly genned things usually ain't that good, not from an evolutionary perspective.

It would be nice if the beasts were entirely based on their system of evolution(predetermined or genned on the spot) with fossils allowing you to find traces and stuff, but that would be way to much work for a relatively minor part of the game.

Some of them are quite believable actually. Obviously you'd pass up the glass scorpions and such..

[10ebbor10]

Honestly just download Dwarf Fortress, generate a world, then poke through the history and legends to look at the descriptions of the randomly generated forgotten beasts, titans, demons, etc. Pick 3-5 you like and use those.

The randomly genned things usually ain't that good, not from an evolutionary perspective.

It would be nice if the beasts were entirely based on their system of evolution(predetermined or genned on the spot) with fossils allowing you to find traces and stuff, but that would be way to much work for a relatively minor part of the game.

Some of them are quite believable actually. Obviously you'd pass up the glass scorpions and such..

They are believeable from the sense of fantasy monsters, but not from any logical evolutionary perspective. They weren't designed for that. Mostly it's just X monster/ body type with some extra parts stuck on.

[forsaken1111]

Honestly just download Dwarf Fortress, generate a world, then poke through the history and legends to look at the descriptions of the randomly generated forgotten beasts, titans, demons, etc. Pick 3-5 you like and use those.

The randomly genned things usually ain't that good, not from an evolutionary perspective.

It would be nice if the beasts were entirely based on their system of evolution(predetermined or genned on the spot) with fossils allowing you to find traces and stuff, but that would be way to much work for a relatively minor part of the game.

Some of them are quite believable actually. Obviously you'd pass up the glass scorpions and such..

They are believeable from the sense of fantasy monsters, but not from any logical evolutionary perspective. They weren't designed for that. Mostly it's just X monster/ body type with some extra parts stuck on.

Sorry, when was it determined that Maia was going to have complete logical evolutionary histories attached to each creature? So far as I saw, he has notes on a few animals which do things, not a breakdown of their evolutionary history. Any fantasy monster could also be an alien with a bit of work, and he's already said that you may dig up artifacts with strange effects so maybe the weird aliens aren't natural at all but the results of the 'ancient aliens' who left these artifacts..

[10ebbor10]

Honestly just download Dwarf Fortress, generate a world, then poke through the history and legends to look at the descriptions of the randomly generated forgotten beasts, titans, demons, etc. Pick 3-5 you like and use those.

The randomly genned things usually ain't that good, not from an evolutionary perspective.

It would be nice if the beasts were entirely based on their system of evolution(predetermined or genned on the spot) with fossils allowing you to find traces and stuff, but that would be way to much work for a relatively minor part of the game.

Some of them are quite believable actually. Obviously you'd pass up the glass scorpions and such..

They are believeable from the sense of fantasy monsters, but not from any logical evolutionary perspective. They weren't designed for that. Mostly it's just X monster/ body type with some extra parts stuck on.

Sorry, when was it determined that Maia was going to have complete logical evolutionary histories attached to each creature? So far as I saw, he has notes on a few animals which do things, not a breakdown of their evolutionary history. Any fantasy monster could also be an alien with a bit of work, and he's already said that you may dig up artifacts with strange effects so maybe the weird aliens aren't natural at all but the results of the 'ancient aliens' who left these artifacts..

((Please read posts completely, the answer can easily be extrapolated from the context)).

I said it would be nice if they were sensible, and original. Ie, not just animal X with an extra head. There's no requirement for it, but it fits better with the general idea of the game (which is at least semi realistic).

And of course any fantasy monster can be an alien with a bit of work, but then you're not sticking to the generator anymore.

[simoroth]

(Edit: 3 replies since I started writing. I'm too slow)

Yeah thats one of the key things with the beasts we are creating and why I'm studying specific periods and their entire biological makeup.

The game simulates the full ecosystem, so animals eat each other, plants grow*... spread etc. I'm being very careful about realistically fitting animals into the food chain. That way if you upset the food chain, and get swarmed by desperate predators.. it will be you to blame!

*I actually coded it in so each individual piece of grass grows depending on how its lit and how wet the ground is. Its an embarrassing waste of CPU. I need more self control.

with fossils allowing you to find traces and stuff,

I do want to have fossils of existing and previous forms of the creatures. This will allow you to research the creatures without having to capture/kill one, if you are being very defensive with your base.

[forsaken1111]

Neat, well you can still do that to get inspiration for animals and strange beasts even if you don't use them directly.

[Ivefan]

*I actually coded it in so each individual piece of grass grows depending on how its lit and how wet the ground is. Its an embarrassing waste of CPU. I need more self control.

You already wrote the code, maybe you got a better rewrite in store and i don't know what systems you're using for light and moisture. But you could make the game render a light and a moisture map once a day, overlap them to render eligible growth areas which outputs the growth average for each zone which then gets input into the herbivore simulation?

[USEC_OFFICER]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Creature one:

The first alien creature the game will have is the "Magpie". Named as such because of their intelligence and passion for stealing shiny things from your colony. They wont be particularly dangerous, just really really annoying.

Visually I see the "magpie" looking a lot like a Deinonychus. Probably a bit smaller in size, but with the same frame and range of motion. Covered in something more like spines than feathers.

Its arms would need to be far larger, to be more use in picking up and carrying things. So opposable thumbs are a must too.

I think Its head needs to be a bit more mammalian looking, so it needs a shorter snout with perhaps a more dog-like nose. A large head, shortened neck and front facing eyes.

Creature two:

The "Brawler" is a large (3m tall), but mostly passive omnivore. They will sit around munching on things and not doing very much. They do however get very angry if provoked and will go on a spree of murderous destruction.

For its design a good starting block would be the extinct giant sloth(Megatherium). Although I'd like it a bit more aggressive looking and the shapes of the body to be more agile (perhaps moving slightly towards a gorilla like posture).

(Edit: 3 replies since I started writing. I'm too slow)

Yeah thats one of the key things with the beasts we are creating and why I'm studying specific periods and their entire biological makeup.

The game simulates the full ecosystem, so animals eat each other, plants grow*... spread etc. I'm being very careful about realistically fitting animals into the food chain. That way if you upset the food chain, and get swarmed by desperate predators.. it will be you to blame!

*I actually coded it in so each individual piece of grass grows depending on how its lit and how wet the ground is. Its an embarrassing waste of CPU. I need more self control.

with fossils allowing you to find traces and stuff,

I do want to have fossils of existing and previous forms of the creatures. This will allow you to research the creatures without having to capture/kill one, if you are being very defensive with your base.

Excellent. Hopefully I'll be able to throw money your way soon.

[simoroth]

Sooooon! 

In other news: Got myself into the Bundle-in-a-box grant nominations. So if anyone's picking it up, be sure to vote for me!

http://blog.bundle-in-a-box.com/?p=74

[simoroth]

Thought I'd drop in and update people on the news.

I dropped my doctorate and so am going to take Maia full time to support myself. Frankly I think it will be enormously better for my career that a piece of paper and academia was making me dangerously depressed.

Got some cool new models in the works...

The Commander:





Going to start crunching on the game soon. Really need to get some new animations in to take some full gameplay footage.



Edit: Also did an article on Gamasutra about how piracy is going to benefit Maia.. http://gamasutra.com/blogs/SimonRoth/20120921/178111/Piracy_is_the_purest_form_of_FreetoPlay.php

[Xinvoker]

It's Space Lincoln :O

[Aklyon]

Is that Space Lincoln in Sculptris, or am I getting some programs mixed up.