Hard to explain what I am doing... It's a practice mod, meant to teach myself the basics of advanced df modding... It's kinda growing wild though (I think my practice mod will surpass my original goal in coolness)
Trying to upload an image of my outline, but it's too big and awkward. So.. think birth of the Tyranids via Biochemist Ants evolving. Originally, I was just going to add a simple reaction that would allow you to chemically alter your 'eggs' to upgrade them into stronger versions.
Devolved (Size 10,000) -> 'stumbles onto upgrade' A reagent-key that unlocks new workshops and abilities
T1 (Size 60,000) -> Each tier would have access to newer and better materials that the colony would 'grow'
T2 (Size 80,000) -> Eventually you would get access to many advanced biochemically-based technologies.
The whole species is something I developed for a short story I wrote. It was an attempt to explain what a space-faring hive-mind species would probably look like. To keep it short, I even have a mind map worked out. I could do it, if I could figure out this one hitch.
Altering eggs, easy.
Unlocking tiers, easy.
Spawning the altered egg so that the correct Caste is born? If I was on v0.34 I think i could do it by myself (again, need to study it)
This is actually the tip of the iceberg. Idea's are just exploding in my head. It still hinges on being able to spawn units though. I could have a working creature file, with castes setup and everything ready to go...In about 4 hours (Already got the 'precast' done, so just need to add in Castes). Workshops, again, easy to do; but I am less familiar with all that, so I would need a couple of weeks to work it all out.
DFHACK, completely unfamiliar territory to me.
(Trying to figure out how to link my mind map)