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Total Members Voted: 69

[Person]

Dunno if this has been discussed yet because I just came back to this thread and there's 100 or so posts to go through, but I think one of the reasons creatures like spiders are so effective is because the ai attacks at random, and since they have so many redundant limbs the ai is not likely to attack, or even finish breaking/severing a part that matters. This is even worse if said creature has [NOPAIN] and such tags (not sure if vanilla GCS have this, but I think they do). So yeah, spiders taking on stormdragons might be more effective than you would suspect.

[mastahcheese]

This talk of giant spiders and hounds reminds me of the Don't Starve video game.

Maybe my mega-beast should be Deer-clops.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

(how would a giant spider hunt there?).

Right - badlands! I'd intended to add giant scorpions in the desert, instead of giant spiders . I should probably should get around to doing that, if we need more animals to live out there. Those hounds'll need company, after all!

Don't forget the incoming dragons that exist in every biome.

[StLeibowitz]

@ Person: I think the deadly toxins and web-spitting might also have a great deal to do with their lethality

@ Zanzetkuken: How many of those are going to breathe fire, by the way? Because I could see a few dozen species of firebreathers forcing a name change from "Halfling Hamlet" to "Halfling Vault"

[WillowLuman]

Honestly, I don't see how desert ecosystems would support mostly giant predators. Them being filled with the unwanted leftovers of civilization (e.g. feral Hounds) seems like a cool idea, though.

Say, how about we create a duplicate of hounds, remove all [PET] and [COMMON_DOMESTIC] stuff, and rename them "Feral Hounds"? It's not much but it helps with flavor.

[StLeibowitz]

Honestly, I don't see how desert ecosystems would support mostly giant predators.

Well, if we must be sensible about it, I suppose I could come up with a plausible scenario for it.

Look at the python, for a start. After a good meal, it can fast for months, even years, and still be able to catch another morsel, and those things can get pretty big. What helps is that they're cold-blooded - mammals and such have to expend energy to maintain body temperature, and so need more food than, say, a scorpion. If said scorpion was an ambush predator, laying burrowed in wait beneath the sand, it would cut out the caloric requirements of actively hunting for prey; the sand might also keep it at a fairly constant temperature. A paralyzing venom would make even a single sting enough to net it food from an ambush, and if that prey was large - say, camel-sized, and camels manage to live out in the deserts - said scorpion could easily survive a good long while off it.

As for size, well, if meals are going to be scarce, it makes sense to make as much from one camel as you possibly can. The scorpion could just leave the carcass of its victim laying out in the sand after it's finished eating - which could attract scavengers to snack on - but that would be more wasteful than the python's method of just engulfing the victim whole and digesting it slowly, extracting every last calorie from each meal. The scorpion could experience evolutionary pressure towards a system like that as well; for coolness factor, let's say it develops a large gash of a maw on its underside, the better to take in and fit this camel-sized prey inside a digestive sack. The size of the prey a "scorpion" could ingest like this would be limited by its size, and if most things were fairly large, gigantism would be selected for.

And thus do we end up with a species of ultra-venomous, giant desert scorpions, which lie in wait for prey in hidden burrows in the sand. Ta-da!

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

@ Person: I think the deadly toxins and web-spitting might also have a great deal to do with their lethality

@ Zanzetkuken: How many of those are going to breathe fire, by the way? Because I could see a few dozen species of firebreathers forcing a name change from "Halfling Hamlet" to "Halfling Vault"

The river, ocean, tundra, glacier, and cave levels 1-3 dragons don't breathe fire.  Magma's use fireballs and

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hell dragons use everything.  Fireball, Firejet, and Dragonfire.  They will also use ice spikes that I am going to add to tundra and glacier, boiling water of river and ocean, and poison of cave levels.

[AutomataKittay]

Honestly, I don't see how desert ecosystems would support mostly giant predators.

Well, if we must be sensible about it, I suppose I could come up with a plausible scenario for it.

Look at the python, for a start. After a good meal, it can fast for months, even years, and still be able to catch another morsel, and those things can get pretty big. What helps is that they're cold-blooded - mammals and such have to expend energy to maintain body temperature, and so need more food than, say, a scorpion. If said scorpion was an ambush predator, laying burrowed in wait beneath the sand, it would cut out the caloric requirements of actively hunting for prey; the sand might also keep it at a fairly constant temperature. A paralyzing venom would make even a single sting enough to net it food from an ambush, and if that prey was large - say, camel-sized, and camels manage to live out in the deserts - said scorpion could easily survive a good long while off it.

As for size, well, if meals are going to be scarce, it makes sense to make as much from one camel as you possibly can. The scorpion could just leave the carcass of its victim laying out in the sand after it's finished eating - which could attract scavengers to snack on - but that would be more wasteful than the python's method of just engulfing the victim whole and digesting it slowly, extracting every last calorie from each meal. The scorpion could experience evolutionary pressure towards a system like that as well; for coolness factor, let's say it develops a large gash of a maw on its underside, the better to take in and fit this camel-sized prey inside a digestive sack. The size of the prey a "scorpion" could ingest like this would be limited by its size, and if most things were fairly large, gigantism would be selected for.

And thus do we end up with a species of ultra-venomous, giant desert scorpions, which lie in wait for prey in hidden burrows in the sand. Ta-da!

That reminds me of trapdoor spiders and other large hairy spiders that like to burrow. Water's usually much bigger issue in desert ecosystem than food, but if there're enough poor critters wandering in and oasises, I don't see why not

[Gnorm]

Part 3: In which four halflings set about to rebuild the settlement of Mastertea
-----

From the Journal of Gnorm Foul:

2nd Malachite, 555

I have perused the past few entries of this journal for the last two hours, looking over the thoughts of the madman that was once in charge of this village. I know not why he chose me to take command of the town, as his last entries seem to indicate that he had planned to kill me along with the others in the hospital. Perhaps, right before he died, he came back to his senses and hoped I could right his wrongs; perhaps he was just under the delusion that his settlement was still alive and well, and that it simply needed a new leader. Whatever the case, I am now the official leader of whatever government is left in this town. I'll need to quickly formulate a plan, as injuries have trapped me in the same hospital as Mayor Greenwitch found himself in, and I fear that I'll succumb to a similar insanity.

7th Malachite, 555



Even during the collapse of this settlement, some still cling to the concept that there is a better life for them here. Following my predecessor's example, I shall list the migrants by their professions.

1 Bone Carver
1 Hunter
1 Child

This small family may indeed serve me in my plan.

15th Malachite, 555

Today, I make my final act as mayor of this settlement. Going by my predecessor's original plan, I am going to seal the exit of these catacombs; the difference between my plan and his, however, is that I will remain inside. There are four whom I have ordered to remain outside and entomb us, the current sheriff who seems to be safe, and the recently arrived family.



If, by the sheer providence of the gods, I recover from my injuries, I shall make my escape through the caverns beneath, avoid the reaver ants, and find an exit to the surface. Some must, however, remain on the surface and take charge of the town, to rebuild it for future migrants to live in. For this purpose, I have relinquished my mayoral authority to the sheriff, who will control the city by herself. This journal is my gift to her. I feel that, since the first two mayors recorded their thoughts in this book, the third should continue this tradition.



Farewell, sun and moon that reign over the skies. Never again shall I behold the beauty of ye.

From the Journal of Gnorm Foul Psyche:

18th Malachite, 555

I have completed the floor that has sealed the insane population within the earth. The only souls that remain above are the family of three, a few melancholiacs who did not obey to orders to go inside, and myself. Mayor Chiefdesert promised that she would return as soon as she found a means to escape, and that she would help me rebuild this town; we both knew that she would die down there.

As the new mayor, I do indeed has a mission: to save the small family that has not been here long enough to be insane yet. The farm yields pumpkins, and the mother and her daughter seem to be willing to help grow food. It won't last long, but there are only four of us.



I have ordered the depot rebuilt; it will be necessary to reestablish connections with the neighboring civilizations. Lastly, I plan on building and moving to a new town hall, as the former one is covered with bodies, blood, and vomit.



Whatever should happen, I am determined to fulfill my duty as mayor of these lands.

[WillowLuman]

ninja'd

Deserts tend not to be awash with either giant predators or herbivores. Water and nutrients are just too scarce. Also selective pressure might evolve for scavengers to be able to drive desert scorpions from their prey. However, there are GDS in vanilla DF, so about something a little more supernatural for dangers in the desert? Djinn, maybe? Or perhaps tribal, desert-dwelling sentient giant hawks? Or maybe, instead of creatures, we populate our deserts with dangerous, magical dust storms of various effects?

Of course, as I've said before, we don't have to make everywhere an ultra-deadly death land (and deserts tend to be those in real life without giant monsters). We should at least try to make a world that makes sense for halflings to exist in. Currently, halflings may love all things that grow, but things that grow certainly do not love them. Their pastoral culture makes little sense in this world, seems more like they should have developed an extremely paranoid, warlike culture.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Of course, as I've said before, we don't have to make everywhere an ultra-deadly death land (and deserts tend to be those in real life without giant monsters). We should at least try to make a world that makes sense for halflings to exist in. Currently, halflings may love all things that grow, but things that grow certainly do not love them. Their pastoral culture makes little sense in this world, seems more like they should have developed an extremely paranoid, warlike culture.

How are swamps and marshes, by the way?  I'm creating a (playable!) civilization that will spawn exclusively in those, and I need to know what to build around in terms of adaptations and development.

[StLeibowitz]

ninja'd

Deserts tend not to be awash with either giant predators or herbivores. Water and nutrients are just too scarce. Also selective pressure might evolve for scavengers to be able to drive desert scorpions from their prey. However, there are GDS in vanilla DF, so about something a little more supernatural for dangers in the desert? Djinn, maybe? Or perhaps tribal, desert-dwelling sentient giant hawks? Or maybe, instead of creatures, we populate our deserts with dangerous, magical dust storms of various effects?

Of course, as I've said before, we don't have to make everywhere an ultra-deadly death land (and deserts tend to be those in real life without giant monsters). We should at least try to make a world that makes sense for halflings to exist in. Currently, halflings may love all things that grow, but things that grow certainly do not love them. Their pastoral culture makes little sense in this world, seems more like they should have developed an extremely paranoid, warlike culture.

Well, I tried to add a sandstorm, but that doesn't appear to be working very well And nothing says we can't have djinni, giant hawks, magic dust clouds, and giant scorpions

Also, on the scarce nutrients: surprisingly enough, life lives in deserts in the real world. Cacti grow, numerous animals are adapted to them. The majority of deserts aren't like the sand dunes of the Sahara, devoid of vegetation; plants besides cacti grow there, especially shortly after rainfall. Herbivores can live there, and thus predators can as well, and food webs in those areas are every bit as diverse as in other, more hospitable regions. Water, as AutomataKittay pointed out, is usually the bigger issue, and yet even that is not an insurmountable obstacle, as the camel and oryx and others prove. One camel could provide food for an engulfer scorpion or similarly adapted critter for almost a year, which opens up the possibility for larger predators, through the evolutionary scenario I hacked together.

On the scavenger point: engulfing the prey and retreating underground once more makes scavengers a nonissue, I would think. Though thinking of how such scavengers might work in that scenario is interesting - maybe a pack-minded creature, hyena-style, that stalks animals until an engulfer stings them, and then sweep in to scare off or overwhelm the scorpion. I doubt that can be modeled in-game, sadly, unless Halfling comes up with some more interaction magic that I am unable to fathom at this late hour.

And I would love to see a culture of paranoiac, heavily militarized midgets, smaller even than dwarves As it is, their peaceful culture could be seen as a sort of retreat from the harsh reality of the world - peace and order being seen as the hallmarks of true civilization, since murder, mayhem, and chaos seem to be nature's bent. The world is so violently opposed to them, making their villages islands of calm and slow-paced, safe agriculture could be the only way they could stay sane.

[WillowLuman]

Life in IRL deserts doesn't tend to be very large, mind you. Camels, the largest things to live in deserts, tend to roam from oasis to oasis, usually en-route to arid shrubland and grassland to eat. The most successful carnivorous strategies in deserts are being small and eating the small animals who live there, or being a scavenger and eating the animals who try to pass through the desert en-route to elsewhere. As such, supernatural threats might be a bit more interesting, and free from the constraints of ecology.

Why not have Giant Desert Scorpions plus that other stuff? 'Cuz it's boring, that's why. What we have right now: almost every region filled with giant, venomous, killer arthropods (and ducks and mallards). We don't need to develop giant, venomous killer arthropods for every climate, instead we need to diversify. Why make each land a palette-swap in terms of feel and gameplay? Deserts could be "We're here, lets get set up to get water and avoid the dust that turns us into jackals." How boring would it be if, in every region, it was "We're here, let's get set up to avoid the giant bugs."

[StLeibowitz]

Life in general tends not to be very large, once domesticated populations like cows and such are discounted, really. It's why creatures like elephants and rhinos are so interesting - they're different from what we usually encounter. I think we've pretty much thrown small size as a norm out the window here, since the world is like the Mesozoic if the Mesozoic were populated by insects of unusual size as opposed to reptiles.

What's "boring" is trying too hard to match life in the real world - and thus in vanilla DF - especially considering that evolution is largely a random process, and any number of other strategies could be viable, from underground modes of living like my suggested engulfer scorpion, to plantlike methods like developing a taproot organ of some kind and trying to tap the water the desert plants use when you're thirsty.

The giant bugs - especially the engulfer scorpion - are not just "palette swaps". I did not copy and paste them to fill up the earth with thirty gameplay-identical species of giant spider. There are giant bumblebees that are docile and provide wool and alcohol; giant, docile pack beetles; amphibious wolf-packs of Water Striders; web-spinning forest spiders; non-web-spinning, frostbite-envenomed aasiaat spiders on glaciers, capable of invisibility; swarming giant wasps; swarming giant ants that will eat all your food; bandit moths that steal your stuff but run if confronted; docile, dive-hunting dragonflies; water grubs in deserts that can be milked for water...none of them are identical in gameplay terms. None! I didn't plan for the engulfer scorpion to be, either - it would have the ability to hide itself and become invisible, like the aasiaat, but would be an ambush predator - you'd have to be careful of sending scouts or woodcutters out in desert regions, otherwise they could stumble upon one of them and be eaten; it could necessitate walls, as well, to maximize the chance of detecting them before they enter your hamlet. It'd be a heck of a lot more interesting trying to keep out invisible giant scorpions than just digging underground to avoid a magic sandstorm.

[kopout]

I am nearing the end of fruit making (they have been computor problem related delays) and I know that lemons will be made into explosives some how, probably with alchamy. What I need to know is how. I'm thinking you turn them into a block or glob called "everburning lemon".