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[Meph]

Everything ant related goes here. I know that the vanilla races are leading on the "playable race poll" on the other thread, with humans, elves and goblins before anything else.. but I got two messages from players already that want to make Antmen a reality. If more people want to join in on this, help with modding, graphics, manual, ideas... please post here. If there is enough feedback and willing people to have a go, maybe it will end in a new race.

[eloidin]

Lets do this. There are so many cool things we can do with ants.
I am very excited to go and try make this thing real!

[Meph]

I offer to do all the building designs, and of course all the raws of MasterworkDF as a base. You can steal, copy and alter as you like.

Important:
 - Everything should go in specific files, so please make a inorganic_antman.txt or a reaction_antman.txt and so on for everything.
 - I will add it to MDF and the GUI as soon as its stable/playable.
 - Keep me updated on developement.
 - If you got questions/problems, just post them, people will come and help.

First thing you guys need is a creature file, a entity file and then take it from there. Insect-based pets will be fun, a spawn-reaction for larvae which I can write for you, and lets see what else will be suggested.

[razorback]

first thing that comes to my mind:

how about ants can't use picks - instead there is a certain digger caste with harder and sharper front legs/claws to dig (and occasionally defend themselfes)

[Meph]

I'm on that already. Its not possible by modding, but I left expwnent a note asking if its possible with dfhack. Make all antmen woodcutters/miners without the need for tools.

[dukea42]

Can the digger tag be applied to armor? So like they have digging carapace gloves?

[Meph]

Its not a tag, it is its own item. picks are not weapons with a digger tag, picks are digger items. if I make an item called "armor" and make DIGGER:ARMOR, then you get a pick-like something that is called armor.

[zach123b]

what about making only the large ants capable of digging?
then add cave_adapt and size to the miners with lower skill gains in fighting with maybe weaker chitin

can there be castes that require meat and castes that require plants?  fire ants require meat and leaf cutters require fungi kind of thing

could they farm aphids? well we have honeydew beetles already..

could they get mutagens to change castes, maybe in a circle instead of how the dwarves have it
maybe for magic they can 'adapt' into having spider or scorpion traits? poison, leach life, scales, a tail, webs or large pincers.  or maybe use the fallen enemies to become better, dwarves for thick skin, elves for agility, orcs for strength, warlocks for willpower or something, automatons for longer life and no food/water etc

can they have babies like someone else suggested for kobolds?  have the babies referred to eggs? with the children as larvae
might work to have the babies transform into a creature classified as a egg then 'hatch' to transform into a larvae and to 'molt' into a full ant, such as have the transform last for 2 seasons then 2 seasons for larvae which finally leaves the untransformed ant to become an adult ant

could the ants have a workshop that transforms an ant into a creature that's immobile with milking?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

honey pot ants

[eloidin]

How about one queen per hive?
And that one queen needs food and in return makes a crazy amount of eggs
The should be a difference between warrior castes, big and with poison claws or something and the gatherer/builder ants
How about instead of nobles we make strategists as squad leaders and no other nobles since the queen does all the other stuff.
maybe a manager but the rest seems obsolete to me.
Also make you at war with all the other ant hives in the area?

so many ideas. Also i like the picture of the ant kindren Adrian Tchaikovsky paints in his "Shadows of the Apt" series.
Those books are full of awesome ideas imho!

[vonsch]

Will ants wear six shoes? Or four shoes and four gloves?

[Meph]

Maybe I should have taken another title: ANTMEN. Not ants. ^^ We are speaking about Antmen here, otherwise it will be hard to bring in the vanilla buildings, grasp-bodytokens, intelligence, trading, diplomats, nobles, all that kind of stuff. We are speaking about a race of intelligent Half-Ant/Half-Human thing.

[Undeadlord]

Is it wrong that I would love to have them not be able to use weapons. Just claws and pinchers. I think I have heard before that you can't limit trainings, but it would cool to only let the antmen training attacking with claws and pinchers to a level 5. Makes it more likely people would make multiple squads to swarm over an attack to the hive. Just like ants do!

[Meph]

But... if you got no weapons... and no ranged weapons.. and no ammo... and probably no shields either... that seriously might cripple your defenses. Also your industry, because metals become rather uninteresting things.

On the other hand, "We are the swarm" is not bad, although more zerg then anything else

[reded88]

It'd be cool if the antmen were more adapted to attrition style with mass numbers and strategic placement, maybe have them have some kind of carapace, military castes specifically and genetically modified bred for war, slightly faster then your average human, faster healing, access to noticeably weaker weaponry then the other races especially dwarves, and maybe a giant wasp pet to help bring world domination for the insects and insectoids.

Also, I wouldn't like to see the whole more then 2 arms and legs thing, it would make things.. "complicated" and probably awkward when it comes to combat

[eloidin]

I agree, it is hard enough as it is right now (for me) to properly equip my militia.

Is it even possible to create a unit with claws/poison stuff on their attacks? or should we do that with weapons etc.

How about female workers male soldiers.
would make it possible to have different casts, also the male ants as soldiers makes sense to me