Tierre,
In the end, Antmen will indeed have custom sprites. In other mods, this normally involves only the 'entities', i.e. the Ants themselves. Sprites are a very time consuming process - we will have to see
As far as growing workshops: I will have to speak to Meph, but I don't see how they could be directly 'grown'. That said, requiring a grown product as a build material to create the workshop is definitely do-able.
Tierre/dukea42,
My initial concept something similar... Trying to work out the life-cycle there was some toying with the idea of having the Queen be an item required to build the workshop responsible for producing eggs. That was kind of scrapped because that would essentially make the Queen un-kill-able. In the current incarnation of the life-cycle, eggs are indeed items, and must mature before being hatched.
I have been trying to come up with a use for drones in general... In real life they are usually hatched in waves along with queens before the nuptial flight. They leave the colony almost immediately to fertilize the queens on the nuptial flight and the queens store that sperm for pretty much their entire lives. There is usually very little if any fertilization ongoing in the colony as the queen simply stores the sperm from the nuptial flight to fertilize the eggs. This creates the problem that drones are quite useless. So, it is not out of the question that they could be implemented in the ways you guys have discussed, honestly, I haven't what the heck to do with them
I can't really simulate the nuptial flight.... A thought that crossed my mind was to create a workshop somewhat similar to the Thieves tunnel, and have a reaction that represented the nuptial flight and the founding of new colonies. No idea as of now however.
Pascale,
Indeed. I intend to implement spitting ants, and yes, they are definitely do-able
If glue is implemented, think creatures that shoot webs, poison is simply a re-purpose of existing special attacks/interactions.
Notes:
The current caste system involves the queen(pet/civ-member) laying eggs(seeds) which are planted to mature then harvested. The Mature eggs are then hatched to create larva that are combined with food/fed to transform into pupa that are fed/hardened to transform into workers that go through the real life process of advancing through minima worker, median worker, maxima worker phases. This is over-layered with a very fantastical process of evolution from Ant through Giant Ant through Antman, etc. Essentially, you embark with lowly ants and through a process advance your colony from lowly ants through intermediaries such as giant ants and on to the humanoid form Antmen. This is counter-balanced by the fact that ants are, well, numerous. I am toying with the idea of removing the lesser more mundane versions of ants, however, for some reason even if it is fantastical I like the idea and satisfaction of advancing the colony through these stages. Once you get your hands on an Antman queen, you can produce antmen directly, but on account of the complexity and size they reproduce much more slowly. In contrast, lowly ants are Extremely easy to hatch and reproduce and thus very numerous. Think a ready made army of workers to do your menial tasks such as farming, etc.
So! That is just a few notes on what I'm currently working on, thought you might find it interesting
