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[Meph]

Since a surprising amount of people voted for the Insect race, which I added as an afterthought without much info, I thought it would be only fair to share my ideas on them. I did not do much before I posted about them, so most of this I crammed together yesterday.

Feel free to discuss and add ideas at your leisure. I want to mention that this race/project has a lower priority for me than the raw clean up, but the community decides.

IndigoFenix, you mentioned some ideas that use COUNTER_TRIGGER in the other thread, would you care to go into detail a bit more? Maybe with Raw examples/mock ups, since I have never used counter triggers before.

Here what I DONT plan to add:
- A single queen that rules you. Warlocks already have "the Overlord" doing the same.
- Endless swarms if tiny insects. FPS feath.
- Starcraft-like creep. Civ members will try to clean it, and lots of contaminants = FPS death.
- Multi-creature civ members. Mostly a graphical problem as graphics depend on profession and noble position. Warlocks have 3 types and thats wonky enough.

My ideas so far:
You start with 7 civ members. Worker or Warrior caste.

Workers learn normal skills and have 2 arms.

Warriors learn military skills and have 4 arms.

Both are male and will not produce kids. But you can buy specific pets at embark: Worker Drones (male/female) and Warrior Drones (male/female). These are NOT civ members, but egg-laying pets. The eggs hatch larvae, your basis for everything.

Larvae can be butchered to produce "biomass", your main building material.

Larvae can be taken to a workshop and mutated (transformed) into new Drones. Which in turn claim more nestboxes, lay more eggs and hatch more larvae.

Larvae do graze... And that is the interesting part. If they graze on the surface grass, you get normal workers/warriors. But if they graze on specific grass, you get specific DNA strains in your workers/warriors.

Strains are:
Good grass: AoE healers, produce good thoughts around them, buffs for allies.
Evil grass: AoE nerfs for enemies, necrosis attack and spawn miasma.
Savage grass: Larger, stronger, faster... Get enraged and are harder to control.
Cavern1: Grow fungi on themselves and produce food.
Cavern2: Grow crystal on themselves, produce gems and have natural armor. Slow.
Cavern3: Nether... Crazy interaction madness... Something thats very good but might backfire.

I can add these strains with interactions, no need for transformation. It would look like this ingame: "Urist McInsect, Worker Jeweler (Fungi strain)"

Of course the civ member would still keep the normal caste it already had. Castes would be very simple, I think of 2-6 castes. Worker and Warrior with possible subgroups of FarmWorker, CraftWorker and MineWorker; MeleeWarrior, RangedWarrior and SupportWarrior.

In addition to caste and strain, they would also get "stages", which are their age. Every two years or so they would get a buff to their size, strength, armor, etc. Hopefully possible without transformation, that way I dont re-roll their stats. This simply means that the older your insects get, the bigger and meaner they grow.

Basing the strains on the grass that the larvae eat, makes different biomes more interesting and leads to players moving into the caverns. At least I hope so. Being rewarded with awesomely mutated civ-members for conquering the third cavern is certainly new.

To sum it up:
You start with drone-pets.
They lay eggs.
Eggs hatch into larvae.
Larvae are either turned into more drones, biomass for buildings, or grow into civ-members.
Civ-Members have a caste (worker/warrior), a stage (automatic, their age) and a strain (what they ate as larvae)

I would probably transform them into a immobile cocoon-creature for a while in between.

Larvae could also manually be mutated into other pet-creatures that fill different roles.

Swarmlords could spawn Swarmlings that are butchered for chitin. War Scythelings, dog-sized, acompany your army, and Weaverbugs are farmed for silk, venomous festerlings make poison for your weapons...

All done from larvae. So keep your drones snd eggs save. Your swarm needs them.

Now to the more normal stuff: Clothing would mostly be chitin, as would be the armor. That should simulate exoskeleton upgrades. I am not sure how to avoid that they wear armor from invaders, but we'll see.

Weapons could be made in similar fashion. Claws, Scythes, differently grown natural weapons. Spore-cannon or needle-spines for ranged combat. A bit tyranid-esque; for those that know Warhammer. Again, I want to go very much Bio here. Not metal like dwarves or tech like gnomes... No, just pure homegrown biological goods.

Materials: No leather, cloth or metals. You use chitin, silk and thats pretty much it. Soil and rocks for misc items, but no good smiths in the insect folk.

I would like them to be mostly independant of wood and coal and ores. Instead you need larvae, which need grass. And your civ members need special fungi that they grow.

This means not much brewing or smelting. Instead farming and butchering.

Migrants: Like the Warlocks you would only get 2 migrant waves. (?)

Caravans: Maybe?

Nobles: I dont know yet, but since their AI is pretty much hardcoded it will be similar to the other races. Just with different names. Nothing fancy planned here.

Unique mutations for special units could be done, like the good/evil mages in dwarf mode. Only one per type, akin to Hero-units. Hive Lord, Queen of Blades, whatever reference you like.

Speaking of Starcraft: I personally would love to add different units or effects from it into this, because it fits perfectly. Infestor... Defiler... Broodlords that shoot projectiles that spawns aggresive vermin.

Workshops: Not many ideas yet. A few for the manual mutation of larvae into pet-insects or drones. Another for castes. One bio-armorsmith, one bio-weaponsmith, a evolution chamber to learn skills, a chitin-worker building... They would NOT get the normal mod buildings and I would try to disable as many vanilla Df features as possible, because they are the first non-humanoid race.

Spawning custom colonies/hives would be interesting, but I have to talk to dfhack coders for that.

Ok, thats pretty much everything. Happy suggestion-posting. Even if I already have so many ideas for Gui, Raws, Humans and Warlocks... Cant hurt to add some more.

PS: Crazy suggestion as the last part: If they somehow get a religion, it could be egyptian themed. Eight-eyed Spider-Mantis Anubis, God of the Dead. The whole mummy/cocoon thing fits.

PPS: Biological warfare as well. Mutate your own microorganisms and infect invading armies.

[Rumrusher]

few questions:

Can this new race kidnap merchants and wrap them up into Cocoons so that the hive can hatch more larva?
Can the player stick an egg into a Hive to produce biomass/aggressive Swarm autoturrets/ ammo
I have a mental picture of the Swarm building what looks like a normal Dwarf fort to fool migrants(by migrants I mean dwarven ones) into a trap where they get harvested for bio mass.
Don't think any masterwork civ type Use the multi civ migrant plugin that we made years ago, Love the idea of 2 migrant waves of your normal Civ then the rest are abducted members from other Civs primed to be converted for the hive. Hmm a type of Swarm unit that shapeshifts into one of the 6 current playable races made to leave to hunt and bring back more wormslaves for the hive...

[kizucha]

Is it possible to make a trap, that shoots parasites or something egg-thingy at an enemy and the "ammo" eats parts of the enemy like an arm? But also organs and if they eat enough of the enemy they take control over the enemy and force it to attack his friends?^^

I hope they get a few slimy bio-traps like the above or armor melting acid spitters. If you like to give them traps, meph.^^

To the strains, what are the moss that grow if we dig to the carvens? That moss that grows on the first layers under the surface, are they also cavern1? And i think, if you like a more bloody way, they need a strain that is somehow feed with meat, maybe how rumrusher say's, we can kidnap merchants and wrap them in cocoons and give them larva's for a nice litte hug and dinner. Something like bloodhunter and they get an damage bonus against the race they killed?

But so long good ideas i'm looking forward to this race.^^

[jcd]

yes to the biological development thingy.
how about incorporating metal plate armor/ adamantium fangs/ adapting tech from other civs?
i can see this race merging biologically things that will give them an advantage from other civs as late game tech.
maybe research will be required per civ in order to make advancements?
eg. researching dwarves will yield different results than, say, elves.
Still only one late game bio-upgrade per organism.

love the idea that the past history of a fort will dictate the evolution (eg. wars = war evolution, massive starvation = less food needed per insect)
I can see a tiered mechanism of evolution (like only one evolution (out of many) per tier), and some mutations happening outside the direct control of player

whatever happens, seems exciting!

[Neri]

This is the best idea I have heard in a long time.

I love the grazing areas affecting the races development, truly inspired.

A few ideas, not necessarily good ones mind;

Larvae Ammunition for Spore launchers, as in reaction reagent for a ranged syndrome.

would it fit to have Savage grazing giving something like Bonecarn to the bigger, harder to control ones so spawned? (If possible, not a modder sorry) just a thought on possible, !FUN! routes to go through.

Possibly have calm biome grazing give a very small debuff, as the food isn't robust enough, so, almost echoing malnutrition or similar. If you take savage to mean better food (that fights back), to support more life?

Can the bite attacks be more dangerous by default? e.g. Mandibles or similar on the warrior drones?

Also, just flavour wise, do you want the hive to look outside itself for things like pets and such, or to simply adapt to meet a need? Pets that are simply part of the hive, as opposed to dogs and such for the other races.(Like you already said, or at least implied with the swarmlord)

If your absences while riding through exotic locales inspire these kinds of ideas, we may need to try to get you to go more frequently, instead of trying to keep you modding full time Meph

[Nidor]

Sounds fascinating, I look forward to another playable and unique race. I apologize as I have near zero knowledge of dwarf fortress modding limitations, these suggestions are just concepts that could be worth thinking about.

What is the stance on lifespan and reproduction rate? Typically insects go the low lifespan fast breeding route, but that role might be too similar to kobolds as far as gameplay goes.

It was hinted at by Rumrusher, but would there be interactions for caged invaders/animals? While the OP mentions the variety stems from pasture plants,  would there be a possibility of face hugger / xenomorph style meat based infestation as well, or are you wanting to stick with plant based? If this runs into the warlock ghoulify caged invader problem, perhaps using "dwarf soul" with a stack of meat or bone to simulate using their corpse to incubate a unique strain? It wouldn't have to be a civ member, but a possible pet/livestock, war/hunt trainable, shearable or milkable.

"Pet" possibilities could be a cicada like insect that molts often (shear-able for chitin, possible alternative to the butcher bug), aphid like creatures (milk-able, like current dew nymph I suppose), termite like with ranged attacks (if I recall correctly, some termites can spray acids or glues) maggot/carrion style that could be vermin hunters, or perhaps used in some reaction to produce a usable form of bio mass from corpses, perhaps not the same as the larva butchered version?

A suggestion for the materials issue, if there is no way to block its use (hard coded?) would to give a more appetizing alternative than the typical crafting methods of the other races, an "insect" (workshop) that consumes various items to make building material or furnishings, dirt/stone (mud dauber wasp style), cloth/plant/wood (typical wasp hive look), hoof/bone/meat could be consumed/converted by the workshop "insect" to produce silks or waxes (I think wax would be a great construction material for this racial theme). While It is a bit iffy, for metals, a possibility for usage with acids (like flies or other insects that produce acids, so maybe they don't need an acid reagent like the others) to break metals down to gas, for use in weaponry, toxins, traps (landmine?) or ammo?

There is much that can be done with an insect race, as insects can be very diverse even if you stay in the realm of what we have irl, let alone fantasy, so I will stop for now to prevent more of a wall 'o text.

side note: while I doubt it is possible to collect, as vomit is a smear, but food for thought, if a bee type sentient vomits, would it be honey? Would you sell to traders barrels of vomit?

Edited: for possible use of metals.

[Jaso11111]

Unique mutations for special units could be done, like the good/evil mages in dwarf mode. Only one per type, akin to Hero-units. Hive Lord, Queen of Blades, whatever reference you like.

Im so naming my first commander "Old one eye"!
For the Hive Mind! Sorry my 40k nerd self could resist.

Anyway... its common for races like this to somehow "change" the environment to fit them. Tyranids have the spores, Zerg have creep, etc.
I would like to see something like that. I know you said no creep but i would like someway to shape the environment to serve me. Almost like a passive defence of sorts. Maybe some sort of grass that overtakes the surface one and gives negative syndromes to non-swarmers?     

[Nidor]

Hmm, I have another potential idea that might not be feasible, but as a possibility to work around the using weapons from dead enemies issue, is it possible to limit entry to the military caste to those with a certain "mutation" similar to the warlock ghoul/skel/lock specific roles? Such as only Insects with a war type mutation can be elected to commander/sergeant.

I would imagine it would be similar to the upgrading skeletons to iron, blood, dread, and would give it a bit of that starcraft mutually exclusive upgrade paths deal.
 For instance, war based mutations would remove the ability to grasp, in favor of altering their limbs into scythes, or the aforementioned spine/spore cannon items, giving them as a true natural weapon rather than held bio one? Would this prevent the ability to equip weapons and shields, giving your military a true bio only alternative?

Perhaps a branching path between the worker and warrior mutations that exlude each other, i know the OP mentioned the default castes being separated as such, with the workers having 2 hand/limbs and the warriors 4, but if this idea were feasible, it could allow for the baseline to be a simple "drone" which is ran through a worker, warrior, or breeder type mutation tree in order to give them a role.

I do not know if this conflicts with the "no Multi-creature civ members" however, as I am not quite sure what that phrase means in context of the modding portion.

Again I have little knowledge about what is possible in the realm of modding, but prior MDF playable race reactions make it seem like it is possible, for all I know removing the ability to grasp portion of this idea could cause major problems with other things.

Edited to point out a possible link with the "multi-creature civ" phrase in op.

[LMeire]

Oooh, bug stuff. I'm good at bugstuffology.

Honeypots: a stationary pet that somehow can survive being drained by a vampire, and is somehow a preferred target by vampires even while awake.

Aphids: a tiny grazer that hives would set out to pasture and occasionally "milk" for a sugary substance called "honeydew". Honeydew could be either drunken directly or processed into sugar somehow. (I'd go with an outside-only sundrying workshop or some kind of endothermic "bio-furnace".)

Bombardier Beetles: a moderately sized animal that sprays super-heated acid when threatened. Could be wartrained or have chemicals harvested for ammunition and traps.

A reaction that turn bags of leaves and buckets of water into fertilizer at a quern, similar to how ants fertilize their fungi farms by chewing up leaves.

A reaction to convert leaves into cheap blocks and furniture.

Spider nests: a stationary creature that can't attack but periodically births lots of venomous spiders, spiders would roam around for a year or so before maturing and settling in their own nests via timed transformation. Butchering a nest would yield raw silk and delicious spider eggs while the spiders would yield a small amount of chitin and venom glands. Venom glands could be attached to a weapon and provide an extra syndrome-spraying attack.

Giant Centipedes: an expensive, high-end warbeast, venom inflicts pain and paralysis, covered with rigid chitin and armed with a pair of large "stinger" limbs just behind it's gaping fang-filled maw. Should have about 30 legs, and thus be rather difficult to kill with the combat mechanics as random as they are.

[Jaso11111]

Is it possible to make some sort of acid breath? With fire like effects but without the... you know... fire? I would love to melt the armor of my enemys as an equalizer for the lack of metal armors. 

[Erivor]

nidor gave me the idea that if something like creep wont work one can instead build it like dwarves build floors

also with the insects growing bigger over time i can't help but imagine colossal ancient bugs.

[SharpKris]

maybe have something that uses a shitload of souls and biomass towards the endgme? a sort of larva that could become a Hivemind with enough souls and biomass that grants increased speed to all swarm on map?

[LMeire]

African termite colonies are well known for their amazing architecture, as each mound is perfectly adjusted to keep the insects at roughly the same temperature regardless of depth or width of the tunnels. So how about an end-game climate control workshop?

Should be outside-only to represent ample ventilation and also require magma on the layer below for perceived versatility. Reactions would be weather control such as rain and plant-growth and such, but also things like resetting cave-adaptation and hive-wide stat changes. Like if you're building a mega-project but your workers are moving too slow, you just make a slight change to the environment which decreases damage-resistance while boosting movement speed for the entire colony. Like wise, if your being invaded by superior foes and need to mount a last stand, you run reactions to boost physical stats while lowering emotional and mental abilities.

[Denisac]

Maybe make miasma a GOOD thing that causes happy thoughts for bugs.  Couple that with the idea of pets/evil biome drones which output that sickly sweet stench.  Could just imagine a tantrum spiral from disgusted sieging foes.  Though on second thought it would probably cause a FPS hit.

[Vozhban]

Some time ago i had an idea of a civ obtaining new technologies throug defeating sieges. That had a building that had reactions to call in sieges. It used piles of some resources to attract enemies(for example attracting kobolds with piles of crafts or elves with trees). Then, using invader's corpses and items they could obtain new technologies.
It seems to fit a carnivourus insect race.