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[Eko]

I have started on a modded race of Naga, and I wanted to bring some of my ideas out to open a discussion, and get some feedback.

Influences

First of all, the naga have several different mythological and fantasy influences, from buddhism and hinduism to the more modern implementations in World of Warcraft and guild wars 2 (among many others).
Some things that are shared between them:

• Adept at fighting, usually with swords or polearms.
• Snakelike head, with scales and poison.
• Magical influence, typically with water/weather.
• Often associated with rivers/bodies of water as a dwelling.

Some cherry-picked ideas from other places -

• The greek lamia (partial snake-like woman) and her child Scylla (also vampires, but we have that already, so not going there).
• dota 2, the siren.  I want a few magical castes, and I think this one would fit in well (siren song that either dazes/stuns or charms enemies).
• Various boss naga in games - control over lightning is a big one, with storms and water as well.  Frost maybe?
• Male melee, female ranged/magic.  Perhaps going as far as to practically bar the use of opposite caste weapons.

Major Themes

I think the most major theme is water.  DF has water as a helpful, but secondary resource.  Considering the Naga are born swimmers and are waterbreathing creatures, I want to encourage a mostly water based fort.  One of the things that this will allow for is a much easier invasion (just put a maze in the water on the first few levels, and watch all the invaders drown...), but it would add flavor to the race.  This, in combination with the strong army you can get might make things too easy, so I'm looking for ways to reduce that.
Another major theme is magic and large summons.  I think a hydra, water elemental and a kraken of some sort (maybe just flailing tentacles that grab and swallow invaders?) would be perfect for summons of the Naga.  Keeping in line with this, a strict code of water usage might be best.  Some type of druidism score, where the more you use water (all items created from a water based workshop?  Also water spells and prayer?) is necessary.
The above makes freezing climates impossible, and scorching climates almost so.  This is a big problem for me, and I'm trying to wrap my head around some way to counter that.
Primarily meat based diet, with the help of kelp farms for constant food generation.  I'm thinking that farming isn't very reliable for them, but haven't considered how to enforce that. 
Coral and Poison enhancements to weapons and ammo.  Combine metals with coral and poison (milked from jellyfish and other aquatic nasty pets) and paralyze, bleed and confuse your foes into submission.

Custom Workshops

I have started quite a few of these, and made a decent amount of reactions for most, but just to list some things out -

Temple (upgrades to one of two types, a temple to Lamia {offensive magics like lightning and ice} or Triton {defensive magics, like healing waters and ice walls} which both upgrade based on a magic counter (druidism-ish) and time)
Warrior hall (upgrades three times, with addon buildings that train specific skills (dodging/wrestling, striker/fighter, strength/agility)
Oracle's chambers (teaches spells and allows for magic accumulation)
Kelp Pond (upgrades to a grotto, can farm kelp and other meat-bearing aquatic creatures for butchering and eating.  Can also farm special items at a low rate for other reactions.  Core building that should be frequent in a fort)
Steam Workshops (needs both magma and water underneath the building to work, will infuse metal with coral.  Upgrades and addons possible for special things {armor, ammo})
Summoning Circle (water circle that can bring forth elementals, hydras and occasionally summon a powerful being for siege help)
Raider's start/unpacking station (Similar of course to orcs, but perhaps changes based on theme...  Something to think about.)
Some sort of a water generating workshop.  Something that can kickstart the above at a very low cost, but still isn't a replacement for a river or other natural source.

Thoughts/Other Plans

Thrall-like sub-race, humans who do work with picks and axes (which the naga wouldn't use).
No farming?  The kelp pond should be the main source of food, but you can't get rid of the plot being built...  maybe remove grower from all castes?
More special qualities.  I love the water idea, but its hard and hacky, and probably won't work well.  Something else to make it unique would be nice.
I've set myself up to fail, lots of complex interactions and scripts, but I have a good comparable scripts from other races, so it should just be small edits.

[Treason]

Love the idea.

Here are some quick thoughts; take them with a grain of salt, I'm just idea generating.  I'll probably repeat some of what you've posted:

1. Completely water-based civ will be a pain to implement.  Making their theme be amphibious would be a quicker/easier starting point to build from.  They dig out sections of a fortress and flood the entry/exits/pathways.

2. Different casts (all can breath underwater, good wrestlers due to the tail grapples, favored weapon is the trident/spear):
     a. Siren: More fish-like tails, better at magic and generally more agile.  Inherently have the ability to "sing" a song that confuses enemies (I like your idea).
     b. Lamia: Snake-like tails.  Tougher (thicker scales) and stronger than sirens, more inclined to earthly endeavors (better masons, smiths, melee, etc).  Venomous bite that causes severe pain.
     c. Naga: Base cast (generic tails).  Amazing fishermen, decent jewelers and stone/pottery crafters.  Has a "gaze" ability which paralyses an enemy.

3. Kelp Farms.  Workshop must be built over water.  Sacrifice above ground/subterranean seeds to produce kelp.  Upgrades into the "Coral Reef."  Retains the ability to produce kelp, but with the right amount of kelp and specific materials (gold, blood, obsidian, etc) you can grow different types of coral for different purposes.  Obsidian=Black coral, good for weaponry and armor.  Gold=Pale Coral, great value and decorative.  Blood=Nettles, extract toxins/poisons from them for arrows/bolts, or combine with a weapon (trident) to produce poisonous arms.

4. Steam Vent.  Must be built over magma and water.  Produces steam (gives Naga happy thoughts), and grows Lichen (with a sacrifice of plants), which can be woven into clothing, bags, etc.

5. Noble positions:  King/Queen=Deep Lord/Lady.  Baron/Count/Duke, etc=Noble Lord/Lady.  Militia Captain= Wave Lord/Lady.  Sheriff= Under Captain.  Doctor= Sea Witch.

6.  Fish ponds/stock ponds.  For those places where fishing may be hard to come by (deserts, glaciers, etc.).

7. Pray to the Undersea Gods (Triton, Something-cthulu-ish, Niades, whatever) at a temple/fountain for water spawning, increase your "druidism" score.  Sacrifice for upgrades and creature summoning (many are aquatic so hence the reason for the water spawning.  Channel out a chamber below to fill and to preserve your summons).  Pray to Unknown/Unknowing gods for potentially powerful upgrades and a chance for a complete personality shift/madness.

8. Toys, instruments, etc = Conk shell horns, reed flutes, clam symbols, etc.

9. Send raiders to kidnap other races for slaves.  Sacrifice prisoners for greater summons or for conversion into Mer, half-naga who do many of the menial tasks.

[-Nihil-]

Sorry if you mentioned this somewhere, but have you found a way to allow them to path through water when doing jobs? I feel like this is the largest obstacle to any kind of aquatic or even amphibious race.

[slay_mithos]

My two cents: somehow make tridents and other spear types as the main melee weapons

Water and Air pathing are not well implemented in the game, which is why most playable races won't use those.

Water is slightly better than air, but the pathing is still not really consistent, as far as I could see with all the invaders and megabeasts that can swim.

EDIT: I think one of the MDF races can't eat plants, so it might be possible to make fish as the main (only?) food source?

[Eko]

Thanks for the comments.

Treason-
Good ideas, I'd like to implement some of those.  I've already done six castes, so we'll see about adding some of yours, may make it too big. 
I think  the farm and steam idea to sacrifice plants and seeds is great.  That means I can keep farming in as a resource collection mechanism, not a food production thing.  I'm now considering making them meat (only) eaters and making kelp "meat".  Some more thought there I think. 
Different material based coral is great.  I'll play around with it a bit, I think different aquatic aspects might be better.  Colored coral is something, but I want more like "eel-infused" weapon for a lightning or shock attack.  I'll think about it and see if I can't come up with something.
Good idea about the toys, I wasn't going to change them, now maybe I will. 

All of you have issues with the water, and I hadn't really tested a fort with a full water level yet, so I didn't realize the problems it will cause.  You're right, the aquatic/amphibious race isn't going to work too well.  That's a shame, it was going to make it unique.  Need to find something else...

[94dima94]

Wouldn't a race able to live underwater be too easy to defend?
An alternative would be to create maybe two different castes or species: one who lives on land (proper nagas, still really good at swimming, but can't breathe underwater) and another one who lives almost only underwater (tritons or similar), who can't survive by themselves, and need each other's help, like underwater food production but land resource gathering; and maybe some endgame spells to make all of them amphibian.
With this you still would have a "normal" fort to defend, where you still can use a lot of water as a main feature, but you can't make it invincible by flooding it completely, at least until the very end (and still, some resources would be impossible to gather without a proper dry section).

EDIT: sorry, didn't see the last message.

[Meph]

First of all I have to say that the concept is very good. All new, both for players and modders to learn new tricks.

You will want to have a look at vanilla df pandas and their SPECIFIC_FOOD tag. Furthermore there is a almost unused interaction usage location that you can find in the wiki: IN_WATER. While it is true that even amphibious or nobreathe civ members dont path through water, its possible to make 3/7 waterways, which are fine.

Cold/hot maps would force you into the caverns.

For spawning water, have a look at the waterwell building, and for water-needing workshops see the handpump in hermit mode.

If this is a serious undertaking, I will help as I can and once enough content exists, add it to the launcher, like Boltguns Succubi. Till then you have a long way to go however.

Other themes I can think off: Upgrading citizens with a poisonous bite, extravision (thermal vision of snakes), Atlantis, multi-armed castes and 7-headed snake pets. Maybe a one-headed snake that transforms after a year into a dnake with 1+1 heads, up to 7 in the end. Togas seem like fitting clothing, as do veils. Gorgons/Medusae with petrifying gazes could fit, maybe as rare caste, priests or warbeasts.

Overall I love the water aspect. While your initial reactions seems to be "oh it doesnt work well, I need something else", I would rather see it as a challenge. No one has done a water-based civ before, there is lots to discover.

[Eko]

Hmm, yes.  I spent the past few hours tinkering around, creating a custom workshop raw creator using python, so I've been on a tear designing all my buildings.  Then I went to test them, and I can't get a world to spawn with my Naga in it, so I've messed something up somewhere.

Thanks Meph, for the ideas.  I like the specific food, and I'm reading about it.  I took a look at the interactions, and that's gonna be a long-term thing, my current development list is: creature/entity/building/reaction.  Then I'll work on interactions/scripts/binary patch to enable building on 3/7 water.

The caverns thing is a point as well, I've been thinking about it, Naga REALLY shouldn't be outside.  Perhaps a script that would increase caveadaptation constantly?  Give a player a year to get underground, but if they see the light of day again, they're throwing up and useless. 

I've got a building spawning water right now, working well. 

Citizens and all castes will likely have a simple poison bite.  Some castes might have an improved one, however.  Thermal vision is indeed a curious idea, and something I'd love to have.  I LOVE the hydra idea to grow from a 1-head to a 7 head over time.  I don't think I'll do much clothing at all, we'll see.  I'm thinking fixnaked, and although they come with clothes, not much focus on creating more, but something to think about.  Also, pants?  Doesn't really make sense.  Can I force them not to wear them?  Secondary question, really.

Thanks for the words, I'll definitely accept the challenge.

At this point, I have several building layouts done, about 1/4 of the reactions for the special cases done, and I have a botched first attempt at a creature file.  I changed too much at once, so I'll probably pull from the creature naga again, and redo my changes, one at a time this time.

Hope to have pictures of the buildings by the weekend, but no promises.

[Meph]

I spent the past few hours tinkering around, creating a custom workshop raw creator using pytho

But, but... http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=54004 ?

If they have no legs, they dont need pants. ^^

The caverns thing is a point as well, I've been thinking about it, Naga REALLY shouldn't be outside.  Perhaps a script that would increase caveadaptation constantly?  Give a player a year to get underground, but if they see the light of day again, they're throwing up and useless. 

That can be done with Interactions, using CAVE_ADAPT triggers.

[Eko]

Updated - Added some building designs I like, added more reactions, worked on the base naga raw as well. 

I'm thinking about an Add-On system.  I have a picture of the buildings, and a bit of explanation in a spoiler here:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I know this might screw up some OCD people with perfect 5x5 designs and such (not being able to fit the building with all the addons in a nice square might piss people off...) but I think its an interesting design.

I think some of my code needs a bit of work.  Most of the time this works, but sometimes I can build a workshop without the correct building being there, so I need to perfect that before I can really call it finished. 

I'm interested in feedback though.  Would this be acceptable to people?  Requiring the addon to be attached to the building to work?  I think its a decent departure from normal DF, so it might make for some interesting choices in forts.

[Meph]

Gnomish factories already use a similar system, with input/output tiles that can, but do not need to, be connected. Its certainly doable and people dont mind about the mechanic. Its a new thing, and they have to learn it first, but I heard no one complain. Did I understood you correctly that you already have some code to enable this functionality, that buildings only work if properly connected?

The designs look beautiful.

Some feedback:
 - Temples: Water, Viper, Salamander... the three words dont fit. Maybe Eel, Viper, Salamander? Or any other aquatic animal you want to represent water? I just found it weird that one is named after an element, the other two after animals. Otherwise it would be Water, Venom and Magma Temple, which to my ears sound more bland.

 - Connectors: You have North, East and West. Why no South connector? The lack of this might raise some questions by people that like a certain design. Gnomish workshops have those in any direction, so do human guildhalls.

 - Avoid alignements. I dont mind it much for the temples, which are North-aligned (meaning that they look like you are supposed to enter them from the south), but I would try to avoid things like that for other buildings. For example your Summoning Circle is round, but by adding the two books at the bottom you make it look like it has a southern entry. Either leave that out, or add such a design to all four sides. From experience I know that players like that much more.

 - Suggested Workshop: A 1-tile building that creates an aquifer. This enables you to make most use of water, without worrying about embarking on a river/ocean. I know you posted above that you dont want to fully replace them, but I think its a good idea. The challenge is not getting water, but using it correctly. It would make for easy flooding of corridors to use your 3/7-stand-in-water effect for IN_WATER based interactions, it allows the design of interesting drowning traps with aquifers above ground level, which results in new designs players can try out, and always has the risk of you accidently flooding your fort, making areas unuseable till you drain them, if you manage to lock down the aquifer somehow. These aquifers would be permanent, so caution would be adviseable.

Question: Kelp Pond: I cant decipher the screenshot. You have a greenish pond, but also a round pond with blue water... what is what, and how do they work? (Or are intended to work?)

Hint: If you need more tiles than you can find on the tilesets, TwbT can import unlimited new ones. Just in case you need something especially fancy for specific buildings. Like an actual Triton Fountain or something like that.

And how do you do kids? Normal birth, or something more complex with eggs and nestboxes, or custom eggs?

[Eko]

Wow, thanks so much for all the feedback Meph.

I'll just touch on everything quickly, and go into more depth later on in a longer post if it still raises questions.

I do have code right now that recognizes the building built next to the addon, and only allows the specific upgrade associated with that direction/workshop.  Problems are that you can queue the reaction, remove the lower workshop, and it will still build, netting you a free addon with no bigger workshop.  That shouldn't be hard, but I'm working on other things now, so it will wait.

You're so right about the names.  I wasn't focusing on that at all, and was mainly going just for feel for the start.  Eel is something I want in another place, so maybe Kraken? 

No south because of the alignment thing you mentioned below.  I'll work on my alignment issue, it is definitely not on purpose, just the way I laid out the buildings in my head, so just something I'll have to train myself to build differently.

I like the aquifer idea, but I was considering a different system.  An aqueous orb that you would build.  It would pulse at a regular interval, say 500 ticks.  When it pulses, any square with water in it gets put to 3/7, and all squares around that get put to 1/7.  it would also spawn 3/7 in the squares around it, to start off with.  I'm looking for ways to expand the water following liquid physics, but without giving the equivalent to a free river source.  The orb idea would flood rooms, keep the water level where it won't affect the game adversely, and also be a bit more thematic (in the sense that the naga are colonizing the space, and this is like a terraforming system they came up with).  I'll see how bad this is on the framerate, once I get done with building design.

Ok, the kelp pond has the green pond for kelp, and the clean pond for cleaning it.  I was thinking kinda like seaweed, or other things, where the more that grows, the more the water turns green, but the more dirt and other things are on the plant, meaning it needs to be cleaned in fresh water before eating.  This was an attempt at conveying that.  The green pond grows, to show that the kelp gain is more significant with each upgrade, and the extras you can build are smaller freshwater ponds for growing other things in.  I see the confusion, and I'll try and sort it out.

I know about TwbT, and I'm in love with the idea.  I want to make something that works with the regular tileset before I put work into special graphics.  That may change, of course, if I go with the addon idea, as the track tiles in certain tilesets (spacefox for instance) do not convey the same "pipeline" idea that I want.

Kids for now is normal birth.  I'm still having major issues with the creature raws.  I'm using the base naga (I don't know if its DF or FD, or MW, but the nagas that are already in the raws) as a base.  I've added in castes to this, and am still tweaking things like sizes and attributes.  I am planning on pushing forward with buildings and reactions, and dealing with creature raws when the rest is in a better state.  I think eggs are an end goal.  That is to say that it makes sense in my mind.  The reality is that in most of the myths with a Naga, they are described as being 'born', so from a mythology sense, it actually is more accurate to have normal births.  I'll see how it plays out.

I'll play some gnomes and focus on the factories to learn more about how their system is designed...

[Meph]

You're so right about the names.  I wasn't focusing on that at all, and was mainly going just for feel for the start.  Eel is something I want in another place, so maybe Kraken? 

Maybe Nautilus?

I would like to see eggs for reproduction, simply because no other race uses it.

And if you want some more RL religion with water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon

[slay_mithos]

Meph, you might want to ask for this addon system for the humans too.

I mean, right now, we can build the "extensions" anywhere, even though the graphics and manual imply that they should be placed at the right place.

For birth, would it be possible to go with eggs, like most water animals?
Would be weird to use a nest box, but it could make it a bit unique too.

[Meph]

No, I dont want it for humans. Sawmills and Brick Ovens you might want to build several times, without the need for a large, expensive, time-consuming guildhall each time. It also makes no logical sense that you cant build a sawmill even if you bought a second sawmill permit from the guild.

A fun idea for birth: No natural birth, but a custom workshop that must be build in(near) water that spawns a "clutch of eggs", similar to how fish do that. It would be a immobile creature that MUST BE stored in water (for example with AQUATIC token), and after a set amount of time it spawns 10~20 new nagas. Or some tadpole-like creatures that must be kept in a pond and fed, which later on turn into naga.

So instead of marriages and personal eggs/kids, you would have the nest/clutch of eggs of your fort that you must protect, all in one place in a specially build pond for it. It also allows more controlled growth of your fort, which is important to survive fights, but also help control FPS a bit.