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[Eko]

Oh!  I knew it was something simple. 

I think he wanted to try the normal egg way, and then forgot about your post while doing the whole lot of other things needed to make this race work.

You're right.  I started playing around with egg laying science before I left on Friday, came back and completely forgot where I was in the process.  I think I remember now, I was going to add the [PET] tag to them (ala dwarven cognitive science) and just forgot that that's what I was doing.

Thanks everyone for helping me out, need to figure out a better notes system, obviously.

On the whole good/evil thing, my inspiration is definitely Greek/Warcraft.  I think the Hindu/Thai mythos has them almost neutral.  I'm also deathly afraid of snakes, having been bitten by a rattler when I was young.  That certainly doesn't help.  I also, however, see your side of the coin, Meph, and appreciate the lack of diversity in MW currently.  I've always been an anti hero supporter, so it isn't hard for me to like any of the races currently on offer.  I've also always seen the kobolds (cutebolds) as more of a good race, and the orcs as being neutral/good, just with a different outlook on ethics.  Really, necro/succubi were the only evil ones to me. 

I guess what I'm saying is that I can be persuaded to make them more neutral/good in the interest of a more even masterwork mod.  I do want to stress that although the ideas might be mine, the implementation of this race is 100% rooted in the masterwork idea and system.  For this reason, the needs of the overall outweigh individual flavor.  And the alignment is definitely flavor. 
I'll do some research during downtime at work today, and come up with something a little more balanced, and if I can get behind it, we'll move in that direction. 

So, even if the pet tag works, there's still some issues with the egg laying thing.  I don't want them to eat the eggs at all.  I'm thinking of a dfhack script that forces forbidden on any egg that pops out, but I don't know how feasible that actually is.  Another idea is to have the eggs hatch instantly into children who have a 2+year childhood to compensate. 
One idea I had, to make the pet thing more palatable was an interaction that would CE_REMOVE the pet tag for two years, had a 500 tick gap, that would make the greenscales pets for only enough time to lay eggs, then shift back to naga for another two years.  This would be a raw-only solution if it works.  The alternative is (my 6th) complex dfhack scripting.

If the Rawls way works, education would still be paramount to let players know they have to have a nestbox ready and free every two years if they want non-immigrant labor.  That education would be easier with a dfhack script that could announce to the player if there weren't available boxes. 

Something to think about.  This evening will be more egg laying science, the probably pet creation.  That's next on my list.

[snowhusky5]

Instead of laying regular eggs, you could have them run a reaction or something every two years that would spawn useless, immobile, aquatic egg 'pets'. That would keep them from being eaten. After 6 months or whatever, the egg would spawn naga tadpoles. Seems a bit less complex than forbidding ALL the eggs everywhere all the time, and that whole pet tag thing

[Meph]

Some more info on sentient egg layers: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=138878.msg5339520#msg5339520

Actually I am not quite sure why your civ didnt gen with the tag, because other people got them to work. Maybe because one of your castes was female and had eggs, and another female caste (the witches) had live births?

And please, do whatever feels right to you. Doesnt matter if good or evil, point is that you like what you create. I was just surprised about it, thats all.

Btw, do you know if you want full snake people, or human upper body on snake body?

Like this?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Or like this?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think that would be a nice thing to do with castes, to make them more diverse.

[Eko]

Ok, small update tonight.

I've made some pets, although I think I might need some help on a few extras. 

I have two wagon pullers - the Giant Salamander, and a new one I made called a Eryops.  (Look it up, huge amphibious dinosaur like thing, perfect for cart-pulling.  Nasty bite on it too).
I made a hydraling pet that will grow heads as it ages, provided I can get the interaction working.  This will be war and hunt trainable
I think I'll have a moccasin for a vermin hunter
Giant Cobra perhaps as another hunt/war trainable?
Finally, a merkin, which is a humanoid magically enchanted with gills.  Makes a good fisherman, with fish skill innate. 

Perhaps a water elemental?  I want to leave those as summons, so I'll have to make them anyway, but I was thinking one or two of them, a giant spitting cobra (another summon), a kraken of some sort as a spell/summon (drench all enemies map wide, then crush them all with decent power), and maybe finally a "watcher of the deep", an immobile eyestalk that is aquatic, so it has to be zoned in water or it dies.  I think that's another summon, taking them on embark would be certain death for them.  Has huge sight radius and enrages when it sees an enemy. 

Can anyone think of any big gaps I have?  I think maybe the hydraling should be shearable for scales, and possibly milkable, but I don't know.  No cheese makers, but almost all are egg-layers. 

I've decided that Mephs art choices are relevant, and males will be full scale, and females will be half and half.  This will of course force armor choices for females, but might make it less important for males.  On the other hand, however, the upgrade of the scales will be significant, cost wise, so a mature fort may find it easier to fully arm and armor a full female (thus ranged) squad than it will male.  I'll adjust this as needed. 

[slay_mithos]

I don't know if that's even feasible, but wouldn't it be fun to  have this race able to regrow body parts, like some of the lizards?

I don't know if I agree with the very distinct male/female thing, because the game is based on so many random facts.
On the other hand, it could be nice if both males/females got distinct bonuses (not just a strait bonus for one and nothing for the other).

All in all, your race feels like it's fleshing up a lot from the original idea, so I'm really looking forward to see how it will all turn out.

[Meph]

Everything sounds good so far.

This is what you could do for pets:
 - Vermin hunter
 - Egg layer
 - Tanned hide producer
 - Scout
 - Hunter
 - Warbeast
 - Immobile ranged/aoe unit (?)
 - Wagon puller / pack animals
 - Milk / Poison producer

Seems you got most things covered. Salamanders and Eryops (my god they are awesome) are largish wagon puller/pack animals, hydraling for war, moccasin snake for vermin, giant cobra for hunting/poison (could have a ranged spit attack. Hunting animals should be fast and help hunters reach their target. They fill support roles, so it would be good if they slow down or incapacitate targets, allowing the hunter to kill them. Especially helpful when hunting flying units)

Merkin for fishing sounds ok. Did you test aquatic fishing pets? Could a kraken, which is in the water itself, fish in it? Or do people have to stand next to the pond?

Summons can be done later, they probably all fill support/war roles.

The immobile eyestalk would make a great very cheap pet. Not a summon, or maybe also cheaply available at a workshop, it gives no meat when butchered, but you can set them up around the map in water. To spot ambushes. Late-game versions of these eyestalks could get some interaction, maybe a ranged interaction for combat, or slow down the enemy. This would fill your scout role.

If you need fancy interactions, be sure to check out Legends of Forlorn realms. I remember that Narhiril had some pretty fancy storm/water mages that work in synergy. If both are together, they buff each other and get extra attacks.

Oh, Kraken could be milked for ink.

And cuttlefish/octopusses could give reagents for special leathers, that change color. Camouflage leather armor, 50% damage reduction against everything. (or add X levels of dodging, to simulate that they are harder to hit)

About the art choices: Will you do 2 armed and 4 armed versions as well?

EDIT: I would make most pets aquatic, to force players to make waterways and pools to pasture them in. Especially the eyestalks and the lifestock that is kept for production of materials.

[snowhusky5]

I think it would probably be better to have the melee war caste(s) fully scaled, even if they are male-only, but it probably shouldn't be that all males have full scales. that would be a bit better balanced, and keep the genders fairly similar. Pets sound cool, and yes, most should probably be aquatic, especially the farmable ones. Milking for ink, lol

[slay_mithos]

Please, don't do too many caste specific things, on races that are unlikely to be able to change castes (would mean changing body parts, not quite "normal").

For all players that like to play with low populations (like myself), those things can really make or break a fort depending solely on the appearance and number of those special castes.
When I say low population, I personally play between 10-15 (make no value before the first two waves), or around 50, and it makes a very big impact when you get a specific caste (or don't get it).

For races like kobolds, that are basically high, easy to replaceable population and not too much bad thoughts on death, it makes less of an effect, as you can just send the unwanted to a grinder and birth a new batch until you get what you need, but you really can't go around killing your fort members in normal races, because of the tantrums and the long duration before reaching adult age.

[LMeire]

How about raising sea turtles for their shells? IIRC Rigid Shellplate is above iron-grade and fire-proof to boot.

[Meph]

They way I read it, its just male as more melee oriented units, and females as more support/ranged oriented units. Witches, Oracles, and a few castes with natural labor skills. I dont think anything playes a massive role, because even the females can wear armor to make up for the non-scale bodyparts. There is not such a huge difference, like for example in Warlock mode.

[Eko]

So this has led me to another thought that I would like some opinions on.  (My 8th complex script.. I'm insane, clearly...)

This will be a hard one to explain, so I'm gonna give it a bash, hope I come out sounding sane.

What would everyone think about a noble as a birthing caste? 
My thought process is convoluted, but before you scream "not possible", hear me out. 
I don't want egg based reproduction to be commonplace, so not all females will lay eggs (if any, given how early experiments turned out...). I also want a controlled amount of egg laying to occur.  So one of the only population-controlled systems in DF is the noble system, where you can specify maximums.  The plan is to set a noble as a clutch tender, and have a maximum of three.

Then, df hack does its magic.  I grab the name and unit of the noble position, and store that in a variable.  When the time comes, that unit is cleared of all jobs and is burrowed to a dynamic location (I'm thinking about where to do this, first thought was water covered nest boxes) and gets the immobile tag added.  After two months, previous job settings are restored, immobile and burrow removed, and creatures are spawned as fully grown naga. 

Perhaps I can even respect population caps with this method. 

Problems:  no nestbox, no children, but a red announcement can notify people in that case.  Burrow tampering: might be a blessing, but the point is the player can inadvertently prevent birth by messing with the burrow while the script is running...  No children: good thing for me, but removes an aspect of the game some might like. 

Ok!  Thoughts please!  I'd love to know what I haven't thought of/considered with this approach!

I'll go into detail about all the great ideas posted about pets tonight when I am able to work on them some more...

Also, hopefully not a double post, my phone isn't liking me this morning...

[snowhusky5]

Wouldn't it make more sense to spawn the creatures either as baby/juvenile nagas, or perhaps much smaller adult nagas which grow to their max size over 1-2 years? A 2 month growing period is pretty short, and these aren't like the kobolds. The idea seems good though, although maybe you should stop coming up with more scripts to write

[slay_mithos]

I much more prefer the way Meph suggested (creating 'false' eggs on demand to create the new population), because the way you propose seems much more the way of insects than lizards/humanoids.

[Meph]

You can actually do what you describe with nobles by Raws only. Make a noble with NUMBER:3, and use SPECIFIC_CASTE on it, only allowing a very special, pop-ratio:1 caste that shouldnt appear naturally. Then make a reaction that allows any female to turn into this caste, but use either interactions/syn-classes that block the transformation for anyone after number 3.

Another solution with dfhack, but existing scripts, is making a unique reagent 3 times at the start on embark, which can be used to transform females in a reaction. Once the 3 reagents are used up, you dont get any new ones, but if one of the egg-laying noble castes dies, they drop another one.

Honestly, I dont like the idea. If you only get kids that way your civ will die out in worldgen, which means they wont attack other races. They need a normal way of natural childbirth to make sure that the AI survives first. Then in fort mode I would give them the sterile tag and make that tadpole-reaction based thing. For two reasons: Kids wont be important, because you have a living civ that sends migrants. Spawnunit can also only spawn adult units, even if their age is 1 day. Which is the reason for the tadpole idea, using another creature as a replacement for the child stage. The last one is that its heavily water based, requiring you to build a pool for them.

Kids in DF, as you know, are more a nuisance than anything else, so by cutting them out of the fort by natural means (by making everyone sterile) leads to less useless kids running around, but having a reaction to spawn 10-20 naga from a clutch means it can be done a few times after you had heavy losses to replenish your fort. And even if you decide differently before the tadpoles finish maturing, you can simply kill/butcher them, without causing bad thoughts.

[94dima94]

And even if you decide differently before the tadpoles finish maturing, you can simply kill/butcher them, without causing bad thoughts.

Is it weird that this feels a totally acceptable thing to do in this game?

Anyway, I have an actual question; how long do you think it should take to grow, for children?

Still following this, it's a really cool project.