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[Chevaleresse]

If only I knew anything about creature modding.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

If only I knew anything about creature modding.

Here's some stuff that might be able to help:

Guide on the wiki migrated from 34.11
Hub for all the pages that detail the tokens
An export of the default raws on the wiki you can use as a reference

Also, the regular dwarf raws in creature_standard.txt have a close to step-by-step deciphering of the aspects of creatures.

If you don't feel like doing creatures, though, we do need other stuff, such as plants and rocks.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

-Double posting since this is slightly urgent to consider-

I reduced the body size of the Propagators from 1 to 10, because I realized that it meant that a single cell is defined as size 10 in this before the edit.  For reference, a single vanilla squirrel is 300...

What's the max size we can allocate to body size?  I think we are going to encounter a problem...

[Timeless Bob]

I think the "size" stat relates to relative mass rather than a linear scale of length.  1/300th the mass of a squirrel is @ 600g/300 or 2g.  So "Size 1" = @2g.  The biggest land animal is @3000kg (African bull elephant), which would be "Size 1,500,000" if the "size" stat were linear.  Instead, we should look at the "size" raws for elephants and see where they are because Size might be a log or exponential function instead, which allows for both very small and very large creatures.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I think the "size" stat relates to relative mass rather than a linear scale of length.  1/300th the mass of a squirrel is @ 600g/300 or 2g.  So "Size 1" = @2g.  The biggest land animal is @3000kg (African bull elephant), which would be "Size 1,500,000" if the "size" stat were linear.  Instead, we should look at the "size" raws for elephants and see where they are because Size might be a log or exponential function instead, which allows for both very small and very large creatures.

Largest tag for the elephant raws has the number at 5,000,000.

If the upper limit is high enough, then we might be able to use it to represent each 1 represent a single cell of an organism.  If it is lower, we'll just have each 1 represent 10^X number of cells.  The microscopic levels would basically mean that is the total number in cluster.

[Chevaleresse]

These proto-animals could theoretically be quite large, too. There are species of amoeba visible to the naked eye, for example.

[Timeless Bob]

We could call the basic goo "Primal Plasm" if we liked.

[IndigoFenix]

I'm a little iffy about our starting point, to be honest.  I think the first creature should probably be a simple  undifferentiated mass of cells (like a regular DF sponge), not a single 'cell' which is made up entirely of "cell membrane".  Helps with the fuzzy issue of a single cell 'evolving' into a multi cellular organism by adding parts...which doesn't make much sense biologically speaking.

Also, it should probably be immobile and lack extra vision.. Motion and senses should be evolutionary upgrades, I think.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Found out the max body size is at 100,000,000.  As it is measured in cm^3, let's leave the body size at 1 until a creature gets to that size.

I'm a little iffy about our starting point, to be honest.  I think the first creature should probably be a simple  undifferentiated mass of cells (like a regular DF sponge), not a single 'cell' which is made up entirely of "cell membrane".  Helps with the fuzzy issue of a single cell 'evolving' into a multi cellular organism by adding parts...which doesn't make much sense biologically speaking.

Also, it should probably be immobile and lack extra vision.. Motion and senses should be evolutionary upgrades, I think.

On the former: I did have [VERMIN_MICRO], which marks them as swarms.  I'm probably going to change up the other organism I made, but the Gusk as they stand are basically a tube of cells with one end closed off, the fins being structures to direct their glide through the water.  Their mouth is just the opening to the inside of the tube, and the 'stomach' is a holding area for the bacteria inside that breaks down the cells of other organisms.
On the latter: I didn't add immobile, since currents can push them around and many single cellular organisms are able to move around under their own power, but I will pull out extravision.  Anyone who has made a creature will need to change this as well.

[cyberTripping]

this is relevant to my interests.

I may have to go learn creature modding...

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I may have to go learn creature modding...

Don't forget rocks, soils, plants, and the such are all options as well.

Anyway, I've added the Vlealn.  They have an opaque, blue outer shell, and have another creature class on them.   Latter is a personal practice I am going to be doing of every other odd numbered creature from the Progenators is going to have its own class, so that viruses and the such when they are eventually implemented can have varying degrees of broadness, but every other so the raws don't get ridiculously full of creature classes.

[Timeless Bob]

I submit that creatures be given "biome" distinctions as well as "predator" and "prey" lists to determine where they are in the food webs of each biome.  We can determine this in the following manner: In area mode, an amount of the new species equal to the size of that creature is pitted against up to five other species of creature.
Each Creature must be pitted against one or more creatures whose total Sizes equal theirs (ie: 3 "Size 1" creatures vs 1 "Size 3" creature)
  The creature or creature group that survives combat in a minimum of two or three arena mode contests becomes their opponent's "predator", while the one that is killed a minimum of two out of three times becomes their opponent's "prey". 

For each new predator added to a species' list, they should gain +2 mutations available, while for each new prey added to a species' list, they should add +1 mutation available.  In this way, successful predators will maintain their basic shape much more than prey animals will and the frequency that any specific creature enters contests determines how specialized their diets will be in the resulting food web.  (Pandas and mosquitos anyone?)

Animals with the "Grazing" tag (ie: herbivores), could still contest to be considered prey or not, adding a mutation for NOT becoming a prey animal rather than actually adding their defeated opponent as "prey".

Pretty soon, a food web would emerge and this kind of thing could be done for each biome too, unless really successful species attempted to "compete" in other biomes as well (adding a biome tag to their description).

It could be really fun.  Sorta like "fantasy football".

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Attacks will have to emerg first.  I'll go in nnd justify the Gusk and Vlealn as predators through that  system by adding a couple attack tags to them.  Not going to put in any mutations besides hat, though, since that would be all I would want to do with the creatures.

[FallenAngel]

I'm going to watch this, maybe jump later.

[Timeless Bob]

Attacks will have to emerg first.  I'll go in nnd justify the Gusk and Vlealn as predators through that  system by adding a couple attack tags to them.  Not going to put in any mutations besides hat, though, since that would be all I would want to do with the creatures.

I figure the "base" creature would have a pool of "possible number of mutations" based on their score, which new species using that base would use up to change a maximum number of things (or one thing increased up to that maximum value - Size change up or down of the same basic organism takes as much "mutation" as maintaining size and increasing or decreasing some other attribute, or adding or removing that number of tags in the raws altogether)

Initially, this would be arbitrary, as both sets of creatures could mutually avoid the other and get 1 mutation "credit" for NOT becoming the other creature's prey.  However, creating a predator specifically to gain the +2 mutation credits for being a "prey" species would allow Players to make new top predators more quickly than other creatures that just always avoid each-other, which starts the ball rolling and snowballs things from there.