Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[granak1031]

Since it SEEMS like this has not been suggested on it's own (In my search of the forums it showed up in a few lists dated back to 2007/8, but not else wise), I think it would be awesome to be able to control the gestation time of a given creature. Being able to put in, for example, a tag like: [BIRTHRATE:120] to say "This creature gives birth 20% faster than default creatures".

[GoblinCookie]

Yes this would be a great idea.  However like a lot of other good ideas it lacks controversy and thus easily slips out of sight. 

[IndigoFenix]

Here is controversy, then: I think it would be better to have the tag simply be a time value, like the number of ticks between conception and birth.  If you had no tag, it would be the default value, which is...six months for non-sapients, nine months for sapients.  Which itself is kind of odd, so maybe have the default be six months and give humanoids explicit gestation periods.

[Badger Storm]

I'd just like to be able to track gestation in the first place.

[GoblinCookie]

Here is controversy, then: I think it would be better to have the tag simply be a time value, like the number of ticks between conception and birth.  If you had no tag, it would be the default value, which is...six months for non-sapients, nine months for sapients.  Which itself is kind of odd, so maybe have the default be six months and give humanoids explicit gestation periods.

Also we need an option to designate babies as a different creature type to the adults and define where an egg is to be laid (rather than always in a nestbox).  Without that we cannot have tadpoles for amphibians. 

[Reelya]

different castes for baby/child/adult would be better than creature type. You can already call babies tadpoles, but they have the caste-specific body plan, which is either male or female right now.

[GoblinCookie]

different castes for baby/child/adult would be better than creature type. You can already call babies tadpoles, but they have the caste-specific body plan, which is either male or female right now.

This is really a question of semantics, baby= caste or baby=creature really does not make any difference.  The other key element is the ability to dictate where a creature should lay it's eggs, so frogs would know to lay their 'eggs' in the water.  Rather than it always being nesting boxes we could designate different kinds of locations. 

Additionally we need to make female creatures that do not lay eggs go into labour for a short while, stop what they are doing and lie down on a bed or on the floor (basically the same mechanic as sleeping).  We could then introduce a complications chance, of say 2%, so one in 50 births results in death of mother and a midwife labour which reduces the chances of death by a certain amount depending on how skilled the midwife is. 

[granak1031]

Some additional things I've ran into that are related:

The "Turritopsis dohrnii" jellyfish is technically biologically immortal. It has a circular life-cycle, with the adults eventually turning back into the baby stage.

I think if the issues with gestation/related topics are tackled this would be a situation to take into account.

[pondicherry]

I'd just like to be able to track gestation in the first place.

yes, absolutely

[Putnam]

different castes for baby/child/adult would be better than creature type. You can already call babies tadpoles, but they have the caste-specific body plan, which is either male or female right now.

This is really a question of semantics, baby= caste or baby=creature really does not make any difference.

It's not even remotely a question of semantics. It's like saying "dog or cat really does not make any difference" because they both happen to be mammals. The distinction is very, very important.

[Dirst]

different castes for baby/child/adult would be better than creature type. You can already call babies tadpoles, but they have the caste-specific body plan, which is either male or female right now.

This is really a question of semantics, baby= caste or baby=creature really does not make any difference.

It's not even remotely a question of semantics. It's like saying "dog or cat really does not make any difference" because they both happen to be mammals. The distinction is very, very important.

Yes, it is for a number of reasons.  Caste-like lifestages have been suggested a handful of times.  Occasionally someone will suggest a self-targeting transformation interaction as a work-around, but routinely discarding the original creature (and "re-rolling" everything) is not a good permanent solution.

With caste-like life stages, you can have giant caterpillars.  And irresponsible teenagers.

[YAHG]

I am very proud that we have managed to make a nice argument out of nothing. On that note I feel it is important to remind you all that you are wrong and not only that but you are bad people because you are wrong. 

[Reelya]

It's not really much of an argument since there hasn't been any back-and-forth. It's just different people adding their 2 cents. You'll notice the same name never appears twice in the quote tree. I'll make it an argument if you like by outlining my original objections.

My own contribution was in response to a statement that we had to have different creature types for babies because of tadpoles (presumably because of the body plan differences). I responded, no, we could already do variable body-plans with castes instead. And it would be better. Sure, this is "mere semantics" since it could be achieved either way. But there are straightforward or roundabout ways to say the same thing, and they are semantically equivalent. Some semantically equivalient ways are just better than others.

Consider the "separate creature type" implementation:

Code: [Select]

[CREATURE:TREE_FROG]
...
      [BABY_CREATURE:TREE_FROG_TADPOLE]

[CREATURE:TREE_FROG_TADPOLE]
      [ADULT_CREATURE:TREE_FROG]
...
etc. the baby needs to know what they will grow into, and the adult needs to know what they give birth to, so both creatures require new tags for this purpose. Now what happens if you want to copy the TREE_FROG to make a variant race? You need to copy all related creature types, and go through them to update the baby/adult creature links. Then compare that to the CASTE-based implementation:

Code: [Select]

[CREATURE:TREE_FROG]
      [BABY_CASTE:TADPOLE]
      [ADULT_CASTE:FROG]

      [CASTE:TADPOLE]
           ....
      [CASTE:FROG]
           ....

To copy this to a new creature is much more straightforward since all the baby / adult castes are relative to the creature type, you can copy this without needing to go through and re-edit all the baby types.

[Bumber]

I am very proud that we have managed to make a nice argument out of nothing. On that note I feel it is important to remind you all that you are wrong and not only that but you are bad people because you are wrong. 

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. The fetus (you) gestated in a cardboard box.

[YAHG]

I am very proud that we have managed to make a nice argument out of nothing. On that note I feel it is important to remind you all that you are wrong and not only that but you are bad people because you are wrong. 

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. The fetus (you) gestated in a cardboard box.

well at least now I know  .