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[That Wolf]

Guys It clearly says be respectful to the OPs suggestion.
I think its a good idea to expand the animals that can be trained for war for people who dont mod.
I can easily mod things at that level but I dont because I dont need war pigs, but if it was in the game i sure as shit would have war pigs. Bacon, milk, cheese, yoghurt, leather, tusks, curly tails and defence! Quite frankly they would out class dogs and wolves any day.
Dont knock the guy down.
His suggestion is valid as shit.
Better than the idiot who suggested crouching.
Actualy i might go mod it to compare to dogs just for the sake of legitamacy

[BesorgterZwerg]

I like this idea as i want more animals to be trainable for war/hunting.

[Uzu Bash]

Also, watch what you're saying.  Modifying the plain text files IS DF modding.  Toady doesn't want people messing with his source code, so for the most part (DFHack and a few other utilities being the exceptions) all modding is done by adding new things to the raws, sometimes sorted into new raw files.

Well, I wouldn't mess with his code, but I wondered how feasible it would be to write a graphical wrapper. Out of curiosity I looked at the headers and a string dump of it, and it doesn't look particularly obfuscated. It would take a whole other engine to render and translate the physics to 3D, but it looks doable for someone with the time to dedicate to it.

[4maskwolf]

Also, watch what you're saying.  Modifying the plain text files IS DF modding.  Toady doesn't want people messing with his source code, so for the most part (DFHack and a few other utilities being the exceptions) all modding is done by adding new things to the raws, sometimes sorted into new raw files.

Well, I wouldn't mess with his code, but I wondered how feasible it would be to write a graphical wrapper. Out of curiosity I looked at the headers and a string dump of it, and it doesn't look particularly obfuscated. It would take a whole other engine to render and translate the physics to 3D, but it looks doable for someone with the time to dedicate to it.

You'd be better off asking that in the modding section, and I'm not sure what specifics you're looking at.  I think there already is a 3-D rendering tool out there for DF.

[Orange Wizard]

Stonesense (kind of, it's isometric) and Armok Vision, courtesy of Japa.

[Uzu Bash]

I know it, but that's a visualizer rather than a game interface. But back on topic:

You can train war giraffes in this game. What do they do? They aren't predators, they aren't territorial, they aren't even as dangerous as deer, because a buck can get aggressive if he senses a competitor for a mate, even if it's a human. When faced with a threat, giraffes can mildly cough to alert the others, and then run away.

So how is that more plausible than a war boar? Boars aren't predators, but they are territorial. They don't run away, they snort and charge, powerfully enough to knock down younger trees. They're like hippos but smaller -- on that note, in this game you can also swim past one of those before they notice and amble away. That's not going to happen irl -- they also charge but they hit like a Humvee. They're not gentler than rhinos just because they don't have a spike in front of their heads.

[4maskwolf]

Yeah, about that first sentence, Uzu... I'm pretty sure you should ask Toady directly about that one, but IIRC that kind of thing makes him uncomfortable and he'd rather people not do it.

[That Wolf]

Bro, girraffe are deadly. Il link u something hope it works http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VhMU_F3arSA
Just cause it looks tame means nothing. They are from africa a continent with hundreds of capable predators, the prey gas has to be tough or it simply will die out

[AceSV]

I could imagine an overhaul of the animal training system based on fields and gradients rather than on/off switches like it is now.  Rather than a TRAINABLE boolean, they could have stats for Intelligence, Aggression and Empathy that vary by individual and are passed on genetically and determine what kind of training they will be best at.  For example, a Lion is very aggressive, but has the capacity for empathy because it is a social animal.  A python is not very aggressive, but also completely lacks empathy.  In the real world, the docile attitude makes pythons potential pets, and the lack of empathy is not a deal-breaker, but prevents them from becoming 100% tame.  A lion's aggression combined with its size make them way too dangerous to be pets, but their ability to empathize makes them capable of being trained for circuses and movie work, and allegedly for war.  Note that a housecat is probably as aggressive as a lion and less empathetic because they are solitary animals; we get along because we mutually benefit from interaction which is why cats ADOPT_OWNER.  Birds like parrots and ravens are not particularly empathetic, but can be trained because they are very intelligent. 

Anyways, the interaction would obviously be simplified for Dwarf Fortress.  An ideal mix of Intelligence, Aggression and Empathy will allow the animal to be 100% trainable, like a dog, while other mixes will allow them to be partially% trained which may result in them attacking dwarves, running away, stealing food or damaging property.  Being trained as children would increase the maximum % trainability but not guarantee 100% domestication like it does now.  Instead, the balance of Int, Agg and Emp would be passed on genetically and you would try to breed the perfect animal. 

So if you find an animal you want to conscript, you would catch 'em and raise 'em until they got smart enough to tame.  Animals like say a giant bug might be so dumb, aggressive and unempathetic that they would require 100s of generations to be bred into something remotely trainable. 



And even if that system gets implemented, we'll complain that such and such an animal is smarter or more empathetic than toady decided it should be.  I in particular worry that crocodiles would be labeled as stupid and unfeeling, whereas my impression is that they are not much worse than cats in the departments of Intelligence and Empathy, but wildly more dangerous.  If a cat were as large as a crocodile, it would probably try to eat you too. 

[Insanegame27]

I could imagine an overhaul of the animal training system based on fields and gradients rather than on/off switches like it is now.  Rather than a TRAINABLE boolean, they could have stats for Intelligence, Aggression and Empathy that vary by individual and are passed on genetically and determine what kind of training they will be best at.  For example, a Lion is very aggressive, but has the capacity for empathy because it is a social animal.  A python is not very aggressive, but also completely lacks empathy.  In the real world, the docile attitude makes pythons potential pets, and the lack of empathy is not a deal-breaker, but prevents them from becoming 100% tame.  A lion's aggression combined with its size make them way too dangerous to be pets, but their ability to empathize makes them capable of being trained for circuses and movie work, and allegedly for war.  Note that a housecat is probably as aggressive as a lion and less empathetic because they are solitary animals; we get along because we mutually benefit from interaction which is why cats ADOPT_OWNER.  Birds like parrots and ravens are not particularly empathetic, but can be trained because they are very intelligent. 

Anyways, the interaction would obviously be simplified for Dwarf Fortress.  An ideal mix of Intelligence, Aggression and Empathy will allow the animal to be 100% trainable, like a dog, while other mixes will allow them to be partially% trained which may result in them attacking dwarves, running away, stealing food or damaging property.  Being trained as children would increase the maximum % trainability but not guarantee 100% domestication like it does now.  Instead, the balance of Int, Agg and Emp would be passed on genetically and you would try to breed the perfect animal. 

So if you find an animal you want to conscript, you would catch 'em and raise 'em until they got smart enough to tame.  Animals like say a giant bug might be so dumb, aggressive and unempathetic that they would require 100s of generations to be bred into something remotely trainable. 



And even if that system gets implemented, we'll complain that such and such an animal is smarter or more empathetic than toady decided it should be.  I in particular worry that crocodiles would be labeled as stupid and unfeeling, whereas my impression is that they are not much worse than cats in the departments of Intelligence and Empathy, but wildly more dangerous.  If a cat were as large as a crocodile, it would probably try to eat you too.

i like this idea. +1

[Uzu Bash]

Bro, girraffe are deadly. Il link u something hope it works http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VhMU_F3arSA
Just cause it looks tame means nothing. They are from africa a continent with hundreds of capable predators, the prey gas has to be tough or it simply will die out

Yup, anyone who owns a horse can tell you how dangerous they can be if they're harassed, and giraffes are equipped to be even more dangerous. But neither of them are naturally aggressive, they don't have the behaviors. In that video, the giraffe definitely picked the fight, but to say "Giraffe attacks lion pride" is a misleading caption.

Meanwhile, boars do have the natural behaviors to attack. Some people found that out the hard way during the pot-bellied pig pet fad, when they bought one from an unscrupulous dealer without checking the pedigree, and got an infant boar instead. Though they do bond with their owner, it can be nearly impossible to control their violence against furniture and guests.

[Orange Wizard]

If you're so convinced that pigs are violent, why don't you mod in the TRAINABLE tags?

[Insanegame27]

I modded in war chickens once... Surprisingly effective

[That Wolf]

It doesnt take much convincing to see pigs as violent.
Pig hunting dogs can get killed by a boar.
If you have food and a pig wants it expect a fight.
They push you into the ground and gore.
Very territorial beasts, never corner an animal, especialy a pig.
War chickens are... slightly accurate. Fighting cocks and all.
I hope the gambling update has pit fighting.
Maybe somebody should suggest it....

[Putnam]

Oforfuck sake, what you're talking about isn't even modding. Those files are plain text, written in my native language. I do know how to push a few letters around. It's not like reverse-engineering the fucking binary.

That's plainly ludicrous on the face of it. Minecraft is the only game that I know of that requires reverse-engineering the fucking binary to mod. Lua files are also plain text, written in my native language (though obviously slightly more programmy), but you can make an entire game with that.

It's like saying that you didn't mod Dota 2 because all you did was change a sound file, or that you didn't mod Skyrim because you never scripted in Papyrus and thus never did any *proper programming*, or that it's not modding Minecraft because the methods used aren't directly sanctioned and provided by the game developers. It's a completely arbitrary classification that basically only serves to make me angry.