I've been thinking about ways to revamp my Furry Fortress mod. I'm starting to think maybe I should put all the questions in one place. I'm going to keep some of the specifics a secret until it is released, so I can change my mind if necessary.
Wood AlternativesI want to try making a playabe race that won't use wood for anything, not even "grown wood" like the elves, which I don't think you can produce as a player anyways. Without some modding, this would be completely crippling for the experience. Unlike elves, they would not be restricted from using stone and metal, but there are still some materials that wood is exclusively used for.
Beds - But that's easy enough to fix. Mod in cloth, leather and stone beds. Done.
Fuel - Wood makes charcoal, which is insanely useful if you have enough and don't want to scrape the earth's core for magma. But what else from the 1400s could be burned for fuel? Well, ethanol fuel would be cool and fits into the existing framework of the game, except that logically you would keep ethanol in barrels instead of bars and I don't know if the default reactions would be confused by that. In the modern day, I know that there are various solid fuel bars used for survival, but I don't know what they are or if they would suitable to a fantasy game. Anyone have an idea for this?
Soap - Soap is lye, made from ash, made from wood. I don't usually bother with the soap industry myself, but I'd hate to just remove it entirely. Anyone know of alternatives?
Antman Civ - Solved
Original
The caste system is set up exactly for an ant-man civ, but the marriage system is not. Ideally, the ant-queen would breed once and be able to produce offspring for her entire life, but in DF, the default state is for a male and female of similar age to pair up for life and produce children every so often when they're not toiling away.
The easy solution is to make them ant-MEN instead of ANT-men. The fortress could have multiple breeding pairs each with dozens of worker and soldier children.
I saw Meph's golem workshop and I wondered if some kind of workshop process could use ant queen eggs as a reagent to produce ant workers and soldiers as the reaction. But as far as I know, the golem reaction still uses a transformation syndrome, so it wouldn't be able to produce new workers. Maybe livestock could be used to "feed" the eggs so they can hatch.
Solution
Gave up on implementing a "realistic" caste system as it was difficult to display to the player. Gave males the PET tag, which allows them to breed without marriage. The majority of ant-people are female, the player can decide whether they will function as queens, workers or soldiers.
Troll CivI've come up with race that will essentially be a civilization of trolls. I've created troll size weapons for them that are about 4x larger and more expensive than dwarf sized weapons (trolls are about 4x the volume of dwarves and humans). I'm hoping that the cost will serve to balance out the obvious advantage of being gigantic. I don't think these guys will be wildly overpowered when it comes to armed combat, since trolls themselves are not all that threatening, but trolls are balanced by the fact that they don't have armor, which a player would obviously provide.
So the question, should I do something to decrease their armor? I could make them custom armors that cost 4x as much(left alone, I'm assuming a troll-sized breast plate costs as much metal as a dwarf-sized breastplate). I could restrict what armors are available to them. I could restrict armor material to cloth, leather and wood, no metal. I may also give them penalties to mining, to balance out their size, which would also restrict metal acquisition, though a long enough game would balance it out. Any thoughts?
Swimmer CivsLast time I had an amphibious civ of duck people, which were terrible, since their only advantage was swimming which the AI can't do. They also had a habit of marching their waterbuffalo caravans into motes and rivers and getting stuck there forever. I don't think I'm going to repeat ducks specifically, but I am going to have at least 2 races based on sea critters. Any thoughts on what I could do to make swimming races more flavorful? Something that would encourage a player to play a different way?
More to come.