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[Kagus]

This is just a place for the somewhat experienced to discuss hypothetical modifications, how they would be implemented, and the potential side effects. 

The first item of business is something that occurred to me just a little while ago...   What if a race were added in that could not have children of its own.  That race would of course need to be immortal in order for worldgen to work, but I think I can live with that.  Provided they have sufficiently small numbers.

The thing is, they would need to be able to abduct and indoctrinate the other races.  The idea is to eventually have very few "elders" left behind after however many wars happen, with a large base of devout followers from various other races worshiping and protecting them.

Personally, I think that if this could be put in, it would be rather remarkably cool.  I wonder if the original entity's items (weapons and armor and such) override the items of its "stolen" members.  That would allow you to have an ancient, dying race with exceptional weapons and resources imparting their knowledge upon a group of "enlightened".


Again, if it's possible, I think this would be very cool.  Thoughts?

[Kogan Loloklam]

 

You just hijacked your own thread!

[Kagus]

I'm rather proficient when it comes to stuff like that.

In any case, this thread was really just put here to put forth that one idea.  But I can't stand threads that have no potential for discussion after the first item, so I'm putting this up as a general discussion thread for hypothetical mods.

[Mephansteras]

Hmm...well, people can worship Megabeasts. So if you made a megabeast civ, immortal, with the baby snatching tag...it could work.

I may have to try that. Not that I don't have enough to do trying to balance out my existing races right now as it is.

[Kagus]

You can also use the [POWER] tag to get them to worship the creatures themselves (and it somewhat avoids the nasty side effect of having quests to kill them), but all they really need is a religion of their own which they convert the new recruits to.  Having one revered as a power would be kinda cool, but it's also more prone to problems.

[Wiles]

I wonder if the original entity's items (weapons and armor and such) override the items of its "stolen" members.

I'm pretty sure folks who are kidnapped use the items from their abductor's civ.

For worship you could make a similarly named being that is not a megabeast, and doesn't have a biome so it never spawns in game unless it is being worshipped by a civ. 

[Nazush Ebsas]

create warlemmings:

make domesticatable/war trainable lemmings that on death drop a petrified wood statue, or some othe rmaterial that i've never seen before, and mod petrified wood to ignite at room temperature

given that i can't seem to make reaction_standard hit any other building tags( to make a bauxite ballista that creates and fire burning materia)

or maybe find out what temperature magma raises the tile immediately above it to (if any) and mod a type of wood to ignite at that temperature, and have a magma channel run infront of the marksmen sentrypoints, make bolts out of that type of wood, etc etc..

lots of ideas, none of which are likely to work

[Kagus]

Explosions are actually caused when an item boils, not when it ignites.  I've done some extensive work in trying to make explosive critters, and if you just make them drop something that ignites you'll end up with !!material!! just sitting there and smoking up the place.  And it'll sit there for a very long time.

Booze explosions (I've had the good fortune to encounter one of my own) are composed of "boiling dwarven wine", rather than "!!dwarven wine!!".


As for the dwarven pitchpots (magma-warmed bolts), that's an interesting idea.  Even more interesting is that it could actually work, since a burning projectile will light other items on fire when it gets embedded in a creature's inventory.  Unless they're quick about pulling them out, they'll have a large helping of !!death!! on their hands.

But it may annoy any woodworkers who made masterful bolts, and it will also litter your battlefields with smoking rubble that may take years to burn out.  Unless you've got a master flood switch, that is.

But I don't know what effect magma has on the temperature of adjacent tiles.


EDIT:  Okay, I'm currently working my way around some arachnid-type critters, and I was wondering about a couple things...  Should I add [SEVERONBREAKS]?  It makes sense for a creature with an exoskeleton, but it might turn up with some peculiar messages from time to time.  Also, should a spider's bite be GORE or PIERCE? 

The reason I ask about PIERCE is because it will cause peculiar messages if the spider happens to be shaking something around.  If I put it in as PIERCE, then I think I'll just remove the CANLATCH flag so that those messages don't show up.

[Nazush Ebsas]

how big is it? for biguns go gore, for littleuns go pierce. can still have an alternative mowf text attack that does peirce, for biguns.

Arachnids have endoskeleton too, it's just tiny, and limbs don't automatically fall off if injure, no more so than in mammals, difference is that we rarely see limb injuries to mammals the size of house spiders or ants

[Kagus]

Well, in this particular case, they stand about as tall as a medium-sized dog.  And as for the severing, I wonder if it would be more appropriate for a spider's leg to shatter or to bruise.  That's basically the choice being made, as far as messages are concerned.

[GoreTaco]

I think if it'll have some sort of poison bite you should go with pierce, otherwise go with gore.

[Neoskel]

Even if it has poison, go with gore. Theres no way the fangs would be long enough to work like a spear or arrow, and mouthparts never work like that anyways.

[Kagus]

It's just that common creatures will attack with a GORE damage type because they have mouths designed for eating.  By ripping off bits and pieces of something else with the combined force of their upper and lower jaws, they can make manageable chunks for them to devour.

Spiders, on the other hand, don't really have jaws.  They have fangs that are used to incapacitate prey, after which they suck out the juicy insides.  There's no munching going on (except for tarantulas and other large, venomless arachnids), just an injection and a slurping noise.

Other critters have gore attacks because the two jaws, with their teeth designed to hold on to whatever they're clamped around, will close down on a particular section of flesh and then set in.  This in itself doesn't do a whole lot of damage, aside from the pressure being used to keep the jaws firmly locked in place.  The creature then swings their head around, trying to rip off the piece that they're holding on to.  Hence, the ripping nature of gore attacks.  And also the CANLATCH tag.

[Nazush Ebsas]

depends on the species, but say, many species of tarantula do both, attacking in a "charge" where the fangs ill attempt a peircing attack, ofc, a dagger..

Oh, daggers in DF are considered slashing weapons, so i guess i'd go with that. like was said, a fang isn't going to get a "run through" message, unless it's shelob hitting frodo..but it would be, scaled up, potentially inches long, and designed specificially to pierce skin and flesh. Well, maybe slash would be the best option then! heh.

[Kagus]

Well I'm going to be changing the daggers into piercing weapons too.  It's a total conversion.

I hadn't thought about slash attacks before...  The attack messages are actually workable, all except for the killing blows.   "It is split in half from the crown to the chin!", "It is cloven asunder!" and "It is mostly cut away from the rest of the torso!" don't really fit the image of a spider's bite.

Unless it's one of those tarantulas with the wicked horizontal mandibles.  Those things are nasty.