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[Footkerchief]

I swear Footkerchief, every time I think I have a handle on something, you're there to set me straight. Thanks. Any clue where Toady mentioned this?

Haha, welcome as always.  If you mean where he mentioned the hair color weighting... it came up before the DF Talk thing, here:

Also, will we be seeing melanistic leopards and jaguars ('black panthers') in the next version or will we have to mod that in ourselves?

I did these in particular going through because when you are doing jaguar colors, it sort of jumps out.  I think I used wikipedia proportions (940:60:1 or something) for regular:black:white.  There aren't a lot of animals I did variations for though.

You can see how those weights/proportions/frequencies work here:

Code: [Select]

            A color modifier takes a list of color patterns (every color is
associated to a monotone color pattern of its color, so you can also
use color tokens) and frequencies.  I haven't filled out this list
yet...

            [TL_COLOR_MODIFIER:BLACK:1:BROWN:1]
                [TLCM_NOUN:hair:SINGULAR]

That's for dwarf hair colors -- in this incomplete example, they're both weighted 1, so they're equally probable.  The reason I'm sure that panther color variation is done by this method, and not by castes, is that Toady recently said "castes ... that's gender for all but the ant men", meaning that the ordinary creatures just have male/female castes as opposed to color-based castes.

[GlyphGryph]

It will be fun, I think, to throw in some sort of ultra-rare castes in with the normal races so we can get things like midgets and giants, or occasionally megabeasts or demons born from humans. Things like the "children born with horns" thing in Ico.

[Neonivek]

It will be fun, I think, to throw in some sort of ultra-rare castes in with the normal races so we can get things like midgets and giants, or occasionally megabeasts or demons born from humans. Things like the "children born with horns" thing in Ico.

Deligating rare traits and talents through the Caste system? Mixed feelings, though if it cannot be done through extrapolation then yeah Caste would be the way to do it.

Well I can't say I havn't though of strange variations. Such as Adventurer Castes that don't breed but are selectable by the player for adventurer mode

[Shoku]

Rarity is apparently supposed to be very customizable. If you listen to the recent preview podcast, Toady talks about setting rarity on panthers for an accurate number of black panthers, and even a very low chance for a rare white panther. I believe the numbers he gave were in the thousand range, so it should be even better precision than %.

Rarity works like worldgen's meshes: the numbers don't mean anything except in relation to each other.

Ex: 1 and 1 will give the same result as 50 and 50.

SO... could I make a creature that was 5 parts panther, 2 parts iguana, and 8 parts eagle, so that whenever two of those animals bred, it'd have a fraction-type chance of giving birth to either a panther, iguana, or eagle?

You could technically do that but panthers, iguanas and eagles would all have chances of giving birth to each other unless they were all sterile.

It will be fun, I think, to throw in some sort of ultra-rare castes in with the normal races so we can get things like midgets and giants, or occasionally megabeasts or demons born from humans. Things like the "children born with horns" thing in Ico.

Deligating rare traits and talents through the Caste system? Mixed feelings, though if it cannot be done through extrapolation then yeah Caste would be the way to do it.

Well I can't say I havn't though of strange variations. Such as Adventurer Castes that don't breed but are selectable by the player for adventurer mode

I thought heroes were supposed to typically be very prolific...

If there were ways of navigating into other castes they could just go from adventurer to hero but oh well.

[Neonivek]

That isn't what I meant.

I meant the Adventurer Caste will only occur when selected by the player for Adventure mode.

Though 0 chance Castes make sense to me especially when magic is involved. They represent a latent potentiality that can no longer be achieved.

[Bryan Derksen]

Though 0 chance Castes make sense to me especially when magic is involved. They represent a latent potentiality that can no longer be achieved.

Oho, this gives me the idea to use castes to implement lycanthropy (until it can be done properly as a curse of some sort). You could create a very rare caste of dwarf that looks just like the ordinary caste when young, but then on maturity develops into a wolf-like creature and goes berserk.

I haven't been able to follow the details of the new raws, does that sound like a plausible approach?

[Neonivek]

I don't think Castes can cause dramatic body differences yet.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Castes can. You can have castes with completely different bodies. It's growth stages that can't have different bodies yet.

[Neonivek]

Castes can. You can have castes with completely different bodies. It's growth stages that can't have different bodies yet.

I am guessing that Castes cannot be linked to age either.

So you have everyone being born into their castes rather then having their castes fulfilled at a future date.

[Akigagak]

Haven't you been paying attention?

[Neonivek]

Haven't you been paying attention?

Information links and combines with others.

So yes I have been paying attention.

[Footkerchief]

Haven't you been paying attention?

Information links and combines with others.

So yes I have been paying attention.

He's right though, that particular bit of information (creatures are stuck in one caste for their entire life) has come up so many times in this thread that anyone who's reading should know by now.  Well, maybe this time's the charm.

[Innominate]

I have an amazing idea for a fantasy-based race involving castes, though I haven't fully thought through it yet. If I can't come up with a distinct culture/appearance I would probably just overhaul the elves.

Initial thoughts: all warriors come from a eunuch caste, one rare caste of "prophets" (aiming for one every few generations), men rarer than women (2:3 perhaps).

[Mipe]

Hmm, well, I can't say that makes sense, since warriors kinda need testosterone or whatever to perform better. Historically, eunuchs didn't make great warriors, as they produced less aggression, which is kinda necessary for combatants.

But feel free to correct me.

[Azkanan]

Hmm, well, I can't say that makes sense, since warriors kinda need testosterone or whatever to perform better. Historically, eunuchs didn't make great warriors, as they produced less aggression, which is kinda necessary for combatants.

Agreed.

Also, Woot! Go Toady!