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[Lord Shonus]

Something that occured to me the other day. 

How many castes can a given creature have, and how rare can a caste be? Could I, for example, mod humans so that they have a 997/1000 chance to be normal, 1/1000 chance to hoot webs, 1/1000 chance to have really strong bones and claws, 1/1000 chance to fly and shoot lightning?

I think Toady said that there is a limit of 1,000 or maybe 10,000 castes, which is plenty of room. For the rarity though, no idea

You can set a caste to have an absurdly low rate of appearance.  I think white panthers are one-in-a-thousand in the next version, so everything you said there is doable. With rates that low, however, it's entirely possible that you'll generate a world without any of a given caste, especially if your culling unimportant historical figures.

That's quite alright. If I can tweak the rarity right, I should be able to give any given siege a even chance of having a mutant, which is what I want.

[James.Denholm]

Something that occured to me the other day. 

How many castes can a given creature have, and how rare can a caste be? Could I, for example, mod humans so that they have a 997/1000 chance to be normal, 1/1000 chance to hoot webs, 1/1000 chance to have really strong bones and claws, 1/1000 chance to fly and shoot lightning?

I think Toady said that there is a limit of 1,000 or maybe 10,000 castes, which is plenty of room. For the rarity though, no idea

You can set a caste to have an absurdly low rate of appearance.  I think white panthers are one-in-a-thousand in the next version, so everything you said there is doable. With rates that low, however, it's entirely possible that you'll generate a world without any of a given caste, especially if your culling unimportant historical figures.

That's quite alright. If I can tweak the rarity right, I should be able to give any given siege a even chance of having a mutant, which is what I want.

Nice subtle pop-culture reference, by the way. The only thing is, shouldn't the chances be more around one-in-six billion?

[Lord Shonus]

Considering DF's pop levels, it's not too far off.

[Variant]

On the topic of castes in the next version, will it be possible to have wild and domesticated versions of the same creature as different castes, with possible differences in size, demeanor, or abilities (such as presence of poison glands)?

If yes, will the domesticated and wild castes be able to interbreed?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yes to both, I think, as long as both castes are able to breed. (as in, none of them is genderless and they aren't both the same gender). I wonder if BUILDINGDESTROYER is also caste-level. Chance of "Dennis the menace", anyone?

[Doomshifter]

With the castes, Tyranids will be possible.

Very possible.

[Innominate]

With the castes, Tyranids will be possible.

Very possible.

Do it. Add art and it will be amazing.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I wonder when will the ETHIC tags become caste-level...

[Innominate]

I wonder when will the ETHIC tags become caste-level...

Probably never, as having civilisation-level tags at caste-level doesn't really make sense.

[Sean Mirrsen]

But why IS it civ-level? Don't ethics only really belong to specific creature species? And even then, don't they vary greatly between individuals? Take goblins, for instance. The small fry could be murderous savages who don't care much about the lives of their kin. The more important goblins (orks? uruks? uruk-hai?) would still be murderous savages - except they would REALLY mind if you killed one of them.

[jamoecw]

I wonder when will the ETHIC tags become caste-level...

Probably never, as having civilisation-level tags at caste-level doesn't really make sense.

well ethics is cultural, not civ or species.  so while the current mechanics may have it at the civ level it doesn't really fit for either, i'd bet that once religions get thrown in that's when a shift would happen if at all.

[Neruz]

I'm sure they'll shift to being culture-distinct when cultures are properly implimented as seperate from civilisations.

[Shoku]

I asked that exact same question about 100 pages back. The answer is yep     

About what I ask or something else? I hope it is about my question? 

it was yours, for me it was only a couple of pages or so.

thinking on the rarity thing, is it a flat chance or is it based on forming from a given chance?  an example would be something that had a 1/100 chance to appear (caste B) from caste A, but a 1/3 chance to appear from caste B (it own caste).  or what about caste B spawning a caste C at a rate of 1/3 instead, but never from caste A?

Maybe later but right now there's no way to do that.

On the topic of castes in the next version, will it be possible to have wild and domesticated versions of the same creature as different castes, with possible differences in size, demeanor, or abilities (such as presence of poison glands)?

If yes, will the domesticated and wild castes be able to interbreed?

Yes except for the domestication part. If it's been sent through the kennel then it's offspring are going to be friendly and if it hasn't they'll be hostile.

They can't stop giving birth to every available caste though so you'd have the floppy ears and friendly attitude version running around with the venomous one out in the wild.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Actually, that opens up a neat possibility. There could be feral species out there with different qualities, but only some of them would have [PET] or [PET_EXOTIC], in addition to [trAINABLE]. Which means you could capture and "convert" one of the species' caste, and later have it give birth to the more valuable and usually non-tameable variants. Same could be used for dragons and drakes, for example. You could have certain species of stunted dragons that would be tameable, and then have them give birth to the regular kind.

This made me wonder what the hell would happen if you made a [PET] caste of, say, elves. Then traded a few [PET] elves and bred them to get "normal" ones. Would they still count as pets? I guess we have no choice but to wait and see.

[Rafal99]

I wonder how well will work modding trolls as caste of goblins to make them appear in sieges. I have played many many forts, but have never had a siege bringing trolls.