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Author Topic: Drakes v0.2 - Now for 0.31.25!  (Read 7775 times)

Shurhaian

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Drakes v0.2 - Now for 0.31.25!
« on: September 10, 2009, 02:02:14 pm »
Inspired by this thread, I've cooked up a small assortment of small dragon-like critters to populate the world.

There are several breeds, each native to a particular environment:

  • Red Drake - cat-sized, quick, but timid fliers with fiery breath(but no particular immunity to it themselves, they are (or should be) found in hot, savage deserts, badlands, and mountainous regions. They can be tamed and trained, but taming them requires a dungeon master; that and the savage biome are traits the other drakes lack.
  • Blue Drake - ought to be found in any aquatic habitat. A bit larger than the red drakes; their "wings" are for swimming, and they cannot fly.
  • Black Drake - swamp-dwellers, dog-sized; in addition to the extra danger they present simply by being larger, their bite injects a stunning venom.
  • Green Drake - Fairly basic. Small, quick, numerous, and with a tendency to steal food or shiny objects; they live in forests, and reproduce quickly.
  • Grey Drake - Domestic, land-bound drakes of the caves, harnessed as mounts and as beasts of burden. Though not particularly aggressive, they're large, and moderately deadly if provoked. Their thick hides make them rather tough. They are too docile to be effectively trained for war.
  • White Drake - Cold-dwelling, in both wet and dry regions. A little more sluggish than other drakes, but fair-sized, and with a thick layer of blubber that helps protect it from attacks and cold both. Not as deadly as the other drakes, not nearly so much of a damage sponge as some other beasts, but a fair meat animal(and good for a soap industry).
  • Brown Drake - Lives in plains, grasslands, and the like. Moderately big and an effective solitary hunter. Also makes an effective war beast.
Except for the grey drakes, all can be trained. Only the red drakes are exotic; the greys are domestic animals.

I'm still pondering some oddballs. Spinner drakes, for instance, fairly small creatures that leave sticky silk traps for even smaller ones; silk from these would probably be fairly cheap, as breeding them would not be difficult. These, too, might have paralytic venom, making wild ones something of a notable threat - at least in conjunction with larger beasties. These particular ones might wait for another DF version - though harnessing them might not be quite as troublesome as with Giant Cave Spiders even when untamed.

I may also add in some additional plants, aboveground and otherwise, and maybe even some tiny ones(classed as vermin).

For now, though, here are the seven species of drake. Save this file as raw\objects\creature_drake.txt and gen a new world, and let me know how it goes.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

EDIT: Updated version for 0.31.25 now found on DFFD! It's not complete yet, but it generates without errors.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2011, 12:06:01 am by Shurhaian »
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Working on: drakes - making the skies(mostly) a bit more varied
Quote from: KenboCalrissian on December 16, 2009, 08:10:47 pm
My guards need something better to do than make my nobles happy with hugs and justice.

Kashyyk

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2009, 03:26:19 pm »
Quote from: Shurhaian on September 10, 2009, 02:02:14 pm
Alas, I don't know a way to make them spontaneously explode, so no Pratchett-esque swamp dragons.

Aww!

Anyway, this sounds good. If you want a hand with modding or something let me know.
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Shurhaian

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2009, 07:47:41 am »
The first thing to sort out is, of course, biomes. There don't seem to be the combinations I want. Red drakes, for instance. ANY_DESERT, according to the Wiki, would have them show up on cold maps, and I don't want that. I'm not sure DESERT_BADLAND, DESERT_ROCK, and DESERT_SAND would have any different effect, and don't know at all about MOUNTAIN. But I'd worry that if I add NOT_FREEZING, they'll be pretty much anywhere that's desert OR not-freezing.

I suppose careful tuning of HOMEOTHERM and LAYERING can help set their ideal climes?
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Working on: drakes - making the skies(mostly) a bit more varied
Quote from: KenboCalrissian on December 16, 2009, 08:10:47 pm
My guards need something better to do than make my nobles happy with hugs and justice.

lordnincompoop

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2009, 05:04:53 am »
Will they be mountable?
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forsaken1111

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2009, 07:52:48 am »
a sort of 'explosion' can be done by giving the drake an itemcorpse item which will instantly boil into a freezing cloud. Useful for the white drakes perhaps?
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Shurhaian

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2009, 08:24:53 am »
Quote from: forsaken1111 on September 12, 2009, 07:52:48 am
a sort of 'explosion' can be done by giving the drake an itemcorpse item which will instantly boil into a freezing cloud. Useful for the white drakes perhaps?

My actual intent is for a serious mod, so no, sorry. :)

Quote from: lordnincompoop on September 12, 2009, 05:04:53 am
Will they be mountable?

Due to the flier/mount bug and the size I have in mind, only the land-bound ones will be - the grey ones are the only ones big enough to qualify. If that bug gets fixed, I may consider introducing their bigger cousins.
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Working on: drakes - making the skies(mostly) a bit more varied
Quote from: KenboCalrissian on December 16, 2009, 08:10:47 pm
My guards need something better to do than make my nobles happy with hugs and justice.

forsaken1111

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2009, 05:24:47 pm »
Quote from: Shurhaian on September 12, 2009, 08:24:53 am
Quote from: forsaken1111 on September 12, 2009, 07:52:48 am
a sort of 'explosion' can be done by giving the drake an itemcorpse item which will instantly boil into a freezing cloud. Useful for the white drakes perhaps?

My actual intent is for a serious mod, so no, sorry. :)

You expressed an interest in exploding drakes, I mentioned how to make them. I think its entirely possible for a frost drake to contain some substance which, which exposed to air, would puff into freezing vapor like liquid nitrogen might.

I don't see how you can consider fire breath 'serious' and not frost explosions. -shrug-
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Shurhaian

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2009, 11:14:07 pm »
I mentioned the exploding dragons because the thread I initially linked to had a (joking I think) mention of Terry Pratchett's unstable swamp dragons. Just a tongue in cheek note - nothing more.

Just because it's a fantastic setting doesn't mean consistency is suddenly a plague... Dragons breathing fire is an established notion, and makes them more of a threat. Having them spontaneously explode(sometimes while still alive, though they won't be afterward) is... rather the opposite, putting them well into the realm of comic relief. Which is all right for some, but, just to state clearly, isn't what I'm going for here.

Dragons that can explode when killed in a way that can do harm to those around them is a more suitable notion, and an intriguing concept in its own right; I suppose it'd make slaughtering them not unlike slaughtering a fire imp, only a bit less, um, contagious(since cold doesn't spread like fire does). But I don't think I want to go quite that far. The fire-breathers - picture them as secreting a chemical cocktail that, when mixed together and with air, spontaneously ignites. If they spit it up but don't spit it right out, and violently, it'd kill or at least injure them - I'm not giving them any particular resistance to fire. Making the white ones have such a cold internal temperature that it did harm to those near them would require giving THEM a much more abnormal biology than I have in mind.
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Working on: drakes - making the skies(mostly) a bit more varied
Quote from: KenboCalrissian on December 16, 2009, 08:10:47 pm
My guards need something better to do than make my nobles happy with hugs and justice.

Protactinium

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2009, 08:44:02 pm »
Gigantic necro-ing here.
(Personally, I like necros because it means that rather than a new thread getting created, a relevant thread is re-used.)

Anyway, if Shurhaian is still around, are you still planning on making these drakes? I am interested in seeing them if so. If not, I might take it up myself--though I've already got a huge plant rebalancing modding project underway.
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Quote from: Stargrasper on December 02, 2009, 03:49:52 pm
Quote from: hughesdylan on December 02, 2009, 02:23:27 pm
The thing that confuses me about dorfs is this. Dorf 1 dies in an avalance or somesuch. Dorf 2 is friends with dorf 3 and dorf 1. Dorf 2 berserks because of his friends death and kills dorf 3. also a friend. W. T. F.
Clearly you've never been drunk.

Shurhaian

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #9 on: December 05, 2009, 08:58:48 pm »
Planning, yes. Now that I've got a semi-workable ratman civ(for Deon's partial ratmen tileset), I'm actually planning on blowing the cobwebs off of this one - there's serendipity for you.

Biomes and temperatures and such still rather mystify me, though. I foresee a lot of world gen in my future - which means serious development on my end may be hampered until I have a decently fast computer(I'm making arrangements, but right now I'm on an old laptop).

What I might wind up doing is getting a draft done, genning at least one world with it, and then posting it here as an alpha so a whole bunch of people can see how it works, rather than doing all the testing for it myself. Hopefully I can have something up within the next few days!
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Working on: drakes - making the skies(mostly) a bit more varied
Quote from: KenboCalrissian on December 16, 2009, 08:10:47 pm
My guards need something better to do than make my nobles happy with hugs and justice.

Protactinium

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2009, 09:18:14 pm »
 :)
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Quote from: Stargrasper on December 02, 2009, 03:49:52 pm
Quote from: hughesdylan on December 02, 2009, 02:23:27 pm
The thing that confuses me about dorfs is this. Dorf 1 dies in an avalance or somesuch. Dorf 2 is friends with dorf 3 and dorf 1. Dorf 2 berserks because of his friends death and kills dorf 3. also a friend. W. T. F.
Clearly you've never been drunk.

Shurhaian

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Re: Little project: Drakes
« Reply #11 on: December 06, 2009, 04:44:15 pm »
Well, it generates without errors, and a quick play-now produced one of the grey drakes as a wagon-puller; so far so good.

First post has been updated with the raw file.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2009, 07:35:58 pm by Shurhaian »
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Working on: drakes - making the skies(mostly) a bit more varied
Quote from: KenboCalrissian on December 16, 2009, 08:10:47 pm
My guards need something better to do than make my nobles happy with hugs and justice.

Eagle0600

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Re: Drakes v0.1
« Reply #12 on: December 16, 2009, 12:17:14 am »
I noticed that the drakes don't have graphics yet, so I cooked up some basic sprites for them, in-case anyone wants to use them:



Going to try it out now.

edit:
The Grey sprite is a bit crap, but the red one works.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2009, 03:19:49 am by Eagle0600 »
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Shurhaian

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Re: Drakes v0.1
« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2011, 02:54:54 am »
Outside contact has prompted me to blow the cobwebs off and bring this thread, and the creatures therein, back from the grave!

In all seriousness... I'd hoped to bring this into 0.31 when it came out, but the sheer degree of extra detail in the raws overwhelmed me, and then some serious gameplay bugs drove me to take a step back from the game.

Now, the detail in the raws is still there, still daunting; to overcome it, I figure I'm going to have to take this in stages rather than coming right out with a working draft.

The first thing I need to hammer out is the body plan. All drakes could be considered close cousins in evolutionary term, so they all have more or less the same plan. If possible I'd like to make the swimmers (and such hypotheticals as subterranean webspinners) lose the membrane from the wings and instead thicken them... but first I need a working body plan.

In the interests of not reinventing the wheel, is there an existing creature that has four legs, tail, neck, and two wings anchored to or just under the shoulder? (ed: Dragons don't, far as I can tell.) If not, what might the closest body plan be - insects? Hindlegs would need to be moved to the abdomen instead of the thorax, and of course there'd only be two pairs, but...
« Last Edit: August 23, 2011, 04:19:24 am by Shurhaian »
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Working on: drakes - making the skies(mostly) a bit more varied
Quote from: KenboCalrissian on December 16, 2009, 08:10:47 pm
My guards need something better to do than make my nobles happy with hugs and justice.

Sanguine

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Re: Drakes v0.1 - Need tips to update to 0.31!
« Reply #14 on: August 23, 2011, 04:39:02 am »
I've been messing with a modified dragon/badger/cat for a day or so.. Here's the raws I have so far.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: August 23, 2011, 05:46:17 am by Sanguine »
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Quote from: ASCIt on October 17, 2011, 08:43:17 pm
Once liquids are implemented properly, you could set up a mandatory test involving potential military dwarves swim through a sea of blood on their way through the testing.
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