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[Footkerchief]

Yep my Goal of 100 Beetles, 100 Butterfly's and Moths will be underway soon.

Cool.  I created a Lepidoptera section for moths and butterflies.  The section header is a link to Wikipedia's list of moth/butterfly families.

At this point I am seriously starting to think Vermin should have sizes so the game can tell the difference between a Silverfish and Goliath Beetle.

Haha, I was thinking this yesterday too, and then I checked the fluffy wambler and it turns out vermin do have sizes in the next version.

[Aqizzar]

Thanks Foot for filling out the rest of the cephalopods.  I suppose I should have done those, or some others somewhere.  At any rate, it's nice and orderly now.  I should mention that I skipped a few crabs the first time over because they didn't seem practical to add.  The pea crab for instance, as you can see from the otter photo, is about the size of an acorn.  I'm not sure the new DF body system is really meant for that.  But hey, it's on the list.  Now I just need to think of something else to cover.

I can't wait to see some titanic versions of these guys.  Just imagine a fiddler crab with a claw that can crush houses.  Or Attack of the Fifty Foot Barnacle.  Oh yeah.

[Footkerchief]

I should mention that I skipped a few crabs the first time over because they didn't seem practical to add.  The pea crab for instance, as you can see from the otter photo, is about the size of an acorn.  I'm not sure the new DF body system is really meant for that.

Yeah, I think I added it just because it's one of the only parasitic crabs I noticed (maybe the only one period?).  If someone wants to remove it, that's fine with me, although I wouldn't do it strictly on the basis of size (my size cutoff for beetles and crustaceans was in the neighborhood of 5 mm).

I can't wait to see some titanic versions of these guys.  Just imagine a fiddler crab with a claw that can crush houses.  Or Attack of the Fifty Foot Barnacle.  Oh yeah.

Yeah, honestly that's a big part of the reason I'm motivated to add so many small creatures.  Although it'll be cool to get bug collection quests later on, too.

Now I just need to think of something else to cover.

The "Where is help most needed" list in the OP is still pretty relevant, although Fieari has made progress on salamanders.

[Neonivek]

I do have SOME worry about Explosive expansion of some creature's ability.

I am sure someone is going to make the Mantis Shrimp overpowered and then have that super expanded when it becomes giant

My second worry is noise. If there are 20 types of sheep and only 10 kinds of frogs. Does that mean that sheep are twice as likely to be used?

It may be worth Toady adding some sort of "Category" or "Group" tag onto creatures in the future so the above doesn't happen. Well that is ONE solution.

[Rainseeker]

You might think of asking Toady this question directly, it's a good point, Neo.

[Neonivek]

You might think of asking Toady this question directly, it's a good point, Neo.

Alright but Toady seems a bit flustered and I am not sure he wants more questions.

Edit Addition: I sent him the message... But I think I wrote it BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADLY! I hope he doesn't take marks off for synthesis

[Footkerchief]

That won't be the last suggestion-type idea that comes up.  Next time we should probably post a Suggestions thread so other people can give their input, and so Toady can read it at his leisure (he probably doesn't want more questions just now, yeah).

I finished Nematocera, a suborder of flies.

[Neonivek]

Ohh I didn't give him my solution.

Maybe I took Rainseeker too litterally

[Pizdzius]

Hey! well it's my first time to post here on forums, but I've been playing DF for a long time now.

This project sounds amazing, I wonder if I could make sprites for the creatures? \o/
Maybe it's useless for so many critters, but I'm up for it. I've done some art stuff for other games like for CIV3 warhammer mod

[Neonivek]

Alright I asked Toady dirrectly... though once again I think I asked him much too litterally to what was specified. (Asking him: "Is there anything that will be done about it? Here is one suggestion that came up" could have been a much better PM)

Anyhow the game can't distinguish between creatures. So yes the Ark project will generate a lot of noise, however...

If their frequency variables are the same, then yeah, since it doesn't know the difference, but if you made the sheep frequencies half of the frog frequencies, it should give you roughly the same numbers

So we may need to get math into this. Though there is something in making rather rare creatures rare (giving them intentionally small frequencies).

Next release spoiler, don't look if you want to be surprised (If you have been keeping track, it isn't a surprise)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Though I have no idea if this frequency even touches randomised creatures/features. Maybe I should ask?

[Rainseeker]

Hey! well it's my first time to post here on forums, but I've been playing DF for a long time now.

This project sounds amazing, I wonder if I could make sprites for the creatures? \o/
Maybe it's useless for so many critters, but I'm up for it. I've done some art stuff for other games like for CIV3 warhammer mod

I think we're open to this, although I'm not sure how sprites work in this respect.  Does anyone know if we can have a custom sprite for each and every critter when the new release comes out?  That would be amazing.

Also you would probably have to coordinate with Mayday or someone who does graphics for DF.

[Pizdzius]

Well we'll see how it works when the update is released, but I'm up for cooperation and maybe variables (for the different tileset sizes). If it could be possible to make a specific graphic for each one of them, then yeah, I can work along with Mayday, although I repeat, I'm pretty new to forums and people here ;]

[Zantan]

I think we know enough to do a bit more than making lists and linking to articles. 

Firstly, we should start coming up with prefstrings for the entries, since we have info on each creature and that will not be a copy and paste affair. 

Secondly, we should probably start doing some research to figure out how to balance the frequencies for animals.  Maybe start by defining, for each biome, the percentage of creatures that should fall into each class, and then determine the percent distribution of each order in each class, etc.  Once these ratios are established, it would be fairly simple to come up with appropriate frequencies for each creature in a spreadsheet.  Maybe for the sake of realism, size should be accounted for so the ratios would be biomass, rather than number of creatures.  This sounds like fun with spreadsheets, which I'd be happy to do if someone could recommend where I could look for these numbers...

[Neonivek]

There are Four areas we can look at, that I am aware of, of how we could do frequency
1) Natural Frequency: We stick strictly to how common a creature is in the wild
2) Stereotype: We can create stereotypes of each biome, possibly based on real life locations and adjust frequency according to how "Exotic" they seem.
3) Vanilla Stereotype: We prioritize creatures according to how they seem to fit in the game such as mountain goats.
4) Exemplar: We can also increase the frequency of some creatures due to how they represent their category. For example the Ladybug is the best representative of the Ladybird family even if it may not be the most common (example).

Any combination of the above can be used. Though we will need to come to a decision (or have Toady decide) about this.


Alright so I call into order the attention of the project workers. Many of the insects I am going to find will not have proper names, which is unfortunate, or share names with an entirely different animal (As with some of the Tiger Beetles). So here is my proposed solution so I don't have to skip them.

I am going to post all the insects and butterflys I find that fall under that category. I am going to list its scientific name, then my personal suggested name (Ill use *Blank* if I cannot think of one) and then Ill link you to that creature. I may also include under it a reason why I even chose it.

You can refute or suggest another name or refute the creature as a whole "We don't need that creature"

Example:
-Leptodirus hochenwartii (Amber Cave Beetle): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leptodirus_hochenwartii.jpg
--Including being one of the few true cave dwelling creatures. It also looks like it is made of Honey/Amber. Looks like an Ant though.

I am entirely for a better name then Amber Cave Beetle... though the only one I thought of is "Amber Statuette"

[Zantan]

1) Natural Frequency: We stick strictly to how common a creature is in the wild

This may be extremely difficult to implement because we are cramming creatures from every earthly region into each biome.

2) Stereotype: We can create stereotypes of each biome, possibly based on real life locations and adjust frequency according to how "Exotic" they seem.
3) Vanilla Stereotype: We prioritize creatures according to how they seem to fit in the game such as mountain goats.

We can always assign values based on guesses (and we'll have to do this for some creatures), but I'm hoping to find some resource to come up with more accurate distributions.  Does anyone have some suggestions?

4) Exemplar: We can also increase the frequency of some creatures due to how they represent their category. For example the Ladybug is the best representative of the Ladybird family even if it may not be the most common (example).

We will have to incorporate something like this; that's why I was suggesting starting with distributing biomass between classes, then orders working downwards in the heirarchy.  This will be the best way to account for creatures not included.

Any combination of the above can be used. Though we will need to come to a decision (or have Toady decide) about this.

Also, we might want to be using the encyclopedia of life as well as wikipedia (http://www.eol.org/).

As I have thought more about this, I'd like to offer my services for spreadsheet/database management for this project, if it is deemed necessary.  We already have a lot of creatures listed with links to descriptions, but we could also start adding info on biomes, average weight, lifespan, prefstrings, flavor text, etc to a spreadsheet or database which could be on google docs or something similar.  I'll start putting something together today if people sound interested.