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Author Topic: New to modding, would appreciate some help with custom creatures  (Read 1679 times)

irdsm

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New to modding, would appreciate some help with custom creatures
« on: October 12, 2010, 07:25:43 am »
Heya. I've been working on a few custom creatures for kobold camp and perhaps vanilla DF. The idea is simple: neat, exotic creatures which take the place of traditional animals. I have no modding experience though, so I'm kind of stumbling in the dark. I've made one working creature, giant centipedes, which have paralyzing poison. I went in with the goal of making them tough enough to take down almost any animal one on one, but not so tough that an untrained dwarf in armor with a shield couldn't hold their own against it. I succeeded in balancing it out and it works well. I based the creature on giant desert scorpion RAWS for convenience and altered them, and borrowed some body tags by searching through the forum so I wouldn't screw it up too much. It's not perfected as a pet but it works in arena mode. Only problem is that for some reason attacks pass right through the things attached to it's head, which seems a bit wonky
Creature RAWS
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Body RAWS
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So the centipede mostly works. I figure I'll move on and make another animal. This time a terrestrial mantis shrimp. I figure "oh this'll be tricky but everything will work out and it'll be awesome!". Simple, right? Wrong. At first it crashed the game when I spawned it. I fiddled with the tags a bit and now it's just a floating head. Can't figure out how to get it to work.  Well I fixed the tag I screwed up so it has a body but now it's attacks go right through the opponent instead of hitting them. For those who don't know how mantis shrimp attack, they have these calcified club limbs that smash their prey with ridiculous force. I wanted to emulated that with this creature. What's causing there ethereal body parts?

Creature RAWS
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Body RAWS (I haven't ironed it all out completely, I still need to add some joints for the maxillipeds and raptorial appendages, as well as add a carapace that covers the head and beginning of the thorax and a few other things)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: October 14, 2010, 02:45:05 am by irdsm »
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irdsm

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Re: New to modding, would appreciate some help with custom creatures
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2010, 02:49:33 am »
Okay, I think the parts of the creatures that I didn't copy/paste need to be linked to a tissue from the RAWs but I don't quite understand how to do that...I've been looking around for a guide to modding creatures but I can't seem to find one.
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Grimlocke

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Re: New to modding, would appreciate some help with custom creatures
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2010, 06:59:24 am »
The default tissue layer tag (in this case [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:EXOSKELETON...) add tissues to bodyparts based on which category tag they have. No category tag means the game wont assign any tissues to the bodypart, and thus things pass through them.

You can manualy add tissue layers, but using the category tag is a lot easier.
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I make Grimlocke's History & Realism Mods. Its got poleaxes, sturdy joints and bloomeries. Now compatible with DF Revised!

irdsm

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Re: New to modding, would appreciate some help with custom creatures
« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2010, 01:01:03 am »
Thanks to you I have had great success! My 2 creatures are finished and everything appears to be working properly. The mantis shrimp is pretty powerful, the spear tip seems to be pretty good at killing fleshy things and it's heel is capable of bruising through steel. It generally won against steel armored humans without shields, but (usually) lost when shields were added. For some reason it's antennal scales (bushy, bright feathery scales on it's head) are still ethereal, but I kind of like the idea of them being a bright decoy to draw attack. If anyone wants the code:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

and the body:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm going to make a couple more custom pets for kobold camp, 1 to replace the cat and at least one milkable pack animal. I plan to weaken them before I add them to kobold camp, but I intend to use these unnerfed ones in normal dwarf fortress. Once I've finished these animals up and play around with them to fit the weaker style of kobold camp I'll post them in the kobold camp thread.
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