guess it will make incestuous beast a little tougher
hehehe incestuous
Damn spellchecker in mozzila, it was supposed to be 'insectuous'
As a matter of fact, insect lack any blood vessels - they just have tubular "heart" that moves fluids around their bodies.
The question is whether or not such a system should be considered viable for giant insects and such - they already have "blood" in-game in the form of ichor, so perhaps it's more practical to assume that they have some kind of vertebrate-esque circulation system.
Of course, fixing the vascularity issue wouldn't be difficult, but it would require modifying the creature raws.
Well, size is the least problem, it's about body complexity. Actually, the open circulatory system is more effective for simple organisms than closed would be. Insects do have blood (well, rather ""blood"", it is sometimes called haemolymph as it works as blood and lymph together) and it circulates through their body cavity transporting nutrients and removing catabolites. Insects in fact have very few organs - gut, gonads, heart, some nervous ganglia, muscles and maybe few else that are beyond my knowledge. They are very simple organisms, they just cannot grow too much as their chitinous exoskeleton has it's limits, but the gigantic insect beasties are fantasy after all so let's pretend magic strenghtens their body.
What I am aiming at is, that simple creature as insect does not need such complex circulatory system as a highly organised system like human body.
Cool! I've tried making my own tweaks so animals dont pass out from pain from hammer to toe/ankle.
I put Brain to [VASCULAR:180] [PAIN_RECEPTORS:100] -- for Shock, and for hunted birds to die of bolt to brain
genitalia (Genesis mod specific) tissue [VASCULAR:13] [PAIN_RECEPTORS:7]
BONE [VASCULAR:11] [PAIN_RECEPTORS:29] (bleeding from broken bone smashing nearby veins etc. because blunt was crap compared to "torso flies!!!!")
ps. in Genesis, I and Deon have double-strength bones and muscles and tendons for bad-ass monsters like ogres and caves' beasts.
So, one thing after another. Brain itself has no pain receptors at all - that's why brain surgeries can be done under local anaesthesia. What
is sensitive though are the meninges. So, the meninges hurt a lot, but anything under them does not - you can poke into exposed brain with (relatively - meninges are still complaining about being cut) no pain. That's why I set the pain sensitivity below yours.
Genitalia - they should have MUCH more pain receptors. In extreme cases severe trauma to testicles is LETHAL.
Bone - they should have more pain receptors, again. It may not look like it, but bone is richly inervated structure - periost (the topmost layer of bone) is very sensitive, if you just cut your bone a bit it
hurts. And bone marrow is also a bit sensitive.
About the stronger bones - now I just mess with tissues, but if it works out right I may start doing stunts with default bodies and then maybe some creatures.
Just wanted to point out that if this is more realistic than someone should probably bring it to Toady's attention after any bugs are worked out. After all, if Great Cthulhu can add melting temperatures and other values to the rocks, you as a med student should be able to contribute some knowledge to the tissues of DF.
I may write down what I think may be relevant, but I think Toady has more pressing issues at hand now.
EDIT: made new version after my arena testing. Changes: More vascularisation for fat (lava related injuries should now cause more bleeding) and nervous tissue; teeth now vascularised (so, losing a tooth should cause minor bleeding and acompanying pain), small increase in brain vascularisation, increase in lung vascularisation and pain (lung punctures should yield much more satysfying results now), really bumped heart pain (elephant running around with heart mangled by platinum warhammer just just isn't good).
Main problem remains in the way how game handles bleeding. Even 'pale' creatures will eventually stop bleeding and will be just fine.