I am back. I just spend some fun days on boats, with dolphines, beaches, sandflies, crystal blue water and really, really hot weather. I finally made it to Panama.
For once I will not answer every question posed here in the last week, I hope you are ok with that. It is very nice to come back here and instead of seeing tons of bugreports and crashes (think V. 1.4) the feedback is nice and steady. I noted down all the issues mentioned, but nothing strikes me as serious.
I did do more sprites, here the list:
Skunk man
rattlesnake man
python man
black mamba man
copperhead snake man
weasel/stoat man
mink/mongoose man
wolverine man
hare man
giant hornet
giant fly
giant dragonfly
naga / FD- Serpentman
desert tortoise man
pond turtle man / tortoise man
aardvark man
beaver man
hyena man (if anyone wants to do a better version I'd be thankful)
great horned owl man
crane
crane child
oppossum / giant opposum
aye-aye / giant aye-aye
giant elephant
colossus elephant (couldnt make them bigger, so I made them meaner looking)
kodiak bear
coyote
I also slightly changed a lot of sprites: better elementalmen, anacondas and many little tweaks... about 10 old creatures use these new sprites as well, instead of the outdated zoo-graphics from the flora/fauna mod. All duplicate creatures have been deleted. Mephits, Golden Goose, Colossi, Animated Armors, Slimes and Chromatic Dragons now use caste specific colors. All shown sprites are implemented, tested and work.
141 are still missing though, will take a lot of work. Some obscure ones as well, no idea how to do a Werechameleon or a Brown Recluse Spider Man for example
I also spawned all the creatures in the arena again, to check which ones are missing. About 1 in 7 is a character. Looks like this:
That gave me the following number as well: The Mod contains a total of +850 different creatures, not counting castes. (Dwarves have the highest count with 61 castes btw)
I also finished all the building guides. Although they do not list the dimensions, they have a picture of the workshop, so you can see how big they are.
I updated to 34.06 (of course in the meantime another update appeared)
What I will do about my next update: I still have a lot to do. 140 sprites, rebalancing of some invader creatures, and fixing all reported little issues. Mostly balancing and refining. Of course todays clothing and animal training fixes collide with my own, and everything is a wild mix of broken things in these two sections.
This shouldnt take too long though. I will also remove the vomiting plague (it was just a test to see if it works) and will design more interesting plagues as an optional feature. I also have to kill the guildhall, since it interferes with transformations in the magic section. If I find a workaround I will re-add it later.
PS: To answer at least some questions: Yes, blobs can have kids, but they lay eggs, need nestboxes. Burning Magma Hounds are fixed, Sandbox profile shows tons of "dont have this or that" since it literally buys everything. Most maps dont offer everything, so go figure
Slade and Slademantine wearing elves sound unresounable... the war elephants that drop equipment are most likely a FortressDefense bug (?) I did not design them. The therapist not showing transformed mages should be fixed. I removed the custom display name and instead gave them a custom color. Good dwarves are slightly brighter, evil dwarves darker, and fire/stone dwarves have a red hue. They sprites still stay the same.
I also had 2 new ideas for features I like to do, in the distant future, just wanted to know what people might think of them.
#1. Lepra Caravans.
- Small caravans active in the same season as human caravans. The wear rags, stink, are sourrounded by flies and infect people with mild diseases on touch. You can trade with them, but if they come in contact with the human caravan the caravan might get fed up with them and leave. Think of them as the humans fugly mother in law that comes along in a visit. You could lock them out, or trade with them (they should have some minor tradegoods) or just kill them, whatever you decide. They would be armed with whips (think flagellants) and wear no armor. Simply an unwanted, but friendly guest, another thing I havent seen in any other mod so far. They would be optional of course.
#2. Dwarven... what is the fancy word for whore ? Companion ? Concubine ?
- I hope people are not too put of by that thought, but I could add 1,2,3 female dwarvesn castes with the pet tag. This would allow to buy them at embark/caravans. They would
not work, but could be pastured, or put into cages. They would still eat and drink, could be butchered (cannibalism anyone?, this is just a sideeffect though) and count as citizens. The most important feature is that they get kids
without being married. This means easy breeding and is a nice game mechanic for fortresses that are under lockdown for years, get no migrants or have a dead home civ.
Other big features I want to do are a tradegood overhaul (buy full armorset, crates of metal bars, a med-kit containing everything for a basic hospital and so on), custom weather for all regions, inspired by the groundbreaking work narhiril has done in that regard, and a working plague/disease system.
I can unfortunately not give any ETA on the next release, because I have a lot to do on the mod, in RL, today makes rapid releases and the dfhack/mouse fortress/therapist has to be done as well.