Bay 12 Games Forum

Dwarf Fortress => DF Modding => Topic started by: Kantolin on May 26, 2008, 03:21:00 pm

Title: A few quick new creature questions...
Post by: Kantolin on May 26, 2008, 03:21:00 pm
This is a new race I'm creating, and a few questions come to mind.  I've done some mild testing to see what works and what doesn't, but there are a few things I'm unsure about.  For the purpose of debate, I named this new race 'Customs'

First of all, the [training] tag lets you create war-customs and hunting-customs.  War dogs are apparantly 'more aggressive' - is that the only way to get a custom pet creature that will be aggressive and fight alongside dwarves, or is it just that adding 'war' simply makes them additionally aggressive?  I do have the likes_fighting tag, in case that matters.

Secondly, what exactly does 'cluster number' do?  The wiki states: "The minimum/maximum numbers of how many creatures per spawned cluster", but I have no idea what that means.

Third, is it possible to make a monogender or no-gender race that still has babies?  I like the idea of all-male Satyr, all-female Dryad, and then amoeba-like races that simply fission off more children.

Fourth, on the baby subject, is it possible to set baby (and child) to 0, resulting in instantadults?  I'm currently fighting for customs to have children at all, which is making it difficult to test this.

Fifth, I'm fairly sure I'm right on this, but to make sure: If you have no [maxage] tag, the species is immortal (At least, won't die of old age)?

Finally, would adding the [trances] tag do anything to a nondwarf?

Thank you in advance.

Title: Re: A few quick new creature questions...
Post by: Fleeb on May 26, 2008, 06:24:00 pm
Cluster_number, when a group of creatures spawn, determines how many spawn at that time. So if a bunch of fluffy wamblers show up, cluster_number says how many will spawn.

If a creature has no maxage, it is immortal. Regarding old age anyway.

Trances will do the same thing to a non dwarf that it will to a dwarf.

Title: Re: A few quick new creature questions...
Post by: Kantolin on May 27, 2008, 01:40:00 pm
Thank you very much for the response!

I'm attempting some tests about the baby/child thing now, to see if I can tackle that one - although two years of no invaders/snatchers went by and resulted in none of my dwarves deciding to have children, which is making me wonder if setting them to 0 does that or if I'm simply unlucky.

Either way, thank you again - that does explain a few things.

Title: Re: A few quick new creature questions...
Post by: Greiger on May 27, 2008, 05:35:00 pm
Monogender or genderless races won't reproduce. In fact they will supposedly even break world generation unless they are also immortal.

I believe you can remove the baby tag altogether and they will go straight to child.  But if you remove child(or set it to 0) it will prevent children.  Probably yer best bet would be to omit the baby tag and have [CHILD:1].

I heard somewhere that war dogs will attack any hostile creature they see while hunting dogs will only attack what is either attacking itself, it's master, or what it's master attacked.  

LIKES_FIGHTING seems to make a custom fortress race of mine more aggressive but I haven't really done any real research, it could be something else. The peasants have been actively attacking wolves that get too close to them when they don't have a job to cancel. That could just be an unknown side effect to a personality tag though.

[ May 27, 2008: Message edited by: Greiger ]

Title: Re: A few quick new creature questions...
Post by: Kantolin on May 28, 2008, 01:23:00 am
Thank you tremendously! That answers all of my questions.  Pity about some of the answers, but that can't be helped.

Thank you again!

Title: Re: A few quick new creature questions...
Post by: Dasleah on May 28, 2008, 01:31:00 am
A possible solution to mono-gendered races - create a generic 'nature spirit' (or whatever )creature, then set the SPECNAME for each gender to something different - so, you could make all male nature spirits known as Satyrs and all females Dryads.
code:

[SPECNAME:MALE:satyr:satyrs:satyr]
[SPECNAME:FEMALE:dryad:dryads:dryad]

Different attacks, environments, body types, etcetera, are still a bit off, but hey - it's a start.

Title: Re: A few quick new creature questions...
Post by: BurnedToast on May 29, 2008, 11:37:00 pm
training war animals also makes them do double damage, at least according to the wiki (and my war dogs do seem to do alot more damage then normal ones). Something to keep in mind before you set your custom creature's damage up to a real high number.

[trances] also enables moods in fortress mode, I don't know what if any effect that will have on pets or on wildlife. I'd guess none, but you never know.