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Author Topic: Catagorical or algorithmic [PET_EXOTIC] training difficulties  (Read 3679 times)

NW_Kohaku

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How, exactly, does the game determine which animals are related? Does it use the currently-existing CREATURE_CLASS system (or a variant thereof), or does it analyze the various creatures' tags/anatomy and compare how similar each one is to the others? Or is it that I'm completely off here and it works in a completely-different manner? How does PET_EXOTIC affect things compared to PET?

If you're referring to this part of the devlog:
Quote
Attempts to tame/train creatures will add to your site's training knowledge of that creature, which augments future training of all creatures of that type.

I read "all creatures of that type" as "all creatures of that species".  Setting up relationships between species manually would be a big boring task, and doing it algorithmically would be difficult. 

I disagree.  While setting up manual relationships would be difficult, catagorical relationships could be easier, and there are reasonable ways to add a few simple tokens that would make a reasonable algorithm possible.

I should also say at the outset that almost everything in DF that is suggested falls somewhere on a spectrum between being a quick and simple fix that would make a reasonable improvement for little effort and the long-term ideal goal.  The purpose of this suggestion is to be a long-term ideal, not to be a quick fix, and the quick fix (not to really distinguish at all) is basically in place already. 

There are a few ways in which animals can be organized to make specific exotics more or less easily trained:

Categorical
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Algorithmic
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Domestication
Spoiler (click to show/hide)



EDIT:
From the FotF thread:
Creature Classes could be such a powerful thing if applied more.

Say, you give Beak Dogs, Grimelings, etc, the [CREATURE_CLASS:EVIL_PET] or [CREATURE_CLASS:EVIL_WAR] and put something like [ALLOWED_PET_CLASS:EVIL_PET] on the goblin's entity so they'd use that in their sieges. This could allow more customization than the standard evil/good/underground classification. A wierd gnome civ could even have robots with the creature class [CREATURE_CLASS:ROBOT_GNOME] so that they would acquire them automatically, while other entities cannot access them.

Categorical classes can also have the benefit of making a more easily defined "this is a pet of this specific type of civ" command on the game. 

In a sense, if it happened naturally through gameplay, it would be better, but also just simply having a "all goblins have troll pets" command may be more to a modder's style.  It would also give players an option to say "this culture doesn't have horses" instead of all common domestics being... common.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2012, 02:51:59 pm by NW_Kohaku »
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tsen

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Re: Catagorical or algorithmic [PET_EXOTIC] training difficulties
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2012, 03:23:13 am »

It seems like doing it via algorithm would suit DF best as a fantasy world generator. That way you can easily generate numbers to fit those scales without the program having to know how to classify species.
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peskyninja

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Re: Catagorical or algorithmic [PET_EXOTIC] training difficulties
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2012, 11:37:00 am »

+1
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Catagorical or algorithmic [PET_EXOTIC] training difficulties
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2012, 12:43:18 pm »

When I got going, I thought about it, and there were probably ways to do it algorithmically without having to actually change all the raws if you wanted a really loose definition.  You could simply sort animals by their hunting/predatory/grazing tokens, the size of the groups they appear in, the presence of tokens like AMBUSH_PREDATOR, and body shapes like INSECT or general size. 

A spectrum type of raw editing (while raw-breaking on the update) would have the most controlled and predictable of results, however.
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King Mir

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Re: Catagorical or algorithmic [PET_EXOTIC] training difficulties
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2012, 05:41:02 pm »

I don't think that training one type of bird leading to an easier time training another type of bird would be a worthwhile benefit. Spending a lot of time on taming animals would take a dedicated effort. But further subdividing the associated entity knowledge probably wouldn't make people dedicate time to taming a different portion of the passing wildlife. People will likely just tame whatever they find cool, whatever is easiest, or tame everything they can.

There might be world gen effects to making taming of similar animals easier, like having a civilization of bird tamer dwarves, who over the years come to have all manner of exotic domesticated birds. But the player isn't able to influence that kind of thing much.

And then there's the fact that the effect may realistically be too small to be worth including. How much knowledge in training parrots will help in training Giant eagles?

NW_Kohaku

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Re: Catagorical or algorithmic [PET_EXOTIC] training difficulties
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2012, 05:59:13 pm »

I don't think that training one type of bird leading to an easier time training another type of bird would be a worthwhile benefit. Spending a lot of time on taming animals would take a dedicated effort. But further subdividing the associated entity knowledge probably wouldn't make people dedicate time to taming a different portion of the passing wildlife. People will likely just tame whatever they find cool, whatever is easiest, or tame everything they can.

There might be world gen effects to making taming of similar animals easier, like having a civilization of bird tamer dwarves, who over the years come to have all manner of exotic domesticated birds. But the player isn't able to influence that kind of thing much.

And then there's the fact that the effect may realistically be too small to be worth including. How much knowledge in training parrots will help in training Giant eagles?

I would ask the question "How much different can training Peach-Faced Lovebirds be from training Masked Lovebirds?"

They're almost the same species. 

Likewise, I would say that there are some things you can learn from taming a peregrine falcon that would still be applicable in most other raptors, especially with regards to body language, and some of the more general habits and ways of dealing with the claws that catch. 

When it comes to ways in which parrots are similar to giant eagles, no, there wouldn't be all that many things that are the same, but there would at least be something to learn as far as ways to breed and read their body language, and they are certainly a less alien creature to train if all your experience was with parrots than to try training a giant spider. 

Having a civilization of bird-trainers makes more sense than a civilization of giant eagle trainers who have no idea how regular eagles work, but do know how to train giant cave spiders but not cave spiders, etc.
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King Mir

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Re: Catagorical or algorithmic [PET_EXOTIC] training difficulties
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2012, 07:01:19 pm »

Yeah, I agree that training very closely related species, such as an animal and it's giant variety should give a big boost to training each other. But that is hard to recognize algorithmicly.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2012, 12:00:29 am by King Mir »
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tsen

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Re: Catagorical or algorithmic [PET_EXOTIC] training difficulties
« Reply #7 on: March 13, 2012, 11:15:18 pm »

It wouldn't be all that difficult to first sort by body plan, then apply what NW_Kohaku was talking about.
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