Chiddrin playable race WIP
The Chiddrin are a bi-product of my work on the triffid, and actually will be involved with triffid's, eventually. Right now, I am focusing on developing the gameplay basics of the Chiddrin. This was intended to be a training project, to teach me the ropes of more advanced modding.
Gameplay:
Bio-Chemistry- I've always been facinated with Hive insects, but I hated how sci-fi always gives them a single mind. Ant's don't operate as a single individual through 'magic' but incredibly complicated pheromones. In my uneducated mind, this process is a super simple form of Chemistry, and I posed the question, what if it was given a boost?
Enter the Chiddrin, they will start out something like ants, but eventually be more like the Tyranid, although more 'realistic'.
Tier system:
T0 (Working title: Devolved) - Devolved Chiddrin will be incredibly basic gameplay. Only two weapons will be available (digging tool and chopping tool), and I would get rid of them, if I had an easy way to, but I may do it someday.
Hatchery- Where Chiddrin 'eggs' will be hatched (gems, not actual eggs)
Accidental Spill Workshop (ASW) - This is the supposed 'trigger' that starts the Chiddrin down their biological enhancement project. In order to unlock a later tier of Chiddrin evolution, you will need to take eggs here to 'accidentally' get dosed with a mystery substance (no acutal substance). A great many eggs will be sacrificed for every Chiddrin jump in evolution.
Castes -
Worker- Small, works, and dies. Useable fodder in a pinch. Fifteen of em CAN kill five unarmored dwaves, barely.
Soldier- Much bigger, and will have a talent for fighting (eventually), but will be harder to get a large population. Useless for work.
Chemist- Later Chemists are going to be more like an entire chemical factory, early ones will have a nack for in, and some intelligence.
Queen- DURP!
T1 - This caste will be focused in on slowly establishing the long-term research and industrial workshops
Caste Genome Workshop - There will be four of these, each one will focus on one of the four basic castes. Long term results aren't exactly certain. Soldiers will branch into range and melee. Chemists to producers and researchers? Workers and Queens, I don't really know yet. At the least the next tier will be unlocked through research here.
Plastic Generator - The Plastic Generator isn't really a necessary workshop, as the chemist will produce a 'thickening goo' or maybe 'strange goo' that will be an 'early' plastic. Eventually, they will be able to produce advanced polymers.
Plastic Shaper - A place to shape the plastic into a usable form (worker run probably)
Initially these will be far from efficient, running a large efficiency. Later in the game, the will be super efficient.
T2- This stage is going to focus on developing the industry and refining technology, atm. I want to add more, but haven't figured out what to implement
T3-Queen becomes available around this point, Produces level appropriate eggs.
T4- Triffid's or something like them will start spawning. Around this point, your tech will have an equal or greater chance of generating hostile 'mutations' than succeeding. Some few, may spawn inside the fort, but most will settle in for a 'fun' siege.
T5- Soft cap. After this, I don't expect/require any progression. A full geared warrior will be almost competitive with a steel clad dwarf. But, in contrast you will have a massive military force to draw on. Added to that the expendable nature of the lower tiers, still available to draw on, and you should never have problems defending. Crude rifles around here?
T6- Reaching this will be brutal, primarily due to the 'muatations', but it will unlock the T6 QUEEN! So another breathing room point. I expect people to reach this point, but seriously reconsider reaching T7
T7-
T8-
T9- Queen unlock? Maybe too close to T10, but I do want something at this end, maybe it will be incredibly difficult to unlock the T9 Queen AFTER you have already reached T10
T10 (Legendary or Masterful?) - Red makes it go FASTA! This is the ultimate developement. In my universe, you have far exceeded the capacity of those feeble Tyranid in every way. Chiddrin will probably never use melee at this stage. No silly organic weapons, just chem fueled machine guns, Auto Cannons, explosive shells, etc. Supported and maintained by an entire hive of thousands of tireless workers and soldiers. Oh, and you will be Tyranid sized. Hard Cap. This will also make even T0 Chiddrin incredibly deadly in combat. A realistic hive is more like the Imperial Guard blended with Tyranid. Fear the Chiddrin.
Goal:
At T5, you should have a large storehouse of T0-T2 eggs, you wont get rid of them as they will still be equipable with better and better gear. 50 steel clad gnomes is better than one steel clad dwarf, yes? I also want to conserve workers.
Most of your high level eggs will not be used to produce citizens, but to develope advanced technology. Something like this will 'hopefully' happen:
Pop ratio:
500 T0's
400 T1's
250 T2's
150 T3's
100 T4's
80 T5's
50 T6's
30 T7's
15 T8's
5 T9's
1 T10's
Keep in mind that this is not a forced population curve, but what I am aiming for when you are trying to progress your technology. A lot of eggs will be experimented on in order to unlock the secrets of the next tier, and I want the cost to only go up!
I will have succeded if 90% of the players give up progressing through the tiers around T4. They will eventually progress further down, given enough time. But the unlocking of the T3 Queen will give them a chance to 'catch' their breathe, and spend time restructuring the population. As T3 will be the first 'stopping point' when it comes to improving your eggs. However, this will also 'hopefully' kill their tech development momentum, and the added difficulties created by mutations should eat up most of your resources. Reaching T6 should give players the feeling of having WON the game, but the existence of T10 should motivate a fort to last longer than 10 years.
I actually have most of this all mapped out, unfortunately this is a summary of everything. Pretty big summary. My first goal is to get T0-T2 functional. It won't be challenging, but is easily within my scope as a DF modder. That was my intended goal for this 'practice' project, but I quickly realized the similarities between my practice Triffid race and my short story Chiddrin race. This feels freaking awesome, and hopefully the community will enjoy it.
Thanks already go to:
Expwnent - He, personally, has been a superstar when it comes to scripting. I didn't know this before, but scripting is a big community effort. I don't know the list of everyone involved in the scripting process, but thanks guys!
Meph - I can't play without Masterwork, even on DF2014! So that means my project is kind of intwined with it. I came up with many of my original ideas studying his Necromancer race.
Toady - I recently taught myself programming, thinking 'I can do what Toady did'; boy was I wrong. A true master of programming, I think. His engine alone should be worth a lot of money, mutch less the game. Please support Dwarf Fortress!
Author
Topic: Introducing the Triffid (Erm...Chiddrin) (Read 2081 times)