Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Thuellai]

So I'm working on a monster for the MH mod, which I've been working on bringing back up to date..  It's a quadrupedal shark.  That part is pretty easy - make it a quadruped, give it a shark mouth and appropriate relsizes for everything, make it amphibious.  No problem.  Here's the part where it gets interesting - The shark has two fairly unique abilities.  One gives it armor made of ice - I figure that can be done with a transformation interaction relatively easily, just something that replaces the skin tissue with frozen water (though I'll have to see how to make that work in warm environments...)

The second is the tricky one.  Zamtrios can bloat up to an enormous size by sucking up water, letting it roll around and crush things and shoot jets of ice-cold water at its foes, though it's obviously a lot less effective at biting and clawing in this form.  I'm not quite sure how to handle 'bloat up into a huge ball' as an interaction, or if that can even be done.  Was hoping someone with more experience in creature design might be able to give me some pointers.

[Bogus]

transformation interaction could do turning it into a ball, and then the ball creature has more interactions for the shooting of ice and crushing of things etc.

i dont think you can make it only work while in water, and it will be difficult to tell the creature when to use this interaction.

[FantasticDorf]

Switching armor coating is something we can't do yet within the game.

However, it would be possible to achieve the ice armor artificially by converting parts of its body directly into ice like skin or to give it a ice like xenoskeleton set of armour.

As to balooning itself to become large, while we can't nessecarily do that, we could try a unique sweat/hostility trigger secretion that dispels a syndrome carrying liquid that can artifically modify its overall size (getting it to shrink back down again might be difficult unless the syndrome is short lived on activation or is dispelled by the creatures immune system)

Yes. We can even make it spit globs of deadly cold (i know a bit about mh myself, though im a 1st and second generation kind of mh player after never really getting into 3 onwards) as a attack, in its larger size is probable that it will become more rather than less effective but, the important thing to recognize that you'll have to make a small amount of compromise on how it turns out but mostly we can recreate it well.

Tip - [SECRETION] tags are commonly on the core humanoid entities (dwarves, elves etc) to handle extreme emotion and exertion, however you may be able to get somewhere with interaction:material_emissions too if spit is too small/direct for you to use.

Spoiler: magma crab spit code (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:MATERIAL_EMISSION]
[CDI:ADV_NAME:Spit molten rock]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:ATTACK]
[CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_CATEGORY:MOUTH]
[CDI:MATERIAL:INORGANIC:BASALT:LIQUID_GLOB]
[CDI:VERB:spit a glob of molten rock:spits a glob of molten rock:NA]
[CDI:TARGET:C:LINE_OF_SIGHT]
[CDI:TARGET_RANGE:C:15]
[CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:C:1]
[CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:30]

A big depository for tokens to help you can be found here DFwiki - Tokens, and more specifically for breath/glob related interactions you can find the reference here DFwiki2014:interaction token

You know what vision you have for it, and i've detailed the tools to help you, i wish you luck and offer more guidance if you need it rather than step in and do it for you (doing it yourself aids the process of teaching yourself the fundamentals, making you a better raw modder in general).

[Deon]

i dont think you can make it only work while in water

[IE_LOCATION:IN_WATER]

[IndigoFenix]

You can totally make it bloat up in fact, using a syndrome.  Appearance modifiers for height, length, and broadness actually have a practical effect in gameplay.  You can add whatever else you want to the syndrome to simulate its 'bloated' shape, like giving it a negative skill modifier or reducing its agility and kinesthetic sense.

Copied from ROTMK's Super Mushrooms:

Code: [Select]

[SYNDROME]
[SYN_NAME:giant power]
[CE_DISPLAY_NAME:NAME:(giant):(giant):(giant):START:0:END:450:DWF_STRETCH:72]
[CE_FLASH_TILE:TILE:6:4:0:1:FREQUENCY:500:60:START:0:END:450:DWF_STRETCH:72]
[CE_BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:START:0:END:450:DWF_STRETCH:72:APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:200:APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:200:APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:200]
Add this to an interaction and adjust the timing accordingly.

Water interactions are possible using the IE_LOCATION tag, or with a trick that involves a continuous secretion that does the opposite of what you want to happen in water for 1 tick on contact - when the creature is covered in water, either from being underwater or in the rain, the secretion will be washed off and the effect it adds will end.  You can use this to make creatures have all sorts of different qualities when wet.  My Kappas use this.

For ice armor, I'd advise using a material force multiplier instead of a transformation.  Transformations cause all sorts of wacky business (healing all wounds is the main one) so it is best to avoid them when possible, unless that is what you are going for of course.  You can even make it automatically produce ice armor when it gets tired by having it secrete a custom icy substance instead of sweat, and have that substance add a material force multiplier on contact with its skin.

[Thuellai]

Thanks Indigo, this'll help a lot.  The secretion idea is actually pretty clever - having it 'sweat' something that suddenly makes its skin tougher and harder works pretty well.  Can a reaction change bodypart RELSIZES?  Zamtrios bloats into a sphere, so it would make sense for 'sphere-mode' Zamtrios to have a larger upper/lower body and smaller limbs (relatively) when he bloats up.

As a related question, I have a creature that, for fluff reasons, should have a body temperature close to boiling water.  How do I do that without all its fat melting off?

[FantasticDorf]

For superheated blood, borrow dragon code for blood. Or use it as a template, here it has its own set of material definitions.

Code: [Select]

[SELECT_MATERIAL:ALL]
[MULTIPLY_VALUE:15]
[COLDDAM_POINT:NONE]
[HEATDAM_POINT:NONE]
[IGNITE_POINT:NONE]
[IF_EXISTS_SET_MELTING_POINT:55000]
[IF_EXISTS_SET_BOILING_POINT:57000]
[SPEC_HEAT:30000]
Need to make sure blood and pus aren't solid at regular temperatures.
[SELECT_MATERIAL:BLOOD]
[PLUS_MATERIAL:PUS]
[MELTING_POINT:10000]
So realistically, if you bumped this up a bit, you could have blood that (and even a creature that sweats its own lava like blood) sets fire wherever it lands on account to temperature via a very hot splatter. Suddenly cutting a creature open doesn't seem like such a good idea if you're not prepared.

[Thuellai]

It's not about having the high body heat - that's easily accomplished with HOMEOTHERM.

It's about giving a creature high bodyheat without it melting into a puddle of fat and blood.

[FantasticDorf]

It's not about having the high body heat - that's easily accomplished with HOMEOTHERM.

It's about giving a creature high bodyheat without it melting into a puddle of fat and blood.

Nonono, i mean [SUPER_FIREIMMUNE] or [FIREIMMUNE] helps with stuff like that in not burning itself, but individually the body parts/components will have unique properties that help in that hot environment like lava or if the homeotherm is extremely high. Cut a dragon and its blood will not instantly evaporate out of the wound for instance (a lot of smoke besides burning is caused by blood evaporating as it hemmorages the burns on the body, which is why larger creatures like giants take so long to die to fire and lava compared to instantaneous death by small creatures because they aren't physically bled out yet) instead you can throw dragon blood into a fire/in a scorching environment that evaporates liquids like its nothing and it'll be ok.

Homeotherm is the current BODY temperature, irrespective of the internal temperature, if its too high or too low its going to kill itself with standard tissues catching alight or getting burnt. A monster with superheated blood, no immunity to fire and standard tissues and normal homeotherm might well either die on the spot from internal injuries or get violently lit alight when it gets cut and any blood leaves the body to splatter.

[IndigoFenix]

It's not about having the high body heat - that's easily accomplished with HOMEOTHERM.

It's about giving a creature high bodyheat without it melting into a puddle of fat and blood.

The copied code segment from dragons above has everything you need to make a creature immune to heat.

[Thuellai]

Yeah, I spotted it after I said it.

BTW, folks, the first new release of 43.xx's MonHun mod is here, if you want to try it out.  It's still mostly Iados's/Wimopy's work, but I have added a fair bit of new content/retouched a lot of things.

[Thuellai]

New question:  Can one material carry multiple syndromes affecting different creature classes?  For example, let's say I want a virus that causes one effect in all living beings (or, well, everything in GENERAL_POISON) but a second, special effect in certain monsters (labeled with a special creature class, let's say, APEX).  Can I give the monster carrying these syndromes a single material that does both, by making two syndromes, one with SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON and one with SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:APEX?  Or would I have to create two materials/two material emission abilities/etc?

Can you make one syndrome affect different creature classes differently?

[IndigoFenix]

New question:  Can one material carry multiple syndromes affecting different creature classes?  For example, let's say I want a virus that causes one effect in all living beings (or, well, everything in GENERAL_POISON) but a second, special effect in certain monsters (labeled with a special creature class, let's say, APEX).  Can I give the monster carrying these syndromes a single material that does both, by making two syndromes, one with SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON and one with SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:APEX?  Or would I have to create two materials/two material emission abilities/etc?

Can you make one syndrome affect different creature classes differently?

You can't make one syndrome affect different classes differently, but you can make a single material with multiple syndromes, each of which target a different class.  Your first idea will work.

[Thuellai]

Thanks for the help so far, the MonHun mod is proceeding nicely although a lot of stuff is still in the planning phase.

I have another little project I'm working on, and the first part of it I want to release is a new megabeast who will have an interaction with the civilized races also being created.  I have a few questions there, as well.

Can a secretion issue from only one bodypart?  Bloody-handed Khaine has, well, a hand that consistently drips molten blood.  (secondary question - how do I make sure his bloody hand is dripping regular blood, since his actual blood is basically magma?  And how do I keep the fact that his internal temperature is 12000 Urists from just sublimating off the molten blood?)

Is there any way to give a creature a piece of equipment always?  I'll probably just have to make the Wailing Doom a bodypart, right?  Since Khaela Mensha Khaine is more an awakened construct than anything else, that's probably fine - the Wailing Doom is pretty much a part of him - but I'm curious.

Also, part of my plans for him is that he'll be friendly to the races that can summon him (at considerable cost - they have to empower a Young King with several costly rituals from among their number, and then expose him to a transformation ritual that permanently changes him into an Avatar of Khaine) but very hostile to everyone else - he's a god of war, after all.  Is there any way to ensure that?  I haven't fiddled much with transformation reactions before.

I'd also like his presence to make Eldar around him more warlike, so that having one roaming your fort long term makes the Eldar more prone to rage and potentially more aggressive in general, making it risky to keep him roaming around.  Is there any way for him to induce rage/martial trances in them through a reaction, and occasionally drive one berserk?  Would it require him to release some sort of syndrome-bearing substance?

[Ombragon]

from my own experience with modding, I have seen that the "VIOLENT" personality can cause random fist (and more) fights in a fortress, a syndrome with CE_CHANGE_PERSONALITY:FACET:VIOLENT:(any value) should make them more prone to start fights, I don't know if there is another way. I really like to play with syndromes but I never tested CE_CHANGE_PERSONALITY, so I don't really know of it work in-game