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[Toxicshadow]

i have assembled a document with the relevant body parts for dragons and added some more details since they are gonna be playable. namely wing joints.
-snip-
i would like to reiterate i have no gd idea what i'm doing, and even less idea of how i'm gonna shuffle these parts to make the different breeds.

May I ask what you mean by, "shuffle these parts"? Like are you going for random dragon breeds? A python script that takes a template and replaces certain pieces with other pieces based on a list of possible choices would be your best bet there. Example: say you have three different types of wings defined, you could use the script to replace the wing defined in the body token of the template with one of your three different types of wings. You could generate random numbers for all sorts of things, relsizes and/or body size, gaits, egg/litter amounts, lifespan... This would get messy and you'd have creatures that are... funky, to say the least. I'd like to clarify: I wouldn't recommend doing this. It's possible, but it'll take a lot of manual editing to make the randomly generated creatures actually make sense.

But for just adding variance to different breeds, relsizes are your friend, as are the curious beast tokens, biomes, gaits, lairs if they're megabeasts, and even personality tokens if you'd like. In my own modding I'll soon be working on giving my various species their own personalities - something I neglected at the start of the mod. Just read through the creature tokens and you'll get some ideas for ways you could make different breeds unique.

One more thing: I'd recommend you get used to body detail plans, as you'll need those for relative positioning and tissue/material layers. Just read through the default body detail plans, take a look at the wiki page and learn by example. The default file may be confusing at first because it uses a lot of arguments, but just take a look at how vertebrate tissue layers is used:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS:SKIN:FAT:MUSCLE:BONE:CARTILAGE]
You can see, when we call the body detail plan in the creature we're left to define the arguments for ourselves. ARG1 for example is SKIN, and we could replace a creatures' skin with something else (say scales) by replacing the argument, rather than writing a whole new detail plan. It also calls materials that often aren't actually used, such as ivory, and if they're not needed (say no tusk part), no error is thrown. BP_LAYERS goes innermost->outermost, so if we take the layers for 'BODY', we see it has muscle first with a thickness of 50, fat with a thickness of 5, and skin with a thickness of 1.

The reason I explained all that is because if/when you start creating body parts that aren't in a default category, you're going to have to use BP_LAYERS. It can be intimidating at first so I hope this helped bring a little clarity. Sorry if I'm mistaken and you're already familiar, I just saw your post about modding for the first time and thought this might help. Anyways, best of luck! Sounds pretty neat having some variety in dragons

[nezclaw]

I was being facetious about the 'shuffling' part, I don't plan to randgen them, at least not beyond some small adjustments. I have been looking through the assorted files concerning body parts and body details, but you're absolutely right about it being confusing. I was mainly collecting the pieces that would be relevant. Also, uh, these are theoretically gonna be playable and able to cross breed with each other. I will need to do some more research about the sizes of the different breeds, but fortunately flight rising has a big tumblr community and i know that someone somewhere has done the math.

[Toxicshadow]

I was being facetious about the 'shuffling' part, I don't plan to randgen them, at least not beyond some small adjustments. I have been looking through the assorted files concerning body parts and body details, but you're absolutely right about it being confusing. I was mainly collecting the pieces that would be relevant. Also, uh, these are theoretically gonna be playable and able to cross breed with each other. I will need to do some more research about the sizes of the different breeds, but fortunately flight rising has a big tumblr community and i know that someone somewhere has done the math.

Well, all I have to say is have fun with castes. I don't mean to discourage you or anything but just remember castes are chosen at random (aside from their rarity value), and many tokens are creature-level not caste-level. Just something to keep in mind when you check the creature tokens wiki page make sure you check whether the token is creature or caste level so you know whether it can be edited later or not. Anyways, modding things in that have already been designed (like from a different game) is a lot of fun! Feels good to really analyze and think about something you've been a fan of, kinda makes you appreciate it a little more in my experience again best of luck to ya!

[nezclaw]

I was being facetious about the 'shuffling' part, I don't plan to randgen them, at least not beyond some small adjustments. I have been looking through the assorted files concerning body parts and body details, but you're absolutely right about it being confusing. I was mainly collecting the pieces that would be relevant. Also, uh, these are theoretically gonna be playable and able to cross breed with each other. I will need to do some more research about the sizes of the different breeds, but fortunately flight rising has a big tumblr community and i know that someone somewhere has done the math.

Well, all I have to say is have fun with castes. I don't mean to discourage you or anything but just remember castes are chosen at random (aside from their rarity value), and many tokens are creature-level not caste-level. Just something to keep in mind when you check the creature tokens wiki page make sure you check whether the token is creature or caste level so you know whether it can be edited later or not. Anyways, modding things in that have already been designed (like from a different game) is a lot of fun! Feels good to really analyze and think about something you've been a fan of, kinda makes you appreciate it a little more in my experience again best of luck to ya!

checking the wiki, the caste system is exactly what i need.

swaps humans, elves, and dwarves with centaurs, griffons, and chimeras

[SQman]

I've unearthed ancient evil, and by ancient evil I mean Monstrous Compendium Ravenloft Appendix. It will be a good way to learn more about interactions.

The first entry is the akikage, a ghost of a ninja that can instakill its enemies by freezing their hearts. The plan was simple: if its punch somehow penetrates skin, it has a small chance to stop the target's heart. Neither paralysis, impairing function, nor necrosis worked, leading to a conclusion that heart is a non-essential organ.

Then I've decided to change things around a little, abandoning the heart-freezing part. Now the akikage's punch can make enemies bleed profusely from every part of their bodies, killing them almost instantly.

EDIT:

I've had a long think about it, and decided I'd remove the interaction from punches, and add a piercing open-hand jab attack instead. It's much less clunky, and much more believable.

[pikachu17]

I've unearthed ancient evil, and by ancient evil I mean Monstrous Compendium Ravenloft Appendix. It will be a good way to learn more about interactions.

The first entry is the akikage, a ghost of a ninja that can instakill its enemies by freezing their hearts. The plan was simple: if its punch somehow penetrates skin, it has a small chance to stop the target's heart. Neither paralysis, impairing function, nor necrosis worked, leading to a conclusion that heart is a non-essential organ.

Then I've decided to change things around a little, abandoning the heart-freezing part. Now the akikage's punch can make enemies bleed profusely from every part of their bodies, killing them almost instantly.

EDIT:

I've had a long think about it, and decided I'd remove the interaction from punches, and add a piercing open-hand jab attack instead. It's much less clunky, and much more believable.

Stopping lungs do work instead.

[Iä! RIAKTOR!]

What if add UBSTEP/LBSTEP to headwear?

[Toxicshadow]

What if add UBSTEP/LBSTEP to headwear?

See here, no point because it doesn't work for ITEM_HELM. UBSTEP is for ITEM_ARMOR, LBSTEP is for ITEM_ARMOR and ITEM_PANTS.

[nezclaw]

i got the sizes of the dragons from some absolute mad lad on tumblr who saw my post and went yeah i'll calculate that for you. need to work out the growth period for the assorted breeds now... and i think i'm gonna have to define each breed's shape individually... can you put the STANCE and GRASP tokens on the same body part or am i gonna have to put GRASP on the wings so they can hold things?

[Eric Blank]

Should be fine with grasp and stance on the same part, sans them trying to wear either gauntlets or boots on the parts interchangeably

[Toxicshadow]

i got the sizes of the dragons from some absolute mad lad on tumblr who saw my post and went yeah i'll calculate that for you. need to work out the growth period for the assorted breeds now... and i think i'm gonna have to define each breed's shape individually... can you put the STANCE and GRASP tokens on the same body part or am i gonna have to put GRASP on the wings so they can hold things?

Yup both tokens work fine. My mod does this with certain quadrupeds:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[BP:RH:right front foot:right front feet][CON:RA][STANCE][GRASP][RIGHT][CATEGORY:FOOT_FRONT]
[DEFAULT_RELSIZE:120]
[BP:LH:left front foot:left front feet][CON:LA][STANCE][GRASP][LEFT][CATEGORY:FOOT_FRONT]
[DEFAULT_RELSIZE:120]


One thing to keep in mind with this is other body parts that use CONTYPE:STANCE or CONTYPE:GRASP. I have a neopet that uses its' tail as a stance part, and it also has feet. If I used the vanilla 2TOES body part, it would put toes on the tail because the body part uses CONTYPE:STANCE, thus I created a body part that puts two toes on two feet, like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[BODY:2TOES_ON2FEET] to prevent blumaroos from having toes on their stance tail.
[BP:RTOE1:first toe right foot:STP][CON:RF][DIGIT][SMALL][CATEGORY:TOE]
[DEFAULT_RELSIZE:7]
[BP:RTOE2:second toe right foot:STP][CON:RF][DIGIT][SMALL][CATEGORY:TOE]
[DEFAULT_RELSIZE:7]
[BP:LTOE1:first toe left foot:STP][CON:LF][DIGIT][SMALL][CATEGORY:TOE]
[DEFAULT_RELSIZE:7]
[BP:LTOE2:second toe left foot:STP][CON:LF][DIGIT][SMALL][CATEGORY:TOE]
[DEFAULT_RELSIZE:7]


It uses CON to directly target the desired bodyparts, rather than targeting every STANCE part. If you give wings GRASP for example, and you're also giving them hands/fingers, you'll need to make a new body part similar to the one above to make sure they don't have fingers on their wings.

Oh you're also going to need to pay attention to what attacks you give the creature. If I gave the kick attack to my pet that stands on its' tail, it would kick with its' tail because the kick attack uses BY_TYPE:STANCE, likewise if you gave wings grasp, the creature would punch with its' wings because the attack uses BY_TYPE:GRASP. It's an easy fix, just something to pay attention to.

[Quantum Drop]

Is there any way to make a creature's teeth out of a material other than ivory?

While I'm at it, this creature keeps melting whenever in Arena Mode - all bodyparts show as red, but seem functional (able to move around and attack). Anyone know what's causing it to do that?

Spoiler: Raws for Creature (click to show/hide)

[CASTE:HORROR]
      [CASTE_NAME:horror slime:horror slimes:horror slime]

      [DESCRIPTION:A slime formed by the fusion of two Biter Slimes. Their bodies are covered in rapidly-rotating banks of teeth, which can easily shred their victims to tatters. Their bronze-hard
                teeth can be fired as projectiles capable of piercing armour and flesh, and regenerate at incredible speeds. They are often coated in blood or viscera from previous victims, and are several times 
                larger than their Biter cousins.]

      [BODY:BASIC_2PARTBODY:HORROR_TEETH_UB:HORROR_TEETH_LB:THOUGHT_GUTS]
      
      [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_MATERIALS]
               [REMOVE_MATERIAL:HAIR]
              [REMOVE_MATERIAL:BONE]
         [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:STANDARD_TISSUES]
               [REMOVE_TISSUE:HAIR]
               [REMOVE_TISSUE:BONE]
   
      [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:SKIN_HORROR:SKIN_TEMPLATE]
         [STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:solidified slime]
         [STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:solidified slime]
         [STATE_NAME:LIQUID:slime]
         [STATE_NAME_ADJ:LIQUID:slime]
         [STATE_NAME:GAS:boiling slime]
         [STATE_NAME_ADJ:GAS:boiling slime]
         [SPEC_HEAT:100000]
         [MELTING_POINT:10000]
         [BOILING_POINT:NONE]
         [HEATDAM_POINT:12000]
         [COLDDAM_POINT:NONE]
         [MAT_FIXED_TEMP:11000]

         (The below properties were shamelessly copied-and-pasted from Copper's raws.)

         [SOLID_DENSITY:8930]
         [LIQUID_DENSITY:8020]
         [MOLAR_MASS:63546]
         [IMPACT_YIELD:245000]
         [IMPACT_FRACTURE:770000]
         [IMPACT_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:175]
         [COMPRESSIVE_YIELD:245000]
         [COMPRESSIVE_FRACTURE:770000]
         [COMPRESSIVE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:175]
         [TENSILE_YIELD:70000]
         [TENSILE_FRACTURE:220000]
         [TENSILE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:58]
         [TORSION_YIELD:70000]
         [TORSION_FRACTURE:220000]
         [TORSION_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:145]
         [SHEAR_YIELD:70000]
         [SHEAR_FRACTURE:220000]
         [SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:145]
         [BENDING_YIELD:70000]
         [BENDING_FRACTURE:220000]
         [BENDING_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:58]
         [MAX_EDGE:10000]
      
      [TISSUE:HORROR_SKIN]
         [TISSUE_NAME:horror membrane:NP]
         [TISSUE_MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SKIN_HORROR]
         [TISSUE_MAT_STATE:SOLID]
         [MUSCULAR]
         [FUNCTIONAL]
         [STRUCTURAL]
         [CONNECTS]
         [RELATIVE_THICKNESS:100]
         [TISSUE_SHAPE:LAYER]

      [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:EXOSKELETON_TISSUE_LAYERS:SKIN2:FAT:MUSCLE]

         [BLOOD:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SLIME:LIQUID]

      [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_WALK_CRAWL_GAITS:9000:8900:8825:8775:9500:9900] 1 kph
         [APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:STANDARD_CRAWLING_GAITS:9000:8900:8825:8775:9500:9900] 1 kph
         [CREATURE_CLASS:SLIME]

      [ATTACK:BITE:BODYPART:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH]
               [ATTACK_SKILL:BITE]
               [ATTACK_VERB:bite:bites]
               [ATTACK_CONTACT_PERC:100]
               [ATTACK_PENETRATION_PERC:100]
               [ATTACK_FLAG_EDGE]
               [ATTACK_PREPARE_AND_RECOVER:3:3]
               [ATTACK_PRIORITY:MAIN]

Spoiler: Modded Body Bits (click to show/hide)

[BODY:THOUGHT_GUTS]
   [BP:GUTS:guts:guts][CONTYPE:LOWERBODY][THOUGHT][GUTS][INTERNAL][SMALL][CATEGORY:GUTS]
      [DEFAULT_RELSIZE:600]
      [UNDER_PRESSURE]

[BODY:HORROR_TEETH_UB]
   [BP:HORTUB:tooth:teeth][CONTYPE:UPPERBODY][CATEGORY:TOOTH][NUMBER:30[SOCKET][SMALL]
      [DEFAULT_RELSIZE:10]

[BODY:HORROR_TEETH_LB]
   [BP:HORTLB:tooth:teeth][CONTYPE:LOWERBODY][CATEGORY:TOOTH][NUMBER:30][SOCKET][SMALL]
      [DEFAULT_RELSIZE:10]

[Toxicshadow]

Is there any way to make a creature's teeth out of a material other than ivory?

Teeth call the TOOTH_TEMPLATE in STANDARD_TISSUES, STANDARD_MATERIALS and VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS. One option would be to get rid of the predefined tooth when calling STANDARD_TISSUES and STANDARD_MATERIALS:

Code: [Select]

[REMOVE_TISSUE:TOOTH]
and
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:TOOTH]
And then redefine the TOOTH tissue/material by calling a different template:

Code: [Select]

[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:TOOTH:X_TEMPLATE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:TOOTH:X_TEMPLATE]
The other option is to redefine standard tissues and materials, but that's a lot more work than necessary. The first option relies on the assumption that DF will call the material tokens in a linear order, which may not be the case. If you get a material not found TOOTH error, it's removing the material after you updated it and you'll need to redefine standard tissues/materials. One way of doing that would be to copy the existing standard material/tissue definitions, removing the line that defines TOOTH in each one, and making a new one that sets TOOTH to whatever you want. You could also change the line to call an argument, so it can be changed multiple times if needed by calling something like STANDARD_TISSUE_TOOTHARG:whatevertissue and the same for materials.
Also about the melting creature, first thing I noticed was the material is hotter than its' melting point:

Code: [Select]

[MELTING_POINT:10000]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:11000]
Once you change that, also try giving your creature a HOMEOTHERM token, such as [HOMEOTHERM:10070], sets the creature's body temp and, "Provides minor protection from environmental temperature to the creature."

[Quantum Drop]

Is there any way to make a creature's teeth out of a material other than ivory?

Teeth call the TOOTH_TEMPLATE in STANDARD_TISSUES, STANDARD_MATERIALS and VERTEBRATE_TISSUE_LAYERS. One option would be to get rid of the predefined tooth when calling STANDARD_TISSUES and STANDARD_MATERIALS:

Code: [Select]

[REMOVE_TISSUE:TOOTH]
and
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:TOOTH]
And then redefine the TOOTH tissue/material by calling a different template:

Code: [Select]

[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:TOOTH:X_TEMPLATE]
[USE_TISSUE_TEMPLATE:TOOTH:X_TEMPLATE]
The other option is to redefine standard tissues and materials, but that's a lot more work than necessary. The first option relies on the assumption that DF will call the material tokens in a linear order, which may not be the case. If you get a material not found TOOTH error, it's removing the material after you updated it and you'll need to redefine standard tissues/materials. One way of doing that would be to copy the existing standard material/tissue definitions, removing the line that defines TOOTH in each one, and making a new one that sets TOOTH to whatever you want. You could also change the line to call an argument, so it can be changed multiple times if needed by calling something like STANDARD_TISSUE_TOOTHARG:whatevertissue and the same for materials.
Also about the melting creature, first thing I noticed was the material is hotter than its' melting point:

Code: [Select]

[MELTING_POINT:10000]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:11000]
Once you change that, also try giving your creature a HOMEOTHERM token, such as [HOMEOTHERM:10070], sets the creature's body temp and, "Provides minor protection from environmental temperature to the creature."

Made the alterations, it seems to have worked. Creature isn't melting any more, and its teeth are taking off dwarf limbs quite well. Thanks for the help!

[Toxicshadow]

@Quantum Drop
Glad it worked! May I ask, were you able to simply remove the tissue/material and redefine it in the creature file, or did you have to redefine the body detail plans?

Unrelated but here's something silly from one of my body detail plans I thought yall might get a kick from:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:NECK_BEARD] - and not the kind you find on the internet.
[BP_LAYERS:BY_CATEGORY:NECK:ARG1:25]