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Author Topic: Interspecies breeding  (Read 48855 times)

Ukrainian Ranger

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Interspecies breeding
« on: July 21, 2008, 06:57:52 am »

I want tag like this:

[CREATURE:HORSE]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:DONKEY:MULE]

This can lead to something like this

[CREATURE:ELF]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:HUMAN:HALF_ELF]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:DWARF:DWARELF] 

This may be hard to implement, but such tag would be awesome for creating half-dwarves, half-elves, half-goblins, etc.

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Dasleah

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2008, 07:04:16 am »

Throw in a [ETHIC:HALF_BREEDS:ACCEPTABLE] ethics tag, and I'm all for this.
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RavingManiac

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2008, 07:12:53 am »

That's fine and all, but give worldgen a few hundred years and you get half-half-half elves everywhere.

Best make hybrids sterile.
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max

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2008, 07:18:16 am »

Sounds great, but one question:
What will make sure my horses don't horse around with the donkeys? Say I have groups of horses and donkeys, I wouldn't want half of my horses carrying donkey children.

PS I have nothing against donkeys.
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anyar

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2008, 07:37:57 am »

That's fine and all, but give worldgen a few hundred years and you get half-half-half elves everywhere.

Best make hybrids sterile.
Call them Half-[race of either parent(dependent on who they live with maybe?)] for halves, then make everything after that "[Name] the Mixed Breed" or "[Name] the Mixed Blood [Dominate race]." A lineage option (family tree, in legends and profile in Fortress mode) would be nice too.
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MuonDecay

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #5 on: July 21, 2008, 07:50:01 am »

That's fine and all, but give worldgen a few hundred years and you get half-half-half elves everywhere.

Best make hybrids sterile.

The way it looks to be structured in the OP, merely failing to list further "half" descendants from the half-breeds themselves would work fine, or allowing them to breed with either of their constituent lineages but still produce the same half-breed as themselves.

That's a minimum of work and produces an acceptible result.
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Ukrainian Ranger

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #6 on: July 21, 2008, 07:50:19 am »

That's fine and all, but give worldgen a few hundred years and you get half-half-half elves everywhere.

Best make hybrids sterile.

[CREATURE:HALF_ELF]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:ELF:HALF_ELF]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:HUMAN:HALF_ELF]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:HALF_ELF:HALF_ELF]

Problem is solved :)


Sounds great, but one question:
What will make sure my horses don't horse around with the donkeys? Say I have groups of horses and donkeys, I wouldn't want half of my horses carrying donkey children.
]
Hmmmm... Animals should be coded to prefer their own kind. Or maybe some kind of preference like this:

[CREATURE:HORSE]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:DONKEY:MULE:1]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:HORSE:HORSE:10]

Can be extended to:

[CREATURE:HALF_ELF]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:ELF:HALF_ELF:10]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:HUMAN:HALF_ELF:10]'
[CAN_BREED_WITH:ELF:ELF:3]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:HUMAN:HUMAN:3]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:HALF_ELF:HALF_ELF:20]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:HALF_ELF:HUMAN:1]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:HALF_ELF:ELF:1]
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War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

max

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #7 on: July 21, 2008, 08:04:30 am »

That sounds good, but let me switch it around. What if I want my mule monstrosity, am I seeing a Breeder skill potentially growing from this?

I really like it, just continually throwing ideas to it.
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Ukrainian Ranger

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2008, 08:17:45 am »

That sounds good, but let me switch it around. What if I want my mule monstrosity, am I seeing a Breeder skill potentially growing from this?

It will be possible if horses (and everyone else) will stop to breed telepathically. 
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War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

penguinofhonor

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #9 on: July 21, 2008, 08:52:13 am »

I think this would be simplest:
Human + Elf = Half Elf
Half Elf + Human = Human or Half Elf
Half Elf + Elf = Elf or Half Elf

Half elves would have to be defined in the raws, unless Toady wants to make the game calculate all sorts of stuff.

This form of breeding, although somewhat unrealistic, would mean that we wouldn't need raws for quarter elves and eighth elves.
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Jamuk

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2008, 09:29:38 am »

DRAGON-DWARVES FTW!!!
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Erk

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #11 on: July 21, 2008, 09:45:49 am »

I think this would be simplest:
Human + Elf = Half Elf
Half Elf + Human = Human or Half Elf
Half Elf + Elf = Elf or Half Elf

Half elves would have to be defined in the raws, unless Toady wants to make the game calculate all sorts of stuff.

This form of breeding, although somewhat unrealistic, would mean that we wouldn't need raws for quarter elves and eighth elves.
If half-elves are not sterile, then that sort of breeding makes perfect sense. Essentially, "elfism" would then be just a collection of alleles (modes of genes) different from humans. Half-elves possess some elven alleles and some human, and of course the definition of what is a "human" or "elf" is pretty fuzzy when they can interbreed, just as in real life the difference between, say, "caucasian" and "asian" is quite fuzzy.

In other words, half-elves breeding could produce offspring with a distinctively half-elven allele combination, but they could just as easily recombine to seem far more elven or far more human. Breeding a half-elf with a human would probably produce something more or less human, while breeding one with the elf would more or less make another elf. Of course, human and elven alleles would get introduced into both populations, and diluted very gradually over dozens of generations, meaning a half-elf could spontaneously arise a few generations down the line, but dwarf fort doesn't need to simulate that.

In my opinion, if races in dwarf fortress can crossbreed, the offspring should be sterile. Otherwise the different races are not actually distinct species, just racial variants on a single species, and that seems rather flavourless. Plus, half-elves kinda suck.
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RavingManiac

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #12 on: July 21, 2008, 09:56:29 am »

If hybrids are not sterile, then what is to prevent the entire world from being composed entirely of crossbreeds?
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The resulting party killed 20 dwarves, crippled 2 more and the remaining 9 managed to get along and have a nice party.

SirPenguin

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #13 on: July 21, 2008, 10:16:25 am »

I say probabilities should govern this, not some set value. If an Elf and a Human hook up, then a Half-Elf should just be one possibility. Something like 50% Half-Elf, 25% Human, 25% Elf. Then, in turn, the hybrids should "lock in" to their races, meaning a Half-Elf can only mate with an Elf or a Human. Their child, in turn, would be 50% hybrid, 50% Elf or Human (depending on partner).

I'm just making up numbers as I go along, but the point is, in order to avoid hybrids from taking over, there should be some systems in place. And like the "real world", hybrids should be discriminated against by some people/groups...perhaps even wars could start over it.
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Techhead

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Re: Interspecies breeding
« Reply #14 on: July 21, 2008, 10:51:37 am »

[CREATURE:TIGER]
[CAN_BREED_WITH:LION:LIGER]

Also, beefalo
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