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[Zantan]

Whichever structure we decide on, we are currently organizing creatures in the wiki by taxonomic rank, and I think it would be really useful if we could preserve that information in the raws.  At the very least, we could place the ranks of each as comments after each creature's name.  This would be really helpful for utilities like the one I'm making, so you can make conditional statments which evaluate whether a creature falls under a specific classification.

[Pizdzius]

I'm doing some "other mammals" which will hopefully for sure end up in the Ark Project

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Koala, Wombat, Pygmy Possum, Honey Possum, Sugar Glider
Striped Possum, Ringtail Possum, Bettong, Potoroo

16x16 versions ingame, as goblins

Should I keep you guys updated weekly or just go with the flow and once per some time show you a lot of updates? I'm not sure which animals are finished so I don't have to worry I'm spending my time at something that won't appear in the end
Or something will get up added there but I won't notice cause I already have the sprites for this family etc

[Footkerchief]

Whichever structure we decide on, we are currently organizing creatures in the wiki by taxonomic rank, and I think it would be really useful if we could preserve that information in the raws.  At the very least, we could place the ranks of each as comments after each creature's name.  This would be really helpful for utilities like the one I'm making, so you can make conditional statments which evaluate whether a creature falls under a specific classification.

Sure, it wouldn't be difficult to throw those in as a one-line comment.  Remind me once we get to the stage where we're actually generating raws, we can work out some kind of format.

I'm doing some "other mammals" which will hopefully for sure end up in the Ark Project

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Koala, Wombat, Pygmy Possum, Honey Possum, Sugar Glider
Striped Possum, Ringtail Possum, Bettong, Potoroo

16x16 versions ingame, as goblins

Those look awesome.  I love all the little details like the bettong's tail.  One thing -- transparency in the upcoming version uses the PNG alpha channel, not magenta.  I'm sure whatever tool you're using has a "color to transparency" tool, though, so hopefully it's not a problem.

Should I keep you guys updated weekly or just go with the flow and once per some time show you a lot of updates? I'm not sure which animals are finished so I don't have to worry I'm spending my time at something that won't appear in the end
Or something will get up added there but I won't notice cause I already have the sprites for this family etc

However often you want to, really.  Weekly would be cool.  The mammals page has more or less settled down, so you shouldn't have to worry much about animals getting added/removed (although I do need to go back to reorganize the rodents and add a few mustelids and already-included creatures).  If it helps, you can click the "watch" button at the top of the page, which will cause that page to show up on your watchlist whenever somebody changes it.

[Footkerchief]

e: oops, double post

[Pizdzius]

Those look awesome.  I love all the little details like the bettong's tail.  One thing -- transparency in the upcoming version uses the PNG alpha channel, not magenta.  I'm sure whatever tool you're using has a "color to transparency" tool, though, so hopefully it's not a problem.

I'm sure that little photoshop adding alpha for png is all right. I'd have to see the ready stuff to be sure how it should look like in the end, but I guess I can keep them coming now with some... more neutral background then

Thanks for all your help, appreciated a lot! Glad they look ok, I'm on full throttle then

[Footkerchief]

I'm sure that little photoshop adding alpha for png is all right. I'd have to see the ready stuff to be sure how it should look like in the end, but I guess I can keep them coming now with some... more neutral background then

Actually, I just realized that PNG transparency might only work for tilesets right now, not graphics sets.  I'm checking that with Baughn, the guy who implemented it.

[Pizdzius]

sure it can wait, there's no rush anyway, backgrounds can always be changed with few clicks

[Zantan]

I just had an idea of how to make prefstrings more interesting and realistic:

For each taxonomic rank which contains more than one creature, define that rank as a nonexistant/fanciful creature with its own prefstring.  That way, a dwarf would be able to like trapdoor spiders for their clever traps or spiders in general for their beautiful webs.  Also, a dwarf can have exceptions to their preferences (e.g. liking fish for their scales, but not gars because they have ugly faces).  The only disadvantage I can think of is that a dwarf who likes a category cannot be pleased by being given creatures in that category.  On the other hand, the Ark Project will seriously disrupt that feature anyway, since it will be much harder to procure individual creature types when there will be hundreds in each biome.

[Footkerchief]

Oh wow, that's really clever.  I don't know if prefstring works on a fanciful creature, but a biomeless creature should work just as well... that may be the solution to all our prefstring worries.

Something we haven't talked about that's even more subjective than prefstrings is the SPHERE tag.  If we do include SPHERE associations, like SPHERE:WATER for fish and so on, we should use the same approach there.

I'm currently whipping up an "Abstract Creature" wiki template that'll let us get started on those prefstrings.

[Lancensis]

Oh wow, that's really clever.  I don't know if prefstring works on a fanciful creature, but a biomeless creature should work just as well... that may be the solution to all our prefstring worries.

Yeah, it works on Fanciful creatures - I've had dwarves like griffins and chimera. Actually, I've got one that likes Hydras at the moment. For "their abundant supply of heads"

[Mel_Vixen]

Ok a bit questions regarding genetics to footers, toady and everyone else who knows more.

To get all those "just different colors" variations down into the game wouldn't it be sufficient enough to have the different patterns around and then let the game upon WG pop groups down instead of individuals? If in said groups all members have the same colour-pattern we would get our "just different colors"-variations by the genetics pretty easily.

A tag that that says that one "variation" prefers its own "variation" c/would be needed if two different variations are poped down next to each other to limit the mixing. Scratch that i will make made a suggestion for this point.

[Zantan]

Something we haven't talked about that's even more subjective than prefstrings is the SPHERE tag.  If we do include SPHERE associations, like SPHERE:WATER for fish and so on, we should use the same approach there.

Wait, why would that be part of the Ark Project?  I thought having a sphere meant that you represented the concept so well you were worshipped for it...what does that have to do with mundane creatures?  Is toady now letting us define in the raws what is governed by each sphere?

[Zantan]

Sorry to double post, but I was wondering how vermin are defined in the next version...there are lots of vermin tags, but it is not clear which one identifies a vermin.  There could also be a size cutoff, since vermin will have size.  Does anyone know?

I'm assuming here that vermin are defined by being attacked by cats and animal traps, but immune to attacks from soldiers and hunters...is there anything else?

[Igfig]

I may be wrong, but I don't believe there are any non-[POWER] creatures in vanilla that have the [SPHERE] token.  As far as I can tell, [SPHERE] only deals with worship, name generation, and some HFS-related stuff

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

specifically, what kind of things you'll find in a demon's chamber.

 
It's weird that mundane creatures don't have spheres, because we've all seen gods that are depicted as a bat or a mussel or something.  If I had to guess, I'd say the choices of animal are based on biome (water creatures automatically get [SPHERE:WATER]) or certain other tags ([FLIER]s automatically get [SPHERE:AIR]).  If that's the case, we won't need to supply any of the obvious tags; the game will do it for us.

That said, I see no reason why we shouldn't add the unobvious tags.  If we want to relate, say, butterflies with beauty or mongeese with trickery, we should definitely mark those down.  Even if the tags don't do anything now, they might in the future.  Better to be prepared.

EDIT: Come to think of it, they do do something now.  If the creature gets hit with Zantan's megabeast template, its predefined spheres will determine how it's named and who might worship it.

Sorry to double post, but I was wondering how vermin are defined in the next version...there are lots of vermin tags, but it is not clear which one identifies a vermin.  There could also be a size cutoff, since vermin will have size.  Does anyone know?

As far as I know, if a creature has any tag that starts with VERMIN, it's a vermin.  I haven't heard about any size cutoff either.

If you want megabeast versions of vermin, you'll have to remove all the VERMIN tags or you'll end up with a colossal rhino lizard that a cat can kill in one bite.  You'll probably also want to remove [SMALL_REMAINS], [PENETRATE_POWER], and other verminesque tags, although I don't think those are as vital.

[Zantan]

Come to think of it, they do do something now.  If the creature gets hit with Zantan's megabeast template, its predefined spheres will determine how it's named and who might worship it.

That would be amazing.  I decided that in my utility (more than a template at this point), I am going to give creaturess special abilities which build on associations we already have with them (e.g. turtles get armor, colony based insects are smaller non-megabeasts which come in swarms, creatures known for their roars emit a poison gas called 'terrifying roar' which causes fear, etc.).  The problem I'm having right now is that I need to identify categories of creatures that are eligible for each variation.  That's why I requested that each creature raw include a note on its taxonomic rank, but using and inventing spheres to describe the nature of each creature would open up all kinds of possibilities for my utility and others like it.