[A16][WIP] Alchemy+Herbalism - and more

[Vandris]

Another wee picture, and the previous one alongside as a comparison. Do they fit well together?

[Techgenius]

Thats a huge skeleton, but yeah they do, they look awesome

All these ideas are thought with balance, we're just scratching the surface here, storms could be a bit rare, you could make new reagents that require it to be taken while specimens are alive, live hearts for instance, to mutate bodyparts they need to be "living" hahaha, mutagenic compounds made from uranium and neutronium with a (custom ingredient) for a certain effect, undead can be quite smelly, infact.. I can't bear the stench of animal carcasses, humanoid carcasses can be quite... unpleasant to the uinitiated, mutant limbs are quite dangerous due to their toxicity level (toxic levels can make limbs fall apart or kill the pawn mastercrafted mutant glyph-tattoo limbs are immune to toxins),  more dangerous than drugs and yet more rewarding and cool than implants, I believe zombies can be given rotting skins that are ingame, as a start at least, so thats already 50% completion on zeds, there are skeleton variants when they fully decompose too, man... this is quite a awesome mod. I can see it, balance has to be the core of it, while implementing the ideas you've chosen to include.

Skeletons could require periodic repairs and well.. not smell too bad. They do not require food.

Zombies need to feed, and they eat only meat, corpses and brainzzzzz, no meal or plants, plants are yucky, zombies could be quite slow, could be upgraded with mutated limbs to be faster, zombies could be like animals, need to be trained in order to be controlled, higher reanimated zombies, shall we can them thralls? could be directly controlled as full colonists, perhaps. But not counting as living colonists as the storytellers would do anything to kill them if they go over the capacity

New ingredients could include blood that is extracted from meats, sutures from leathers, bones and skulls, there could be differences between zombies you reanimated from corpses and zombies you stiched together using several bodyparts.

Researching necromancy can have serious mental mood debuffs, such as sanity loss, bloodlust beserk. Perhaps necromancy could have a hidden skill set that pawns increase overtime as their experience grows

reanimated animals could have a higher chance to go frenzy if not feed decently, chewing on the brains of their former masters, zombies could do several multitasking works, such as mining, growing, hauling, but they are incapable of cleaning and they generate a lot of "filth", that can attract plagues and predators and absolutely destroy beauty in home locations, and they could moan and grunt a lot too, perhaps they could also require... repairs once in a while? I mean.. they're undead.. they can fall apart, lose bodyparts unless they are salted or mutated.

Mutants can be quite powerful, but are the drawbacks worth it? dying or losing bodyparts if their toxic levels go beyond body limitation, certain mutated limbs that grant special abilities like regeneration could take 3 or 4 bodyparts, or give a rapid metabolism making pawns hunger very fast.

Perhaps we could also create a new faction to fight against or ally, the plaguedoctors, making them have powerful necromantic artifacts and servants, and a lot of poison weaponry and some high level plaguedocs could have mutant limbs making them quite powerful, plaguedoctors care only to experiment corpses (making it their currency, why they need silver?),  they're... very hostile. Unless player-colony also is a necromancer. frankly, we're probably going to be hated by everyone anyway. So having at least one faction at our side could be beneficial.

[Techgenius]

Ah, also... I forgot something critical about the rituals of binding and reanimation. Pawn blood, your blood more precisely, the reanimator need to donate a portion of his own blood in order to control the undead, or they will just frenzy when they rise again, this could be optional though, I'd understand if people only want to let loose the mortus of war, leave those zombies and skellies just kill and unlive at their own accord. Probably very hostile to the colony for denying their "rest-in-peace"... Hmm... rest in peace. Maybe undead could be set as traps as well, placing graveyards around like cryosleep sarcophagi, when enemies are nearby, they rise from their tombs and kill. Grab their legs xD

[Vandris]

The skeleton does look a bit big yes, which is strange since I scaled it exactly to the size of an average sized pawn.

Simplicity is another key element, at least for now. I had a go at putting a skeleton into the game, it was semi-successful. It was tameable, huntable, and could be harvested, like your normal animal. Also it didn't need to eat, at least I think. Had an array of bugs though, not stable at all. It was a frankenstein type hacking together of xml, so no surprise. I'll take a look at some Race mods and see what I can learn.

I'm interested in the idea of adding undead as a fun little thing, but they would be like advanced intelligence animals, not player pawns. Custom diet is easy. Giving low mental thresholds and mental breaks to the undead pets would be fun. And yes, if they are added, they should definitely not be the center piece of your homely decor.

New resources such as blood is already planned.

Could look into research having a chance to bestow negative trait such as sadism, or maybe induce mental states. I think Call of Cthulhu has something akin to this?

There is the Mo' Events mod that adds an event of a survivor in an escape pod that turns into an abomination. Could perhaps look into that and have maximum toxic buildup from mutated limbs turn the pawn into a monster, or simply change to hostile and become feral. Thus very risky procedure without proper precaution.

I'd like to add some new apparel at some point, including such things as plague doctor masks. So a nice looking faction is possible, but that is not a priority.

In saying all this, much of the content towards necromancy is a bit complex for me at the moment. I'm definitely not ready for C# coding yet, at least by myself. Focus right now is on the Poisoncraft mod, as well as Alchemy and Herbalism.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Current work flow:
New plants that spawn in wild similar to raspberry bushes, have already made Blueberry Bushes, next is Elderberry and Lavender
Production Buildings for Alchemy and Poisoncraft. Poison Lab is complete.
New drugs and growable plants
New weapons
New turrets

P.S:
If any modder has an issue with me snooping around in their files, please let me know. My aim is to learn from your wonderful creations, not steal your work.. Thank you.

[Techgenius]

How are you planning to make these undead minions a little different than actual animals? because I don't really encoura the handling skill to be used at all. Also, how will they have the ability to clean, grow crops, combat enemy pawns? I think you should look at Mipens droid scripts, I the droids all had very specific set of functions. I'm more than a bit confused though, how could animals replace pawns? interesting.

[Vandris]

Yes, more like the robots seen in some mods. But with requirements to meet (hopefully) in order for them to be 'skilled enough' to perform tasks. Far in the future though.

I'm filling out the plant life at the moment, see if I can make the wilderness more interesting. Also plants that can only be harvested not grown, making the player go out of their base and look for these plants rather than farm them in a 50x50 square in the comfort of their walls.

Some examples:










The plan is to use these new wild plants to get various resources to create things like mood and joy boosting objects and consumables, as well as drugs and food. I'm also thinking of adding a baking process involving wheat growing, dough making, and baking new foods. Anyone like blueberry pie?
P.S. Don't worry I'll get onto the evil nasty stuff when I can.

Hope you guys like.

[Techgenius]

These a blueberries? for a moment I thought they were super poisonous blue strawberries, haha what a twist. They look good.

[Bigerdem]

I love it. I hope i'll try it soon...

[Vandris]

A friend has joined me in making these mods a reality, and I'm getting overly ambitious.

Possible outcomes:
a) crashing and burning in a horrid manner
b) something cool


More to come soon

[Techgenius]

Crashing and burning in a horrid manner and something cool are just realities of life, but if tempered with hard work and creative, outside the box thinking.. and much willpower. Everything is possible, even in life.

Well... I did have some suggestions, can I see what we'll be playing with in a PM, or something?

[squirrel gnut]

Hey Vandris, just wanted give you a heads up and notify you of a project I uploaded today: Alchemy and Black Magic https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=30439.0

I didn't realize that you were in development of an Alchemy mod. I wouldn't mind having a chat with you regarding a collaboration. My direction may be a bit different in some areas, since I am not planning on Alchemy to be the sole theme of my mod.

I REALLY like your art work, and you seem to be a little further in development than my first phase roll-out in some areas. Medieval builds are starting to pick up in popularity and wanted to push something out to help fill in some of the gaps in Neolithic and non-electric play styles. I currently have A LOT of time on my hands and can put forth a lot of effort, as I am doing with my current mod. I do lack in .dll skills, but I am very cool with any .xml modding. Although, I am not against learning .dll from someone who understands it.

Give me a shout if you are interested. I don't want to contribute to the duplicate or similar mod fiasco that is happening with certain themes.

[AngleWyrm]

The overall concept is quite expansive, and may likely be incompatible with a lot of user content. I hope to make something very fun and unique. We are very welcome to feedback and suggestions!

Popularity and Compatibility are intertwined.
My current mod set is around fifty, and I'm not willing to give up all the features and fun things fifty people/teams created for the features and fun things one person/team created.

[Dragoon]

Can't wait to go FMA, and the walking dead in here. I hope we can make some cool chimeras.

[Vandris]

Figured I should update people on status. Responses to posts will be below

I'm not really working on the mod ATM due to life, but I'd really like to continue soon. I want to release small mods as I learn how to do things, and these small mods will eventually be combined into a full conversion mod. Alchemy and/or magic and other things instead of modern/space tech, enhanced biomes, flora, fauna, the works. I'm being a bit ambitious.

Due to creative differences squirrel and i will not be working together or combining any of our work. I support his work though and you should get a different experience from each of us.

In response to AngleWyrm, normally I would wholeheartedly agree with you. I am the exact same way, and don't like sacrificing the experience of one person's creation for another that supplements the game. But I'm hoping to make a creation, for myself, that will give me one of the experiences I'd like to have. Sadly it's not one that is compatible with a lot of other creations due to mechanics or theme. But as I said, this is mainly for me, and I can only hope that I can also give others enjoyment as well. And ater all though it's free and optional.

I'll have to watch FMA, it's been recommended to me and I'm sure I'll get some form of inspiration. And zombies are always fun in taste and moderation.

Hope everyone has happy days and exciting colonizing, will hopefully begin again soon.

[medsal15]

Here's a ton of documentation for your mod. Worth a read, trust me.
May or may not contain the recipe to the Philosopher's stone.