[1.0] Gen-spliced Xenohumans

Started by Albion, July 17, 2018, 11:14:56 AM

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Call me Arty

#15
Quote from: Albion on July 20, 2018, 03:08:10 AM
@Call me Arty:
. . .
Also I would be very interested in your custom backstories. Feel free to write some. However please try to stay canon.
You could also save me some work and directly write them in a xml file. If you already know the basics here is a guide on how to do custom backstories using the humanoid alien framework: Guide to backstories

It looks complicated as hell, but I'll try my best. Think you could PM me, say, your discord or email so I can post ideas elsewhere from this thread? Don't want to overwhelm discussion with "should the Soldiermorph sharpshooter be different than the soldiermorph sniper?"
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

Scavenger

Quote from: Call me Arty on July 19, 2018, 03:54:42 PM
I'm glad to see that a forum post of mine actually led to something!

I think you're absolutely heading in the right direction, though there's a bit of an oddity with the stats for the xenos. I think that rather than +40% to one system or -20% to that one, there should be some more focus put into backstories and racial traits. It makes sense that all of the soldiermorphs would be vat-grown soldiers, for example. It may not lead to variety, but it would make sense. If you'd like, I'd be willing to write them and come-up with stats so I could contribute something to this beyond inspiration. As somebody who has little-to-no-knowledge of modding, I think you can affect certain inherent talents of pawns, like mining speed (wonder which that could possibly apply to?) and movement speed (could be a good thing to boost for wolfmen and soldiermorphs, but drop for shortmen and bearmen, maybe). Otherwise, you run the risk of having the equivalence of a bunch of standard humans on certain kinds of drugs or diseases (cutting soldiermorph's consciousness is dangerous, but boosting combat skills while penalizing things like crafting speed or surgery success chance would set their roles pretty clearly).

While originality is ideal, there's nothing wrong with inspiration. There are some great features of other mods I'd recommend mirroring.

Wolf Men - Leeani. Not the latest version of the mod, but it's the best description of the race.

Soldiermorphs - Orcs. A more extreme example of the transition from colonist to warrior, still brings cool examples of culture, race-specific opinions and gear, and some tweaks to more obscure stats. By the way, I really hope that the soldiermorphs get a diet restriction to only nutrient paste (and maybe packaged survival meals), to more reflect their original description and change a colony's structure from basic human-meta.

No significant issues with any of the rest of the races, but listen to Space Dorf. He's got good ideas, and the scaleman one is one of them.
You should do some more back story! And I agree with the rest. Model them after animals too, cold blooded lizardmen get move speed and /or attack speed modifiers based on the temp, need to eat less, maybe a small damage resistance from leathery skin. Bite and scratch attack from claws/teeth? Need to sleep more.

Wild wolf men don't have Vision penalties at night, have a scratch and bite attack, resistant to cold. Maybe a movement bonus. And a bonus to animal taming and interaction checks. But not very smart. Prone to social fights, which, coupled with their physical bonuses, is a double-edged sword. They are bad at Social, but maybe that use animal taming checks as social? If that's possible. So any pawn good at animal handling would get along well with the wolf men, but any good at Social would have little luck. Possibly also a higher likelihood of social fights with the same gender, particularly between males.

Soldier morphs don't get as many happy thoughts from social things, have that sparse environment trait that makes them not need pretty things, maybe they have little empathy and aren't good with communicating or bartering. You could also make 2 kinds of soldier morphs, the grunts and generals. Generals excelling at social and intelligence, more average in combat powers.

Dwarves good at hauling, maybe faster haul speeds and greater capacity. Great at mining obviously, tree chopping, other manual labor.

My biggest concern with any mod is balance. I would try to make sure that even though many species have drawbacks, they are always actually affected by them. Because if they get a big bonus to being in a certain environment, they are pretty much always there! Lizard man would always still be in the desert or another hot biome, meaning they always have pretty damn strong Buffs, but they need to sleep longer reducing there uptime, and if they have to fight during the night they are slower from the decreased temperature.

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde

Albion

@Call me Arty: I have a discord for my other mod which you can find here: Discord invite
XML is actually not super hard once you get your head around it. I can explain it to you some time.

@Scavenger:
Some things are easier to do than others. Having work speed depending on temperature is possible I guess but not easily done. It was an idea I had too but I'll need to look into it if it's achievable.

Regarding the wolfmen: they should technically get a taming penatly because they look like a predator. I think for now I'll get it as it is and make them dangerous and prone to social fights.

Soldiermorphs not being able to get various happy thoughts sounds interesting. I'll look into it what kind of thoughts I could replace or make unavailable to them.
Also for now I'll stick to the grunts. Generals are more difficult to balance and I'm not sure if they would be really interesting.

Shortmen are difficult. I'm still struggeling to balance them properly. What would be an interesting drawback? Remember they're not actual dwarves but rather humans adapted to a high-g environment. An increase to hauling capacity therefore makes sense but not necessarily other manual labor.

just_a_random

just an iidea, what about a xenohuman version of the greys, born in gliterworlds throug selection of the smartest for centurieswith the target of geting a scientist caste to research for the government. Smaller, with less hp, foreced wimp trai, but with higher global learning factor, the too smart trait, stuff like that. Dont know

Scavenger

#19
Quote from: Albion on July 22, 2018, 04:40:19 AM
@Call me Arty: I have a discord for my other mod which you can find here: Discord invite
XML is actually not super hard once you get your head around it. I can explain it to you some time.

@Scavenger:
Some things are easier to do than others. Having work speed depending on temperature is possible I guess but not easily done. It was an idea I had too but I'll need to look into it if it's achievable.

Regarding the wolfmen: they should technically get a taming penatly because they look like a predator. I think for now I'll get it as it is and make them dangerous and prone to social fights.

Soldiermorphs not being able to get various happy thoughts sounds interesting. I'll look into it what kind of thoughts I could replace or make unavailable to them.
Also for now I'll stick to the grunts. Generals are more difficult to balance and I'm not sure if they would be really interesting.

Shortmen are difficult. I'm still struggeling to balance them properly. What would be an interesting drawback? Remember they're not actual dwarves but rather humans adapted to a high-g environment. An increase to hauling capacity therefore makes sense but not necessarily other manual labor.

My suggestion of manual labor in General getting a buff for the "Dwarfs", was because the intense gravity would make them very strong, letting them swing an axe or pick with Incredible Force.

Drawbacks for them are tough.. Other than not being able to get something off the top shelf haha. Potentially a slower move speed..? From shorter legs and stride. Although I would think the strength enhancement would make up for that. Maybe having such blunt and Burly features would prevent them from effectively doing things that require fine motor skills, it's like art or electronic crafting or similar things. Stubby fingers can't work that sewing machine, do delicate art or suture a wound!

While the soldiers are supposed to always be calm and rational In the Heat of battle, The Wolfman would likely be short-tempered in general, maybe give them some form of bloodlust or something like that also? I wouldn't want to just end up giving certain races permanent traits.. Letting them get traits to make each one more unique. Just give them whatever each trade games behind the scenes. And yes, the predatory features and attitude does make sense as a deterrent for prey animals haha. Maybe a penalty to handling then.

And I didn't mean work speed dependent on temperature, but movement speed and attack speed if that's possible. Though, I suppose they would be sluggish and general and also have a slower work speed.
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde

ajaviide

I just wanted to say that i find this idea interesting.
For me aliens really dont fit (i just find it refreshing) in Rimworld, but this type of approach is very interesting and sci -fi ish. It could be incredible way to bring even more variation and character to pawns.Without straying away from current theme.

Good Luck !!!!

mcduff

QuoteSure there could be the insurance worker soldiermorph or a corporate CEO designermate but those should be rather rare.
Genuine question: why?

I'm approaching this from a writing/worldbuilding/storytelling point of view, but why do you think that these populations would be isolated and unchanged, given that the galaxy is apparently a vast mixed up batch of various humans from all over the place? Even the existing "vat grown soldier" trait isn't that restrictive.

Are you picturing these people as sterile, so they can only be vat grown? Is everyone first generation? Are there no planets where breakaway batallions of superpowered soldiers settled to get away from war, separated for hundreds of years from the rest of the galaxy, from which some inquisitive travellers might set out?

mcduff

I'm not trying to criticise, I'm just trying to open up the discussion of what these races are for. Are they just stat boosts? Or are they the basis for expanding the possibilities of what Rimworld can do?

SpaceDorf

I think the suggestions for Wolfmen are quite off.

Wolves like Dogs are a social pack animals so giving them social debuffs seems really weird to me. The same goes for bloodlust.

Social fights for dominance sound reasonable though.
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Albion

@SpaceDorf: That is exactly like the wolfmen are currently designed. They don't have any social drawback except for the bloodlust trait which doubles the chance for social fights. I think I'll keep it that way.

@mcduff:
I get where you're coming from but from a story/worldbuilding perspective I don't feel like there would be many accountant soldiermorphs.
Militaries would probably put safeguards in place to prevent soldiermorphs from deserting. Also retirenment isn't really an option for them.
The few that actually get sold off or escape are first or at most second generation. The reason for that is simply that they mix with normal humans and their genetic traits get diluted (if they can even produce offspring). Even a second generation soldiermorph only has some of the traits still available to him and by the third or fourth generation they should be mostly gone or indistinguishable from normal mutation every human has.
Also the way soldiermorphs are described in the fiction primer is mostly as grunts (or officiers which are not included in this mod).

An excerpt from said fiction primer:
For example, records tell of an entire world repopulated by the descendants of a small group of bio-engineered soldiers; the only survivors of a planetary nuclear war. Everyone on this world carried an obsessive sense of duty, minimal sexual impulses, and little sense of creativity. This culture became dominated by a conservative pan-planetary religion with little interest in technology. It lasted eleven centuries in this state until it was invaded by a stellar neighbor (who wisely avoided ground combat in favor of orbital bombardment).

In that case they only "stayed" soldiermorphs because there was no-one else to breed with to freshen up the genpool. Also that socienty didn't seem very effective. Probably only a slightly advanced tribe.

In conclusion: I think soldiermorphs should and will be rather restricted. Sure there will be the occasional deserted or decendant background but most of them had a violent past which will be reflected in their backstories.
I'm not yet sure on how exactly I can balance them properly but I will try my best. I want them to be interesting and hopefully more so than just: Have a stat increased soldier.

Designermates are a different story. They are not that strictly regulated and depending on the culture of the planet are allowed to mate, live their own lifes or are enslaved or sold off at will. Their backgrounds are way more diverse and some may even made it to the leading position of a pirate group.

Kirby23590

Interesting stuff...

I was thinking of soldiermorphs all mostly using the hulk bodytype, and to distinguish the soldiermorphs from regular humans and other xenohumans, i think they are a bit larger in size visually, but they have one single big angry eyebrow when looked at the front or sides...

Tallmen are mostly have an modified thin body type that makes them taller, while the shortmen or gravity-dwarves, are well dwarves that mostly don't care about cramped environments, though there are dwarves that make an exception, and some prefer to be hermits or even fishermen rather than miners & smiths.

I would like to know more! ;D

One "happy family" in the rims...
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Call me Arty

Quote from: Kirby23590 on October 14, 2018, 05:24:57 PM
Interesting stuff...

I was thinking of soldiermorphs all mostly using the hulk bodytype, and to distinguish the soldiermorphs from regular humans and other xenohumans, i think they are a bit larger in size visually, but they have one single big angry eyebrow when looked at the front or sides...

Tallmen are mostly have an modified thin body type that makes them taller, while the shortmen or gravity-dwarves, are well dwarves that mostly don't care about cramped environments, though there are dwarves that make an exception, and some prefer to be hermits or even fishermen rather than miners & smiths.

I would like to know more! ;D

Gotta be honest with you, there hasn't been anything on the Discord for close to three months. I wouldn't get too excited if I were you.
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

Albion

Well the project is actually still very much alive. However it's not a priority at the moment and the major issue is my struggle for sprites. I asked some artists I know but they didn't have time yet either. Therefore the project is currently on hold until I get textures for the wolfman and the scaleman.
Once I get them I'll crunch through the rest of the code and release the mod.

Call me Arty

Quote from: Albion on October 15, 2018, 06:04:54 AM
Well the project is actually still very much alive. However it's not a priority at the moment and the major issue is my struggle for sprites. I asked some artists I know but they didn't have time yet either. Therefore the project is currently on hold until I get textures for the wolfman and the scaleman.
Once I get them I'll crunch through the rest of the code and release the mod.

Huh. Color me suprised, and glad to hear it. I'm glad a petty argument about a fictional super-soldiers employment opportunities didn't kill the mod.
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

Albion

Well to be fair it didn't help much and put the mod onto the backburner for a while. However I still plan to release this mod eventually once I get great sprites and enough time to hammer out various backstories and other coding stuff.