Animal sizes related to gameplay

[zeebo76]

Quite frankly, it makes no sense that an elephant is able to walk through a space the width of a human, especially considering their size is an actual stat listed in-game...  4.00, or 4 times the size of a human.

I think implementing a "size" factor into actual gameplay would increase immersion.  Since an elephant is 4.00...  Its sprite would be 4x4 tiles, and its movement would be restricted as such, only being able to maneuver through spaces 4 wide or larger at top speed, and spaces as narrow as 3 tiles at a crawl.  This logic would apply to every creature relative to its own specific size - creatures smaller than 0.5 would feasibly be able to move across rubble/items/terrain with no movement penalty simply because they can avoid these things.  Oh, there's a chair there?  Lookie here, I can walk under it no problem.

If I wanted to own an elephant, there's no way it'd be able to hang out in my house.  Maybe my backyard, but my bedroom?  No.

IN ADDITION, the larger/smaller the animal, the easier/harder they should be to hit, respectively.  As far as I can tell at the moment, the only things that apply to hit chances have to do with pawn skills/health, which makes sense, but if you're aiming at a cow versus a mouse, which are you going to be able to shoot more easily?  That's why size should also be a factor in combat as well.

For this to work properly there would need to be a few new items, specifically doors.  Barn doors could be 4 tiles wide and very slow to open - perhaps adding an ability to schedule an opening/closing time every day would be applicable here to mitigate the slow speed.  Double doors could be 2 wide and take the same time to open as a single door - nothing too fancy here.

This suggestion would require a few changes to the game, but I don't think it would be too disruptive to code, and it would also make for some interesting gameplay scenarios.  An angry megasloth chasing a pawn and getting stuck at the entrance to a cave that only something 1.00 or smaller can fit through - the pawn is trapped staring down an angry animal now, just waiting for help, or waiting for the megasloth to simply get bored and leave.  OR, running away from a Thrumbo into a 3-wide tunnel...  He can still follow, but look how slow he is!  Maybe I have time to escape...

A footnote - this also opens up some interesting movement options depending upon size differentiation in species.  A human's max size might be 1.00 to eliminate slowness in normal corridors, but maybe if they can be as small as 0.80 (come on, we all know at least one small person IRL), they could traverse obstacles a little more quickly, or perhaps it would be more logical if it worked the opposite way.  Who knows!

Anyway, I hope my ideas are good!

[Big_Dooby]

Yeah, I wish the bigger animals had larger sprites and took up a little more space. They would also have to be able to break down walls easier to get through one tile entrances when they go manhunter. It would make for a little bit more of an interesting story when it comes to animals