[A9] Biodiversity v3.0 A9 Don't Bug Out! Mar. 09, 2015

[Igabod]

Just got an event: "A local megaslug has gone mad and is attacking everyone it sees" etc.

I immediately thought of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4UFQWKjy_I and started laughing hysterically

Lol that's awesome. I'm actually thinking of reducing the megaslug speed a bit to make them even more slow. I had a megaslug go crazy on one game and he was at the very edge of the map on a 300x300 map. I actually forgot about it by the time he got to my base and my turrets all went nuts unexpectedly and killed it leaving me searching for what happened only to find a megaslug corpse and figure it out after a few minutes of being baffled.

[Giraffe]

hahaha imagine if they actually just gave up at a certain point

"The megaslug has gotten tired and has given up on being psychotic for now."

[Dragoon]

I know it's a hassal but could you make a version without the wolves or dogs? They keep attacking and people use a full medkit even on just a scratch it's hard to keep healthy with these random attacks.

[Igabod]

I know it's a hassal but could you make a version without the wolves or dogs? They keep attacking and people use a full medkit even on just a scratch it's hard to keep healthy with these random attacks.

The dogs don't attack, they aren't aggressive. The wolves do however and that can be changed simply by changing one line in their def file. Find it in Biodiversity/Defs/ThingDefs/Races_Biodiversity.xml and around line 431 in the Rimwolf def find the <thinkTree>CarnivoreAggressiveHerd</thinkTree> and change it to <thinkTree>HerbivoreHerd</thinkTree>. Then the Rimwolf packs will behave the same as a deer herd. You could also leave them as slightly aggressive but not quite as aggressive by changing it to HerbivoreAggressiveHerd. They will then attack anything that gets within 3 tiles of them but will also stop chasing after their target gets far enough away. You could also just edit the Biodiversity_Biomes.xml and remove the entries for Rimwolf if you really just want them removed from the map all together.

[Edit to add] I'll probably be reducing the numbers of wolves in each pack as well as the chances for them to spawn on the map in the next update, so that might also help with the problem a little bit. There are other animals with the CarnivoreAggressiveHerd thinktree but they aren't quite as big of killers as the wolves because they aren't in huge packs.

[edit again to add] I'm using an edited version of the file I quoted a line on so that info is definitely not valid. But it's in the Rimwolf def which can be found easily enough since I have the defs in alphabetical order and comments above each def saying which animal is defined next.

[Igabod]

I just wanted you guys to know that I am almost done with the next update. It's not going to contain the new bodytype defs for all of the animals like I hoped, nor is it going to have the new sounds just yet. I've been making preparations for a move from East Texas to Georgia (United States) that is going to happen some time this summer so I'm going to be putting off any large projects for the time being. Don't worry, I'll still be releasing updates with new animals as the textures become available. But you'll have to put up with some of them having strange body parts that show up in the health screen when they get damaged.

Anyway, the next update will be a balance update mixed with minor typo fixes and correcting little stupid mistakes I made that nobody probably noticed yet. But there will also be 2 new animals added into the mix. And they are straight out of your nightmares. One is a distant cousin of the wild boar. And the other is a giant spider which has demonstrated the potential to kill a colonist in 1v1 melee. Luckily these new aggressive beasts aren't very common. And the spiders are not very accurate with their strikes to help balance their strong defense and really strong bites.

And just to prove that we don't do half-assed textures for this mod, here ya go.



Each one of those asses is completely whole.

[Igabod]

Okay folks, I just finished the Quadhog textures. I figured I'd let you all know that I plan on doing one quick play test and correcting any issues that I might spot. Then there should be a new update later today *within the next 24 hours*. And just because I'm proud of the fact that I finally did an animal that looks like it was supposed to look, I'm going to give you all a peek at the new Quadhog textures.

[Igabod]

And the update has been uploaded. Please let me know what you all think of the numbers and strength and overall look of the animals now. I did a lot of balance tweaks. Here's a somewhat vague yet oddly specific log of all the things I did:

Adjusted the spawn rate and pack size of Rimwolves to reduce their dominance of the map through aggression.
Adjusted the movement speed of a few of the animals.
Adjusted melee damage of some of the animals in an attempt to balance things more.
Corrected spelling and grammar in some descriptions. May have missed some so please let me know if I did.
Made Lacosdiles actually herbivorous and non-aggressive as the description says. That was a brain fart for sure.
Adjusted bodySize of most animals since I figured out it changes the amount of meat you get from butchering them and not the size of the displayed texture.
Added Quadhog, an oversized and over-aggressive cousin of wild boars. (Textures courtesy of me! Sorry if they suck.)
Added Spindlecrib, a gigantic arachnid straight out of your nightmares. (Thanks to Shinzy for the textures)


I may have missed adding a few small changes to the log so if you notice a change that isn't on that list just know that I'm kinda forgetful sometimes and it's not meant to be a secret or anything. Or is it?

[Dragoon]

I downloaded 30 minutes after it was uploaded XD

[Igabod]

I downloaded 30 minutes after it was uploaded XD

Lol it's only been uploaded for 20 minutes right now. Are you going to wait 10 minutes?

[Giraffe]

You've really outdone yourself this time Igabod. Brilliant work once again. The Quadhog looks great!

Edit: also, reply #69 kek

[Vonholtz]

Okay folks, I just finished the Quadhog textures. I figured I'd let you all know that I plan on doing one quick play test and correcting any issues that I might spot. Then there should be a new update later today *within the next 24 hours*. And just because I'm proud of the fact that I finally did an animal that looks like it was supposed to look, I'm going to give you all a peek at the new Quadhog textures.

This is some thing a dwarf would ride in to combat. And it look great Downloading now.

[Igabod]

You've really outdone yourself this time Igabod. Brilliant work once again. The Quadhog looks great!

Edit: also, reply #69 kek

Thanks. Just so you know, I considered doing a Giraffe texture, but then figured it would look quite ridiculous if I did that and followed the trend of no legs. Imagine a funny shaped torso with an incredibly long neck and short little stubs for legs. Might be funny to see it, but I didn't think it would fit in well with the current menagerie.

This is some thing a dwarf would ride in to combat. And it look great Downloading now.

I agree, it would be like a War Elephant for them. I kinda wish someone would do a dwarven pawns mod that just adds beards onto all of the pawn heads. And puts little pink and purple bows in the beards of female pawns. It would be great fun.

[Boboid]

Random finicky pedanticism - if you made the Quadhog's tusks *slightly* less white I reckon they'd look a lot better. You've done a great job of the rest of the model but the flat-white and featureless tusks really draw the eye and makes them look a bit out of place.

Great otherwise though, looking forward to having my colonists eaten by giant spiders/spider-pedes.

As for Giraffes have you *seen* the camels? I think giraffe would fit in just fine

[Igabod]

Random finicky pedanticism - if you made the Quadhog's tusks *slightly* less white I reckon they'd look a lot better. You've done a great job of the rest of the model but the flat-white and featureless tusks really draw the eye and makes them look a bit out of place.

Great otherwise though, looking forward to having my colonists eaten by giant spiders/spider-pedes.

As for Giraffes have you *seen* the camels? I think giraffe would fit in just fine

The tusks aren't actually white, they are bone yellow with some variation through dodge/burn. I took a sample from an actual picture of yellowed bones. The fact that the animal surrounding them is black just makes them look lighter than they actually are. Shinzy gave me some tips on how to improve them however and I'll use those as well as a couple other ideas I had to make it look better.

As Shinzy pointed out to me, I can always just gradually improve the textures with each new update and I plan on taking that advice as well.

The problem I've found with doing pixel art is that you have to zoom in really close to be able to do anything and often times the image looks very different closer up than it does in standard sizes that the end-user sees. I'm going to work on actually zooming out more when I make the textures. This whole thing is very new to me (did my first texture back in September 2014 or something like that) so I'm still trying to learn the good habits.

Thank you for your feedback. All opinions are welcome, even the ones that say I could do something better.

[edit to add] And I actually don't see the dromedaries much, I almost never play in the desert. But a Giraffe has a much longer neck than a dromedary does. I might try it anyway just for gits and shiggles and if it looks good enough it may find it's way into the mod.

[Boboid]

Yeah I can imagine that being a bit of a nightmare, you're doin' a great job though.

Obviously the scale makes it difficult, if you're doing a 1-1 on a reasonably small animal you're always going to struggle to fit in detail - take the Alphalo's horns for example, nice smooth detailing is made a lot easier because there's just so much more room to work with.

Push comes to shove you could always make your Quadhog 2-3x the size and make it into a real terror

Edit for the sake of cameldom: For a bit of a (sadistic) laugh you might want to look at an incapacitated camel, poor buggers wobbling back and forth with no legs... bloody hilarious looking