Add very large American Giant Stag Beetles #51505
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Ping: @Venera3? |
actual-nh
added
<Enhancement / Feature>
Mostly grammar, but also some nice tips on faction inheritance. Still discussing weight for corpse. Co-authored-by: actual-nh <[email protected]>
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Don't they also roll corpses or am I thinking of something else? |
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Very nice!
Now that we have two flavors of giant beetles maybe you could add a dedicated harvest list for them? More chitin, less guts, something like that - custom harvest snippets welcome but not required ;)
I worry slightly about their balance, especially if monsters can't utilize weakpoints yet - at a glance their only counter would be incandescent husks and maybe acid ants, so they might be a bit too easy to point them at a collapsed tower and just clean up afterwards, for example.
Also, just for kicks would you test them against armored centipedes? I kind of made them to be AP gods and added a line about "hunting prey as armored as they are", so I'd be curious if they live up to that.
Manual editing still required to resolve issues with reproduction on mon_stag_beetle_small Co-authored-by: Venera3 <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Venera3 <[email protected]>
…tag beetle eggs to insect eggs requirement list
Absolutely, should I add it in this PR?
That is an issue, and I don't know the best solution. Weakpoints may need to be made monster-useable before these can be added, or they may need some other tweak.
For those who aren't on the dev Discord, here's my response: |
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On the balance side, I think if you drew out the giant->titan transition to 2-3 months it would be fine. I like a rare, unkillable giant bug as a concept, but they shouldn't show up until Autumn/Winter of year one. You can also try if they manage a Next Summer city center alone. |
I've upped the transition, it now takes 60 days for each phase (so the soonest you could encounter a titan is 120 days in, Winter 1). Next Summer city center was interesting, but it was killed by bleeding out relatively quickly. |
Summary
Content "Exceptionally large stag beetles"
Purpose of change
Increase monster variety, increase knowledge of weakpoints system.
Describe the solution
Adds American Giant Stag Beetles (Lucanus Elaphus) that have been mutated to become even larger, in 3 strength/size categories and a larval form.
Giant Stag Beetle Larva:A large grub that cannot attack and will typically slowly crawl away from any threat or sound. Ants/aphids are neutral to it (in real life, larval stag beetles often consume honeydew from aphids), and adult stag beetles are friendly to it. Both faction relationships are mirrored. Grows up in 288 days.Giant Stag Beetle:This is a powerful enemy to encounter in early days, but can typically be avoided or run from. 175 health. Aggression is moderate and morale is low, and it fears fire and pain. It is capable of a powerful toss, slightly less powerful than a skeletal juggernaut, but has poor skill at normal melee attacks. Slower than player (80 speed). Cannot lay eggs, grows up in 60 days.Massive Stag Beetle:Morale is higher, as is damage, armor, health (350) and throw strength. Can bash through many things, pushes vehicles. Lays one egg every 32 days, grows up in 60 days (thus it can only lay one egg before maturing).Titan Stag Beetle:Morale is much higher. Damage, armor, health (1400), and throw strength are higher. This creature is not intended to be easily killed. Can bash through most buildings and easily push vehicles, but is slightly slower than previous forms. Does not naturally spawn, only evolves. Lays one egg every 364 days, final form.All forms are rather easily cooked, either through fire or electricity, but have very high resistance to physical wounds. However, all forms have molting/cracked chitin weakpoints, and this is reflected in their view descriptions. They are primarily creatures to avoid or use, not to kill, though the reward for killing one is immense amounts of chitin and sinew.
Larva may rarely spawn in caves, and giant/massive (depending on progression) may rarely spawn in forests.
Describe alternatives you've considered
In the future, I would like the grubs to be slowly tameable (with honeydew as part of the process). However, taming is currently not involved enough to accurately represent slowly teaching a very unintelligent creature to trust you. For now, I've left the tags in for most of their behavior once tamed, but removed all possibility of taming.
Testing
Spawned beetles, fought them, cage fights against other monsters (very fun), shot them, threw molotovs at them (incredibly effective), hit them with semi-trucks (there were no winners in this test), tamed them (with taming temporarily allowed), harnessed to vehicle, rode them, butchered them, etc.
Additional context
Currently working on UltiCa sprites for them, so if these are added, please do not add them to the UltiCa sprite to-do list.
I'm concerned that the addition of their eggs may cause calorie test failures in the future, as the eggs are 900 calories each, and I was unsure how to approach that.