Earthworm audit

[Karol1223]

Summary

None

Purpose of change

Our earthworms have been around for ages, and it always annoyed me how they were... predatory monsters, you know? Not actually earthworms...

Describe the solution

• Renamed all fellas to earthworms from worms
• Took away their aggression and morale
• Significantly buffed the health and bash armor - they should not be flimsier than an overweight zombie
• Lowered the speed - earthworms aren't exactly known to burrow very fast
• Lowered the melee skill/dice/this stuff because they should not be arguably stronger than centipedes
• Changed the half-life to age-grow, swapped numbers to match centipedes
• Fixed the reproduction for small worms
• Changed the descriptions to no longer sound like a Fallout enemy - thanks to @paprika-h, @Milopetilo, @tenmillimaster and zoz on the development discord for the help with this (basically writing their descriptions and all I did was glue parts of them together)
• Made the worms able to eat food, carrion and crops - the fellas would be hungy since detritus wouldn't be quite enough, as Fris suggested
• Added PATH_AVOID_FIRE to all of them - worms may be blind, but they can react to heat, they'd know better than to waltz into a raging inferno
• Took away graboid's ATTACK_LOWER, since it a big boye, but gave it PUSH_VEH instead because also it a big boye
• Took away graboid's POISON - no idea why it had that honestly. Earthworms aren't poisonous
• Swapped graboids for trapdoor spiders in the refugee center caravan mission
• Added new halfworm sizes for the other two full-worm sizes
• Added a new special graboid encounter around Lapin's cabin - the Little Guy will live

Describe alternatives you've considered

But Karol, our worms are cool! It's cool to have an enemy you can't see because it burrows underground! The idea of a predatory worm is awesome! - Well for starters I refuse to believe anyone said that given the complaints I keep hearing about trapdoor spiders. But also, auditing earthworms doesn't mean we lose our only subterranean predator - it means we gain another subterranean docile creature, while keeping two other subterranean predators (Trapdoor Spiders and Yugg - which may I remind you is a predatory worm) intact. On top of that - I think it'd be cool beans if we had a mutant predatory worm but I'd much rather we kept that for real life predatory worms - leeches. In an ideal world I'd like to add mutant leeches next but I probably will burn out after this and the zombie bullshit I won't lie.

Testing

Additional context

[Fris0uman]

I'm not sure a giant worm can survive by just eating dirt, having them attack stuff is kinda coherent.

[Karol1223]

I'm not sure a giant worm can survive by just eating dirt, having them attack stuff is kinda coherent.

Not really. They likely would eat plants and carrion (I could add that, I probably will, thanks for making me think of that!), but unless they completely changed into a new creature by mutating into something adapted to predatory lifestyle this doesn't add up. They're not fast enough and their bodies aren't designed to kill. Mutating into something that's capable of hunting down prey or taking it down would make a new creature entirely.

[worm-girl]

I had an idea for giant leeches that I couldn't figure out codewise. I was looking at making them have a special kind of grab attack so they wouldn't hold you in place very well, but would automatically try to move with you when you stepped. This would slow you down a bit on land and be a nightmare underwater. The Chiropteran PR also adds an anticoagulant venom you could steal for their bite attack.

[KeremBabaG]

Didn't their mutations make the wildlife incredibly hostile as well? So why change that?

[Karol1223]

Didn't their mutations make the wildlife incredibly hostile as well? So why change that?

There isn't anything in the lore at any point indicating that mutant wildlife is hostile. We have plenty of mutant wildlife that's not hostile, luckily.

And because having literally all animals not be animals but just be mindless hostile enemies is boring as fuck? That's why.

[TheSaddestGoomba]

As someone who's added non-aggressive mutants I obviously agree with that take. I feel it creates a more compelling setting, plus we have the various zombies and amalgams to play the single-minded killer role.

In regards to that last point and the loss of some hostile burrowers, I feel there's space for an amalgamation that fills that niche. If it doesn't interfere with others' plans I may make that my next PR. I'm at a good break point with the amphibians and would like to do more one-off PRs.

Also a non-violent, giant worm can still send you flying off your bike at 20 mph. Non-aggressive creatures can still be hazards. IIRC, the furrows they leave in the ground also count as rougher terrain?

[Karol1223]

Also a non-violent, giant worm can still send you flying off your bike at 20 mph. Non-aggressive creatures can still be hazards. IIRC, the furrows they leave in the ground also count as rougher terrain?

I have an idea for a possible special_when_hit for them, if those are JSONified, but I don't know if they are or not. I'll have to look in that direction, but I'd like them to flail when hit which would have a chance to push you away (and with the biggest size possibly have a similar effect as smash special attack, but this is probably too much to do in JSON)

[TheSaddestGoomba]

I think on-hit effects are still hard-coded. I have a couple planned for frog mutants that are shelved currently.

[cardboard11]

Did you decide on what the descriptions for them will be yet?

[Karol1223]

Did you decide on what the descriptions for them will be yet?

The versions currently in the PR seem good for me. I'll need some new ones for graboids and halfworms later on, but that's a problem for the future.

[PatrikLundell]

If you want a predatory worm, as a base, go for the bobbit worm. It's aquatic, but really scary if scaled up (of course, car sized worms still can't dig through the ground at a high speed in reality unless powered by magic (which doesn't exist in reality), but it certainly would do for an ambush predator, which the real world creature is).

Also note that if you mess with the graboid you'd have to deal with the refugee center quest involving it.

[Karol1223]

If you want a predatory worm, as a base, go for the bobbit worm. It's aquatic, but really scary if scaled up (of course, car sized worms still can't dig through the ground at a high speed in reality unless powered by magic (which doesn't exist in reality), but it certainly would do for an ambush predator, which the real world creature is).

I am aware of the bobbit worm and I like it very much, but it makes very little sense for us to add it when the ocean is still so WIP. Or rather, there's no reason not to add it, but I am not that interested in putting that much effort into content almost nobody will see. I'd like to wait until we can have starts at the ocean and generally more ways to experience it beforehand.

Not to mention that it'd be at the core a stationary enemy rather than a burrower, so it'd be an entirely different can of worms.

Also note that if you mess with the graboid you'd have to deal with the refugee center quest involving it.

I forgot we had that. I'll have to look at this, but I imagine it shouldn't be terribly hard to switch it for a Yugg or a Trapdoor Spider...

[PatrikLundell]

The refugee center quest is a fairly early one, and I think the Yugg is a really nasty thing (the graboid itself is a nasty shock the first time), so I suspect that may be a bad idea.
The trapdoor spider doesn't really fit, because it's supposed to be an ambush predator, and so shouldn't follow a caravan to pick off the last ones, but rather attack the first one. Also, this monster has been bugged to travel around, bringing its hidey hole with it. Has that been fixed? Otherwise it might stray from where you're supposed to find it.

[Karol1223]

The refugee center quest is a fairly early one, and I think the Yugg is a really nasty thing (the graboid itself is a nasty shock the first time), so I suspect that may be a bad idea.

Yugg is kind of a double-edged sword. It's tankier but it has smaller melee dice and is over twice as slow... but also has the mutagenic ranged attack, which makes me hate the thing.

I'll have to read into the quest exactly to see what it's about but I'll have to figure something.

[worm-girl]

We have those invisible stalker enemies as well as giant antlion larvae, though those are stationary. The stalker might be too hard, but either could work.

The stalker gets murdered by sunlight, but you could have the EOC trigger at night and change the quest text to mention that the caravans were only ever hit at night.

[Karol1223]

We have those invisible stalker enemies as well as giant antlion larvae, though those are stationary. The stalker might be too hard, but either could work.

The stalker gets murdered by sunlight, but you could have the EOC trigger at night and change the quest text to mention that the caravans were only ever hit at night.

What stalker enemy? Throwing "stalker" into HHG doesn't give me any meaningful results and the description doesn't ring a bell at all...

[PatrikLundell]

The description sounds like the damnable monsters plaguing subway tunnels. Their description claimed they were damaged by light, but in fact they regenerated in any light you could shine on them. Only sunlight harmed them.

Searching JSON for "regen" allowed me to find it: "unseen hunter" or the id mon_unseen_hunter.

Note that this is a nasty critter using hit_and_run tactics and regenerating while running. It's also too fast for you to catch up to it unless you manage to corner it, so when it starts to get hurt it just disappears to return a bit later. Not something I'd want to take on as a newbie quest.

[oosyrag]

For reference, the mission is Mission_OLD_GUARD_REP_4 in data/json/npcs/refugee_center/surface)visitors/NPC_old_guard_representative.json line 278.

I think the trapdoor spider works as a fine replacement in the spirit of the mission, mysterious disappearance due to unknown mystery wildlife. It could be just off the road that the caravan went, the escort could have been patrolling a little ways off, checking a bush, gone for bathroom break. There's nothing in the mission description that necessitates the caravan being stalked.

Could be 1 or more trapdoor spider traps, with or without the normal gibs and tells of a trapdoor spider den. Should be a decent danger or challenge for the unprepared even not being the giant version.

[PatrikLundell]

If the trapdoor spider has been fixed so it doesn't drag its hiding spot with it all over the map at a high speed when unleashed (and having something to home in on), it would work, apart from it still probably attacking the head of the caravan.
Sure, the tail guard could veer off and come into range, but that would be a one off event, rather than something happening repeatedly.

[oosyrag]

I got the feeling this was indeed a one off event, they don't know when or where exactly the person went missing, so now they're asking you to find out.

[Karol1223]

Okay I kinda just threw a handful of trapdoor spidies at it. Anyone versed in quest and balancing wanna take a look at it and tell me if I am insane or not?

5 might be way too much, admittedly.

[Karol1223]

Oh right and also possibly the more important announcement - I noticed that the quest graboid not only had a name, but has also been in the game for 10 years now. The fella lived 5 of my contributor careers and I don't want him gone.

Now that graboids aren't aggressive, I am hoping to move him somewhere around Lapin's cabin. He deserves a peaceful retirement.

No, I have no idea how to do that. But I will find a way.

I would appreciate it if anyone wanted to give Lapin some dialogue about Little Guy later on, because I suck at writing. But it's probably better off as a standalone PR.

[github-actions]

Spell checker encountered unrecognized words in the in-game text added in this pull request. See below for details.

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• This huge subterranean creature is a far cry from its earthworm ancestors. Despite only seeing its head, you can tell its grown to a mind-boggling size. While the image may be quite unsettling, it doesn't appear to pay you any mind.

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