Need ideas for Dwarf Fortress mod about giant insects

[Arachu]

Well, insects and arachnids, at any rate.
I've recently begun making a mod in Dwarf Fortress in which giant, often-nightmarish insects stalk the world.

Now, this may seem kind of goofy at first, but think about it: those things are freaking scary. They have natural armor. They have blenders for mouths, and spears for legs. Some (like the praying mantis) have much worse.
And with their antennae, they know where you are, just by being in your wind-carried scent.

Even the lowliest ant has freakin' scythes on its face.

Thus, I assert that their one-track minds, scavenging nature, and oft-savage physiologies will fit right in with DF.

... There's only one problem; I don't actually know very much about insects.

Which is why I ask for creative help. I need more insects to choose from, and more accurate ways to portray them. Here's what I have thus far;

Cats are replaced by Worker Ants. These ants are most like your common black ant. They (ironically) hunt vermin, and the final version may also help clean refuse (assuming you merely need the [GRASP] tag to do so.)

Dogs are now Warrior Ants, bred to help defend the fort. These Warriors are fire ants with a weak venom that softens up their prey for the kill.

Wolves are Feral Ants; Warriors that returned to the wild and became larger as a result.

Typical ants are now ant-sized Dust Mites, which are nearly identical to their analogue.

A currently-unnamed Goblin analogue is as if a Centaur were to fuse with a centipede, and possess a lamprey's mouth for some reason.

I plan on having praying mantises, beetles, hercules beetles, milipedes, centipedes, giant beetles, flesh-eating moths, oversized dust mites that breath fire, housecat-sized ticks, boar-sized ticks, evil tick-mosquito things, insectoid dragons, and psuedoscorpions (think tail-less scorpions with long, gangly-looking arms).

But, I'm not sure how to insert very many of them, and that isn't nearly enough to cover all of Dwarf Fort's creatures.

In addition, are there any modders out there that can help me manipulate the caste system to make proper, limbless larvae? I have the ants' roles outlined (as the normal ants actually have the gender-castes outlined already (praise the great Toady One!))

[Eldan]

Well, what do you actually need to know about insects? I'm doing a little entomology (writing a few papers on solitary bees) and I'm currently sitting in our universe's insect collection, next to shelves and shelves of books on just about any insect subject. So give me ten minutes and I should be able to find most answers.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

You can utalize the caste system so the worker and soldier ants are both the same species. You would need drone castes as well if you want a proper breeding model. Should make controlling a catsplosion interesting.

[Arachu]

Well, what do you actually need to know about insects? I'm doing a little entomology (writing a few papers on solitary bees) and I'm currently sitting in our universe's insect collection, next to shelves and shelves of books on just about any insect subject. So give me ten minutes and I should be able to find most answers.

I mostly need to know about different varieties of them and their anatomy; for example, what exactly is a stick insect's anatomy composed of? Which organs do insects have?

I heard that arthropods breathe not with lungs, but with gill-like tubes in their bodies. I'm not sure if this is quite true, nor do I know what has them if it is...

I'm pretty certain spiders have it, though.

I'm currently working on a rhino beetle and figuring out how to finish the ants. Could I ask for an anatomical overview on the two? Currently I just have them full of indistinct 'guts' :vaarsuvius:

Also, what biome does a rhino beetle inhabit? I know ants, flies, and worms have at least one breed about in any given area that isn't frozen, but I have no idea where specific beetles live...

(Holy damn, my laptop doesn't know the word "biome" :roy:)



You can utalize the caste system so the worker and soldier ants are both the same species. You would need drone castes as well if you want a proper breeding model. Should make controlling a catsplosion interesting.

You make a good point. Currently, each of the two has its own caste-system of worker, drone and queen (literally making "worker ant workers" :smalltongue:). I'm still trying to figure out the caste system, as it's utterly alien to me (I'm new to the current version), but because the existing colonial ants already have the three castes I was able to copy-paste them.

The main part would be figuring out how to make warrior ants work properly. Does any tag work for the caste when under it? If so, how do you make them disengage?

In addition, it would make a lot of sense if 'baby' ants were 'eggs' that lacked limbs and a movement speed, whereas 'children' would be similarly immobile larvae.

As for the Queens, it would be most economical to chain them up under the fort. Not only would it actually work somewhat like an ant hive, but Queens are rare (and therefore need defending), while the eggs and larvae are utterly defenseless.

Plus, once I figure out how to work it, the eggs would probably have a shell that they lost at some point in development, allowing for cheesy eggshell helmets :roach:

The only main problem I'm having (other than a lack of bug varieties) is a lack of understanding as to how to work castes. If a specific caste has a bodypart, does it lose that as it ages? Is it possible to add or exclude venom from specific castes (thus making warriors work at all)?


... I should also figure out how to work variations, so I can have all manner of different species about; for example, I could have base 'spiders' without a biome, and alter them with variants so that I end up with black widows and brown recluses. This step should be easier to learn than the castes...

Post-thought EDIT:
I could also have four general sets of pet floating around, corresponding to the savagery and morality alignments. For example, ants probably belong to those in benign areas, while savages might possess wasps.
(Of course, wasps would be physically-weak fliers with mild neurotoxin :xykon:)

Post-post-thought-observation:
According to magmawiki, pretty much everything is caste-level moddable... I could even make a species with unintelligent castes (like more bestial variants mainly used for labor and guarding)

In fact, that could be interesting; the higher-up "elders" of a species could be more intelligent, or perhaps they would simply be a more intelligent subspecies, where the 'others' would be like hounds to them. Could make guarding interesting...

[Arachu]

Good news! I came across an Ark project with just the insects I need. I'm gonna figure out how to make them giant. I still need to figure out castes and variants, though,

The project in question is here (http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Modification:Ark_Project/Animals/Arthropods/Arachnids). This should help with the insects as-is, but given that it's freakin' DF, we can afford to make them really screwed up (like the aforementioned gigantic, fire-breathing dust mites). SO, this makes this thread officially about taking pre-existing insects and making them really angry.

And figuring out castes.

:madscientistlaugh:


Addendum: Actually, they haven't finished arachnids yet, and haven't even started on insects yet... So, those questions are still on...

[Eldan]

Away from books right now, but the basics:

Insects have two major differences (and a lot of others) in their circulatory systems:
First of all, they have an open circulatory system, instead of a closed one, as we do. They do not have blood and veins. Instead, they have haemolymph, a single, non-coloured bodily fluid which freely flows between all organs. It is moved by muscle contractions in the lymph and by open, pulsating tubes which approximately take the function of our hearts.
The second difference is that they, as you noted, have no lungs. Instead, they have tracheae, tubes running through their entire bodies (not like gills at all, really). Air diffuses in and out of those. It's also one of the main reasons why so few insects are aquatic, they need special adaptations for that.

[Arachu]

It's also worth noting that, while ants can survive being immersed in water for a time, they can't swim. I'm simulating that by giving them abysmally low swim speeds of 500 (one-fifth the norm) to represent them incidentally drifting close enough to the edge to climb out.

I'm wondering how do work a hive... Obviously, it would involve working it so that the given species inhabits a rough cave, but then multiple types might occupy a given hive. I suppose I could specify it to different conditions (for example, amazon ants live in savage-neutral rainforests)... Yeah, I guess that'd work.

A given species (such as wasps) would only colonize certain areas, but there would be 'swarms' of them (packs, really) wandering about.

Are there breeds of scorpions that don't live deserts?

Also, how many mandibles does a rhino beetle have? The pictures on Wikipedia don't show them in detail, and the pages themselves won't show me.

[Joran]

The creepiest insects I can think of are the parasitic wasps. They breed by finding a caterpillar and injecting paralytic poison into specific spots in the caterpillar so the caterpillar can't move.

The wasp then injects its larvae into the caterpillar where the larvae eat the caterpillar alive, making sure to spare important organs so the caterpillar remains alive the longest and the larvae get fresh meat.

Seriously... /shudder.

[Arachu]

Holy crap, you're right. Those things are freaking monsters.

And, it reminds me of that fungus that fills the insides of grasshoppers with white mushrooms of DEATH. That'll be a fun necrotic-syndrome :xykon:

[Eldan]

There's funnier things than those fungi. There are parasites which control the insects mind, after a fashion, making them more prone to certain behaviours which spread the parasite.