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Development Forum Creatures Development Standard    AquaShee      6/24/2012  1 Hi peeps! I've made a little Google Spreadsheet with a basic outline of what I hope to be a very useful reference for current and future developers. Spreadsheet! Basically, it is an attempt to both pool our knowledge and experience and to provide a consistent standard for agents and metarooms to improve the game experience. With the guidelines I hope we'll be able to set up in the spreadsheet, Norns will have an easier time interacting with their world, as will it allow us to make much more complex and flexible agents and metarooms. This is far from finished, and we'll all need a lot of input from all developers to get a good basic set of standards. The basic idea is that people will then be able to use this spreadsheet to make their agents and metarooms 'CDS-certified' so players and developers alike can rest assured that these downloads will work great with other certified stuff. Feel free to edit the spreadsheet, bookmark it, add questions and answers and ideas, have arguments, and more! If for some reason you can't edit it, contact me. I'm new to the entire Google Docs thing so I'm hoping to get a few other people involved as admins on the spreadsheet. The Community Scribble: make (y)our own metaroom!   Geek2Nurse     6/24/2012 It's hard to really take in, since I'm currently browsing on my iPhone, but the idea intrigues me. I'll browse some more when I'm back to my computer. I need to know more about this ASWetness variable, though! Sounds like something I might need to add to my sprinkler! --- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.   AquaShee   6/24/2012 Yes, the sprinkler is what gave me the idea to include said variable in the examples. Have a peek at the "Wetness" agent here on CC.com in the downloads section. It basically makes any agent get wet when submerged in water, causing it to drip droplets. It uses the ASWetness variable so it can set a value on other agents without interfering with their scripts. But this also means that any other agents can use this variable to make themselves and others wet too. The Community Scribble: make (y)our own metaroom!   Prodigal Sock Ghosthande     6/24/2012 I can't say I'm any good with Google Docs either but I find the idea really useful!   AquaShee   6/24/2012 Thanks Ghost! It's basically just an online Excel file, really. I think it's perfect for a collaboration like this one. The Community Scribble: make (y)our own metaroom!   Malkin Manager     6/24/2012 A certain knowledge of what the stims do would be a good addition to this idea. My TCR Norns   Moe     6/25/2012 Also, developers need to make sure agents that get eaten only give stims and work on creatures if they're actually creatures. Since you suggested that agents mesg the eat script on other agents, this is important. For instance, if an agent tries to eat a DS lemon, Bad Things Happen, because it's not expecting anything but a creature to eat it, so it throws an error. Basically, agents need to be prepared to be eaten by anything, creature or otherwise, and function correctly and without errors in either circumstance.   AquaShee   6/25/2012 Good idea, Malkin! Feel free to add the list you made, the more the merrier! If you like I can also add it for you. Moe, good point on the eating thing. Some C3 agent already do this (trouts) while others don't. (balloon bugs) causing some silly bugs such as infinite balloon bug fishfood. This document is to make sure all agents can work together now. We'll have to edit the original .cos files for both games as well to fit to the new standards. Hopefully this will result in a proper "community patch" for C3 and DS. EDIT: I have added a page with a list of scripted breeds (such as flying Norns and stuff) Additions like these could really enhance the game, but will need the associated scripts to be community-maintained. I propose we get a few other shared docs online so we can work on .cos files together. I'll see if I can whip up some caterpillar norns this evening to get a good starting point. The Community Scribble: make (y)our own metaroom!   Wiimeiser   6/25/2012 Regarding the 8/16 conflict how would one script it to give birth to the live larva? Or is it impossible? Hashikin ko Tyni Kong Taria Haju'Rumia'an Klodz'Proddi. Terdish oxen saur yessi atai Kongo Dolpik!   AquaShee   6/25/2012 Well, most of this is just speculation so far. I'm about to write the larva script now and see how it works. Agents would need to use this list to see which species a Norn belongs to (we need a better name for these things... Abilities?) Most of the time these abilities will be embedded in the basic creature scripts, so most of these will be a joint effort. The egg-laying abilities will probably just have priority over eachother. So a live-birthing and larvae-having Norn will just plop out Norns, but if it mates with a non-live birthing larvae-having norn the child could by chance only inherit the larvae ability. So conflicting abilities could have a dominant/recessive thing going on. Of course, it wouldn't be that hard to make the script check for combinations of abilities and have live birthing of larvae. On that note, are there any updated breeding scripts currently in circulation? Using a global variable in the game we could let agents check if the player has the latest version of the breeding script. (or any other modified creature scripts) The Community Scribble: make (y)our own metaroom!   Malkin Manager     6/25/2012 There are the Water Eggs by MK-Grendel and the updated breeding script by Vampess. My TCR Norns   AquaShee   6/25/2012 Awesome Malkin. I'll drop Vampess a line to see if her script can be used as a base for an updated breeding script. I managed to make my norns have little caterpillars as babies by adding a new script number (500 in this case, for testing) and calling said script from the regular birthing script. It checks if the 'abilities' variable has flag 16 set on the norn and then checks if the script exists. If so, it calls it. If not, it just proceeds laying a regular egg. This should make it very easy to have a universal breeding script that accounts for all known new breeding methods without them actually having to be installed. The Community Scribble: make (y)our own metaroom!   Wiimeiser   6/26/2012 On the eggs, I'd suggest all egg replacement packs get updated to include C12DS egg replacements as well, for compatibility reasons, as there is a serious incompatibility that is easily fixed this way. EDIT: Update all egg packs to include C1 AND C2 eggs Hashikin ko Tyni Kong Taria Haju'Rumia'an Klodz'Proddi. Terdish oxen saur yessi atai Kongo Dolpik!   Prodigal Sock Ghosthande     6/26/2012 What C2 eggs? C3/DS uses the same sprites.   Wiimeiser   6/26/2012 C1 added frames to the egg sprite file so they could make the hatchery look authentic; replace it with, for examle zoot's Zeggs, and the hatchery crashes. I believe C2 had egg graphics different from those of C3/DS as well Hashikin ko Tyni Kong Taria Haju'Rumia'an Klodz'Proddi. Terdish oxen saur yessi atai Kongo Dolpik!   AquaShee   6/26/2012 This is something the creators of the egg packs would have to fix themselves, I think. But conflicts like these is something the CDS should also talk about, so agent creators know what to look for when making new egg sprites or changing how eggs work. The Community Scribble: make (y)our own metaroom!   Jagotka     6/26/2012 Awesome! I find these types of references extremely useful. Thanks a lot! Creatures tumblr Blog:Methods of Creatures Madness

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