Creature Handler Archive

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Pluto9Moon wrote:
First, let me say that the most any CH wants is more storage. This is it. So remember when you comment the priority is storage. The rest are things that are really non-issues but try to make CH fun, give it a niche and things some of us would like to see.
Maiden stated something that I realized as well. The CH stable already exists in game. Anyone who has completed the Hero Badge Quest went to the Rancher's Place.There are about 16 creatures in pens in the yard. We only need one art for this concept. The laddering concept can change automatically when the CH rises in levels.
Tott brought up a point of whether this should be something that everyone has and the CH would provide the animals. We need to talk this through further. It is my opinion that with BE pets being available, allowing everyone to have it doesn't necessarily mean we get more business. There are database issues already. Ch asking for this creates more. If the house were a medium house and stores things inside as well then most people may see a benefit of being pleasing to the eye and functionality as a trade off for higher maintenance costs. This would mean more people would want to have this and could be a roadblock in getting it. BTW Tott I placed some CL Limit restrictions in using your model and adapted it to the concept that was already in place.
I have mentioned in the past of making this with a commercial and non-commercial switch. Non-commercial would act simply as an extension of the datapad or a Creature Bank. Nothing could be bought, sold, collected, trained, etc. In this version consider the maintenance halved for non-commercial structures although feeding would remain.
Manger Gained in Creature Taming I: Basic Domestication Monetary Maintenance: 30cr/hour (720cr/day) Food Required: 1/pet/day Animals Held: 4 adults (2 babies) or total of CL60 Lots Required: 4 DNA Sampling: No Stable
Gained in Creature Management II: Advanced Organization Monetary Maintenance: 60cr/hour (1440/day) Food Required: 1/pet/day Animals Held: 8 adults (4 babies) or CL120 Lots Required: 4 DNA Sampling: No
Barn
Gained in Creature Training III: Martial Obedience Education Monetary Maintenance: 90cr/hour (2160cr/day) Food Required: 1/pet/day Animals Held: 12 adults (6 babies) or CL180 Lots Required: 4 DNA Sampling: No
Corral
Gained in Master (Edited for error) Monetary Maintenance: 120cr/hour (2880cr/day) Food Required: 1/pet/day Animals Held: 16 adults (8 babies) or CL240 Lots Required: 4 DNA Sampling: YES

Monetary Maintenance is self-explanatory. I have not altered it up or down as of yet. Any monetary payout should expect some decent payback. If this idea simply gets reduced to you can have stables that display pets without any real function I would ask that they be reduced.
The power requirement is removed as of this version. Future power requirements would be battery based on Milk Maid droid modules (TBD).
Food is necessary to keep any animal healthy. It is required to keep animals. Food has mean changed to "foraged food" or "flora farmed food". 1/pet/day seems to allow better planning for extended periods of CH not playing. It is easier math than figuring up 24/pet/day (I hate math).
Disease was removed as of this version.
Animals Held was given a CL limit as well. This provides a cap from having too many larger creatures (even though the theory that pets causing lag seems more a myth than anything).
Lots Required is set for 4. All structures will use the same Rancher Model as in the Hero Badge Quest. One structure will upgrade with the CH so changes will be made automatically. Including maintenance.
DNA Sampling. This would allow BE to sample taking a vitality hit per sample. Any pet with less than 100 Vitality could never breed.
Breeding: (thanks Cyphaze this is him word for word). Only possible in Barn and Corral. Requires 2 identical full-grown NON-BE'd creatures of the same species, both with 100 vitality (i.e. two Grauls would work, but a Graul and a Graul Mauler would not). Creatures over a certain level cannot be bred (50 seems like a good cap - rules out reproduction of ultra-rares). Keep reading for info on how a CL of a creature affects its breeding rate. Requires the holding structure's owner to utilize the "Manage Corral" (or Manage Barn) radial menu to choose which creatures are paired and placed in the same "breeding chamber" (creatures do not breed unless placed in the same breeding chamber [note that this term refers to a virtual chamber accessable from the radial menu, not anything physically visible]). Breeding creatures produce 1 baby of their species every "birthing period" (number of hours equal to twice the creature's CL) and must be fed 2 food each per hour for as long as they are kept in the breeding chambers. Time until the end of a birthing period within a specific chamber is displayed in the "Manage Barn/Corral" radial menu item. A baby will not be produced at the end of a birthing period if there is not space for it, and the owner will have to wait another birthing period for the next baby (and ensure there is space for it). This one is important: GROWTH RATE FOR BABY CREATURES IS DOUBLED WHILE STORED IN THE CORRAL. This ensures we can actually produce creatures at a moderate rate for sale.
Editor note: BE pets are considered hybrids and sterile by definition.
Breeding brings a problem with many creatures not having expressed titles to reflect sexual dimorphism. IE. There are no Female Graul. These would have to be tagged. XX and YY presumably but Kliknik are Social Insects and Queen is the only fertile female. Chickens and reptile sexual determinations are different. Reptiles are expressed male or female depending on incubation temperature. I forget the avian dmrt mechanism but it deals with an O gene. Maybe its OW are female and WW are male. Sorry I never was a real avian fan. For ease of everything a simple XX/XY model could be used. Attributes Changed by Breeding: Ham: Increased Ham by 10% Color: A few basic color codes assuming basic genetics R(red), B(black), A(normal) and a(albino). Phenotype expressions to come. Speed: +10 terrain for mounts. Attack Change in attack speed or Damage Size: Stunt growth command that allows pets to be halted at certain levels with statistics that reflect their current CL.
Interdependencies
Architect: The structures have to be made. Made from wood.
Droid Engineer: Possibly for the Milk Maid Droid and Egg Collector Droid. The alternative could be each pen area having a terminal for collecting from each individual pen.
Ranger: Deleted the Box Trap. Still would like to see the option to allow a Ranger have permission to /cullherd and harvest the bodies.
Doctor: Removed the disease program. It appeared as if it would be bothersome to contact a doctor to heal pets.
Bio Engineer: BE could sample reducing each animals Vitality by 5 each sample. Could still have a check system in place where a check of anything over the current vitality kills the creature. An animal has 85/100 vitality and the check is 89 the creature dies. This would give CH a greater niche and better rapport with BE. What I mean to say is the ease by which the BE can sample and the need for CH to hunt for what the BE needs makes Taming a necessity again. Putting wild tames to be sampled in a pen at the same time holding the necessary BE pets for combat seems a decent tradeoff to me. That is 1-20 samples each creature.

CH’s want this to be a visual structure, something where things can be displayed and not some extension of a data pad. It is my understanding; we also want a way to make an access fee (in playing devil’s advocate I am almost certain this will require the Artisan Business I Skill). Kennel Facility A specialized vendor that could train pets up to the ability of the current owner. Unusable if CH is dropped. Another aspect brought up would be getting some more useful commands brought in. Would love to discuss this further. Fetch, Dance, Drag, others that we have seen in Verts Making Pet Commands Useful thread. (thanks jopenack this provides another angle that allows for CH Niche). Also note that this would be a great way to implement saddlebags for storage. Or train Tortons to carry shield generators.
New Tailor clothes Taming clothes such as chaps. (still trying to get these for you spreadsheet).
Editors Note: I want to thank everyone who has contributed thus far and those who will in the near future. This started as a bunch of loose ideas. I merely put them together. I want to keep working on this as much as possible. New ideas are welcome. I credit all CH for making this possible. The credit is not mine to take. If I have forgotten an idea you have mentioned or not weaved it in yet please mention it again. I get scatterbrained at times. There aren't many changes from V.2 to V.3 but I do believe the ones placed inside are positive ones. Some made it way less complicated.

Orignal Thread, Corral V1, Corral V2.

Message Edited by Pluto9Moon on 10-23-2004 01:41 PM

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Message Edited by spreadsheet on 12-02-2004 03:53 PM

Message Edited by spreadsheet on 12-03-2004 02:44 PM

Message Edited by spreadsheet on 12-03-2004 03:04 PM

Lucha,

I will try to answer as how I see things. First, let me preface that anything I say is not in defense of this writing or any other writing thus far. Anything I have written to date is the thoughts of other people. Ocassionally here or there is an original idea but if one follows all four threads you can clearly see other CH had the ideas and I merely glued them together.

1) I would like to see the art work stay as one solid piece all the way through. That is to say if you only have a manger you still see all the pens but only 1 is usuable. Or the pet levels stay at minimum but you use all the pens. This means of the 3 real pens you could stable 2 adults of CL10 in 2 different pens and raise the consequent babies in the third and last pen.

2) Lot Size. In V1 and V2 we started off at 1 and increased to 4. It was an abritrary number and a great starting point. Footprints do seem to suggest that this be made larger to come in line with Guild hall sizes. Let me say that by asking with 24 pets total in the highest level and also not asking for much internal storage inside the house structure itself that I believe it is reasonable to ask that 4 lots be the highest limit. Footprint is the only thing being major here. The database space itself is not. This puts the CH in the position to decide whether he needs more internal space or the fun challenge of the Corral itself. 4 lots is large enough to prevent a guild hall.

3) Admin list and creature placement. First, there is a problem here. I do not code and not sure I have the work around. The rules by which we have set so far allows 4 adults (6 total pets counting babies) or CL60. If an MCH had admin rights but was not the structure owner, what would happen to this pet? Certainly it is unusable by most people who would be restricted to the manger level. So why would a low level CH want the MCH to place pets there? The one answer I do have is restrict it to owner only.

To answer any follow ups, if this is not a CH only structure then you have to allow any CH who as admin rights to place pets so it becomes the aesthetic type zoo that some want. If none of that made sense, what I meant to say was that if this remains CH only then only the CH owner could place pets. Much like only the owner can redeed a structure. If it is open to all players then any CH with admin rights could place pets.

Possible exploit would be CH who place high level pets for low level people and then not remove them when requested or just possibly it is hard to find a MCH to remove a hgih level pet after you have had one placed.

4) Vendor. The only reason the Vendor idea would not work out is if someone was unwilling to use their skill points. Pretty certain that the first vendor is in the artisan tree. As long as we can place items in the internal structure I would not see why this shouldn't work.

5) I have yet to go to the Warren to get pics. The bottom level there is a LARGE zoo-liek facility. Using only this room and a ramp down would mean less original artwork need to be created. They would only have to make a mod of the existing place. The major concern of those who have mentioned underground zoos even prior to these posts were would below ground footprints have any effect on above ground footprints. Could one place an underground zoo under ones house? Could miners be placed over? Well you get the picture.

Other items of interest have been the pen structures on Dantooine. In a perfect world this would make a great 1 lot version of the manger concept. 4-6 animals. The biggest problem would be the sheer number of these that CH might use. I can foresee large communes of these structure becoming the CH version of player cities with only one lot. 2 lots would make them less extreme over all.

6)I am not sure what reason out door loot dropping is not permissible on the overlooks of Tatooine style houses. It has probably been answered somewhere before. I would comfortably assume it has to do with the lack of a wall type coding and certain things not being allowed to be dropped outside.

The little I do understand of MOD coding tells me instinctually that houses are sealed and the veranda is not sealed in to allow dropping. This could easily be fixed by placing a transparent wall on the veranda. SOE has placed it pretty low on their priority level. All the devs would need to do is place a transparent dome over the "ceiling" and made some door in the spirit of guild halls and cantinas also having open doors. It is all about making sure the House Mod does not leak. It is simple in theory, I am not sure how time consuming.

OK that is enough for now. Read it and tell me what you think.

BTW. spreadsheet I do love your additions. Maybe I will get a rework in sometime soon. Is it time for V4?