Potential for Livestock.

[SteamMonkey]

Splitting this out of my initial feedback post. 

Saladmanders are a neat new addition. 1. They're adorable. 2. The mechanics they bring are unique. 

Currently you've got these little guys jockeying for position at heat sources. If one spends enough time near a heat source they bloom and turn into a red variant. 

The first variant drops leafy meat, the red variant drops dragonfruit... when killed. 

A lot of us 'farm' in DST. We create methods of acquiring materials in a more controlled fashion. From replanting twigs/grass/berries, to actual farms, to people collecting herds of beefalo in an area, letting them breed in the spring and culling the herd later for meat. 

The beefalo example is really the only 'controllable' livestock farming available at the moment. I think the Saladmanders provide a solid potential for another one. 

Idea 1: (The more complicated, but imo, more interesting version) A stage2 SalMan will create an "egg" next to a heat source in the first 2-3 days of Spring. This egg will hatch in 7 days into a stage 1 SalMan if near a heatsource. Additionally, if they don't already, let SalMans recognize a warm heat stone as a heat source.

Use Case: You go to the islands and snatch up eggs in the spring time. You take those eggs back to your base and set them near a Dragonscale furnace or other heatsource of your choosing if you want to maintain a campfire. Once they hatch, you put heatstones in a chain in their 'pen' so they all have a spot to hang out and bloom without constant fighting. They bloom and make eggs, which then hatch. Now you have a sustainable, albeit once a year, source of dragonfruit and/or leafy meat. This idea creates a mostly self sustainable 'farm' of SalMans that only requires you maintain the pen for proper breeding and growth but requires a little more set up. However, it can't 'fail' once started because the reproduction mechanic is built into the SalMan itself without any need for player interaction.

Idea 2: Make stage 1 SalMans drop 1 egg at 100% chance and a second egg at 10-15% chance. The eggs will hatch when left next to a heat source for 7 days into a stage1 SalMan. Make Stage 2 SalMans only drop DragonFruit. 

UseCase: This requires a lot less 'code' to implement since it's basically a loot table change and you can steal the Egg mechanic from tallbirds with some minor tweaks. To farm SalMans in this case, you have to stay on top of your herd. You collect eggs from the islands, put them near a heat source in an animal pen, they hatch, you only have 1 heat source in the pen currently so you don't have to worry about them going to stage 2, you knock em off and slowly grow your herd through egg hatching/harvesting. At some point, you increase your heat sources via heatstones near a dragonscale furnace which will give multiple SalMans places to bloom and you cull your Stage2's for dragonfruit. This idea creates a growable farm that requires a bit more attention than the first idea but is ultimately simpler to implement. However, without player interaction it will eventually fail because if all your SalMans progress to stage2 you will not have any eggs to replenish the population. 


Carrats, I don't know much about these except when you pick a carrot on the islands you get a rat. If you leave it alone, it'll go back into the ground. I haven't killed one but I'm going to assume they drop carrots when you kill them?

Idea: When you pick a carrat, make it leave a little hole similar to what you see when you pick a mushroom. The carrat will attempt to go back to that hole. Then, similar to moles, if you capture the carrat and dig up the hole, then go place the carrat down, it will make a new hole. If the carrat is killed a new one will spawn from the hole in X days. This would make for a very fun to harvest and sustainable carrot farm with a "rat pen". Similar to how some people farm moles. 

[AN-0923]

Carrats drop leafy meat from what I remember.

[-Variant]

1 hour ago, AN-0923 said:

Carrats drop leafy meat from what I remember.

This and a chance for carrot seeds if I recall.

[SteamMonkey]

7 minutes ago, -Variant said:

This and a chance for carrot seeds if I recall.

Well, my idea for them still sands. It would be a fun substitute for larger scale seed generation with a little work put in and a potential leafy meat farm. 

[-Variant]

1 hour ago, SteamMonkey said:

Well, my idea for them still sands. It would be a fun substitute for larger scale seed generation with a little work put in and a potential leafy meat farm. 

Never said anything against what you said, I rather do support what you said as there is no way to to make them reproduce as it is.

The moleworm stuff kind of fits them, but it'd also work if they just naturally reproduce.

[SteamMonkey]

1 minute ago, -Variant said:

Never said anything against what you said, I rather do support what you said as there is no way to to make them reproduce as it is.

The moleworm stuff kind of fits them, but it'd also work if they just naturally reproduce.

Sorry, wasn't implying that you were negging my idea. Was just saying that with the new info, I wouldn't make any adjustments to my suggestion. 

In regards to natural reproduction, the only issue I see with that is potential for them to get out of control. I can think of a couple situations with Beefalo in a spot on a map I didn't frequent and going back after a few cal years to find a ridiculous number of them. I'm personally a fan of more controlled growth, etc. To be honest, it's mostly 'sustaining' rather than multiplying with them. With the SalMans I wanna actually grow the population. Mostly because they're freakin adorable and the heatsource mechanic makes them controllable as far as how many and how fast they can be multiplied which requires actual player interaction. 

[-Variant]

1 hour ago, SteamMonkey said:

In regards to natural reproduction, the only issue I see with that is potential for them to get out of control. I can think of a couple situations with Beefalo in a spot on a map I didn't frequent and going back after a few cal years to find a ridiculous number of them. I'm personally a fan of more controlled growth, etc. To be honest, it's mostly 'sustaining' rather than multiplying with them. With the SalMans I wanna actually grow the population. Mostly because they're freakin adorable and the heatsource mechanic makes them controllable as far as how many and how fast they can be multiplied which requires actual player interaction. 

I haven't mentioned saladmanders because I think you've nailed how they should breed, so props to you for that.

I thought that the carrats getting out of hand would be fitting, as they are rats of sorts.
But a more controlled breeding style would help players out, certainly. 
You can also just cook them alive, when they're in the ground, lighting them on fire will kill them.
So that could be a way of keeping them under control. 

All in all the moleworm idea is the most fitting for them, but if they go with that, I'd rather them respawn much quicker than the moles do.

[SteamMonkey]

42 minutes ago, -Variant said:

I haven't mentioned saladmanders because I think you've nailed how they should breed, so props to you for that.

I thought that the carrats getting out of hand would be fitting, as they are rats of sorts.
But a more controlled breeding style would help players out, certainly. 
You can also just cook them alive, when they're in the ground, lighting them on fire will kill them.
So that could be a way of keeping them under control. 

All in all the moleworm idea is the most fitting for them, but if they go with that, I'd rather them respawn much quicker than the moles do.

I can get behind the "rat" idea of them getting out of hand. If that's the case, they should become a nuisance of some sort... maybe they have an AI that once there are 5 of more of them they become aggressive or they naturally attack structures and do 1/100th of a hammer hit in damage to them? That'd be kinda funny actually. 

 

[Rellimarual]

I can see killing one Saladmander to get a dragon fruit to feed to a caged bird, but after that, the usual farming method seems easier and less time consuming. Killing them would be a pain, as they have like 800 health.

[-Variant]

2 hours ago, SteamMonkey said:

I can get behind the "rat" idea of them getting out of hand. If that's the case, they should become a nuisance of some sort... maybe they have an AI that once there are 5 of more of them they become aggressive or they naturally attack structures and do 1/100th of a hammer hit in damage to them? That'd be kinda funny actually. 

 

Reminds me of the OG rat concept they had.

Did you know Rats existed before even Wilson himself? They thought of rats before making the main character.

They'd steal your crops and eat food, here's a more recent picture they did of them for the SW DLC.

I also attempted to remake them, but then legit the next day later they added the Carrat.

1 hour ago, Rellimarual said:

800 health

It's 900.

Legit 100 less than the Quacken boss in SW.

[minespatch]

4 hours ago, SteamMonkey said:

I can get behind the "rat" idea of them getting out of hand. If that's the case, they should become a nuisance of some sort... maybe they have an AI that once there are 5 of more of them they become aggressive or they naturally attack structures and do 1/100th of a hammer hit in damage to them? That'd be kinda funny actually. 

 

They could borrow pog mechanics to be honest.

[Master_NiX]

5 minutes ago, minespatch said:

They could borrow pog mechanics to be honest.

Please no Pog Mechanics. I got bitten too many times while playing webber ><

[-Variant]

1 hour ago, Nikslg said:

Please no Pog Mechanics. I got bitten too many times while playing webber ><

Not them attacking, but them stealing and wrecking the base.

[TurtleKitty]

I wish the Saladmanders plopped seeds, with the red ones plopping Dragon Fruit seeds.