Character Idea - Wu Xiu, The Loyal Nomad

[Knowledgeable]

I want to get into modding with DS/DST and at some point that would include a character mod. I thought up one after a bit and made some perks. This guy in theory would be utilized mostly in multiplayer due to how he would benefit from the presence of other players. If I made him well enough and he became popular I'm unsure if I would port him to DS. I have no idea how to go about coding these things or if coding them all will even be possible, but eventually I want to give it a go. I'd appreciate any ideas/feedback from you guys! More will be added to this post in time, this is just a rough template to begin and does not have everything.

Quote: "I will do my best to soothe this chaotic land!"

Dialogue for greeting other players:

Wilson: "Hello playername, my intrepid friend! How goes your science today?"

Willow: "Do be careful with your lighter, Miss playername, while fire keeps us warm it can also burn us to a crisp."

Wolfgang: "It is good so see one such as yourself, playername, who possesses not only physical strength but a kind heart as well."

Wendy: "Good tidings, Miss playername. Don't forget that there is yet hope to be found in this world."

WX-78: "How do you fare today, playername? Staying out of the rain, I hope?"

Wickerbottom: "Greetings to you, Miss playername! May I borrow some of your books later?"

Woodie: "Ah, good day to you playername. Has your talkative companion helped you today?"

Wes: "Blessings upon you, playername. I once took a vow of silence myself, and through this I learned much."

Maxwell: "I see within you a weariness, playername. Do not worry, for I feel there shall be a light through the darkness someday."

Wigfrid: "I hope you're not getting into too many battles, playername. If you're not careful you may get badly hurt!"

Webber: "Good day, young spiderchild playername. Remember to keep your six-legged friends fed, or they may be trouble!"

Winona: "Remember not to work yourself too hard, playername. Resting when needed helps to create balance in our lives."

Wu Xiu: "Goodness me! You look quite familiar, playername."

 

Dialogue for other characters greeting Wu Xiu:

Wilson: "Oh, it's playername! Could I borrow some healing balms for an experiment?"

Willow: "Hello, playername. Do you think you could fix up Bernie?"

Wolfgang: "Is friendly nomad, playername! Your lantern is good for keeping dark away."

Wendy: "Abigail says you have a good soul playername. A small comfort in this dreary place."

WX-78: "IT IS THE PASSIVE FLESHLING, PLAYERNAME. HOW BORING."

Wickerbottom: "Good day to you, Mr playername. I'm glad to meet a fellow wielder of knowledge."

Woodie: "Hey there playername! How's your day going?"

Maxwell: "Ah, greetings playername. Interesting to meet another who is experienced with magic."

Wigfrid: "It's the noble nomad, playername! I wish you good health!"

Webber: "Hi, Mr playername! We're glad that you are kind to spiders."

Winona: "Heya playername. Alright if I grab your lantern to see how it works?"

Wu Xiu: "Goodness me, you look quite familiar playername!"

Other characters (such as modded ones): "It's the nomad, playername. You're a great help!"

 

Stats:

Health: 160

Hunger: 140

Sanity: 180

 

Perks:

Dislikes fighting, does less damage in combat. Has a higher sanity drain when near bosses with insanity auras. Is burdened more by vanilla armors (is slower when wearing them, especially marble armor), this does not apply to non-armors or items worn in the head slot.

Unable to use certain items that use creature drops: Moggles, piggyback, bee mine, tail o' three cats, gunpowder.

Sanity increases when near other player characters, gets a bigger sanity bonus from friendly pigs/bunnymen and tamed beefalo.

Sanity decreases faster when alone, especially in darkness.

Loses half as much health as default when crafting a telltale heart. Gains half as much sanity when reviving a ghost.

Gets larger sanity debuffs from eating foods that negate sanity. Goes insane when eating deerclops eyeball.

Gets slightly more benefit from plant foods. Has greater debuffs for mushrooms. Gets a sanity as well as health regen from jellybeans.

Can retrieve honey from bee boxes without being attacked by bees (only applies to normal, non-killer bees).

Has an effect similar to Warly with meat foods (example: eats a meaty stew once for full benefit. Second time 75% benefit, etc, down to 25% at the lowest, foods reset after not being eaten for 2 game days).

Loses sanity when killing bunnymen, pigs and butterflies. Goes insane when killing another player (PVP only).

 

Crafting:

Can craft the Explorer's Lantern from 2 lightbulb, 2 gold and 2 hound's teeth. Starts with one in inventory. The special lantern can be fueled by any lantern fuel except fireflies, and can also be fueled by charcoal. It gives off a small amount of heat when lit.  Will repel nearby shadows if it is the only nearby light source.

Can craft a Healer's Balm from 2 honey and 2 glommer's goop. When crafted makes 2, each heals for 60 health when used.

Can craft the Staff of Slumber for 2 living logs, 1 red mushroom and 1 purple gem using a prestihatitator. When used it puts all nearby players to sleep (excluding the caster) for the same duration as a cooked mandrake and provides small health regen in that time. Has 10 uses.

Can craft the Nomad's Backpack for 4 silk and 1 rope. Starts with one equipped. Non-crockpot foods spoil slower in it similar to Warly's chef pouch.

Can craft the Belt of Protection for 2 silk, 2 honey, and 1 yellow gem at a shadow manipulator. Provides a lot of armor but also weakens attacks. Provides immunity to damage from shadows.

Can craft the Silken Saddle for 4 silk, 2 gold and 1 gem of any color at an alchemy engine. Used to saddle and ride tamed Windwyrms.

Can craft an Ancient Egg from 1 tallbird egg, 2 nightmare fuel and 1 desert stone at a shadow manipulator (not in PVP). Acts like a tallbird egg in that it can be hatched to produce a Wyrmling, which eventually grows into a Windwyrm after a number of days. The creature must be protected and fed during this time or it is vulnerable to death. When hungry the growing Wyrmling will make squeaking sounds similar to a hungry smallbird. It can be fed any kind of non-meat food as well as charcoal and ashes which restore a bit more hunger. When fully grown the Windwyrm acts similar to a tamed beefalo; it will follow the player that hatched it and may be ridden with a special saddle. It offers more speed than a ridden beefalo but lower attack damage. Also like a tamed beefalo it must be fed daily or it will eventually enter a "weakened" state which warns it is getting very hungry, and if ignored a day or so after this weakened state begins it will die. A Wyrmling and its later stages provide a sanity aura to any nearby players. Windwyrms can take damage normally but not be attacked by players. They will attack any creatures the player attacks.

On hibernation: This applies during the entirety of winter while the snow is above a certain threshold. A Windwyrm will enter "hibernation" in which it remains stationary, it's scales solidified and darkened so that it looks more like a statue. Once having entered this state a Windwyrm cannot be awoken unless it is fed a thermal stone at the highest temperature. The amount of time the Windwyrm remains awake is determined by the durability of the thermal stone. 100% = 10 days, 75% 7.5 days, etc. While in hibernation a Windwyrm does not need to be fed anything or protected as its stats are frozen.

Special crockpot recipe "Paradise Pudding" made with 2 honey, 1 electric milk and 1 dragon fruit. When cooked it creates 4 non-perishable puddings that can be used to restore 100 sanity, 100 health and 150 hunger for each. When eaten causes a temporary "drowsy" effect similar to when a player has just awoken after eating a cooked mandrake.

I do want to add more stuff and understand more about how this works, so any feedback or suggestions/ideas are appreciated!

Edited July 30, 2018 by Knowledgeable

[Extant]

Congratulations on submitting your first mod idea! It's a pretty ambitious and complex one for your first attempt.

If I were to make a few suggestions, they'd be to tweak the meat food penalty from 1 day reset time to 2 day reset time and to perhaps adjust the amount of thermal stones required to awaken the Windwyrm during winter.

Regarding the meat food penalty, I assume you created this disadvantage to encourage people to mix vegetable dishes along with meat dishes? Probably to go along with the more peaceful character personalty type I suppose.

Having the penalty reset after just 1 day can in theory be ignored should the player stay at full hunger most of the time and eat just 1 meal a day. This is going to assume that his hunger rate drains at the same as Wilson's which is 75 points per day lost. That means a player has to just eat 1 bacon & eggs or 1 honey ham to completely ignore this debuff which is why you should extend the reset timer to 2 days.

As for feeding the Windwyrm 3 thermal stones in winter to keep it awake for 3 days, the cost is far too expensive for anyone to provide. If you meant for the player to never rely on awakening the Windwyrm during winter (unless an emergency occurs), then I guess it's fine. However, if this is an option you wanted players to consider, it'd be best to either cut down on the thermal stone cost, increase the time it's awake for when fed the stones, or both.

3 thermal stones is 15 flint, 30 rocks, and 6 twigs. Flint and rocks are technically renewable, but there's no real way to force-farm them super quickly. That means awakening the Windwyrm at the current cost is not an option for early/mid or even late game unless we talk about several hundreds of days into the world at least. Even less so if there's a Wigfrid on the team and the group prefers to rely on her Battle Helms for armor. That means even more competition for rocks to be used.

[Knowledgeable]

11 hours ago, Extant said:

Congratulations on submitting your first mod idea! It's a pretty ambitious and complex one for your first attempt.

If I were to make a few suggestions, they'd be to tweak the meat food penalty from 1 day reset time to 2 day reset time and to perhaps adjust the amount of thermal stones required to awaken the Windwyrm during winter.

Regarding the meat food penalty, I assume you created this disadvantage to encourage people to mix vegetable dishes along with meat dishes? Probably to go along with the more peaceful character personalty type I suppose.

Having the penalty reset after just 1 day can in theory be ignored should the player stay at full hunger most of the time and eat just 1 meal a day. This is going to assume that his hunger rate drains at the same as Wilson's which is 75 points per day lost. That means a player has to just eat 1 bacon & eggs or 1 honey ham to completely ignore this debuff which is why you should extend the reset timer to 2 days.

Thanks, yeah I just had a lot of ideas built up. I might need help when it actually comes to making this mod art-wise (while I do have a digital drawing tablet I'm not sure if I'd trust myself to be able to draw well enough). But I am somewhat looking forward to the challenge of coding.

Ah I see, yes that makes sense. I guess I will change it to 2 days then.

11 hours ago, Extant said:

As for feeding the Windwyrm 3 thermal stones in winter to keep it awake for 3 days, the cost is far too expensive for anyone to provide. If you meant for the player to never rely on awakening the Windwyrm during winter (unless an emergency occurs), then I guess it's fine. However, if this is an option you wanted players to consider, it'd be best to either cut down on the thermal stone cost, increase the time it's awake for when fed the stones, or both.

3 thermal stones is 15 flint, 30 rocks, and 6 twigs. Flint and rocks are technically renewable, but there's no real way to force-farm them super quickly. That means awakening the Windwyrm at the current cost is not an option for early/mid or even late game unless we talk about several hundreds of days into the world at least. Even less so if there's a Wigfrid on the team and the group prefers to rely on her Battle Helms for armor. That means even more competition for rocks to be used.

Geez, I was tired last night so neglected to calculate the resources needed. Now that I see, yeah, that is waaay too much. Perhaps it would instead be that to awaken it requires only 1 stone, and for every stone fed it will not hibernate for 3 days? 

[Extant]

3 hours ago, Knowledgeable said:

Perhaps it would instead be that to awaken it requires only 1 stone, and for every stone fed it will not hibernate for 3 days? 

That definitely sounds much more reasonable.

Alternatively, you could also keep the heated thermal stone requirement as I liked the idea of a source of warmth being required to awaken the windwyrm from hibernation. Perhaps based on the durability of the thermal stone it'd stay awake for differing periods of time?

100% thermal stone = full winter length awake

87.5% = 14 days awake

75% = 12 days awake

Subtracting 2 days per durability loss on the stone each time etc...

[Knowledgeable]

2 minutes ago, Extant said:

That definitely sounds much more reasonable.

Alternatively, you could also keep the heated thermal stone requirement as I liked the idea of a source of warmth being required to awaken the windwyrm from hibernation. Perhaps based on the durability of the thermal stone it'd stay awake for differing periods of time?

100% thermal stone = full winter length awake

87.5% = 14 days awake

75% = 12 days awake

Subtracting 2 days per durability loss on the stone each time etc...

Hmm durability sounds like a good idea. Yes, the stone must be at full heat or it cannot be fed to the windwyrm. Also, I have begun making progress on this mod by starting with Wu Xiu's speech file. There is a lot of dialogue to add but I'm having fun so far

Have you got any more advice about stuff, or ideas to add? I'm thinking of some item like Bernie that would help when someone is at low sanity.

[Extant]

5 minutes ago, Knowledgeable said:

I'm thinking of some item like Bernie that would help when someone is at low sanity.

Instead of adding a new item, perhaps you could tweak some of the existing ones?

Maybe the explorer's lantern can repel shadow creatures during the night time when it's the only source of light within the lantern's radius.

The belt of protection could also absorb 100% of the damage taken from shadow creatures while blocking a high amount of damage from other enemies. Also, you should cut the amount of different materials needed to craft it to 3. I don't know much about modding, but the crafting menu by default only has up to 3 different items max per crafting item.

[Knowledgeable]

6 minutes ago, Extant said:

Instead of adding a new item, perhaps you could tweak some of the existing ones?

Maybe the explorer's lantern can repel shadow creatures during the night time when it's the only source of light within the lantern's radius.

The belt of protection could also absorb 100% of the damage taken from shadow creatures while blocking a high amount of damage from other enemies. Also, you should cut the amount of different materials needed to craft it to 3. I don't know much about modding, but the crafting menu by default only has up to 3 different items max per crafting item.

Good ideas! Ah ok, I didn't know that oops. Yeah that sounds like a good idea, any shadows coming within radius are repelled by the lantern. Thanks for the contributions! Do you have any suggestions on the art/animation side of things? Of course I do want to have the art style as close to DS style as I can.

[Extant]

Unfortunately, I don't really have a whole lot of experience with art and animation.

The best advice I can give there is use as much reference as you can! Not just for your character, but for the items, too. Look at things like the night light, nightmare light, lantern, etc. References will help greatly.

I think there's a DST character mod tutorial mod out there (yes a mod on the workshop that comes with a character template and a tutorial to help you learn how to do a character mod in DST). That can help you to learn about the animation I guess.

Also, try looking at some of Tim Burton's works on YouTube. I'm pretty sure the art style from DST heavily drew from his art style. That'll definitely help as well.

Best of luck on your project! I've had a lot of projects in the past (not concerning DST but just hobby projects in general) that I started but never really finished. Don't forget that sometimes a break can help to refresh your creative spark!

[Knowledgeable]

1 hour ago, Extant said:

Unfortunately, I don't really have a whole lot of experience with art and animation.

The best advice I can give there is use as much reference as you can! Not just for your character, but for the items, too. Look at things like the night light, nightmare light, lantern, etc. References will help greatly.

I think there's a DST character mod tutorial mod out there (yes a mod on the workshop that comes with a character template and a tutorial to help you learn how to do a character mod in DST). That can help you to learn about the animation I guess.

Also, try looking at some of Tim Burton's works on YouTube. I'm pretty sure the art style from DST heavily drew from his art style. That'll definitely help as well.

Best of luck on your project! I've had a lot of projects in the past (not concerning DST but just hobby projects in general) that I started but never really finished. Don't forget that sometimes a break can help to refresh your creative spark!

Yeah I do often draw with references. What mostly makes me nervous is doing the drawings with adequate scale and texture. Also the animation end because I've never really tried animation before. To give you an idea of my skill, the pic used for my avatar is the top part of a digital drawing I did with a reference. Here is the full pic:

(Yes, for you Half-Life fans I know the suitcase is in the wrong hand... I didn't realize until it was done and flipped the image looked weird,)

I've watched plenty of Tim Burton stuff so I am familiar with the sort of cartoony/spooky/dreary style of his. I have started poking through lua code, learning as I go. I started by looking at the files of the shipwrecked character mod and trying to understand how it all works.

[Knowledgeable]

On 7/27/2018 at 4:43 PM, Extant said:

Unfortunately, I don't really have a whole lot of experience with art and animation.

The best advice I can give there is use as much reference as you can! Not just for your character, but for the items, too. Look at things like the night light, nightmare light, lantern, etc. References will help greatly.

I think there's a DST character mod tutorial mod out there (yes a mod on the workshop that comes with a character template and a tutorial to help you learn how to do a character mod in DST). That can help you to learn about the animation I guess.

Also, try looking at some of Tim Burton's works on YouTube. I'm pretty sure the art style from DST heavily drew from his art style. That'll definitely help as well.

Best of luck on your project! I've had a lot of projects in the past (not concerning DST but just hobby projects in general) that I started but never really finished. Don't forget that sometimes a break can help to refresh your creative spark!

Behold, the character portrait! Worked on this for a few hours using GIMP, what do you think?

[Extant]

7 minutes ago, Knowledgeable said:

Behold, the character portrait! Worked on this for a few hours using GIMP, what do you think?

Very nice! I think it came along pretty well. The only thing that could make it more consistent with DST's art style is perhaps making the skin tone a bit more on the pale side.

When looking at the default character portraits, all their skin is pretty close to grey almost. Other than that, it's a great start.

[Knowledgeable]

4 minutes ago, Extant said:

Very nice! I think it came along pretty well. The only thing that could make it more consistent with DST's art style is perhaps making the skin tone a bit more on the pale side.

When looking at the default character portraits, all their skin is pretty close to grey almost. Other than that, it's a great start.

Thanks!  Ah yes, I see what you mean. I was so carried away I didn't check the skin tone much, oops. I'll see what I can do.

I just hope the in-game character turns out as well, considering it's gonna be animated. I think I should be able to do the item images alright. As for the windwyrm... well, I've decided that I'll tackle that after everything else. It won't be easy making an entirely new creature. I think if I get this mod complete except the windwyrm I will release it as a beta, and the windwyrm will come as an update.

[Extant]

Taking things 1 step at a time is vital for completing a bigger project! Trying to handle everything at once almost never works out.

Good luck and I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out eventually if you persist.

[Knowledgeable]

5 hours ago, Extant said:

Taking things 1 step at a time is vital for completing a bigger project! Trying to handle everything at once almost never works out.

Good luck and I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out eventually if you persist.

I try to, I know how difficult it is to do something all at once. I have begun work on the in-game animation files for Wu, and as of now I have the outline of the head base and the default face done. The arms/legs/hands/feet should be easy as all I have to do is grab the default ones and add some colors. Once Wu's animation files are finished I'll move on to drawing the item inventory images and then their animated images. 

After that is done I will make the sound files and from then just work more on the coding. Speaking of sound files, any idea for what instrument Wu should have for his voice? I've been thinking some sort of Chinese/Mongolian string instrument like a liuqin but I'm open to suggestions so long as it fits.

[Knowledgeable]

13 hours ago, Extant said:

Taking things 1 step at a time is vital for completing a bigger project! Trying to handle everything at once almost never works out.

Good luck and I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out eventually if you persist.

I pulled an all-nighter and finished all of Wu's animation arts. Let me tell you, it was fun at first but is very monotonous after a while. I found the perfect brush to use, which was oils 1 (I feel dumb) so I may go over the portrait with it sometime. I've been too burned out to try animating it yet. Still, enjoy this teaser in which Wu's expressions reflects my gradual decline.

 

Also updated the skin hue on the portrait:

Does it look better?

Edited July 28, 2018 by Knowledgeable

[Extant]

39 minutes ago, Knowledgeable said:

I pulled an all-nighter and finished all of Wu's animation arts. Let me tell you, it was fun at first but is very monotonous after a while. I found the perfect brush to use, which was oils 1 (I feel dumb) so I may go over the portrait with it sometime. I've been too burned out to try animating it yet. Still, enjoy this teaser in which Wu's expressions reflects my gradual decline.

 

Also updated the skin hue on the portrait:

Does it look better?

Wow, good job! All-nighters are vicious as I'd know. They turned out great and the new skin tone fits a lot better now.

Also, a liuqin sounds like a good first choice for the sound files. You could always change it later if you found a more fitting instrument I suppose but it's probably a great fit for this character/personality so far.

Don't forget to take a break every now and then or you'll be too tired to pump out quality effort at which point it'll just become passionless quantity.

[Knowledgeable]

12 hours ago, Extant said:

Wow, good job! All-nighters are vicious as I'd know. They turned out great and the new skin tone fits a lot better now.

Also, a liuqin sounds like a good first choice for the sound files. You could always change it later if you found a more fitting instrument I suppose but it's probably a great fit for this character/personality so far.

Don't forget to take a break every now and then or you'll be too tired to pump out quality effort at which point it'll just become passionless quantity.

I don't do all nighters often, but whenever I do I end up falling asleep halfway through the next day usually. Good good, I'll have a look around for some tracks I can use for sound material.

I am taking a bit of a break tomorrow, haha. I cobbled this together in spriter btw with the character animations template:

This is an example of what I'm hoping for Wu to look like ingame, if everything works out. Still haven't tried animating it yet.

[Knowledgeable]

Have a listen y'all, I've finished Wu's sound files.

Yes, I did compile them into an fsb and fev, and he does have more ghost and voice sounds. This is just a teaser

deathsound.wav

emotesound.wav

yawnsound.wav

voice1.wav

posesound.wav

hurt1.wav

hurt2.wav

hurt3.wav

ghost1.wav

Edited August 1, 2018 by Knowledgeable