by Krantarin » Wed Jul 15, 2009 7:45 pm Dondy wrote: This is just the way I picture it.
As well as the options invite, kin chat etc the option "Proposition" is available. If the offer is accepted and if the parties are one male and one female and if the male does not equip intestines then the female has a one in ten chance of getting pregnant.
Pregnancy reduces her speed to a slow run and ups her food requirements for several hours.
Birth is a hit point risk event that usually goes off with no damage but has a small chance of knocking her back some percentage of her hit points. At that point a baby (two vertical squares) appears in the woman's inventory. She can put it down and walk away if she cares to, or give it to someone else. If she went to the trouble of making it, most likely she will keep it.
The baby has a food bar and requires feeding. As long as it stays in the mother's inventory or in her baby sling (new item similar to quiver and backpack) it gets fed automatically but her food requirements stay higher during this period until the baby has gone through 100 food events. If someone other than the mother has the baby they can also feed it, using milk.
After 100 food events the baby becomes a toddler. At that point as soon as it is removed from the inventory or sling a new graphic appears.
Dondy wrote:Toddlers:
The toddler has a follow function linked to the number of food events it has received. It will move randomly about within a few tiles of the mother or other caretakers but can get hung up on a rat or a stump and left behind. If she moves off it will try to follow. Anyone who has fed a toddler is automatically in party with the toddler and can see the arrow showing which way the lost urchin is located. It will try to follow whoever has fed it the most, the mother presumably having an 100 unit advantage (maternal-infant bond)
The toddler must be fed, but any regular food will do. If it is not fed it will die. Similarly it can be killed by a fox or bear or boar... or even a griefer, but the new skill "Infanticide" is required and means that a special black arrow always points towards someone who has the skill -similar to the arrows you see to find party members or the toddler. Everyone can see this arrow if the character with the infanticide skill is logged on. The infanticide skill takes 100,000 lp to get.
Toddlers can be picked up using lift. They can be left in a house so they can't wander when the parent needs to hunt.
For a toddler to grow up it requires 500 additional units of food. The stats the toddler has will be based on the amount of time it has spent on the various sorts of tiles. The more variety in tiles and the longer time the higher the stats of the eventual child. Time spent in farmed tiles will increase the child's later nature stats, time spend in mine tiles will increase the child's later industry stats. Time in forests will increase the child's later hunting bonuses etc. This means that the parents will want to provide the child with an enriched environment.
Dondy wrote:Children:
When the toddler has gotten enough food and experience it will become a child. The child can be played as an alt of the main character (whoever has supplied the most food) and if the main character is killed or retired will inherit all the main's attribute's, hearth etc. This is how players who are all change can have reincarnation.
The child initially is smaller than a ordinary new character and for the first period of time operates with a weakness percentage. Chipping stone for example will take longer. When a child character clicks on a tree the options "take branch" and "pick apple" may not occur, since the child is short and cannot reach. On the other hand the child is also light so most of the time this does not happen, and the child character also has the option "climb tree" A child who has climbed a tree is safe from boars and foxes and doesn't have to try to hide behind the tree because he or she can shelter in it. Bears though can get the child in the tree. They can climb or shake the hapless child out.
After a sufficient number of food events and lp the child becomes an adult and gets the same graphic as a regular character.
The big bonus of running a child character is that... If the child has the nature bonus from time spent in farming tiles it can move one more slot deeper towards nature than an ordinary character. And if the child has the industry bonus as well, the industry penalty is one two or three less than it would be, with the result that a child who had a fully enriched toddlerhood can be both nature and industry at the same time. Raising a child is a way of getting a character with even better stats than the normal character.
I think that this is a huge idea, and should be highly considered by the devs, with perhaps one big change. Children should be able to receive beliefs and skills from their parent, but not attributes.
