How do I make this mod happen if I'm not making it?

[Drazhya]

I was looking at the Vanilla Expanded Anima Retexture for Gauranlen trees, reading how it was made because the guy didn't like having two special magic tree kinds in the sci-fi game. Thinking about it, I realized that it bothered me a bit too, but the retexture didn't settle it for me; I want both of them as distinctly different, but more related to each other. So I've hammered out an outline for my preferred solution.

Magical Forests mod

Anima trees produce dryads like gauranlen trees, but take longer to tend to, and their dryads grow and change slower. Anima combat pets are also stronger than gauranlen combat pets (and, again, take longer to replace). Medicinemakers are anima dryads and berrymakers are gauranlen dryads. Anima woodmakers produce anima wood, which cannot be used for some things normal wood can be used for (particularly for burning), but is generally stronger. Anima haulers are faster and carry less per trip, will follow the tree tender when drafted and will defend them if approached, but cannot be released into combat, and will slow the bleeding of nearby pawns. Anima haulers are poor combatants.

Anima trees do not spawn on the map. Instead, several anima sprouts spawn. If left unattended, they will eventually disappear and be replaced by new ones elsewhere. A pawn can connect to an anima sprout like a gauranlen tree, in which case it will eventually grow into a full anima tree. With the Tree Connection meme, anima trees can be made to produce animamaker dryads. Rather than combine into pods and then seeds, they can be directed to plant themselves, becoming anima sprouts.
Gauranlen pods also do not spawn on the map. Instead, world locations called Gauranlen Groves can be discovered via ideology ritual, which you can then travel to and will have trees and pods. Gauranlen seeds will also be available from tribal shaman traders and tribal settlements.

Anima trees stay connected to their pawn. They grow anima grass like gauranlens do moss, which has no effect beyond beauty. If the tree is tended to at least 60%, meditating at the tree will produce charged anima grass, which can be consumed for psylink levels like vanilla anima grass.
Gauranlen tree tending counts as meditation of the natural type, increasing psyfocus for pawns with the natural type, and will also give the tender psilink levels at a rate of about 1 per year, up to a maximum of level 2.

The nearby construction penalty can be negated on both anima and gauranlen trees. If an anima/gauranlen tree is closer to another tree of the same type than any construction, 20% of the penalty is negated. For every tree of the same type within 14 tiles, 20% of the penalty is negated, to a maximum of 80%. Like gauranlen trees, anima trees cannot be planted within 4 tiles of each other. So for example, an anima tree within 5 tiles of 4 other anima trees and with the nearest construction at 6 tiles away takes no penalty to tending or meditation.
Gauranlen and anima trees do not benefit from being close to each other (if only because their colors clash badly).

The two objectives of this mod are:
1. Make Anima and Gauranlen trees clearly related but still very distinct from each other - perhaps it was divergent evolution in the distant past, or perhaps they were created as variants of each other by the same intelligence.
2. More-or-less negate the basebuilding restriction/penalty if you have a small forest of them. The trees are okay with being constrained if they're not alone, and okay with being alone if they're not constrained, but not both.

So anima trees are generally the bigger trees with stronger effects, but take more effort and are slower. You can go all the way with psilinks with them, but it's a whole process, and investing heavily in their dryads is harder to justify. The anima trees form a worldwide network, sprouting everywhere, but rarely grow significantly without a psychic connection. You have some choice as to where they will be, but no real precision without the Tree Connection meme and connecting to one.
Gauranlen trees have lesser effects for less effort. Gauranlen connections provide abundant psychic energy but do not provide access to high-level powers, and cannot give psilinks to more than their one pawn. Maintaining a bunch of dryads is much easier with them than anima trees, and their dryads will generally be more useful for their investment. They're localized and reproduce more like typical plants, and you'll need to find them, rather than pulling them from the ground anywhere (except Tree Connection colonies can summon pods via ritual - as with finding abandoned complexes by having a great dance, this is mostly a gameplay abstraction).

Though really, the part of this I want most is the change to their spawning - having exactly one anima tree on every map is incongruous, and have no control over it's placement is frustrating. Similarly with +1 gauranlen pod per year with no discoverable trees. It's far more mechanical in it's implementation than magic trees should be.

[brian_va]

with certainty? finance it

[Astasia]

Ya, to be completely honest if you are asking how to do it likely the only realistic option is to find a modder that does commissioned mods and pay them to make it for you. The complexity of what you want to do is too high for somebody to be able to walk you through it, and if you want to do it yourself you are going to have to learn how to program, and well, because those aren't XML tweaks.

I will say, the Vanilla Expanded team was commissioned to make a biome mod called the Anima Forest, which may have satisfied some of your wants. All mentions of it being worked on seem to disappear like a year ago and I assume it was abandoned. I suspect the roadmap update that mentions this is one locked behind a paywall on Oskar's Patreon.

Some aspects of what you want can sort of be done with existing mods and scenario settings. I don't believe maps are hard capped to having 1 anima tree, there is a scenario event that spawns an anima tree which you can force to run and I assume it will lead to extra anima trees on your map (I'm also quite confident you can dev mode more in). Similarly you can force dryad tree pods to spawn with a scenario event trigger, on top of the ideology ritual methods. There are mods which reduce the building interference radius around anima and dryad trees. There are mods that allow you to replant anima and dryad trees.

[whatamidoing]

Originally posted by Astasia:

I will say, the Vanilla Expanded team was commissioned to make a biome mod called the Anima Forest, which may have satisfied some of your wants. All mentions of it being worked on seem to disappear like a year ago and I assume it was abandoned. I suspect the roadmap update that mentions this is one locked behind a paywall on Oskar's Patreon.

Latest update I can see is https://www.patreon.com/posts/roadmap-march-48118951

Regrowth - Anima Forest has spent a long time on a backburner. It was originally commissioned by a Patron who was okay with it being low-priority. We have however made significant progress on it, and the only thing that's left is the special mechanics surrounding the forest - everything else is already in the game, coded and drawn. Once one of our programmers becomes available, we will make sure this mod is wrapped up and finished.

from March '21.

[Zalzany]

You want it, but can't make it, only option is pay some one who can to make it. I mean there is no other way you can't start a go work for free for me page and collect signatures and force some one who can program to do it for you lol. Best way either make a pal who can, and butter them up with other kinds of payments, or find stranger and work out a contract for pay for it. Otherwise no you not getting it.

Same thing if you got a killer game idea, and access to an engine but can't prrogram, you got find some one and work out a deal and get sign a contract to build it for you. Any one who works for free for other peoples stuff is just crazy. But I seen people try going "I got x amount of people want to see this done, come work for free I take all the credit, but you get 'exposure' as the code monkey, and artists who made my vision come true!" Its like that is giant red flag lol.

I saw some do that in my schools art discord server, we got spot for job openings to be linked sure enough people were spaming "work for exposure" jobs lol Its no kids stay away they gonna sell your work for money and you be burried so deep in a readme no one will know who you are lol. Like last one wanted artists, programers, writers and voice actors. Its like what in world are you providing you asked for every thing but marketing, and sound engineer...

[Astasia]

Originally posted by whatamidoing:

Originally posted by Astasia:

I will say, the Vanilla Expanded team was commissioned to make a biome mod called the Anima Forest, which may have satisfied some of your wants. All mentions of it being worked on seem to disappear like a year ago and I assume it was abandoned. I suspect the roadmap update that mentions this is one locked behind a paywall on Oskar's Patreon.

Latest update I can see is https://www.patreon.com/posts/roadmap-march-48118951

Regrowth - Anima Forest has spent a long time on a backburner. It was originally commissioned by a Patron who was okay with it being low-priority. We have however made significant progress on it, and the only thing that's left is the special mechanics surrounding the forest - everything else is already in the game, coded and drawn. Once one of our programmers becomes available, we will make sure this mod is wrapped up and finished.

from March '21.

Ya that's what I could find as well. There's another roadmap posted in April 2021 which is locked to backers, then the roadmap in May 2021 and beyond makes no mention of Anima Forest anymore. My assumption was, if they announced the cancellation anywhere, it was in that April 2021 roadmap. Otherwise it was probably just quietly dropped, or maybe it's still on the backburner and they just stopped feeling the need to update people on the progress. It was one I was looking forward to though.