Pregnancy and Birth

[Budly]

This thread is just for ideas with giving birth without nests. If you want to know why I'm specifically looking for ideas, there's a long rambling thing(not really a rant) between this explanation and the actual ideas. If you're not interested in reading the long rambling thing, skip to the end

[Start]
At the current moment, there are two things about Niche that makes the animals feel a lil less like mammals: Infant under his mother will never grow beyond 1 gem until moved, and an expectant mother will never give birth outside of a nest.

The infant one is, while it can be annoying sometimes if you forget to move them or their mother, ultimately pretty insignificant and can be forgiven thanks to the "One animal per tile" rule (Small animal + big animal exception applied)

The pregnancy one, that depends on who your talk to.
In every build before 0.1.7, ultimately understandable. A main strategy when you don't have a lot of food in the immediate area is to spam offspring every chance you get until your tribe can afford to push out into a territory with more food. I personally see this as a fault, because many animals in a situation where they want to move on to find more food will move on to find more food, but a lot of times players are forced to keep their animals in a pretty bad spot because they can't move on without sacrificing the key ability to give birth.
BUT, this is a survival game, so I can accept it as a neccissary evil because, as said before, spamming babies and just not moving them until you have to is a main strategy and the best way to not die out. Even if I personally feel that restricting birth to nests is a pretty artifical way to limit the player's population, for now it's one of the few ways to do so beyond spamming them with carnivors left and right.

Now enter 0.1.7. For people who haven't played and haven't seen the thread, the newest beta test build makes it so your animals can move as many times as they want, with a total of four moves, two action points refill once a day, and the food is spent once you end the turn based on the number of animals you have (1 food each). Love, hate, or feel neutral to these new changes, your tribes numbers are now restricted to how much food they can gather up.

So it begs the question, why should birth be limitted to a random nests? Of course, the 1 food per animal may not stick around, but if it does it already regulates your population. You don't have enough food, someone starves; you keep not having enough food, someone dies, maybe multiple someones die, and spamming babies is ultimately a death sentence for your tribe if you can't afford it. So why keep births limitted to a random nest?

And the question exists because all animals are dependant on two things: Food, and having children. Now the game has made it so these animals are dependant on food, but now their other valuable resource is still unneededly artificially restricted. I only bring this up because sometimes, nests can be in spots that aren't very close to food, and food can be in spots half an island away from the nearest nest. Now if I wanted to, and I do, want to play these animals like they move on to find food when their's becomes scarce, I cant because I'd also be abandoning their only way to have more children (unless I can quickly find another nest as I go). So the only ones going out I either never plan to breed or are young males.
[End]

So here are a few or my ideas and the ideas from the people in this thread and a few other threads, I'm only making this one so specific from the Pinned suggestion thread because of how important this mechanic is.

-----Gestation Period-----
-----Mothers will give birth after a number of days regardless of where she is and what she's doing

-The random nests are still around, but they're a luxary item oppose to a neccessity

-The mother needs to clean her child outside of the nest or risk attracting predators (Blood = Preds track it down)

-The mother and child risk being injured outside of a nest when she's giving birth (The original idea was that the mother would die, but it is very rare for mothers to die outside of a place they chose to "nest" in even when that animal is completely alone, and I don't think many people would appreciate having a favorite die just because some Horny Male impregnated them or they just didn't know it was time)

-The child risks being still born or sick when born in unexamined tiles (The original idea was that the child risked these things just being born outside of a nest, and while I'm not sure how rare that actually is I personally don't think a birth in an animal's own territory should risk such an extreme negative just because of nests they can't even make themselves)
(Sickness outside of a nest should probably have a higher chance of happening for the newborn)

-A mother outside of a nest has to stay on the same tile or next to the tile their newborn is on, or the newborn will take starvation damage (This is because of nursing, a safe nest would probably make the newborn less fussy as eaters so the mother could move on sooner than a mother with her child in some random spot)

-----Nesting-----
-Nests can be moved

-Nests can be crafted as much as you want, but also destroyed from overuse and other animals

-Only a certain amount of nests can be made based on the number of animals in the tribe

-Nests as a luxary item make childbearing less demanding on the mother (Lower chance of sickness, no attracting predators, mother can move away from newborn right after birth)

-Nests as a luxary item allow children to be born the turn after the mother gets into it, instead of waiting through the pregnancy (Because video game)

[mbiggiani]

I think nests kind of serve as a limiting factor to overpopulation. They prevent you from having 10 babies at once, for example.

[Derro]

Originally posted by mbiggiani:

I think nests kind of serve as a limiting factor to overpopulation. They prevent you from having 10 babies at once, for example.

That's true, however, I do believe the new food upkeep system has made nests almost redundant as you don't want to increase population size to a great extent.

[Budly]

Originally posted by mbiggiani:

I think nests kind of serve as a limiting factor to overpopulation. They prevent you from having 10 babies at once, for example.

I'm fine with nests how they are in versions of the game where moving = eating/starving. The ideas are for if the new system in the Beta Test Branch stays and is implemented in the main game, 1 animal = 1 food used.

Example: If your island or territory can only feed a population of 20, once you go over that number, the animals that aren't prioritized by you or the game starve to death within roughly 5 or 6 turns(For very young adults, fewer turns for older, not sure about newborns). So in this case the nests not only limit how many kids you can have, but how far you can go for more food if a new one doesn't pop up near those new food sources.

[tove96]

I feel like this new system's gonna be awesome. Can't wait to see it.

[the5thhorseman]

I have mixed feelings on a gestation period. I feel like this may cause a lot of accidental babies born with mutations from the mutation menu that you didn't intend. I perfer the idea of having births still linked to nests but the ability to create new nests instead of giving birth after a set amount of days.

[Budly]

Originally posted by littlelordess:

I have mixed feelings on a gestation period. I feel like this may cause a lot of accidental babies born with mutations from the mutation menu that you didn't intend. I perfer the idea of having births still linked to nests but the ability to create new nests instead of giving birth after a set amount of days.

I'm honestly one of the people who never use the mutation menu unless I'm getting a bunch of no paws and blind kids born, and even then I don't like using it too often, so it doesn't effect me an aweful too much (though I can see how it'd be an annoyance when you want something specific), but the way mutations are handled are also being looked at so it's a little more realistic anyway, and I honestly have no idea where the game will be by the end of its developement so I just feel like telling the developers what we want is the best way to make the game something people will love.

I do think there should be different modes for different kinds of players; the breeders, biologists, and survivalists want different things from the same kind of game, after all.

[Ash]

I think being able to give birth after several days, AND having abilities to make nests would be awesome. Like, pregnant females that won't give birth until they're on the nest? I personally feel uncomfortable leaving a pregnant nicheling wandering for a long time because there weren't any nests to use. I've heard some people get their females pregnant so that the Horny Males couldn't get them. I think this could turn into a challenge, since Horny Males won't be any threats if we keep the current system.

And I love the being able to make nests idea, too. Yes, the overpopulation is curbed thanks to the new food system, we should be able to get chances to build nests. Though the details I'm not sure... They all sound pretty good to me :) I'm sure the devs would be able to pick a good strategy for us.

[the5thhorseman]

Originally posted by Stud:

I'm honestly one of the people who never use the mutation menu unless I'm getting a bunch of no paws and blind kids born, and even then I don't like using it too often, so it doesn't effect me an aweful too much (though I can see how it'd be an annoyance when you want something specific), but the way mutations are handled are also being looked at so it's a little more realistic anyway, and I honestly have no idea where the game will be by the end of its developement so I just feel like telling the developers what we want is the best way to make the game something people will love.

I do think there should be different modes for different kinds of players; the breeders, biologists, and survivalists want different things from the same kind of game, after all.

If the way the mutations are handled change, giving birth outside of the nest wouldn't be a big deal to me at that point. I use the mutation menu for every birth to cultivate certain lines when I'm breeding them to add/keep traits I want in my creatures. I'd still want control over the menu and the birth if they contuine to stay linked.

I agree that different modes would be really fun. A foodless sandbox type that focused on breeding would really interest me. I'm a varied player in the game. I love the breeding new creatures but the surival/genetic fitness is what made me interested in the game.

If we build nests, I think it should come at a cost like chopping down the berry bushes with your clawed creature for materials and then have a creature that has collecting ability gather the material for a nest. It limits your food but you get the nest (and the bushes grow back). I think it'd be a somewhat realistic way to gather the wood/brush you'd need to build the nest.