Babies, the Government, and You.
Added 2018-10-21 05:35:12 +0000 UTCIt's time for the post on the topic you chose, which you can read right over here!
Comments
>30 in the first year. that's gotta be with rapid gestation and all the crazy mutators; there's no way one belly could possibly gestate 30 in one go and not cause problems. i'd love to know some more about the range of numbers of babies born in a single pregnancy vs what mutators/factors are required (like what would be necessary for 1 baby, 4 babies, 6, 8, 10, etc.). but then again, maybe it'd be better to keep it as a surprise.
nick
2018-10-21 23:34:05 +0000 UTCAlright, I'm new to your game - I just get annoyed when people bump up pregnancy like yes it's easy to get pregnant - no you won't get someone pregnant every time you stick your dick into them.
TheMGA
2018-10-21 23:31:18 +0000 UTCof course!
ThaumX
2018-10-21 22:30:11 +0000 UTCDon't worry TheMGA, I've got this covered ;) There's actually a huge guide explaining the fertility system in the game's encyclopedia. I also just re-posted some older (and giant) posts on the topic to the new dev blog, if you want to check them out :D
ThaumX
2018-10-21 22:29:54 +0000 UTCI'm thinking that by having the player's children at the ARC, they can still be involved in random events, as well as more general spending-time activities, but more on the player's terms. I do like your idea of of variable interaction with the slider bar. My son's daycare is connected to an app that basically reports on what's going on during his day, and it's pretty neat. Perhaps adding something similar to AW would help players remain connected to babies, without adding boring mandatory chores... We could just have a setting to control how often the ARC App reports on the kids. I'll definitely keep thinking about it. One thing that really concerns me about childcare is the possible quantity of babies involved. While not necessarily typical, it should be possible to have 30 or more children in the first year. A single baby is a TON of work, though worth it (in my opinion), but even just 5 or 6 at once would be overwhelming.
ThaumX
2018-10-21 21:52:04 +0000 UTC:D
ThaumX
2018-10-21 21:41:36 +0000 UTCi think most of the framework for all you have described is already in the game, or thaum has the design figured out. for the sake of fun, though, too much realism could hurt the game's fantasy. also you're forgetting that this is the fictional (+pervy) world of appletree; all manner of nonsensical sexual things exist- for the benefit of the player, of course.
nick
2018-10-21 21:33:24 +0000 UTCIf you're looking for realism and doing things right, you would have to figure out the individual menstruation cycle for each girl within the game, defining them by being regular (every 28 days or four weeks from an arbitrary point) to being irregular (anywhere from 14-56 days or twice a month to once every 4 months). Once you have that pattern figured out you will know when each woman gets her period, but more importantly you will know when they ovulate. Women can only get pregnant during ovulation. So if you are looking to implement a realistic pregnancy you will need to know when the girl is ovulating and detect whether or not there is living/viable sperm within her. You would then need to do a random check based off of her individual fertility score, where some women can't get pregnant at all and others are very fertile and may be able to create a viable fetus after every attempt, and everything in between from very easy to very difficult. Basically, assuming a regular cycle, a woman will begin ovulating for about 3 days before she releases an egg. Once the egg is released it needs to be met with sperm, if not the egg will pass through and the women will begin he period shortly after. Importantly the egg can only last a few minutes up to an hour unfertilized within the womb, you do not have sex during the time the egg is released (generally) but rather during ovulation. Sperm can live up to three days within the womb in this way, so this will be the time you will have to look at. To implement it, it's easy, whenever the player engages in heterosexual-vaginal intercourse set a variable between 1 and 3 (this will mark how long the sperm will be alive within the womb, this can be random or based off of her fertility, the sperm's potency etc.). Each day decrease that variable by 1 down to 0. Then when the girl releases her egg you see if the sperm variable is greater than 0. If it is then you know living sperm is available to inseminate the egg. You can then run a check based off the girl's fertility modifier to see if her body accepts the newly inseminated egg, and if so she can become pregnant. How you handle miscarriage, and whether or not the woman is a good "host" is up to you and is it's own subject (aka she doesn't smoke or drink during the pregnancy, eats properly, etc.).
TheMGA
2018-10-21 17:09:55 +0000 UTCthe creche sounds like a very good idea for storing babies. if players don't want to take care of any children they make, they shouldn't be forced to- especially if it isn't entertaining for them. i guess it also depends on the rate at which children are created, and how many in a single pregnancy (i'm hoping for a lot). i do worry about things getting out of hand with an increasing number of offspring to look after... it would make sense within the story for the player character (or anyone in appletree) to be in no way prepared to care for too many children, so an option to co-parent them with the friendly/invasive appletree forces is a very safe bet (but what about the father in this decision?). that said, how could taking care of babies be made fun in the game? actively taking care of a child could be seen as a maintenance game/chore, which i doubt anybody wants. i imagine a player would like to have a variable amount of interaction with their children as they play. being able to change that value at any time is a good idea, in my opinion (like a slider bar). so having a minimal interaction would be an automated system that simply trickle feeds you important/routine updates about your children as you play on without them. it assumes they are being well taken care of by you/whoever, and it entirely removes the hard maintenance side of an active parenting. if players want to spend more time with their children, though, there could be an 'opt in' feature within the story to increase the level of interaction any time, up to a certain limit within the gameplay. a greater variety/amount of interaction could be added later once the framework is in place. having a few random events pop up every now and then that need your attention could also be fun (in terms of emulating being a mum to a child you gave birth to, compared to previously being a man). maybe. i'd love to be required to take a more active role as the mother figure, rather than just hand the baby off and be allowed to forget about it. that's all from me for now. hopefully any of it will create some helpful discussion.
nick
2018-10-21 07:29:17 +0000 UTCThis keeps getting better and better!
Bal tha mele
2018-10-21 06:16:32 +0000 UTC
