Duckies [ModContest1]
Adds duck nests and houses that spawn ambient ducks. Boosts crops as an alternative to beehives.
Duckies adds a set of two Food buildings available to both factions. Both are below 1 tile in height and can be built over, as shown in images 5 and 6 (under platforms with a lamp and farmhouse on top).
Both buildings CAN be placed underwater — allowing you to have hidden growth boosters under a farmouse or other building — but then you’re missing out on seeing the ‘house’ for the ducks in the area.
Beavers have an important mutalistic relationship with many other animals in and around the waterways they occupy. One of the most important allies of beavers are waterfowl. Waterfowl have largely disappeared in the post-hooman world of Timberborn, but slowly but surely they may return!
This new type of waterfowl that has begun to appear around colonies shows no ill effects from exposure to badwater. They do no harm to our crops, and in fact their presence has a positive effect: they eat pests and provide fertilizer, particularly nitrates. I theorize that as their numbers grow they will depart our immediate vicinity and help to re-establish life in the decimated wastes.
– Professor and Scholar Castoria Oides
How do the ducks have zero sickness from badwater?
Some say it’s because of the oily coating on their feathers, and a robust digestive system adapted to the rigours of this harsh post-devastation environment.
The superstitious whisper that it’s a blessing to them from the Great Welkin Duck, a mystical duck entity whose realm includes the sky and the metaphysical space beneath the roots of the world.
- The vanilla beehive boosts 39 crops by 30% over a daily cycle, resulting in a boost of 43% overall.
- The duck nest boosts all 48 crops in its radius by 22.5% instead, resulting in an overall boost of 29%, but consistent across the entire field.
- The duck house boosts 182 of its 192 crops by 26.5%, resulting in an overall boost of 35.6%, but without needing any other structure to boost that field.
The Duckies buildings are intended to be slightly weaker, but with the benefit of having zero bee sting risk, and in the case of the house, a wider range.
Plus, duckies!
The ducks are spawned similarly to the beehive bees, and will roam the area around their nest/house.
The duck nest is equivalent to the beehive, but more suitable for water crops. No longer must your Folktails have their hives teetering perilously on the edge of a single platform in the middle of an aquatic crop field! It is a Common building available to any faction.
The nest applies its boost more consistently across the entire field, rather than leaving some unboosted as the beehive does.
Size: 1×1
Radius: 7×7 (48 crop tiles)
Growth boost: 29% to 4 plants every 2 hours (48 plants per cycle) (as opposed to beehive’s 30% to 3 plants)
A larger and more refined facility for your ducks, the duck house has twice the radius – the equivalent of 4 beehives. However, it takes up 4 tiles in the centre of your field rather than 1. Folktails and IronTeeth each have their own version.
The house applies its boost to around 90% of its field – not all of it, but it has the equivalent of 4 beehives worth of tiles. This means that you can use 10 tiles for other things (buildings, paths, etc), before you cut into the boost effect.
Size: 2×2
Radius: 14×14 (192 crop tiles)
Growth boost: 35.6% to 14 plants every 2 hours (182 per cycle)
As the mod contest motivated me to make this mod (after initially thinking about it sometime in 2023), I ran out of time right at the deadline to implement an animation. As of 1.0.0, the ducks are static. If I am able to, I will implement this animation in the future, after all mod contest affairs are settled/the winners are announced (I will not update during the contest period).
Ideally, when I add the animation in the future I will also ideally add a quacking ambient effect that I prepared but was unable to get to play in-game.
Additionally, I may add another type of land building to spawn land animals as an alternative to the duck house. It would have the same functionality, but spawn another type of animal that have mutalistic relationships with beavers. Probably rabbits or hares, but another bird isn’t out of the question for variety.
I would also like to add support for modded factions at some point in the future, provided they use the same general texture layout for their respective material textures.
