WIP Animal Breeding Mod

So, I've been looking into getting into modding lately, and I came up with an idea for a mod I haven't seen much talk of so far, one that focuses on deepening the animal reproduction cycle. So I've laid up a plan for adding male animals to the game and gating pregnancy behind the presence of both a male and a female of the species. The initial plan is to do it for Cows, but later adding it to other animals as applicable.

Considered features for version 1:

• Adding male cows, bought separately from Marnie, not milkable.
  
• Pregnancy automatically disabled unless both male and female live in the same barn.
• Mating chance calculated overnight in the barn.
• Listing of both parents on the kid.

Features for the future:

• Males for other barn animals.
• Mating chance based on proximity over the day.
• Pregnancy period (unsure if this is already in the game)
• Prevention of incest.
• Mating animation (optional).

Possible future features:

• Breeding quality, adding a multiplier to all breedable animals that affects Price, Chance of Large Milk, Wool growth, Truffle finding chance.
  
• Roosters and male ducks (presence increases chance of eggs being produced and chance of Large Eggs, presence required for incubator)
• Bunny mating

My current plan is to start to seriously digging into the game files this weekend, but I appreciate any help offered, as I predict this might become a bit fiddly.

 

I would love this!

 

Yessss, I would also love this! It would be so fun to get different qualities from the parents and different generations

 

Please also add butchery mod. So we can profit on nice steaks.

 

Rest assured, I have not dropped this project, but the functionality of the API doesn't quite support the things I need it to do to be able to pull it off. I'm looking at ways to contribute to the API so it can be done, but as I haven't done that type of coding before it is tough. I do know roughly where all the variables I need to change are located though.

As for butchery, I have plans for that as well, but I am unsure about if it should be another mod in its entirety or if it should be part of the same.

 

I was telling my husband that there should be something like this. I'd like to be a dog breeder ahhhh gd

 

Once I have everything I have already planned adding in a kennel and dogs ought to be pretty easy. But as said, the first step is the hardest.

 

Still man, even without a meatery yet you're still badass-ery for trying.

/lame

 

I'd totally support this. Can't wait for that mating animation though

 

Just realised that if I made the new dogs a type of Farm Animal they would have to have a meat index... I'm not sure I am comfortable with this...

 

Ugh, me neither because I love pups man.

In a different worldly perspective, I kinda understand but not really. Especially when dogs show affection toward everybody.

But it's kinda crazy how people eat dogs and other cute animals in different places around the world. Like guinea pigs in Peru

 

Could the index be put at zero or a negative integer so even if someone tries to do that especially because they're mean and crazy, won't get any money from it?

 

There are ways of handling it, and I could if I want it set their meat index to "sap", it was more merely the concept of setting such a property.

 

Oh definitely, I feel you dude. Principle is important V:
Especially dogs are way better than sap xD

 

That would be awesome :-D I'd love to download this when it's done. Must be difficult to make, though

 

Bit of an update on the current situation. I've looked at the code and I have a pretty good grasp on what happens in the current established events and the rules that surround it and I think I have a solution. As such, these are my conclusions for what I will do.

1. At least to start with this will be a combined .xnb and Storm API mod. The things I need to do for pregnancy events and such require me to use Storm, but Storm lacks the tools for now to completely add a new type of animal. To begin with the xnb that will be edited is the FarmAnimal data xnb, so this mod will be incompatible for the forseeable future with any mod that changes it. Sprites will be supplied in their own xnbs for this mod.
2. Trying to untangle the current Pregnancy event would be too much of a hassle to deal with now, so I'll leave it in for the time being. Instead the mod pregnancy event will fire after any normal farm event. Currently the mod pregnancy event only works for cows anyway, so I felt it best to keep the old one in. This means that the "virgin births" of the game may still happen and you can have two births the same night, but also that Bulls can spontaneously multiply as well. Once I have implemented functionality for all current barn animals I'll have the mod turn off the normal pregnancy entirely.
3. To balance this this event is farm more likely to fire than the normal event, I have yet to decide how much, but I was thinking of having a 10% chance of doing this check every night (compared to roughly 5% on a night no other event happens). Breeding with bulls can also happen in a normal barn instead of a Big Barn and up.
4. The child will for now always be a cow of the same type that the mother is. I hope to change this to include child bulls in the future, but I have not been able to do it yet.

Remaining to do before release is:

• Add Bulls to Marnie's animal shop.
• Finish off Bull Sprite, for now I am just modifying the white cow to remove the udders and add a nose ring, but if any more artistically talented people out there want to help, it would be gladly accepted.
• Testing. Testing. Testing.

 

Awesome! I'm really excited for this!

 

*winky face* *winky face* *winky face* *winky face*

In all seriousness, this is looking really promising. I wish I could do more to help beyond wishing you luck, but my talents are pretty limited to just testing and maybe some crappy sprite work.

 

Support this, like to add some though. Add bulls (what are male cows xD?), calfs, hogs.

Add butchery!