Outdated Kineptic Race Mod 12-22-2015

I've applied a hotfix to the guard.config.patch file. There was a ", missing on line 134. Hopefully this fixes the guards. You just need to redownload the mod. Annoying, I know, but them's the breaks. Or fixes in this case.

 

Will this ever be updated to 1.0? I need my magician space cats

 

I'm... afraid I don't have an answer for that. If I were you, I wouldn't get my hopes up. I'm sorry.

 

I fell in love with this mod the moment I read about it nearly a year ago; flowing tapestry and silken banners over obsidian stones and gleaming energy crystals. Annnd...the thaumaturgy-cats weren't too bad themselves. I was going to ask about releasing this on the Steam Workshop, but you've basically answered that in the above post. (Here's hoping you get inspiration from knowing people are actively waiting on an update)

I have some questions about the Kineptic, if you don't mind answering. Between males and females, there doesn't seem to be much, if anything in the way of sexual dimorphism. I know there's limitations on what you can show with sprites (both genders seem to have a fluffy and "curvy" build), but barring that, do males and females physically different much? Or, physically, are they indistinguishable besides maybe cultural gender norms (cheek fluff/"hair" styling, speech patterns, etc)? Also, are they a male or female dominant society, or is gender irrelevant to social norms? If gender isn't relevant other than having kittens, how does that impact their society and lore?

Does the bioluminescent agent that cause the bindi to glow also alter/dictate eye color, and can it force the iris/pupil to glow? Is the bioluminescent material symbotic, or self-produced?

Secondly, what is the historical political/religious climate? Does religion exist in a traditional deist form or does science take that roll? Or is there only politics? The reason I ask is because their buildings are very temple like, and it seems to suggest a religion-state society, where religion is entwined in politics, like the Avians.

And lastly, do ANY Kineptic actually have a salad every now and again? And I don't mean "loaded with calorie-laden dressing." Maybe an orange? Or is the entire race's biology so adapted to accommodating glove-tech that non-glove users have urges to eat high-calorie diets without actually having a need to?

 

i guess make-do will have to be done with the milthy familulars race instead...

 

Still lacking that inspiration?

 

Y'know, it's posts like this that make me smile.

There is sexual dimorphism. To them it's obvious, but to humans it's about as easy as it would be to tell what sex a house cat is just by looking at its face. Males tend to have a little more muscle mass, but this isn't really very evident except in the buffest of the buff (and even then it's barely perceptible). They can also grow manes. Not quite like a lion's mane, but... here, lemme just show you:

Like that. This particular young man has managed to keep his mane clean and well-kept, which is no mean feat. Most males opt to shave. In contrast, females can grow the fur just below their ears and above the occipital ridge to be very long, but in most cases will keep it no longer than shoulder length for maintenance purposes. Kinda like this:

If you take a close look at their faces, you'll see the males have an "M" pattern above their eyes and the females have a "W" pattern. This is always true, even if they have only one fur color: the grain of the fur is slightly different along that boundary. If the kineptic has a patterned fur, such as that found on a tabby or a tortoiseshell, the markings will follow along the boundary in some manner. But back to dimorphism, females have wider hips than males to facilitate kittenbirth as would be expected. They remain rather flat chested until she becomes pregnant, at which point her body enters mommy mode and starts preparing to raise kittens. Then she will develop breasts until her kittens are weaned. Unlike earth cats, they only have two. Unlike humans, they do not become so prominent to the point of requiring special clothing. Nonetheless, females will nearly always wear upper body garments.

Societally, males and females are given perfectly equal standing, though they do have 'standard' roles that flow logically based on biology. Since males tend to be stronger, they would do most of the manual labor like farming, hunting, building, etc. while females took the less physically strenuous tasks and regular mothering responsibilities since, well, only females can be mothers. Now, if a female wanted to do work typically done by males, there'd be no social stigma applied to her. Historically, females took the tasks such as kitten care, shopkeeping, and textiles (just to name a few). With the advent of widespread glovetech use, strength isn't as big of a factor and job roles are more or less interchangeable.

"Bindi" is a human-given term; a direct translation (and what kineptic prefer to call it by) is "strobe gland", or simply "strobe". Since it is a gland, it is self-generated and not symbiotic. Its color does not dictate iris colors, but it does dictate the normal color the eyes will glow.

Religion and science are not mutually exclusive; Kineptic are very religious and very scientific. Their religion is best described as monotheistic, with the Guardian being their equivalent of a god. Though, in a strict sense, he is not (and they are aware of this) because he only has absolute control over things that are his and things do exist that are not his; therefore, he is limited. Their faith does not inhibit their use of the scientific method in any way, shape, or form. Their buildings are very temple like in the mod because, well, that's how I did it. Modern kineptic have buildings more reminiscent of small arcologies where most industry and business is done, surrounded by housing that is like that seen in the mod. Making an arcology in the mod (and a randomly generated one at that) would be... quite the task. I've had their modern style described to me as being "tron".

Ah yes, the old junk food lore back when I did this for the lulz. While kineptic do eat a lot to fuel their gloves, they don't eat just for the sake of eating. If they are hungry but aren't in any need for calories, by all means they'll have a salad or a bowl of fruit (in fact, this is probably what they would take as a preference in such a situation)! I equate it to resting. Most humans like sleep, but at the same time we have other things that we want to do so we might skip on sleep to do those things. Or, we might have enough sleep and don't need any more, at which point we feel rested. However, you may have just done some exercise or are fatigued from work, but you aren't sleepy. In this case, you'd just sit down and rest or relax. So, in a nutshell, kineptic are capable of eating a great deal at once and it can be absurdly high in calories, but that doesn't mean they always will (or even frequently will!). A car can go over 100mph. I have never been in a car going that fast. I'm sure you get the gist.

As for people waiting for an update, that's why I said I don't have an answer--I don't know if I will update or not. I might, or I might not. I have no idea where my whim is going to lead me in this regard. It should be clear from my lengthy answer to your questions that the kineptic as a concept are still very alive and dear to me, so you don't have to worry about that. It's more a matter of if I can get off my lazy tails and muster the willpower to deal with shuffling all those files around.

Actually, inspiration is overflowing.

 

Oh! I'm glad you found the post smile inducing! I'm so glad you gave such a thorough answer. Most people wouldn't take the time to do such (and so soon, too). Though, the Chucklefish community is young, and yet unjaded. Thank you! I had so many more questions I wanted to ask, but that would be tedious and inconsiderate towards you, and I don't think this is probably the best place for such lengthy and varied inquiries.

With some of my questions on biology answered, I can finally speculate on what a Kineptic purr-sona of myself would look like. Are we allowed to make fan-art/sonas as long as we give you credit?

Oh, and a side note: Your art has improved dramatically, those pictures are so adorable and clean for sketches. And that's considering that it wasn't absolutely horrible before!

 

It did take me two hours to write that, I will admit, but it's fun usually.

Fan art is fine by me as long as it's respectful, dignified, and unoffensive.

Actually, those are sketches I did a long time ago. I'm way out of practice. I dunno what it is, but my hands feel shakier.

 

It's a shame the odds of this being updated are so slim (maybe you could seek help? I'd do it, but looking over the contents of all the .config files and such makes my head spin...) as I much enjoyed playing this race It's also nice to know there's more to them than what's provided through the mod's main page and the in-game codices. It's clear I'm not alone in hoping this becomes playable again as it's in the top race mods for a good reason. Maybe another idea (expanding on the "seek help" train of thought) would be to at least make it playable again if only on a basic level, provide a more expanded block of lore and allow the community to expand on it, somewhat similarly to what's been done with the Avali? Just a thought. ._. (by all means ignore me if I come off as a tad desperate to play this mod again, it's one of the only two race mods I ever actually played rather than just download to add more varied settlements.)

 

Sounds like you know my pain with the config files.

 

I've poked at other mods in the past to get them working for me again, but that generally requires that I look over an up-to-date mod's files to get an idea of the changes made. Those were smaller mods though and going through that process with something as expansive as the Kineptic mod would give me nightmares. You sir are a trooper for keeping it up to date as long as you did. ._.

 

I'd totes love to help with this, but as is, I'm just barely now getting the grasp how to do .patch files to add to the Peglaci descriptive text for THAT rework to 1.0 status >_> I'm not quite code-fluent yet here, sadly.

 

Oh don't worry, you'll get the hang of it in no time. If I could figure it out on my own, anyone can.

 

its just nerve. and/or lack of sleep if you have ADHD ((trust me, i have it, and i know lack of sleep will do that))

 

Me too, but... Here, let my spokesman on the subject take over:

...
They're prescribed!

 

Oh, good. You're not following his example and ingesting entire bottles of pills you find lying on the ground.

 

Going to Steam Workshop?

 

Hey,

I loved the idea of magic space cats and the lore and stuff you had planned for them is super interesting. Did you ever have it collected up in one place? Would be awesome to read it sometime if you did! Loved your sprite work for it too, its nice to have alien races that aren't quite so uniformly humanoid like the Avali, Avikan and Kineptics. All the awesome furniture and blocks also really helped and made them feel part of the universe so I guess it feels a little more empty without being able to play as one now (was fun building lots of outposts on the planets I found). I totally understand if you aren't planning update this for 1.0 cause though I know very little about coding I'm sure its an absolute ton of work, and probably hassle. That's cool though, modding should be a hobby that you want to do, or enjoy doing, and it's not fair to demand updates or anything like that. Seconding how awesome it would be if someone else that could do the mod justice (sort of tempted to learn how to code races myself but I'm pretty sure I'd butcher it and then feel bad) fancied updating it too but again that's completely your decision and stuff. I can live in hope though!

So uh I guess really I just wanted to say, while this thread is still kinda active and all, thanks for the tons of fun I had running about Starbound as a Kineptic! The idea was awesome and you're awesome for thinking of it. Thank you for making the Starbound universe that much fluffier and cuter!

 

Make it work with Starbound 1.0, please! ^_^