---
# System prepended metadata

title: Ant farm design document

---

Abstract
--------

The HoP needs a bunch of ants in their office in order to compare and contrast the unified, ordered and cooperative insects with the crew, and despair. 

Goals
--------
- Potential interactable in the HoP's office or quarters (Could be elsewhere) that has the same potential for low-tempo antagonism as the Bonsai for the Captain.
- Liberal use of variable description depending on jobrole/antagonism/who you are, because people like those.
- (Entirely selfishly) I want a project where I actually learn the processes of coding and interacting with the process of PRs, Commits and so on with a larger project that's still very limited in scope and effect.
- Ants :ant: 

Non-goals
--------
- Nothing particularly intrusive, not take up much space, and not garner any huge advantage by interacting with it beyond low-level potential escalation/funny.
- It shouldn't be too complicated for me to actually code
- Where the project actually ends up (if it even does) is negotiable
- Spiders :spider: 

Alternatives
--------
- Putting it anywhere else, either in another command department's office, or public area or elsewhere
- Some other manner of enclosure for a pet. Fish tank, reptile enclosure. Etc. 

Potential changes
--------

- Too much space being taken up map wise. Some HoP's offices are pretty crammed as is: Alternatives help here for putting it somewhere else.
- It's too intrusive or tempting a target in general: People want the ants too much as a source of ants. Probably countered by keeping the harvestable units of ants to a reasonable level. 


Action plan
--------

* Put up a project
* Tune some sprites and get feedback: Basic design, Destroyed design, emagged design/others.
* Basic /obj/ coding: variable icon states for damage/emag/destruction
* adding variable descriptions depending on who is looking.
* Understanding how to place objects by default on a map and finding appropriate locations on each map. 
* Adding extra bits: Custom suicide, reagents being dropped. Emag effects (trivial see non-goal #1) EDIT: A destroyed form (and how to make it destroyable similar to the captain's bonsai without it being too easy, probably similar to the Captain's antique)
* Feedback and re-review at each stage. Decide if the project is fit to commit.
* Commit & PR (right name this time)
* Review/review & merge.