I've been making this a personal goal, and I *think* I know what the prerequisites are, but no luck. The main challenge now seems to be about getting things culty enough.
I haven't seen one yet, to my disappointment. I *have* got as far as having a Naturalist discover an Artifact, and bring it back to town, where it was fully researched (it's also possible to partially research artifacts) by a Lab Assistant on a Macroscope. The result of that research was bonus prestige for my colony, rather than the Fishy Transformation shown in the December trailer, but I assume that's the required chain of events. I don't know how the new Fishy Idols factor in to it, though.
Fishy Idols, of course! Completely forgot about those. Like you, I've managed to research a few artifacts and always get prestige from it eventually. My thinking was that maybe the scientist or lab assistant has to be a cult member in order to "look at the darker side" of an artifact and trigger the transformation. Not sure why I assumed this. The fishy idol connection makes far more sense, but so far I haven't even seen one.
I discovered an Obeliskian artifact and built a lab to study it. The scientist put it under the microscope and got a hitherto unseen memory "felt the thoughts of the idiot-servator" or something to that effect and promptly stored the artifact away. When I checked on it, I got this. Apparently, Empire scientists can be sensible sometimes (though the scientist in question actually had the maddened intellectual trait!)
Yeah, I've got one occurence. Very gradual transformation into a fish person, complete with a pretty creepy gradual extrusion of gills and such-like on the colonist model. Creepy stuff. Can't really say that I did anything the above haven't done, though.
I always assumed (but never tested) that they had to have a fishy disposition trait when researching a fishy idol? Has anybody tried that?
Interesting, I guess the right trait makes all the difference. I'll have to keep testing. Thanks for all the suggestions and experiences.
I got tantalizingly close. Video posted in the other Youtube thread here on the forums: https://community.gaslampgames.com/...ckwork-empires-videos.10301/page-3#post-96032
I haven't tested this, but opening building_study_item.fsm and changing local r = rand(1,10) to local r = 1 should guarantee a critical failure every time (which is what you're looking for).
Well yeah - that's why I told Alephred to do it first. If his head explodes or something, then I know not to do it. That's the scientific method, man.
Nice! I've researched at least five fishy idols, but never with a result like that. I'm surprised that didn't do it.
