Update April 22 2022: Version 0.7
- KillNow Interaction removed
- Playful chase interaction should have correct animation
- Skill journal complete with challenges that provide bonuses
- All strings should have STBLs. (English only -- I haven't run it through the duplicator yet)


Hello pet enthusiasts!

After my Cat Fishing Skill release, my next installment in my Pets Expansion Expansion is a Fighting skill. This turned out to be about 50x more complicated than fishing.

1. Pets have a fighting skill. The first level is learned from chase interactions (both mean and play) or from another pet initiating a fight. Kittens can gain skill from play, though the skill won't appear until they age to adult.
2. Skill journal with stats and achievements
3. Fights have winners and losers. Winner is a trait-weighted roll between the fighting skills of the two pets. Winner get an extra bonus to their skill gain.
4. In addition to winning or losing, fights between pets can generate three levels of wounds: mild, serious, and grave. Each wound moodlet speeds up Energy and Hunger decay scaled to the wound level. Wounds are stackable (i.e. a pet can have more than one of the same wound moodlet with the effects adding to each other). You can really mess yourself up if you won't stop fighting.
5. Fight skill also affects the probability and severity of wounds.
6. Wounds have a visual effect adapted from the Unicorn curse, with different colors for the severity of wounds. The visual effects also stack. I'm considering dropping the effects for Minor wounds because they're not a big deal and aren't intended to be.
7. There is a tunable option for pets to die of wounds. A pet will Succumb to wounds if it passes out with a Serious or Grave Wound active OR if it loses a fight with a Grave Wound active. If death is turned on, this means the pet will die, using the Mummy Curse ghost shader. If death is turned off, the pet will receive an uncancellable Recuperating moodlet and sleep for 12 hours, after which all wound moodlets will be gone. (Tunable by kAllowPetDeath value in the Loader XML resource.)
8. Social Worker is disabled for starving while there is a Grave Wound active. If the pet starves to death, it will also die or recuperate.
9. The cat->human Attack interaction has been expanded to include dogs as well (seriously, what did the devs have against cats??) It now has a winner and a loser with some animation, gains pet Fighting skill and human Martial Arts skill, and it compares those skills to roll the winner. This is more an annoyance for humans. Neither side can get wounds, though humans can get the vanilla game Shredded Dignity moodlet.
10. New interaction: Chase Off Lot -- starts a Chase Mean interaction that checks against intimidation (trait scored, based on Fighting skill) at every stage. Can be initiated by a pet with Fighting skill against pets or humans. It has three outcomes: the target runs home, there is a fight and the target runs home if it loses, or the target turns the tables and starts chasing the actor. Pets can chase either other pets or humans. Only usable on home lot with a sim with a home elsewhere, though I'm considering making it usable on any lot the target doesn't own.
11. New interaction: Take to Vet. This can be initiated by a human to any pet with a wound. The human escorts the pet to the nearest Hospital rabbithole, where the wound moodlets are removed. The cost is currently §200. The pet and human should have a big relationship boost. Right now, this interaction always succeeds, but I am considering making it like Sniff Hand, which requires some relationship to succeed. The threshold shouldn't be too high, though, since the pet might be in danger.

Missing most localization. Some strings are missing. Should test with NRaas Untranslated Key.

There is SO much stuff I could do on this theme. The skill is built around pets as active characters. I'd like humans to have the ability to train and command pets to fight. I'd also like to do something with pets protecting humans. But I must draw the line someplace! So I think this is the complete feature list for a first release.

I went ahead and offered two versions with death turned on and off so nobody has to open the package to tune.

I hope this is getting close!!

I tested the no death version of the mod with a backup of one of my Warriors saves and I love it so far! I only played with it for about an hour so my testing wasn't super extensive, but it worked pretty great for me. The one thing I noticed is that when the cats with 0-1 fighting skill fought each other, they mostly commonly wound up with serious or grave injuries. I don't know if it's something with the way things are scored, or just my own horrible luck when it comes to my Warriors games.

Either way, it looks awesome so far! I have a vod of the testing I did if you want to see what exactly I tried with it. (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1297426578)

Thank you!!

I'm now following you on tumblr, and I watched about half the vid when I saw you post it there. I wasn't sure anything was working by that point, and I stopped in self-consciousness. LOL. I'll go back and watch the rest! It was super helpful.

You showed me a couple of bugs already in the first half. Cats are NOT supposed to hiss at each other when they are play chasing. Play Chase and Mean Chase in the vanilla game are mostly the same code, and in my version I managed to set the IsMeanChase flag to true someplace it shouldn't have been . So thanks for that!

Also, that KillNow interaction keeps popping up when I think I've disabled it . I originally used it to test ghosts, but then I later used it to test other animations, and I'm not even sure what it does in that test copy. It is pretty funny. I mean, I'm starting to think that my enduring reputation as a modder will be as a pet killer, but it's not supposed to be THAT easy.

The chance of being wounded is related to Fighting skill, so you're more likely to be wounded AND the wounds are more likely to be worse if your skill is low. This might be too brutal. It might make more sense if wound chance is related to the difference between the two Fighting skills, the same as the chance of winning. If you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to get hurt, but if your opponent doesn't know what they're doing, it's hard for them to hurt you.... I'll take a look at that bit.

I have to stop adding features at SOME point, but it occurs to me that it might be worth having a friendly Spar interaction to build Fighting skill in addition to Play Chase. I'll take a look at that.

I've incorporated @SaltySweetRen 's testing feedback and (finally!) completed the STBL strings. I'd like to release it, therefore I'm extra grateful to anyone willing to load it up and give it a spin.

Tiny update for those who want to check it out: I changed the visual effect for wounded pets to "Not So Healthy Glow" from ITF in reddish and orangish colors. I removed the effect from Minor Wounds. Not a big deal for testing purposes, but I'd really like to hear from someone who does not have ITF to see if the effect works or if I need to check for that and go back to the Unicorn Curse effect I was using before.

One flavor (no death) only because this is literally the only change.

At long last, this mod is up for download! Thanks so much to everyone who tested and gave feedback.