Read by Schine Big Book of Aliens, Creatures, and Unidentified Entities

[MeepMoop]

Introduction and Synopsis(Thread title is messed up, ignore please)​

PLEASE SKIP TO THE LAST CHAPTER MARKED BY RED TEXT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ALL OF THIS AND STILL WANT TO KNOW, ESSENTIALLY, WHAT THIS WILL DO.

The Schine team has made it clear that randomly generated aliens will be added; creatures on spacestations, planets and possibly even derelict ships. It's a fun idea and would be quite a great experience, and I'd like to suggest ways for aliens to be implemented, all of the different possible nooks and crannies and possibilities for them to be.

There are many ways developers can implement randomly generated aliens; from what I gather, Schine will be having each creature starting with set body-parts that will affect their abillities in some way. Each body part would be in a set list of body parts, that, more than likely, will be no more than 255.

Main Mechanics​

Here I will detail how I'd like and think aliens to generate in systems; I hope for a realistic but not monotonous and boring world. For one, I'd like to describe the rarity of aliens, the uniformness of life, and how they generate.

My thoughts

I think that discovering new life should be a thrilling experience, I want people to yell "WHAT WAS THAT" and not, "Oh. It's got wings. Neat.". I want people to quake when they see an abominable, invisible creature smash through their shielding and sneak into their base. I DON'T want them to go "Oh, another one of those things.". I want there to be some kind of reason to explore and be afraid, to explore and become awestruck.

For those experiences, aliens MUST be rare. They should NOT generate in ALL systems, but I am not saying they should be as rare as Drakes Equation says they are.

Where aliens generate, and their rarity

When Starmade generates, a select number of systems in a galaxy will be made into life beginning systems, and the rarity of them is roughly one in 8(configurable in config). What this means is not that life can only exist there, but that life can spawn there. Each life system would have about up to 8 set species that can spawn there, and they can only spawn in an area that supports life(such as a planet), or a derelict spacestation/spaceship(for cosmic entities. And also planet life, in some cases.).
So for recap:

1. You click play and your world is generated.
2. Starmade turns 1 in 8(configurable) of the systems into "life spawning" systems.
3. 8(configurable) randomly generated species will spawn/despawn regularly in each of the life spawning systems.
4. Each species is either able to live in either space, planets, or both.

How aliens are generated

I want all of the creatures of Starmade to be interesting and unique, each with their own flavours of awesome. Each alien creature would have body parts and special features like arms, legs, heads and etc. They would also have traits that are not externally visible such as survivable habitats and special abillities(Like acid spit for instance). How the game would keep track of this is by making a string of characters similar to "DNA". Each of the 8 species slots would have this "DNA" code in them.

The code might look something like this: 0-1-9-1-1-3-31-46-2-45-12. The first number would be for which area it survives in- space, planets, or both. The second number, "1" determines if the creature walks upright or not. If it walks upright, the body will always be facing upright, if not, it will be perpendicular. The third number, "0", determines if the creature is intelligent or not(if it can natively open doors etc). This creature has a 0, so it would be a regular mammal without any real intelligent capacity. 1 might be the other end of the spectrum, like being an intelligent alien. Anyway, you get the picture, so here' a recap for how aliens would generate.

1. You click play and your world is generated.​
2. A life spawning system is selected and a species slot is taken.​
3. The DNA code is generated into that species slot.​
4. Creatures that use the code from the DNA are generated, extracting part numbers from the code.​
5. There are now 8 different species of creatures to discovery in each life spawning system.​
6. Aliens DNA can be extracted and possibly used to manufacture them on planets/stations/ships.​
7. Aliens would have a very wide range of parts and modders could add more different parts, effectively allowing creatures to be modded into the game, like Metroids or even boss monsters from other games.​

The Practical Uses of an Alien and What Aliens Do.

Practical uses for an alien life form

During generation, aliens might be given a code input which determines a resource that they can be extracted from them. The colour of the alien might reflect this; a Zercaner producing alien might be red. In addition, an aliens colour might reflect this.

Now, aliens could have their materials extracted at a set rate determined by their DNA. Some aliens might produce resources far faster or slower than others. In addition to that, some aliens might not even produce materials that can be extracted, they may need to be killed to get the materials.

If food or fuel are ever added, this could create a good reason for people to live on planets and produce food from creatures.

Alien AI

An aliens AI would be determined by it's DNA code; you could meet some aliens that attack on sight, some that attack when attacked, and some that are completely docile. A creatures AI would be determing by part of its code; for example, the DNA code could look like 1-1-0-(all the part determining numbers)-3-19-2-0. The last numbers determing the AI sequences each alien preforms. The AI sequence would be a small(possibly text?) file that the game loads to determine the way the alien will behave.. Modders would probably create most of the AI's, while the devs just create a small group of basic behaviours.
From this we can get aliens that behave in WILDLY different ways while making sure the devs have a large amount of freedom and also quite a bit of strain and work taken off of them. Here's a recap:

1. Creature is generated.
2. A few AI codes are selected from the Alien AI folder.
3. These determine the AI behaviour.
4. Modders can create new AI behaviours, ranging from hit-and-run tactics to creepy stalker monsters.

Conclusion​

From this system, we can see that aliens become wonderful, awesome creatures that people will love to discover. They won't become too commonplace or too rare, and there can be wildly different kinds of aliens and alien behaviours. You can have creatures that look and behave like goombas from Mario Bros, or aliens from Dead Space, or even Ridley from Metroid!
Best of all is that the developers won't have to program too much; all they need to do is add a few preset parts and AI behaviours, and let modders do the rest.

Ultimately, this will create a better, more interesting alien system for all parties.

Final Conclusive Recap, AKA TL;DR. Please read.​

1. You click play, and the world is generated. (All these things can be configured in config)
2. 1 out of every 8 systems will spawn with life.
3. You can take life from those systems and planets and put them into other ones.
4. A maximum of 8 species will spawn in each system.
5. Species can either only survive on planets, in space, or even both.
6. Aliens can be harvested for resources.
7. Aliens could have special abilities like being able to ignore shielding and go straight for hulls, possibly.
8. If a planet that the aliens survive on is destroyed, the aliens of that type are wiped out forever, as they will no longer spawn.
9. New alien parts and AI behaviours could be modded in for even more different kinds of aliens, including ones from your favourite games, like Metroids, to Dead Space creatures, to vampires and everything. Even intelligent AI behaviours could be programmed/modded in, like the Alien:Isolation AI's.
10. If there are 16 of each part(legs, arms, head, tail, AI, trait, colour, etc.), there would be at the least 68,719,476,736 different possible aliens(Though this is including related creatures. If relate creatures were cut out, there would be around 2,414,230,400 combinations). This not including mods.

This is a rudimentary system and will be very good for the game. Please give your input and suggestions as to how this can be better, thank you.

 

[jayman38]

I think all creatures should be able to open or break any door eventually. I think their intelligence level should determine how long it takes.

I am specifically remembering the "Penumbra" series of games, where monsters can eventually break through doors, no matter how well you barricade it. It is tense, creating a scary atmosphere, as they bang against it, and when the door finally busts, it is a great thrill!

The color of creatures should determine their primary material resource. That way, you can tell from a distance what you will get if you hunt this creature.

We're rather used to smaller creatures, so I'm hoping StarMade creatures will tend to be larger in size than average, to dwarf the astronaut. I'm also hoping that creature "families" will come in multiple sizes, so that if the player dives into a small crawlspace that the giant monster can't get into without spending extensive time destroying blocks, the monster's little brother can jump right in to getcha. Also, big mothers could be the spawn source of new creatures, so if you want them to stop spawning, you have to take out the mother. This could also lead to quests.

The difference between different sizes in the same family could be repeated body segments. For example, maybe a mother laser spider might actually look like a centipede of multiple spider bodies in a row, each with its own set of legs.

 

[EtherEel]

What about the possibility of these aliens being technologically advanced and capable of traversing space in their own craftses ?? ...And forming their own "Star-Empires" ?

(Or is that another topic for another time?)

 

[jayman38]

What about the possibility of these aliens being technologically advanced and capable of traversing space in their own craftses ?? ...And forming their own "Star-Empires" ?

That's a very interesting idea, and there is room for more NPC factions, so I suspect that this is on the to-do list farther down the line. I do want to see NPC pilots in chairs on game-spawned AI ships. (Unless, of course, the NPC faction consists of an artificial intelligence itself.)

I think the prevailing excuse for pilot-less Pirate ships is that the pirates are all alien fungal growth. If you're gonna board a pirate ship, don't forget to bring a spray bottle of Tinactin!

 

[whooplaah]

I really like the DNA idea. Each marker points to a file or blueprint, an easy way to story creature data.

If a creature only produces an ore/crystal already in game, why would I fight it rather than just continuing with mining asteroids? Surely the creatures don't produce more material than my salvage cannons collect. I think that this can only happen after/during an Astronaut overhaul and an introduction of more blocks and materials. Astronauts kill creatures for food and to use creature drops to build armor, weapons, medicine, or design DNA chains of their own in a monster factory/zoo.

I'd suggest a slightly different approach in the creature generation.

Spoiler

1) A list of model types.
---There is a big difference between a snake, a spider, a dog, and a human. This difference is particularly important when we consider how creatures are animated through code. Though we select the parts from a list, we need to know the default position and orientation of each part and what to name it in code so that animations work. All humanoids will have the same walking/jumping/attacking animation even if their parts are different.

2) Once the base model is chosen, we then select parts from the appropriate lists:
---Face, head, neck, upper/lower torso, upper/middle/lower limb (for multi segmented arms and legs), wings, thorax, hand, foot, hover, blob, etc. Here is the reason for step (1), because we don't need middle-limbs for a humanoid but do for an arachnid. Any creature can have little objects hovering around them (a particle effect, essentially), but where is it centered? When making a humanoid we can skip wings, but not arms/legs (because an animation that attacks with an invisible arm is silly).

3) We modify the base pieces just a bit to make sure the creature's skin matches.
---We don't want a creature to have a red body, blue upper arms, green lower arms, purple hands, and black feet. Too much randomness means that you get way more ugly than appealing. Instead, go through the blocks of the body part and replace the skins with consistent DNA-saved blocks:
A creature might have a code of [[12-5-3]] for appearance, meaning all parts should have green skin, brown scales, and red scales. This way color patterns and designs are preserved on the part, but the various parts agree to an overall creature theme.

4) Astronauts can design creature parts (like building a ship) at a DNA table, or force creatures to spawn if they have the right parts. This way we don't have to mod our game to get more parts, and we don't have to rely on luck to come across a Metroid species we modded in (since it would have a 1/2billion chance of spawning).

Also, when it comes to A.I.'s here's a couple things to consider (in addition to aggression).

Spoiler

1) Intelligence determines whether a creature will breed on command, offer quests, or trade goods.
2) Intelligent creatures can be recruited as crew members, but unintelligent creatures can be tamed as pets/livestock.
3) What does the creature eat, and how often? Animals can be weaponized if they eat hull, shield blocks, or drain power from capacitors. Do you want to tame the Wallabane creature that produces rare drops considering that if it gets out of its cage it could devour the shield capacitors?
4) Under what conditions can the creature live? If I take a creature from an ice planet and place it on a red planet will it die?
5) Ecosystem balancing. Perhaps a planet can have 1 carnivore for every 2 herbivores. The 'count' of creatures on a planet can be exhausted if we hunt too much of one species - and if we severely reduce the number of herbivores then the count of carnivores goes down as they starve to death. This is like a bank of respawns for each species that grows slowly over time if there is enough food for them.
6) Add to the planet/space/both habitat the idea of living on/in asteroids.

EDIT:
7) Breeding: Does it breed in groups of 1, 2, or 3? Does it have 1 child or more? Do the parents die when breeding? Does it need a catalyst, such as an ore, chemicle, or food?
8) Mutation: When breeding a creature with this DNA string we pass it the same DNA strain as the parents. However, on occassion we can also choose a random index and modify it by a random amount. The second generation might change from a [[12-5-3]] to a [[12-6-3]] and suddenly has a new color of scales. The third generation is now a [[13-6-3]] and eats a different food.
---Which things can mutate over time? Skin, drops, food, aggression...

 

[jayman38]

If a creature only produces an ore/crystal already in game, why would I fight it rather than just continuing with mining asteroids? Surely the creatures don't produce more material than my salvage cannons collect. I think that this can only happen after/during an Astronaut overhaul and an introduction of more blocks and materials. Astronauts kill creatures for food and to use creature drops to build armor, weapons, medicine, or design DNA chains of their own in a monster factory/zoo.

Think of ore/crystal production from creatures in terms of farming for a faction's home base shop or inventory.

Use case: A bunch of creatures are spawning in the farm cubicles on the lower decks of home base, and every once in a while, one is killed when it wanders into the path of a salvage beam or something like that, adding that ore/crystal to the shop automatically to build up the shop's inventory over time without needing anybody to "mind the store".

 

[mo05mAn]

Aliens sound very interesting. Would it be possible to have different races or aliens originating on different planets? Maybe there can be passive animals originating from some of the planets. maybe having the intelligence level depend on how well developed each alien's home planets are. Like there would be the humans, we can have weird purple aliens that have their own special design of their ship and maybe we can have boarders for them and there can be battles in the edges of their territories were players can receive missions (http://starmadedock.net/threads/job-bounty-boards.8283/#post-123084) to destroy enemy ships. Players should also be able to join each alien race or something and get buffs and debuffs.

 

[Jh]

That would take away the adventure and randomness of the creatures I think.
[DOUBLEPOST=1435528631,1435527547][/DOUBLEPOST]None the less I love all previous ideas. For me mobs have always >rails so if they werent done well and uniquely I'm going to be very upset.

 

[mo05mAn]

I would like there to be monsters that people can fight in astronaut mode and in a spaceship
[DOUBLEPOST=1435529722,1435529494][/DOUBLEPOST]

That would take away the adventure and randomness of the creatures I think.
[DOUBLEPOST=1435528631,1435527547][/DOUBLEPOST]None the less I love all previous ideas. For me mobs have always >rails so if they werent done well and uniquely I'm going to be very upset.

Well the smart aliens with technology would probably travel around and concur everything so it won't be that hard to find them anyways, i think big rare monsters that drop loot would be more fun.

 

[Jh]

Have a creature that lives in space hope its big kill it in a space ship begore it eats all your hull
[DOUBLEPOST=1435529820,1435529724][/DOUBLEPOST]I personally eould find it more boring as it would be like oh look its one of those again rather then WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!

 

[mo05mAn]

Have a creature that lives in space hope its big kill it in a space ship begore it eats all your hull

agree, but if the creature makes loud noises and shakes your ship and causes particles and stuff, i wouldn't find that boring.

 

[Jh]

Agreed
[DOUBLEPOST=1435530614,1435530575][/DOUBLEPOST](Btw DNA sounds EPIC)

 

[EricBlank]

Programmable behaviors sounds like a gold mine for scripters. They will love that. Configurable parts and writing additional strings for all DNA values sound like a plan for modders. With a database of possible variations, mutation works well... I like this.

I'm definitely a fan of interactions being moderately unpredictable. I wouldn't expect a creature to drastically change its behavior, for instance; but living creatures can do that. They might have many behaviors that aren't shown all the time. Of course, some creatures might actively avoid detection. Some intelligent creatures could avoid detection for the purpose of stalking you; think your ship might be haunted? Hitchhikers might not ask.

Oh, and not every dumb animal will bother breaking down doors.

 

[Jh]

Yeah some will just open them
[DOUBLEPOST=1435563659,1435563562][/DOUBLEPOST]and some will knock down the wall instead.
and others would just shoot people into wonder by just waiting/losing interest/guard the entrance

 

[Bench]

Was there a "book" part of this?

A lot of what is described is similar to things we've already discussed internally. Obviously creatures can add such a big part to exploration. We're definitely keen to have the "wait what was that" response. In order to do that we do have to define creatures by rarity, and keeping in line with the procedural nature of the game, there will be some random elements to some creatures as well i.e. randomized body parts. However due to things like size and shape, not all body parts will fit all creatures, and some creatures might not have any variations at all. Creatures will have other elements applied to them, like specific places they're more commonly found, as appropriate for the lore surrounding them. But again this might be broad or specific depending on their rarity and practicality.

Be aware that we've split how we refer to creatures according to their intelligence level. If they're normal creatures then they're just creatures, if they're intelligent enough to have a society and build their own crafts then we refer to them as either npc factions/races/civilizations. The difference being you encounter a creature on its own, while a npc race you might encounter their craft rather than them. The Trading Guild and Pirates are an example of npc races or civilizations. While the quads found in some stations are creatures. This distinction will become more apparent moving forward.

We do want to encourage exploring, so it might even be that some of the rarest creatures potentially spawn only a couple of times throughout a server. Obviously we'd scale the rewards for finding them etc according to rarity, but we definitely want players to possibly go even months without encountering all the creatures in the game. And some of the rarest might take longer then that. That's the idea anyway.

 

[Jh]

You didn't address the 'DNA ' aspect of it.
Is it possible/already happening/not ever gonna happen?
[DOUBLEPOST=1435589879,1435586576][/DOUBLEPOST]

4) Astronauts can design creature parts (like building a ship) at a DNA table, or force creatures to spawn if they have the right parts. This way we don't have to mod our game to get more parts, and we don't have to rely on luck to come across a Metroid species we modded in (since it would have a 1/2billion chance of spawning).

Hmm so would you automatically get every body part on the server in this DNA table? Or would you have to kill a creature and it drops DNA that you can collect to put in it?

 

[0Samuel0]

I really like the DNA aspect.
And being able to farm them for resources makes it more likely that people are excited to find one, rather than seeing them as a nuisance.
But... just farming things is boring. I think that there should be a way to capture creatures and record their DNA. Then, you can splice DNA from different creatures. So maybe a hostile creature produces a lot of rare resources slowly. You also capture a docile creature that produces a useless resource(stone, maybe grass) quickly. It would be cool to have the incentive to hunt down different creatures with different traits, then splice those traits to make a creature better adapted for what you want it to do.
So you could make a docile creature that produces a lot of resources quickly to farm, but they don't spawn naturally (most of the time). Or you could make a hostile creature that can use doors and doesn't destroy blocks to guard your ship.

At the moment planets can be used to blow up in wars, thereby lagging the server tremendously, or mine for a ton of resources, thereby lagging the server tremendously. Maybe a later game solution to resource generation for large factions could be to hunt down and engineer creatures to make an automated resource generating station, instead of eating planets or using exploits. (both of which ruin the feel of the game a bit)

 

[Bench]

You didn't address the 'DNA ' aspect of it.
Is it possible/already happening/not ever gonna happen?
[DOUBLEPOST=1435589879,1435586576][/DOUBLEPOST]

Hmm so would you automatically get every body part on the server in this DNA table? Or would you have to kill a creature and it drops DNA that you can collect to put in it?

We'll see what's possible and how it fits with existing plans

 

[Megacrafter127]

We'll see what's possible and how it fits with existing plans

It should be easy to fit, since the mobs are procedural themselves[from what I know].
All the DNA would be is information storing which part(with which attribute[e.g. color]) is mounted at what angle(in case of joints both max and min) where on another part. All numerical information, that can be randomized and mixed easily. Providing the required models and textures for each part may be a litte too much front-load for the artists though. It can also easily fill up server databases.

 

[mo05mAn]

while a npc race you might encounter their craft rather than them.

I would like to take one of them hostage and offer a ransom to their home world and get money that way. a mini game of bluffing? they can come after you and kill you. also with the new boarding stuff added, it would be fun if npcs boarded your ship and you and your crew needs to fight them
[DOUBLEPOST=1435631164,1435631054][/DOUBLEPOST]well, what I personally want is interaction with high intelligence creatures
[DOUBLEPOST=1435631361][/DOUBLEPOST]also it would be cool to have rare monsters. they could be missions broadcasted across the server then players can be like "hmm i'm going to fight this big whatever it is and get the money." then on the road they might encounter over people trying to do the same thing, they can split the loot or fight for it. then when they actually arrive at the "area of detection" they can stop and be like "hmm, maybe someone already killed it" then a big explosion or thunderstorm in space happens and a big giant thing shakes everything with sounds and debreee and the player get frightend and be like "oh my god what the hell is that!!!" trying to run or deciding to fight, it would make an epic adventure.