It was already something omni said he liked in the first dev stream. This just confirms it even further. I just offered my thoughts on what I would like to see with it, and some things that could make it interesting.
It was already something omni said he liked in the first dev stream. This just confirms it even further. I just offered my thoughts on what I would like to see with it, and some things that could make it interesting.
Imagine Giant Moving Leviathans Making Whale Noises As A Herd Moves Through Space, They Are Probably Neon Color Schemed As Well,
You Hear Them From A Far And Wonder How And Why But It Does Not Matter Space Whales Persevere
Imagine Giant Moving Leviathans Making Whale Noises As A Herd Moves Through Space, They Are Probably Neon Color Schemed As Well,
You Hear Them From A Far And Wonder How And Why But It Does Not Matter Space Whales Persevere
If we're talking about giant creatures that roam open space, there should be Reapers from ME or the Oswaft from the Lando Calrissian Adventures (if you haven't read it, make it a priority, really good books).
...Everything from humans and barely-not-humans (Klingon/Vulcan sorts of things) to whirling clouds of sentient metal cubes to space whales to giant space snakes that appear to be made of stone. Whatever's possible. I'd also like to see some AI factions of strange lifeforms (Think of the aforementioned whirling cube clouds) that have their own really strange, alien-looking, probably nonsymmetrical ships, and are just exploring like players do rather than trying to preserve, destroy, or conquer anything. The ship models don't even need names... They can be things like "Unknown Ship_235124612y621154625" without breaking immersion.
I'd like to see "Realistic" alien life. That is, alien life that doesn't have any kind of equivalence to Earth creatures. How do they communicate? Sound? Light? Other kinds of radiation? Touch? Some sort of sense we can't even imagine? How do they eat? Mouth? Proboscis? Do they wrap around and absorb their victim? Maybe they occasionally send tendrils down into the ground to absorb minerals?
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For the time being, I suggest randomizing general shapes and placement of general features, and adding more specific looking details. Locomotion needs to have an ending support point that's directly above, below, or on the center of mass, if it's an in-gravity critter, or if it's a zero-G creature, its center of thrust would be either pushing or pulling the center of mass. Heads, if any, are placed in a location based upon the choice of communication style, and mouths are placed in a position that isn't interrupted by the locomotion method. Arms are placed to defend the creature, to use tools, or to bring food to the mouth of the creature, depending upon its disposition.
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The possibilities are endless, but I really don't want us to be pidgeonholed into the ideas of alien life presented by soft Sci-Fi like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or Star Trek.
Unfortunately, technical limitations do limit variety or detail to an extent. Some details such as methods of communication may need to be up to the imagination of the player, or maybe associated flavor text. (Additional informative text which is purely lore and has no effect, difference or representation in gameplay or visuals.) For practical reasons, currently whatever is closest to "legs" in the functional design of the Fauna serves as the root of the animation of the rest of the Fauna. Still, you bring up some very interesting points I'll need to think about.
I do, however, think many people's ideas of the potential variety of organisms is naïve. Assuming they exist within the same physical laws of the universe as we know it, they are stuck to certain limitations. When self-replicating molecules followed by the earliest forms of life compete as life first emerges on a planet, while differences in chemical composition, planetary environment and relative distance and movement to its star may alter the process, many of the same patterns will repeat themselves. The conditions under which "life" will form likely are limited due to what is necessary for such molecular competition to occur in the first place, and the following competition and development.
For example, carbon, oxygen and water are used for reasons. These elements and molecules act in ways which have very specific benefits due to their unique behaviors, and the circumstances under which life will emerge will likely give these same elements and molecules the benefits over others that made them so vital to what life on Earth became. Different environments will favor different molecular properties, but are those differences enough to overcome the molecular properties that caused our ancestor self-replicating molecules to overcome their competition? (The variety of life on Earth offers surprising insight on just how varied it can be, though also shows the convergent evolution that is also prevalent in life, even in extremely different circumstances and environments.) Perhaps the resulting equivalent of "DNA" will not be compatible with ours, or our concept of such things, but how different can these things be and still perform the functions that we consider representative of life?
Of course, one can also explore much more extreme variants. As a starting point, should we consider viruses to be life? I personally say yes, but that is a personal opinion. However, should we consider a gas molecule which replicates in the presence of a catalyst on the planet it exists on to be a form of life? Or do we just consider that a natural phenomenon? The human mind can come up with incredibly fanciful and intriguing ideas on what "life" could be, but actual practicality or possibility is another matter.
I don't want Fauna to be simple variations on human shapes OR known animals. I'd like Fauna to be things that are distinctly different from what exists on Earth, but as a general rule I don't want to move into the realm of illogical fantasy either. Bending the rules is okay, especially where it improves gameplay, but within reasonable limits. I do, however, hope that modders will be able to both create aliens that are almost identical to humans if they desire, as well as create Fauna which completely defy our understandings of the limitations of physics.
Omni , you promised me a Friendly Space Whale / Space Leviathan in the first dev stream (and by promise, you said you were warming to the idea). Amirite?
Woah, woah... I don't remember promising anything. In fact I make it a specific note to not promise anything, as I can't be certain what the future will hold. BUT, I admit that I've been warming up to the Space Whale idea more and more over time. Especially due to playing too much Windforge. (Seriously, if you like Steampunk, airships and flying whales, if you haven't checked that game out, check it out. You can even dig out the organs of a flying whale and use it as the frame of an airship, which is pretty epic. The game still needs polish, but has amazing potential.)
That's the idea. Well, I don't know what will happen with Flora (will need further consideration on feasibility and scalability), but it's at least what I'd like to aim for in regards to Fauna. Planets that are all a little different, all with different ecosystems and all having unique Fauna that you are extremely unlikely to find on any other world in your universe. Enough variety that while you may see similarities, you'll never see the same Fauna twice. (Oh, and if I ever say anything that contradicts an official answer in a Q&A session, assume that it is simply forgetfulness on my part and that the Q&A answer is what you should trust. Just want to make that clear. The Q&A is official stances. My posts are personal stances, desires and intents.)
My hope is that it will be something like: you might find a wild, aggressive planet with tons of Fauna, or you might find one where the Fauna are subtle and stick to small places or caves. And not necessarily limited to planets... space Fauna are certainly a possibility. Variety is the spice of life/games, and as you all know, he who controls the spice controls the universe.
And I control the variety, thus I control the spice, thus I control your universe. I am your god. Mwahahahah. (Okay Schema is still top-god, but I'm your god of living entities. And you and all other players are living entities. You might say, if you know anything about Zelda, I am the Farore to Schema's Din.)
I'll take the Triforce of Courage! *throws hand gesture*
If I had more knowledge of coding with game engines that theoretically support procedural generation (forgive the term, but it's a procedure if there's a start point and the end point is limited by what the RNG chooses, as far as I'm concerned) of 3d creatures, I imagine I'd be able to throw out some more reasonable suggestions. But hey! Reach for the stars, yeah?
The way Starbound is currently would *not* be an ideal goal, because they have restrictions on the amount of variety that can occur based on what sprites the devs have added and what type of body part they are. Lower torso+head+arms+detail seems to be what they're going for, which is... Okay, I guess? I'd rather see main parts of bodies being randomly generated skeletons at semi random rotations with semi random bone sizes and a mesh wrapped over them. I'm thinking of if Spore were to randomly generate creatures instead of using presets.
From what I've seen in Minecraft mods, Java supports creating meshes on the fly. I'm pretty sure that despite Schine being a vastly different engine (engine similarities being limited to chunking of saved objects and voxel usage as far as I can tell), it could potentially make use of that.
If taking procedural generation to the extremes can't be done, or is too strenuous on the CPU for the low end user, I'd happily settle for diverse parts that don't all have an Earthlike analog, and the high possibility that parts of creatures couldn't be easily identified by the player.
Omni I don't imagine the flora idea to be terribly difficult to implement. It would simply require some new blocks (universal seed, different trunk and foliage for different environments), some rules for plant growth, coding that would check the surrounding blocks, and coding that would check the placement of trunk and foliage that are connected to the source seed.
Also, I know you made no promises. But warming to the idea was close enough for me to get excited about it. :P
I'd like it if every so often (1-10, perhaps?) A species was sentient, and could act like the shop daves, being able to be hired, give quests, etc. Having a (mostly) random generator for the species would be interesting, and, if coupled with breeding (cloning lab?) Could provide factions with their own specialized militaries.
I'm just the new guy here, but here's my suggestions...
WAUUGH- the general space orks/kilngons/Viking archetype, the pirates already seem to fill this role, but maybe some boarding action events could be worked out for capital ships, stations, and planetside?
ZETANS- your standard grey aliens, I could see these guys as the trade guild, running the various shops in the universe
BUGS- starship troopers, tyranids, xenomorphs, a biological cancer on a galactic scale that consumes worlds and must be purged, with fire.
BOTS- terminators, borg, cybermen, resistance is futile. massive factory ships scavenging everything in sight.
ELEET- snotty space elves/Vulcans/protoss with ships of light and crystal.
SQUAMOUS- B5 shadows, squiddy faced critters, Lovecraftian, madness inducing horrors from the dark between the stars. Not sure exactly how to translate this concept into game mechanics beyond another ship type.
SPACE FAUNA- I'd also like to see space whales, space squids, and space jellyfish.
I for one promise, on pain of death, that space whale concepts will be drawn up and pushed under the nose of every dev'.
The same applies for space jellyfish.
Cities, villages, towns, etc. Colonizing planets would have an actual purpose if there was something to colonize them with. I read in an earlier suggestion about traders going from space station to space station. Something along this line but with actual cities/towns on the planets surface perhaps even colonies in space or at the space stations themselves. Colonization of the planets would be a major incentive for me to explore space, in hopes of finding the perfect planet and location to put my colonies on or if already colonized destroy & acquire. Cities/towns could also have levels of technology so some could be very primitive while others might be very advanced.
This doesn't have to be on every planet, obviously, the majority could be desolate and/or void of 'sentient' life.
Also any kind of NPC character that can perform mundane functions normally performed by the player, like mining or ship maintenance. Crew requirements for larger ships that you can 'hire' NPC's to carry out those requirements. NPC's to give out quests/adventures for the player to complete.
Rather than 'randomly' placed aliens/life forms, have them procedurally generated & based on the location in space and it's nearby planetoids, asteroids or other space objects (like nebulas, black holes, wormholes, etc) A.k.a water planets might have fish like lifeforms, desert planets might have lizard like lifeforms, jungle planets might have apes, etc.
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