- Joined
- Sep 21, 2013
- Messages
- 88
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- 12
I like the sound of this. What I really want to do with creatures is travel the galaxy surveying planets and collect unusual lifeforms for a zoo/farm of sorts. If they're varied enough one could do this for a long time without getting bored. I assume if people are going to be able to farm them, some sort of breeding mechanic might be in order at some point? Just a thought.Indeed, Fauna would be pieced together from a wide selection of parts, meaning the system would automatically offer you new lifeforms to encounter as you travel the galaxy. I do like the idea of being able to add pre-defined mixes to a catalog, though, so you could design your own mixes and sometimes find them in the galaxy. I also think pointing out the use of Fauna as a potential source of valuable resources is sharp; people might even start farms, assuming they can keep the Fauna in line.
I would like to see some creatures with a kind of "armored" look, as a lot can be done with natural armor on creatures. Take a look at some of the stuff in Metroid games, for example. I think, given a basic body shape to work with, it wouldn't be too difficult to generate armor plating that follows the contours of the body. Also, as pointed out by others, sea creatures make for very good inspiration for alien life forms, likely because most of us don't spend a lot of time in the ocean
I think to really make the creatures varied, the actual body shapes may have to be somewhat random; essentially, you generate a 3D shape using random numbers and some fancy math, and attach detail parts like eyes, mouths, limbs, etc somewhat randomly on the body. The tricky bit using this method would be to make it all look like a coherent organism instead of Mr. Potato Head, and of course getting it to move in a way that feels natural. Kind of a tall order, really, so I'd understand if a simpler system were implemented.
I am kind of hoping that once fauna are implemented, a flora system would start up. It would be hard to generate flora like the stuff dotting the planets at the minute (basically just a texture), but something more along the lines of seeds that grow into multi-block "tree" structures would be cool.