I'm a big fan of the Minecraft mod Better Than Wolves, which has very strong themes of "you are basically destroying the natural world in order to survive/grow in power". XD
Wow. Heard about Better Than Wolves because I played Kerbal Space Program with Better Than Starting Manned, FlowerChild's total conversion mod for KSP. BTSM was the way I played KSP. Alas, it was hard for FC to keep up with the changes in KSP and he hasn't put out a BTSM release for almost 2 years now.
I never played KSP, but I followed the patch notes on BTSM for a while. Honestly FlowerChild is really, really impressive when it comes to game design and I learned a lot about how to tell good game design from bad by studying his work. It definitely opened my eyes to the whole Dunning-Kruger effect re: Everyone thinks they are a game designer, but actually being a professional game designer is hard and a rare skill.
I thought I remembered reading a patch note a while back involving things repopulating... was a little disappointing, because I actually kinda like the whole "human trying to survive extincts three different species of fish" angle. :P
I just wasn't sure if that applied to larger enemies or just food fish.
That makes two of us. That is certainly an interesting angle and hidden message though.
Not necessarily a completely valid message. If you managed to kill even one species to extinction alone, your escape rocket couldn't carry your weight. And even in much larger groups, hunting can be sustainable if it's regulated. You only hunt sustainable species and only as much as you need.
Realism aside, the risk of wiping out a species was a good gameplay mechanism to push the player towards renewable food and fish breeding, and it's a bit of a shame it's gone.
I thought I remembered reading a patch note a while back involving things repopulating... was a little disappointing, because I actually kinda like the whole "human trying to survive extincts three different species of fish" angle. :P
I just wasn't sure if that applied to larger enemies or just food fish.
That makes two of us. That is certainly an interesting angle and hidden message though.
Not necessarily a completely valid message. If you managed to kill even one species to extinction alone, your escape rocket couldn't carry your weight. And even in much larger groups, hunting can be sustainable if it's regulated. You only hunt sustainable species and only as much as you need.
This is true, but the message would be more relevant to reality than in making sense in the game. Message for some, immersion breaking for others? Idk.
I thought I remembered reading a patch note a while back involving things repopulating... was a little disappointing, because I actually kinda like the whole "human trying to survive extincts three different species of fish" angle. :P
I just wasn't sure if that applied to larger enemies or just food fish.
That makes two of us. That is certainly an interesting angle and hidden message though.
Not necessarily a completely valid message. If you managed to kill even one species to extinction alone, your escape rocket couldn't carry your weight. And even in much larger groups, hunting can be sustainable if it's regulated. You only hunt sustainable species and only as much as you need.
This is true, but the message would be more relevant to reality than in making sense in the game. Message for some, immersion breaking for others? Idk.
It wouldn't make much sense in sending an IRL message either. When it's a message about disturbing natural balance it HAS to be realistic. Why? Well, we've seen the result that comes with exaggarating your actions considering nature. A couple decades ago, some environmental activists were greatly exaggarating the speed of global warming. Obviously, they were also the loud ones. They were saying that the world would end in a couple years, but since it didn't end, rather than raising awareness it only raised scepticism. Some people who now openly admit global warming and try to raise awareness but once denied it admit that it was the exaggeration that made them sceptical. It made environmental activists look like a little crazy. The result seen now? Well, the US now has a president who just pulled his country out of the Paris agreement despite the fact that depending where you live, you necessarily don't need predictions and statistics to see that the change is happening. All you need is your eyes.
Now, how could we send the message without risking any unwanted consecuences? Well, we could have a couple rare, endangered species which you could kill to extinction. Killing them to extinction would "disturb the natural balance" (quote marks because what actually would happen is it triggering a piece of code) with dagerous consecuences.
I'm thinking a very rare, peeper sized, worm-like animal. Said animal would basically be completely helpless. It's slow, clumsy and dies with one knife hit. When you scan it, the PDA tell's you that it is both completely useless (inedible, no materials) and completely harmless and that it's rare. Something like this:
"This species is completely useless for you and it's not a threat. Scans show no signs of other specimens in the vicinity"
In the databank, it says some general stuff and "This species' role in the ecosystem is unknown. It's unkown what it feeds on. Further research required" and "assesment: harmless, inedible and potentially endangered"
If you kill the worm, your PDA warns you about it being possibly endangered. ("WARNING: This species is potentially endangered. Extinction may have unpredictable consecuences"). It also triggers an event that causes reaper leviathan spawn rates to go up after a random period of time (max. 7d ingame). If you kill more of these worms, the spawn rate continues to increase by every worm. After you've killed five of them, another random timer starts counting besides the normal spawn increase timer. Once that timer is ready, you get a message from your PDA:
"Detecting an increase in leviathan-class predator life signs. Reason unknown."
Once ten worms have faced your survival knife for no other reason than your malevolence, they stop spawning (they were EXTREMELY endangered). Your PDA tells you this:
"No more (species) life signs detected on the planet. Analysis of the last specimen's digestive system shows that it primarily fed on reaper leviathan eggs. The only natural enemy of the reaper leviathan is now extinct. You can expect a tenfold increase in reaper leviathan population. Good job."
And the databank entry is updated to tell that the species is extinct and it's role was keeping leviathans at bay. The world gets basically flooded with reapers, and in no biome you are safe. It's basically a game over.
Okay so that might be a little bit exaggarated but not as exaggarated as all species going extinct in from breathing at them.
1. Reaper is immortal. Spend 3 hours banging it on the head with a knife(half an inventory of batteries). Hit box is smaller then a peeper while the rest of it has no collisions of any kind, hence the whole goes thru ground and other b/s. Unless it changed recently you can't kill it. Hell ampeel was immortal last time I tried to get rid of one. Crabsquids aren't tho. What can and can't be killed is all over the place.
2. Things don't respawn, period. Eat all the peepers and air sack fish in shallows near your pod... the area will be desolate. Been at the point where shallows looked deserted enough times.
3. Clearing cache files will get things back but that is not an actual mechanic. It's a band aid for a long standing issue that has the added benefit of respawning things.
If you want to repopulate an area you have to do it the hard way. Alien containment and grow stuff yourself.
1. Managed to beat one with my PRAWN, actually. They just look strange while dead, with a continuous animation:
(The only part of him that was moving was his face. His body and tail were all completely still, immobile, and did not hurt me, even right in front of his teeth. When I came back, he was completely gone.)
2. Yes, this used to happen one-hundred-percent. However, I recall there being an update that actually DID add slow creature re-spawning, if you're away from the area. Haven't noticed destroying ecosystems since then, either.
At OP though... not sure. The one that I killed has not come back from what I know, even after spending a large amount of time away from the area.
@Ojakokko That's certainly a neat idea! But the moment it says 'further research required' and 'endangered' i'll want to do something about it. Perhaps a carrot to go with that stick if you save them from extinction? Or would that go along the lines of 'tampering with the natural balance' as well, since its naturally near extinction and not there by the actions of humans?
Guys, guys, thank you for all the advice, but you are missing part of the point.
I also really want to kill a reaper. :P
Sitting here just now, I'm wondering if this is a thing (I have to leave for work soon so I can't test it now):
1. Head out to an open area, maybe somewhere deep but without other fish - perhaps the Void
2. Enable console commands, then enable OXYGEN and INVISIBLE codes - possibly even NOSURVIVAL (no telling how long this will take lol)
3. SPAWN REAPERLEVIATHAN 10 and immediately INFECT 100 so they get infected with Carar
4. SPAWN WARPER 10 (Can you see where I'm going with this?)
5. Finally, sit back and watch the epic matchup of the century!
The RLs being infected with Carar are going to attract the attention of the Warpers, who should start attacking the RLs. In turn, the RLs will start fighting back and attacking the Warpers - and since you're INVISIBLE you get a front row seat! We know the RLs can eventually be killed, but the Warper will warp out once they "take enough damage"... which team will ultimately win the championship?!
Realism aside, the risk of wiping out a species was a good gameplay mechanism to push the player towards renewable food and fish breeding, and it's a bit of a shame it's gone.
@MaxAstro I was wondering the same thing and did a bit of research. This is what I found:
This is straight from the developer, so I think it's safe to say they shouldn't respawn - hopefully that helps!
Edit: Unless the dev is totally trolling or I'm super unlucky, I may or may not have found a Reaper in a similar area as one I already killed - I'm unsure if it's a new one but I guess I'll find out in time. Paranoid man.. Paranoid as. Apparently there are 24 in total on a map, and I've just killed my 3rd as of this edit...
Comments
Wow. Heard about Better Than Wolves because I played Kerbal Space Program with Better Than Starting Manned, FlowerChild's total conversion mod for KSP. BTSM was the way I played KSP. Alas, it was hard for FC to keep up with the changes in KSP and he hasn't put out a BTSM release for almost 2 years now.
Not necessarily a completely valid message. If you managed to kill even one species to extinction alone, your escape rocket couldn't carry your weight. And even in much larger groups, hunting can be sustainable if it's regulated. You only hunt sustainable species and only as much as you need.
This is true, but the message would be more relevant to reality than in making sense in the game. Message for some, immersion breaking for others? Idk.
It wouldn't make much sense in sending an IRL message either. When it's a message about disturbing natural balance it HAS to be realistic. Why? Well, we've seen the result that comes with exaggarating your actions considering nature. A couple decades ago, some environmental activists were greatly exaggarating the speed of global warming. Obviously, they were also the loud ones. They were saying that the world would end in a couple years, but since it didn't end, rather than raising awareness it only raised scepticism. Some people who now openly admit global warming and try to raise awareness but once denied it admit that it was the exaggeration that made them sceptical. It made environmental activists look like a little crazy. The result seen now? Well, the US now has a president who just pulled his country out of the Paris agreement despite the fact that depending where you live, you necessarily don't need predictions and statistics to see that the change is happening. All you need is your eyes.
Now, how could we send the message without risking any unwanted consecuences? Well, we could have a couple rare, endangered species which you could kill to extinction. Killing them to extinction would "disturb the natural balance" (quote marks because what actually would happen is it triggering a piece of code) with dagerous consecuences.
I'm thinking a very rare, peeper sized, worm-like animal. Said animal would basically be completely helpless. It's slow, clumsy and dies with one knife hit. When you scan it, the PDA tell's you that it is both completely useless (inedible, no materials) and completely harmless and that it's rare. Something like this:
"This species is completely useless for you and it's not a threat. Scans show no signs of other specimens in the vicinity"
In the databank, it says some general stuff and "This species' role in the ecosystem is unknown. It's unkown what it feeds on. Further research required" and "assesment: harmless, inedible and potentially endangered"
If you kill the worm, your PDA warns you about it being possibly endangered. ("WARNING: This species is potentially endangered. Extinction may have unpredictable consecuences"). It also triggers an event that causes reaper leviathan spawn rates to go up after a random period of time (max. 7d ingame). If you kill more of these worms, the spawn rate continues to increase by every worm. After you've killed five of them, another random timer starts counting besides the normal spawn increase timer. Once that timer is ready, you get a message from your PDA:
"Detecting an increase in leviathan-class predator life signs. Reason unknown."
Once ten worms have faced your survival knife for no other reason than your malevolence, they stop spawning (they were EXTREMELY endangered). Your PDA tells you this:
"No more (species) life signs detected on the planet. Analysis of the last specimen's digestive system shows that it primarily fed on reaper leviathan eggs. The only natural enemy of the reaper leviathan is now extinct. You can expect a tenfold increase in reaper leviathan population. Good job."
And the databank entry is updated to tell that the species is extinct and it's role was keeping leviathans at bay. The world gets basically flooded with reapers, and in no biome you are safe. It's basically a game over.
Okay so that might be a little bit exaggarated but not as exaggarated as all species going extinct in from breathing at them.
1. Managed to beat one with my PRAWN, actually. They just look strange while dead, with a continuous animation:
(The only part of him that was moving was his face. His body and tail were all completely still, immobile, and did not hurt me, even right in front of his teeth. When I came back, he was completely gone.)
2. Yes, this used to happen one-hundred-percent. However, I recall there being an update that actually DID add slow creature re-spawning, if you're away from the area. Haven't noticed destroying ecosystems since then, either.
At OP though... not sure. The one that I killed has not come back from what I know, even after spending a large amount of time away from the area.
Sitting here just now, I'm wondering if this is a thing (I have to leave for work soon so I can't test it now):
1. Head out to an open area, maybe somewhere deep but without other fish - perhaps the Void
2. Enable console commands, then enable OXYGEN and INVISIBLE codes - possibly even NOSURVIVAL (no telling how long this will take lol)
3. SPAWN REAPERLEVIATHAN 10 and immediately INFECT 100 so they get infected with Carar
4. SPAWN WARPER 10 (Can you see where I'm going with this?)
5. Finally, sit back and watch the epic matchup of the century!
The RLs being infected with Carar are going to attract the attention of the Warpers, who should start attacking the RLs. In turn, the RLs will start fighting back and attacking the Warpers - and since you're INVISIBLE you get a front row seat! We know the RLs can eventually be killed, but the Warper will warp out once they "take enough damage"... which team will ultimately win the championship?!
@MaxAstro I was wondering the same thing and did a bit of research. This is what I found:
This is straight from the developer, so I think it's safe to say they shouldn't respawn - hopefully that helps!
Edit: Unless the dev is totally trolling or I'm super unlucky, I may or may not have found a Reaper in a similar area as one I already killed - I'm unsure if it's a new one but I guess I'll find out in time. Paranoid man.. Paranoid as. Apparently there are 24 in total on a map, and I've just killed my 3rd as of this edit...
No opinion on the rest, I do like having fish respawning but not too fast so you know you have a (harsh) impact on this world.