Coloration, Age, and Size Variation
Atlanta Georgia Join Date: 2015-05-22 Member: 204764Members
“Is it just me, or do all the species on this planet look
like they’ve been cloned?”
“No captain, it’s not just you.”
I’m taking about creatures here.
Real life animals develop and grow, so why shouldn’t the in-game creatures? Of course, what I’m calling for here is a long term goal…
Not all animals on Earth have uniform coloration, or size. There are slight variations, even in organisms seemingly indistinguishable as a colony of ants. One would expect this to be the same on other worlds. Also, animals grow and develop at different rates. One creature’s offspring might reach full maturity faster compared to another i.e. peeper juveniles might take days to grow fully while reaper pups might take months. See where I’m going with this?
Color and pattern don’t have to be drastically changed, but slight variations would be nice. Heck, eventually different species of the same genus could be implemented i.e. Shoal Peeper, Creep Peeper, Yellow-finned Peeper, etc. This would help to fill in the seeming void of diversity among the game’s current fauna.
Perhaps the larger a fish, the more nutrition it provides. Maybe certain fish have nutrition benefits like removing poison, or reducing oxygen consumption... maybe some are poisonous to eat! Different adaptions means some might have camouflage, or they might mimic other species.
Well, tell me what you guys think! 
Comments
We must study the mating habits of the peepers!
On a more serious note, any added biodiversity is very much welcome
And yes, there is some size variations. It's not that rare to see peeper parents and offspring swimming together somewhere.
Did you think about something like this with the subspecies ... meaning, also different behaviour? Because silent creepvine bleeders would be hell of a lot more dangerous than the loud aimless ones.
Bearing in mind that one has to harvest Creep Vine for fibres to make first aid kits, that has a particularly fiendish symmetry about it.
Generally associated with such fish as mackerel, tuna, bluefish, mahi-mahi, bonito, sardines and anchovies, scombroid poisoning is best described as a sort-of 'allergic reaction' to eating spoiled fish. Rather than being caused by viral or bacterial pathogens normally found in spoiled food, the effects are caused by an amino acid called Histidine, which is converted into the neurotransmitter Histamine by enzyme action. Anyone with an allergy knows the havoc a massive systemic Histamine dump would wreak.
Not pleasant at all. Imagine hay-fever turned up to 11, then add dizziness, headaches, a crazy rash, abdominal cramps, and every gastronome's favourite... Diarrhoea.
Since cooking the fish does not neutralize Histidine, it would turn some of Subnautica's mealtimes into a wacky guessing game. The first thing a player would notice is a slowly-decreasing Health bar. Might even throw in a few visual distortions to simulate the dizzy spells. In any case, the player's health should drop to a final level no lower than 10%. The effects of scombroid poisoning rarely persist for more than two days. Treatment includes intramuscular adrenaline injections and anti-histamine medications.
However, scombroid poisoning can mean big trouble for asthma sufferers. Respiratory distress and swelling of the tongue may result in death if the symptoms are left untreated.
Ciguatera is even worse.
It's caused by toxins created by certain dinoflagellate plankton. Reef fish eat coral, algae and seaweeds contaminated with dinoflagellates and concentrate ciguatoxin in their flesh. When they are eaten by predators, the toxin is further concentrated, all the way up the food chain. Ciguatera poisoning outbreaks appear to be tied to dinoflagellate blooms ('Red Tides'), and ciguatoxin is extremely heat-resistant, meaning that cooking is not an effective means of neutralizing its effects. Furthermore, It is entirely possible to catch two or more fish of the same species in the same location, and only one of them will be toxic. It's basically edible Russian Roulette, with all but one chamber loaded with poorly-prepared fugu (puffer-fish).
The effects of ciguatera poisoning are far more debilitating. Symptoms can persist for weeks, even years. Certain chemicals or foods can trigger a relapse.
For the purposes of Subnautica, the effects could include partial paralysis, blurred vision and a maximum of 50% Health until a cure is found by researching the causative organism(s).
Sounds fairly harsh, I know...
However, if Subnautica is to include a scientific research component, these hazards would serve as a legitimate purpose for investigating the various types of sea-life more closely. Taking note of any localized 'Red Tide' events might provide enough advance warning for players to stock up on food prior to a catastrophic plankton bloom (make the plankton clouds glow an eerie blue-green at night!), and having these events occur at widely-spaced irregular intervals would ensure that there is always an air of uncertainty in the game.
A truly nasty variation on the plankton bloom event: Make it possible to trigger the bloom whenever a certain (random) fish population reaches zero in certain areas.
A rather harsh object-lesson in the interconnected nature of all living things, no?
I absolutely LOVE this suggestion
Run off in the form of nitrates and phosphates from fertilizer are the only way to achieve nutrient levels significant enough to cause toxic blooms. Open ocean red tides from deep sea upwelling are nothing compared to the coastal ecological disasters faced today. Seeing as Subnautica doesn't even have large landmass I can't envision anything like red tide occurring - unless a drastically different biology is capable of pulling off something, but that's counterintuitive... such a biology would mean the species would be totally evasive thus destroying the planet's ecosystem.
Still, the bioacumulation of toxins is a great idea; however, simple scans might reveal any contaminated food items.
Even though the edible native sealife is apparently compatible with human physiology, there is no reason why their biology should conform precisely to that of earthly organisms.
Certain molluscs, crustaceans (Horseshoe Crab) and arachnids on Earth have a copper-based blood. Some species of Tunicates (Sea Squirts) concentrate metallic Vanadium and hold it in a solution of sulphuric acid inside their bodies. There's some pretty weird stuff out there.
Just for argument's sake, let's say that there is a particular external event (I'll call it 'Reefback Squitters", as an example) that can trigger a catastrophic bloom. Imagine what would happen if the planet's entire Reefback population were subject to a cyclic infection, behavioural quirk or survival adaptation that caused them to completely purge the contents of their digestive systems simultaneously.
Yeah. That does sound pretty horrific, now that I think of it.
Apart from turning once-pristine waters into an instant cess-pool, this event would inject a massive amount of nitrogen-rich nutrients back into the planetary ecosystem.
This is the majesty of Nature in action. Most of the larger sea life would have a pretty rough time of it for a while. Not exactly a 'Red Tide' as such; more of a 'Brown Tide'.
However, as players delve deeper into the cause of the dinoflagellate blooms, it might be discovered that 'The Big Dookie' is actually a key event that ensures the renewal and survival of the entire planet's linked ecosystems.
There's definitely a place for advanced scientific research in Subnautica.
I... don't know what to think of this idea...
I'm not a marine biologist or xeno-biologist by any stretch of the imagination. Merely a suggestion of how to get alien plankton to bloom catastrophically.
An ocean sector full of Reefback doody wouldn't be a pleasant place, but it's probably no worse than having a school/shoal/pod of Gasopods venting their butts at the slightest surprise.
An intact whale corpse can create an entire micro-biome capable of sustaining a wide variety of abyssal life for up to a century.
Similar effects have been observed around deep-ocean hydrothermal vents. They expel massive quantities of heated water, along with
many useful chemical compounds. Suffice it to say, the areas surrounding these vents are teeming with life.
Who's to say that the same thing doesn't happen in the depths of 'Subnautica Prime' (for want of a more suitable name) ?
Not every creature would need variations to make things more interesting (though it would be cool if that were possible, given time).
A few could have juveniles which have different behaviours and perhaps trigger different behaviours in the adults - Peeper juveniles could school in the occasional coral tube with an adult or two at either end, while all the other peepers just get on with their business; juvenile Stalkers could school around in the same places the adults gather the scrap metal together, and the adults get very aggressive if the player nears these areas, but are perhaps less aggressive on the peripheries of the creepvine areas; Reefback juveniles could ride piggy-back on their parent's backs, maybe blend in very well, then swim off if the player gets to close and hide underneath.
Slight colour variations in most creatures should be possible by just minor alterations in the texture then having the textures randomised. I imagine it would be mostly just time-consuming to do all the textures.
Subspecies is a good idea though. Rather than having to do a whole new creature for everything, have a variation of one from a nearby biome - so a smaller, green and yellow peeper in the creepvines, a mottly reddish spadefish in the mushroom forest, that sort of thing - not of every fish, just a few. Or slightly greater variation that suggests a common ancestor, but different species (I see the sandshark and boneshark as like this).
I definitely think that not every fish should be edible. A reasonable proportion should be slightly toxic (perhaps 1/3 or 1/4) with a small number (perhaps 1/8 or 1/10) being highly poisonous (knock out 80-90% of your health). But these could have other benefits if you study them, medicinal properties, bio-deterrents to keep predators off for a certain time, a deep-sea creature might have some unique breathing system that allows a tank upgrade, that sort of thing. On the other hand, all these should be cookable, so that you have to learn which is edible either by trial and error or by studying, and are not simply told that this creature is food, this creature is poisonous.
I really like the idea of red or "brown" tides, though probably more as an even that would make it dangerous to go into certain areas at certain times than as something that makes all or most creatures toxic to eat. I think that is getting too complex.
I'd love to see deep-sea abyss areas where there is very little life (not much different than the unfinished map areas at present, perhaps a bit more life or resources than that), where you come across the carcass of one of the big creatures and its a mini-biome in amongst its bones and carapace. Or perhaps at the very bottom of the deep caves.