It doesn't grow on trees, you know...
Bugzapper
Australia Join Date: 2015-03-06 Member: 201744Members
Australia Join Date: 2015-03-06 Member: 201744Members
Found something interesting on the Floating Island today.
Lead (Pb) growing as fruit on certain trees. Does that make them Plumb Trees?
*sigh* I'm going to have to stop you right there, Devs. Definitely throwing the B.S flags on this one.
Given time and enough psychoactive substances, I might be able to cook up a reasonably-scientific(ish) explanation for this particular evolutionary adaptation, although that explanation would probably throw the rationale supporting most of Subnautica's life forms entirely out of whack. I might even be able to explain (eventually) how the Shocker is able to form arcs between its organic electrodes, but that lead-bearing tree idea has got me completely baffled.
Hint: "Transmutation Furnace" - Handy nuclear-powered gizmo that will convert any element into a completely different element.
Want graphene but only have a surplus of titanium? No problem!
Because: SCIENCE!
Lead (Pb) growing as fruit on certain trees. Does that make them Plumb Trees?
*sigh* I'm going to have to stop you right there, Devs. Definitely throwing the B.S flags on this one.
Given time and enough psychoactive substances, I might be able to cook up a reasonably-scientific(ish) explanation for this particular evolutionary adaptation, although that explanation would probably throw the rationale supporting most of Subnautica's life forms entirely out of whack. I might even be able to explain (eventually) how the Shocker is able to form arcs between its organic electrodes, but that lead-bearing tree idea has got me completely baffled.
Hint: "Transmutation Furnace" - Handy nuclear-powered gizmo that will convert any element into a completely different element.
Want graphene but only have a surplus of titanium? No problem!
Because: SCIENCE!
Comments
Make the fruit an edible item, capable of being grown in base or surface farming plots. Give it the property of providing an immediate buff of +10 health restoration and a gradual increase of health-points back to 100%. Could be a useful item to carry in Biter or Bleeder infested waters.
Call it something fanciful: e.g 'Doctor Damson' or 'Surgical Satsuma'.
Might also be useful as a restorative if some health-depleting mechanism such as scurvy were to be introduced to the game.
Neither can I. It's merely... Highly implausible.
The only vaguely-acceptable reason I can think of is forced evolutionary change over an incredibly short time scale. This begs the question 'why?' - Does the plant concentrate lead to protect itself against radiation, and would other organisms on the planet benefit from eating its fruit?
Hmmm, gess you're talking about milligram quantities, don't you?
or its a symbiosis with some bacteria or whatnot that filters it for the plant concentrating the secretion on local spots
Edit: But planting these 'fruits' to cultivate a lead plantation would shoot up the bird. Hehe
and after we consume them we'd be shi shooting lead then?
You want lead to make a radiation suit or build a nuclear reactor? No problem.
Purely coincidental that the fruits are spherical? Probably not.
My best guess is that the Floating Island was used as a biological research station during the first Alterra mission. The core research project may have been to manipulate the DNA of native plants and animals to provide complex resources that could be used during the colonization phase.
Could this be the location of the fabled 'Technology Tree'?
Well, that's the point. I'm still searching for the toilet blueprint. Hehe
Subnautica is a GAME, therefore there has to be some imagination and poetic licence.
Just enjoy this fantastic game which is far better than many completed games, yet here we are still in Alpha phase.
Bravo to the devs for SN. You guys really are producing something incredible. The end product is going to be amazing.
I am quite content with the knowledge that I can assemble complex objects out of minimal amounts of specific raw materials
and energy, because there may be a plausible scientific (or at least quasi-scientific) explanation for the basic principle behind it.
Truth be known, I can think of at least one already. Bear in mind, the lead-bearing tree thing might be a significant plot point.
Believe it or not, I do have a vague suspicion that imagination and a certain degree of poetic licence might play a valid role in computer game design. If you haven't guessed it already, I am a fairly dedicated fan of the game, too.
When all is said and done, I'm merely pointing out that there are now TWO sources of lead in the game. Yes, I'm aware that there are two sources of Titanium as well (metal salvage and titanium ore). Seems a little redundant to me, unless there's a specific and as yet, undisclosed reason for being able to gather massive amounts of lead. Nobody would want to build that many rad suits and nuclear reactors, surely.
also scientific reason lead grows on the tree: same as snail shells evolved from storing/excreting calcium on the back of slugs. could mean that the island contains a lot of lead in its soil. maybe something with more radioactive zones?
A developer wnts to implement a pickable fruit. He (or she) ties the graphical assets of tree and fruit together, implements a pickable and then vanishing fruit graphics, implements the player interaction (the blue hand icon) but then realizes that the inventory object that resemples the fruit does not exist yet. This inventorys object is not the same as the graphics of the fruit hanging on the tree.
So to continue his task, he chooses another inventory object and ties it to the provcess of picking a fruit. He chooses an object that somewhat resembles a fruit. He could have taken titanium, but he took lead. Maybe he remembered a Trello card where a "better" recipe for lead was to be developed and found it a funny idea that lead was picked off a tree.
I would bet there will be no lead tree in the final version. If there is, I will name a Cyclops "Lead Tree" and publicly post a screenshot of it.
I am quite sure that the abandoned outpost will be the place where the player will scan equipment needed for farming. There are farming trays nearby, some have suspicious land-based plants inside them where I am sure we will be gathering our first plants or seeds from. We will pick the fruits of the tree and plant them in large planters to get small trees whose fruits we will eat.
If that will finally be nothing more than some fruits to eat, it was an almost bitter dessert.
EDIT: One thing to keep in mind is that the story mode is scheduled to end in a launch sequence, which would seem to indicate you've built something large and capable of space travel. Something like this would definitely require lots of radiation shielding, both for the drive unit and the exterior hull, so a large demand for lead may yet be introduced. Though, of course, all of that could be subject to change depending on the story the Devs actually produce for us.
It's possible that a tree could leech out lead from the sub-straight its growing in and store it within it's fruit, what looks like fruit might just be the tree's way of getting rid of the lead in its diet.
Insects on earth perform feats like this, getting rid of a byproduct of their feeding, some insects shit sugar and there are other insects that know that and feed from them, some ants actually act like farmers and have little herds of bugs that they farm for the sweet stuff.
so a tree with what looks like lead fruit might not be that far fetched at all.
Speaking of waste products, a fruit is not part of a trees waste cycle, but if its reproductive cycle. A fruit is a "present" to an animal so the animal eats it and carries the seeds a bit so the tree's descendants can spread out. As compensation, the fruit contains nutrients for the animal. Or so I learned in school. So unless lead is an integral part of alien physiology a fruit would not contain lead in amounts that allow us to harvest it. And if this planets life forms really dependet on lead - maybe it would be better to hunt them instead? Or look what else they eat besides those fruits...
That might be a little too abstract for most players I guess. In other words: Stalkers must have carried these seeds to another beach.