Subnautica Creature list

Generally

• Creatures don’t run away in general, they like you by default. Maybe if you pick up creatures or hurt them, they get more scared for awhile.
• Small fish don’t affect big fish in general.
• Big fish can affect other big fish, but they are spawned and leashed in a way that they won’t affect each other without the player taking action.
• Actively look for ways that the player can affect leashing and state of creatures when they take actions. Ie, instead of having creatures always go back to their original leashed area, have them look for something in the environment and leash onto that.
• General system for what creatures are attracted to, curious to.
• How to give feedback that a creature is interested in something? Hearts, or a line that draws between their eyes and the thing they are interested in.
• Living behaviour categories: Player, SmallFish (Peeper, Holefish, Crash), MediumFish (Gasopod), Shark (predatory big creatures like the Stalker), Hero (Reefback, Leviathan) and Static (Crash home).

General

• Be able to hold something in your hand like metal or a fish, to lure or entice a creature.

Crash

• Like a “spike trap” from Spelunky. He is placed on walls or in holes, to prevent the player from easily traveling nearby.
• LDs place Crash Homes. Each home spawns a Crash immediately.
• Crash homes detect motion events with a mass of 1 or higher.
• When motion is detected at 20ish meters, the petals open, indicating a warning.
• When the motion is detected at 5-10 meters, the Crash gets angry, inflating and making angry noises. If the player gets too close, he will attack the player, swimming after him really quickly.
• Crashes trigger from “motion events” with a mass of 1 or higher, and motion > .5 (eco event).
• The crash home’s “petals” stay open when there is now Crash inside.
• Crashes blow up after 4 seconds if they haven’t hit a target.
• A new Crash respawns inside an empty home after 1 day. The petals close up, and a crash then appears inside.
• Crashes blow holes in walls
• TODO: Need a VFX when he blows up, to make it an event. Pieces shouldn’t fall with gravity. NS2 railgun effect?
• Unknown - How to accomplish gating in general? It’s going to be hard to make these guys relevant until there are more ways to constrain player movement and have incentives (loot) they want.

Stalker

• The are attracted to Shiny things. So they hang around metal, Subs, submersibles.
• If you get too close to them, they will attack you (~15 meters). They will follow the player a bit, and continue attacking for a bit (5-10 seconds).
• They should do a pretty tight circle around the Shiny thing, to make it clear they are attracted to it.
• They stop chasing you once they are far enough away from their Shiny thing.
• Eyes sparkle a little bit when he sees something Shiny for feedback.
• When they become attracted to a Shiny thing, they make a new Leash to it.
• Blood makes them aggressive. Stalkers grab loot and collect it in a pile. Or they chew on metal lovingly, perhaps sharpening their teeth on it.

Stalker variants

• Largely identical to the Stalker, but with tweaked size/damage/health and found in other environments. Or he is attracted to other elements (current SketchFab).

Sand shark

• A wandering hunter. Show small indentation or hole or mound that shows where he is.
• He gets agitated when he feels vibrations (the closer and louder the sound, the more agitated he gets). As he gets agitated, his fin will poke up out of the mound. At a certain level of agitation, he will swim towards the player. Any model clipping can be covered with a big silty/sandy effect.
• Picking up loot and attacking coral tubes creatures vibration events.
• When the SandShark is near Meat, he jumps out and attacks it. Then he’ll choose a new sandy place for his new mound.

Gasopod

• Floating space cows. It’s nice to be able to swim nearby. Curious about players, and swim with them.
• They are spooked by sounds. If there is a sound source near and behind them, they will attack it with their tail. If they get too scared, they will let off their spores.
• Phase X: Allow player to burn gas/spores. Their acid could also open up other areas.
• Stretch goal: Gasopod snores when he’s sleeping at night. You can push him around and he farts occasionally.

Bleeder

• They float around in place, moving around a little randomly, like the lava larvae. When they see a BigFish or Shark within 5-10 meters, they attack and try to leach on.
• Once leached on, he saps your health over time. His sack inflates as he drinks your blood and saps your health. Some of your blood that is sapped leaks out of his mouth which is letting blood out into the water. They should also be attracted by blood, so if you get in a tussle with another creature nearby, they might come attack you.
• Different tools do more damage to him when you attack. When attacking him, blood leaves his sack and escapes into the water.
• If a Bleeder would attack you but you already have one attached to you, he will attack you and do some damage.
• Add screen red-flash to cover up the transition between in-water and on-arm.

Mesmer^[1]

• When he’s close to a non-Hero SmallFish, MediumFish or Sharks, he starts mesmerizing him. The creature stops and stares, and the Mesmer attacks. If you are looking at a creature and he’s looking at you, he begins his scintillating display, but only if you’re within a 90 degree view cone. Any creature that’s in this view cone and looking at him while he’s doing his display is “tractor beamed”, and starts moving toward him (he applies a force to him). When he’s tractor beaming and a creature is near his mouth, he stops tractor beaming and his mouth-tentacles come out and attack him. During this attack, the display subsides, so any other prey might be able to leave.
• TODO: Only do this when the Mesmer is hungry

Spike Plant (like NS2 Hydra)

• Attacks the nearest “target” (alive, MediumFish or Shark).

• After it kills the target with a spike, optionally grow a new spike plant out of the corpse.

Bone Shark (like Stalker)

• Copy the Stalker as a base
• Make more aggressive, faster, nastier
• Put him in deeper darker caves and deeper depths

Jelly-Ray

• Attracted to lights (make EcoTargets). So you should be able to control where they go with your flashlight.

Bloom

• Attracted to any light above intensity .5. Becomes visible when light is nearby. Generates light itself, according to the intensity and color of the light it is attracted to.

Jumper^[2]

• Jumpers avoid light and will move away from them.
• Jumpers get scared from from “motion events” with parameter of 1 or higher. The bigger the motion or mass, the longer they will be scared for. He will try to move away from the thing that most recently scared him.
• When quite scared, he releases a cloud of ink for self protection. Ink can be released every 10 seconds. The ink blocks the light and obscures your vision.
• If the thing is scaring the jumper is of mass 2 or more he will try to jump instead.

Cute Fish

Rock Puncher

Rock Grub

Oculus

Eyeye

Spade fish

Reefback

Lava Larva

Spike Trap

Simulation

Later

Seatreader

Crab Snake

Leviathan

Low-level framework and concepts

Creature classes

• SmallFish (Peeper, Holefish), BigFish (RabbitRay, Jumper), Shark (Stalker), Hero (Reefback)

Crystal clear feedback on game/creature state

• When a creature is currently aggressive, his mouth hangs open (Stalker)
• Meat sources give off faint pink particles (currently - might be able to remove).
• Shiny sources give off glowing pulsing particles (maybe be able to remove as well).
• When a creature is curious about something...his eyes glow a bit? A faint pulse emanates from their eye and shoots toward the target. Or a “happy animation” and sound that plays whenever the creature is near the object of their love. Or they go up to coral tubes and “peck” on them, and a little particle effect plays. Decision: when creatures are attracted to something or curious about it, they swim up to it directly, that’s it.
• Be able to hold loot in your hand, so you can lure creatures. (Jonas)

• Stalker -> metal
• Peeper -> coral tube
• Jumper -> Light Jumper is friendly in grass, and Dark Jumper in caves? seems to have some disappointment because he doesn’t attack. (he’s in caves) He could steal your tools!

• Place near grass and under cover

• Gasopod -> ?

• Creatures showing release of bubbles and play sound when they make a big state change
• How to show generic scare state? They just swim away quickly (“fast swim” state) from the thing they are scared by (the inverse of curious).

Open questions 1/5/14

• Player distance tracker - Stalker and Sandshark uses it for aggression
• Add concept of “sight” (utility function) -
• Medium - Jumper, Spadefish (grab ring and go for ride), Crash, Rabbit Ray, Mesmer
• How does “visuals” work for the Mesmer (close)?
• Hunger in general
• Lights should create targets (later)