If Rimworld had imagination

[milon]

Off topic: The M in Muffalo comes from Muskox:


On topic: I agree with Limdood & others.  I'd like to see more animal diversity, but I'm no artist.  If anyone can make the graphic assets, I'll mod them in.  If they're really good, I'll nominate them for vanilla inclusion (not that my nomination carries more weight than anyone else's).

[Kajin]

Boomalopes, Boomrats are the only remotely creative animal, and they sound like a joke. That kind of animal couldn't survive. A single predator would kill an entire pack.

That single predator would also die horribly trying. Aside from the fact that I think they're escaped lab tests, exploding when something tries to eat you actually sounds like a pretty good survival advantage. What would want to eat you if they'd die trying? Further, the fire would destroy your body before it went out, so anything that tried to eat you and survived wouldn't even get anything for its trouble.

[REMworlder]

Considering animal interactions is kind of a moot point in the context of the game; Tynan's stated he wants to keep things simple because adding complexity to that sort of things has a minimal payoff given the time it takes and the potential bugs that emerge. Though with the hive system eventually incoming, maybe that's an indication of a change of design focus that could lead to a more alive ecosystem.

That said, boomrats are neat because they're different. They remind the player he didn't just crash land in North Dakota. I'd love to see more quirks, but the biggest question is how to make animals different in a meaningful way that isn't just for the sake of being different.

As a mechanic boomrats are kind of cool because the player has to balance eradicating a pest with the fact that pest explodes, and that encourages the player to make meaningful knowledge-based decisions like hunting in the rain or not using melee hunters for boomrats.

[Regret]

Read the short story "The Odour of Thought" before you accuse me of lack of creativity. I could go into detail, but I don't want to spoil that excellent story.

Nobody will read books or short stories just to understand some point you're making. If you want to use it as an example to illustrate something you need to name the aspects relevant to your argument, otherwise people will have no idea what you're talking about. If you can't or don't want to do that you shouldn't bring it up in the first place.

Woah woah woah, back up there. I will read almost anything for almost any reason. This sounds like a perfectly good reason.
I'll probably forget about the thread in the meantime though.

Anyway, yes, more varied animals would be good.
Tribbles or something similar sounds especially interesting, and I understand an insect-hive version is already in development.
That does not mean a mammal version is a bad idea, in that vein, I would also like to see that one purple alien fungus mod that aggressively grows over everything be implemented in vanilla.

Let's see, what else could improve animal, or to be more broad, ecology in Rimworld...
More species interactions like predators eating prey.
Muffalo occasionally damaging trees (large grazers tend to rub against trees), at just a bit faster rate than trees grow, so if a herd stays in the same place long the trees start disappearing.
Beehives increasing plant reproduction speed, maybe even allowing your planted plants to occasionally spawn outside their fields. Also, honey.
Come to think of that, if we have honey we can have honeybadgers. Honeybadgers also eat snakes, so that gives the cobras a natural enemy.
And/or bears. Bears are cool.

But this is an animal creativity thread, I shouldn't let myself get distracted.
- Blatantly stolen from the Terrible Thunder Lizards animation series intro: Sharks with legs ("Damn this evolution thing!")
- Living zeppelin creatures, they are about 1/10th the size of the total map and too high to see anything except their shadow. They graze on the full grown trees wherever they are (the young ones are too short too reach), and their only other effect is that bullets make them explode, not in a directly destructive way but covering a large part of the map in blood.
- Invisible cats. Also blatantly stolen, this time from Alice in Wonderland by way of China Mieville. (I think it was his Calorieman story but I could be mistaken.)
- If the insect hive thing becomes a thing I want ant-eaters.
- Not a real creature (or is it!) but a variation on the thrumbo herd event implying they were running away from something. Cue a massive moral drain, at least equal to a negative psychic event.
- A running Gag: literally the word "Gag" with legs running from one end of the map to the other. it cannot be caught or killed. This one i stole from 1/0 (One over Zero), the webcomic by Tailsteak. http://www.undefined.net/1/0/?strip=1
- Yeah, yeah, I know copyright and all that haberdashery. How about this: feral lawyers come to visit! they all have abrasive and social skill 20, and nothing else. Expensive clothes though.
- I got distracted again... How about some variation of hypnotoad? Every colonist who comes within a certain range just stares dully at it until they die (usually from hypnotoad bite)
- Hypnotoad could be a dryad, nyad, or other similar seducing mystical being. 
- Or something like Tolkiens Old Man Willow, a tree that makes poor hobbits fall asleep and then tries to turn them into fertilizer. http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Old_Man_Willow 
- Another alternative is black lotus fields, that just turn your colonists into addicts instantly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus-eaters
- Tesla trees (yes, also stolen, from Dan Simmons' most excellent book Hyperion. Read it. Now. I'm not kidding. Seriously, it is truly great literature, science fiction, and philosophy in one.) Anyway, Tesla trees store or create electricity during certain seasons and release it at all surrounding life to kill competition and predators and create fertilizer at the same time. They could even be used as a power source if the right tech was researched. There are other interesting animals in Dan Simmons' books, but I don't want to give spoilers.
- Hyperaccumulators, as in plants that accumulate useful metals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hyperaccumulators They could be used for a very slow but renewable source of metal. They exist in real life, but I think they are fantastic enough to fit in this thread.
- Shooting plants, there are plenty plants that shoot their seeds, peas among them, so that could easily be adapted (I know plants vs zombies used them, but it is a naturally occurring trait so copyright doesn't come into it) Maybe humans happen to be great soil for these seeds giving the colonist an infection that really needs to be treated asap? They can even be used as a defensive weapon though that would require getting one of your colonists seriously infected with dozens of embedded seeds while he is planting them. Wouldn't it be hilarious if harvesting them from living people was the only way to get these seeds? After which planting them would be safe until they matured.
- I seem to like plants more than animals, so just to honor the OP I will attempt to come up with another animal. Something that drinks blood, like chupacabra or vampire. Maybe just a giant mosquito? Or swarms of mosquitos acting like piranha, completely draining small animals (except boomrats) and giving blood loss and potentially infections to large animals (except boomalopes) and humans. There would have to be some gameplay mechanic to fight them though, maybe just cleaning up or having some other floor than dirt?

[ironstar]

as others have brought up, the help files say there is a lot of animal diversity thanks to genetic experimentation. but we only ever see modified creatures with Earthly ancestry. this makes me wonder: are there any alien lifeforms in Rimworld so far? is there life that can't ultimately be traced back to Earth?

[A Friend]

as others have brought up, the help files say there is a lot of animal diversity thanks to genetic experimentation. but we only ever see modified creatures with Earthly ancestry. this makes me wonder: are there any alien lifeforms in Rimworld so far? is there life that can't ultimately be traced back to Earth?

Thrumbos? But I think they're blue giraffe rhinos with fur coats.

[milon]

No aliens. Tynan has expressed that numerous times. But GMO experiments gone awry? Yes!

Not likely to be Earth, but it's possible.

[A Friend]

No aliens. Tynan has expressed that numerous times. But GMO experiments gone awry? Yes!

Not likely to be Earth, but it's possible.

I think I put too much alien spice.

[milon]

Call it a Scyther / Praying Mantis hybrid and you're good. 

[MeowRailroad]

A robot/insect hybrid?

[milon]

Stranger things have happened on the rim.  (And the cause is most likely human experimentation, but that's unimportant.)

[A Friend]

Well this thread keeps inspiring me to make some animal textures...


So far I have thought of a:
- Bear/Mole hybrid
- A flying furry orb thing, with proboscis for legs which it uses to stab and latch onto prey
- Spider/Gator hybrid, a spider with the jaws/head of an alligator
- A hermit crab that uses debris as a shell
- A cactus-like animal with arms that hugs things (yes)

[giannikampa]

I wish some animals had ranged attack, either monkeys and elephants throwing stones or fantasy ones spit damaging liquids/thorns/whatever

[Sharp]

For the OP I would recommend http://www.gog.com/game/Impossible_Creatures

[milon]

A Friend, would you mind creating front & back views of those? I feel a mod coming on.