Modding Discussion Avali 1.0 Reboot Discussion

Discussion in 'Starbound Modding' started by RyuujinZERO, Aug 11, 2016.

  1. Scival

    Scival Oxygen Tank

    Last edited: May 22, 2017
  2. YellowDemonHurlr

    YellowDemonHurlr Ketchup Robot

    Personally, I'm okay with the avali the way they are. Sure, I'd like new blocks and a new ship and to know what exactly is going on behind the scenes, but avali as they stand are fleshed out enough to give me ideas, but vague enough that take them in just about any direction I want to. Ryuujin is very generous in how he allows the avali to be used, and I'm grateful for that. Personally, I think the ability for other people to build off a creator's work is just as important as the quality of the original work (which is why creative works fall into the public domain after a time). That's why anyone is welcome to use anything they want to from Windows to Infinity except the actual videos and the character of Yellow.

    How perfectly he captures avali body language!
     
  3. Scival

    Scival Oxygen Tank

    Last edited: May 22, 2017
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  4. YellowDemonHurlr

    YellowDemonHurlr Ketchup Robot

    Well yeah, Sturgeon's Law, but that applies to everything including professionally published works.
     
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  5. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder


    I'm now so obsessed with this song that I had to ask how plausible an avali adaption is. Would it be more of a "culture outreach" aka avali just putting their own spin on other races' music, or would it be something more natural to them? I guess this goes for all acappella.
     
  6. TR-219

    TR-219 Subatomic Cosmonaut


    Plausible... literally any type of music you can think of, an Avali pack somewhere would have tried to make. Chances are some are inspired by human media, especially given the independent colonies, while other versions are the Avali's own creation, unique to them.
     
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  7. YellowDemonHurlr

    YellowDemonHurlr Ketchup Robot

    Done. Behold (behear?), El Grillo Cantanta da Avali!

    I think there's actually a good chance that human and avali wouldn't like each others' music very much. Not just because they don't like each other in general, but because they probably have different hearing ranges, so certain parts of the music will be too high or low for one or the other to hear (or just high enough to be painful). For example, an avali might be able to play music on a dog whistle (for a few minutes before having to take off running form every dog in the vicinity), but might not be able to hear parts of this:
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2017
  8. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I was under the impression that avali hearing range would just be completely superior to that of humans, meaning they'd also be able to hear as deep as humans if not deeper.

    I also made a post many pages back about avali likely having the same average voice pitch as humans, even in canon. Smaller size and slower metabolism/larger relative jaw size effectively cancel each other though. Your machinima pretty much got their voices perfectly.
     
  9. YellowDemonHurlr

    YellowDemonHurlr Ketchup Robot

    Possible, but not guaranteed. See the wide variation in animal hearing ranges:
    [​IMG]
    In particular note the bat, which is probably out best analog for avali, given that they echolocate in a gas medium (as opposed to water). Bats can hear higher than us, but we can hear much lower. Caveat: the density of Avalon's atmosphere is likely to affect this, but I don't know enough to say how.
     
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  10. DraikNova

    DraikNova Spaceman Spiff

    See, the question I have is how this varies for different bats. Some bats are about 50-50 in how much they rely on echolocation vs. sight, while others rely on one or the other almost completely. The former seems like it'd be the best comparison for the Avali.

    EDIT: I just looked it up. The lowest bat hearing gets in any species is 1 kHz. And comparing the regions wikipedia gives as the ones they are most sensitive to: 2000-5000 in humans, 15000-90000 in bats. So I imagine avali talking would be very unpleasant to hear for humans even if the increased mass and low metabolism results in a drastically lower lower bound for the region they are most sensitive to (and therefore use for communication).
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2017
  11. Scival

    Scival Oxygen Tank

    Huh, excuse me, since when do avali echolocate?
    They just have good hearing.
     
  12. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Well it's more of an implied thing: judging from their four large swiveling ears, they likely have some semblance of echolocation. I don't know, it might actually be stated on the avali wiki as well, but that doesn't really mean a whole lot.
     
  13. Scival

    Scival Oxygen Tank

    Yeah, but echolocation would be a bit silly. It's not useful for finding prey since they can hear them perfectly with those ears of theirs, and they're not going to dodge any cave walls seeing as Avalon is a bunch of ice sheets. They still do have eyeballs if they come across any terrain. Also it's not mentionned or implied about once on the wiki.

    Also, "that doesn't really mean a whole lot"? Like, I get it isn't complete, but what is on the wiki IS on the wiki. The stuff Ryuu wrote. And he didn't say jack about echolocation.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2017
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  14. YellowDemonHurlr

    YellowDemonHurlr Ketchup Robot

    Echolocation is much more useful for finding prey than just hearing. It'll tell you the position, location, direction, and speed of your prey. Not to mention you can't hear a fissure in the ice. Eyes won't do a whole lot of good, it's nearly pitch black on Avalon as far as we can tell.

    The wiki doesn't say they echolocate, but I don't think hearing is enough to be active predators on the surface. My headcanon is that their echolocation is sufficiently advanced that they can use environmental noises rather then just having to send out their own.
     
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  15. DraikNova

    DraikNova Spaceman Spiff

    I mean, even humans can learn to echolocate to a slight degree, if trained properly. Having at least a rudimentary capability to echolocate wouldn't exactly be strange.
     
  16. TR-219

    TR-219 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    They could probably use their own footsteps, if need be.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2017
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  17. Sock of Retribution

    Sock of Retribution Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I wouldn't say that Avalon's surface is practically pitch black: Ryuu's never said anything of the sort. I don't really see where scientific assumption would come into that either.

    The last thing I'd do in regards to headcanon is make the avali more different from humans in environment and behavior. Being a human, I like to keep it more tangible and relatable.
     
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  18. Scival

    Scival Oxygen Tank

    and that's how sci-fi ended up with the "blue humans are aliens" trope.
     
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  19. YellowDemonHurlr

    YellowDemonHurlr Ketchup Robot

    I'm extrapolating:
    1. Again, a comparison to Titan. I know that you're not terribly fond of that, but to my eye it seems like the best model and Ryuujin has explicitly compared Avalon to Titan.
    2. The wiki that the avali's eyes are large "purely to provide some measure of eyesight in the very low light levels of their homeworld." he size and structure of avali eyes isn't in keeping with any above-ground animal that I can think of, it's the sort of equipment you have for working in very low but non-zero light levels, such as the twilight zone of the ocean.

    Those observations are consistant with one another.

    As for keeping avali similar to humans, that kind of runs counter to the avali's original purpose as a thought experiment to how things could be radically different. Granted, as a legitimate exploration of how life might evolve differently under different conditions, it fails just on the basis of producing a race of small raptor people (cuteness has clearly trumped science), but still. I am very aware that I write avali as much more human than they should be--this is mostly my own lack of experience with alien thought processes.
     
  20. Scival

    Scival Oxygen Tank

    It's pretty dark because it's far away from the system star. There's no midnight planet atmosphere that makes it pitch black and requires intense echolocation because it deafens all sound.
    Seriously, guys, stop taking every detail and raising it to a 100.
     

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