Mob Concept - Hive Based Mobs

Preface

This is a suggestion for adding a new mob type that has its own dungeon (call it a hive). These mobs would not need to be randomly generated and probably shouldn't be because the idea behind it is that they can show up on any of the planets and infest it and this gives the player a visual clue that they either should leave this planet for now or wipe out the threat. The theme behind it is pretty simple. Think of movies like "Aliens" or "Starship Troopers". You could even make a side quest to eliminate this threat from the galaxy. I've decided to call them the Xerid for the purposes of this suggestion.

My goal with this suggestion is to just get the developers thinking. It doesn't need to be exactly like what I am laying down here but I think it would be really cool to have this feeling that there is this malevolent force out there in the galaxy and you never know when you might run into it. I know that there are higher level planets that present dangers but as far as we know it is all randomly generated. That's awesome, it really is and it's one of the things that has me the most excited about this game but I think that knowing that there is at least one static threat out there that could be on any planet you come across is equally cool. Anyway here are the details.


Xerid Soldier

Drops/Loot

I'm not going to suggest item drops at this point. I don't know enough about the crafting system or economy to come up with anything good in this area. I'd prefer that if the devs decide to use this idea that they will decide on item drops for the sake of game balance.

Environment/Habitat

Any planet.

Spawn Rate/ Spawning Conditions

They have a 10% chance to spawn within a hive on each planet. Hives should spawn underground and basically be a dungeon for this type of mob. They could alternatively just infest an existing dungeon on a planet as well.

Attacks/Damage

Soldiers deal melee damage to players. They should be a serious threat to players.

Here is some pixel art I threw together from the monsters that Tiy has shown every Friday on Twitter.

 

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Hmm...interesting. I thought this would be some sort of flying mob that developed knife-shaped wings for aero dynamics but also use them as weapons and they swarm the player and cut them by swooping down and slashing as they fly by. This is pretty cool too! I don't know about infesting the WHOLE planet though, if they did the soldiers would be a huge problem and there would be too many...oh...that's the challenge xD What if you claimed that planet for your homeworld? Could you just take them off?

 

I was thinking that they would just infest the planet's dungeon. So when you go to the dungeon and you are expecting what you normally find there, instead you find that it's been infested with these guys.

 

What about the avian airship dungeons? How would they get up there? I like the idea!

 

That's a good question. I'm not entirely sure how dungeons are setup on the back-end but I think the devs could just add a 10% chance for the dungeons to be infested with this new mob type if they wanted to.

 

I could see the airship landing and these things jumping on and taking over and killing everybody!

 

Let's see, one person, on a planet infested with insectoid monsters, trying to wipe them out before they spread further?

Maybe with a 3-5% spawn rate, I'd be instantly yelling about how this is one of the best things ever. I'm not going to yell, but this is a nice concept. Anyway, what exactly is the nature of the Xerid? Are they biological? Rogue nanotech/gray goo? Something else?

 

I picture them as biological though there isn't any reason they can't be anything else such as cybernetic like the Borg for example. The main idea behind it is to just have this static threat that has a small chance to show up and remind you why you hate/fear/love them.

 

Maybe this idea could be modified to include multiple threats, while still keeping the one infestation per planet rule? Perhaps the Xerid, a gray goo infestation that devours everything in its path and makes more of itself from what it eats, and finally, some kind of Xerid/nanotech hybrid that poses more of a threat than either of the others, somewhat like the Grox from Spore. Of course, I'm thinking of planet-wide infestations. Still, good idea, and I kind of wish I'd thought of it.

 

There are a ton of ways that this could be done if you think about it. I'm not entirely sure which way would be best but I just wanted to bring this up to give the devs something to think about.

 

I love this idea. kinda like the zerg from starcraft!
I was a little worried about the non-static nature of this game. it's great that things are going to be different for every play-through (one of the only things that would have made skyrim exponentially better), but at the same time it gives the game a little airy feel to me. I prefer a bit more solid feeling (the tiered weapons made me happy in that regard.) this might pull together some of that solidity I look for!

 

I like the idea of a Borg-like creature.
The grey goo idea is interesting, but having it devour everything might be too much. Maybe there could be a few different phases/types of this creature:

1. The creature could spawn as a group of eggs, as though "laid" by something in space. (I imagine it like Terraria's meteors. A hollow lined with egg "tiles"). Totally defenceless. Each egg hatches into...
2. Beasts. These look like small black quadrupeds. They eat vegetation, and also take this food to any Workers and Soldiers nearby. Weak attack and defence. They grow into...
3. Workers. These are upright black humanoids. Slightly stronger than Beasts, but still quite weak. They dig through the ground looking for stone, metal and gems, which they take back to their nest. If there's enough of a stockpile, they use some of it to upgrade to...
4. Soldiers. Strong! These are black humanoids with various crude weapons and armour, which could either be carried or "built-in", Borg-like. Weapons and armour could gradually upgrade as the creature ages (iow: the older ones are hardest to kill). Or, creatures could self-arrange into squads, led by a stronger "promoted" creature. Say, each group of five is led by a Leader. Each five groups is led by an even stronger leader. And so on. If they manage to infest an entire planet, the highest rank of Leader could get very, very strong! (Not sure how many of these creature would fit on one planet...) If they deplete all the resources, they of course stop reproducing. Maybe when they start to run out of food in their nearby area, they explore further. This could lead to interesting planets where there are isolated groups. Also, their numbers are limited to the amount of vegetation. When all the vegetation on the planet is gone, I don't know whether they should slowly starve... The vegetation slowly grows back, so that should maintain a fairly large number of them, I think...
5. To prevent the strength of the highest level of Leader getting too high, perhaps it could become a Queen when there's, say, 500 Soldiers on the planet. The Queen's strength could be linked to the player's level, for playability/challenge, and there'd be only one Queen per planet. iow: When you kill it, there's no more (at least for a while?). The Queen would be at the heart of the nest/hive/dungeon, guarding the stockpile of resources.

Re the stockpile: Say the creatures' low-level armour uses stone, next level up uses copper, next level uses iron, etc. The vast majority of the Soldiers (the grunts) would be using low-level armour and weapons, and the minority - only the highest ranking Leaders - would be using the better, more expensive metals like gold. Therefore the stockpile would be mainly these better more expensive resources. So the stockpile would serve as a treasure trove as a reward for defeating the Queen (if there is one, or the colony if there isn't). Killing the Queen might also give you a special item...?

Since the creatures don't devour everything, things like soil, dirt, sand etc could be used to build walls to prevent them spreading. If you catch the infestation early enough you could wipe them out easily. Too late, and you might need to retreat until a later time...

 

That's one way of planning an infestation, and even opens the possibility of capturing about a dozen creatures, dropping them on a planet we don't like/has stupid creatures/is plagued with griefers anyway and seeing what happens. I imagine epic LAN sessions clearing out planer-wide infestations.

I may have been unclear on the Gray Goo and what it actually does, because i tend to operate under the assumption that everyone knows everything I do. I don't think a Gray Goo infestation would play like a creature infestation. I think I accidentally implied a "Factory Robots building Terminators" feel, whereas the Gray Goo would in some ways act like Terrarria's Corruption/hallow. Although masses of goo may pose a direct danger to players, mostly it would slowly convert the ground, walls, plant life, creature remains, it turns everything into more gray goo. However, I imagine it would be a rather slow process, with the goo's total size expanding at most 1/3 the rate of other infestations.

Also, some interpretations of Gray Goo have it leave organic matter alone, unless it becomes a threat, like a human trying to break it up with a pickaxe. Although I guess that presents problems for Glitch players...

Anyway, here's links to the Wikipedia page and the TVTropes article on the subject:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreyGoo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo

 

Corruption is exactly what I imagined gray goo to be like. And I do like the idea. I was going to incorporate it into my suggestion above but couldn't think of a way it'd work.

Perhaps gray goo could be a separate (but related?) species. Maybe the goo serves as a food source for the Xerid/Borg-like things. Or vice versa. Or maybe they eat each other, and are in a constant war?
There could be an independent, say 5%, chance of some kind of infestation event.
When this happens, the infestation type has 40% chance of being goo, 40% chance of Xerid, 20% of both!
In an infestation of both, each species would spawn in a different location on the planet. Goo as a blob, Xerid as eggs as above. Then when they find each other they'd battle among themselves!

There could even be further such species...

Extra idea: Sticking with the Borg theme, perhaps each of these species could have the power to assimilate the local wildlife, turning them into mindless drones. Mwahahaha!

 

I like all of the ideas being discussed. I'm hoping that the devs have read this thread and have been thinking about this. They probably wouldn't tell us if they are going to add something like this because it would be a big spoiler but I'll cross my fingers. If they don't add it I'll definitely make a mod for it down the road.

 

http://community.playstarbound.com/...ound-legacy-of-the-lucent-update-part-2.8560/ Huh?

 

I would love this! The developers were talking in their panel about a way to wipe life off of the planet, and hives would be perfect for this. Say you go to their source, and kill them (which would only apply to certain species), then afterwards they would stop respawning on that planet, so if you like a planet a lot, but the low level or moderate level wildlife keeps on giving you trouble, you can just wipe them out instead of randomly being knocked around for next to no damage.

 

sounds great
it would be like the buggers from Enders Game

 

It seems like that's more of a concept for an infection that makes things turn into creatures like Dead Space style. Not a bad idea but not really what I was thinking. After seeing the first boss though I am starting to think that the little penguins are the static threat.