Organism Identification

As a marine biologist, one of the best parts of the job is organism identification. Seeing a new species to you, and then playing almost a game to identify it using what knowledge you have and working your way through a dichotomous key. With exploring unknown planets, stars and moons come unknown flora, fauna, fungi and microorganisms. And the ability to identify them is one of the things that I really looked forward to in Starbound. I think an organism identification system needs to be added into the game. Identifying the plants and animals would add another element to it, and add more journal entries. This could eventually lead to domestication and breeding of certain animals, but the identification is key if you are going to do this. At least, higher taxonomy identification.

Taxonomic classification is as follows: domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. An example using the tiger shark: Animalia, Chordata, Chondrichthyes, Elasmobranchii, Carcharhiniformes, Carcharhinidae, Galeocerdo, G. cuvier. Getting down to the species and genus would be too much. But having some sort of higher taxonomy classification, maybe to order or family, would allow for some sort of system. The idea of exploring is going into the unknown, but as you spend time in the unknown you begin to learn. I feel this would be a great addition to the program.

 

I thought the best part about being a marine biologist was all the women flocking to you.
Wanna see my snorkel?

I think a pokédex would be pretty cool though.

 

Based on the parts for monsters, I'm sure a dichotomous key could be made with artificial families. I think the same would work for the trees as well. As an ex-zoologist and botanist, I think it would be very do able, it would just take some time. I totally agree though, it would be a great addition.

Edit: For the trees, there are just two characteristics I can see as of now: leaf form and bark texture.

 

I could see post release support for this through a wikia, but during beta I'd imagine it'd fall pretty low on the priority bucket. Plus if we get a captain's log we could do this ourselves.

I'm sure as the pet system is fleshed out more there'll be some sort of external database with numbers and types and all statistical and classifying and anything you could ever possibly *trails off*

 

We might do something like this probably when we get to the polish phase. I think it would be neat. Just don't expect it to be as in depth as real classifications if we do it ;P.

It would probably be basic descriptors based on the parts, abilities and maybe color the creatures use. I'm just brainstorming right now based on past theoretical discussions. No promises on anything!

 

BRAINSTORMING CONFIRMED.

 

Brainstorming confirmation confirmed. Encyclopedia building to be added this year. I heard a dev say something like that a few post up but the only words I got out of it were "expect" and "promises". Cool!

 

I think I am going to start keeping a documented journal with pictures of all the flora/fauna I see, and what not. Booting up biologist mode *puts on nerdy glasses and gets a clipboard*

 

Don't forget the wide brimmed hat!

 

Wasn't there supposed to be some kind of system where we identify and categorize stuff ourselves?

 

...umm.. would it be possible, in anyway, for the players to start to right up their own descriptions of monsters? Like some form of giant pokedex but YOU write the descriptions?

 

When my brother and I started playing the game, we would document every single lifeform we found on our home planet, even giving them both scientific and common names (like if we named one species Canis Lupus, but called it a dog)
Of course our characters were wiped and we haven't bothered going back to that planet, but it was pretty fun along the way.

 

One of the things I really liked about Mass Effect (only played the first one) was the different planets and systems you'd go to, you could get a nice overview of each planet: The day/night cycles, surface temps, possible life, minerals, history of when the planet was discovered and entered into an inter-galactic database, etc.. It wasn't too in-depth, but it was more info than just a few stats. It really fleshed out some planets enough. I can't see this game doing that with the sheer number of planets there are. Would just take too much time, but this organism identification thing is something I was also looking forward to when I was following the progress of starbound development. There is probably a similar thread in the suggestions section, if not, you should toss it in there @Bly%Marbi!

BTW: I try to keep my spelling up to snuff, and when I get the red, wavy underline of a word, letting me know it's misspelled or a made-up word, I try to correct it if I can. Is there any way you can go into the feature and make "Starbound" an actual recognizable word? Because it should be by now.

 

Alternatively, you could set up a way to let players name them (in keeping with the exploration theme). True, that might create issues on multiplayer servers if someone goes around giving everything obscene names, but things like that are always an issue in multiplayer with strangers.

 

Well, common names could be player generated for sure. After all, these differ throughout the world anyway. In example, Ambystoma mexicanum, is called the Mexican walking dog, Mexican walking fish, axolotl, and several other names. But it is still Ambystoma mexicanum. As the organisms are discovered, they could be assigned a scientific name and classification from the developers/programmers/etc., or as a collective community. Traditionally, the scientist who discovers it gives it the scientific name, and it is Latin or Greek and cannot be named after themselves (the last is since the 80s).

 

I, too would like to see this. You should have to spend time examining them. Later, you would be able to classify them more easily, and at a glance.

I wish examining creatures would give you a hint of their special attacks. Instead of:
"Some indescribable horror"
You would see:
"Some ugly thing with a big head" (telekinesis attack)

 

and if we can stop the corpses from going *poof* when they die. allow for collection and possible autopsy to get even greater detail about it, and other similar species. like learning what attacks certain body parts give after examining enough dead (and possibly living) specimens with the creature capture mechanics that are already in game.

 

Here is my pun for the day....


I fully agree that organism identification and information sharing is a necessity. Not a necessity for most, but for some. It would add alot of depth, especially if you could make a living at finding and perhaps classifying new species, and the other word that is like 'sub species' but I cant remember it as I am not interested in learning every word or using all the punctuation available. Anyway, seems the game is almost set up for it.

 

That's great, but why stop there? If we can identify animal parts we should be able to BUILD new species in our fancy 3-d printer! It'll be just like pokemon (built by Frankenstein)