So this would serve two functions. 1. Several of these would be scattered around the universe and act like regular plants, get nuts and seeds, plant fiber and red petals, the usual stuff. 2. They would sometimes come to life and be either friendly or hostile to the player, randomly based on the planet they were spawned on. If friendly, they would either ignore the player to sprinkle a healing buff on the player. If hostile, they would launch poisons or other plant-based attacks at the player. Just to add variety. Seems strange that Florans are the only sentient plants. (That I've encountered.)
I am just wondering how florans are going to deal with them. Florans are supposed to be able to control plants.
Maybe they react to florans differently and will act neutral rather than straight up hostile. or something like that... I'm not a botanist, so this is not really my area of interest. (nice sprites btw Robotoh)
We're limited by the requirement that all races play the same in Starbound. Just because Florans in general can control plants et al doesn't mean that every single Floran (i.e. the player) can do so. To be honest, guys, that's kind of a racist mindset, and reminds me of back when every Native American character was a spirit-walking tomahawk-tossing loincloth-wearing caveman.
Except Native Americans are real and Florans are imaginary. You can't be racist against an imaginary race.
You can. It is just that people doesn't care because they are imaginary and no one real get hurt. Though it can be very limiting to character development when a whole species is only defined by a single characteristic. And I think this should be left until later on when we get to know more about what each species bonus will be, so we can look at how balance things are. For now let just assume they will be hostile toward floran, cause floran can only speak with non-sentient plants, and these things as a primitive mind that can refuse orders, or some sort.
How is the idea racist when it's literally one of their abilities to control plants? That's like saying its racist people in Minnesota are used to the cold.
I actually rather like the idea of ents/trees/plants that come alive when you attempt to harvest them. As far as the idea of having Florans in particular able to make them non-aggressive goes, why not just attach that to the Floran armor instead of the race itself? The developers have stated the intent to differentiate the races by their armor effects, and I for one would think that having plant life side with you while wearing a Floran suit/guise might be neat.
I kind of agree with Aeronaut, maybe a certain type backpack or something releases a Pheromone that relaxes the plants for harvesting. As for florans, maybe the plants will only attack them if the florans attempt to harvest them. Normally, the plants would actively chase off other races and non-plant mobs if they come near. (Or run away... That'd be cool too.)
Kind of like carnivorous plants here on Earth. Here's the thing about them. Whether it applies to Starbound or not, I don't know; but carnivorous plants are exclusively trappers. Pitcher plants lure in insects with their sweet smell, then let them slide in and get digested. Venus fly traps wait for their nerve-equivalents to be triggered by pressure, from a fruit fly or other small creature, then engage extremely-metabolically-costly muscle-equivalents to grab the fly and again digest it. The catch is, this is not an efficient way for a plant to gain nutrition, it was a desperation move from resource-shoddy environments like swampland. Thus, you only really run into carnivorous plants in areas where there's almost nothing to get from the soil or sun. Now, as far as Florans go, they're probably as likely in the real world as the Glitch are. However, it would be nice if the carnivorous plants showed up in desolate environments, like swamp and wetlands. That way we would know what to look for.
Or... Maybe they could possibly sort of mini bosses triggered by fake chests or something like that. Found only in extreme environments, these killer weeds could possibly lure explorers in with a fake chest or npc. Then other spring up, trap them and try to kill them with killer vines, or even just swallow them whole and act like a living dungeon! Something along these lines would make a pretty cool mod or addition. (I would make the mod myself, but I'm still struggling with using the new .patch system rather than dirty editing. I have no idea what to do if i want to make a new item...)
