Will randomly Generated Creatures "match" with their environments?

I was looking just now at the recent weekly generated creature when this question struck me. The search option has not suggested a topic similar to this one, hence the reason for its creation. This thread is actually a mix between a question and a suggestion.

Well, how will the randomly generated feature work? Will creatures in every single biome share a database of parts and colours?

If that's the case, I must say that while we might have plenty of variety, we'll also end up with very weird combinations, i.e. creatures that don't match their environment, such as running the risk of finding an extremely hairy beast living in a desert region.


My suggestion is to have several groups of parts and colours for these randomly generated monsters, each group matching a specific biome. For example, Desert Parts will contain all creature parts related to this environment, Snow Parts will contain all parts related to the snowy biome and so forth (some parts and colours would be in more than one group) ... Once a creature has to be generated, it would first analyse the type of landscape present and select from the matching group of parts.

 

The idea of a Planetary unique color palette sounds great. maybe that few Enemies blend in with the enviroment to make it harder to be spotted.

 

Umm. From the streams I have seen, though those are probably not completely finished, it doesn't look like there's very much when it comes to matching the creatures to the environment and it would kinda hinder the whole, randomly generated part of it since you'd have to find a certain planet to get certain monster parts. I can see the colors being somewhat environmental though. Desert monsters being more sandy or sun bleached colors, while a forest monster would be greens or blues, and so on.

 

I think yes, DakoShark, they will be matched to their enviroment, this is alpha that we have in our hands for now, not beta. So, you can never be sure.

 

I see what you mean, but to be honest it doesn't fully make sense.

I mean look at the biodiversity we have here on Earth, it's not like we have a colour palette here, and the different creatures of other planets won't really be any different.

 

my only problem would be seeing robots in a tropical Forrest or something

 

Actually, we kind of do. Camouflage is a huge part of life on Earth. Nearly every (note, I said "nearly.") successful life form uses it in someway. Tigers are striped and colored orange in order to blend in with the tail grass. Crocodiles and alligators are shaped and colored so as to appear as floating logs in a river. Moths blend in with their environment, deer blend in... some lizards and octopi can even change color to blend in!

In fact, it's a lot more rare to find a creature that doesn't somehow blend in to its natural environment, either by being about the same color, or by being a neutral color like black. About the only examples I can think of for creatures that don't blend in in any way are butterflies and poison dart frogs.

 

Well I'm not saying there there is no correlation between camo and the environment, I'm saying that as a whole, there is no all encompassing scheme. You forget that Tigers are also orange, and live in green jungles. Yes they have an ability to blend, but they don't meet. Birds, insects, and pretty much any family has multiple colours to it.

 

Tigers can be found in jungles, yeah, but they're far more common in dry grasslands where the dominant color is a golden yellow.

Also, I forgot birds, so point for you there.

But here's the thing: there's no all-encompassing color scheme on Earth because on Earth there are wildly different ecosystems - brown and beige deserts, lush green forests, white and brown tundra, and so on. The devs have stated that in Starbound, planets will be much more uniform - one planet, one environment (with sub-biomes for a little flavor.)

EDIT: Although, that said, we don't know how much of a difference in color these sub-biomes will have from the primary one...

 

Fair enough, I just want to see tons of diversity. Which I'm sure we will be seeing.

 

I agree completely. From what I've seen, a lot of the monsters seem a little... Goofy. I just hope that they take the time to fine-tune some of the monsters to better fit their environment. Seeing a pink and yellow dinosaur in the middle of a tundra would be a bit of a flow-killer for me.

 

Thanks for the feedback, everyone

I was actually referring to specific parts/colours matching certain biomes and not the planet as a whole. I'm also assuming planets will be having different biomes and not actually be a huge giant environment.

I do like diversity, but, as stated by other people, if everything, everywhere, shares the same data base then we run the risk of finding beasts that may seem extremely out of place. For instance, finding this fellow in a volcano area, full of lava, might be a little bit too odd.

 

It could still be cool though, seeing a little green volcanic flower creature. I could see it working

 

Well, we have seen trees made of metal in some screenshots, so it looks like they have that issue covered.
Mechanical Mother Nature, anyone?

 

It would answer the question which is, what biome this creature : http://i.imgur.com/8Ixlr.png , the monkey tank, would fit in. It would be nice to have some resemblance of balance when it comes to creatures matching environments in some way shape or form.

 

I would actually kinda like a word from the devs on this...

 

camels are pretty hairy, they live in deserts.

i don't really need a very elaborate difference. just make the colours match with the environment and i'll be happy

 

Totally agree with you Keeper.

 

I was more thinking on the lines of Mammoth hairy.

 

I've been watching the streams and I have to say, while it appears that they will not match their environments, it also never really felt like they were too unbelievable out of place either.