Morphs for new critters

[LaShomb]

Any evidence of new morphs?

Pips in proximity to radiation?

What new abilities could they gain?

[abud]

"Sandstone Pips", they just planting on sandstone but able to plant even on sandstone tile not just natural sandstone.

[Iwhen]

4 minutes ago, LaShomb said:

What new abilities could they gain?

Well since nobody really needs an pip that flys, i would guess eigher nothing happens or it dies, sad reallity if you trow yourself into a nuclear reactor you won't get superpowers.

[Sasza22]

Different morphs of critters have different diets, temeperature requirements or products. It`s hard to come up with one for the pip. Hatches were easy. One basic, suited for the sandstone biome, one for organics nicely suited for the slime biome, one rocky eating almost all types of rock and a final morph useful as a semi metal refinery.

But what about the pip? What use does it have? It plants seeds and produces dirt. We could go the seed route and make morphs suited for different enviroments: a blue pip for ice biomes (egg chances for ow temperature). Maybe give it a chance to spawn a seed form the wheezewort? Plants stuff in ice or in the rust biome (saltvines and stuff). Then a red variant for high temperature biomes, make it eat balm lillies and poop bleach stone. Maybe a swimming pip for the ocean biomes.

Or we can go for a differnt material produced (slime, bleachstone) but then how to keep pufts relevant? It`s kinda a hard task to make those worthwhile.

And what about the crabs? They only eat polluted dirt. Temperature stuff could modify their behaviour. Like a low temperature morph (<20^oC) could be non agressive while a high temperature morph (>60^oC) always agressive but in exchange having a shorter lifecycle meaning more lime.

[LaShomb]

They could come up with new morph mechanics.

Light exposure, elevation, pressure, noise exposure

[goboking]

If sulfur use is ever a thing, a crab (or puft) morph could produce that (the puft could convert sour gas into sulfur).  I still think we need (practical) renewable sources of slime and rust, so crab morphs get my vote for both of those as well.

[pacovf]

Hard lobster: they eat sand, they molt into diamond. They live in crude oil.

Rust lobster: they eat refined metals, they molt into rust. They live in liquid chlorine.

[vohahrv]

 

39 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

Maybe a swimming pip for the ocean biomes.

 

I like the swimming pip idea, the animation should worth a try.

But the pip function in two parts, one to produce dirt, another is special to replant seed. So I wonder if we need to keep the ranch of different pip in order to replant seeds? Cause wild planting is getting nerfed.

And the lobster idea is perfect! Can we make Surf and turf out of lobster and pacu? It's fun and a reference to Don't Starve.

[Coolthulhu]

Here's an idea for a pip morph: a pip that is carried by a dupe and used as a tool, without all the pointless annoyance of setting up a cage with compactor and arrow just to exploit wildplanting. Chance to lay an egg for this morph increases with the time pip spends not murdered.

[Red Shark]

1 hour ago, pacovf said:

Hard lobster: they eat sand, they molt into diamond. They live in crude oil.

Rust lobster: they eat refined metals, they molt into rust. They live in liquid chlorine.

How could you fail to consider the formidable Rock Lobster!

[Cetlas]

2 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

Different morphs of critters have different diets, temeperature requirements or products. It`s hard to come up with one for the pip. Hatches were easy. One basic, suited for the sandstone biome, one for organics nicely suited for the slime biome, one rocky eating almost all types of rock and a final morph useful as a semi metal refinery.

But what about the pip? What use does it have? It plants seeds and produces dirt. We could go the seed route and make morphs suited for different enviroments: a blue pip for ice biomes (egg chances for ow temperature). Maybe give it a chance to spawn a seed form the wheezewort? Plants stuff in ice or in the rust biome (saltvines and stuff). Then a red variant for high temperature biomes, make it eat balm lillies and poop bleach stone. Maybe a swimming pip for the ocean biomes.

Or we can go for a differnt material produced (slime, bleachstone) but then how to keep pufts relevant? It`s kinda a hard task to make those worthwhile.

And what about the crabs? They only eat polluted dirt. Temperature stuff could modify their behaviour. Like a low temperature morph (<20^oC) could be non agressive while a high temperature morph (>60^oC) always agressive but in exchange having a shorter lifecycle meaning more lime.

I like that idea of it spawning seeds on things that cant normally produce a seed like the Wheeze or Oxyfern

[nakomaru]

2 hours ago, vohahrv said:

Can we make Surf and turf out of lobster and pacu? It's fun and a reference to Don't Starve.

That'd be surf and surf. And the reference goes a little deeper.

I love the rust and diamond molt ideas.

New pip morphs seem tough. Should be centered around plants. Maybe a growth rate buff to plants they groom.

Shove vole and morb could use some love too.

[bmilohill]

On the theme of pips doing something (ie, planting seeds):
Pip mother: gathers eggs and increases hatch speed. Alternatively, baby critters follow it for automatic domestication. 

But then to make it as annoying as regular pips: eats algae, poops infected slime. 

[andrakuz]

Hmmm... Maybe a morph for Pips that has a massive décor bonus like long hair slickster and dupes could interact with it for a morale boost. It'll eat logs rather than the plant itself so that it could be fed with a critter feeder but its function would be more like a pet rather than a dirt producing, egg laying, seed planting delicacy. Once domesticated it wont need to be constantly groomed so you could just leave it wherever dupes often go and it'll passively keep dupes happy. Its drawback is that if left without dupe interaction long enough it'll knock out materials stored in buildings that aren't being operated, like removing coal from an idle coal generator or removing food in refrigerators. 

Pips look like cats, SO GIVE US CATS.

[Machenoid]

Pips could be different from other species in that it's their pre-adult version that has a fraction of the adult behavior already present in it from hatching. All pips mature into the same adult version, but the egg that's initially laid depends on the adult's living conditions since the theme is "the pip tends to the flora of the asteroid" so naturally, its children should be naturally capable of starting early on that job.

• Pipsqueak - The adult was in an oxygen environment at 15-45 degrees celcius. This young pip enjoys getting into and simply removing the contents of storage compactors, and will crawl on the walls and ceiling to find a new thing to rummage through. It sneezes adorably sometimes, and you'll know because of a little squeak.
• Hushpippy - The adult was in a carbon dioxide environment of any temperature. This young pip prefers to pick up and plant seeds that it finds in an attempt to plant oxyfern and reduce the ambient carbon dioxide levels. It won't climb walls until adulthood, so it will try to patrol the floors that it can jump to as much as possible. Sometimes it just decides to take a nap, because walking is hard.
• Pipwoe - The adult was able to eat enough arbor tree branches during its lifetime that this young pip was born exceptionally strong. The youngster will display its strength by displacing debris and seeds over long distances by carrying it around in its mouth pouches while climbing and jumping on any surfaces. Its jaw strength is also improved and can defend itself better than an adult pip ever could.

Then when the Pip grows up, it becomes a "normal" pip, gaining all the other abilities it was not born with. The notion here is that if you have one of each young pip type, you've effectively got one whole functional pip the moment they all hatch, saving 5 cycles of "do nothing because you're just a baby"

Pokeshells are basically bottom feeders. There should be some kind of social "present in pen" dynamic similar to the pufts, but instead of depending on the mere existence of a "Prince" they would stratify their population based on consumed foods, which are either available naturally or are pooped by other pokeshell subspecies or other creatures entirely. Water Weeds plant/product, rot piles, sand, polluted dirt, generic or special meat, egg shells and molt shells as options. Since shells molt naturally, a subspecies could be centered around the consumption of shells to produce meat, and a species that consumes meat to produce rot piles (which decay into polluted dirt) Behavior does include aggression, so presumably one subspecies could be hostile all the time, and another could be non-hostile even in the presence of its own (or others) eggs.

• Eat your food and raise your own egg rate.
• Present with the same subspecies in the area, raise the other subspecies egg rates.
• Present with a "liked" subspecies, raise that subspecies egg rate.

I would say "three subspecies like the puft" but that's a bit much for having both child and adult versions... Unless you consider the notion that two of the subspecies could hatch as "adults" one which is the size of a single tile from an egg, and one which is the size of the gassy moo from a massive egg. (Obviously, the one without a shell an drops meat instead of molts, since all the potential lime production would be in the shell.)

[SakuraKoi]

Well, at the very least please:

Pip: 

• Produce Algae, prefers cold, also eats Mealwood
• Produce Slime, prefers warm, also eats Pepper

Crab:

• Produce Salt, prefers cold, Rust Shell
• Produce Bleachstone, prefers warm

Moo:

• Produces Oxygen, prefers cold
• Produces Hydrogen, prefers warm

No morphs (and no breeding!) is NG.

[Risu]

Pips that grab dupes and bury them in dirt, entombing the dupe.
 

[suxkar]

1 hour ago, Risu said:

Pips that grab dupes and bury them in dirt, entombing the dupe.
 

By far the best idea I've seen in this forum, I'm still laughing at the implications

[Sasza22]

17 hours ago, nakomaru said:

Shove vole and morb could use some love too.

Morbs could be tied to different germs. A food pisonng morb could drop small amounts of germed polluted water and a zombie morb producing CO2 with spores. Those guys have no lifecycle though so i`m not sure howowuld you get the different morphs.

Shove voles can eat dirt or iron ore. Dirt diet could give you a slime vole that eats slime and dirt so you could use it to create natural slime tiles, could probably eat a bit less as well (i`m not sure if we need that actually, do pips plant mushroom in dirt?). Eating iron ore could give you rock voles that can eat abyssalite and create natural abyssalite tiles (that could lead to them getting stuck as they can`t dig through it). Setting them up could create walls of natural abyssalite for insulaton.

[LaShomb]

How about a pip morph that starts planting seeds in your carpet tiles? Adds a bit of hilarity, is easy enough to guard against, and solves the problem of not being able to build natural tiles.

As for pokeshells, it would be neat to have morphs that aid with ranching. One that incubates eggs, even if less efficient than the incubator. Maybe one that cracks every egg it can reach, allowing for even better omelet automation. One that's always aggressive and can be your kill room. Morph chance could be affected by the amount of damage it has inflicted or amount of time around eggs.

Though, I do like the rust or diamond shell ideas. Only problem is that that seems more like the drecko's gimmick. Rust drecko might work (algae drecko like a sloth). Not sure what's best. Both, more options.

[6Havok9]

You should really, really, REALLY post these ideas in the suggestion forum. Some of them are awesome over 9k.

Do it. Now. 

[Yunru]

8 hours ago, 6Havok9 said:

You should really, really, REALLY post these ideas in the suggestion forum. Some of them are awesome over 9k.

Do it. Now. 

So you're suggesting a Pip variant that plants threads in the appropriate subforum?

What would they be calleed?

[Darkin Coaled]

37 minutes ago, Yunru said:

What would they be calleed?

Tips, duh.