Animal/monster ideas

[Limon Sock]

I'd thought before about a few ideas for new mobs. I understand that there is the winter update and such, or certain mobs may already being nerfed/changed (like how birds no longer fly to seeds near the player), so these ideas may not be suitable or their roles may already be filled. But anyway, here's a few ideas I had. If I can think of any more, I'll add them

Snow hare

A replacement for the rabbit that comes in winter. Like some (most?) hares, they wouldn't have a burrow, so would be found (infrequently) around the map. Because of this, their main defence would be running away. They could eat from the berry, twigs and/or grass nodes. For the appearance could look very similar, only slightly larger and white/slightly blue. So really, it's just a sort of amalgamation of different hares lol.

Bear

A semi-random animal, found wandering around. Like real bears they have an omnivorous diet, and would scavenge any food (e.g. meat, berries, even pine cones). Could be more likely to spawn near bee hives/bee boxes, so pose a risk at bases. I'd say it should take honey from player made hives, but shouldn't destroy the boxes (because it would be very annoying) but if implemented, it could change. It could also fill the role of an animal that raids farm plots for food.

'Wolf'

A rare spawn with the hounds. Has a more humanoid-like form, and is more likely to attack pigs and player walls (but only the grass and wooden walls, which it could 'blow down'). It's main use would be mid/end game, to make it harder, or to add another 'boss' character or possibly to encourage people with very large and protected bases to move to the next world.

Bats

A passive animal, like the birds, that only spawns at night (Could encourage a bit more night time exploring). Would drop a morsel if killed. You could catch one if a bug/bird net and put it in a bird cage and drop guano (bat droppings) when fed fruit/veg, butterflies or bees (in RL most bats eat insects and some eat fruit). Also, some bats could be 'vampire bats' and attack the player, or if a bed roll is used near them without shooing them away, the player wakes up with a small health loss.

Guano produced by the bats could act as a fertiliser, but would only be about as good as rot (maybe a bit better?).

Edit: As wrongenvelope mentioned, guano is a good fertiliser. To offset the ease of producing it from a caged bat, then maybe a a specific resource-heavy bat box (like one of these) needs to be built, or there's only a chance (like 50%) of a bat producing guano, or a certain number of food items need to be fed to the bat and then the guano could be harvested from the cage. (This would all have to be checked for balance, to see what would be the best option)

Owl

A passive animal, similar to the other birds but it only spawns at night. Could land on the ground randomly like birds, but instead of landing near seeds would land near rabbits, morsels or insects (which they would then kill/eat). They won't drop seeds if killed or startled, but could drop 'owl pellets' which may contain stingers, or hounds teeth or something else if anyonw can think of out. Could encourage a bit more night time exploring.

Moth

Another night version of an animal already in the game (obviously based on the rabbits lol). Mainly out during the night, possibly hanging about the flowers like butterflies EDIT: As wrongenvelope said below, moths could be attracted to the campfire and maybe other light sources (but not glow worms). Drops moth wings, which are functionally equivalent to butterfly wings. Could also drop silk, as in 'silk moths' (I'm aware that you get silk from the pupae of certain species but it doesn't have to be 100% realistic lol). To further differentiate them from butterflys, when harvesting crop from a farm plot there could be a small (1%, or 10%, I dunno) chance of a moth appearing instead of a fruit/veg, because certain moth species (e.g. coddling, corn boring, diamondback moths to name a few) are important pests of crops.

Edited February 16, 2013 by Limon Sock

[LtShinySides]

Good ideas, they're not completely silly like some other suggestions. Penguins might be added in Winter. Along with the MIGHTY Deerclops! Lol snow hare beardlings.

[Avarwen]

I think bats should aggro would make it game more fun. I'm hoping to see more animal mobs in the future only having bunnies and birds is kinda dull. I'm hoping some of these mobs will steal things from you forcing you to move around more and fight more thus adding to the feel of the world hating you.

[wrongenvelope]

I'm not a big fan of animals that could only be hunted at night simply because switching between a torch and a proper weapon is too fiddly, and torches don't light a large enough area to "scout" ahead. I don't personally use miner's lamps because I hate using up finite resources in my maps (fireflies) and prefer to leave them to light up the outer areas of my bases.That being said, I would like some of these if nighttime exploration were a bit less perilous. Moths that came swarming to the campfire (as would be more likely, rather than finding them on flowers), for example, would be easy pickin's. Owls and bats sound adorable, although I'm not seeing how they'd contribute unique elements to the DS ecosystem yet. Guano IRL is an extremely rich fertilizer, so making it like rot in game would seem off. Bats could be a natural predator to moths, perhaps.Not sure I'm into the wolf idea as-is, fire hounds wreak enough havok if I don't run away from my base to fight them. However, another source of hound's tooths would be cool -- I love me some tooth traps.

[Alvhem]

There are actually files for snow rabbits in the game.rabbit_winter_build.Zip to be exact.There are a lot of files for winter animals to, penguins, ice hounds, winter red birds etc.

[Limon Sock]

Thanks for the replies :)I've updated the first post again. I can't believe I never thought about the moth/light thing. It's one of the most obvious things lol.

[L0stLP]

I already made a thread about a bear

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/showthread.php?9789-Monster-Effigy-and-Fire-Eater

[mobius187]

I'd thought before about a few ideas for new mobs.

New mobs? We could certainly use more of those.

I understand that there is the winter update and such, or certain mobs may already being nerfed/changed (like how birds no longer fly to seeds near the player), so these ideas may not be suitable or their roles may already be filled.

The bird nerf was meant to stop the madness of a player with a feathered hat, seeds, and a spear racking up insane bird kills. That, and farming the Krampus as a result of killing all those birds so quickly.

Snow hare

A replacement for the rabbit that comes in winter. Like some (most?) hares, they wouldn't have a burrow, so would be found (infrequently) around the map. Because of this, their main defence would be running away. They could eat from the berry, twigs and/or grass nodes. For the appearance could look very similar, only slightly larger and white/slightly blue. So really, it's just a sort of amalgamation of different hares lol.

I would hope that while I know there will be snow rabbits that fewer of them will spawn during Winter. In this way players wouldn't be able to count on hunting them so easily. Also, unbaited traps shouldn't catch rabbits, as in this way the player would have to choose to sacrifice food to catch more food.

Bear

A semi-random animal, found wandering around. Like real bears they have an omnivorous diet, and would scavenge any food (e.g. meat, berries, even pine cones). Could be more likely to spawn near bee hives/bee boxes, so pose a risk at bases. I'd say it should take honey from player made hives, but shouldn't destroy the boxes (because it would be very annoying) but if implemented, it could change. It could also fill the role of an animal that raids farm plots for food.

Ah, the bear. I've even suggested this fellow and I support the inclusion of the bear, or a very bear-like creature, into the game. In past suggestions the bear would spawn in the forest biome, sleeping during the night and hunting during the day. As you suggested, bears would eat berries and honey. However whether a bear should or shouldn't destroy a bee box is open to debate. If another suggestion, namely that whenever a hive or bee box is destroyed it spawns a queen bee that creates a new hive elsewhere, then yes, I wouldn't mind seeing bears destroy bee hives/boxes. It would give players further reason to protect their base camp with walls. Not to mention the bears would wander in and eat all the berries from their collected berry bushes.

In fact, it was suggested that bears should be able to "home in" on berry bushes and bee hives/boxes, so the more you have the more likely you would attract a bear. It goes without saying that a bear is hostile and approaching one too closely causes it to attack the player. Killing a bear would yield a large fur pelt and teeth (maybe Hound Teeth could be generalized into "Sharp Teeth" so they stack with bear teeth).

'Wolf'

A rare spawn with the hounds. Has a more humanoid-like form, and is more likely to attack pigs and player walls (but only the grass and wooden walls, which it could 'blow down'). It's main use would be mid/end game, to make it harder, or to add another 'boss' character or possibly to encourage people with very large and protected bases to move to the next world.

Other players have suggested uber-Hounds, but I'm not into that sort of thing. I wouldn't mind more powerful creatures, but I feel they should be unique. Other than that, the Hounds do a pretty good job as wolves, of a sort.

Bats

A passive animal, like the birds, that only spawns at night (Could encourage a bit more night time exploring). Would drop a morsel if killed. You could catch one if a bug/bird net and put it in a bird cage and drop guano (bat droppings) when fed fruit/veg, butterflies or bees (in RL most bats eat insects and some eat fruit). Also, some bats could be 'vampire bats' and attack the player, or if a bed roll is used near them without shooing them away, the player wakes up with a small health loss.

Guano produced by the bats could act as a fertiliser, but would only be about as good as rot (maybe a bit better?).

Personally I always have problems with adding flying creatures that you wouldn't expect to see on the ground, from time to time. In the past bats have been suggested, however the only time I suggested them was more as passive scenery, for example in the thread suggesting underground caverns (biome) I mentioned that at sunset bats could come flying from the crevice in the ground leading down into the caverns. Someone else suggested bats could fly past the charater if they disturbed them while exploring caverns. However they weren't targetable in those suggestions. Still, I suppose they could be found hanging from something and attacked, like landed birds.

Owl

A passive animal, similar to the other birds but it only spawns at night. Could land on the ground randomly like birds, but instead of landing near seeds would land near rabbits, morsels or insects (which they would then kill/eat). They won't drop seeds if killed or startled, but could drop 'owl pellets' which may contain stingers, or hounds teeth or something else if anyonw can think of out. Could encourage a bit more night time exploring.

Owls have also been suggested, with the more popular ideas being to have them perched in trees at night (the only time they spawn) and let the player see their white eyes long before they reach them with a light source. Owls that were attacked, or had their tree attacked, would drop a meat morsel. Not sure owls would be eating anything that would drop stingers or hounds teeth in their... uh... refuse. And seriously, ow! Talk about a bad day when you have to pass things like that.

Moth

Another night version of an animal already in the game (obviously based on the rabbits lol). Mainly out during the night, possibly hanging about the flowers like butterflies EDIT: As wrongenvelope said below, moths could be attracted to the campfire and maybe other light sources (but not glow worms). Drops moth wings, which are functionally equivalent to butterfly wings. Could also drop silk, as in 'silk moths' (I'm aware that you get silk from the pupae of certain species but it doesn't have to be 100% realistic lol). To further differentiate them from butterflys, when harvesting crop from a farm plot there could be a small (1%, or 10%, I dunno) chance of a moth appearing instead of a fruit/veg, because certain moth species (e.g. coddling, corn boring, diamondback moths to name a few) are important pests of crops.

I would be fine with moths and moth wings (what would be they used for?), but not silk. Right now we get all the silk we need from giant spiders. Not sure about moths as "pests", although a while back someone suggested an event which had a swarm of locusts descend on the island and eat all the player's crops and berries from their bushes.

Good ideas, they're not completely silly like some other suggestions. Penguins might be added in Winter. Along with the MIGHTY Deerclops! Lol snow hare beardlings.

The Deerclops is an urban legend. It doesn't exist... just like the Koalaphant. As if a koala and elephant would ever have common interests or drink excessively.

[LtShinySides]

Mobius187, I'm just amazed at the paragraphs of responses you right. My attention span would never let me do that. And the koalafant does exist! I'm not crazy! We will see the Mighty Deerclops!

[blackycat]

My daughter (age 8) wanted to make some suggestions: I want a new animal on Don't Starve the new animal I want on don't starve are cats and you can feed them meat and be friends with them and they can help you catch birds and if you feed them food that is not meat they throw up and you can use it for fertilizer and the color I want them to be is black and they live in cat trees what you need to build a cat tree is 6 boards 6 cut grass and 1 cat vomit the cat queen is fat and beautiful and after you feed her any kind of food she throws marshmallows and when you cook them you get roasted marshmallows they curl up when they sleep they don't turn into any monster on a full moon or when there fed to much there names are Wallie Daisy Theo Tula Cookie Wilber Summer Edweena Five Buster Bella Sunny Nick Yzma and Blacky now have a nice day.

[chromiumboy]

The addition of more mobs is always welcome in my book. The addition of a bear would be great! In addition to berry bush and plot plots, food could also be ferreted out of chests. I can just imagining running back to my base as dusk is falling, finding a bear raiding my icebox and having to camp outside my base and wait til morning for him to move off xD

[366107044]

Well if you REALLY want more mobs, we will soon have the Snurtle and Pengulls.