Underwater Plants and Mobs

[Strait Raider 10]

Hi all,

 

Something that's bothered me in Minecraft for a long time (and carries over into TFC) is just how barren the oceans are. I saw that Dunk got underwater plants working (hooray!) and I've heard rumors that we might be getting a separation between fresh and salt water (no more squid in my swimming hole!) so I figured we might soon have the mechanics needed to expand the ecosystem a bit.

 

I know there's a thread here about fishing but I didn't think this really fit. I'd like to brainstorm some more non-fish mobs and plants to spice up the ocean.

 

Plants

 

* Coral - Spawns in flat clusters on the ocean bottom, ideally a solid (dead) coral block base which can spawn live coral on top or sides, of multiple appearances. Perhaps increases fish spawn rates? Blocks of dead coral could be quarryable and usable as a fluxstone.

* Mangrove Trees - Spawn in groups along shorelines in tropical regions. (118 countries have mangrove trees) Roots provide shelter for fish, perhaps increase fish spawn rates?

* Kelp - grows in groups to as much as 30 and 80 blocks in height. Think how awesome a kelp forest would look. Slows movement like leaves?

* Duckweed - could spread over the surface of swamps during the summer and revert during the winter using the same code as ice but with temperature values reversed.

* Seagrass - to add some texture diversity to the bottom, a sand-and-seagrass texture that grows like normal grass, but only underwater in ocean biomes (if that is feasible).

* Fucus/Laminaria - A couple of medium-sized (one-block) brown or green seaweeds would add some nice diversity.

* Pondweed - spawns/grows 1-3 blocks high in non-river fresh water. Slows movement like leaves?

 

Saltwater Mobs

 

* Squid - This is just a pet peeve, but I'd love to see the squid with a new model and skin. Squid are typically very pale, not black, most species are a lot smaller in size and personally (I'd like to hear other's opinions on this) I think the blockiness is overdone on the squid model, it could do with having a narrower mantle, perhaps smaller at the front, with the addition of the fins.

* Crabs - Easy to catch in shallow water, a quick way for a stone age gatherer to get a little protein.

* Lobsters - More filling, but harder to catch by hand (darn things can swim surprisingly fast!)

* Jellyfish - useless, but they'd be great for ambiance as jellies of various types are ubiquitous in the world's oceans.

* Clams - wondering if these could be acquired when digging up sand blocks near the ocean, perhaps with some subtle visual cue when one is present

* Seals - Slow on land, very fast in the water. May be found basking on land during the day or sleeping at night. May eat crabs/lobsters/clams/fish and may destroy traps or nets that have fish in them. Good eating, if you can catch one.

 

Freshwater Mobs

 

* Crayfish

* Freshwater Clams

 

Potential Dangerous Mobs

 

* Stonefish - blend in on the bottom, passive but does not flee unless stepped on, major envenomation if stepped on. Edible if cooked.

* Leopard Seals - Aggressive if approached, may occasionally chase or flee. Edible.

* The usual suspects - Sharks, crocodiles, alligators or hippos.

* Sharktopus

 

What do you guys think? Got any good water plant/mob ideas?

[Stalkio 4]

Sharktopus! LOL

 

Some good ideas, but once again it all come down to priorities and I would assume that this would be pretty low on the list, which is a shame but still would be quality to make the oceans a little more interactive. 

[DA_HOBO2_URLEFT 6]

I really like these ideas. Maybe small holes on the surface of sand could signify clams 2-3 blocks underneath?

 

* Kelp - grows in groups to as much as 30 and 80 blocks in height. Think how awesome a kelp forest would look. Slows movement like leaves?

The only issue I have with this thread is the height of the kelp. Oceans are (approximately) only like 30-40 blocks deep at their deepest points. I think that they should be a lot deeper, until these numbers are more feasible, but until then, the height of kelp would have to be a lot shorter, with like 20 blocks high being 'tall'. 

 

EDIT: If anyone was wondering (I certainly was) what 'Sharktopus' was, well here:

[Strait Raider 10]

I hadn't really thought about the actual depth of Minecraft's oceans. Giant kelp can grow up to 80 meters, but scaled for Minecraft oceans a height of 20-30 seems more reasonable I suppose. Kelp can reach the surface in some areas.

 

I dunno if I'd have clams 2-3 meters down, one block is probably deep enough. I certainly don't dig a meter down when I'm clam digging!

 

I know there will always be competing priorities and a lot of this stuff isn't simple to add, but I think this could tie in well after the food overhaul. If finding protein to supplement your agricultural grains and vegetables becomes important, the ocean could be a critical source, as it was to many cultures historically. And after all, we know water plants work now and there's been some work done on new fish mechanics.

 

That and the oceans do look depressingly barren compared to the impressive work that's been done on both the land and the underground rock layers and caves.

 

Addendums:

 

Kelp forests should only be found in temperate or colder areas (no kelp forests in the tropics)

Kelp forests could increase creature spawns (if this is possible) as they provide food and shelter.

Coral reefs should be concentrated in the tropics

 

If you look at the wikipedia articles for kelp forests and coral reefs, the areas where they are generally found are almost perfect inverses of each other.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Welcome to the Forums!

 

I really like this idea, and I'm interested in working on it as a side project. I will talk to Bioxx and Dunk first to see their opinion on balancing it for the base game, or if all else fails I'll make an addon for it. If I do go the addon route (totally calling it Aquafirmacraft ), it will likely be geared toward aesthetics and fairly simple, rather than adding in a bunch of mechanics for fishing and stuffs.

 

*Another thing to note is that squid are already a lot smaller in TFC compared to the vanilla versions.

[Strait Raider 10]

Thanks for the welcome.

 

If you ever do work on aquafirmacraft let me know, I might be able to make some models.

[starXephir 30]

*Sharktopus 
 
Pseudo-boss-monsters! Captain Squarehab and his crew, wrecked with madness go hunting the fearsome, SHARKTOPUS! Aside from the dolt who forgot to bring javelins. There's always that guy. 
Good for multiplayer, player-driven events and town boasting rights.
 
Sounds good. I support giving life to the game. Even if it is just aesthetics. If it comes out feeling natural then it's all good.

[AllenWL 186]

*Sharktopus 

 

Pseudo-boss-monsters! Captain Squarehab and his crew, wrecked with madness go hunting the fearsome, SHARKTOPUS! Aside from the dolt who forgot to bring javelins. There's always that guy. 

Good for multiplayer, player-driven events and town boasting rights.

 

Sounds good. I support giving life to the game. Even if it is just aesthetics. If it comes out feeling natural then it's all good.

I agree. We need more things in TFC to get for aesthetics and bragging rights.

 

It makes the game more lively, and gives more goals and things to do then just 'get the best stuff'

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

These actually seem like cool ideas. When kitty first mentioned this, I wasn't sure but I think I'd like to implement some of these into the main game. Mangrove trees are a nice idea, we're a little short on warm-climate flora. Currently, there are three types of water plant: cattails (grow in 1-block-deep fresh water), 'generic' pond weed, which grows everywhere else in fresh water and seaweed, which grows in salt water. They're all actually the same block technically, but render differently and behave differently depending on where they're placed, ie if you pick-blocked sea weed and tried to place it in fresh water, it would become pond weed or a cat tail.

 

I'm certainly up for adding a few more water plants; kelp seems like a good idea, and some mobs might be cool too, little crabs or something like that, maybe a school of small fish. Coral can be hard to replicate, partially because it is often quite intricate and because there are so many different types. I could give it a shot, but I don't think it will turn out too well.

 

I'm totally up for remodeling squid. I'll probably make some other changes too, as far as I'm aware, they're still an unlimited food source, so that might get a tweak. 

 

Adding so many different types of animal is a bit iffy though. Minecraft sort of creates a weird illusion; the attention span of the player and the render distance in the game (along with FOV related distance scaling) results in a warped perspective. The world might seem barren, but it's usually because you can only see a small portion for a short distance in front of you.

 

Water mobs are a bit difficult as well, they tend to beach themselves in my experience, and that's not very intimidating. 

 

If you want the water to be dangerous, there are other ways of accomplishing that than loading it with mobs. It's always seemed a bit odd to me that the player seems to be a super-human distance swimmer. I mean it's certainly possible for humans to swim great distances, but for most of us, we'd get cramps or drown from exhaustion pretty quickly. Right now, boats are a convenience, but they should probably be a necessity. It's understandable that a player should be able to make short swims; across a river or a pond or something, but oceanic voyages are a bit much. Speaking of dangerous water, cold water isn't incredibly fun either. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but that should probably be something that makes players pretty cold. 

[Strait Raider 10]

Squid can definitely be a bit broken now. In our current world we have several people living solely off squid because they spawn in the shallow rivers and lakes nearby where they are very east to hunt.

 

When we get the salt/fresh water division they shouldn't spawn in most of that very shallow fresh water where they're so easy to hunt, which would go a long way towards balancing them. It also appears as though they aren't coded to flee players, which would make them exceedingly difficult to catch without rod and tackle.

[GreenLeaf 198]

 

If you want the water to be dangerous, there are other ways of accomplishing that than loading it with mobs. It's always seemed a bit odd to me that the player seems to be a super-human distance swimmer. I mean it's certainly possible for humans to swim great distances, but for most of us, we'd get cramps or drown from exhaustion pretty quickly. Right now, boats are a convenience, but they should probably be a necessity. It's understandable that a player should be able to make short swims; across a river or a pond or something, but oceanic voyages are a bit much. Speaking of dangerous water, cold water isn't incredibly fun either. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but that should probably be something that makes players pretty cold. 

is it technically difficult/impossible to have the hunger bar drain faster while swimming? it drains faster when your jumping so technically it already does but could it be possible to have "jumping" in water drain it even faster?

[starXephir 30]

@GreenLeaf. Vanilla defaults. Making swimming as exhausting a sprinting could work. Though unrealistic given the speed you move at in water. A lot of players use SmartMoving which has it's own settings. As for changing the defaults, the TFC crew should be able to figure it out .

 

I can't express this idea well, but I grew up swimming. Trying to start swimming again hasn't been a pleasant experience haha. Rather than make swimming more exhausting. Your 'breath' slowly degenerates while swimming. Meaning you need to tread water on the spot to catch your breath. To regen breath at a proper pace you need to be standing on a solid block with your head above water. This would limit the range you can swim easily. Making swimming more exhausting can be worked around by eat a lot of food. The idea of "breath" could be extended to sprinting. Making "breath" kind of like Stamina... But "real"?

[Kittychanley 1,002]

@GreenLeaf. Vanilla defaults. Making swimming as exhausting a sprinting could work.

 

Sprinting and jumping (and therefore swimming) actually decrease the player's thirst instead of their hunger IIRC. But since you're already in the water, and you can "drink" by just being submerged, you never see your thirst deplete as you swim across vast oceans.

[Kazahied 42]

Saltwater in oceans maybe. Wouldn't be to hard to do as it would just be a new liquid id. There could also be other uses for it, processed into salt for food, used to quench metals more efficiently, as a heavy medium for machines.

 

Saltwater could be crafted by grinding Rocksalt into powder and combining with a water bucket.

 

You also can't drink it. 

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Saltwater in oceans maybe. Wouldn't be to hard to do as it would just be a new liquid id. There could also be other uses for it, processed into salt for food, used to quench metals more efficiently, as a heavy medium for machines.

 

Saltwater could be crafted by grinding Rocksalt into powder and combining with a water bucket.

 

You also can't drink it. 

 

Dunk already confirmed salt/fresh water rivers/oceans/lakes/etc for 78.

[transcengopher 349]

I really like these ideas. Maybe small holes on the surface of sand could signify clams 2-3 blocks underneath?

 

The only issue I have with this thread is the height of the kelp. Oceans are (approximately) only like 30-40 blocks deep at their deepest points. I think that they should be a lot deeper, until these numbers are more feasible, but until then, the height of kelp would have to be a lot shorter, with like 20 blocks high being 'tall'. 

Deeper oceans may be cool, but they are really unnecessary. Player can't see underwater and he certainly can't dive that far without a use of some bugs related to water.  So, I don't see a way deeper ocean as an asset for the game.

[Kazahied 42]

Its not that difficult to build at sea floor, currently on a server i am hosting we have 2 separate cities at the bottom of the sea. It is expensive to get there originally though. You have to tunnel down under the ocean and come up from underneath until you have a structure that has air in it.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Or just take a couple of doors with you and place them on the ocean floor since they don't wash away and create an air pocket.

[Kazahied 42]

Getting to the bottom is the hard part

[DA_HOBO2_URLEFT 6]

Or just take a couple of doors with you and place them on the ocean floor since they don't wash away and create an air pocket.

Are there plans (or is it even possible) to change this in the distant future? 

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Getting to the bottom is the hard part

 

Not really. In my experience it's pretty easy to get down to the bottom of the ocean on a single breath of air and place the door while taking minimal drowning damage.

 

Are there plans (or is it even possible) to change this in the distant future? 

 

Probably not. And I don't really see the point in doing it anyways since people like to have doors on their underwater bases. If it was done for doors, it would have to be done for every other "transparent" block as well such as ladders, and even then items that do pop off such as torches do create an air pocket for the split second before they are washed away.

[transcengopher 349]

Or just take a couple of doors with you and place them on the ocean floor since they don't wash away and create an air pocket.

That's exactly what I was talking about when mentioned bugs. Those are not bugs per se, as they are just the way blocks work, but it still is a kind of exploit.

[iPotato13 10]

What about new methods of obtaining said creatures of the sea? Lobster cages, crab traps, casting nets? Catching sea critters in TFC might be hard when a lot of creatures are armed to the teeth in defenses to avoid/prevent being caught by other predators