Noon Practice — Subnautica Behavior Revamp I
As this is the first “Noon Practice” I’m posting on Medium, I’ll start with a short summary: The name is basically quite literal. I take a sandwich or something to quickly consume and use the rest of my time to come up with something on the spot. Today, my subject is to set a new set of behavior for the creatures of Subnautica. At least some of them.
Before I start, a message from future! You can find a list of Subnautica articles, including the behavior series in this publication.
First, I’ll start by defining some terms:
Feed Interval: How frequently the fauna feeds (ie attacks the closest prey)
Social Attitude: How the fauna reacts to its own type
Egg Status: Information about egg rarity and behavior regarding it
Player Relation: How the fauna reacts to player and vehicles
Special Interactions: Fauna-specific interactions, if any.
Traits: Special features that can be shared among species. List is here:
Brave: Not afraid of anything unless specified
Aggressive: Will actively attack even if not hungry.
Tameable: The creature can be made to be non-aggressive or even beneficial. Details in special interactions.
Ampeel
Feed Interval: 2 minutes (consumes a lot of energy)
Social Attitude: Territorial and aggressive.
Egg Status: Rare and singular, will defend only the nearby eggs
Player Relation: Aggressive to player if close-by. Electronic equipment in hand will draw it and mark player as prey. Aggressive against Seamoth. Will swim around PRAWN but leave after a single attack if not provoked further. Will swim with cyclops. Drawn to bases, especially rooms that has generators.
Special Interactions: May bully solo or duo bone sharks that come medium range. Scared from Crabsquids.
Traits: Brave
Boneshark
Feed Interval: Every 3 minutes
Social Attitude: Can be in packs but if not in same pack, may attack
Egg Status: Medium rarity, a few at a time. They won’t defend but usually eggs are within their territory.
Player Relation: Aggressive to the player and the seamoth and sees them as prey. Afraid of cyclops sound at lvl 2 and 3. Will be drawn to bases, especially if there are windows or any light sources in a powered base. Cyclops lights will draw them if stationary or slow speed. If in a pack of 3 or more, may attack the Prawn. Otherwise they’ll leave it alone.
Special Interactions: Some boneshark territories may have mesmers. Mesmers can’t hurt bonesharks but bonesharks won’t attack them. Instead, they will sometimes attack the mesmer’s prey for an easy lunch. This is not a global alliance between two species.
Traits: Aggressive
Stalker
Feed Interval: Every 5 minutes
Social Attitude: Neutral to friendly but stealing metal may cause fights
Egg Status: Semi common, usually singular or duo. Will defend its eggs fiercely, calling help.
Player Relation: First sight of player will call for a curiosity bite. They will try to bite seamoth and prawn but give up after a few tries. They will swim around cyclops.
Special Interactions: Can be fed fish against its hunger. This will also cancel the curiosity bite. They will make a nest out of any metal they can find (including ore dropped by player) and will defend it. If eggs are in it, they will also shout for help and any stalkers around a large area will swim very fast to join the defense.
Traits: Tameable
My break time comes to an end, so this is all I have for today. I will for sure continue this list, along with a separate one that dictates some additions on the fauna behavior in the containment unit!
Edit from future: I ended up writing a whole set of expansion ideas, starting here (or you can check the publication I linked above).
Thanks for reading and I’ll be very happy to have any feedback or questions!
Next: Crabsquid, Crabsnake.
