Mob Genetic engineering, giving cellmatter a use

Hey guys, currently this "cellmatter" which is dropped by mobs has absolutly no use at, its just useless and takes up inventory space right?

Chucklefish probaly planned a use for it later on in the game but actually I would like to suggest some other things for it:

So you can catch mobs currently but some of them are sorta... fragile...

Well here comes cellmatter in hand (and a neat device called Splicer):

Cellmatter could work basicly like "stemcells", means they can be turned into any cell. So since you dont have any specific "cells" on mobs yet you could use them to improve the stats of mobs you caught. You could build something like a Splicer unlocked at Tier 4 or probaly at Tier 5. Put a filled Capture Pod into the splicing station and some energy source (uranium, plutonium, solarium) to read the genetical code of the mob, basicly reveal its stats. So now since you read the exact stats of the mob you know which moves it can do, how fast it is, how high it can jump, how much health it got and you are able to change that with cellmatter.

For instance you can upgrade health from a fairly weak level 10 mob but with the awesome "plasma torpedo" move from just 1500 (1 hit KO by most other mobs and weapons) to 2500 for a fairly high ammount of cellmatter, say 30. You improved the mobs stats now and its a bit stronger.

You could also increase its jump height or speed. Jumpheight from 15 tiles jumpheight to 25 tiles jumpheight with 30 cellmatter and 10 blue stimpacks. Speed with 30 Cellmatter and 10 green stimpacks.

And of course you could improve its moves aswell with strength, range, projectile number and speed, requiring you to find fairly rare plants (Avismengo for instance, have always trouble finding it) or other sequences of mobs you broke down. Well yeah, sounds unethical, but you could even go ahead and do the most "inhuman" things, break down mobs into their sequences, kill them in order to get their genetical information. For instace you got a mob able to use blood vomit and for some odd reason you want it on your mob able to cast plasma torpedoes with 2500 health. You could go ahead, catch a mob with that blood vomit move, put it into the splicing station and get plasmid, a "blueprint" of the sequence for its incredible useless ability to vomit blood. Now you can put in your genetically enhanced mob, together with that plasmid and some cellmatter and fuel source to splice that ability into your mob which would have 2 ranged attacks then.

So basicly you added then a new ability to the mob with an already awesome abiltity.


You could also go ahead and get the legs of your favourite mob and put them on the strongest mob. Would just have aesthetic uses then, but well some people are into virtual pets, some are into virtual monsters, some are into virtual vanity items, some are into highly attractive tieritems (or short Hats).
Pretty pointless statswise but you could also get the bulb of one of those mobs with a bulb on their back and create a mob looking damn close to a pokemon. Of course this procedure will require a certain ammount of cellmatter (less then changing stats) and energy. And you could even go ahead and save the extracted plasmids for legs etc on a blueprint and use it over and over again (at high costs of course) (credits to Monochromegoggles and Nidor).


Cloning Vats:

Since mobs can also die (capture pods wont spawn once they are defeated) you may be afraid to loose them right?

For that you could craft a cloning vat, also at Tier 5 with some aegisalt and durasteel ingots + the drop from the jelly and dragon boss maybe which would encourage people till kill them again. The cloning vat can be used then again in combination with the splicing station to break down the mob into its genetical information, and then get a "blueprint" which you can use always. But since cloning is even in the future a possibly complex and expensive procedure you would also require quite a bit of cellmatter (thinking of 100) and also hardened monster platings (25) to get a clone of your old mob. However the more advanced your mob was the higher are the cloning costs of course. And the cloning vat would of course need uranium, plutonium or solarium as fuel to run propper.


And be aware: Genetically enhanced mobs could turn hostile to you and attack you. Some could even get oversized and extremly powerfull. So you might want to keep that in mind ^^


Crossbreeding/Random Splicing, the Genetic Mutator:

Since there are also some people which prefere cheapness or also randomness and "luck" you could do a lot cheaper way to get stats from Mobs. So how could this work:

Get a nice device called "Genetic Mutator", crafted with some jelly as catalyst, durasteel as hull and some nice chips crafted from the wiring station which got recently added +3 empty apex stasis tanks (found in their labs). Put that device into your home, it wont be placeable on your ship without some kind of airlock, reasons coming in a moment:

So ones you placed it down the device will look like 3 apex stasistanks, reinforced by durasteel wired up to a console, quite a huge device so you will need some space: First you need to fuel it, again by either uranium, plutonium or solarium. Once its fueled, put a little bit of cellmatter into the device, and then 2 filled mob capsules and 1 empty.

Then you should click a button saying "catalyse genetic mutation". Both mobs get killed in the process and a moment later you have one of multiple results:

1) A new mob in a capsule with random stats which inherrits nothing of its "parents", a complete new species.
2) A new mob in a capsule with completly new aesthetics (legs etc) but with stats and abilities from parents randomized
3) A new mob in a capsule with aesthetics combined from parents and with stats from its parents combined in a randomized pattern.
4) A new mob in a capsule with aesthetics combined from parents with top stats and abilities from its parents (best case).
5) A giant, hostile mini-boss like mob spawns, wrecking havoc arround the lab, destroying the device and really pissed at you (bad case).



The genetic mutator would have quite a few risks but will be extremly cheap to use, besides the average fuelcosts, one mutation should require 52 fuelpoints (13 uranium ore)


In addition some planets could have a new type of threat on them called "Activ Biomass". A blue to purple blob like substance consuming any organic matter getting into it. This would behave basicly like a mob growing in size and strength the more it consumes. And as it turns stronger it gets interesting abilities like tendrills to grab prey or spitting out corrosiv or sticky substances to either damage or inmobilize you. The activ biomass could be in lore then basicly a dramaticly failed experiment on genetic engineering resulting in that oversized bacteria like creature.

Once killed it could drop some very nice ammounts of cellmatter in combination with some plasmid blueprints, basicly fragments of the creatures it absorbed. As usual the harder it is to kill the better the rewards are.

Like in the movie "The Blob" the activ biomass would be highly vulnerable to frostbite, means freeze it with liquid nitrogen or Helium and it dies completly off (small size) shrinks in size and strength therefor gets weaker (medium to large size) or is temporarly unable to move (huge size) so you can shoot it with plasma rifles etc.


And as you touch it you would get damage of course since most of the biomass is already nothing but a giant ingestion organ.

DNA Extractor:

Similar to the brain extractor you are capable to extract whole "strings" of DNA out of a species and take it back to your splicer, to decode it and see if there are any useable plasmids inside, or go to the cloning vat and clone the mob. Each undecoded DNA sequence would take EXACTLY 1 inventory slot. The samples could be stored in testubes found in Apex Labs (Credits for the Idea of using only lootable content goes to Cyberguy64) which would require you to search a little. Advantage of that method is that you essentially dont have to kill your beloved critters to gain DNA, Put the mob to sleep with a new, more scifi like rifle: The High Frequency Sonic Rifle. Basicly an "area denial weapon" forcing living creatures down and letting them pass out by high pinched sonic pulses. In the process of extracting and decoding the DNA of the mob you gained it will be damaged however. This results most likely in weaker Plasmids you might be able to extract and when cloning in a weaker version of the original mob. However similar to the Brainextractor: Theres a slight chance that you extract "pristine DNA samples" which gurant you an either PERFECT copy of the mob or depending on your choice an more advanced plasmid which can be then reproduced with cellmatter and be added into your mobs. The DNA Extractor is powered with the energy you use for Tech.

Portable Plasmid Analyzer:

Similar to the DNA Extractor this device will allow you to analyse the plasmids of ANY sleeping/unconcious mob. Once you started reading the plasmids you have to stand near the mob for a few seconds to make a successfull scan. If you stay longer after the minimum requirement of time the mob might wake up because well... having 2 or more probes inside doesnt feel really good. But the longer you are analyzing the plasmids of the mob the better information you gain, the better the plasmid you might get to know. The mobs can be again be set unconcious with a high frequency sonic rifle so you can analyze them in peace. The Plasmid Analyzer is sorta a mobile Splicer, but with less accuracy of what you will get. You never know what you get. You are only able to increase the quality of the plasmids by analyzing them longer. Better quality means in that term to get more rare plasmids. The plasmids created by the analyzer are however one-way. They cant be used to create templates to reproduce them over and over. Also the plasmid analyzer will require cellmatter to run. The device is powered like a tech.


High Frequency Sonic Rifle:

Since you need some propper weaponary to catch your test subjects the sonic rifle is ideal. Its basicly a short-ranged area denial weapon paralyzing sentinent life without propper armor (Avians, Apex, Human, Floran, Glitch, Hylotl) and knocks out all "inferrior" beings, means mobs. You can go ahead and run away epicly if you are hunted by for instance some florans who want you to watch them pollinating eachother and afterwarts eating you or basicly do what I would prefer more: Extract DNA and read Plasmids while being safe. Another use for this weapon might be against the activ biomass. It sorta hits the resonance frequency of it... which kinda hurts.

Tech: Stun Pulse

Similar to the high frequency rifle this ancient piece of technology was found on earth by the ruins of an alien ship belonging to a squid like alien race. The device was orignally used on tripoded combat drones by those aliens but never were actually used against humanity since the former owners died because of their own biological weapon they created. However humans got hand on it and now you are capable to find this tech (probaly reverse engineered versions) on USMC bases. The device sents 2 different kinds of pulses: 1. A high frequency sonic pulse stunning all more evolved species, hurting them and knocking out + hurting all inferrior species + fragile and instable species might even get killed. 2. EMP Pulse: Weakens any mob with electromagnetic sensory and deactivates any kind of highly advanced weapons for a few seconds, including your own. Only old revolvers and lever action weapons etc will work propper, no high tech weapons like plasma rifles. However since Starbound is in the future the weapons repair themself and work propper after a random timespan of 5-30 seconds. Second kind of pulse is triggered with G and drains all energy. But weakens advanced enemies like USMC and even capable of destroying or atleast damaging any kind of robotic enemies.

Also the activ biomass doesnt seem to like the device.

Press F to activate a pulse. This will drain 3/4 of your energy and got a recharge time of 3 minutes since the USMC kinda sucked at reverse engineering the Ce.. Squid Alien device.


Special Indrigents needed for Splicer, Cloning Vat and Genetic Mutator, tools and so on, basicly crafting recipes:

Since all these devices require quite alot high tech you will have to get tech your species might not be able to manufacture. For instance by scavenging Apex Labs. This would require you to explore a few planets before you are able to craft the devices to enhance your creatures. All devices are crafted at the robotic working table.

Cloning Vat:

- 30 Durasteel Bars, 10 Aegisalt Bars, 50 Titanium Panel, 2 Empty Apex STasis Tanks, Apex Brain in a Jar as "supercomputer", 10 light metal as conductor, 30 Circuit Boards

Splicer:

- 40 Durasteelbars, Durasteel Console, 60 Titanium Panels, Apex Chemical Shelf, 5 blue chemical, 5 red chemical, 5 green chemical (all out of Apex labs), 10 Tesla Spikes, 2 brainjars (brains to be used again as organic supercomputer), Apex Lab Chair, Apex computer with lever, Processor (Boss Drop), 30 Circuit Boards

Genetic Mutator:

-3 empty Stasis tanks, 30 Durasteel Bars, 1 Jelly (Boss Drop), 20 Circuit Boards, 10 Titanium Panels, 20 light metal (conductor), 30 compressed steel plates (from those matter fabricator labs).

High Frequency Sonic Rifle:

-Upgradeable to tier 10 so it levels with you, requires of course the corresponding metal to upgrade to the tier you are currently.

- Basic High Frequency Sonic Rifle unlocked at Tier 4 (Durasteel):
Requires: 20 Durasteel Ingots, 3 Sonic Ocsillators ( 10 Steel Ingots +5 light metal plating (conductor) each), 1 Apex Record Player (as source for sonic frequeny, sorry we dont have propper speakers yet), 1 Fission Accumulator ( 5 Uranium Rods (hopefully findable at Tier 4 soon), 10 Light Metal Platings, 5 Platinum Ingots (Platinum = relativly dense)) -> Fission accumulator resembles a RE Batterie using a reverseable nuclear fission process to store energy, kinda sci-fi. And its recharged with the energy you use to power guns.

DNA Extractor:

10 Durasteelbars, 1 Torture Bank from Apex labs (for probes etc), 5 light metal platings, 3 platinum ingots, 30(!) empty testtubes, 1 Fission Accumulator, 5 Red Chemical Testtubes (to heal wounds you cause in the mob), 25 Titanium Ingots.

Portable Plasmid Analyzer:

5 Aegisalt Bars, 10 Durasteelbars, 25 Titanium Ingots, 5 Diamonds (for probes to pierce all kind of armor, game logic, diamond = hard), 5 light metal platings, 20(!) platinum ingots, 10 circuit boards, 1 cellmatter container ( which is again 10 durasteel bars, 24 titanium panels), 2 Fission Accumulators, 5 red chemical testtubes.

(Idea for special indigrent crafting recipes also orignate from Cyberguy64)


So tell me what you think about this idea, gonna improve it once I got more time to get focussed on that (mostly in evenings).



BEFORE POSTING 3 more little disclaimers:

Disclaimer 1:
Think about that what you write down, as the person behind this might easily get offended if:
1. The opinion is unreasoned and just saying "No I hate it"
2. The reasons are invalid e.g "No I hate it cause some people hate genetic engineering IRL", those people dont need to use a feature like that if somebody makes a mod providing that.
3. Theres no constructiv criticism contained e.g if its negativ and a serious opinion (e.g Negativ consequences of genetical enhancements make the game too punishing for new people, it might fright of people actually just liking to collect, THATS a VALID reason), means that it has a valid reason, but no way to improve the suggestion.

Consequences on those posts are simply posting a definition of constructiv criticism done by me (not the definition, but I give you a link, and the post is done by me), since fighting windmills is pointless and a few none offensiv lines how to improve actually you. If you dont care at all for that then I can sleep calm since I have done my part to improve society ^^. But wait... fighting windmills is pointless... fighting people like that is pointless... gotta reevaluate about that

Disclaimer 2: Still not reevaluated about that but I can just add to here: I am from germany, if I get anything wrong in your posts please explain to me, I speak english quite well but yet I dont understand some "rhetorical constructs" and their meanings in english, same for some awkward/colloquial "grammar devices" some of you tend to use. E.g "This is the shit" was taken a while back as a serious insult by me till somebody actually took the time and explained it to me that this line basicly means the complete opposite. So if I get something wrong and actually answer a wrong way let me know. Specially on those stupid "rhetorical constructs".


Disclaimer 3 AKA the DO NOT THIS IDEA ON REDDIT:

Just dont even attempt doing that. You may post this concept on any other forum (with the original creator(s) of the concept). But never ever attempt to post this on reddit. They get enough fruits from trees they didnt care of. Means enough reputation from ideas they did not create on their own.

-__MeRliN__

 

Excellent! You covered all the key points that I would expect to be adressed, and even provided some hypothetical procedures that I could see working well with said system. I think this is a fine idea and would love to see it implemented! However, I think there could be more added, like swapping parts from various monsters, or even cross breeding them with a random outcome of either mixed features, or the occasional mutation of a feature.(at the expense of losing both base monsters in exchange for a combined one )
There should also be a chance of creating a supersized mob from your experimentation that is hostile and even more difficult to kill than the ones found naturally on planets. However, these artifical giant mobs would yeild much higher rewards since the chances of getting one would be low.

(Have a gander at some of the Dragonquest/warrior: Monster games for inspiration.)


10/10 for overall concept.

 

Very neat, this could stretch into a Frankenstein's monster type creation, not just ability, but appearance. Say you like the legs of monster X better than your current pet Y, catch one, scan its cell structure (like the 3d printer style, except with cell matter as the "currency") and you get those body parts.

You could essentially re roll the procedural generation of your monster.

 

Thanks Hm, some risk when tinkering with genetic engineering you say?
Sounds pretty neat aswell, yeah you could create by accident some odd biomass like mob, not just giant oversized mobs. Maybe some kind of biomass getting bigger the more organic matter it absorbs (counting mobs and npcs in).
As it would grow in size it would get more abilities like tendrils to put prey into it. And at first you wont notice, specialy if the machine blows up and throws the aggressive biomass on a random location of your planet.
On your ship the device would require then an airlock so it can be killed by putting it into the void.

Even if its just possible to add oversized giant creatures they would be still a neat risk for those who dare to tinker with genetics ^^
I could immagine putting a splicing station on a village I want to have wiped out, and then "accidently" creating one of thoses mobs which are used as sorta biological weapon (grrr hate my neighbours on my homeworld... taking so much space).

If its possilbe to swap legs and other body parts then sure why not. Would love to give propper creatures propper legs and eyes so they look sorta... legendary? (God I know I should put those bad puns better).



Also adding the crossbreeding option, not breeding like getting whalelike mob A to mate with dog like mob B, more like extracting DNA of whalelike mob A, and Mob B and randomly splicing it into eachother and see the results. Basicly getting a random mob with stats and appearence of both combined...

 

Corrected some grammar errors in topic, there were 2 sentences which didnt make sense at all after reading over them again...

 

i for one am shocked that nobody liked his original post! come on everyone lets get a ton of likes on it in the hopes that the devs might see it!

 

I am actually shocked that somebody attempted to revive the thread, I gave up already on that suggestion <.< thanks

 

I like the idea in general, but the last possible outcome seems overblown and exaggerated for such a small scale project...n addition, you seem to want to artificially inflate the difficulty of achieving the desired result. Instead of, say, a minigame whose outcome decides the outcome of the project, it's all random and you have to be on your toes 100% of the time in case you mess up once?

Pretty annoying.

 

Hmmm... maybe.

 

I'm waving my money at the screen.
WHY ISN'T IT DOING ANYTHING.

 

Thanks for all of the replies, all sudden that interest in my suggestion suprises me :O

Yeah cut that out of the worst case, its kinda annoying that you would have to run over the planet to find a single kind of "mob" to kill it cause otherwise it would "consume the world".
Maybe that biomass thing could be instead a "planetary threat" like meteorshowers are currently, but more likely not to all planets... more likely when you are flying in the orbit of the planet you get noticed about current threats (kinda like its planned I think).

 

yeah like i love this idea a lot i want there to be a way to make creatures better or heck even make them look totally awesome. right now i capture a monster from a world and try to use it on that same world it will instantly die even though it took several hits from me. also does this system make anyone else think of pokemon? oh and i like how they evolve once but i think they should also eventually turn into the mini-bosses

 

Yes I think its even intended to resemble pokemon ^^.

What do you mean by "evolve"? Are they capable to evolve/do metamorphosis already? Mine never did if thats possible

 

I think the most interesting aspect of this would be to work on mutating different creatures and experimenting into making a vastly superior one. Maybe the we could use the capture pods to capture creatures, transport them to our lab and then try a fragile process to extract certain properties they have. If this succeeds the properties will go into a DNA-bank which you can then browse through and try to compose it all into a creature. With chances of being unsuccessful or even making a hostile or retarded creature.

Chopped and edited.

 

Updated grammar and syntax in OP.

Other stuff which was here got annihilated... like protons and antiprotons do to each other.

 

___MeRliN___! I am afraid I must have been unclear of my intentions here. I love this (YOUR) idea and I was simply trying to add my own opinion on the matter. My comment

was towards my own post which I found a bit macabre and perhaps inhumane.

I am sorry if you feel offended and I will do my best to state myself more clear in the future. I would like to say though, perhaps you should have a little more faith in your fellow Starbounders before accusing them of trolling.

 

Yeah indeed I should have, sorry I must say that I am coming from that community in the other link I provided aswell... which is kinda embarassing since those guys over there are really... short minded. And I was part of them for...
almost 2,5 years. Guess they absorbed me in that time a little... or well I assimilated myself into their behavior. Well yeah I really have to get out of that "defensiv mode" I got from other communities and people IRL I was exposed. Going to change sooner or later, but takes time. Removed my post since you cleared your post up (or explained your meaning) and mine is invalid therefor.
Thanks for explaining to me, just adds another point of the usefullness of the Starbound community. And honestly, I hope we all are capable of keeping that and not turning into minecraftforums.net or similar.

 

Added the DO NOT POST ON REDDIT DISCLAIMER

Once I got better at coding (probaly next or the semester after the next when I actually have a choice between multiple coding "languages") I might provide a mod if not somebody else already did which will provide this feature to an extent.

 

I always thought that a genetics lab where you can mix and match monster parts and abilities would be fun. Maybe there could be secret monster abilities that could only be unlocked through proper genetic experimentation. Bring on the mad science!

Also, here's a little suggestion. What if you need to get certain objects from Apex laboratories to craft a genetics lab type item? Maybe one of their cloning tubes or some of their chemicals or something? It could give more use to the random facilities and add more to the lore of the game.

 

You mean like their cloning vats and those weird "beds" and tesla spheres + testtubes?
Would be an interesting requirement to gather the DNA in testubes and able to store stemcells (in liquid form) in a tank so you can easily access it, probaly adding your suggestion to OP if you want me to