NPC When your pet's health reaches 0...

After snooping a bit on the forums (I wish I had the original thread links :/) I have seen discussion on the 'pet death' mechanics, and have created a small list of what the most popular options appear to be.

A : Permadeath. The pet is gone forever and you will have to catch and train another.

B : Faint. The pet faints and is no longer able to take damage. You then have to carry the pet back to base manually, leaving yourself vulnerable while doing so.

C : Revival. Once the pet is incapacitated, you have to approach the corpse and revive it manually.

D : Cloning. The pet is dead, but you have a computer file of its DNA, and can clone it. However, you lose all of the accumulated progress and skills on that pet.

E : Teleportation. Once your pet takes critical damage, it is instantly teleported to base. There it will heal over time, leaving you without a companion for a short while.

What option appeals best to you? Perhaps another option should be up here? Maybe an alteration should be made? Let me know!

 

They are all very good pieces of food for thought!

Perhaps each would be implemented as the difficulties are?

 

That would be a great idea! I imagine in a 'hardcore' difficulty, Permadeath would be expected and so on.

 

It would again add a touch of realism to the game without imparting too much on the futuristic stylisation of the game.

 

Hmmm well I had an idea for option E... Maybe when you capture/tame a pet, you give it a collar. Perhaps this "Emergency Teleport Mechanism" is installed within the collar, OR can be researched. As in, if it is not researched yet, then the default option could be B.

That could be for the normal difficult maybe?

 

I think a combination of permadeath and cloning could be implemented. If your pet dies, it's dead, end of story. But, having researched your pet extensively, you have a file of its DNA in your computer systems - or at the very least, a file of the DNA of its species. Then, you can obtain any egg (or craft an artificial egg), inject the DNA codes into it, and grow and hatch yourself a new pet of the same species as the recently dead one.

 

I could see that happening. For the DNA file, would you prefer that the saved DNA included the upgrades, or no?

 

No. It's a brand new pet of the same species as your recently departed one, starting from scratch.

 

Ah I see, so hard-boiled option C.

 

Basically the same as the original cloning idea, but involves the use of eggs, incubation periods, and caring for the egg so it doesn't just spit out a jumbled mass of cellular goop instead of a functional pet.

 

Wow. I really like that idea. Imagine the possibilities! Perhaps you could have several incubators to care for, maybe even splice eggs of different species together to create new monsters with new talent trees. You could go on missions to gather supplies that are needed to care for the egg. The main problem is, most people get very attached to their pets, and losing them (especially if they are rare) could ruin their day entirely.

I like the egg idea, but perhaps we could go for a 'phoenix' effect here, as in when a pet dies, it drops something of an egg that can be put into the player inventory. The player could take the egg back to base and re-incubate it. After hatching, the hatchling does not remember most of it's abilities, but as it ages, it remembers them over time (in a manner faster than simply choosing the perks and upgrades all over again). I feel like that would be less brutal on the pet lovers, and as a perk you get to see your wittle baby pet again after it hatches.

 

Also, artificial eggs should be able to be crafted. I mentioned this earlier but never went into much detail. If you collect specimens of animals or monsters, and keep them in sort of a zoo for study - the more you study them, the more of the DNA code you unlock, until eventually you have a full genome. From here, you could recreate any non-sentient, non-boss NPC as a pet (this includes enemies) or splice two or more together to create a fusion pet. Splicing genomes has its own inherent risks - you're not sure exactly what could come of it. It could be just what you wanted, it could be some eldritch beast from beyond the realm of comprehension, or it could be something as simple as the original specimen, but untamed. Artificial eggs could be used for these splicing projects.

In addition, if you have a full genome, further study of different specimens of the same species could lead to a higher upgrade level of that species - they could be born with more perks, have higher starting health, or unlock new skill trees for that species of pet.

 

I see! That's very cool. It's definitely a refreshing spin on the Clone idea. So having a pet would be like having a soldier of a super race you are building. Sounds epic!

 

I think is should very from pet to pet,

Cloning should be for pets you create
Pets that are tamed should faint
Robotic pets should teleport

not exactly as i wrote it above, but you get the idea.

 

like this concept.
Can you save a version of your pet at your base and then respawn it at that stage of its life?
that way you wouldnt have to start from scratch.

 

I like the fainting part, but depending on the planet I can see wishing I was dead having lost my pet and not being able to make it back to the ship.

I don't like permadeath as I would never dabble in pets as I would screw up even once and get upset, but that's just me.

 

See, now that's a unique perspective. The way I see it, robotic pets could maybe have teleport built in, and maybe some could even repair themselves. Animals could faint, if they didn't have the teleport upgrade. I do like the cloning idea, though it might take some of the personal attachment out of the relationship.

 

This is true. Pets would become more of a farm product than an actual pet.. You don't have to clone them if you don't want to, it would be perfectly feasible to train every pet you ever have from a wild animal. However, if you find a rare or particularly attractive pet, you can get another one if the first dies. I think this would have to be tweaked a little in order to make it less OP, though.

Also, I like the teleport/self-repair for a robotic pet. Those, in a pinch, could be recreated from actual computer systems if they die/faint/short out without a transporter module installed.

 

I vote permanent death, However, I'd like pets to be able to use equipment (instead of any form of "leveling", if that was the case). The equipment that they can use would be regular accessories and pet-only accessories. I say they should have five accessory slots. Some rarer pet-only accessories will include items that allow your pet to survive easily, one of them can be based on the teleportation idea above (some sort of automatic pet-version of the Magic Mirror). I think this is a balanced way to implement the pet system.

 

I guess a cloned pet would be a very impersonal companions from the get go, I wouldn’t really care about it, because at the end of the day... you’ll just make another. You could have a limitless army of clones.

Resources or a cost should be involved with our pet,

Robots like you said, should have to be repaired/maintained

And Biological pets should have to go to like a Clinic or a nurse to be healed/recover

Cloned pets would just fight and die... And then a new clone would take its place.