Life on Lapat: Speculative Evolution

[Catto]

2 hours ago, Newgame space program said:

NO!

However we do need this guys speculative biology on Lapat.

I'm just theorizing, geez..

[Maria Sirona]

I don't think this is something that could ever realistically be implemented into the game. Regardless, i shall enjoy this stuff as some fun fan art

Also, i think the C-Vex could also use its tail/back leg as a whip type weapon against its prey

[Newgame space program]

3 hours ago, Maria Sirona said:

I don't think this is something that could ever realistically be implemented into the game. Regardless, i shall enjoy this stuff as some fun fan art

Also, i think the C-Vex could also use its tail/back leg as a whip type weapon against its prey

Ever hear of no mans sky? it's totally implementable!

[Catto]

16 minutes ago, Newgame space program said:

Ever hear of no mans sky? it's totally implementable!

About that...

 

Edited March 5, 2022 by siklidkid
embed fail

[Newgame space program]

That's because the creatures in no mans sky are randomly generated.

1 hour ago, siklidkid said:

About that...

 

 

[Catto]

4 hours ago, Newgame space program said:

That's because the creatures in no mans sky are randomly generated.

 

OOhhhhh. Well in that case, i suppose kerbal's creatures would work.

[Missingno200]

So, No Man's Sky was brought up, and now I have to point out, that is 2016 No Man's Sky. The developers, who had taken on an incredibly ambitious project, and realized they screwed up upon realize, went back and fixed things over the years. Just for comparison, here's a few examples of No Man's Sky's new creature generator.

Source article

Source article

Besides, as stated before, if this does get implemented, this would definitely mean they'd stray away from randomly generated creators, or if they do go to RGC creatures, they would be INCREDIBLY controlled, so no need to worry about early No Man's Sky levels of buffoonery. (Although you may need to worry about that IF someone makes a mod to implement randomly generated content creatures to KSP2.)

Edited March 6, 2022 by Missingno200
Well, it's a good thing they censored that "love"ery but I wasn't a fan of how that turned out so I just changed it to buffoonery instead. Can't believe I forgot to censor myself. Also, changed "couple of" to a "few", considering I gave 2x as many images.

[Catto]

Yes, that's how i imagine ksp's creatures to look.

[Newgame space program]

I saw that speculative biology post and realized that we need that projects life in ksp 2 at once, It does not have to happen as soon as the game releases BUT DO IT PLEASE! PLEASE!!!!

IF ENOUGH PEOPLE COPY THIS POSTS NAME IN THE COMMENTS MAYBE THE ALMIGHTY DEVELOPERS SHALL GIVE US A RESPONSE!

ITS LAPETS ONLY HOPE!

Edited March 8, 2022 by Newgame space program

[SunlitZelkova]

GET DAT LIFE ON LAPAT

(as a DLC)

[Timmon26]

So this kinda blew up when I wasn't watching. Don't worry guys, I haven't forgotten about these. There won't be a "Part 2" but I'll be adding drawings to the original post periodically. 

As far as something like this being in the game on release, I actually hope it isn't. I want my spaceflight/colony simulator ASAP, please. Adding aliens to Lapat, not to mention doing them justice, will take a lot of dev work, and will represent a shift in artistic focus from hard-surface modeling, terrain modeling, and physics optimization, to organic modeling, rigging, animating, and AI. AFAIK, there're only one or two creature-style rigs used in KSP2 - for the Kerbals - and they don't have any AI that we know of.  

However, I do think something like this can be done, but only as a DLC after the core game has shipped. My understanding is that the artists on a big project like this will usually get their work done first, then the second half of development is the engineers squashing bugs, so the artists need something to do between late alpha and gold that can be easily added to the game after release. A suite of funny aliens to sprinkle around on Lapat would seem to me to be a more art-heavy than code-heavy project, so something like this could fit the DLC bill.  The question for the devs will be, is the time and effort to bring all these animals to life worth getting what is basically Surface Features 2.0?

[Maria Sirona]

The lapatian (i just invented Lapat's official demonym deal with it KSP-2 devs) animals could also make great mod material!

[PlutoISaPlanet]

12 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

GET DAT LIFE ON LAPAT

(as a DLC)

YES

[Snark]

It's great to see enthusiasm.  

Just a friendly reminder, though, about forum rule 2.2.m:

Quote

Any variation on the type of message that is used to needlessly bump threads, raise ones own account visibility and/or increase post count;

If folks have thoughts about this topic, feel free to post them-- but please don't just make posts for the sake of "bumping" the thread and getting extra visibility for it.  It's great that people are excited for their ideas, but if everyone did that, forum threads would just be noisy gotta-get-to-the-top-of-the-page races (which is why the rule is there).

Thank you for your understanding.

[Vanamonde]

Overlapping threads have been merged. 

[KarolOfGutovo]

On 3/8/2022 at 5:04 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

GET DAT LIFE ON LAPAT

(as a DLC)

Honestly? Extrakerbin originated lifeforms would be a dlc I would buy.  Alternative races (yeah, I know, it IS Kerbal Space Program, but it would be interesting to have like one or two more races close enough in appearance to not look wonky in the same model of spacesuit, maybe with different colonial requirements and benefits?) and starting on other planets, exploring each planet for hundreds of hours and still finding interesting, new artifacts and fossils,  maybe mission trees and interstellar cattle theft.

[Newgame space program]

On 3/8/2022 at 10:46 AM, Snark said:

It's great to see enthusiasm.  

Just a friendly reminder, though, about forum rule 2.2.m:

If folks have thoughts about this topic, feel free to post them-- but please don't just make posts for the sake of "bumping" the thread and getting extra visibility for it.  It's great that people are excited for their ideas, but if everyone did that, forum threads would just be noisy gotta-get-to-the-top-of-the-page races (which is why the rule is there).

Thank you for your understanding.

Did the developers see this at least? This thing is just too cool not to be a DLC or something in the future.

[Redneck]

My first thought on this subject is....why? Until we actually know we may be the only life in the universe. And if thats true you would be adding "fiction" to the game but then again kerbals are fiction so ehh whatevs. And just so you guys know i DO believe life is out there somewhere. My second thought is to each their own and therefore I support the idea just as i did in regards to multiplayer vs single player argument. Just do us a favor give us a tickbox in settings to disable this feature and the ability for the user to choose. Just because i will never use it doesnt mean NOBODY should have it. Give it to em devs! (or at least the possibility to do it in a mod which I am sure there will be tons of them)

Edited March 14, 2022 by Redneck

[Timmon26]

Found some time to get some more work done on these and have updated the OP. 

In addition, I've decided to finally buckle down and learn Blender to possibly bring some of these guys to life. The results of Day 1 (I have no idea what I'm doing):

Spoiler

Assuming I manage to produce a game-ready asset eventually, would anyone be interested in trying to mod some critters into KSP1, as a proof of concept? I don't have experience in these matters, but I should think it would be possible to piggyback on the surface feature system to randomly scatter aliens around other bodies like Laythe. I'll start a thread for it in the addons forum if anyone's interested. 

[BowlerHatGuy3]

Bro this is awesome. Something like this definitely isn’t gonna be in KSP 2 but it’s still real nice. Especially with the new tech game engines have gotten, it’s definitely possible to do something like this. Would be a very nice mod. Speaking of life, do you think that there could be animals like this on Kerbin? I feel that would make Kerbin feel a lot more alive and make it seem like a paradise compared to most of the other planets.

[Souptime]

On 4/9/2022 at 1:57 PM, Timmon26 said:

Found some time to get some more work done on these and have updated the OP. 

In addition, I've decided to finally buckle down and learn Blender to possibly bring some of these guys to life. The results of Day 1 (I have no idea what I'm doing):

  Hide contents

Assuming I manage to produce a game-ready asset eventually, would anyone be interested in trying to mod some critters into KSP1, as a proof of concept? I don't have experience in these matters, but I should think it would be possible to piggyback on the surface feature system to randomly scatter aliens around other bodies like Laythe. I'll start a thread for it in the addons forum if anyone's interested. 

Well, it's possible to create things like aliens in KSP 1, at least a proof-of-concept version

The planet mod Ecumenopolis has a surface feature on its moon, where a railgun-like craft shoots off into space, the craft does despawn after it leaves the rail though, yet it'll loop after a little

If you could hook up an alien on a 5-ish minute animation loop you could probably create some sort of alien system, just without actual AI and (hopefully) without collision, it'd be pretty annoying to get your interstellar craft nuked by a small bug

 

[Pthigrivi]

There was a time when I would have said 'microbial life only' but dang this thread is great and there are so many weird possibilities out there. If there was a world or 2 with exotic multicellular megafauna with basic AI traipsing around I'd have zero problem with that, let alone crabs and trilobites. 
 

 

[Lyraea]

As a speculative biology fan in my own free time, I had no idea this was a thing on the KSP forums, or really on KSP in general! I've found my people. Following topic now...

[magnemoe]

Very nice and 3 leg are pretty unique, yes Nivens pupeters but not much else. 
I could easy see some species going bipedal dinosaur style without anything involving flying.  Rear leg would also likely to be tail related rater than an leg. 
Now downside of this design is that its very hard to get toolmakers who is irrelevant here as we just want weird animals. 

[Timmon26]

Learning 3D animation by testing a tripod walk cycle, which the big herbivores will need to move around...

This is the left>right>back cycle. There's a case to be made for the L>B>R>B cycle but I thought it overworked the back leg too much. Since the abdomen is unsupported when the back leg lifts, it needs to be counterbalanced, so I had the long neck jut forward during the back step to act as a counterweight. This suggests even tripods that spend most of their time on three legs should still have their centers of mass just behind the front two. 

Probably not the most convenient walking strategy for poor Mr. Stompachonk; I guess that's why we don't have any true tripods in real life.