I have heard that at Minecon Earth, they will have a poll to determine which biome (Desert, Taiga, Savannah) gets updates, including animals. I personally think Savannah needs an update most, however I will be posting about that later. As well as ideas for Taiga. But for now, animals in the desert.
The Animals:
- Hawk
- Snake
- Lizard/beetles
- Kangaroo rat
- Cactus Wren
- An actual Camel (not just a reskinned Llama)
Behaviours/Traits
1. Hawk
The hawk would be a neutral mob that circles the skies of the desert searching for rabbits and kangaroo rats to hunt. They would have their own unique set of sounds, obviously. A soft and melodic chirruping whilst perched, or as idle noise as they circle. They would do their iconic shriek once in a while, but will definitely shriek when about to dive on a prey animal. Much like wolves and ocelots, the hunt doesnt necessarily help the hawk in anyway, and is more for ambient activity (I have ideas on what the hunting could do, but that will be in another post).
Hawks would be tameable. Either by hatching a hawk egg which would be the most effective but most risky, or, by luring the hawk with raw rabbit. More time consuming, but safer.
A tamed hawk would follow the player, perch on the off hand, But only if the player crafts a gauntlet. The gauntlet is placed on the offhand and in real life would serve to protect the hand and arm of a >falconer< (not sure what it is called with a hawk...and hawker sounds terrible){originally, perch on the shoulder}. It would also hunt rabbit for the player. The hunt would bring back a random result of a rabbit hide, raw rabbit, or a rabbit's foot. To breed the Hawk, one must feed two tamed hawks rabbit. A baby hawk won't spawn after the animation however. A hawk egg will. A "nest" item would be implemented. They can occur naturally (the "spawner" of a single hawk), can not be crafted by the player, can not be harvested, and will be "placed" by one of the two tamed hawks. The egg will be brought there by the hawk.
If a player attacks a hawk, the hawk will fight back. Doing half a heart of damage on easy mode, 1 heart on medium, 1 and a half on hard. The drops would be a hawk feather (to be used potentially in a potion for "hawk eye" which allows the player to zoom with a bow or trident for more accuracy), rabbit hide, or a Hawk egg. One could also obtain a hawk egg by raiding a hawk's nest, but doing so would make the hawk go from neutral to aggressive just like if you attacked the hawk itself, attacking the player until they are at least 15 blocks from the nest. If the player has the egg, it will chase the player. Dropping the egg will make the hawk grab it and return. However the act of raiding the nest itself will cause the hawk to be aggressive to the player anytime that player is within sight and range (15 blocks) for a minute. After 1 minute the player could return within range and be ignored. However, the timer will reset anytime the player goes within range while the hawk is in Aggro mode. Time will be tracked like a potion effect timer.
Hawks are aggressive towards phantoms, but only when a phantom, or phantoms, are near the hawk's nest. A tamed hawk will <attack a phantom near a player, about 10 blocks in any direction.>To heal a hawk, feed it Raw Rabbit.
2. Snake
Snakes will be a cross between neutral and aggressive, kinda like endermen (they don't care about you unless you make eye contact), but with space instead of eye contact. A snake will be neutral at 5 blocks or more, defensive (hissing and rearing at you) at 3 or more blocks, and aggressive at 2 or less.
They hunt kangaroo rats, rabbits, and lizards.
They are not tameable.
They are poisonous, but not every bite will be poisonous. You have about a 60/40 chance in favor of damage over poison.
They will start to hiss when a player is within 5 blocks of them.
3. Lizard/beetle
Lizards and beetles will be a passive mob. They are counted as one in this thread, as Minecraft doesnt really have any critters a lizard would go after. There are no insects (other than silverfish and endermites), which is what they would feed on. Seeing as extreme hills (where silverfish exist naturally) are rarely next to or within a desert biome, and endermites can only pop into existence via enderpearl usage, a companion mob is needed specifically for the lizard to interact with. Thus, the beetle. *Size shouldnt be a relevemt issue seeing as silver fish and endermites are so small, they literally suffocate in soul sand and can't get out*
The beetle and the lizard will be specifically for ambience. The lizard is hunted by the snake, and the lizard hunts the beetles.
Lizards and beetles have no attack, and killing either will grant 0 experience. The lizard however, would be tameable and breedable. Catch a beetle, lure the lizard, feed the beetle to the lizard, and eventually you will tame one. Once tamed it will reskin to a bearded dragon or desert anole. Untamed default to horny toad lizards. Mostly just for looks and companionship like the parrot though. The lizard when tamed could be picked up, at which point it will perch on the shoulder, and scuttle around you. And if it sees a beetle...it will chase it to try and catch it. Rarely, it will bring it back to you as a present.
4. Kangaroo rat
The Kangaroo rat would be a passive mob. Killing one grants no experience. However, a possible drop would be any one of the various seeds currently in game.
The Kangaroo rat would be hunted by snakes and ocelots (tamed or wild).
The Kangaroo rat will go after newly planted crops and "eat" them, turning the farmland block into a regular dirt block, and without the seed being "dropped" as a result. They will also go after chests with seeds in them, and slowly drain the seeds from storage.
The Kangaroo rat would have a unique ability to "walk" through a single block to get to a chest of seeds, and "steal" seeds from the chest. This will be called "foraging" for the rest of this entry.
The kangaroo rat can only forage if the other side of the block is not obscured by another block. This means the rat can't walk through the block directly behind the chest of seeds, but must find a block with no other block in front of it. Carpet, fences, stone walls and slabs will be counted as air. The block must be a solid block such as stone, gold, etcetera. Dirt blocks will be destroyed by this process.
The kangaroo rat is not tameable.
If the Kangaroo rat is able to steal 10 or more seeds, it will go into love mode and breed with any other rat that also has stolen 10 seeds. A baby rat will grow normally as other baby mobs do, however if it gets 10 seeds or more, it will becone an adult.
The Kangaroo rat would make little squeeking noises.
When the rat is "charging" its "forage" ability, scratching noises will be heard. It will take 3.5 seconds for a rat to conduct this action, and get through. It will take the same amount of time to steal a seed from a chest, and will make the same scratching noise.
The "forage" ability has a cool down period of 1 minute 30 seconds.
The Kangaroo rat will be able to sense seeds within 10 blocks of it (whether behind a block or not, or in a chest), and freshly planted seeds in a farm from 15 blocks. To consume the freshly planted seed will take 2.5 seconds.
They are slightly faster then baby zombies, and slightly smaller than a chicken. So they will be difficult to hit.
5. Cactus wren
The cactus wren would be a passive, un-tameable mob.
It would spawn naturally near or on a cactus that is three blocks high.
It would make warbling and chirping noises.
This mob would mostly be for aesthetics/ambience.
A Cactus wren would go after mature "crops"(what I call wheat). Doing so will destroy the crops, but not the farmland. The crops would drop one less seed than the normal algorithm dictates.
The cactus wren after collecting a random amount of seeds from the crops (at least 4), may drop a seed, and that seed will turn into grass. Tall grass would also be possible, but would be rare.
Killing a cactus wren rewards the player no drops, and no experience.
6. Camel
The camel would be a passive, tameable, breedable mob.
To tame a camel, you need to feed it cactus.
Feed camels dried kelp blocks to breed.
Camels can also eat flowers, and grass (the item) aside from cactus for healing. Grad being the lowest at half a heart no saturation, to flowers of 1 heart no saturation, and cactus as 2 hearts, minor saturation.
The camel would be another pack animal like the donkey, mule, or llama. However, it could also be used as a combat mount like the Horses. If you use the camel as a combat animal, you cant use it as a pack animal. Meaning, you can either equip a saddle, or a chest. Never both.
Camels would get a speed boost in sand, and a speed decrease on any other terrain. Meaning, faster than the fastest horse in sand, as slow or slower than the slowest horse on any other terrain.
For those who read this in full, thank you for your time. And please do comment or message me with insight.
There really is no point in having a potion give you "a closer look", because you as the player will still have to figure out trajectory. This calculation is basically why you miss so much, as there's no feedback other than eyeballing from past experience. Whether it's implementable or not (I could see this being fairly laggy even if all you saw was a bullseye target rather than a trajectory arc drawn from you to target), I think the hawkeye potion should be something that somehow tells you where the arrow will land given your current aiming stance.
The hawk mechanics seem extremely complicated for almost no benefit (just hunting rabbits?)
Lizard/Beetles/Rats aren't great - they are basically too small to work in MC. Rabbits are kind of at the lower limit for terrestrial mobs, since any mob you have would need to climb at least 1 block high heights. Rabbits themselves only work because they jump so high.
Same applies for Snakes, but if you don't have the three above, snakes aren't doing anything anyway.
The Wren is just annoying as hell, you can't have cacti anywhere near your farms. Adding new mobs that are just a nuisance without a benefit isn't a good idea.
Camels are interesting though - if they spawned very rarely, I could see it.
As a side note, if you had all of these mobs actually put in the game, Deserts would have a LOT more life crawling around than any other biome, which doesn't make any sense.
-Explain parrots then. They serve literally no purpose other than ambience and as a pet. They dont do anything but fly around. Perch on your shoulder now and then. And sing. Why is that acceptable, but a cactus wren an annoyance?
-The hawk isnt nearly as complicated as you think. It just sounds like it. Phantoms basically do the same thing. Fly around when a player hasn't slept in days, and swoop down (like a hawk would after a prey animal) to attack that player. As for the whole "no benefit (other than hunting rabbits?)" Comment... Wolves don't hunt for you. Ocelots dont hunt for you. They scare creepers away. Great. A sitting wolf doesnt attack anything. And recently I have noticed that wolves don't even attack a mob that hits you even if on follow 100% of the time.there have been times I had a wolf following me...I got hit by a skeleton, and the wolf just looked at me like. "Sup? You alright? Looks like that hurt." And didnt help at all. So. An animal that will hunt for you, could be very useful. Perhaps if other than that, a tamed hawk would attack any phantom on sight to protect you? See...now the hawk is more useful even than an ocelot or wolf.
-You actually can have cacti near your farms. I habe actually used cacti to help defend my farm. Dig up some sand. Place it. Plant cactus. Boom. It is nesr your farm. Unless you are referencing farming in the desert? Grab a couple buckets of water and a stack or two of dirt. Dig up the sand, replace with dirt, create a well and canal system...boom. Farms in a desert of which then a wren would do its thing.
My biggest thing in any of my posts will be mostly ambience. I want to hear the chirping of birds. The rushing of wind and rustling of leaves. The hawk and the camel are the only utility mobs if you noticed. The wren, lizard, snake, even kangaroo rat, mostly to make monecraft more alive. As for your statement regarding "more living things than any other biome"... Are you aware of the 1,000 somethinf fish in tropical oceans? Not to mention, salmon, Cod, puffer fish, drowned, dolphins, guardians, squid, elder guardians? Lets see...the ocean has...1,008 critters? Verses my proposed six? Lets see....cows, sheep, horses, rabbits, pigs...in most biomes (minus the desert) that is 5...compared to my six. Go to a taiga and you add wolves and we are mow at 6 to 6. I get the general consensus of deserts is that they are dead...desolate places. And seeing as monecraft bases theirs off of what seems to be the Sahara desert...I can see why. But even that desert has beetles, lizards, camels and snakes. So it isnt completely dead. Other than hostile...and maybe rabbits, what mob really makes the desert feel alive? Oh! And abother point...what the Heck purpose will a meerkat serve? Probably nothing other than a potential pet. So again. Why do you hate on the wren and lizard so much?
Preface:
I have heard that at Minecon Earth, they will have a poll to determine which biome (Desert, Taiga, Savannah) gets updates, including animals. I personally think Savannah needs an update most, however I will be posting about that later. As well as ideas for Taiga. But for now, animals in the desert.
The Animals:
- Hawk
- Snake
- Lizard/beetles
- Kangaroo rat
- Cactus Wren
- An actual Camel (not just a reskinned Llama)
Behaviours/Traits
1. Hawk
The hawk would be a neutral mob that circles the skies of the desert searching for rabbits and kangaroo rats to hunt. They would have their own unique set of sounds, obviously. A soft and melodic chirruping whilst perched, or as idle noise as they circle. They would do their iconic shriek once in a while, but will definitely shriek when about to dive on a prey animal. Much like wolves and ocelots, the hunt doesnt necessarily help the hawk in anyway, and is more for ambient activity (I have ideas on what the hunting could do, but that will be in another post).
Hawks would be tameable. Either by hatching a hawk egg which would be the most effective but most risky, or, by luring the hawk with raw rabbit. More time consuming, but safer.
A tamed hawk would follow the player, perch on the off hand, But only if the player crafts a gauntlet. The gauntlet is placed on the offhand and in real life would serve to protect the hand and arm of a >falconer< (not sure what it is called with a hawk...and hawker sounds terrible){originally, perch on the shoulder}. It would also hunt rabbit for the player. The hunt would bring back a random result of a rabbit hide, raw rabbit, or a rabbit's foot. To breed the Hawk, one must feed two tamed hawks rabbit. A baby hawk won't spawn after the animation however. A hawk egg will. A "nest" item would be implemented. They can occur naturally (the "spawner" of a single hawk), can not be crafted by the player, can not be harvested, and will be "placed" by one of the two tamed hawks. The egg will be brought there by the hawk.
If a player attacks a hawk, the hawk will fight back. Doing half a heart of damage on easy mode, 1 heart on medium, 1 and a half on hard. The drops would be a hawk feather (to be used potentially in a potion for "hawk eye" which allows the player to zoom with a bow or trident for more accuracy), rabbit hide, or a Hawk egg. One could also obtain a hawk egg by raiding a hawk's nest, but doing so would make the hawk go from neutral to aggressive just like if you attacked the hawk itself, attacking the player until they are at least 15 blocks from the nest. If the player has the egg, it will chase the player. Dropping the egg will make the hawk grab it and return. However the act of raiding the nest itself will cause the hawk to be aggressive to the player anytime that player is within sight and range (15 blocks) for a minute. After 1 minute the player could return within range and be ignored. However, the timer will reset anytime the player goes within range while the hawk is in Aggro mode. Time will be tracked like a potion effect timer.
Hawks are aggressive towards phantoms, but only when a phantom, or phantoms, are near the hawk's nest. A tamed hawk will <attack a phantom near a player, about 10 blocks in any direction.>To heal a hawk, feed it Raw Rabbit.
2. Snake
Snakes will be a cross between neutral and aggressive, kinda like endermen (they don't care about you unless you make eye contact), but with space instead of eye contact. A snake will be neutral at 5 blocks or more, defensive (hissing and rearing at you) at 3 or more blocks, and aggressive at 2 or less.
They hunt kangaroo rats, rabbits, and lizards.
They are not tameable.
They are poisonous, but not every bite will be poisonous. You have about a 60/40 chance in favor of damage over poison.
They will start to hiss when a player is within 5 blocks of them.
3. Lizard/beetle
Lizards and beetles will be a passive mob. They are counted as one in this thread, as Minecraft doesnt really have any critters a lizard would go after. There are no insects (other than silverfish and endermites), which is what they would feed on. Seeing as extreme hills (where silverfish exist naturally) are rarely next to or within a desert biome, and endermites can only pop into existence via enderpearl usage, a companion mob is needed specifically for the lizard to interact with. Thus, the beetle. *Size shouldnt be a relevemt issue seeing as silver fish and endermites are so small, they literally suffocate in soul sand and can't get out*
The beetle and the lizard will be specifically for ambience. The lizard is hunted by the snake, and the lizard hunts the beetles.
Lizards and beetles have no attack, and killing either will grant 0 experience. The lizard however, would be tameable and breedable. Catch a beetle, lure the lizard, feed the beetle to the lizard, and eventually you will tame one. Once tamed it will reskin to a bearded dragon or desert anole. Untamed default to horny toad lizards. Mostly just for looks and companionship like the parrot though. The lizard when tamed could be picked up, at which point it will perch on the shoulder, and scuttle around you. And if it sees a beetle...it will chase it to try and catch it. Rarely, it will bring it back to you as a present.
4. Kangaroo rat
The Kangaroo rat would be a passive mob. Killing one grants no experience. However, a possible drop would be any one of the various seeds currently in game.
The Kangaroo rat would be hunted by snakes and ocelots (tamed or wild).
The Kangaroo rat will go after newly planted crops and "eat" them, turning the farmland block into a regular dirt block, and without the seed being "dropped" as a result. They will also go after chests with seeds in them, and slowly drain the seeds from storage.
The Kangaroo rat would have a unique ability to "walk" through a single block to get to a chest of seeds, and "steal" seeds from the chest. This will be called "foraging" for the rest of this entry.
The kangaroo rat can only forage if the other side of the block is not obscured by another block. This means the rat can't walk through the block directly behind the chest of seeds, but must find a block with no other block in front of it. Carpet, fences, stone walls and slabs will be counted as air. The block must be a solid block such as stone, gold, etcetera. Dirt blocks will be destroyed by this process.
The kangaroo rat is not tameable.
If the Kangaroo rat is able to steal 10 or more seeds, it will go into love mode and breed with any other rat that also has stolen 10 seeds. A baby rat will grow normally as other baby mobs do, however if it gets 10 seeds or more, it will becone an adult.
The Kangaroo rat would make little squeeking noises.
When the rat is "charging" its "forage" ability, scratching noises will be heard. It will take 3.5 seconds for a rat to conduct this action, and get through. It will take the same amount of time to steal a seed from a chest, and will make the same scratching noise.
The "forage" ability has a cool down period of 1 minute 30 seconds.
The Kangaroo rat will be able to sense seeds within 10 blocks of it (whether behind a block or not, or in a chest), and freshly planted seeds in a farm from 15 blocks. To consume the freshly planted seed will take 2.5 seconds.
They are slightly faster then baby zombies, and slightly smaller than a chicken. So they will be difficult to hit.
5. Cactus wren
The cactus wren would be a passive, un-tameable mob.
It would spawn naturally near or on a cactus that is three blocks high.
It would make warbling and chirping noises.
This mob would mostly be for aesthetics/ambience.
A Cactus wren would go after mature "crops"(what I call wheat). Doing so will destroy the crops, but not the farmland. The crops would drop one less seed than the normal algorithm dictates.
The cactus wren after collecting a random amount of seeds from the crops (at least 4), may drop a seed, and that seed will turn into grass. Tall grass would also be possible, but would be rare.
Killing a cactus wren rewards the player no drops, and no experience.
6. Camel
The camel would be a passive, tameable, breedable mob.
To tame a camel, you need to feed it cactus.
Feed camels dried kelp blocks to breed.
Camels can also eat flowers, and grass (the item) aside from cactus for healing. Grad being the lowest at half a heart no saturation, to flowers of 1 heart no saturation, and cactus as 2 hearts, minor saturation.
The camel would be another pack animal like the donkey, mule, or llama. However, it could also be used as a combat mount like the Horses. If you use the camel as a combat animal, you cant use it as a pack animal. Meaning, you can either equip a saddle, or a chest. Never both.
Camels would get a speed boost in sand, and a speed decrease on any other terrain. Meaning, faster than the fastest horse in sand, as slow or slower than the slowest horse on any other terrain.
For those who read this in full, thank you for your time. And please do comment or message me with insight.
There really is no point in having a potion give you "a closer look", because you as the player will still have to figure out trajectory. This calculation is basically why you miss so much, as there's no feedback other than eyeballing from past experience. Whether it's implementable or not (I could see this being fairly laggy even if all you saw was a bullseye target rather than a trajectory arc drawn from you to target), I think the hawkeye potion should be something that somehow tells you where the arrow will land given your current aiming stance.
The hawk mechanics seem extremely complicated for almost no benefit (just hunting rabbits?)
Lizard/Beetles/Rats aren't great - they are basically too small to work in MC. Rabbits are kind of at the lower limit for terrestrial mobs, since any mob you have would need to climb at least 1 block high heights. Rabbits themselves only work because they jump so high.
Same applies for Snakes, but if you don't have the three above, snakes aren't doing anything anyway.
The Wren is just annoying as hell, you can't have cacti anywhere near your farms. Adding new mobs that are just a nuisance without a benefit isn't a good idea.
Camels are interesting though - if they spawned very rarely, I could see it.
As a side note, if you had all of these mobs actually put in the game, Deserts would have a LOT more life crawling around than any other biome, which doesn't make any sense.
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-Explain parrots then. They serve literally no purpose other than ambience and as a pet. They dont do anything but fly around. Perch on your shoulder now and then. And sing. Why is that acceptable, but a cactus wren an annoyance?
-The hawk isnt nearly as complicated as you think. It just sounds like it. Phantoms basically do the same thing. Fly around when a player hasn't slept in days, and swoop down (like a hawk would after a prey animal) to attack that player. As for the whole "no benefit (other than hunting rabbits?)" Comment... Wolves don't hunt for you. Ocelots dont hunt for you. They scare creepers away. Great. A sitting wolf doesnt attack anything. And recently I have noticed that wolves don't even attack a mob that hits you even if on follow 100% of the time.there have been times I had a wolf following me...I got hit by a skeleton, and the wolf just looked at me like. "Sup? You alright? Looks like that hurt." And didnt help at all. So. An animal that will hunt for you, could be very useful. Perhaps if other than that, a tamed hawk would attack any phantom on sight to protect you? See...now the hawk is more useful even than an ocelot or wolf.
-You actually can have cacti near your farms. I habe actually used cacti to help defend my farm. Dig up some sand. Place it. Plant cactus. Boom. It is nesr your farm. Unless you are referencing farming in the desert? Grab a couple buckets of water and a stack or two of dirt. Dig up the sand, replace with dirt, create a well and canal system...boom. Farms in a desert of which then a wren would do its thing.
My biggest thing in any of my posts will be mostly ambience. I want to hear the chirping of birds. The rushing of wind and rustling of leaves. The hawk and the camel are the only utility mobs if you noticed. The wren, lizard, snake, even kangaroo rat, mostly to make monecraft more alive. As for your statement regarding "more living things than any other biome"... Are you aware of the 1,000 somethinf fish in tropical oceans? Not to mention, salmon, Cod, puffer fish, drowned, dolphins, guardians, squid, elder guardians? Lets see...the ocean has...1,008 critters? Verses my proposed six? Lets see....cows, sheep, horses, rabbits, pigs...in most biomes (minus the desert) that is 5...compared to my six. Go to a taiga and you add wolves and we are mow at 6 to 6. I get the general consensus of deserts is that they are dead...desolate places. And seeing as monecraft bases theirs off of what seems to be the Sahara desert...I can see why. But even that desert has beetles, lizards, camels and snakes. So it isnt completely dead. Other than hostile...and maybe rabbits, what mob really makes the desert feel alive? Oh! And abother point...what the Heck purpose will a meerkat serve? Probably nothing other than a potential pet. So again. Why do you hate on the wren and lizard so much?
The idea behind would be that with the zoom, the trajectory gets flatter. But I see your point.