Jump to content
  • 3

Vulcanops Community Creature Submission Concept.


Thebrickynz

Suggestion

With the news of another community dino vote on the horizon, I decided to put forth a design of mine early. I will be submitting it when the time comes, so let me know what your thoughts are.

          (sorry 4 the bad quality)

It's called the Vulcanops Draculae, a hybrid of two prehistoric bats (Desmodus Draculae and Vulcanops JennyWorthyae) from the Miocene period. Right off the bat, ( pun intended) I'd like to say that yes, its size is unrealistic. I've taken plenty of creative license because seriously, nobody wants another unrideable bat in ark. Plus, most ark dinos are the wrong size anyway. (Raptor, dilo, etc..) Anyways, its basically a bat the size of a maewing. During the day, it wanders around the map foraging, or hanging from a ledge somewhere. They will behave similar to a tapejara if threatened. At night however, they will silently hunt small creatures, including humans! They are the only wild flyer to be able to pick up players off their mounts. This will actually begin the taming process. If you have a saddle in your end hotbar slot, you can equip the bat with it directly. (This will require very good timing, maybe similar mechanics to being grabbed by a bloodstalker idk.) Once saddled, the bat will tame. In order to keep your new friend, you will have to keep the saddle on it (which has a built in muzzle). If you remove the saddle, the Vulcanops will break free and become wild once again.

When tamed, it can walk/crawl slowly along the ground with an animation like a wyvern, and climb walls kinda like a megalania or dienonychus. (Also it can climb ceilings, how else would it hang down like a real bat?) It's regular attack is a simple bite, maybe with bleed damage, maybe without. It can perform this at any time. Pressing the jump button will allow it to fly. You cannot take off from the ground, only from walls, ceilings, or if your already falling. Unlike other flyers, you must continually press space to flap your wings. (Basically like flappy bird.) You can hover however, simply by holding down the jump button. The alt attack will enable the bat to pick up small creatures, the same as a pteranadon. At night, you can also use his echolocation ability. This is like the parasaur detection, except its got longer range, it only targets in front of you, and it only shows creatures who are moving, allowing smart players to remain undetected by standing still. The bat can swim without dismounting the player, but its very slow and can only go on the surface. Also, its super good at harvesting chitin. Lastly, their nocturnal buff gives them 30% more damage and speed at night. But 30% less during the day.  They can consume any veggies/berries. Plus meat, but not fish. Being partially vampire bats, (remember they are a hybrid creature!) they can also consume blood packs, I'll get into that later.

The Vulcanops saddle will require 400 hide, 200 fiber, and 75 metal. It will slowly become damaged over time, however you can repair it whilst its on your bat. If you allow it to break entirely, your bat will flee, and return to the wild. It will have  1000 durability, and lose 5 every (in game) day you are online. Higher quality saddles will have higher durability. Repairing the saddle costs 1 metal ingot per 25 units. The appearance of the saddle will be a tough covering of hide over the creatures back, with hand and foot holds. (your survivor will lie across its back on their stomach.) Metal bracing will run along the arms/fingers, and a muzzle will cover the bats mouth. (except when being ridden.) It will have a cool looking bridle, through which the player steers the bat.1753204136_VULCANOPSlowquality.thumb.jpg.f669779f75c09be3e43c59b6865d4969.jpg

In terms of stats, probably a couple hundred hp, maybe 30ish bite damage plus bleed, pretty high stamina, maybe 200-300 weight, and in between the ptera and argy in terms of flight speed. Riders can use weapons whenever the bat is not flying. You can shoot people whilst hanging from the ceiling, a wall, or just on the ground. You can also force feed them bloodpacks, which each restore something like 5% of the bats health. It will not consume them on its own.

They could potentially be invisible to turrets at night? Might b kinda op but they would be completely shredded otherwise.

Maybe during the night, they're wings could be completely silent like the snow owl, but during the day they're really loud?

Final idea, let me know if their bleed attack should have a sort of life steal effect. Since they're pretty fragile, it could be cool if their bleed damage regenerates health, seeing as they are vampire bats.

So yeah, let me know what you think. What do you like, what don't you like, etc. There's plenty of time before the next vote to incorporate your ideas!

All in all, they are a creepy bat, they're hard(ish) to tame, and could be difficult to keep, but they are perfect for hit and run night time raids against players foolish enough to venture outside. They could also be good jack of all trades mounts, due to their versatility, they just aren't the best in a direct fight.

-thebrickynz

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 replies to this server topic

Recommended Posts


This concept has a lot of information and presents another species of Bat that is both appearance wise and behaviourally different than the already in game, Onychonycteris. This hybrid species of Vulcanops has a lot of potential towards a future DLC and could easily become a new and memorable species for Ark Survival Evolved (and the face of a future DLC). Also it has plenty of advantages and enough disadvantages for this species to be an iconic and uniquely aggressive, hematophagy bat species. Also the disadvantages that you described allow this species to not be overpowering (towards the saddle removal and the damage towards the saddle over time) to the point of this creature's capabilities being unlikeable and hated by the community (this happened to the Velonosaurus in some of Ark's smaller communities).

Also the scientific speculation behind the concept of Vulcanops draculae or V. draculae makes this creature even more different and iconic, and as an overall better alternative to the Onyc. The science and realism behind this hybrid is also realistic as New Zealand Short tailed Bats (which includes Vulcanops) and New World leaf nosed Bats (this includes Vampire Bats) are from the same Suborder and are "some what" related. This species would also easily adapt to the forests, rainforests, caves and lush environments found throughout the Arks. When it comes to size and appearance, many of Ark's subspecies don't always follow the criteria of accuracy and are different than there prehistoric relatives. This one idea alone makes Vulcanops draculae vibrant and distinct/discrete from the Vulcanops from Miocene, New Zealand.

 

This is an animal that has a lot of potential for the second Creature Submission event that will happen later this year.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks man, seems like u know wot ur talking about! I reckon it'd b cool 4 a New Zealand creature 2 b in ARK. (I'm from NZ)

I agree with wot u said about balancing, if this creatures gonna b part of the lost island, it should have some sort if anti-tek ability like the other 2 dinos. Maybe it cant be targeted by turrets or something. Obviously this would b a big advantage so it would require some weaknesses such as the saddle idea, and low health.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...