reaper support Palaeoctopus - The reaper supporting, giant land Octopus!

[BlackkHatt83]

Very nice and original too!

[DarkRose98]

Great for Centre map...if this doesn't win this time hope will win on the centre map

[Moasaurus]

Reminds me a lot of the "swampus" from The Future Is Wild. I do love seeing "nonstandard" critters suggested.

[CuDeCabra]

This one seems to be kinda useful

[Kejek]

90% of it's utility is stricte PVP

[moonknight223]

love the idea being able to help a reaper with its short comings

[Katanaa]

56 minutes ago, Kejek said:

90% of it's utility is stricte PVP

NUH UH

[Doseishy]

Love the idea! Wish it had more pve utils though but it is very unique. Honestly would like to see this in the game. 

[Tarbonite]

This map has got everyone's creativity pumping, and this one caught my eye. Good job 👏👏

[Sufli]

No

[Abaddon23]

11 hours ago, Cruzoor69 said:

Palaeoctopus – The Ancient Octopus

Name: Palaeoctopus.

Species Name: Palaeoctopus Newboldi.

Time Period: Late Cretaceous.

Diet: Carnivores

Temperament: Passive until attack.

 

Introduction

In modern times, there are around 300 species of octopus. Intelligent and diverse, these eight-armed Cephalopoda can be found across our planet.  From the Giant Pacific octopus to the Wolfi. In the fossil record, there are known species that date back over 500 million years like the Tusoteuthis.  Well… that’s a squid so it doesn’t count. But the Palaeoctopus dates back to the late Cretaceous period. The reason I chose an octopus for this submission is due to the abilities that these creatures have and how they could be utilized in-game. Not to mention that an octopus wouldn’t be misplaced amongst the alien denizens of the map.

Wikipedia link to the Octopus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus

Wikipedia link to the Palaeoctopus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeoctopus

Website of Prehistoric Cephalopoda: https://eartharchives.org/articles/500-million-years-of-cephalopod-fossils/index.html

 

Wild

The Palaeoctopus would be found in the blue zone. Around the Luminous Marshlands amongst the ponds in Aberration.  Catching fish or smaller prey with its tentacles. Encountering larger animals would force the octopus to flee, squirting ink at attackers and blinding them.  Upon confronting survivors, the Palaeoctopus would become curious.  Grabbing hold of a survivor, restricting their movements.  Struggling may provoke the Octopus to attack.  Palaeoctopus, when killed, would yield raw fish meat and oil when harvested.

 

Taming

The diet of octopuses in real life is small fish, crabs, clams, and snails. So, feeding them items similar to these would be ideal. While the octopus holds onto the survivor, passively feeding them the items in the last slot of the toolbar would begin the taming process. The octopus would let go of the survivor until it is ready to feed again. The Palaeoctopus would make random requests for raw fish meat, prime fish meat, Karkinos eggs, or even pearls.  Sometimes, the octopus might require the survivor to give it a tool like a stone pickaxe or primitive spear so it can play with it. This would also increase its taming meter.

 

Once Tamed

Once tamed, the Palaeoctopus would act as a shoulder pet, wrapping four of its tentacles around the survivor.  The other four would act as extra arms to do whatever the survivor wishes. Think of them like Doc Ock’s metallic arms, capable of multiple tasks. Using a variety of tools and equipment.

However, the Palaeoctopus must reach a certain intelligence level in order to use specific items.  The octopus would have a new stat called “Intelligence”.  This would work similarly to how the players would level up. For example, When the player levels up, engrams will be available to unlock.   The wooden club engram is unlocked at level 8, so the Palaeoctopus would have to reach level 8 in intelligence in order to use that tool. 

Like the Mantis, the octopus would have slots in which the survivor can equip items.  For example, one could have a pickaxe, one holding food which you could be passively fed, a torch held aloft in a third, and a pistol in the fourth. If the octopus was given heavier equipment like a rocket launcher if it reached level 87, it would take up multiple slots. Or if the octopus was given a shotgun, it would hold the gun in one arm but must have shotgun shells in another in order for the creature to use it.

Alternatively, the octopus could also pick items up from the ground within a radius of the survivor. Which could be useful when earthquakes erupt, and items emerge.

 

Color Changer

An adaptation that octopuses have is the ability to blend into their environment by using the chromatophores cells underneath their skin to change color.  While this feature could be useful to camouflage the survivor when equipped, it would be too similar to the rock drake’s ability to turn invisible. Also making it overpowered with the “multi-tasking” arms. Instead, I came up with the idea that the octopus would have the ability to copy the color regions of another creature and apply it to its own.

Asides from using mods like the dino colorizer, and during events where items can drop consumables, there is only one way to change a creature's color in the vanilla game; through breeding and mutating. There are a total of six color regions that can affect a creature's appearance and not every creature uses all of them. Only through mind-numbing effort can you breed a creature with the colors you want.

Link to the Dino Colorizer! Mod on the Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=902616446&searchtext=dino+colour

What I’m proposing is that the Palaeoctopus would not only have the ability to copy a color region from any creature but apply the color to other creatures as well.  In both events, the octopus would latch itself onto the targeted creature and proceed to either copy or apply one of the color regions. However, when giving a color region to another creature, the octopus would require a resource in order to change its color. Perhaps at the cost of element ore which was first introduced in Aberration and would make sense lore-wise since element has the capabilities of changing organic matter.  This would give survivors the ability to not only customize their creatures but keep hold of colors.  Especially when limited-time events spawn creatures with exclusive colors.

 

Weakness

Since Octopus are water-based creatures, they need to stay hydrated otherwise they would dry up and die.  A similar feature could be applied to the Palaeoctopus.  If its water meter diminishes, it will start losing health and perish.  So, keeping the Palaeoctopus near water would be ideal.  Survivors could place water sources like waterskins, water jars, and canteens in their inventory and the octopus would use them to stay hydrated. Keeping them near taps in your greenhouse would also work. A hotter temperature would mean the water would go down quickly, making the Palaeoctopus harder to use in desert environments. This dependence on water would provide a limitation on the octopus and keep it from being too overpowered.

 

Conclusion

Originally, the Palaeoctopus was meant to be a rideable creature, allowing the survivor to scale walls and spit oil like throwing an oil jar.  But the shoulder pet was a better idea.

While these are my ideas for how the Palaeoctopus could work in Ark, I would like to know what you think.  Could you see this creature being utilized in Ark?

omg i have this idea too a octupus like an exo skeletton 😮❤️ i vote it up 

[bispetnaz]

Cool suggestion !

[Silogorn]

I can’t vote this go round…

[andercm]

As an octopus lover I love the idea, that's why I would like to add a suggestion, I hope you like it. Once domesticated the palaeoctopus could grab small creatures with its tentacles and in the case of large creatures could immobilize them by curling around it, thus giving your companions an easier way to tame or kill the creature you catch. This skill would have a limited time.

[iirellav]

YES, please, it is so cute

[Kingofthepast]

I really don't think this creature feat the map, but for other map, maybe.

[KingJellyRoll73]

This is where the fun begins

[armandc]

Bof...

[RexTheDargon]

11 hours ago, ashgcy said:

Now this is the kind of concept we need for Aberration.

Cephalopods are weird, cephalopods on land are even weirder, and cephalopods that fly with an ink rocket? Now that is an aberrant animal right there!

I agree with this octopus getting in. I didn’t know how to get more people to look at what I suggested. It’s my first submission and I tried to submit it but it seems the posts are able to submit longer posts faster and I feel like my idea was worthless so yeah. Could more of you all please check out the Tanystropheus? It would mean a lot to me.

[Mxm]

I had never noticed the lack of octopus in Ark before but now this has me desperately wanting one

[sjmonson24]

I would love to up vote this but give the early bird restrictions even when I have been on here since 2018 and taken part in all the creature votes with over 5000 hours in the game apparently that isn't enough.  Sounds like a great creature though.

[NerdyGremlin]

Don't know how to feel about having one of its main gimmicks being able to support just one creature (a creature whose presence is already fine as it is), but it's still an octopus. There are plenty of creative ideas this thing could possibly have. 

[Tatsumi131]

me gusta el diseño y algunas de sus funciones.

 

[Kinsky]

Did you know that octopuses have a tentacle that is literally their d...?

[feverrrr]

Nice design! I find it interesting thinking back now that there have not been any Octopuses in ARK before, would be a cool addition!

Edited July 8, 2023 by feverrrr