Space carp/space shark aesthetic change

[kyres1]

Right now, the two types of biological entities that appear in space are carp and dwellers. In a pretty silly clash of aesthetics, carp are ancient sprites with barely any shading and space sharks look even worse. In contrast, cavern dwellers have darker and better shaded sprites that look immensely more fitting for a space-faring alien creature.

So, here's a resprite of carp and sharks to match.

killmaw mantalisk.dmi

They are fully animated and include rest sprites, which carp and sharks lacked. Also the dead sprites for sharks aren't literally just upside down versions of the east sprite like before.

A less important change, but probably a good idea is renaming them to something that isn't literally space fish. Thanks Coalf for the names (though as much as I love them they might be too on the nose, for killmaws at least)

[Chada1]

I definitely support this wholeheartedly. Let us (Aurora) diverge a bit more in our art direction, by swapping out the antiquated Carp/Shark sprites. Let's make them a lot scarier with new names and more consistent!

Edited March 5, 2019 by Chada1
Replaced a typo.

[wowzewow]

don't forget the grilled sprite!

 

anyway, probably a good workaround is to just translate into a different language for the names. we'd also need to rename cavern dwellers.

Edited March 5, 2019 by wowzewow

[BurgerBB]

The Space Carp design should not be changed. I'm fine with changing the sprite to be better, but the proposed sprite fundamentally changes what a space carp looks like.

It's an iconic design that doesn't need to be changed.

[ferner]

 

I’m all for making the xenofauna we so often run into more alien. And these sprites look absolutely lovely for that purpose.

If we want to keep normal carp around in code, I suppose these could be introduced as a new kind of species with similar mechanics, leaving current carp for adminbus and wizardry.

But personally I’d be fine with them being an outright replacement too.
 

[Hendricks]

It needs to be changed, the old sprites for Space Carp look terrible, it has really obnoxious and as stated, it is not shaded at all and having them re-sprited would make things stand out a bit more, perhaps even make them more fearful looking which is necessary if you want people to be afraid of something dangerous. Probably why so many people died to little gift boxes on Christmas. They didn't seem that dangerous at all. So yeah. Updating the Sprites would be very nice. 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Hendricks

[AmoryBlaine]

Love it, so much. We ought to have some new lore for them, as well.

[DeadLantern]

2 hours ago, BurgerBB said:

The Space Carp design should not be changed. I'm fine with changing the sprite to be better, but the proposed sprite fundamentally changes what a space carp looks like.

It's an iconic design that doesn't need to be changed.

It is an iconic design, yes, but it does not make sense and it is immersion breaking for a HRP server. Why are there purple SPACE FISH swimming around. They bear too much similarity to actual carp. Changing their design to be actually alien makes sense for what type of immersion we're trying to achieve. Crazy space monsters? Ok. Crazy space fish? Nah.

[Conspiir]

I support changing the sprite. Right now carps and sharks remind me of playdough-esque toys. These ones look a little less like they would be called space carp, though. They look like wasps. Bug-like. Everyone knows space carp. We can't just retcon years of carp by turning them into bugs, can we?

 

Perhaps a bit more importantly for me: being able to instantly tell the difference between a carp and a shark is incredibly important. Right now, sharks are a totally different color and look like they're on steroids, which is great for someone like me who needs clear indications. These two look too alike. Maybe return your shark sprite to a blue?

 

Would this also be changing the plushie and hologram versions?

[Alberyk]

A solution to please both sides would to implement this as in place of the carp during the infestation events, and have space carps still exist as plushies, holograms, wizard spells and other things.

[AmoryBlaine]

3 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

A solution to please both sides would to implement this as in place of the carp during the infestation events, and have space carps still exist as plushies, holograms, wizard spells and other things.

The plush is fine, it's like the action figures- they still have the old looks to each occupation. But I think the wizard should totally spawn these things instead.

[Carver]

What will happen to all the fish-based recipes explicitly calling for carp meat? Will they be made to use a new, non-toxic fish product that'll require adjustment of the reagents in said dishes? My only concern is these don't exactly have a fishy aesthetic, and readjustment of all those recipes/foods may be out of the original scope of this idea.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Carver
My grammar is shit.

[LordFowl]

Not a fan. The carp may be a little silly, but ss13 is a silly game. Plus, the carp have a certain je ne sais quoi, but these are just generic sci-fi shapeless purple blobs with generic edgy names.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Removing space carp and shark signals a break up of our legacy as a cousin to dwarf fortress. It shows that we are embarrassed by the connection and the carp.

 

I am not embarrassed by them. An improvement to the sprites perhaps but not such a fundemental change.

[Kaed]

I personally don't give a flying dung heap about the legacy of the server. It's about time we move past dwelling on old jokes and memes into a more modernized server with a few more shreds of originality, rather than keeping cartoony old sprites and space fish on eternal life support.

 

Though I will agree that the two sprites could do with a little bit of clear differentiation.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Kaed

[Kaed]

4 hours ago, Carver said:

What will happen to all the fish-based recipes explicitly calling for carp meat? Will they be made to use a new, non-toxic fish product that'll require adjustment of the reagents in said dishes? My only concern is these don't exactly have a fishy aesthetic, and readjustment of all those recipes/foods may be out of the original scope of this idea.

They can be edited to take regular fish meat, which can be procured via cargo or perhaps some starting fish filet available in the freezer.  Which do not contain poison.  And perhaps the poison can be renamed to something less fish, like xenotoxin or something.

[Resilynn]

And how do we produce anything that requires carpotoxin?

[Kaed]

By getting it from the new aliens. You're just disassociating the poison from fish, not removing content that you can make from it previously.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Kaed

[Carver]

3 hours ago, Kaed said:

They can be edited to take regular fish meat, which can be procured via cargo or perhaps some starting fish filet available in the freezer.  Which do not contain poison.  And perhaps the poison can be renamed to something less fish, like xenotoxin or something.

Sounds good. Would be nice to be able to finally be able to order fish-related dishes without people going 'oh no the 2 carpotoxin in that meal is going to kill you please stop'.

[Itanimulli]

I'm all for Alb's solution on this one. The space-pests should be these new sprites; they look like something you might find in space. And no longer will they be fish given the Netflix adaptation/Michael Bay treatment.

[Scheveningen]

We don't really need to rename them. The aesthetic linked in the OP looks great though, it's a grand improvement over the original.

[PoZe]

PR posted, just need gib state sprites @kyres1

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6121

[Flamingo]

Wholeheartedly support. I think it’s high time carp were made more believable for our setting. I would like to keep the plushies, holograms and wizardry shenanigans though, as suggested by alb. 

[Alberyk]

The pr just replaces the sprites, however, instead of just creating an entire new whole mob. Removing the space carp mob from the game as whole.

[Skull132]

21 hours ago, Senpai Jackboot said:

It shows that we are embarrassed by the connection and the carp.

Arguments like this are dumb. Extremely so. You can create one for just about any change, ala, "What, you're embarrassed by our current kewl aesthetic?" I can also bet that a large amount of folks don't even know or care about the reference.

The change itself, for critters to look like actual space critters, IMO, is not a bad one. Adds to believability.