My take on the desert biome

[Fishyfishyfishy500]

🌴Desert biome🌵

Islands:

Island 1: Mixed thoughts

This island is a large expanse of Deep sand(to be explained later) with scattered foliage and a few large(and steep edged) plateaus bordered with deep sand to prevent you from just zooming up the cliff too easily that contain Savannah biomes which have small lakes with palm trees and berry bushes surrounding them. It is also as hot as the jungle and as large as the burning Savannah 

The port has 10 tiles and is colored beige with small bones, and this island is under the medium difficulty. 

Island 2: Swirling desert

This island is extremely large, being bigger than the burning Savannah while having barely any cover, only with occasional rocks, oases, wood and plants. To make it even worse, this island consists completely of Deep sand as its main ground type, with no other terrain except for things like rocks, it also is about as hot as the jungle

The port for this island has 6 tiles and is colored beige with whole nicheling skeletons, it exists in the Transitional zone and is under hard difficulty

Island 3: Transitional zone

This island is half Savannah and half desert(has an oasis), it is meant to give you a taste of the desert without having your poor unadapted creature population automatically implode from heatstroke, lack of food or predators in the first few days while still requiring you to have some useful adaptations for the desert like scorpion tail and big ears because those are good for surviving in the Savannah too. This island is entered through the south which is north of the burning Savannah, it also has a port to the whale island if you wanna opt out of the harsh desert and just run the hell away

The port has 16 tiles and is half grassy and half bare with only bones covering the bare tiles, it is under medium difficulty

 

Terrain:

Deep sand:

- Halves speed of animals that walk in it, negated by light step(will be in it's own post)

Rock

Tree stump

Termite mounds

Stone cave:

- can be hidden in to provide +2 heat resistance and protection from large predators

 

 

Plants:

Plain desert:

Dead berry bush

Cactus

Giant cactus(Will be in its own post, think of it as the Acacia tree of the desert)

Tumbleweed(you can break it to get 10 material, but it moves at 1 movement across the sands after it has grown for 10 days)

 

Oasis only:

Palm tree

Berry bush

 

 

Specialized genes:

Hooded shell(think about armadillos😞

+2 defense

+2 heat resistance

-1 cold resistance

+1 scentless

+1 speed

unlock conditions: spend 50 days in the desert

 

Light hind limbs:

+1 light step(enables walking on deep snow, sand or mud without speed reduction)

+1 stealth

+1 swimming

+1 speed

unlock conditions: move 25 times on deep sand, deep mud or deep snow

 

Spiky tail(similar to the Uromastyx):

+1 heat resistance

+1 spikiness

unlock conditions: hide in a stone cave 10 times

 

Lizard claws(similar to a Desert monitor):

+2 attack

+ climbing(can go up terrain like trees which normally need climbing)

unlock conditions: attempt to climb a tree/giant cactus 15 times

 

NPCs:

Bunnil(is recolored with a beige back and white underside)

Bluebird

Termites

Wandering nichelings

Winged nichelings

 

Scorptula(will have its own page)

Tortagama(will have its own page)

Roadpecker(will have its own page)

Burrowing owlparrot(has a community voting page)

Fennec foxote(will have its own page)

 

Events:

Sandstorm(removes 1 vision and reduces movement by 1)

Rain(the same as normal rain, but rarer)

 

Details about light step:

is given by these parts

Lean body(+1)

Velvet paw(+1)

Bat wings(even just one, +1)

wings(even just one, +1)

Webbed hind legs(because the webbing spreads the nichelings weight, +1)

Light hind legs(+1)

[Spacestar TheThundersuncat]

The hindleg idea is interesting. Since you pretty much are dependant on heat or big body in snowy areas, double running leg would max out movement at 3. That solves quite some balancing problems. 

[Fishyfishyfishy500]

12 hours ago, randomspaceship said:

The hindleg idea is interesting. Since you pretty much are dependant on heat or big body in snowy areas, double running leg would max out movement at 3. That solves quite some balancing problems. 

I meant deep snow is the one that reduces speed if you walk through it, I meant the really deep layers that occur during blizzards, you can still clear it out with your nichelings, but there is no way you can think of fox sized mammals clearing out several meters of deep sand/mud.

This means you can still have normal hindlegs/any other hindlegs if you want in the desert(still need flight/light step, but winged nichelings can spawn in deserts) or mountain biomes, but need to clear away the deep snow to move through it, like what we need to do now.

[giugirl]

Cool; also take a look at my new biome ideas:

Mesa (new hot climate one) :

 

taiga (New cold climate one) :