Creature Fear System

Given how many new creatures are expected to come in the newer areas of Subnautica 2, and how many of these areas are going to be filled with creatures of varying threat levels (mild, medium and high), I propose a system in which instead of the multitool simply driving attacked creatures away, you’re actually able to sort of “defend yourself”

Not in a way that would particularly damage or lower another entity’s health, but rather make it afraid of you and encourage it to stay away. This could potentially open up more areas for building bases, as well as make certain creatures less aggressive towards your vehicles. For example, the Twin Sitaray, which can be quite annoyingly aggressive and lives in certain areas such as the Power Plant. The Power Plant has REALLY good potential for building bases, but the constant aggression from the Sitarays can make approaching and settling there quite frustrating.

With this fear system, consistently defending yourself against them could gradually make more and more individuals avoid you. Over time, however, if you stop encountering them, their fear could slowly wear off and they could return to their usual behaviour. This would obviously be important for balancing, so players wouldn’t essentially be able to permanently clear entire areas of their creatures.

This obviously wouldn’t apply to high threat creatures such as the collector leviathan, or other creatures that could potentially pose a much greater threat in the future.

In my opinion, I think this would satisfy a good portion of the community that wants more ways to “fight back” against creatures, but without actually introducing a combat system. It would also fit quite nicely with Subnautica’s overall theme of adaptation and learning to coexist with the environment rather than simply eliminating its threats.

Thank you for reading! :)