Swim For Your Lives BZ

PSA: It's been brought to my attention that this mod may cause a bug with the seatruck docking tube. Working on a fix. In the meantime, it may be a good idea to refrain from using a seatruck docking tube if you intend to use this mod. Or if you're feeling brave, you can help confirm that this mod really does break the seatruck docking tube. Because I haven't been able to.

This mod tries to make Subnautica BZ creatures appear to have more self-preservation by forcing them to flee from objects that are either going fast enough or are massive enough.

How it works

The mod does what it does by creating a "scare aura" around objects that will scare away creatures within a certain radius. That's objects in general, so not just vehicles, but any object that has physics. So if you fire a piece of quartz with the prop cannon and it passes by a fish, it can potentially scare that fish if the right conditions are met.

This "scare aura" is a capsule that points in the direction the object is going; that means the scare effect has more range in the direct front of the "scary object". In other words, fish will be more scared if the threat is going right at them.

The capsule changes in size depending on the object's velocity, mass, and impulse (so that sudden stops/impacts can also scare away creatures). That means how fast you're going, how big you are, and your change in speed from a moment ago all factor into how scary you are to creatures.

Whether or not the creature will be scared will depend on its own mass compared to the "scare factor", or the resulting number that I get from the object's mass, velocity, and impulse. That means little fish like Peepers scare a lot more easily, while bigger fish like Brutesharks will take a bit more intimidation to get them to run away. Seatruck boost is pretty handy for scaring them off in a pinch.

Leviathans are extremely difficult to scare off via normal means, but since they also have a fleeing behavior, it's theoretically possible with an object going fast enough and/or is massive enough.

It's worth noting that it can take a while for the fear value to build, so depending on how fast you're going and in which direction relative to the creature, they might take an extra second before getting out of the way.

Here it is in action. I even changed my vertical position to be absolutely sure that the creature is trying to swim away from me, and sure enough:

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You can also see it regaining its will to aggro when I slow down, only to pussy out again when I speed back up:

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Understandably the effect is severely diminished as the seatruck gets longer.

Here's how the effect looks with a PRAWN suit:

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