My dream lagoon expansion/dlc
Let’s all face facts. Lagoons kinda suck. They haven’t changed at all since the second game and have significantly less customization than aviaries. They’re just boring. And there’s a serious lack of diversity in unique lagoon species. They’re all just sort of boring and lagoons aren’t as rewarding for sandbox players or roleplay players as land or aviary exhibits. They need a serious update. Here’s my idea for that update coming from a palaeontology major.
More customization! Give us differing water depths in the lagoons. Shallows, the standard depth for lagoons and deep water. Not all animals have the same diving and depth needs.
More feeders! Filter feeding animals could maybe eat fish. But what about animals that had more of a diverse diet? What about clam beds? What about tuna for large predators? If Jurassic worlds agriculture and food production team has access to great white sharks I refuse to believe they cannot get tunas for large predators.
More environments! Let us build coral beds and kelp forests like we can build on land with forests and open space. Again, different animals need different conditions. A megalodon needs kelp forests because sharks thrive in kelp forests. Plesiosaurs need coral reefs because smaller animals like dolphins thrive in the thick lively coral reef environment.
And more species!
I chose five different species.
Leedsichthys-I have a heavy bias here cause I love these guys. The largest fish ever to live in earths known fossil record. Massive filter feeders like whale sharks. I really wanted more fish in the games roster. We have two as of right now and really we should have more. Evolution went absolutely crazy with fish all the time. There were plenty of freaks swimming around down there
Helicoprion-again another fish which evolution kinda went crazy with. Most known for its unique jaw. This thing was WEIRD. They’d be more social than leedsicthys and megalodon. They’d be kinda like reef sharks or lemon sharks I’d imagine.
Nanaimoteuthis-again I have a bit of a bias here. I’m from British Columbia where this animal was discovered and I grew up in the city it’s named after. But this thing was HUGE. 19 meters long, extremely intelligent and it would’ve eaten anything it came across. It’s often portrayed more as a squid in paleo art but in actuality it was closer related to dumbo octopuses and vampire squids (which aren’t actually true squids and belong to the order vampyromorphida) and this guy would thrive in deep water. I’d hope it could change colour like the indo rex too. It would need a completely unique rig and I’d doubt frontier would ever do that in a million bazillion years but imagine the shock factor of this animal alone
Abyssosaurus-of all cryptoclididae, abyssosaurus is one of the weirder members. Which is saying a lot in a family of weird members. Originally from what is today Chuvashia, or the chuvash republic, the abyssosaurus was one weird looking monster. Wide eyes and a slow, calm life style, this animal was extremely unique because it evolved for cold, deep sea conditions in the bathypelagic zone where anglerfish and blobfish live and sperm whales can dive to so they can hunt giant squids. This animal would be really really unique to work with (especially if they implemented deeper lagoon customizations I mentioned earlier) and it would look soooo bizarre
Palaeophis-I was really conflicted about adding this one. It is a Cenozoic animal and I’m not normally very supportive of Cenozoics in the game. However with megalodon, it’s obvious exceptions can be made for animals who are associated with the Mesozoic era as a whole, even if they aren’t from there. If we’re talking about giant prehistoric snakes to add, most people would probably say titanoboa. Which would be really cool. But terrestrial snakes are really really difficult to animate and while titanoboa was a semi aquatic predator which spent most of its life in water. unless they made some kind of fresh water hatchery for deep fresh water animals, I don’t see them adding titanoboa. Palaeophis is a great alternative. A fully aquatic giant snake would be easier for frontier to animate and implement and it would be cool to have a lagoon animal that’s venomous and might be able to defend itself from large lagoon predators.
Honourable mentions-
There were a lot of other animals i considered but decided against.
Jaekelopterus-any dinosaur fans who grew up the early 2000s like me will remember sea scorpions from walking with monsters and Nigel Marvens sea monsters. This animal was the largest of all of them. Basically one massive lobster scorpion. And I wanted it for nostalgia but I decided against it for one big reason. It would be boring. Lagoons are massive and very empty in their current state and even with this animal being the largest of its kind it was still only 8 feet long. It would get lost in the lagoons and it would be boring. It would turn into the dryosaurus of the lagoons. Small animals to act as either filler or to act as prey for larger animals.
Tanystropheus atopodentatus and hesperornis-semi aquatic ocean animals were harder to fit in due to frontier probably adding the stone islands again in an eventual update along with archelon and nothosaurus so I decided to stay away from them until frontier adds islands.
Kaiwhekea-smudgy faced plesiosaur from New Zealand. Thought it would be cool to have rep from a country we haven’t seen yet in the game. But it’s just sorta boring and again it’s small. It would get lost.
Assorted fresh water fish and amphibians-there are a lot of cool freshwater species and stuff. But it wouldn’t work well in salt water lagoons. It would break emersion. Frontier please add freshwater hatcheries for deep water pls pls plsssssss!!!
Bit of a looooong read sorry everyone. But lemme know what you think!
