Symbiote: A Bonding Experience

Symbiote V1.1

Your symbiote no longer dies with you. That was the most requested change since launch, and this update is built around it. It also learned to feel, to remember, and to hold a grudge.

Death rework

- Dying leaves your symbiote at the death point as a breathing mass, holding your ENTIRE inventory
- Walk back and it rebonds on its own with the same ritual. Same organism, same meters, same memories
- Return bonded to a new symbiote and the old one does not step aside. Find out for yourself
- Deaths the symbiote causes itself (consumption, rejection) still end everything. Void deaths are still final
- The void save is gone. v1.0 hauled you out of the fall. v1.1 does not! In your dying breaths, it tells you exactly what it thinks of you.
- Config: death_mass_enabled (on by default: the mass waits where you died. Turn it off for classic v1.0 hard loss), death_keeps_bond (the bond simply survives death, no mass needed)

It feels now

- Four moods: Content, Anxious, Coiled, Grieving. Driven by how you treat it and what you live through together
- You feel its mood from the inside. You will now visually know how your symbiote feels
- It remembers. Starve it once and it brings that up later. Save it, and it remembers that too
- Species that hurt you badly become memories
- Crossing into the deepest stage now stamps WHO your symbiote became on the way down. This includes the Sovereign, the Parasite, or the Mourner. This is decided by the whole history of the relationship, and it is permanent
- Every mood shift explains itself in a quiet chat line, and the status panel now shows Rapport and Mood. This clears up much of the ambiguity of the mod that was originally intended

The mantle

- Six tendril limbs erupt from the back, acting as the symbiote's visual arms
- One set of limbs does everything. Strikes, hauls, mining, torch planting, fire grapples, and combat whips all reach over from the live mantle
- Grabbed creatures get a visual wrap now
- It deploys on its own terms
- Furling it is a privilege, not a button. Only a dominant symbiote will cooperate

It takes what it wants

- At Integrated+, when an ask expires unheard, the organism fulfills it itself. This may include seizing the body and lunging at prey, dragging you underground, or forcing you to walk outside at night
- At dominant, seizures may feel trivial and odd

The arms have an agenda

- At Cooperative the arm tendrils start acting without being aimed: preemptive swats at things sneaking up on you, mining ore you walked past
- Survival items in arm slots stop being yours. The symbiote uses totems, golden apples, and even milk for negative effects
- XP orbs can now be scavenged like valuable items
- Vein mining is now accurate to the amount of tools given

It fights like it means it

- New ability: Ground slam! The symbiote will now grab and slam mobs into the ground once it reaches cooperative
- Squishy hostiles are now consumable in one bite

Control is visible

- The membrane at the edge of your screen now glows whenever the organism is controlling you
- A last stand paints the whole border red for as long as the adrenaline is pumping

Living Armor improvements

- First-person living armor now renders properly
- New appearance toggle on the status panel: your gear renders over the shell, or the living armor covers it. Has no effect on gameplay, visual only
- Tendrils carry a pseudo-wet look with glints in vanilla, but stops if shaders are active

A younger organism

- Freshly bonded symbiotes are quiet now. Through the whole integration window there is only misfires and the occasional defense
- No combat abilities are available before integration is over (including R). Feeding still works, and it will still save your life

Meteor overhaul

- The meteor site is a real impact structure with a proper atmosphere
- Massive overhaul to the crater spawn. Includes spawn rates, terrain
- The dormant symbiote sample has huge improvements! Properly modeled now and animated! (see the trailer!)

The voice grew up

- The voice has a stage arc now. Each bond stage changes this
- Failures tell you why
- The symbiote's on-screen voice is now colored by its strain
- Desires print a quiet hint naming what it wants, and ignored asks say what they cost

Small but felt

- Symbiote hunger now scales with difficulty
- The symbiote has learned to deal with the nether's heat! It will no longer panic in the nether unless it is actively on fire (may change in the future)
- Sculk sonar works with shaders now. Shaders get custom diamond icons, and vanilla gets the original white outlines
- Protected creatures that attack you first (looking at you, iron golems) lose their protection for as long as they keep swinging
- One fix worth naming: the crash when the symbiote consumed its host is dead. A player found that one the hard way. Thank you!!
- Dozens of pacing, HUD, and legibility fixes. Too many to count!

Read before updating

- Photosensitivity warning. v1.1 adds pulsing and flickering full-screen border effects. If flashing visuals are a risk for you, please be aware
- Physics Mod users: disable mob physics for `symbiote:tendril_fx` (Physics Mod settings, mob physics, per-mob list). This will crash your game HORRIBLY if not!
- Bond scale changed. The bond meter now runs 0-500 (was 0-100) with stage gates at 120 / 240 / 400. Existing worlds migrate automatically
- The kit got smaller. Tendril Lash (Z), Carapace (H), and Frenzy (J) are gone. Apex stays for a future rework!
- The config got much smaller. v1.1 trims the config to the options that matter!

Forge 1.20.1. Existing worlds are safe: old profiles and old death cocoons keep working.