Game Mechanics Make Lifeform Analyzer readings flash or more visible.

[ShadowTiger]

The Lifeform Analyzer is a beautiful, beautiful thing in the game. It's made it possible to scout out ... well, exactly what it says it does.

But how many times have we completely missed a rare lifeform because we were in the middle of combat for the duration of its existence, and the words "Lost Girl" or whatever were only temporarily there.

If the words flashed or strobed, it would be infinitely better and virtually impossible to miss. It's not really something that people are keeping an eye on all the time, now is it? Something like the compass or depth meter is a lot more casual. But not this, no. You don't just give the thing a casual glance and then forget about it. If you're looking for a rare monster, your eyes are constantly trying to read it. At all times. That's a huge distraction from gameplay.


Another thing that kinda irks me a bit is that there is absolutely no indication of where the thing is. If I had a dollar for every time I saw "Bound Wizard" or "Martian Probe" on the thing, and couldn't find it anywhere, even with a Hunter Potion, I'd be a fairly rich individual.

A tiny arrow pointing to the direction it lies in would be so helpful. If that's "overpowered" in any way, perhaps it could be a benefit of having a R.E.K. 3000. Its functionality could be boosted. Sure.

 

[Varsia]

But it'd be eternally flashing, because mimics are "rare" but they are common as hell.

Can't support.

 

[plantszaza 🌳]

Maybe it could show how far that "rare monster" was.

 

[Varsia]

Maybe it could show how far that "rare monster" was.

That would be brilliant and I would support that, as long as it doesn't have that flashing stuff.

 

[speak]

I agree, a more visible indication of rare monsters would be great.

 

[Trimerion]

support for the direction finder on rare mobs, not so much with the flashing though

 

[ShadowTiger]

It doesn't need to flash - It just needs to be made more visible. What would be better than flashing, but worse than nothing?

 

[Varsia]

It doesn't need to flash - It just needs to be made more visible. What would be better than flashing, but worse than nothing?

That pointing idea suggested earlier would be nice.

 

[Lumini]

Yes, we could use this, support and +1.

 

[Azu]

Instead of just flashing, it could easily just pulsate from it's original to either a brighter white or another color. Not so in your face and still easy to tell it's active.

 

[Alucard3598]

Instead of just flashing, it could easily just pulsate from it's original to either a brighter white or another color. Not so in your face and still easy to tell it's active.

I'm not sure a brighter white is possible, but a different colour might work.

 

[Spider-Kyle]

you will never know how much i want that in vanilla

 

[Cubic.]

I just realized I've had this pain so many times. I don't like the blinker idea but I do like the arrow!

 

[ShadowTiger]

Hi! Thanks for bumping.

There was actually a mod for tModLoader, Visual Radar (The last of those square buttons) that accomplished this function. You'd get a slightly different color of green as a dot surrounding your character pointing in the direction of the rare enemy / NPC that it could detect.

It's a shame that it's not updated for the latest versions of tModLoader. It outright doesn't work, and will be disabled on startup.

 

[Cubic.]

That sucks.

 

[Damn Train]

It cool way to improve it.

 

[Baconfry]

It's been eight years since this suggestion was made, and the Lifeform Analyzer is still an utterly useless item that does not actually help you find rare creatures, it just mocks you for letting them despawn so you can feel bad about it. I've successfully located only like half of the creatures it's detected due to the stupid blind 50/50s it forces you to make. Absolutely horrendous.

 

[Big Sammich]

It's been eight years since this suggestion was made, and the Lifeform Analyzer is still an utterly useless item that does not actually help you find rare creatures, it just mocks you for letting them despawn so you can feel bad about it. I've successfully located only like half of the creatures it's detected due to the stupid blind 50/50s it forces you to make. Absolutely horrendous.

I don't know if I agree with that entirely. If it wasn't for the Lifeform Analyzer, I wouldn't know if a rare creature was around at all half the time. But I do agree that it could use a serious buff. I like the idea of a small arrow pointing towards where the rare creature is.

 

[Stellar Mastodon 267]

It could be done such that it is a different font. That would stand out

 

[a really far away planet]

It could be done such that it is a different font. That would stand out

Not sure about different font. Anything other than Andy Bold in Terraria would probably look really unnatural and weird.