Not So Safe Shallows Ampeel Infestation

[Limerence]

Context: Just recently, I got lost and ended up in the Bulb Zone and other biomes I didn't quite recognize while searching for the Lost River. After exploring the LR, I returned to my base in Safe Shallows and found an Ampeel slaughtering the native fauna! Literally, it was a bloodbath of a herd of Gasopods and a pack of Stalkers. I quickly fought it with my Thermoblade because I didn't want this invasive creature destroying my ecosystem. It's crazy how a single Ampeel killed tons of Stalkers.

Then after a day of exploring the Mountains for some Magnetite, there was another Ampeel creating a massacre! I saw some on the internet how this is a bug where creatures retreat to the center of the map, which is the safe shallows, if they are harmed. It was fun and honestly amazing to see how its presence affected the Shallows.

Questions:
Is this where it's going to respawn now or is this an entirely new Ampeel?
If I ignore it, will it decimate the native population?
Do fauna respawn? Even the medium ones like Gasopods and Stalkers?
Should I expect more foreign invasive species to appear the longer I play? (Note: There is now a Reaper Leviathan in the bloody plateus just meters away from where my Lifepod 5 is. I am sure it wasn't there before.)

[KippenKaasBaas]

No. Medium and large creatures do NOT respawn.
So kill what you want to get rid of.

[admiral1018]

Ampeels and any fauna larger than fish don't respawn. There are a limited number on the map, and once they're dead, they're gone.

With that said, they will stay in that area continue to kill anything near them so long as they are alive. And the numbers of foreign fauna will grow if you spend a lot of time exploring around the map. I believe this issue occurs most commonly when people unknowingly hit things with their Cyclops, but fauna can sometimes flee just due to taking damage from other fauna while you're in the area

Ampeels, IMO, are the most annoying creature to kill in this game. They have the same number of HP as a leviathan for some reason, and a large group of them are actually strong enough to destroy a Prawn suit in the shallows.

The best remedy I found for this foreign invader problem was Tiger Plants, believe it or not. I put a few dozens plants on foundations near the infestation point and they mowed through the Ampeels like they were firing a chain gun. Area stayed clear the rest of the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2388565814

Make sure you have the Reinforced Dive Suit equipped if you're going to attempt this. Nothing in the game will kill you as quickly as being around this many Tiger Plants without one.

[Evilsod]

An (indiscriminate) perimeter defence platform? I like it :D

[dreamrider]

Will a tiger plant trap kill RLs and GLs?

[admiral1018]

Originally posted by dreamrider:

Will a tiger plant trap kill RLs and GLs?

No, they only attack medium-sized fauna. They will attack Warpers, however, and are an excellent line of defense if one is near your base.

[Limerence]

Update: No new Ampeel appeared anymore, but the damage was done. I could barely see any nearby Stalker or Gasopod in my base. I rushed making ACUs to be able to breed and release more of the fishes that died. Base looks so barren and gloomy without those creatures. Btw, what's the max number of Stalkers/medium-sized in a single-story ACU? And realized how Gasopods are so LETHAL. I saw a bunch of them from faraway kill two of my newly-released Bonesharks and two wild Stalkers.

[admiral1018]

Originally posted by Darcarlo Winters:

Update: No new Ampeel appeared anymore, but the damage was done. I could barely see any nearby Stalker or Gasopod in my base. I rushed making ACUs to be able to breed and release more of the fishes that died. Base looks so barren and gloomy without those creatures. Btw, what's the max number of Stalkers/medium-sized in a single-story ACU? And realized how Gasopods are so LETHAL. I saw a bunch of them from faraway kill two of my newly-released Bonesharks and two wild Stalkers.

The ACU can hold up to "10 slots" of fish. I believe medium-sized fauna like Stalker and Gasopods take up 4 slots each in your inventory, so that would mean only 2 in a single ACU. You can stack ACUs to hold more fish.

[dreamrider]

What a good Idea for Warper management. Carry some exterior pots with tigers in them. Drop them in your work zone as needed.

BTW, I guess this pretty well explains the symbiotic relationship between Reef Leviathans and tiger plants.

[dreamrider]

Also...
What happens if you fire a tiger plant at a, oh, let's say a Bone Shark, with a propulsion cannon?

[admiral1018]

Originally posted by dreamrider:

Also...
What happens if you fire a tiger plant at a, oh, let's say a Bone Shark, with a propulsion cannon?

They'll take some impact damage, but probably not enough to kill them. However, a planted Tiger Plant will kill a Boneshark pretty quickly. Bonesharks have pretty low HP (5 thermal blade hits will kill them).

[Limerence]

Originally posted by admiral1018:

Originally posted by Darcarlo Winters:

Update: No new Ampeel appeared anymore, but the damage was done. I could barely see any nearby Stalker or Gasopod in my base. I rushed making ACUs to be able to breed and release more of the fishes that died. Base looks so barren and gloomy without those creatures. Btw, what's the max number of Stalkers/medium-sized in a single-story ACU? And realized how Gasopods are so LETHAL. I saw a bunch of them from faraway kill two of my newly-released Bonesharks and two wild Stalkers.

The ACU can hold up to "10 slots" of fish. I believe medium-sized fauna like Stalker and Gasopods take up 4 slots each in your inventory, so that would mean only 2 in a single ACU. You can stack ACUs to hold more fish.

My single ACU currently held 4 Stalkers. Gasopods take a long time to hatch.

[Limerence]

Originally posted by admiral1018:

Originally posted by dreamrider:

Also...
What happens if you fire a tiger plant at a, oh, let's say a Bone Shark, with a propulsion cannon?

They'll take some impact damage, but probably not enough to kill them. However, a planted Tiger Plant will kill a Boneshark pretty quickly. Bonesharks have pretty low HP (5 thermal blade hits will kill them).

Yeah, I didn't expect that a Stalker would be far more durable and hard to kill than Bonesharks considering they are in a deeper biome and have powerful roars.

[Phibbus]

While trying repeatedly to kill a reaper with my prawn suit and drill arm, I drove it into the kelp forest relatively close to pod 5. It never actually did any damage, but I had it on my scanner room list, there, for the rest of the game and could always hear it roaring (which was disconcerting given that datalog bit about "if you can hear it, it can see you.")

[Goose]

haha, yeah, big and medium fish dont respawn, i know this because i hunt leviathans for sport

[bongerman85]

my guess is that his lifepod is somewhere near the 0,0,0 coordinate on the map. he wandered into the bulb zone, the ampeels home. then either something attacked an ampeel or an ampeel was injured by his equipment and ran for the 0,0,0 spot. the other option to rid yourself of this is to purge your cell cache folders contents. the reason why is this will replace all of the games assets and place them back at their original locations, pdas, fragments, resources, outcrops, flora, and fauna. so if you go to do this, make sure that you dont have any items lying on the ground outside of your base or any floating lockers deployed, since the game will remove all of these things.