Can we talk about the snakes?

With the additon of the horned viper its becoming clearer and clearer how truly bad most of the base game snakes are. The malayan tapir gets alot of flak for how its just repainted bairds tapir, but you can atleast instantly tell what its supposed to be, some of these snakes on the otherhand are so unaccurate that you can barely even guess what they are.
I know snakes are not for everyone, but as someone who loved snakes since i can remember and is fascinated by them ever since i always get a little angry when i see how dirty those were done in the game.
I hope with this demonstration i get some limelight on these guys and gather some support for our legless friends, so maybe, just maybe, frontier will take another look at them.

First up we got the puff adder, probably the worst one. As you can see the real puff adder is a rather short and stocky snake with a thick build which is nothing like they look ingame. The pattern is also not as detailed as it is in the real animal, but it varies quite alot among them so it gets a pass. The coloration is really staturated which is something it share with alot of the older animals, especially the reptiles so i wont judge that too hard. Headshape looks fine.

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Next one is the common death adder. This one also should have a really plump, short bodyshape. These guys also vary quite a bit in coloration from beige to red to almost black, so the planet zoo one is in the realm of possibility. Headshape isnt that far of.
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Onto the western diamondback rattlesnake. A true icon of north america and also really bad. The bodyshap is again way to long and lanky, their beautiful patterning is really washed out and their trademark black and white ringed tail is missing completely, like what? Also the head is way to long.

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With the boa constrictor you can atleast tell what it is. Though the headshape is really bad, its this weird cone or torpedo shape whereas it really should be flat, square from the side and almost triangular from above. Also they are just round although their body really should basicly be a rounded off rectangle in cross section.

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I left out the yellow anaconda and the eastern brown snake because they are okay with really just some minor nitpicks.
 
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Yes, thanks for opening this thread and give it exposure. It's pretty much a general trend in base game snakes, they are shaped a bit like milk snakes, they all are extremely too thin and the color is over saturated.
Yeah. I mean i get that they didnt want to make a new model for each species, as that would be a lot of work for some snakes you just look at from afar. But why choose these species then? Just take a couple kingsnakes instead, they can easily just be the same model for each one, bright colors and rather simple pattern.
 
This is why I thought that terrarium animals have always been a Pandora's Box. Seven snakes won't be enough to represent the grea diversity of snakes kept in captivity and seeing the species we have makes me think that we probably should naver had exhibit animals in the first place.
 
This is why I thought that terrarium animals have always been a Pandora's Box. Seven snakes won't be enough to represent the grea diversity of snakes kept in captivity and seeing the species we have makes me think that we probably should naver had exhibit animals in the first place.
I definetly prefer 7 snakes over 0,but yeah 7 isnt enough to give snakes the representation they have in real life. But i dont think that exhibit animals really need that kind of diversity. Imo they should have went with a handfull famous/common ones like, the boa, rattlesnake, cobra, some kind of small to medium sized python, a kingsnake, and two random ones.
And then maybe, if they ever gonna update the exhibits and give us something large, add the green anaconda or burmese/reticulated python
 
I never realized just how inaccurate most of the base game snakes were until now. Hopefully Frontier reworks their models in the future, but I think they're as likely to do that as they are to fix the models of habitat animals like the West African Lion or Malayan Tapir.
 
With the additon of the horned viper its becoming clearer and clearer how truly bad most of the base game snakes are. The malayan tapir gets alot of flak for how its just repainted bairds tapir, but you can atleast instantly tell what its supposed to be, some of these snakes on the otherhand are so unaccurate that you can barely even guess what they are.
I know snakes are not for everyone, but as someone who loved snakes since i can remember and is fascinated by them ever since i always get a little angry when i see how dirty those were done in the game.
I hope with this demonstration i get some limelight on these guys and gather some support for our legless friends, so maybe, just maybe, frontier will take another look at them.

First up we got the puff adder, probably the worst one. As you can see the real puff adder is a rather short and stocky snake with a thick build which is nothing like they look ingame. The pattern is also not as detailed as it is in the real animal, but it varies quite alot among them so it gets a pass. The coloration is really staturated which is something it share with alot of the older animals, especially the reptiles so i wont judge that too hard. Headshape looks fine.

View attachment 359319
View attachment 359322

Next one is the common death adder. This one also should have a really plump, short bodyshape. These guys also vary quite a bit in coloration from beige to red to almost black, so the planet zoo one is in the realm of possibility. Headshape isnt that far of.
View attachment 359325
View attachment 359328

Onto the western diamondback rattlesnake. A true icon of north america and also really bad. The bodyshap is again way to long and lanky, their beautiful patterning is really washed out and their trademark black and white ringed tail is missing completely, like what? Also the head is way to long.

View attachment 359332
View attachment 359335

With the boa constrictor you can atleast tell what it is. Though the headshape is really bad, its this weird cone or torpedo shape whereas it really should be flat, square from the side and almost triangular from above. Also they are just round although their body really should basicly be a rounded off rectangle in cross section.

View attachment 359337
View attachment 359338

I left out the yellow anaconda and the eastern brown snake because they are okay with really just some minor nitpicks.
The spaceships in Elite have always been named after snakes, maybe by tradition. 🤷‍♂️
 
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