Rock Puncher

• Fauna
• Item
• Egg

Rock Puncher
Category	Fauna
Diet	Carnivore
Attitude	Aggressive
Health	200
Damage	Punch: 10
Biome	Crystal Caves Main Crystal Caves Fabricator Caverns Koppa Mining Site Thermal Spires
Respawn Time	300 seconds (only when killed by a creature)
Debug ID	rockpuncher

Rock Puncher
Category	Fauna
Acquired From	Rock Puncher Eggs
Size	9 (3×3)
Bioreactor Energy	700

Rock Puncher Egg
Category	Eggs
Description	Rock punchers hatch from these.
Acquired From	Rock Punchers
Size	4 (2×2)
Biome	Crystal Caves Crystal Caves Fissure Koppa Mining Site
Incubation	1.5 (day/s)
Bioreactor Energy	980
Debug ID	rockpuncheregg

The Rock Puncher is a large, aggressive species of Fauna. The Rock Puncher was first designed for the original game which takes place in The Crater but was scrapped, eventually being revived for Below Zero.

Appearance

The Rock Puncher has a bulky, armored body. It has six articulated feet and two arms at the front. The head shows four, orange eyes at the front and and a pair of mandibles directly underneath. Its body ends in a small, short, shrimp-like tail.

Attached to the arms are two large club-like extremities, presumably used to deliver powerful strikes against hard objects.

The Rock Puncher's underside is gray with a green shade while its back is yellow with red patterns. Its arms and legs also share the similar patterns, with their tips being dark brown in color.

Behavior

Rock Punchers are slow moving, aggressive crustacean-like creatures. They move along the sea floor until approached by the player. At such a time, they will begin following the player, and will even occasionally jump at the player if they swim too close. They can be distracted by Rockgrubs, which are their main prey.

Rock Punchers can be observed tapping the seafloor with their forelimbs, testing the ground for any potential Rockgrubs. If the Rock Puncher finds any, it will repeatedly punch the ground to unearth a rock covered in Rockgrubs, and will proceed to pick it up and feed off of the rock. After feeding, the Rock Puncher will toss the rock aside, allowing the player to break the rock and gain resources such as Titanium, Copper, Silver, and Gold.

Despite its relatively small size in comparison to many predators, the Rock Puncher's phenomenal strength and tough exoskeleton protect it from all mid-sized predators, leaving it vulnerable only to predators in the Leviathan class.

Data Bank Entry

Rock Puncher
A large crustacean which feeds on tiny larvae excavated from coral and rock with its powerful punching arms. - Attracted to glow larvae found in and around deepsea rock formations. - Hardened chitin claws can thrust forward at close to the speed of sound to break rock and bone alike - Known to attack larger creatures which threaten its territory - Perfectly adapted to cave environments, its six legs adhere to walls, and can propel it short distances through the water - Heavily armored, vulnerable to only leviathan class predators Assessment: Avoid or redirect with food
Source: Scan Rock Punchers

Design

The Rock Puncher is heavily inspired by crustaceans of the order Stomatopoda, the mantis shrimps. Some members of the group possess club-like forelimbs that are used to deliver extremely powerful blows to their prey. All types are noted for the incredible acceleration of their forelimb strikes, which can reach 23 metres per second, so fast they generate cavitation bubbles. The Rock Puncher is essentially a scaled up mantis shrimp.

Sounds

File	Type
	Attack
	Chase 1
	Chase 2
	Chase 3
	Chase 4
	Chase 5
	Chase Loop
	Long death
	Short death
	Big flinch
	Small flinch
	Jump
	Left legs fast walk 1
	Left legs fast walk 2
	Left legs fast walk 3
	Left legs fast walk 4
	Left legs fast walk 5
	Left legs fast walk 6
	Left legs fast walk 7
	Right legs fast walk 1
	Right legs fast walk 2
	Right legs fast walk 3
	Right legs fast walk 4
	Right legs fast walk 5
	Right legs fast walk 6
	Left legs slow walk 1
	Left legs slow walk 2
	Left legs slow walk 3
	Left legs slow walk 4
	Left legs slow walk 5
	Right legs slow walk 1
	Right legs slow walk 2
	Right legs slow walk 3
	Right legs slow walk 4
	Squishy walk loop

Gallery

• In-Game
• Concept Art
• Videos
• Models
• Misc

Side view

Front view

Top view

Size comparison to the player

A Rock Puncher trundling along in the Thermal Spires

A Rock Puncher wandering in a trench

A Rock Puncher in the Koppa Mining Site

Concept art

RP walks 01 (BZ)

Walking animations for the Rock Puncher

RP combo 02 (BZ)

RP combo 03 (BZ)

RP combo 04 (BZ)

Early animations for the Rock Puncher

Rock puncher

Model from Sketchfab

A Rock Puncher compared to the player

A developer screenshot of the Seatruck, with a Rock Puncher to the far left

Trivia

• The Rock Puncher's design is most likely based on the mantis shrimp.
• Early animations for the Rock Puncher can be found here.
• Gamefiles refer to the Rockgrub as "Rock Puncher Larva" but an early Trello card refers to them as "RockPuncher Food".
• The Rock Puncher was originally planned for Subnautica, but was later cut and repurposed for Below Zero.

References