Vee's End Update Pt. 26 - The Friender Dragon
We made it! The most exciting feature of Vee's End Update, bar none! Placing the Dragon Egg on the Incubator block will cause glowing purple cracks to slowly appear in it over time, and after about 30-40 minutes, a cute little baby will pop out. After a longer wait (sped up by feeding it Phantom Membranes), it will grow up into an adorable, fully grown Friender Dragon!
To compensate for the Dragon Egg finally getting a use - they will be made no longer once-per-world. You will get a guaranteed one from the first Ender Dragon defeated in the world, but then made a 5% drop from all subsequent Ender Dragons, encouraging farming of the dragon in repeat fights. However, if those odds are too low for you, I'm sure we can figure something else out about that... later.
The Friender Dragon can be equipped with a Harness, much like the Happy Ghast, allowing for you to have different colored Friender Dragons for various uses or minigames. In addition, you can also find Chainmail Dragon Armor as common-to-uncommon loot in Dragon Den chests. This can be equipped into a Friender Dragon to vastly increase the amount of damage it can take, or upgraded into Scalemail Dragon Armor using some Dragon Scales and a template in order to make your Friender Dragon nigh invincible! Ofc, both armor sets being transparent allows you to still see the color of harness underneath, so you won't get confused!
If the Happy Ghast's main use as a flying mount is slow mobility, the Friender Dragon is all about fast-paced flight. It flies as fast as the Elytra normally, allowing for it to be used as a tradeoff to that - you have to physically bring the quite large Friender Dragon places, but it doesn't cost fireworks or durability!
When not being flown, the Friender Dragon will fly around the last place it was dismounted, occasionally stopping to land on the ground. It can also be right-clicked to sit down permanently, sometimes curling up in a little ball like a cat when it does so! ^w^ This works similarly to the camel occasionally sitting down and getting up, so it will nap and un-nap occasionally :333
The Friender Dragon can also hover in mid-air, although its jerky, flapping movements when doing so make it a less ideal building platform than the Happy Ghast. They're both useful!
In addition, to speed itself up, the Friender Dragon can do "tricks" in midair to provide additional speed boosts. These are as follows:
By trying to turn very sharply on the Friender Dragon, jerking your head more than 90 degrees at a time, it will cause the Friender Dragon to do a barrel roll, causing a large burst of speed much like the Riptide Trident for a short burst.
By flying directly upwards for a small period, the Friender Dragon will dive backwards into a massive loop-de-loop, taking off in a massive burst of speed at the end.
By flying directly downward, the Friender Dragon will enter into a sharp nose dive until you either pull up or it hits the ground. Useful if you're too high up!
You can leash mobs to the Friender Dragon, but activating any speed boost with a trick will cause the lead to snap, similar to using a firework with an Elytra. Fly safely if you're transporting precious cargo!
In addition, by holding down the Space bar, you can charge up the Friender Dragon's breath weapon, similar to charging up a Horse's jump. The longer you hold it, the longer the dragon will spew Dragon's Breath down in front of it, allowing you to bathe large swaths of mobs in that corrosive acid as you fly. Unlike the regular Ender Dragon, it doesn't leave lingering clouds, so you can't use it to physically get more Dragon's Breath bottles, but it's certainly a powerful weapon for this mount! With the new winter drop focusing plenty on Mounted combat, this will make a fine addition to the retinue. Imagine jabbing someone with a Spear on the backs of one of these things!!
The Friender Dragon can be bred with Phantom Membranes, although it may take a few to actually cause it to enter love mode - similar to taming a wolf, cat or parrot. When two are in love mode, it will place down a Dragon Egg on the nearest empty solid block, so once you get two eggs you can slowly start farming them. Another use for Phantom Membranes!
So yeah - a new flying mount! I can already see players strapping their Harnesses on the Friender Dragon and building elaborate dragon-flight courses to race against their friends. Putting each other on 'teams' using different colored Harnesses, learning the ins-and-outs of this unique style of flight, using the tricks and speed boosts to make it over the finish line just in time! Fun for survival explorers, minigame makers, PvPers, and just about everyone!
