Hi Guys,
I’ve been playing near a city which has had a major Ant Infestation, specifically acidic ants.
I logged into the game recently and noticed that all the Acid Worker ants have suddenly become Soldier ants, is this a bug or do they generally evolve over time, as I’ve been living in this city through the course of Spring going into Summer.
Apparently they do:
From data/json/monsters/insect_spider.json:
{
“id”: “mon_ant”,
“type”: “MONSTER”,
“name”: “giant ant”,
…
“upgrades”: { “age_grow”: 14, “into”: “mon_ant_soldier” },
Also relevant are “new_monster_group_id” in src/mongroup.cpp and explanation of how that is used in doc/MONSTERS.md.
I recalled that I’ve encountered this at least once after reading your post and thought that it might be a bug as well. I’m fairly certain that workers are necessary for continued colony survival where real ants are concerned.
Methinks that ant spawns should have a slight tweak.
Instead of just one larva entity per ant type(fire ants in future would be neato), each spawn zone should spawn worker larvae and soldier larvae, who then evolve into their respective adult ant monsters.
It may just be me but I would also love to have a way to tame an ant princess, have her become a queen eventually, and then cultivate my survival based on ants. Farm them, militirize them, mutate them further for various purposes, whatever.
Yeah, that would be much better. And nothing stops workers from mutating into some kind of tougher/faster/etc. workers, same for soldiers.
If modeled after (or close to) real life, I guess the acidic ant is a fire ant (or, thinking about it a second time, actually no - probably more like a red wood ant).
It depends… termites (I know, they aren’t ants) do have a development of worker->nurse->soldier if I remember it right. Or… maybe it were some leafcutter ants…? I probably should read into it again, at some point… Some ants can even switch “freely” (as ordered by their queen) between roles.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is: “Ant evolution” in game can be acceptable from a myrmecological/ entomological standpoint.
However, I agree, the game could use some more ant variation (with fixed roles too), maybe some “real” leafcutter ants (probably escaped from someones formicarium in a lab) which would cut down young trees and stuff…?
Like the bee hive but instead of bees it’s the ants and instead of wax walls it’ll be wood and leaf walls(wood beacause they’re not going to find large enough leaves for their usual builds). They’ll probably be hostile to triffids too and would make great triffid deterrants.
By fire ants I meant like the ones you find in fallout. They breathe fire, probably through some sort of bio-chemical reactive combustion agent. If I had to make up some lore for them, someone wanted to mix bombardier beetles with the ants that spray formic acid as a way to defend themselves and created an arsonistic ant species.