Ants

pisskop · 2016-01-27T04:05:19.000Z

except any workers ignore my spear through larvae and soldiers.

They have the numbers but dont exercise them recently. the only chamber Im wary of is the queens chamber

Malkeus · 2016-01-27T04:28:57.000Z

That’s because they have 0 aggression and lowish morale. Bumping the aggression up to 10 and morale up to 80 might put a little more spine in them.

{
    "type" : "MONSTER",
    "id" : "mon_ant",
    "name": "giant ant",
    "species":"INSECT",
    "default_faction":"ant",
    "symbol":"a",
    "color":"brown",
    "size":"MEDIUM",
    "material":"iflesh",
    "diff":7,
    "aggression":0,
    "morale":60,
    "speed":100,
    "melee_skill":5,
    "melee_dice":1,
    "melee_dice_sides":6,
    "melee_cut":6,
    "dodge":1,
    "armor_bash":5,
    "armor_cut":10,
    "vision_day":5,
    "vision_night":5,
    "hp":40,
    "death_function":"NORMAL",
    "description":"An enormous red ant covered in chitinous plates.  It possesses a pair of wriggling antennae and vicious-looking mandibles.",
    "flags":["SEES", "HEARS", "SMELLS", "CHITIN", "CLIMBS"],
    "anger_triggers":["FRIEND_ATTACKED", "FRIEND_DIED", "HURT", "PLAYER_WEAK"]
    }

kevin.granade · 2016-01-27T04:44:31.000Z

pisskop:

whats species of ant are these?

Giant

pisskop:

except any workers ignore my spear through larvae and soldiers.

Part of the problem is the lack of agression, part of it is poor senses, even if they’re angry they won’t attack if they can’t detect you, and they’re very nearly blind.

Malkeus:

might put a little more spine in them.

ISWYDT…

Something that might be better for pheremones is a fast-spreading (invisible) cloud that attracts and angers ants. Along with a fix to ensure that they at least attack when adjacent and angry, that would make them swarm to the freshest site of combat and start smashing things up.
Also their armor could probably use quite a buff, these things devote a LOT of their body mass to chitin armor.

TheKobold · 2016-01-27T16:39:41.000Z

Trap-jaw ants of the genus Odontomachus are equipped with mandibles called trap-jaws, which snap shut faster than any other predatory appendages within the animal kingdom. One study of Odontomachus bauri recorded peak speeds of between 126 and 230 km/h (78 and 143 mph), with the jaws closing within 130 microseconds on average. The ants were also observed to use their jaws as a catapult to eject intruders or fling themselves backward to escape a threat. - Ant brutes/hulks.

Fire ants, Solenopsis spp., are unique in having a venom sac containing piperidine alkaloids. Their stings are painful and can be dangerous to hypersensitive people. - Super painful bites, many ants have highly painful bites with mild poisonous affects.

A Malaysian species of ant in the Camponotus cylindricus group has enlarged mandibular glands that extend into their gaster. When disturbed, workers rupture the membrane of the gaster, causing a burst of secretions containing acetophenones and other chemicals that immobilise small insect attackers. The worker subsequently dies. - Suicide bomber ants.

How about ants that specifically mark intruders for attack, like boomers, but with pheromones that draw every ant in the reality bubble to you?

pisskop · 2016-01-27T16:42:38.000Z

I like the idea of scent bubbles, and its well deocumented that ants can survive underwater for extended periods, spray acid, ‘milk’ other insects, and are vicious in other ways.

Random_dragon · 2016-01-27T16:47:56.000Z

I also like the idea of beefing up their armor, as Kevin mentioned. Would be a bit odd to have them display properties of wildly different species of ants, but it can be explained as them being mutated. They’ve already developed enough to go from, well, ant-size to being their own notable monster faction with their own queen (literally, in game terms having a monster with the “QUEEN” flag).

i2amroy · 2016-01-27T21:10:45.000Z

pisskop:

I like the idea of scent bubbles, and its well deocumented that ants can survive underwater for extended periods, spray acid, ‘milk’ other insects, and are vicious in other ways.

It might be important to realize that “an ant can do cool thing” does not necessarily translate to “all ants can do cool thing”.

Honestly I think just making them a bit more aggressive will go a long way towards solving this problem.

Malkeus · 2016-01-27T21:40:41.000Z

i2amroy:

[quote=“pisskop, post:12, topic:11304”]I like the idea of scent bubbles, and its well deocumented that ants can survive underwater for extended periods, spray acid, ‘milk’ other insects, and are vicious in other ways.

It might be important to realize that “an ant can do cool thing” does not necessarily translate to “all ants can do cool thing”.

Honestly I think just making them a bit more aggressive will go a long way towards solving this problem.[/quote]

But it can translate to “our ants can do cool thing”! We can rebuild them, we have the technology. We can make them better than they were before. Better, stronger, faster…TeNanananana

pisskop · 2016-01-27T21:45:30.000Z

Im actually against the acid spraying. Id be happy if they swarmed you and if they used their jaws to hold you in place while they stung you to death.

Imagine that. A man in full power armor gabbed by several ants and pinned while they futilly tried to pierce the steel. Youre not throwing a pile of ants off you.

Wally-kun · 2016-01-28T02:53:00.000Z

I believe this topic should be reminded of the dreaded jack jumpers.

They would be utterly hostile, have much higher sight than regular ants, can leap, inflict toxic stings, and are more or less the grizzly bear-equivalent in the ant world. Except these grizzly bears are poisonous and fucking hate everything with a burning passion.

Having them be the size of a grizzly bear would also not unreasonable in-game.

Chezzo · 2016-01-28T15:37:17.000Z

Scientists found SUPER SOLDIER ants in Long Island, NY (of all places). Look at these suckers:

So I am absolutely behind a tank/super soldier ant.

Belteshazzar · 2016-01-28T21:31:50.000Z

This will probably sound a little dumb and reductionist… but what if we merged ants and bees? After all, they are essentially in the same superfamily of insects (Vespoida.) Perhaps these giants are simply a weird atavistic mutation, or even an incidental resemblance by extra-dimensional hive creature having castes with aspects of both groups?

Fliers: Flit about in swarms to scout out resources take down small threats with their stingers and collect lesser amounts of food.

Builders: About the size of a cat, can excrete a sticky, waxy substance to ensnare prey or wall off intruders.

Tunnelers: Easily the size of a wolf they have a weak grab and bite with a one tile acid spray, alone not very threatening but usually encountered in large teams.

Cutters: BEEEG HULK BUG! Massive jaws fit for slicing n dicing. Have a strong grab attack and can deal nasty bleeding. Usually seen carrying off chunks of larger prey from a successful hunt or within the nest’s sensitive areas moving and guarding the brood/queen.

Mono-caste ‘Wasps’ may be interesting to keep as their own separate species though. Being the more egalitarian pack-based alternative to the super-hives (each individual wasp could prey on several of the lesser hive creatures, but lack their specializations, numbers, and unity of purpose.)

Wally-kun · 2016-01-29T00:28:40.000Z

An interesting suggestion. I didn’t think I’d be considering it, personally.

Currently wasps set up aggressively-placed nests in towns via wasp-infested houses, which don’t really do all that much aside from being unique and dangerous early on. They’re also rare in themselves and have no real perk other than giving zombies something to swing at other than you. The enemy of the enemy can be a friend.

Bee hives, however, are kind of…I’m not sure. They’re in a strange place. On the one hand, it’s a complex of bee hives the size of a large building, and the only source of honey in the game, even though it’s still technically non-renewable. I personally wouldn’t be terribly sad to see them go, as I’ve only ever invaded once when I was ridiculously over-prepared and couldn’t be hurt. Otherwise, no one has any reason to ever approach them.

Bee hives of a regular size wouldn’t be terribly out of place out in the woods. Those tiny, non-interactive creatures could be of use for something other than decoration: you can harvest a bee hive and get honey and honeycomb, but you get attacked by swarms of BEEEEEEES! Or maybe one giant bee. A blob-infested queen, if you like.

And when I think about it, ants and wasps DO have some pretty similar anatomies, depending on which species you look at. Wings, stingers, dangerous mandibles and bites, carnivorous in nature, maybe merge in that ability from those bugs that lay eggs under your skin…

Honestly it’d be pretty interesting to see. But I’m also thinking that simply giving the ants a facelift is not out of the question, either. It depends on what the devs think would be more appropriate.

Wally-kun · 2016-02-01T11:54:09.000Z

Double-posting here for an afterthought: why not add a second variety of ants? I’m going to take on changing the behavior for ants to make them more aggressive, and I don’t know how to implement a second variety as far as mapgen goes, but that’d be interesting. Ants that are entirely aggressive and burst into flames on death? Literal fire ants? You’d be forced to think twice about killing them based on the location and the weather, and makes driving through ant land possibly really risky.

pisskop · 2016-02-01T12:13:12.000Z

Id love the idea of competing ant colonies. And of Ants v. Bees.

pisskop · 2016-02-13T05:45:17.000Z

en.wikipedia.org

Slave-making ant

Slave-making ants are brood parasites that capture broods of other ant species to increase the worker force of their colony. After emerging in the slave-maker nest, slave workers work as if they were in their own colony, while parasite workers only concentrate on replenishing the labor force from neighboring host nests, a process called slave raiding. The slave-making ants are specialized to parasitize a single species or a group of related species, and they are often close relatives to their hos...

Ive been thinking that maybe ants could be a collective term for several different subspecies that are hostile to one another and can fight and have different themes to them anywho. And a masterrace ant would be pneato

Logrin · 2016-02-17T21:36:15.000Z

Previously, in the more enemies that are actually dangerous topic I posted this:

It would also be nice if ants swarmed survivors, being more dangerous the more ants are adjacent to the player. Could become real nasty if soldier ants gained a grapple.

As well as suggesting creatures with exoskeletons get an armor buff crossed the board (especially against cutting damage)

Frankly I think it should be less ‘make an ant dangerous’ and more ‘make ant colonies dangerous’, since this is how it works in nature. With that in mind let’s get down to business!

Firstly, I suggest an ant rework focus around the risks and rewards escalating the deeper one delves into the colony. It’s a superorganism more than a collection of individuals after all. I’d suggest it being something like this:

▀ The entrance should have the usual activity, worker ants coming and going, a few soldier; nothing special.

▀ Once entering the nest things get dicey. Each room should have a purpose and the more critical it is to the colony’s health the more heavily it should be protected. From most to least vital:

Newly excavated chambers and tunnels
Food Storage
Unhatched Eggs tended by workers
The Nursery (larvae and cocoons
The Replete Gallery (Houses worker ants whose expanded abdomens contain surplus food for the colony)
Throne Room

I’d suggest an ever beefier array of soldier ants that ends in a titular ‘Royal Guard’, enemies that protect the otherwise vulnerable queen.

“So Why Bother?”

Aside from all those delicious eggs? I could dream up a few reasons people would dig into an ant hill.

Add a ‘Heavy Chitin Armor’ recipe that requires the thick plates pried off royal guards
Maybe harvesting the queen is essential in constructing an incubator for ant eggs? With it you could craft eggs into larva. Would be worthwhile if you could prepare ‘stuffed larvae’ or ‘grub roasts’ from unbutchered corpses
Probably plenty of animal carcasses to skin from ants harvesting food
Could be tied in to a quest for the refugee center or farm
Two words. Ant Labs.

pisskop · 2016-02-17T22:09:59.000Z

Funny enough Im hoping to create several ‘specis’ of ants.

Things I want:

-idk if I need to designate specific locations for each of them or if its possible to make the game choose 1 spawn group from a list of spawn groups when populating an area.
Id havethe game pick ant_slavers, ant_stingbutt, ant_spitter, ant_lockjaws, ant_fodder, ant_amphibious. The game would pick one and populate the hive with it.

-Obviously Id like those kinds of distinctions within the species. Or the same base species with different mutations.

-Perhaps a way to add more loot in there. Too empty. With all the ants running around as ‘free meat’, I have no issue putting some perishable fruits down there or chunks of chitin or w.e.

pisskop · 2016-02-23T20:16:03.000Z

What about kwama?

I was thinking about ant larvae and how they dont belong above ground. The solution is to either completely remove them from about ground or make them useful in some capacity. I though about a scrib. the a screecher paralyzing screech. The about kwama.

Now I saw some weird things online while looking around. First, wtf bethesda. You ruined kwama. And some people were confusing kagoiti and kwama from the looks of it. And also you runed kwama with you ‘edgy’ reinterpretation of them.

Also people should stop photoshoping kwama foragers into human bodies. and making love stories about lizards and kwama.

Arek_PL · 2016-02-24T15:41:24.000Z

i think stronger version of ant need bashing ability too, now they cant get you when you are in a car