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.
Id love the idea of competing ant colonies. And of Ants v. Bees.
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
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.
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.
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.
i think stronger version of ant need bashing ability too, now they cant get you when you are in a car