Friday Facts #424 - Gleba Pentapod Enemies

[Lord Bumbleton]

It makes sense. But I have to say I hope it is not the case. Killing the locals in a battle is one thing, but indefinitely constraining one and torturing it to produce eggs so I can exploit it's potential offspring is a completely different level of wrongness. I really hope the eggs are produced by cloning.

Don’t these things use their young as weapons? I don’t think that the thingy inside the bio chamber is being tortured or constrained, it’s been in the chamber its whole life being fed nutrients.

[Rico_Suave]

Hallelujah guys

[Agamemnon]

At last, the natives!

Interesting take on pollution... so you're basically becoming granpa farmer yelling at them leggies to "get off ma lawn!"

[Ranakastrasz]

Ah. Return of the alien artifacts 2.0. this time they want to eat you.

The artifacts I mean.

[Drury]

It makes sense. But I have to say I hope it is not the case. Killing the locals in a battle is one thing, but indefinitely constraining one and torturing it to produce eggs so I can exploit it's potential offspring is a completely different level of wrongness. I really hope the eggs are produced by cloning or something.

Yep, sounds pretty bad. Anyways, back to my chicken nuggets.

[Ranakastrasz]

Eh, import Rimworld_warcrimes.exe

Also, no pollution /always fully polluted? Given the biomass, and probably rich coal from biomass I wouldn't be surprised if you are expected to use boiler, or a better version instead of solar/nuclear here.

Also also. Clan battles. Probably would look like the carbot animation of zvz, with summoned units fighting and never making progress.

[Lord Bumbleton]

Also also. Clan battles. Probably would look like the carbot animation of zvz, with summoned units fighting and never making progress.

I plan on spawning in some player-allied gleba dudes to fulfil my dreams.

[ShnitzelKiller]

When enemies are this big and have this many moving parts, it starts to seem kind of janky to just make it a hitsponge with a single pool of health and a single lock-on point somewhere in the middle of its hitbox, which just instantly dies once it reaches 0 health. Instead, I'd like to see positional damage, like breaking the shells to expose the flesh underneath and destroying legs to slow it down.

Even if targeting system stays the same, it could be that the legs shield the main body until their armor is stripped away and the limb is destroyed, so that you could go for a quicker kill by kiting to aim between the limbs, or try to slow it down by focusing on a limb. That could add some mechanical complexity to the combat.

[ManaUser]

Although shipping in uranium might also be a strong option.

? Why? On this planet petroleum is obtained through farming, thus it's renewable. And CO2 emissions are not a concern.

It looks to me that Ii there is anything that could use some uranium treatment here it's behemoth stompers.

Well I agree those things are asking to be nuked, but uranium is also very energy-dense and while CO2 emissions aren't an issue, spore emissions are, so if we can limit farming to just production ingredients and not power that might well be a good thing.

[GregoriusT]

On the topic of Phobias (not me, but i care about others), it might be a good idea to just have an Option to disable rendering the Legs of both the Pentapods and Spidertron. There already is Mods for that, but those would disable Achievements, so I would strongly suggest it being an Option and not a Mod. This would basically make the Spidertron a Hovertron, and the Pentapods into Balloonlike floaty things.

Other than that, I am glad to know what will hit me first since i did choose Gleba to be the first Planet to visit, even before I knew what it was about!

[GASPIRULO]

It needs stomp dust or splashes whenever the stomper stopms

[AveryCorvus]

Re:phobias. Sometimes small developer teams don't really understand the impact of trypophobia or arachnophobia, because their entire team might not suffer from it. They just see it as a quick way to squick people out.

Developers: It's really, really not. There are people who will look at these creatures and just close the game and not buy or play it. There will be bad reviews asking for a trypophobia/arachnophobia mode. Expecting people to mod/disable achievements isn't really okay because so many people affected by these conditions want it in the core game. I see people in this thread who can't even handle looking at the news post because of the images of these things.

For trypophobia, if we could have sprites that were rendered without the eyes, that would fix it for me at least. Since they're pixel-based sprites, an artist should be able to make alternates without the eyes in a few minutes using a Clone tool or the like. But since they're rendered from models, maybe something more precise?

For arachnophobia, I don't have a good answer. For some people, just not having 8 legs is enough; for others, the eyes are the big issue (so the trypophobia answer would help here); for others, it's the leg movement itself. So two arachnophobes might have different reactions to this. Probably the easiest solution to cover all your bases is what Grounded did, where you have a slider that lets you progressively disable arachnophobic triggers; first disable rendering the legs, only a floating orb (which should be enough since you successfully made it very directional), then also a higher mode which disables the textures (specifically the eyes).

Is this not 'artistic' or 'realistic' or whatever? Sure, yeah. But we can't ever forget that this is a game, meant to be played by people, to let people have fun, and everything comes secondary to that.

[Rebmes]

Now that was exciting!! Love the new enemies, looks fantastic.

[Ghulmeister]

[Moderated by Koub : don't dismiss others' issues just because yours are manageable please.]

[Arzorth]

Wouldn’t it ve nice if the pentapods are passive while you are in your Spidertron? As if they would see the spider as a friendly creature, give the similarities.

If you attack them, obviously they would fight back.

Additionally, while in the Spidertron, your automatic weapons (laser) should not attack them until you manually attack them.

What do you think?

[Saphira123456]

I usually play with biters off. I like my factorio slow and meditative. Must I bother with aliens?

I share this concern. I've had a couple of playthroughs with biters, but I realized that they don't add to the fun for me. So, in the rest of my games, I either turned them off or kept them very restricted (no expansion, low evolution, etc.)

I too, play with biters disabled. Since these aliens and their eggs are now an absolutely vital part of the Space Age process on Gleba, and they seem to be mandatory to progress, this is most disturbing news.

First no refrigeration, and now mandatory enemies. I can deal with the former, but the latter? Screw that.

This leads me to question: Will there be an option to play with all hostile aliens disabled? Or will we be forced into playing the game the way the developers want us to play, and not the way the players want to play?

That seems to be what Gleba is all about: Not caring about player agency, not caring about player fears or crippling/disabling phobias, not caring about quality of life: "You'll play the way we want you to play, and like it!"

[Anima117]

I guess it is time to burn Gleba down.

I'm kidding, I like the design, and to keep in line with Gleba's factory design being completely different, I'm happy to see that the same attention has been brought to the defense. The stomper is a bit terrifying however.

[aka13]

Re:phobias. Sometimes small developer teams don't really understand the impact of trypophobia or arachnophobia, because their entire team might not suffer from it. They just see it as a quick way to squick people out.

Developers: It's really, really not. There are people who will look at these creatures and just close the game and not buy or play it. There will be bad reviews asking for a trypophobia/arachnophobia mode. Expecting people to mod/disable achievements isn't really okay because so many people affected by these conditions want it in the core game. I see people in this thread who can't even handle looking at the news post because of the images of these things.

For trypophobia, if we could have sprites that were rendered without the eyes, that would fix it for me at least. Since they're pixel-based sprites, an artist should be able to make alternates without the eyes in a few minutes using a Clone tool or the like. But since they're rendered from models, maybe something more precise?

For arachnophobia, I don't have a good answer. For some people, just not having 8 legs is enough; for others, the eyes are the big issue (so the trypophobia answer would help here); for others, it's the leg movement itself. So two arachnophobes might have different reactions to this. Probably the easiest solution to cover all your bases is what Grounded did, where you have a slider that lets you progressively disable arachnophobic triggers; first disable rendering the legs, only a floating orb (which should be enough since you successfully made it very directional), then also a higher mode which disables the textures (specifically the eyes).

Is this not 'artistic' or 'realistic' or whatever? Sure, yeah. But we can't ever forget that this is a game, meant to be played by people, to let people have fun, and everything comes secondary to that.

Glad that your specific way of perceiving reality should influence the game for everyone. I am shitless scared of heights, but I don't go around telling people "no, building this whateveritis out of glass and steel will make me feel uncomfortable, remove it immediately". I can't stand the main train station in berlin - no way to move from one train to the other without having to move close to see-through barriers, which makes me scared and uncomfortable. I would never in my wildest dream advocate for changing it, or to expect there to be a special way for me to move through it.

If something is triggering you, perhaps it is time to realize, that it is a YOU problem. Perhaps it's time to realize, that you are not entitled to all content being tailored towards you.
Just close your eyes and step away from the content you dislike, and the problem disappears.

[GregoriusT]

would you gatekeepers please stop this bullshit? An option that just makes things visually different for the specific user and nobody else, is not going to impact you like a mod doing the same would.

Real Phobias are not something that "can just be overcome", they are similar to epilepsy in that regard. Phobias are not regular "fear" or "being scared", they can be as weird as "i think spiders are cool *sees actual spider and passes out screaming*", because people do not have actual control over it, it is a genuine disability.

[aka13]

I told you, I have a real phobia, and I just deal with it. I don't make other people do dances around me.
Same as like people with claustrophobia in my family simply don't ride in elevators, and don't inconvenience anyone by demanding container-sized elevators.
Just because you live the western snowflake culture, does not mean, that everyone has to, or that it is the only alternative-less culture.
In the case of video games you literally overcome your phobia by not playing the game which triggers you. Exactly the reason why jump-scary-games simply warn people in advance, that there will be flashing images, and potential to trigger epilepsy, so that the people in question can avoid the game.