is checking biter path cheating?

[JimBarracus]

I recently started a new game an wanted to try something new for defense.
Not just a simple wall, a little more.

While planning my layout I noticed, that it is very convenient to check the biter paths to learn from them.
Knowing the paths made it easy to predict where they would attack. Biters are also very repetitive. No new strategy; they are mad on a miner and want to destroy it.

What do you think? Is checking biter paths cheating?
You know exactly from where they will come and as long as they are pulled by a turret you can leave the rest of your area open.
They wont try to sneak in. They'll just take their path over and over untill they manage to outrun you by evolution.

While writing this: I wish biters would be able to behave differently and learn from their ancestors mistakes.
More sneaky and less aggressive.
Not simply rushing on the thing that shoots at them. Dodging it, looking for a way around.

[posila]

It is, but do you really care?

[JimBarracus]

Not really.

Anyway, it only gave me a little advantage in the beginning.
Later on my chunk aligned defense worked quite well with very little resources.

[mergele]

if you want to cheat at Solitaire, who cares?

[Kinson25]

Try the Rampant mod, it will change up the tactics.

[CheeseMcBurger]

What do you think? Is checking biter paths cheating?

Understading the rules of a game and using them to your advantage is the complete opposite of cheating.

[posila]

Understading the rules of a game and using them to your advantage is the complete opposite of cheating.

I might have misunderstood. I thought OP is using debug visualization to display routes planned by pathfinder ... if that is not the case, I take back my original statement.

[CheeseMcBurger]

Understading the rules of a game and using them to your advantage is the complete opposite of cheating.

I might have misunderstood. I thought OP is using debug visualization to display routes planned by pathfinder ... if that is not the case, I take back my original statement.

Might as well be me that misunderstood OP. I didn't know you could visualize the biter paths usind debug visualization. That I consider cheating

[Vykromod]

What did you expect? They're insects, lol. Of course their strategy is going to be dumb. Their stupidity might as well even be on purpose and part of game lore. Exploiting bugs' stupidity is no cheating.

Do consider however that, unless you're playing railworld, if you lean too much on this tactic (leaving only few specific spots protected) it leaves you open to attack from some random new nest that may appear. Spreading polution draws attacks from more nests, and new nests spawn in random spots as the bugs expand, creating new attack vectors. Learned that the hard way a few times.

[Saberuneko]

In battle, is strategic analysis of the enemy movement considered cheating?
You are analyzing your enemy, and learning how it moves. If anything that is just part of the fun.

[Koub]

In battle, is strategic analysis of the enemy movement considered cheating?
You are analyzing your enemy, and learning how it moves. If anything that is just part of the fun.

There's a debug option that shows on screen the actual paths. Nothing to analyze in that case.

[xfir01]

New military science, "Tactical Analysis", that when researched turns that option on?

[SupplyDepoo]

I feel like biter attack waves became less predictable at some point in 0.17 or 0.18. In my latest freeplay I built a lot of ad-hoc defenses around my factory and it seems like they always manage to sneak around even as I fill in more and more of the gaps in response to the attacks. It's usually only 1 or 2 biters/spitters, but that's all it takes to force me to come and manually deal with it.

[ytsejam]

Is making resources very frequent/big/rich cheating?

Is turning peaceful on/disable bitters cheating?

Is maxing the starting area cheating?

Are you cheating if you change any default settings unless you're making them even harder?

Does it really matter in a game like this? I do think people who play with bitters but turn off expansion or lower their default setting in any way are cheating, but again, it doesn't really matter.

[MeduSalem]

In my opinion you can't cheat in a sandbox game. There are no real predefined rules/goals except for those which you set for yourself.

And even if there were... who cares. In the worst case you are only hurting your own experience.

[Hannu]

What do you think? Is checking biter paths cheating?

I think nothing is cheating if you do not take part in some competition with defined rules. It is adjusting the game to give maximum fun to you. I use usually commands to make tedious things, like conquering area, clearing ore deposits under my factory or set running speed to 10 times faster when needed. In my current heavily modded game I had to also create artificial ore deposits because I underestimated need based on earlier versions and set them too small and poor. I could do all those things in "honest" way too, but I have limited freetime and even more limited ability to play due my wrist problems and I want to use my time to more entertaining parts of the game.

But if you think something is cheating or want to achieve some predefined goals it is OK to no use "cheats". And of course it you play competitive games with others cheating kills fun from all participants sooner or later.

[lovewyrm]

Yeah, but cheating is awesome.
Cheating used to be a big part of games back in the days, schoolbus and recess talk about codes and stuff.
Hours happily wasted with console commands spawning units and watching them fight one another.
Action Replay/Gameshark for the older consoles where it still had a 'find your own cheat code' debugger and making Lara Croft be able to climb on any wall, turning her into Spiderwoman.
Giving enemies big waddly feet and bobbleheads. Etc.

All hail cheating. All hail doing with a game as much as you want. Cheats banzai! Cheats sto lat! Cheats yay yayyy. Cheats hooray!

P.S.:
I do have to admit that I feel the general 'air of oppression' several recent decades of railroading, out of bound kills, and focus group analysis 'amusement park ride' games have done to the gamer psyche.

So I getcha. I get the lump in the stomach you might feel now about cheating, but that's abusive grooming from AAA titles and co.
Again.
Cheats are the bees knees and all guilt about it should be erased. Have yourself a good time. Have yourself some fun. Have yourself bend the game to your wishes.

Can cheating kill challenge and tension? Yes, very much so, but so does playing it a lot, and people probably have less of a problem 'getting bored' just playing it.

Cheating is also a controlled act, so, if you do it for recreation, go ahead, who cares. Nobody! (who matters) Cheat! Cheat! Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!
Infinite life. Infinite rocket lauchers. Splatter the opposition mindless over the floor. Unwind and percolate the mind. The trance of the merciless godkilling supersoldier. Pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pewwwwww dadadadadaa brrrrrrrrrrrr.