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So I was clearing out some Biter nests around my factory, (well being chased by a horde of Biters after killing the last spawner) and as I was leading them back to an area filled with turrets I see another large-ish group(about 20 it total, all sizes) running across my path ahead of me. Now being the sane and rational person I am I do what any person would do, I run right at them shooting and trying to get them to follow me into my well laid trap. Nothing, they keep running, so I follow them. I want to know where the buggy bastards are going in such a hurry now. So I follow them, and they just STOP, and I mean they STOP they don't move an inch, not even shift a little.

So as I am still being chased by a horde of Biters, I fire off a missile into the group that has frozen in place and run off to spring my trap. One quick mini-genocide later I return to the spot where the the Biters froze in place, and they are STILL there! They haven't moved at all (I did however blow up a little one with my hastily launched missile so sad) so I have at this point assumed that this group of Biters was just a buggy bit of code and I walk up to them to put the poor things out of their glitched misery. So I go about murdering them, the little ones die quick but it is taking me a little to kill the big/medium ones. Then a big Biter just vanishes, (POOF just gone, I didn't even shoot it once) and a big worm is now in the middle of the group, shooting it's acid spit at me.

I back off, the worm is my target now, (it is actually fighting back unlike the baby seal Biters I was clubbing) then I see a few more disappear, more worms, another big one and a medium one. I bust out the missile launcher and carpet-bomb the rest of them. End of encounter and I realize what I just saw, and the implications. Biters can BECOME Worms, maybe if I had not killed so many it may have even become a nest with a spawner.

If I am right, this means areas that have be cleared out can become repopulated with Biters or at least little pockets of Worm-traps.

Known issue that biters get stuck if too many are on the map simultaneously. Once numbers get lower (or you get close to them) they should get unstuck.

I can assure you they were not stuck, I shot at them, point blank.

ShaiTan wrote:I can assure you they were not stuck, I shot at them, point blank.

When there's too many biters they just stop moving, i.e. get stuck.

Well, biters do repopulate areas and create new nests. They form a group of runners and go to some random place, running straight through your base sometimes...

ShaiTan wrote: If I am right, this means areas that have be cleared out can become repopulated with Biters or at least little pockets of Worm-traps.

yes

The problems I have with how they do this is that they are not distracted by the player/damage, which A) makes it 'easy' to kill them, B) unrealistic, and C) prone to people thinking it's a coding bug, especially with the fact that biter AI can freeze
The other (slight) issue I have is that I'd prefer if there was a 'queen' biter that actually turned into the spawner...but that's personal preference more than anything else

muzzy wrote:Well, biters do repopulate areas and create new nests. They form a group of runners and go to some random place, running straight through your base sometimes...

That seems to fit with what I saw, what surprised me was the Biters changing into Worms, and the idea that they can recreate spawners.

FreeER wrote: The other (slight) issue I have is that I'd prefer if there was a 'queen' biter that actually turned into the spawner...but that's personal preference more than anything else

That sounds really cool, plus it is a bit more realistic as they do seem to mimic insects. Plus that would make it easy to spot a runner group and differentiate it from a group your machines have aggro'ed.

Animation for the biters settling bases is on the to do list. I don't know if they are planning on tweaking the settling behavior.