Why does radar attract biters?

[Ranakastrasz]

Is this a bug/ascended bug, or is there a reason for it?
My understanding is that radar is considered a turret, for biter AI. If they can kill a radar, they will prioritize it over other structures, although other, actual turrets are higher still (so long as they are dealing damage anyway)

[DaveMcW]

Tactically, denying the enemy vision is very important.

[Ranakastrasz]

Tactically, denying the enemy vision is very important.

Yea, but the biters are't exactly tactically minded. If they were, they would also prioritize power poles, since that would shut off most defenses.
Unless you install something like Rampant, they pretty much ignore large power poles between outposts. And ignore railroad tracks. Although they sometimes chase down trains, likely because of pollution.

[Light]

It could be transmitting signals that the biters are annoyed by. Certain animals are more sensitive to frequencies undetected by human ears.

[TruePikachu]

The technical reason for this behaviour, if anyone's curious, is because the radar is classified as a military entity (as it shows up on that tab in the crafting menu).

[Krazykrl]

Because you're cooking the biters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Spencer#Career

[DustFireSky]

Because they are delicious. Every building can be attacked by the biters. But they destroy military buildings at first. Than pollution buildings, than the rest.

[BlakeMW]

The technical reason for this behaviour, if anyone's curious, is because the radar is classified as a military entity (as it shows up on that tab in the crafting menu).

This isn't actually how it works. There are things on the military tab that don't draw the ire of biters: walls, gates and Rocket Silos(!). why do Biters hate Radars but not Rocket Silos? It appears they are just hard-coded to hate things that scan.

On the other hand, AFAIK everything which isn't on the military tab, does not draw the ire of biters. Including speaker towers blasting a siren at full volume in the middle of their nest.

[Ranakastrasz]

This isn't actually how it works. There are things on the military tab that don't draw the ire of biters: walls, gates and Rocket Silos(!). why do Biters hate Radars but not Rocket Silos? It appears they are just hard-coded to hate things that scan.

On the other hand, AFAIK everything which isn't on the military tab, does not draw the ire of biters. Including speaker towers blasting a siren at full volume in the middle of their nest.

Huh. That is kinda an amusing mental image. Giant speaker tower in the middle of a biter nest, blasting out an air-raid siren, and the biters are just wandering around, ignoring it. Obviously they WOULD attack it, but they would consider radars a higher priority.

And in any case, the attraction is just target prioritization. They take down military structures before civilian structures, and radar seems to be military for some reason. Which also means they never do runbys.

[ManaUser]

It's definitely not a bug as the old campaign specifically warned you about this. As for a back-story/justification I like the idea that biters are sensitive to microwave radiation and find the radar annoying, much like you or I would be annoyed by an audible-range sonar. PING! PING! PING! PING! PING!

[ratchetfreak]

it's very much intensional

and it's to avoid people just plopping down 5 solars, a powerpole and a radar and have (near) permanent vision deep into biter territory.

[bobucles]

and it's to avoid people just plopping down 5 solars, a powerpole and a radar and have (near) permanent vision deep into biter territory.

I'm pretty sure that's completely unrelated. A solar powered outpost does not generate pollution, so biter attacks won't be triggered in the first place. There can still be random patrols for expansions, and they will attack anything too close to their territory, but they won't initiate an attack just to break a radar depot.

[BlakeMW]

Indeed. I even use the 5 solars + radar from time to time. 75% of the time they survive long enough to map out their maximum range. If you plop a single gun turret it'll wipe out any expansion party and that radar outpost will last basically forever. (this only works if the radar is outside the pollution cloud)