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Predictability has nothing to do with randomness or being deterministic. Example: a die is complete random, but if you die thousands of it, I can predict, that the average number is 3.5, which isn't even a number on the die! And it is non deterministic; I can not say if I throw 3 the next is 5, but with thousands I can say that each number of the die is throwed 1/6th, with only some millipercent variance.

And to be more concrete:
I like the ants, because they have a building as center of their activity. From here on an algorithm can find the next place of food for an ant. This algorithm hasn't to be random, it just searches the nearest trees and then takes the first counterclockwise. The ant will run to it, collect it and bring it back. With thousands of such operations, they build a circle of cleared forest around their building. (Btw. This was the point where I said, that the ants need also to plant trees.)

I mean this is very predictable.

So, now replace ants with any other animal, cows, sheeps, bees, elephants... Make them another searching algorithm, for example, it searches the widest available plants first, or at day it searches west and at night east. It would be interesting, to have the searching algorithm find other animals. Ants eat trees, worms eat ants, beasts eat worms and some really big beast eats beasts.

And to say this is the advantage, that factorio is so simple: yes. But the subject is about the creepers. And I mean, that it is a good idea to have for the creepers a completely different type of production, which is not less effective. So that at the end there is the human technology on one side, with the inserters, belts and so on, and on the other side the technology of the creepers, which is finding, eating, growing.

And to repeat: without reading the whole thread thru, I'm nearly sure, I said nothing about how the animals should behave. Till now.

This bug https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=7&t=1314 brings me to the stupid idea to have a water snake or so, which likes to eat pumps. This is that kind of "thief", which we talked about some posts above.

Water pumps don't cause pollution. They'd have no source of pollution to attack.
Water enemies need to wait until we can dump pollution into the water instead of releasing it into the air (which is a great idea and should be implemented).

The fishes could plug the pumps. I had in my youth an aquarium, where they liked to do that.
Fishes could like the pollution and swim into that direction or they hate it and swim in that direction. Or they spawn and fill the lake. So either you need to clean the pumps (need extra pumps to have some left, if one is plugged), or you build the burners far away from the pumps. Or you build some kind of net, catch the fish and make concentrated fish out of it, which regenerates health much better...

Birds like sitting on poles. Sometimes it can happen, that they come to near to the cable and .... brrrrzzzzzzzzzz .... until all accus are empty.

Not much you can do against it: you can remove that pole, or we can introduce fuses or switches (like in reality when such things happen).

The sense of this is to bring you to a point, where you don't have energy reserves. That you need reserves, other types of energy, not setting all in one direction.

Fuses and switches sound both cool and useful, but random sabotage creepers (birds) would be a chore and not "fun". Unless they attacked just before the main swarm - then they would be horrifying and dangerous.

Sorry for necro, but didn't find another similar thread.
What you think about idea of Diggers? They are relatively small and weak bugs (or worms), but they are capable for digging a tunnel just into the middle of your base! This tunnel can be used by other creepers and must be destroyed before they came. Fortunately it is so narrow that can handle one biter or spitter at a time. This mechanics would force players to defend the whole base, not only the perimeter.

Another variant is Jumper or Flea. This type of foe is very fast and can jump over obstacles such as walls, pipes etc. It has 70% avoidance while in the air (tip: use land mine fields). It also force players to defend the core of the base.

Some digging worm like alien is suggested many variants. Search for example for "dune". yours is not less worth.

The flea is new.

And now that this topic has been resurrected, I suddenly find myself wanting to see a Flea with Thief behavior: Leaping over obstacles and, if both it and it's pack doesn't take damage, not attacking and instead stealing resources off your belts or from your logistics drones before returning to the hive.

So not only do you have to worry about it in an attack wave but if it ends up succeeding as a thief it can run back and forth along the path like an ant, with the group size steadily growing until the player discovers it. So at the start you have one Flea to deal with, then two, then three, and more and more until that trickle of thieves is suddenly a flood.

So not only a reason for complete defensive coverage but also a reason not to leave belts too far outside the perimeter and a use for minefields as well all in one.

Flea thief sounds cool
Do it steal from chests?

Also it would be fun if we could find all stolen goods in its hive after destroying it.

It'd be fun if they'd use stolen items against you.
Say, using metal items as shields.

Adil wrote:It'd be fun if they'd use stolen items against you.

Such as shotgun and rocket launcher.

Adil wrote:It'd be fun if they'd use stolen items against you.
Say, using metal items as shields.

SIRRAH! DOTH THOU SUGGEST BITTERS IN PLATE MAIL?
GLORIOUS I SAY!


errrr *ahem*

hitzu wrote:Flea thief sounds cool
Do it steal from chests?

Also it would be fun if we could find all stolen goods in its hive after destroying it.

Or we might find instead the things they've made out of those stolen materials.

Y'know... I think we've figured out how trade with biters would conceivably work.

ssilk wrote: 1. Thiefs. The live in their thief-houses and randomly a thief walks out of it to a random part of your factory. They try to steal material from the belts or steal any other item, if at the target no belt is nearby. Once he managed to bring an item back to its home, he walks back to the same place and tries it again. Also a new thief is born which does the same. Soon the horde of thief a get big and steal a significant number of items. They can be killed with simple guns.

The search actually worked this time. I think the thief idea is really good. It adds to the game by giving the aliens some character. Thiefs should avoid turrets and try to steal something and store it in their hives (or something). They could actually have some kind of memory to take a path to a belt which is outside of the turret coverage. Losing an item every now and then isn't too bad for the player. If the player comes around running, they should start runing, too

Making them more/stronger based on success does not sound reasonable to me. Thiefs should be the spice in the food.

Maybe they could have some other side effects, though. For example if they steal weapons, they can shoot back or if they steal grenades they randomly explode

Thieves live in little thief houses, you say?
Is this within your base, or outside of it?
If it's within your base, why didn't you destroy it on sight?
If it's outside of your base, then why doesn't your defenses work against it?
How is this effect different than biters who destroy your resources? Is it that you get them back?

Also, are thieves human? Are there other humans on this planet?
Are they elves? Do they live in harmony with the biters?
Are they biter kin themselves? Are biters so intelligent that they steal technology from you?

I would rather give worms the ability to tunnel underneath walls. That's a more reasonable way for the aliens to get past your defenses, imo.

A few ideas I thought of since the existing aliens are all some kind of verb. I figured these could help round out combat a bit more and make it more tactical. Number one, chargers. Capable of running quickly in straight lines, they do damage based on how fast they go using the collision model. Obviously they would also resist collision damage. Ideally to present more of a challenge then walk backwards and shoot.

Number two, swallowers. Lumbering slow moving brutes they have an amount of space in their stomach which digests over time but rather than damaging objects they just consume them they have space. Larger variants could consume a player or even vehicles. Could lead to some more careful maneuvering so that when fighting you have to keep an eye on positioning more.

Number three, breakers. some kind of aoe slam attack that also creates difficult terrain for non aliens, like inverse concrete it would slow movement. extra damage to structures. A reason to get more personal in your defense. Also perhaps to break out land mines