Fear inducing alien behavior

[tobsimon]

The aliens are a very managable threat, once you learn to watch your pollution, aka wiping them out, when they start to cough.

Before I knew how they work, the aliens were a much more interesting threat. Now they are more like a nuisance.

I don't want to suggest bigger/badder aliens, but a more unpredictable, interesting and fear inducing behavior.

My intention is, to push the game a little towards fortification and tower defence. Alien encounters really should feel alien, never predictable. Also, more explosions!


This is how I imagine alien interaction:
You walk the planet and encounter very few stray biters, which will generally avoid you, and will run from you if you head straight in their direction or make loud noises. You wonder what is up with that. If you stand still, they might come a little closer, kind of like a cat that doesn't know you. You try shooting at one and it is gone for good. At night, there is much more movement around you in the darkness. You hear them and see their faint glow, but when you turn to illuminate the scene with your flashlight, they crawl away fast. Light seems to scare them and you wait for the daylight to come. You encounter an alien nest, which is seemingly unpopulated during daytime. You get closer and some biters leave the nest watching you calmly. You approach, they try to intimidate you by jumping (!) forward and crawling backwards slowly. The worms raise (sluggishly) from their holes at that point. You go further and they start attacking you, but not kamikaze style, instead they run at you, deal damage, push you back and move back to safety, getting ready for the next attack. If you shoot at one, it retracts behind the nest. You are well within the reach of the worms, but they will only shoot at you in retaliation, when you damage the nests or violate the inner perimeter. You run from the nest wounded and thouroughly scared. Only one very angry biter follows you for some distance and bites you once more before heading back. These things really want to be left alone. On the other hand, your machinery seems to attract some unwelcomed interest. Especially the inserters, also the steam machines, you only wished the biters wouldn't constantly touch and break them. More lights will hopefully keep the curious away. A gun turret on the other hand may escalate things out of control. If it doesn't kill them clean and and an injured biter escapes, it will come back with a little army. Luckily, they left again, after they smashed the turret to pieces and ransacked the factory. You coudn't do much about it, since they always kept their safe distance from you, but the damage wasn't actually that bad either. They didn't seem to realize, that it was you, who built the turret. Stupid aliens. You can only prey they don't suddenly decide to fight you directly. You need to establish a safe zone by then.

I imagine the biters to be a little smaller, like 50% to 75% from their current size, so that you don't take them too serious at first. They are much less likely to be killed, due to their survival instincts and health regeneration (and boost) close to their nests. The described behaviour is modeled on basic targeted emotions: Fear, anger and curiosity. Fear is induced by player-created entities and especially injury and lessened by present allies and over time. Anger is increased by injury and proximity to a fear target and nullified if overtaken by satisfaction (which is untargeted). Satisfaction is gained by successful attacs and proximity to a curiosity target and lessened over time. Curiosity is induced by pollution on long distances and chance on short distance. High satisfaction lets aliens walk back home. Fear lets them back off, high fear run back home. If home is destroyed, they seek sanctuary in other nests. Fear and anger targets are communicated in the nest, so aliens coming from the nest have learned about the turret positions and can avoid them. Aliens will start exploring, when their curiosity level is higher, then their satisfaction. Optional: Peer to peer curiosity will let them meet like ants and communicate about known targets in the field.

Also optional: Aliens will attack other nests or individuals of other nests which come too close in the same way. So alien topology fluctuates. Nests increase size and war breaks out at some point between neighbors. There needs to be some mechanic, by which large nests fall apart to balance this though. Ressource depletion comes to mind, but I'm not sure about that one.

Also optional: Moving worms with the ability to crawl back into the hole and out another one. Not every whole has a worm then and new holes may open up behind you.

So, what do you guys think of all this? It is certainly more complicated to implement and simulate, then the current mechanic, but I hope, that it allows for an interesting interaction with far less individuals to compensate for that. I hope it is an effective compromise to pheromones on the field to model ant behavior, which could do awsome stuff but is certainly too processor heavy. Hacking a hole through the wall and pathfinding through it needs to be modeled some other way. Maybe a frustration level which will cause random attacks and communication of waypoints to certain areas?

[ssilk]

I hope the secs enable molders to create other behavioral models than now.

Edit: secs -> devs

[bobingabout]

Aliens only attack when in range of polution. This does make them rather predictable, it also means that if you watch how you play, you can avoid attack.

This is generally a good thing if you want to survive, but as said, it can get a little on the boring side later on.

[cartmen180]

i like it!

[bobucles]

AI models are incredibly difficult to model in a satisfying way. The current system is pretty damn simple as it only incorporates 3 major behaviors. The first is to attack the player on sight. Easy. The second is to send out waves as hives absorb pollution. That's pretty simple. The third is to expand into new territory. This is what players complain about when they don't make pollution but still get attacked.

I think the most manageable approach is to add new routines and treat them as separate things. For example a simple patrol routine would work well. A biter patrol would move at slow speed and not attack unless attacked, making them very uncomfortable if they walk into your base. A scouting behavior may work early on. A scouting party would move slowly but charge when a target is found. A cowardly behavior may retreat at some combination of X casualties or Y damage or Z "fatigue". The advantage here is the author can send large cowardly waves, which gives them more opportunity to breach defenses, but they will not completely slag a base if uncontested.

It pays to get creative when designing biters. Hey, maybe some types want to eat items just lying on the ground. That'd be pretty scary for belt players.

[tobsimon]

My main problem with the current system, and to some extend with what you are suggesting, is the static decision tree which leads to one or another behavior. Since it is static, it is very easy to pinpoint the cause of certain behavior. Since it's a tree, by which I mean that once the decision is made it is never changed after that, it is much too easy to differentiate the behavior modes. My thesis is, that if you employ a dynamic behavior mode selection, then you don't need too much behavior modes and still get interesting AI enemies.

Second thesis is, don't kill the player, he will simply reload/respawn. Ransack the base instead. Don't let the biters get readily killed in attacks either. A retreating wounded angry enemy is much scarier, than a dead one.

[jorgenRe]

I hope the secs enable molders to create other behavioral models than now.

Edit: secs -> devs

Already possible with scripting

I already have the plans ready for such a mod that adds in new kinds of biters. Biters that burrow themselves under the ground and into the facilities. No more stopping to defend parts of your factory inside the great walls. Second ones are like the trojanic horse combined with some biters that explode when near their target, though they may easily die, but still with an explosion.
Imagine biters evolving to be able to come flyeing over your defences and dropping bombs. Random bigger encounters that for an automated system may be too hard. A kind of attack that would require you, the player to fight !

The need for multiple layers of defences during the later stages of the game. The need for the use of mines, because your outermost wall got a hole.

Random electrical problems due to the weather. Imagine a thunderstorm hitting your main power supply, or a powerpole, causing it to break(yes i know they insulate it in the realworld), but do we have rubber or ceramic in Factorio? No, we dont !

Random underground shadow biters appearing because of an earthquake that created a rift and also destroyed your main powerline!?

I feel oddly creative whilst writing this post, but when im writing a novel(for school of course) i feel so empty
I guess engineering is the way to go !

[cartmen180]

I hope the secs enable molders to create other behavioral models than now.

Edit: secs -> devs

Already possible with scripting

I already have the plans ready for such a mod that adds in new kinds of biters. Biters that burrow themselves under the ground and into the facilities. No more stopping to defend parts of your factory inside the great walls. Second ones are like the trojanic horse combined with some biters that explode when near their target, though they may easily die, but still with an explosion.
Imagine biters evolving to be able to come flyeing over your defences and dropping bombs. Random bigger encounters that for an automated system may be too hard. A kind of attack that would require you, the player to fight !

The need for multiple layers of defences during the later stages of the game. The need for the use of mines, because your outermost wall got a hole.

Random electrical problems due to the weather. Imagine a thunderstorm hitting your main power supply, or a powerpole, causing it to break(yes i know they insulate it in the realworld), but do we have rubber or ceramic in Factorio? No, we dont !

Random underground shadow biters appearing because of an earthquake that created a rift and also destroyed your main powerline!?

I feel oddly creative whilst writing this post, but when im writing a novel(for school of course) i feel so empty
I guess engineering is the way to go !

If you are modding in a thunderstorm you might aswell mod in rubber lol. Also attacks where the player is required to intervene is going to be a pain in the ass. How do I know I am needed? What if I am miles away working on the railroad to come back to a destroyed base? The game is about automation, keep that in mind.

[jorgenRe]

If you are modding in a thunderstorm you might aswell mod in rubber lol. Also attacks where the player is required to intervene is going to be a pain in the ass. How do I know I am needed? What if I am miles away working on the railroad to come back to a destroyed base? The game is about automation, keep that in mind.

Aren't you already doing so by destroying biter nests ?
Of course it wouldn't be something game breaking, but more like an action filled random encounter ?
But yea you may be right about the thing with automation and it would make building a bigger and more defended wall would be neccecary if it would be able to survive without the player.

[tobsimon]

I like the different ideas on alien actions.

The intended topic however was to talk about the reasons of alien actions. Why do they attack? What are their goals, when they attack? How do they ensure their success?