Evolution Split

[Nubm2]

How about splitting the evolution conditions?

- Evolve by pollution: Critters grow stronger,meaner and have incread resistance. Natural pollution sources could also trigger this (like oil fields, gas geysers, etc.)

- Evolve by nests destroyed: Critters reproduce faster and build bigger nests

- Evolve by Critters killed: Critters will go into enrage mode: Increased speed, damage, LoS and become much more agressive towards the player, including patrols and hunting parties in a large area. Indicated by a reddish color of the critters shell (if trains can be colored, why not bugs). If an enraged critter finds a threat (e.g. Buildings, Players) every other enraged critter with the same rage value or higher will join the attack (must be enraged of course). Rage will build up fast, but decreases quickly too. Enraged critters do not settle.

- Evolve over time: Critters gain more health so players have to keep up with military technology. Also colony max size increases over time, allowing for much bigger nests.

- Evolve by tech progression: Bigger versions of critters with increased stats

- Evolve by satisfaction: As an example, Players can (carefully) place feeders near nests. The more evolved and the bigger the colony the more food supply is needed to satisfy them. If the food level is high enough they will become neutral towards the player. however, other evolution levels will reduce the effect so they might become hostile again, or will never even reach a neutral stage. Highly satisfied nests become friendly and can be 'milked' for low amounts of alien artifacts. They need some time to refill of course. Satisfaction slightly decreases over time.
Worms has to be fed manually. They show themselves long before the player gets into attack range and thats the best moment to trow some fish in. The colony has to be neutral or higher first.


Evolution values are shared with nearby nests (up to x times, reduced with each step by y).
For example, killing nests will alert nearby colonies and the effect will stack up so soon the player has to face a huge army of enemies. The evolution value will decrease very slowly if the threat is reduced or removed. So if the fights are getting too hard a player can retreat and wait for a while. Probably has to defend for some time though if critters are enraged. Nests and population will also have a chance to decrease, but much slower. This prevents overpopulation and allow much stronger critters to show up.
Polluted critters will degenerate too, but extremely slow. They are very dangerous and even more so due to evolution sharing. They will spread over a wide area if they start to settle.


Other stupid Ideas: Evolution triggers special abilities
- Evolution by chance: (Rare) Once in a while, single nests or critters will evolve into something unique.
- Evolve by resource: Nearby resources will evolve Critters to become specialized. For example, nests near (or upon) iron ore will evolve into iron spitters/biters, which means more resistance against physical and fire but less resistance against acids and chemicals. Would make it more challenging to claim those resources. The bigger the resource field the stronger the effect.
- Evolution by terrain: If critters settle near those terrain types they evolve special abilities. Those are shared with nearby nests too but need a high value to trigger:
--> Coast: Able to swim short distances
--> Desert: Sandworms can move underground but only on sand, all desert critters have increased fire resistance but move much slower
--> Forest: Increased pathfinding lol

[ssilk]

Moved from General to Suggestions.

I need to ask what is the Gameplay-Value of this?

[Xeanoa]

I need to ask what is the Gameplay-Value of this?

For me, it would seem to make biters a little less boring. That's already worth a lot.
Anyway, everything together is certainly a lot overkill.

I like the points made about time, pollution and spawner kills. That makes for a great little vanilla diversity. On the other hand, it already currently works like this: All and added up into one single value. If you split those three up, you'd get a smoother evolution curve, or even one that's tilted.
But from what I know about the game what would require all combinations of critters to already exist as prototypes when the game launches? That would mean, using the current 4 steps only, that there need to be at least 8x4x4=64 different variations of biters and spitters. Unless .15 allows dynamic creation of prototypes.

And I like the sandworms. But only because I played WAY to much Dune 2000 in my youth

[Nubm2]

The main idea was to bring the RTS element closer to the game itself (since base and outpost defence would require more strategic thoughts).
Well, Critters evolve over time anyways (kinda like they do now, but with size bound to tech tree and additional health and nest size to time played). But the mechanics would become more dynamic, with direct responses to player actions. I never liked the fact that evolution affected all critters everywhere. There are just too many things that comes to mind. Why do they evolve now? What did they look like a year ago, when the player wasn't there? What do they feed on when there is nothing but critters everywhere? Why do they want to destroy what makes them stronger, when there is no signs of degeneration at all?

The Satisfaction value was just an example, there should be much more means and ways to please the critters than only feeding them, to calm them down and counter evolution (because fully evolved critters should be a huge problem).
Combat is the only option right now. Also, once evolution hits 1 there is no more progression. With a split, full military battle players will soon get what they were asking for while more peaceful players have options to coexist with the natural wildlife.
The biggest problem is to claim territory though which would require getting rid of nests one way or the other. Destroying them should be only one option. Others could be relocating, degeneration, frighten away (which would only works on low evolution critters, therefore they have to be satisfied first).

As for the engine, it will need more values, but the ticks and priorities can be much lower. Also there is no need for additional graphics. It could all be in the critter info when you hover over one. Maybe behemoth as the end of the evolution could bring 4 different models (or just different colors) and the goal is to get rid of them asap. If Behemoth show up you are doing something wrong. However there should be alternatives to pure combat. But if you going to war you better learn about your enemy first and choose your weaponry accordingly.

Killing a lot of nests -> call in the zerg; pollute a lot -> less numbers, but much stronger; critter killing spree -> the swarm hungers for your blood; doing all at the same time -> the pain train heading your way.
Sheer numbers can be best fought off with flame throwers and fast firing machine guns (small critters aren't a problem at all currently, but a huge mass of 'em should be pretty dangerous even to a well geared player) while stronger critters with resistances require heavy weapons like rocket launchers (which have low fire rates, therefore much less effective against big numbers of little critters, with laser weapons being something in between). Rage creates huge waves of attackers for a short period of time and require temporary strong defence and the players attention.

Pollution should have a wider reach, and wind would be great. Also water pollution, which has much stronger effects on every nests near beaches. Plus rivers and bridges and so on and on...



As a note: Dune 2... omg all those sleepless nights!
I want concrete as a foundation under buildings to make them stronger, or as a requirement to build on sand. :p

[Roxor128]

I like the ideas of the player's actions towards the biters acting as different selection pressures. Might be nice to see a semi-realistic form of evolution in a game for a change.

I want concrete as a foundation under buildings to make them stronger, or as a requirement to build on sand. :p

Now THAT'S a good idea! Aside from building the rocket silo, it's largely useless right now.

[BenSeidel]

I want concrete as a foundation under buildings to make them stronger, or as a requirement to build on sand. :p

Wormsign detected

[ssilk]

Well the need for placing concrete is already suggested a lot. Prerequisite is, that we have worms, that can tunnel.

[Xeanoa]

Well the need for placing concrete is already suggested a lot. Prerequisite is, that we have worms, that can tunnel.

Buildings not placed on concrete should start at half health and quickly deteriorate

[Shaymes]

its factorio and not dune btw i like dune

[Nubm2]

I wish there were a Dune2 Mod for Factorio, but sadly there isn't. Underground caverns for (limited) water supply, wind traps for energy, hunting giant worms for oil...

But back to topic. Im trying to think about more peaceful ways to coexist with critters. The relocation of existing nests is a real problem and i have not found any solutions so far. Any ideas? Also, what could critters really want and need to make them happy?