What do biters do in their spare time? (Pheromone pathfind)

[ssilk]

Hehe.
This subject is a bit different to others, cause there are not much ideas around it (cause the idea itself is really simple?).

List of threads, that links to this topic

Searched for search.php?keywords=3440
I admit: most times I linked it, but the reactions where always positive.

viewtopic.php?f=76&t=171&hilit=3440 Alien juice ?
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=14710&hilit=3440 Alien Juice / Handling of Corpses / Recycling Dead
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21211&hilit=3440 Inter-nest diplomacy and War.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21213&hilit=3440 Alien Tech Salvaging
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=25835&hilit=3440 Simple AI for enemies.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3753&hilit=3440 Biter Matriarch, or one massive creature
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3762&hilit=3440#p27896 Peace with Aliens [And the following pages!]
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5648&hilit=3440 learning AI
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6062&hilit=3440 Devastation as a new environmental indicator?
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7812&hilit=3440 Alien worms can spawn random
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8054&hilit=3440 Playing the other side...
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8615&hilit=3440 Mattyrogue's Thread of Balance Ramblings (And Suggestions)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9054&hilit=3440 Map Overlays
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10042&hilit=3440 Make biters avoid defences
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=10218&p=79072&hilit=3440#p79072 Friday Facts #84 The wedding day preprations
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=14640&hilit=3440 New Weapons / New Defenses & Armor / Combat / Turrets
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=18615&start=20&hilit=3440 Friday Facts #117 - Path Finder Optimisation I
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=18153&p=119087&hilit=3440#p119087 Information-Layers (for map and/or normal view)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20073&start=20&hilit=3440 Actual laser turret
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26756 New pollution mechanics to increase factory design diversity
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28421 Alien Expansion - Aliens need to Produce Something.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=29129 Biters: make them easier to maze, slower, tougher.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=39752 Late game: Smart aliens and advanced evolution


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[1000i100]

Hi, now in 2023 with the space expansion in mind, i'm thinking about this (AI, pheromone pathfind, at least danger pheromone) is it done in a separated branch, a work in progress, not planned, included in some mod ?

[Koub]

This is a suggestion from the community, we have no clue about if something from here will make it to the actual game .

[dabalciunas]

I moved this topic into Frequently Suggested, cause it has again and again some relevance to other subjects and is a basic technology for many, many other ideas.

Especially it looks like, that implementing this would enable to have "pseudo intelligent behavior" for the natives. All in all you should read the whole thread, especially page 3 is very interesting.

For an overview of that threads look at page 4 ( viewtopic.php?f=80&t=3440&start=30 ).
-- ßilk



Let's bring some life to biters.

Make them eat and drink, make them travel to water once every few hours and back to home. Make them eat something, maybe some new renewable resource that's useful for the player too. This should attract biters to the player base.

Change the pollution system so that it updates slower and supports more channels/layers of stuff. Use these for biter chemicals, pheromones, hormones, whatever. Killing biters should create a slowly dissipating cloud of danger stuff, biter food should create a cloud of some attractive smell for biters to follow. Biters coming back to home should also spread the food smell with them so other biters could follow the trails, and biters escaping from battle should do something like that too so that angry kamikaze swarm can then move out and follow the danger trail...

Throw out long distance pathfinding, use the chemical/light/pollution gradients from 3x3 grid of chunks to make movement decisions for biters. It could result in somewhat realistic behavior, biters hiding away from lights, finding ways around sparse defenses, other wonderful things.

Right now the only fun thing about biters is when a group of them goes make a new colony and decides to randomly run through the player's base while doing so. This needs some spicing up!

No thank you.

I don't need biters burning my UPS at all, especially after they are required for achievements and/or end game stuff.