Do biters only attack pollution?

[garath]

In many videos, it seems the player makes a point to kill the biter nests out beyond the reach of pollution. If no biter nests are hit by pollution, does that mean you won’t ever be attacked?

[mrvn]

Unless you otherwise agravate them that is true. No pollution means they don't know you are there.

[5thHorseman]

Well, they will eventually expand (a group of biters forms near a base, moves to a random nearby location, and sets up a new base) into your area. Then they'll notice they moved in next to pollution, get all NIMBY on you, and attack.

But other than that yes. No pollution hitting them and no getting near them while exploring means no attacks, ever.

[Termak]

Well, they will eventually expand (a group of biters forms near a base, moves to a random nearby location, and sets up a new base) into your area. Then they'll notice they moved in next to pollution, get all NIMBY on you, and attack.

But other than that yes. No pollution hitting them and no getting near them while exploring means no attacks, ever.

This is not totally right. Its true that if pollution hits the spawners they will start to directly attack you. You can prevent this by polluting less, (yeah, right...) or clearing huge area of ground so pollution does not reach the spawners.
However, even when not getting hit by pollution, the biters will expand into new areas, and if that area happens to be behind your wall/turrets, they will attack those, but these "attacks" by expansion groups are far less common and much weaker than the "real" attacks made against pollution sources. Unless you turn expansion off, then they will just sit in their homes and never go make expansion groups.

[golfmiketango]

Well, they will eventually expand (a group of biters forms near a base, moves to a random nearby location, and sets up a new base) into your area. Then they'll notice they moved in next to pollution, get all NIMBY on you, and attack.

But other than that yes. No pollution hitting them and no getting near them while exploring means no attacks, ever.

This is not totally right. Its true that if pollution hits the spawners they will start to directly attack you. You can prevent this by polluting less, (yeah, right...) or clearing huge area of ground so pollution does not reach the spawners.
However, even when not getting hit by pollution, the biters will expand into new areas, and if that area happens to be behind your wall/turrets, they will attack those, but these "attacks" by expansion groups are far less common and much weaker than the "real" attacks made against pollution sources. Unless you turn expansion off, then they will just sit in their homes and never go make expansion groups.

I don't know a ton about how biters really work under the hood, but it seems to me that Termak must be correct here. They seemingly don't like it when things get in their way and they are trying to get somewhere, even in "peaceful" mode. I'm pretty sure they will even attack each other, for this reason, under the right (rare) circumstances.