On the physiology of Biters

[Didact04]

I've played this game for a good while (not that I have much to show for it), but what continues to perplex me are the Biters themselves. I've encountered more than my share of them, as has anyone in this game at any point ever, but I stopped and realized several days ago that I still have no idea what they actually are. I'm not even sure why they're called Biters; maybe it's their method of attack, but what are their mouths even like? All I can see are 'whiskers' that might hide like, mandibles of some kind. Maybe a jaw like that of a goblin shark. Maybe it's something else. I considered that they have the mouths of worms, but they don't appear so. Not remotely the right shape for that.

I guess as I mused to myself about this I'd summarize a bit of what I know about these things and perhaps compile some observations and what-not with others to get a concrete image of what we called "Biters".

It's safe to assume that they are most similar to insects; they have six legs like one, but they are also aliens and any similarities with earth creatures have to be taken with a grain of salt; the ecosystems are entirely unrelated. Biters seem to have something of a caste structure, similar to ants in that there are workers (i assume the small ones are doing SOMETHING, right?) and warriors, with medium-biters in between. Perhaps those are juvenile warriors. If this is true, however, then it doesn't explain why all different kinds of biters appear equal when it comes to attacking targets or base defense. If there are castes, their behavior doesn't reflect it.

The game itself insists that they are evolving, and this isn't unreasonable when you consider how rapidly these things must reproduce to generate the numbers that they appear in. It's unclear whether their "hives" are giant gestation vats constantly spitting out new Biters or big tents on top of a giant subterranean complex of tunnels that you crush and block up, but in any case their numbers are absolutely staggering. If they do have a tunnel network then the entire planet must be half rock, half Biter chitin. It's pretty disturbing looking at it like that, actually. Maybe the reason there is so much surface ore is because these things have pushed it up so much from the guts of the planet with their sheer weight of numbers.

The evolution factor isn't that far-fetched if they are indeed making new biters constantly instead of just calling up new guys from the tunnels. The "pollution" aggravates the hives, which trigger certain changes in their biology to cause more combat-oriented Biters to be spawned. Even if other nests are not agitated by the 'pollution' of the Factorio main character, they pick up on the agitation levels of their neighbors and likewise start generating tougher Biters, regardless of whether they have had any exposure to the pollution that caused the changes. In that light, by the time the colony transport from earth arrives, the entire planet could be in a tizzy over this one guy that landed and started to make buildings that smelled funny. It'd be like he triggered full-planet lockdown.

Oh, and then there's their behavior. My god do these things terrify me.

Their reckless suicide-dives at anything that catches their attention reflects the expendable nature of each individual Biter, and I strongly suspect that their role as the dominant species of this unnamed planet is largely due to their massive numbers, reproductive capabilities, and extreme hostility. Anything that changes in their surroundings is met with the same response: attack. Something new came by the hive? Kill it. The air smells funny? Go kill the funny smelling things. Clouds on the horizon? Kill the metal towers making them. Basic stimuli trigger the aggression response and it's rather scary to see these things throw themselves so carelessly at any old thing for literally no reason other than being there. No wonder there seem to be no other native fauna; they'd get killed off or run down for so much as catching a Biter's eye.

Then there is the fact that they literally never stop chasing you. Ever. Even if you outrun them or drive way the hell away, they'll still walk at you in your general direction in the hopes of finding you. In a realistic setting they'd probably pursue lost targets till they dropped dead of starvation or exhaustion; literally, they would chase you to the ends of the earth (and probably all the way to real earth if they could do that space-thing).

THAT is probably what scares me the most about Biters: they are ruthless in the most base way possible. They simply lack the capacity to give up. Such a simple thing never came equipped with a 'disengage' feature, or something that weighed options against other options. No reasoning; mindless, swarm-minded, rapidly-adapting super insects from Hell.

Remind me why they decided to colonize this planet again?

Anyway that's most of what I have gathered about Biters. I still don't know what their anatomy is even like all that much, nor have any details about them at all, but these are some things that make sense to me. Also, someone back on earth needs to get fired.

[MF-]

With the old graphics they used to be brown splots. I was ok with mercilessly killing those.
With the current style... I call factorio fanbase "militant"

Hmmm.. perhaps biters might be totally peaceful if not hit by pollution yet and yoy come on foot?

You can't rule out they might be highly intelligent..
Maybe you're not the first civilization trying to colonise them and it's and adaptation?
Then their behaviour might be just part of their culture, traditions or religion.

[Rahjital]

I really like this writeup. Let me add a few thoughts of my own (those are just my own theories, agreeing at places and disagreeing at others. Not any more right or wrong than any others)

The evolution happening in the game is most likely not evolution of species but of their society. If their species could evolve so fast, there would be a noticeable difference between biters from different hives, even if they all were from the same 'caste'. All biters are exactly the same, though, suggesting that as species, they evolve slowly enough for one kind of biters to become completely dominant on the planet. That also suggests that it's their society that 'evolves'. As can be seen in the end game, all hives are able to spawn any kind of biters, but it appears that at time of peace, only the small biters are spawned. That might be because they are the most cost-effective workers of all the castes, ensuring the best chance of survival when there is no danger. Once the hives perceive danger, they start reacting to it.

With the underground cave system theory, this would change to simply having armies of hibernating large biters in the underground who would wake up once danger is signalised. If that were true, it would make more sense to simply have a single dedicated warrior caste instead of the oversized and armoured workers the big biters seem to be. If you look at the groups sent to build new hives, you can see they often contain big biters as well, suggesting they are still capable of work despite being made for combat. Medium biters may very well be simply workers with the ability to defend themselves that are spawned when biters are not yet sure of the danger, while big biters appear to be soldiers primarily made for assault who still have the ability to be useful after the fighting ends.

Don't forget the worms, too. Are they yet another part of the species, like the hives and biters are? Or are they another species living in symbiosis with them, burrowing near biter nests for nutrients and defending the hives from attack? It's hard to say, but the fact remains that they live together that worms are the natural defense of hives. It brings another question: is defense the only function worms have?

Biters also appear to be surprisingly intelligent. They must be able to communice with the hives as they are not able to detect pollution themselves, they organize their groups to the point they know if there are any stragglers and wait for them before setting off to attack, they recognize that turrets as a threat even from a large distance and attack them first to get rid of the threat. Biters are not too stupid or simple to give up, they simply don't care about themselves at all. They throw thousand upon thousand lives at you and chase you to the end of the world, but not because it's a base instinct. It's because they want you dead and are willing to do anything for it.

[Mangledpork]

You say that they will fling themselves at their targets without any regard for their own survival, but how can we know that they will fight to the death? The only life on the planet appears to be biters, worms and fish. It may be that they've never been challenged, and their usual result is a mass of biters totally burying the foe.
It would be interesting to see how they behaved after they killed you and all of your machinery. Would they return home and burrow away? Or build a new nest on the site? Or maybe even just drop dead?
And also, when you arrive you find that the biters are settling new bases, but a base never goes unless you destroy it. So were they expanding before you arrived, meaning they're a new species, or is it a response to your presence?
And how is it that every biter on the planet knows when you've killed one of their bases, becoming slightly stronger? And why the entire planet, not just the nearby area? Are all the bases part of a giant network? Perhaps they are the defence mechanism of the planet itself, protecting the valuable ore deposits by sending antibodies to the surface. The entire planet has a negative reaction to your arrival, after all.

[mrrobot]

They look like roaches to me. As hard as the blue ones die looks like they've got close to 20 hearts, too.
But what does it matter. I don't want to kill them whatever they might resemble. Since they attack the pollution sources I can't really blame them. Who would like some entity landing on your planet exploiting and polluting it.
Not that I really want to cause them any grief but I would certainly defend my home as well. I would appreciate a pollution reduction module in addition to the speed/productivity/efficiency ones...in addition to more green energy sources like wind and water (turbines/tides).

[Mangledpork]

I would appreciate a pollution reduction module

That's what the effectivity module does. I fill everything with them and use solar power, and have basically no pollution. The biters never bother me!

[mrrobot]

I would appreciate a pollution reduction module

That's what the effectivity module does. I fill everything with them and use solar power, and have basically no pollution. The biters never bother me!

Maybe I'm confusing something but doesn't effectivity modules say "reduction in power usage" ? It doesn't reduce the pollution of a building, electric drills and refineries have exceptionally high pollution, as a primary attribute as per definition, say "Pollution reduction of x%".
I wouldn't even call a reduction in emitted pollution with an increase of required power mutually exclusive since you can generate power in a clean way.

In my current setup I'm only producing 50 MW with solar panels but it's an ongoing project and covers my factory needs 3 times at the moment. But still I have so much pollution, mostly from drills, that the pollution overlay is red enough to make anything else barely visible.

Alternatively/additionally researching technology would be cool too, maybe even permanent improvement projects, like oil processing 4 which is effectively oil processing 2 but at 5% less pollution. Electric drill mark 2, same drill, less pollution. Maybe similar projects for speed/effectivity,productivity... Or "building" mark 10, same building with another module slot.

I'd like to be able to do some research on non-technology. Like geology, or study the planet..flora, fauna, the ecosystem, the biters, autopsy, etc. Some with small benefits like 1% more yield of ore fields or maybe just for lore and/or background information.

I'd like to be able to grow crops and trees as well. And fully automate it. Like a corn field or a "school of trees" that is sown / grown / fertilized / watered / harvested completely automated. The trees can be planted to have a nice looking forest but no idea what to do with those crop Maybe ferment it to have an alternative source for gas and fuel, or feed the biters (diplomacy) and befriend them and have them work like drones

sorry for off topic...

[Mangledpork]

They don't say it, but the modules reduce pollution by the same factor as power usage. Just try putting an effectivity module in, and you'll see the pollution rate reduce.

Anyway, back to biters.
It seems like they aren't very intelligent, even as a collective, because they don't understand the danger that the rocket defence represents, and don't come charging in as soon as the countdown starts (which they should, because it would improve the ending. Of course, it is a placeholder so I guess it doesn't matter much).

[mrrobot]

They don't say it, but the modules reduce pollution by the same factor as power usage. Just try putting an effectivity module in, and you'll see the pollution rate reduce.

Cool I'll try that, thanks

Anyway, back to biters.
It seems like they aren't very intelligent, even as a collective, because they don't understand the danger that the rocket defence represents, and don't come charging in as soon as the countdown starts (which they should, because it would improve the ending. Of course, it is a placeholder so I guess it doesn't matter much).

Perspective. They know they are going to face their end one way or another, so why waste your final minutes in an attack doomed to fail. Why not instead enjoy the last minutes of your life, have a brief chat with the rest of the gang, take a deep breath of the now polluted air and think to yourself "Eff that! This planet now sucks. I'm better o..." *BOOM* (and respawn elsewhere on the map)

[_aD]

"Don't call me that" I said for what seems like the hundredth time. I idly wonder if it's hit two hundred yet. He smells of cheap coffee and his brutish, beady eyes look at me, mocking my sensibilities. "Listen, I want you out of my hair, not touching it" I raise my voice as he tries to stroke a stray lock of hair. I tuck it back after shoving his arm away. "My research and I are autonomous and your 'visits' just serve to piss me off. Are you trying to make me rock the boat again?" I say, trying to scare him off. "Rock the boat again"...maybe that's a sign I should leave.

"Now now Janey, there's no need for that. I just be checking to see how things are going, that's what bosses are for!" he says, eyes twinkling. I move to another table just to get away from his breath. "Well if you're going to be like that I'll give my help to someone who wants it" is his answer to my slight, with a false sound of hurt in his voice. "I never need your help. Get the memo already. And don't call me that."

The door closes and I turn back to the latest batch of hormonal analysis results. So many of them seem similar to human hormones but there's always a facet that doesn't quite fit. They all seem too perfect, too uniform. I have to look very closely indeed to spot any of the natural abnormalities you'd expect from samples taken from so many specimens. So many. Specimens. I feel it again - the pang of guilt at what is going on in the southern deserts away from the safety of my lab. Massacres of the indigenous life forms - the "biters" - just for their cranial fluids which can be processed into a super-conducting material. Great for high-powered computing, apparently. Disgusting in every way if you ask me. Being disgusted by my own work...maybe that's a sign I should leave.

I tell myself that the carcasses would go to waste if I left this hellhole. They'd waste away in the burning sun and there'd be nothing left, no good to come of them. The more I can understand how the creatures work, what they're made of, the stronger case we have for abolishing the military action against them. I still worry every day that I'm a little gear wheel in the assembler that grinds them up and spits out nothing. What if I'm part of the problem? Maybe that's a sign I should leave.

Before the Jeroon Project to undergo a massive defensive wall expansion, factory land was scarce. Now we don't need the ground; the safe area within the walls is ten times what we could use. I hear from the grapevine that they've got enough containers of the cranial fluid to last a decade or more, so we don't even need that. Now it's just bloodlust, pure and simple. The creatures attack the walls and the soldiers revel in the massacre. The mass of assemblers and swarm of airborne robots kick up a pollution cloud so thick that I hung paintings over the pointless windows after my third month here. No wonder the creatures throw themselves at us. We transform this land into a void whether it's ores, oil or their pupae nests.

I asked them not to bring any more carcasses after two weeks as I didn't have the facilities to store them. Maybe that was a sign, too.

[Rahjital]

Anyway, back to biters.
It seems like they aren't very intelligent, even as a collective, because they don't understand the danger that the rocket defence represents, and don't come charging in as soon as the countdown starts (which they should, because it would improve the ending. Of course, it is a placeholder so I guess it doesn't matter much).

They are supposed to come attacking once you launch the countdown, the game is just buggy and doesn't do anything when the biters are too far Which means the biters indeed are smart enough to recognize rocket defense as a danger, which in turn means they are capable of limited strategic thinking. (by the way, they are also supposed to attack you the player and not the rocket defense, so you could see it as a last act of defiance from them).

[ssilk]

One of those threads which I should read with more time...

[Gorgothnia]

To me, the best model for the behaviour of the biters is as follows:
Queen (one per spawner or maybe the spawner itself) is a directing intelligence for the biters of a spawner. There may also be an intelligence directing each group of spawners (not sure if groups of spawners send out coordinated attacks or if they are individual strikes from member spawners).
There is a limit to the number of biters she can control simultaneously hence the low biter population despite rapid re-spawn rates.
Biters take relatively simple commands - stand sentinel, seek and destroy (with target hierarchy) etc - have minimal to no sense of self preservation and their lives are immaterial to the queens much as is the case for many terrestrial insect species.
Once the seek and destroy command is implemented, the queen looses control of the biter permanently and so she creates a new batch of biters. This command may also be triggered as part of the sentinel command.
Queens communicate over long distances. While they cannot/will not coordinate attacks they share information about the threat (you) allowing the evolution to occur globally. This is gathered from residues in the pollution, time spent studying the threat and, much more quickly when direct information about the threat is available when spawners are attacked.

The logic:
Mild Starship Troopers/Ender's Game spoiler below

The closest match I've seen for the biters is the bugs of starship troopers. They attack in swarms with a wanton disregard for their own health directed by the lovely brain bugs. A similar model appears in Ender's game where the buggers are drones directed by the queens. They have only minimal intelligence and the queens care very little for their lives. While both races are more intelligent than the biters (the bugs managed to send an asteroid through space with the accuracy to hit earth and the buggers achieved space travel and brought the human race to the brink of defeat) they share many similar characteristics.

It's clear that the biters have minimal to no regard for their own lives and yet the species has been relatively successful. They display only minimal intelligence, attacking in a headlong rush, and yet they prioritise targets. This prioritisation appears to be based primarily on the identity of the target rather than it's location suggesting simple instructions delivered by a more intelligent entity which cannot directly control the battle (perhaps because it is immobile). Instructions might be as follows:
Follow pollution
Kill anything that moves
Destroy military targets (guns and lasers)
Destroy radars
Destroy pollution sources
Destroy anything else

As the spawners are static and are the source of the biters, it seems logical that these contain or are themselves a queen of some kind and this may also be the central intelligence that directs them. The fact that they can't move forces them to deliver commands in this manner. It also seems logical that there is a limit to how many biters can be controlled simultaneously by a single spawner. Numbers are replaced very quickly but the population cap is relatively low. Numbers are replaced as soon as the biter sentinels (biters stationary around the spawner) move off, either to attack or defend the base. This suggests that, once they receive a seek and destroy command, they are no longer under the control of the queen. They never return to the base, instead following the player for ever (unless the game can't handle it) or until death. The rapid re-spawns could be explained if the queen made a stock of biters which she awoke when needed (hibernating biters would not need to be controlled) - obviously this would eventually run out but, for the purposes of the game, we assume she has quite a lot.
While they seem incapable of coordinating attacks, evolution is global. This is best explained by the sharing of information between queens. The species evolves naturally very slowly. Also, the queens all analyse information gathered from pollution in the air to assess their targets and far more detailed information is transmitted when a queen is attacked as more direct information can be obtained. They do also seem capable of minimal defensive coordination. Biters from several spawners tend to respond simultaneously. This could also be a function of the protect command somehow.

While it seems there is no coordinating intelligence greater than the hives (certainly not greater than the groups of hives) such a being could make for some very interesting game mechanics. It could direct forces over a larger area in coordinated attacks creating much larger problems. Defeating these would also make for good targets/minibosses and would cause affected spawners to return to current behaviour.

As an aside, it also seems clear to me that the biters are meant solely for defence. Even far from the base, they do not appear to do anything beyond guard and attack. As no other lifeforms are visible, it seems likely that resource gathering for the colony is done underground and perhaps through some form of renewable energy (most likely similar to photosynthesis though probably more efficient).

One thing I haven't yet explained here is why the spawners don't just pump out biters at full pelt, giving a kill command to each batch as soon as it is complete, once it becomes clear you are a threat. If they had stocks then these could get depleted somewhat but that seems a somewhat unsatisfactory response. Anyway, just my thoughts on the matter.

[Didact04]

The hive model seems to fit the Biters best, as it suits their insectoid anatomies as well as their drone levels of intelligence individually and expendability, but at the same time the idea of a "queen" leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Currently the game has only the drones and the hives. Perhaps deeper in these hives (however they work; whether they're tents over a cave network or gestation vats isn't clear) a queen could reside, but there are soooooo many hives. They can be erected and can be seen in massive biter bases literally in the hundreds. Having that many queens in the same general vicinity? I don't know about how they would think I feel like they would chafe around one another. Something about having leadership yet not being able to spread control over their neighbors.

There's a valid argument against that, yes, but in my head I like to believe that the hives themselves are the source of the intelligence, rather than something inside of it, mostly because the model of a "queen" feels far too earth-based and frankly overused in alien depictions; let us recall that these are creatures from an ecosystem 100% independent of our own and in an entirely different environment.

Whether they harbor telepathic communication or simply broadcast very simple orders on frequencies that are not currently detectable has yet to be determined, but all the same I feel that the hives have something akin to a group intelligence when clustered together, or are at least willing to work together and issue commands simultaneously.

I like the idea that the Biters themselves are "lost" to the hives as soon as commands are issued. That makes sense, since they are replaced almost immediately after engaging a target. The Biters don't appear to be anything more than thrall to some other source of command.

The worms are also an interesting piece to fit into the puzzle. To my knowledge, worms don't spawn unless specifically given an area to do so by an existing hive when they "colonize" somewhere nearby. They are erected around new hives and stand sentinel around it; by this point the existing hives will have universally accepted your presence as a threat and are perhaps breeding as normal, but doing so systematically now with protection to their new offspring/cousins in their new 'forward command post'. Maybe the worms also listen to the hives; maybe they share the same communication frequencies. Maybe they have nothing to do with the hives and are just animals; perhaps the colonization force puts out a special chemical or something into the ground to attract groups of the worms to stand as unwitting bodyguards to the juvenile hive and protect the new outpost.

There is undeniably some kind of intelligence somewhere and it is methodical. Maybe it's not especially potent, nor that effective, but it's somewhere and it has a grasp of what's going on. Perhaps these hives all collectively form a very loose 'hive mind' (pardon the pun), less a single entity comprised of many but almost a republic of sorts made up of thousands of smaller collectives spread throughout the planet.

Who knows? Maybe we're looking at things all wrong. The Biters are treated as very worthless and are easily replaced. Maybe the people are the hives themselves. Maybe they're the ones we should feel bad about killing - especially considering almost no one would have thought to look at them. Who cares about the throbbing masses of tendrils and bulging skin flaps?

I'm starting to feel kind of guilty about all those "cities" I've leveled in some of my more advanced games, actually.