Biters and Pentapods: Improvements in Expectated Behavior
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2024 9:56 pm
Biters and Pentapods behave a bit funny - specifically in regards to what happens when they spoil in strange places. It's been determined that this is not a bug - rather intended behavior, and I agree with the game design decision to not have spoiling be "free" in space or on other planets - but there exist some potential opportunities for improvements to mechanics, albeit at the expense of some minor additional design/animation work. Here are some of the things I've observed players commenting on, and some tentative proposed implementations (though of course I'm not a professional game designer):
- Biters spoil-spawn in space, but are passive unless turrets fire at them. This is a bit odd, especially if you've got turrets coded to only target asteroids using the targeting filters. [Proposed Solution: Biters (or pentapods) which spoil in a container on a blacklisted surface do a fixed amount of damage to that container based on their unit type, and then immediately die; otherwise, they behave normally]
- Biters and pentapods spoiling over water (e.g., from an overflying mech suit) behave oddly [Proposed solution: biters enact a drowning animation; pentapods, because they are aquatic and nest along shorelines, enact a swimming animation and path towards a shoreline to create nests]
- I'm not sure if anyone has tested this, but assuming they can survive on a given surface, "aimless" biters and pentapods should probably turn into enemy expansion groups and try to create a nest. I'm not sure what would happen if there are two enemy groups on a surface, or enemy groups on a surface where they can't be triggered (e.g., no pollution on Fulgora), so this last one is a nexus for some solid design work as a potential feature in 2.1 or a later version.
- Biters spoil-spawn in space, but are passive unless turrets fire at them. This is a bit odd, especially if you've got turrets coded to only target asteroids using the targeting filters. [Proposed Solution: Biters (or pentapods) which spoil in a container on a blacklisted surface do a fixed amount of damage to that container based on their unit type, and then immediately die; otherwise, they behave normally]
- Biters and pentapods spoiling over water (e.g., from an overflying mech suit) behave oddly [Proposed solution: biters enact a drowning animation; pentapods, because they are aquatic and nest along shorelines, enact a swimming animation and path towards a shoreline to create nests]
- I'm not sure if anyone has tested this, but assuming they can survive on a given surface, "aimless" biters and pentapods should probably turn into enemy expansion groups and try to create a nest. I'm not sure what would happen if there are two enemy groups on a surface, or enemy groups on a surface where they can't be triggered (e.g., no pollution on Fulgora), so this last one is a nexus for some solid design work as a potential feature in 2.1 or a later version.