need some clarification

[genos]

im new to this game. theres some question i wanna ask

in sandbox scenario with infinite size, the areas that havent been discovered yet are automatically generated once you scroll to that area, right?

usually when i start sandbox game i see there are no enemies within the player's starting point. i only encountered them beyond the starting point.

so this makes me wonder. do the game treat enemies as non-existent entity if they are not discovered and they will never attack even if i dont enable the peace mode on?

[impetus maximus]

welcome to the forums!

very good question. i'm curious about this myself.

[Xeorm]

Some tiles beyond what you see are still created, but not revealed. That's where the enemies will be hiding.

[vanatteveldt]

This is what I understand:

1. Tiles are divided into n-by-n 'chunks'
2. A chunk is generated as soon as either you reveal it or your pollution reaches it. Maybe adjecent chunks are also generated automatically?
3. Biter attacks is triggered either by you or by your pollution
4. So, for a chunk that isn't reached by you or your pollution it doesn't matter much whether it is revealed or not: they wouldn't attack anyway

What I am unsure about is if they will expand more within their chunk as soon as it is revealed. Does anybody know?

(an ideal solution would be that the expansion mechanism has some sort of equilibrium in terms of biters+nests / tile, and that newly revealed chunks start at this equilibrium, in which case it would totally not matter whether you revealed a chunk or not, but I don't know whether that is the case or whether a discovered chunk will start growing beyond the starting level even without pollution?)