Manual controls i think should be added.

I was wondering if there was a way to manually stop your ants from doing something like bringing food back to the underground to go complete a different task all together. ive encountered many scenarios in the Babysitting level where the friendly AI is under attack but my ants will continue to bring food back to my base before thinking of going to help the AI defend their queen. I would like for there to be a "stop all action" button or way so that i can just make all of my ants that are currently out gathering food to drop everything theyre doing and go to my next destination i want them to go instead of completing what theyre doing. This would give the game more room for Reactive play than having to send things ahead of time to somewhere so that the mission doesnt fail.

Thanks!
- Kappa
 

Scyobi_Empire

Colony
Extremely Helpful Person
Ecosystem Beta Tester
I was wondering if there was a way to manually stop your ants from doing something like bringing food back to the underground to go complete a different task all together. ive encountered many scenarios in the Babysitting level where the friendly AI is under attack but my ants will continue to bring food back to my base before thinking of going to help the AI defend their queen. I would like for there to be a "stop all action" button or way so that i can just make all of my ants that are currently out gathering food to drop everything theyre doing and go to my next destination i want them to go instead of completing what theyre doing. This would give the game more room for Reactive play than having to send things ahead of time to somewhere so that the mission doesnt fail.

Thanks!
- Kappa
Just turn off food gather...
 
turning off food gathering doesn't make them stop doing whatever they're doing and go do what you want them to do next. they finish their previous thing still before going to do what you want to do.
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
I think this is exactly the kind of thing we want to avoid. We don't ever want the player to have direct control over their ants; it's a core design tenet of the game. You're making trails, not giving orders.
 

Scyobi_Empire

Colony
Extremely Helpful Person
Ecosystem Beta Tester
I think this is exactly the kind of thing we want to avoid. We don't ever want the player to have direct control over their ants; it's a core design tenet of the game. You're making trails, not giving orders.
Now I can just imagine: Pheromone group 1, go 16 ticks north to counter the Ecition force Papawaffle.
 
I think this is exactly the kind of thing we want to avoid. We don't ever want the player to have direct control over their ants; it's a core design tenet of the game. You're making trails, not giving orders.
Are we not playing as the controller though? Because I'm pretty sure thats what we are doing as we play as the "god" or the "queen" giving commands. Nice of you to basically decline a suggestion to improve the mechanics of the game.
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Are we not playing as the controller though? Because I'm pretty sure thats what we are doing as we play as the "god" or the "queen" giving commands. Nice of you to basically decline a suggestion to improve the mechanics of the game.

I've never thought of it that way. I think the player represents the emergent intelligence of the superorganism that is the colony, therefore individual ants take suggestions from cues left by other ants (represted by the pheromone markers) but ultimately do their own thing.

It's not like we've not thought about this before, far from it. As I said - it's a core design tenet.
 
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