Fill empty tiles

[b0nedaddy]

Will there be an option implemented to fill tiles that have been dug out? I remember on the backers demo there was a tool to fill an empty tile, but said "coming soon" or something...I don't see that present in the early access.

Also will we be getting a roadmap for planned updates at some point?

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

1) We haven't found a way to build tiles back that we like. It encourages turtling tactics when we want our ants to be aggressive and proactive (also no enemies can dig tiles, and do you want enemies digging through your carefully-planned walls and messing with your upgrades?). The tool you saw was the remove tile improvement tool which is now implemented.

2) We have a meeting planned to work out the exact details. For now I can tell you that John plans to get cracking on his freeplay mode and get the first alpha version of that out in short order. After that it's our next 2 levels and formicarium challenge 3. Jan / Feb seems likely - we're aiming to do decent-sized content updates every 6-8 weeks.

 

[b0nedaddy]

I'd like to see fill tiles in the formicarium or free play, seems excessive to have it in the stages. It just bugs me on my formicarium i mis-planned on of my rooms, so there is an empty corridor filled with speedup tiles

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

I'd like to see fill tiles in the formicarium or free play, seems excessive to have it in the stages. It just bugs me on my formicarium i mis-planned on of my rooms, so there is an empty corridor filled with speedup tiles

Wall building makes much more sense in the slower freeplay mode. And we can certainly do more to train the player on how to lay out their nest - it's early (but exciting) days at the moment!

 

[Alzurana]

You can prevent turtling tactics by not allowing rooms to be cut off from key locations like the queen and at least one exit (if at least one is excavated).
The detection for that would be to call pathfinding for each adjacent tile to the one you'd want to build and if there's no path, one section is being cut off.

Digging critters and enemies:
The first thing that comes to mind is to make blocked tiles actually walkable for the pathfinding but giving them a very high cost to make sure that critters only dig when they have to take a significant detour like 20 tiles for one dug out one. That way digging enemies could easily be balanced to be fair and it could easily be communicated to the player.
Obviously, that cost may only apply for enemy critters and AI ants but not for your own colony as they'd start digging, randomly.

 

[Granogg]

There is nothing wrong with turtle tactics, in fact most founding queens are doing exactly that, claustral colony founding (digging a hole, close it from the inside, lay some eggs and wait). There is also quite some ant species that have developed turtle tactics so far that there are specialized ants with huge heads to close of areas (Camponotus truncatus).

For the same reason it is nonsense that the queen is sitting close to the nest entrance(s) all the time and there is currently no way to move her "deeper" into the nest, as the majority of real colonies would behave naturally. This is also player unnecessary "player steering".

I'm not too fond of the idea to actively prevent players from using a tactic they like. Ants do fill excessive space, so why should we not be able to do so in the game? For me, it is also a matter of aesthetics - I like certain looks and it's my colony, so why should it not be as symmetrical or chaotic as I wish it to be?

An implementation of filling tiles with earth should be trivial, really And yes, in that case it probably should also be possible that enemy creatures can dig into a nest, after all you can "fix" the intrusion way and should have some kind of "early warning" before a breach. However, real ants/termites would use already existing connections over digging new ones.

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

There is nothing wrong with turtle tactics, in fact most founding queens are doing exactly that,

In nature, sure. In a game, it can break things.

 

[Alzurana]

Granogg has a point but I have to say that in game design, player steering in order to prevent first order optimal strategies is a normal thing to do in order to prevent frustration .
So I have to give it to the devs for saying "no" at first.

There are certainly ways that could also be introduced to make this work. In the current state your colony actually does start in an enclosed space as the entrance is not dug out in the beginning of a game. So claustral colony founding is actually the state the game puts the player in in the very beginning.

The whole idea of not allowing tiles to be blocked off again is to prevent turtle tactics in the endgame. Enemies actually dig you out in the later levels. I think this simulates nature very well as, the longer you stay below ground, the more likely it is that a predator stumbles across the claustral colony.
Since this is a game and not a nature simulation, some tradeoffs have to be made in order to guarantee the fun and fairness of the mechanics in place.

All aside, there are ways to make filling in tiles work without breaking the intented mechanics or even introducing new interesting ones, as I posed before.

 

[Alrikster]

Personally i would really love to be able to fill up some spaces in my colony. I love how the game rewards hexagonal building, but it really bothers me that i cannot upgrade my smaller walkways to T3. Also digging up one wrong tile can really mess with the colonys asthetics.

Im not quite sure what you guys mean by turtling either. I would suggest to make it impossible to block off rooms completely. As long as every room is connected, filling up tiles shouldnt be too bad, should it? What am i missing?

 

[Ensiege]

I was looking for this topic. I was sure someone had to ask about this by now...

browsing the older posts I also saw mention that very large chambers are in danger of having their centers collapse. Has that idea been scrapped? (it wouldn't be missed)

Either way, filling in tiles, at least in the Formicarium, would be greatly appreciated in my home nest... A simple mistake and now my workers have to move past a choke point to drop off warrior eggs... Something that made challenge 2 almost impossible for me. With more experience I can now say its best that paths to brood chambers should always take the workers behind the queen, or off to the sides.

 

[The vegetarian ant]

an idea would be to allow to have a resource of materials that you would get by digging and that will allow to build defenses on some boxes (like any other construction) or even (optionally) to dig deeper into the formicarium / freeplay mode (as a kind of purchase that would unlock the ability to dig further).
By defense box, I hear a box that blocks the passage to all insects larger than ants and they should destroy to pass (the defense would have a number of health points).
Maybe we could (in the tech tree) unlock a capacity that would slow the ants in one direction or even make them damage but it would not be very realistic.
Maybe the defenses could be filled by dirt and gravel with some time if it's not attacked...

Sorry for the pad and for my English, I just used google translation.

 

[Rayalot72]

Walls that you can build that have HP would be nice actually, as a way to allow passage but also not be a complete block to invasion.

 

[The vegetarian ant]

apparently I'm not the only-one who's watching EOTU's server at 1h am

 

[JonnyC289]

Perhaps in the future the queen will move around the nest accompanied by a battalion of queen ants so to speak, and when enemies enter the nest the queen will maybe move as deep as she can into the nest, again accompanied by the battalion... I really liked that upgrade you can get in the formicarium with the royal guard but it was a little disappointing that they just look like giant worker ants.

I know you guys also said that there will never be majors in the game buuuuuutt... one can dream. ;D

 

[Rayalot72]

apparently I'm not the only-one who's watching EOTU's server at 1h am

It was only 6 PM for me then (10 now). I know the UK is 5 hours past EST, so I figure you're 6 hours past me.

I am among the U.S. users (Kentucky).

Happy 4 AM to you.