[Idea] 0.21142 Ideas on underground landscaping

[HofNerd]

Here are some ideas I had about mechanics for underground landscaping.

- Changes to wall properties:
* Walls contain dirt pieces, using the durability variable as the counter of the number of dirt pieces the wall contains.
* Walls would have an upper limit on the number of dirt pieces they can contain. (Recommendation would be to have the average dirt per wall at 1/2 of the upper limit, maybe even 1/4 for underground-only levels.)
* Walls would be destroyed if their last dirt piece is taken.
* A new wall would be built if it contains at least 1 dirt piece, and there are no creatures on that tile. (Worker will wait for tile to be clear, creatures would not wander onto the tile or path through it.)

- Changes to digging:
* Setting a "dig out wall" marking would cause workers to 'dig out' dirt pieces from that wall. (Only if they can also deposit dirt elsewhere.)
Workers carrying dug out dirt would be able to deposit it into the following:
1. A reachable wall that is not marked for excavatoin and is not filled to its limit. (Often tunneling would just be workers pushing dirt aside.)
2. The surface. (Causing the dirt piece to disappear into the ground.)

A visual example of this in action:

The workers (small squares) would take dirt from the excavation target and deposit it into the tunnel walls. (Both would be seperate actions.)

* Creatures would also be able to dig tunnels, but would only do so if they can't reach the queen in a reasonable way. They would dig out a path to the queen, the dirt is moved into the sides. (Or removed if the sides of the tunnel are full.)
Enemy ants would also push the dirt to the sides. Or perhaps they could even move it to the surface. (To starve the enemy of dirt so they can't keep their walls standing during the attack.)

- Building walls:
Placing wall constuction markers would cause workers to fill in the marked area. The would seek out dirt pieces from the following sources:
1. Excavation tasks.
2. The surface. (Causes dirt pieces to appear from the ground.)
3. Any tiles containing more dirt than the starting level.
The workers would continue to fill up the wall with dirt pieces until it is at a certain durability. (50% of the upper limit or something similar.)

- Maintaining walls:
Marking a wall with 'maintain wall' would cause the workers to fill up that wall to the upper limit with dirt to make it as strong as possible. (Good for maintaining walls on the edge of the nest, any damage would be repaired after an attack.)

 

[The vegetarian ant]

Great Idea, I just hope it will be possible to implement in the game (which means not too hard to code and that won't unbalance the game) and won't join all the other propositions to build walls etc.

 

[HofNerd]

Should something like this be implemented, it would also allow for more variation in the underground terrain. A tile could have loose dirt (low amount) or solid dirt (large amount).
The changes would also make digging a little more impactful in the game, as right now it only takes 30 to 60 seconds to dig out the entire underground if you have lots of workers. This would make digging (especially making open chambers) a little more time consuming.

 

[HofNerd]

Great Idea, I just hope it will be possible to implement in the game (which means not too hard to code

It could try to use existing animations and mechanics:
- Digging animation when taking dirt from a wall and when putting dirt into a wall,
- It would use logic somewhat similar to finding food storage when finding a wall to put dirt into, (would require some changes, but hopefully not too many.)
- It would use the durability as variable to store the number of dirt pieces of a wall. (With a new static variable for the wall dirt maximum.)
- Ants can already carry food items, so carrying dirt should not be difficult? (But the ants need to understand the dirt piece needs to go elsewhere than the food storage.)

There would be some things that would require some new mechanics and a 3d models though:
- The dirt pieces (all the same size) would need a 3d model.
- Dropping or taking dirt on the surface. (I don't think that should be too difficult? Then again, there's no specific target there...)
- Logic to make the ants perform "fill in" tasks in an order that doesn't cause any ants to get trapped in a newly walled in area. (I think this would probably be the hardest?)
- Logic for enemies to dig their way to the player's queen if there is no reasonable path available. This could use a calculation where walls also count as reachable tiles, but walls would cost more tiles of movement. (Durability would be used in that too, weak walls will be broken, strong walls maybe not.)

and that won't unbalance the game)

It probably would make digging slighly more time consuming, and making a very long path for enemies has 2 disadvantages:
1. Enemies will likely tunnel through the walls, because it is faster.
2. Upon spawning new ants they would have to go through the very long path. (Slowing down your economy significantly.)
So this would not impact the balance of player vs creature levels that much, I'd think?

and won't join all the other propositions to build walls etc

I know from previous messages the developers have been searching for a way to add in wall placement for a long time, so maybe this can help them? I think the difference between this idea and others, is that this idea is far more developed. (Others just ask when wall construction is going to be inplemented. Here I have given most of the new things it would do/cause.)
If the developers decide not to use this idea, then so be it.

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

Here are some ideas I had about mechanics for underground landscaping.


- Changes to digging:
* Setting a "dig out wall" marking would cause workers to 'dig out' dirt pieces from that wall. (Only if they can also deposit dirt elsewhere.)
Workers carrying dug out dirt would be able to deposit it into the following:
1. A reachable wall that is not marked for excavatoin and is not filled to its limit. (Often tunneling would just be workers pushing dirt aside.)
2. The surface. (Causing the dirt piece to disappear into the ground.)

I'd make it so the dirt doesn't disappear, but form an ant hill.

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

The question of building walls was never too difficult to implement, but inelegant for many reasons given how we want our game to work(a central point of defense, like Dungeon Keeper). New ideas are always appreciated but I wouldn't ever expect to see wall building in the story.

 

[The vegetarian ant]

The question of building walls was never too difficult to implement, but inelegant for many reasons given how we want our game to work(a central point of defense, like Dungeon Keeper). New ideas are always appreciated but I wouldn't ever expect to see wall building in the story.

it wouldn't change from dungeon keeper, in it every ennemy could dig and you could not only dig but also reinforce your walls

 

[HofNerd]

it wouldn't change from dungeon keeper, in it every ennemy could dig and you could not only dig but also reinforce your walls

Here's an example of an enemy having the choise between a long path or a tunnel:

At a certain point the enemy might want to dig through a wall to make a shorter path, it checks if the new path would be faster than the old path: 6+6*x < 18 (5 tiles walked + 6 wall durability * 6 dig time). If the new path is shorter it would dig through the tile.
I can see that this calculation would slow the game down significantly if there are too many enemies, so maybe this can be applied for 'groups' of enemies instead? All enemies that take the same path would rely on the same calculation, so doing the calculation once for each path taken would be enough. (I can still understand that this might cause significant performance cost if the entire underground is run through in the calculation, so maybe it could time out after a certain crossed tile durability? Then again, I do not have any experience with this, so I can only guess.)

 

[Buffalo981]

A turtling play style that is highly defensive and being able to build walls would actually be good gameplay mechanics for termites if they are every playable (in campaign or after 1.0 release). This is their natural behavior – they can block off their queen until danger passes. Of course, this can be balanced in a level in many ways, such as where a certain amount of enemies can break down the wall (or a specific type of enemy), and the colony is essentially functionless when the queen is blocked off, meaning that valuable mission time may be wasted. However, in a dire situation, such as when facing an attacking horde of Dorylus ants, it could be the only means to save the queen. The Dorylus would run off with the brood and food, maybe destroy some chambers, but leave after some time.

 

[The vegetarian ant]

and if the devs do not want to rebalance all the previous levels they can also add a species to which this mechanics will be confined (and then add it to the ereptors) unless they do it for termites in which case it will probably not be possible add it to the ereptors

 

[HofNerd]

and if the devs do not want to rebalance all the previous levels they can also add a species to which this mechanics will be confined (and then add it to the ereptors) unless they do it for termites in which case it will probably not be possible add it to the ereptors

I remember seeing termites building overground dirt tubes in a terrarium, these were then used by the termites to travel outside of view.

 

[The vegetarian ant]

I remember seeing termites building overground dirt tubes in a terrarium, these were then used by the termites to travel outside of view.

ant canada ?

 

[HofNerd]

ant canada ?

Probably?