Screen Shot Saturday - Fast or slow?

[MikeSlugDisco]

Scenario: You're about to add a vital species - Formica rufa, the wood ant, to your polymorphic, multi-species Formica ereptor formicarium. They're capable of shooting damaging formic acid at their enemies. But since you're capable of playing with their genetic structure, you have a choice.

Do you choose to let them fire rapid bouts of lower-damage projectiles, like in the first part of this GIF, or longer-reloading, higher-damage mortar blasts, like in the second? It's a decision that has to be made. Come now, make a choice!

<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/3ov9k9otCUbu9KdnOM" width="480" height="270" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/3ov9k9otCUbu9KdnOM">via GIPHY</a></p>

 

[FeaReaper_06]

mortor

 

[Serafine]

I still think the rapid fire machine gun ants look kinda hilarious.
Also making the slow-firing ants not retract their back every time after a shot and stay "deployed" (like the fast-firing ones do) would look a lot better.

Btw, does formic acid add any debuffs to a target? In reality it acts like poisonous gas similar to chlorine gas (it burns the breathing organs of other insects).
Could be an interesting idea to make the slow-firing ants fire even slower but turn their guns into pure damage-over-time (DoT) effects that do much more effective DPS than the fast-firing ones. That way the fast-firing ants would be much more effective against weak targets despite their overall lower DPS (because those weak opponents die long before the DoT ticks through while the survivors kill the slow-firing ants waiting for their guns to go off cooldown) and the slow-firing ants would be much more effective against larger targets (because their tremendous DoT damage can tick through to the end).
So fast-firing ants would be the go-to against other ants, food items, the small horse thingy larvae and similar stuff while the slow-firing ants would excel against horse thingy adults and large beetles.
That way you'd get an actual specialization that stretches far beyond cosmetic difference and picking the right species against the right foe could be decisive for your success in an engagement.

 

[Diavid]

I like the slow ones more. The fast-shooters look unrealistic, like a machine gun.