So adding to the discussion here. We came up with an outline for the mechanic after long discussions about it. Lets check the notes from that meeting:
OK so there were a few decisions made:
- There will be a new toggle added (next to the prevent gather and prevent combat toggles for groups) which will allow or prevent ants in that group to climb other creatures
- A ratio of combat in combat ants can climb the creature (up to some maximum) so for example if the ratio was 50% (yet to be decided) then if 10 ants were attacking a climbable creature 5 would be allowed to climb it. As ants on the ground are killed and the ratio of combat ants changes some ants fall off so the creature always has something to attack
- % of climbable slots full on the creature provides a damage increase debuff, however there is a time investment when climbing so you will have to decide if it is worth it (i think in general the longer the creature will take to kill the more worth it climbing is going to be)
- Climbing points will also act as a harvesting system as well, so ants will climb creatures to harvest them.
We also plan to retrofit this onto several bigger old creatures (I think anything the size of or bigger than a tiger beetle is planned to get it, though there will only be a small amount of ants able to climb those.
Regarding the discussion around ability use whilst climbing. I don't think it makes sense for any ability to be used whilst climbing. I have added an ability type that is specifically to be used when climbing and one of the fire ant upgrades is this (increased damage when riding a creature) otherwise I think it will just do a basic attack. As you can control which groups can climb my feeling with wood ants is you wont want them to climb so you would put them in a group with climbing switched off. That said a bigger enemy may benefit from the debuff so maybe a few climbing will boost the damage enough to make it worth it. Lots of balance to be done in this area and discussions like this are really useful for thinking about situations we have yet to consider!