[Suggestion] Prevent enemies from waiting on the nest entrance in early-game freeplay

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
The picture taken is from the christmas beta freeplay, but this is something that I've noticed in the non-beta version too. A nearby group/pack of enemies slowly nears the nest as time progresses. Often they started very close to the nest and after one or two minutes they are on the nest entrance. And they tend to wait there for a fairly long time, blocking the player's progress for minutes. Especially in early game when a player has no soldier ants it is very harmfull. (I even had an uber creature camping my nest from night one. It's just so painfull, because you are too weak to either fight or ignore them.
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Edit: This game is just brutal...20191225200021_1.jpg


Edit: F my life...20191225201903_1.jpg
 
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HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Oh yeah... I forgot..

You COULD possibly turn off attack and harvest the leaves straight away.
No, because my ants are paper. They get 1-hitted by most enemies. I only have very few of them and 1/3 workers need to survive for it to be net positive. Keep in mind any food lost means being weaker at the point where I have to forage further away from the nest. (Resulting in more difficulty getting enough food)
 

Scyobi_Empire

Colony
Extremely Helpful Person
Ecosystem Beta Tester
Try having an army (1 uber 16 normal) wait by your entrance. As Mike replied to me on steam "They aren't programmed to camp by the nest", or something along those lines.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Try having an army (1 uber 16 normal) wait by your entrance. As Mike replied to me on steam "They aren't programmed to camp by the nest", or something along those lines.
Maybe he meant they weren't programmed to specifically camp the nest. Maybe the nest is shown as a waypoint for some reason? (I have no clue as to what causes the enemies to camp the nest.)
 

Scyobi_Empire

Colony
Extremely Helpful Person
Ecosystem Beta Tester
Maybe he meant they weren't programmed to specifically camp the nest. Maybe the nest is shown as a waypoint for some reason? (I have no clue as to what causes the enemies to camp the nest.)
Last I remembered, high lag can cause AI problems. I have highs lag and occasionally get 1fp2s (1 frame per 2 seconds).
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Last I remembered, high lag can cause AI problems. I have highs lag and occasionally get 1fp2s (1 frame per 2 seconds).
If it's on the christmas beta you can disable funnelweb spider spawning to boost fps.
Disabling trapjaw ant spawning prevents some crashes in the beta too.
 

JohnSlugDisco

Administrator
Staff member
Developer of EotU
Right so the nest entrances used to have something over them called a "No Wander Zone" this effectively stops creatures loitering about on the surface but within your tunnel (and in the tunnel underground). Creatures in this area don't see each other so it is very annoying when they are just wandering about there. Unfortunately since the movement changes this no longer works!

I have spoken to Liam about some new implementation of this, it is defiantly needed, which will alleviate some of these issues however I do agree more could be done in freeplay to keep them away from your nest whilst the player sets up so I may ask for two things, a flag for no wander and a flag for no enemy creature (which could be active for say 15 mins at the start).
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Right so the nest entrances used to have something over them called a "No Wander Zone" this effectively stops creatures loitering about on the surface but within your tunnel (and in the tunnel underground). Creatures in this area don't see each other so it is very annoying when they are just wandering about there. Unfortunately since the movement changes this no longer works!

I have spoken to Liam about some new implementation of this, it is defiantly needed, which will alleviate some of these issues however I do agree more could be done in freeplay to keep them away from your nest whilst the player sets up so I may ask for two things, a flag for no wander and a flag for no enemy creature (which could be active for say 15 mins at the start).
This is badly needed:
After about 15 minutes I had fights with about 10 beetle larva, a few crickets and some more enemies invading the nest.
Thing is, for leafcutters all battles are a loss of food. (No eating the attacker after battle.) So an early encounter can be a big setback. Leafcutters are also much slower on food collection, so their colony grows slower. This too makes an early fight even more painfull.
 

Scyobi_Empire

Colony
Extremely Helpful Person
Ecosystem Beta Tester
This is badly needed:
After about 15 minutes I had fights with about 10 beetle larva, a few crickets and some more enemies invading the nest.
Thing is, for leafcutters all battles are a loss of food. (No eating the attacker after battle.) So an early encounter can be a big setback. Leafcutters are also much slower on food collection, so their colony grows slower. This too makes an early fight even more painfull.
I have also found that the 'no wonder zone' doesn't stop enemies camping outside the zone, so I have an Uber creator that I can not kill at my stage and will kill me if I load the save because the AI decides to walk in and slowly kill everyant in sight. This isn't on the Beta, it freeplay bug just letting whoever patches bugs know and I'm not trying to be rude.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
I have also found that the 'no wonder zone' doesn't stop enemies camping outside the zone
The "No Wander Zone" is not enforced/active/existant in the current versions of the game:
Right so the nest entrances used to have something over them called a "No Wander Zone"

so I have an Uber creator that I can not kill at my stage and will kill me if I load the save because the AI decides to walk in and slowly kill everyant in sight.
There are definately some things in freeplay that could use a re-balancing, the developers mentioned ubers too.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
"Swarms of creatures should no longer hang around nest entrances of active players "
This is the current version (0.2112):
I can see the no-wander zone is being obeyed, but there are some things that can be improved:
Enemies can still be close enough to the nest entrance to have vision range over it, making them attack any ants brave enough to poke out in search of food.
It also looks like the no-wander zone does not prevent (some) enemies from passing through it, allowing them to walk over the nest entrance from the first minute. (Note the groups of creatures regularly walking over the nest entrance.)
 

JohnSlugDisco

Administrator
Staff member
Developer of EotU
I am not going to prevent enemies wandering over it, that would cause all sorts of issues and exceptions needed to path around it. I think I do have the range a bit small, its a simple enough thing to increase. Just gotta make sure I don't make it so far that they can get stuck somewhere. Upping that value might make the whole thing feel better.

In fact at the moment it may be even less than the wander distance. Anyway will take a look.

There are some situations where it may be being ignored so I will take a look at those also
 

JohnSlugDisco

Administrator
Staff member
Developer of EotU
increased from 700 radius to 1700 radius. A couple of points in its tree can make it stray slightly into the sphere by max 300. We will see how it feels with the next build. Making some dramatic changes with the next one
 
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