Weather

[DragonFlyerx]

Another idea I thought of, don't know if it has been mentioned before.

How about weather? Like in the wild, floods, tornados, hurricanes, forest fires etc happen all the time. So how about adding those into the game? Obviously tornados are out... I guess? Unless you have your entire colony hide underground and leave the aphid herds to die ( omg another feature? tornados will kill your existing aphid herd ) XD

Maybe heavy rain or light rain can cause major/minor flooding of your base. Like lets say when it rains, the hole leading out to the surface gets flooded and you can have your ants put up walls here and there ( kinda like floodgates ) to stop the water from getting in. During the rain period, going out to the surface will be impossible, like disabled for that time being.

Just a suggestion

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

Weather and environmental hazards will exist in the game as scripted events. Things like the tide rising on the beach, or rain flooding areas of the map.

Currently random weather events / a full weather system isn't planned, but there's a chance something like that could happen in the future if we're able to do something like a sandbox mode.

 

[Serafine]

I don't think aphids will all get blown away by hurricanes. They usually hide long before a hurricane arrives due to the bad weather that precedes these natural disasters.

Also ants can survive for an amazingly long time under water (often for days as they go into a strange dormant state) and some of them can actually build rafts with their own bodies (Fire ants, wood ants and a few others). Some species like Harvester ants and certain soil-nesting Carpenter ants turn their entrances into chimneys so the nest doesn't get flooded by the rain.

 

[JohnSlugDisco]

I wasn't aware of the chimneys, I must find some footage of that! Fascinating you learn something new everyday!

 

[Serafine]

Camponotus chimney entrance:

Harvester ant nest entrance: