Mid-week Progress Post: Wood ant icons

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Well if we're going to let you control a fledgling wood ant colony, we'd better give you some wood ant icons!

Here the player has access to 3 different types of wood ant (Formica rufa) - a worker, an acid sprayer and a melee soldier. The game mode we'll be introducing with early access - Formicarium - sees you completing missions as other kinds of ants in order to add new units to your resident Formica ereptor (gene thief) colony.


zNFIb8b.png
 

Serafine

Queen
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Ecosystem Beta Tester
Cool!

(but why is the melee soldier in the second line when there's still a free space up there?)
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Serafine said:
(but why is the melee soldier in the second line when there's still a free space up there?)

Haha, as soon as John sent me the screenshot to post I knew someone was going to be a little bit annoyed by that - because I am as well! I'm reliably informed the position of the icons is up for debate :p
 

Redmoth27

Queen
Backer
Maybe you could learn lore about the colonies by their being queen, worker, nurse, soldier, and scout diaries when you kill certain of all of the above. You could know what was going on giving colonies character and story that involves hope, ideas, suspicion, attack plans, mercenary details, mating flight schedule, and of course Easter eggs.

You don't have to put all of this in, I'm just brainstorming. I don't know if this is true or not but maybe the queen could attack because she did kill the previous queen, she could do SWEEPING damage! Which it will kill It will kill everything around her that's in her brood making area. You could make a strategy for the player to overcome her Sweeping wrath.

PS: since there, wood ants shouldn't their nest be in a tree because their wood ants and their entrance are to the tree or a hole in the ground that goes up into the tree. The queen could be on the top floor. I know its early access but its an idea for the future when stuff is refined.
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Redmoth27 said:
Maybe you could learn lore about the colonies by their being queen, worker, nurse, soldier, and scout diaries when you kill certain of all of the above. You could know what was going on giving colonies character and story that involves hope, ideas, suspicion, attack plans, mercenary details, mating flight schedule, and of course Easter eggs.

The guys are deep into implementation of an in-game 'wiki' of sorts that will tell you all about the mechanics and real-world information about the various ant species. We're shying away from the ants actually being intelligent (suspicions, hopes, ideas etc are beyond their abilities, they're ants).
 

Serafine

Queen
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Ecosystem Beta Tester
Redmoth27 said:
PS: since there, wood ants shouldn't their nest be in a tree because their wood ants and their entrance are to the tree or a hole in the ground that goes up into the tree. The queen could be on the top floor. I know its early access but its an idea for the future when stuff is refined.
Wood ants aren't termites. While the basis of their nest often is in a dead tree stump the majority of the nest is actually in the soil (and the hill they build on top of it).
Also wood ants do not eat wood, they just excavate it. They're called wood ants because they usually live in the woods and are rarely seen on meadows and lawns.
 

MBargo

Woo hoo!
Backer
Beta Tester
I've just received an e-mail with the latest Kickstarter update. Guys.. I might be overreacting but.. isn't the gif too suggestive? :D Especially that ant to the left :p Dirty.. nest

Maybe do a green, rather toxic particle effect? :DOtherwise I would be not able to play it because of constant laughing!

69858d2b116cec771f82e37ca7e036d9.jpg


I suppose that a long-term cooperatin with men does that to woman's brain - being aware of everything that might be suggestive for men to be not catched and laughed at :p Sorry ^^
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
MBargo said:
I've just received an e-mail with the latest Kickstarter update. Guys.. I might be overreacting but.. isn't the gif too suggestive? :D Especially that ant to the left :p Dirty.. nest

They're spraying formic acid, which is a clear liquid, as a form of attack. Any other connotation you want to add to that, well, that's entirely on you :p
 

Redmoth27

Queen
Backer
Well, we're going to get crass commentary from youtube lets players because of the formic acid ants.
 

Redmoth27

Queen
Backer
Mike said:
The guys are deep into the implementation of an in-game 'wiki' of sorts that will tell you all about the mechanics and real-world information about the various ant species. We're shying away from the ants actually being intelligent (suspicions, hopes, ideas etc are beyond their abilities, they're ants).

I was thinking not giving them super complex personalities but more like a way of knowing what was going on at the time, also you could store that colony info the wiki itself kind of like the subnauctia PDA keeper. The ants could store the info in data holders that basically just spider silk in a cylinder with two things pointing out of them that for the antenna to connect with to store scents that are information! These info storages will be around the nest for you to find. Sorry, I'm getting off track. The colony has these to store knowledge for future purposes. They can have some emotions like real ants I know just look it up, but not as many as humans. They feel give you a sense of what it's like before you invade and to give flavor and story to the game with the ant genus information.
 

Serafine

Queen
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Ecosystem Beta Tester
That's not true. A recent study with bumblebees proved that insects do actually have feelings - they most certainly do not have complex emotions like we do (and all the issues that come with those) but they are very well capable of feeling a basic sort of fear, excitement and joy.

(The study revealed that bumblebees can go into an emotional high state where they have a positive expectancy towards specific artificial flowers that may or may not offer food, like a "the glass is half full" approach)
 

Redmoth27

Queen
Backer
Also, Serafine, they feel sad if they lose a queen, they will be around acting like she's alive but knowing she's dead.
 

Planemaster

Worker
I can imagine ants having basic emotions such as displeasure, fear and excitement although I do feel these are more to try to aid in natural selection as opposed to "needless" emotions that humans have.
 

Diavid

Worker
Backer
Beta Tester
Maybe you could draw a drop of acid in a corner of the icon, so we can see on the first sight that they're acid sprayer ants.
 

Serafine

Queen
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Beta Tester
Ecosystem Beta Tester
Or just put in a white splash at the upper right half of the picture - or make the ant on the symbol posing in the typical spray position with the back bend forward under it's legs.
 

gurra9811

name is Gustav! at youre serves!
Backer
Beta Tester
Serafine said:
You want to simulate a wood ant hill with over a million ants?

not million but like you start underground and then as you coloni is growing into a bigger size you starting to build a hill
 

gurra9811

name is Gustav! at youre serves!
Backer
Beta Tester
like in the start your underground and when you are able to get out from your nest your also able to build up a anthill where you can make more rooms and that means more stroage for your nest and the "warrior" ants can cercle around the hill and be able to defend it from other ants but you only can build it in a limited way like you can only have 3-4 extra layers of place to build on but the highter the hill is the smaller space you have to build on and on the buttom you have the most space to build in and then the is a extra layer that is first small but the more you build on the hill the bigger that level will be while the top is the smallest
 
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