Screen Shot Saturday - Raid of the Slave-Makers

[MikeSlugDisco]

These are Formica sanguinea, the blood-red ant. They're slave-makers, and have found themselves the perfect target: a black ant nest. They'll capture larvae and pupae, often with little resistance from the panicking host. A select few of the stolen young will be raised to serve their new masters... the rest are simply devoured.

 

[Serafine]

Neat.

The question though is, with the current spawn mechanics does this cost the victim anything? Usually food is spent when ants start to pupate, not when the eggs are layed or placed. That could lead to an absurd perpetuum mobile where the Formica sanguinea basically create food out of nothing.

 

[MikeSlugDisco]

The current mechanic we have in place is that the tile they take the egg from will be unusable for a certain amount of time. So, you want to take them down real, real quick otherwise your entire brood chambers will effectively be shut down until a cool-down timer finishes.

The slave-makers also have a unique ability to push through crowds really quick. They're going to be a tough foe.

For now they're just an enemy in one of the early access levels, so we don't need to worry too much about balancing them for the player.

 

[Serafine]

Sounds interesting, looking forward to see that in action =)



Actually larger Serviformica colonies will btw fight quite ferociously to defend their brood. Smaller colonies probably not so much.

Also did you know that the slave workers sometimes mount a resistance and kill the larvae of their masters? Of course they get dispatched quickly but they can seriously stall the Raptiformica colony growth which makes it more likely that raids against their original home colonies are less intense or even fail entirely.
Slave-Slavekeeper relations are pretty complex and interesting.

 

[Redmoth27]

Maybe for unhostile colonies that could be a quest to get rid of the slave ant colony to earn their friendship.