Some suggest about Level upgrade concept and feeding system

[bioarmyant]

Hi,here are some suggection about upgrade and feeding,
maybe develope team already thought,so..... just take a look .


Colony level upgrade design:
Just like other SLG game,I think set three or more upgrade level is suitable.
begin level:
As real ants colony,queen and few first generation worker try hard to surive,they can only hatch small and basic fuction worker,so most of time they hide and dig underground,
Their behavior usually passive and cautious,they usually have no interest to other health insect,their fisrt goal is search food "safely",focus on feeding new born in this stage.

expand level:
When colony become larger and stronger,medium size or bigger size worker or soldier comes,ants behavior become more initiative and brave,meanwhile they now able to collect material to expand their nest,build some structure.

Kindom level:
All species feature come out,all kind of worker/soldier,even sexual unit(maybe use for build second base) is available

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Feeding system:

Currently,player only need to put nursery tile,if you have enough food,they will born "automatic".Well,to make it simple I think it's OK,
but if possible,why not make thing more interesting and more challenge?
1.Growing progress:Keep nursery tile,but larva need worker to continous "build" them
worker take food resource from storeage,then go next to larva,and take time for feeding them to next growing progress
ex:every time worker take 10 food from storeage and go to nursery to feed larva,after travel time,she still need 5 seconds consume resource to fed them,
then if larva need 20 food to complete this progress,you will see larva's growing progress only reach 50% on larva's top,
so this worker automatic go back and bring food again.To make even more difficult,if interrup feeding,larva stop growing for sure,but also loss HP slowly,so if you keep ignore,they will die!

Obviously that will cause:
1.Slow down game speed on beginning:your larva is hungry,you need to find food next to you and fed them as soon as possible,if worker waste too much time explore outside or even killed by hunter,it will be disaster

2.you need to concern location between storeage and nursery tile to avoide worker take long time for feeding,and want to keep them in safe place to prevent enemy disturb,in the other hand,
and your worker will be always busy,you won't let them just stand there do nothing.
so we can expected player put them intensive and deep inside the nest,if it's necessary,even send some soldier to protect them.

3.Strengthen importance of basic worker:Since black ant can bring food back too,currently the only use of basic worker is dig and place tile(both actions don't need much time),I only keep very few worker,but crazzzy amount of black ants
If worker need to feed larva,you will maintenance percentage between worker/soldier,that will more close reality.
4.For further difference between different workers or species:for example some species worker can bring more food from storeage everytime,so they can growing larva efficient,while some sepcies larva need less food in growing progress,
so they can increase amount quickly.

Hope have some suggestion is useful

 

[Serafine]

Usually ants do not have stockpiles, they are their own stockpiles. Most ant species can store tons of food in their abdomens (usually not as crazy as honeypot ants though), which has the benefits that this food doesn't spoil (mites, bacteria and fungus are huge issues for an ant colony), is always where the worker is (no need to travel between the larvae and the stockpile) and can be transported around easily (as it is effectively part of the ant).

Most ant species drag insect (or smaller parts of them) into the nest so the larvae can break them up (adult ants don't have chewing mouth parts, they can only cut hard parts and drink liquids but the larvae can shred most harder parts except usually the exoskeleton) but these parts get quickly dispatched onto the garbage pile if the larvae can't eat them before they mold.
The only ants that store larger amounts of food are harvester ants because seeds, if kept dry, do not spoil - although even they chew these seeds into "ant bread" (they only produce the required amount because antbread can spoil quickly) which can be stored by them inside their abdomens.

Also ant larvae do not need a constant food supply, they can simply go into a hibernation state where they don't grow but barely consume any energy. Camponotus ants usually overwinter with small larvae and their hibernation period can take up to 6 months.

I agree that larvae which need to be fed multiple times before they hatch would be nice, but then we'd need storage capacity for workers at which point int might become more complicated that desired. Also I'm not sure if this fits the rather fast-paced nature of the game - Camponotus workers (even the smaller minors) require TWO MONTHS to get from ant to worker, in EotU they hatch in about 30 seconds.


About 3) - I already noticed that and my opinion is that it's nonsense. There are VERY few ant species with worker casts that are so distinctive and so ridiculously overspecialized that they cannot take care of the brood - Leafcutter (Atta) Soldiers are one example and probably Bigheaded Ant (Pheidole) Majors don't care for their brood either but most ant species have very generalized workers that can do literally everything. Even the huge 2cm Camponotus majors can feed larvae if required.
There might be a special reason for the game's ant species why only their workers can feed the brood (like they have to inject DNA into the larvae like Starship Troopers nurser bugs do) but for all other ant species it makes no sense at all.

About 4) I'm pretty sure there's going to be more specialization. The devs already said they gonna take into account the phenomenal eye sight of bull ants which will make them formidable scouts. Also food requirements and breeding times for larger species will differ vastly from the current units.
The first stock of species though obviously are the (temperate region) widespread generalist ant species (Serviformica fusca, Formica rufa) that make up the game's "basic troops" and as such are very generalized in their abilities and very average in their stats.


P.S. I also disagree on the "small colonies avoid living prey" thing. This may be true for certain species (mostly due to the fact that most ant species are actually more decomposers and less predators) but there are species that behave incredibly aggressive even with very small colony sizes. The queens of certain ant species (trapjaws, bull ants, ponerine ants, Myrmica) even hunt actively until their first workers have hatched.