Boomalope/boomrat hunter predator

[Granitecosmos]

To be entirely honest, just the concept of a wild animal species that literally explodes when killed is.... Asinine. Nonsensical.

Considering their description specifically states they were genetically engineered to be walking biological chemfuel generators, whether such creature would form through evolution or not has little to do with the issue at hand.

Such a species -could not- exist in the wild, as they would eat and breed themselves to extinction, since their population wouldn't be controlled by predation.

This is what I'm saying. Since these animals roam wild there has to be something keeping their numbers in check artificially or some form of predator specifically engineered to hunt them for the same reason.

Are there not insects that use chemical defenses? And are some of these chemicals used by certain organisms not "active" until combined with a secondary chemical produced by a separate gland in the organism?

I recall reading about an insect that does exactly this but I don't remember its name. It might've been a species of ants but I'm not even sure about that. But it certainly exists.

[O Negative]

There are a lot of animals/critters out there that produce pheromones when harmed/killed. The idea of a genetically engineered critter exploding when killed isn't out of the realm of reasonable imagination; at least, not in my opinion.

As far as population control goes, you don't need natural predators... Every species has a carrying capacity. Populations tend to fluctuate up and down around the carrying capacity as competitive resources become more/less available. For example: A lack of food leads to more deaths, while a surplus of food leads to more successful births.

Animals like boomalope tend to stick close together, I've noticed. The natural or unnatural death of one pack member could cause a chain reaction, and contribute to population control lol.

Back on topic, I still think an alpha predator of some sort, which feeds on boom-animals, would be an interesting addition. Maybe even stick with the boom theme for the name. Boomlion, Boomwolf, Boombear, etc.

[Harry_Dicks]

I recall reading about an insect that does exactly this but I don't remember its name. It might've been a species of ants but I'm not even sure about that. But it certainly exists.

Yes that's exactly what I was thinking of. It was an ant that could spray a type of corrosive acid I believe. It would shoot from it's abdomen, and it could go straight up into the air almost a foot! If memory serves right (I don't want to look it up!), the ants body would combine two separate chemicals as they are being sprayed from it's body, creating the corrosive reaction.

Check this crazy shit out!

[Snafu_RW]

Bees rip their stomachs out when attacking mammals*, thus committing (individual) suicide.. but they're 'hive mind' like ants &c, so don't really count IMO

Certain animals contain deadly poison to discorage predators from preying on their species, if not the individual (eg puffer fish); others have a lesser effect but similar in nature (eg skunk, civet cat)

IMO the only reason boom-animals exist  is to provide !!FUN!! for the player. As said above, they have no natural predators, -rats don't herd so they're unlikely to be seriously affected by storms of any kind, & so there's little other reason for -lopes to exist in a wild state (-rats wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so prolific IMO)

I support the idea of a 'natural' predator for boomers despite the potential backstory inconsistency; I do like the idea of some sort of chemical venom as an antioxidant

*something to do with their stingers' barbs & mammal skin interaction IIRC; wasps don't have this problem

[Harry_Dicks]

I just thought of this: Why not use this as a way to add on a ticking damage "poison" type? The predator could inject it's venom into the boomalope, and then retreat to a safe distance to let the poison work it's magic, slowly withering away at the boomalope. Maybe the devs could change it so that boomalopes will not explode if they do not die a violent death. Although, the whole idea of a predator injecting venom, and then backing away for a bit, only to wait for their prey to go down and then move in to feed, sounds like a shit ton of crazy programming

[O Negative]

That'd be neat. But like you said, harder to program. Heck, I remember writing some C# for snake bites to do poison over time, instead of instant, and that was annoying enough for me lol. AI is CPU intensive to program, too.

[lancar]

That'd be neat. But like you said, harder to program. Heck, I remember writing some C# for snake bites to do poison over time, instead of instant, and that was annoying enough for me lol. AI is CPU intensive to program, too.

The purpose of backing off after injecting venom is to limit (or completely eliminate) the damage the predator takes, as injury is a big risk for a wild animal.
If that's all we need then the same result can be achieved by making the poison a bit paralytic as well. There's already a stun effect in the game, so just use that.

Might not be as interesting as a mechanic as backing off waiting for the prey to die on its own, but works.

[O Negative]

Oh, I understood the purpose of the behavior, haha. I just know AI is tricky to program, that's all. Hmmm...

Maybe a check could be added to the DeathActionWorker (if that's still what it's called) for a hediff in the prey's health panel. The predator could inject a "boom inhibitor", which would cause the explosion on death to be nullified or just significantly weakened...

I might try it out myself when I get home from vacation, but I've neglected my C# learning for a good while...

Also, I think the new predator would need a new think tree... I would think that predators have been either hard or soft coded to avoid boomrats and boomalopes when selecting prey.

[Harry_Dicks]

Oh, I understood the purpose of the behavior, haha. I just know AI is tricky to program, that's all. Hmmm...

Maybe a check could be added to the DeathActionWorker (if that's still what it's called) for a hediff in the prey's health panel. The predator could inject a "boom inhibitor", which would cause the explosion on death to be nullified or just significantly weakened...

I might try it out myself when I get home from vacation, but I've neglected my C# learning for a good while...

Also, I think the new predator would need a new think tree... I would think that predators have been either hard or soft coded to avoid boomrats and boomalopes when selecting prey.

Okay this right here is the first thing I think I have ever said that it needs to be vanilla in my opinion. I dislike how you have to deal with boomers in vanilla, and maybe a special "tranquilizer" kind of gun, or a special predator's explosion inhibitor existed.

[patoka]

to start off, boomalopes have been genetically engineered. no need to let darwin "produce" or "invent" them. (besides, it's not the first time that an animal went extinct. also, look at lemmings, they go on mass wanderings every three years or so because of ridiculous growth and the then following mass starvation, only to get shrekt on their wanderings and finally getting to a place with enough food and having reduced their own numbers enough for the species to survive)
same people that engineered them boomrats and boomalopes also knew of a way to harvest their naturally produce chemfuel, just like we do (our pawns) or else they wouldnt have engineered them (duh!) which leads me to believe that there is no need for them to also engineer a boomratalope harvester. instead, they could go bring back the megasloth from the dead. (why not a trex? does it lack the nice fur?) boomratalopes are unnatural, so unless some probably glitterworld weirdo invents this boomratalope hunter, there will only be one faction that might have something to say about rampant boomratalope growth.

now my constructive/inventive content: how to get a predator for boomratalopes?
the only possible way: the mechanoids. they are out to get us anyway, probably because we are one of the few creatures that could get dangerous for them. why wouldnt they hunt for boomratalopes? if they accidentally set the planet ablaze, all of their stuff on it is also endangered afterall. a manhunter pack of boomratalopes is a force to be reckoned with aswell.

so anyway, i'd introduce a new enemy from the mechanoid faction to the game: the harvester. big, slow (but faster than boomalopes)...umm...ok we also need something against boomrats...wait...imma turn my "command and conquer" brain on...
ok new idea: the harvester. could walk onto the map or be dropped from outter space. it opens up not unlike how buildings are built in the early command and conquer games when you slow the game down and look closely. (to be honest it could also be the case in the newer ones but i havent played them much because they suck. ea sucks. eff em.) so anyway. protoharvester lands, let's call it that, it lands quite like a ship chunk. it then activates, unfolds in a way and opens up in inner part. t releases its pheromones that only boomratalopes react to. they start to walk towards it, expecting some hot boomratalope action. what they get instead is harvested. well they could also get the rated stuff, but it happens inside the deployed harvester. anyway, they just dont exit anymore.
so this is how boomratalopes didnt take over the planet, they get easily harvested by the mechanoids. maybe the centipedes and scythers would come to get the harvesters and bring them to their hive once the area has been depleted of boomratalopes, dunno. i guess that is up to tynan how he would like it the most.
the important part is what the player can do. obviously, destroy it. when? immediately or when all the boomratalopes are harvested. (or anywhere inbetween, but we can count that as the latter)
so what if you shoot it? nothing much will happen, probably. it isnt a military drone. once destroyed it will either collapse or explode, with or without fire. the fire could also change in size, just as well as the explosion can. let's say you melee'd it till 0hp. it just collapses. you could also disassemble it, i guess, but it isnt possible to deconstruct psychic/poison ship parts either, so i guess it wouldnt fit. but still, if you shot it, it will explode (if you both melee'd and shot it, i guess there is a calculable chance of explosion), if you let it harvest some boomratalopes, the explosion will be firey. the more, the bigger. if it didnt explode, it will drop a higher amount of chemfuel than you'd usually get if you tried to get the chemfuel from those animals yourself. (this efficiency is why the mechanoids have to kill them in this complicated way)
[...]
ok guys, i might have another change to make this event a bit more interesting: the harvester will be a third type of ship part to make it more in line with the current game. so instead if psychic or poison, you'll get a harvesting ship part. it will crash the same way other ones do aswell. it immediately starts its job of attracting boomratalopes once it landed and wont stop. i guess this effect doesnt worsen over time, as the other ones, but once all the boomratalopes are gone from the map, which can happen fairly quickly, the normal ass mechanoids pop out and start transporting the shippart filled with chemfuel back to their main base or some crap. but that wont ever happen because they also wanna keep it safe and since your presence is always given, they will always immediately quit the job and look for you. they will also pop out looking for you if you start shooting the ship part ahead of time. you can choose to keep it around to rid your map of boomratalopes for good, but you'd probably also want to harvest the chemfuel and steel, so i guess it wouldnt stay around for too long.

now. what do you think? did i in the end come up with something half decent? were my ideas before this one better? were all of them rubbish? please tell me what you guys think would fit best for gameplay and lore reasons.
honestly, i think mine fits almost perfectly, the gameplay is still lacking though.

[Dupla]

Sir, You are a genius! That harvester is a great idea! It would crash like a ship part, attracting the boomers and they should enter the harvester like your own pets into a landing pod (obviously without explosion), collecting all of them from the map. The harvester should also act like the ship part, so if you attack it during its harvest, mechaniods would pop out and defend it.

[Call me Arty]

 Has the thought not occurred to anybody that it would be way simpler to just shoot or stab one of these guys rather than burning or shooting them? That seems pretty smart. Boom, problem solved. They're made out of meat, not metal, so you wouldn't get any sparks from, say, biting into their jugular. Meanwhile, shooting the Videogame Red Barrels with legs seems pretty dumb.

[O Negative]

Has the thought not occurred to anybody that it would be way simpler to just shoot or stab one of these guys rather than burning or shooting them? That seems pretty smart. Boom, problem solved. They're made out of meat, not metal, so you wouldn't get any sparks from, say, biting into their jugular. Meanwhile, shooting the Videogame Red Barrels with legs seems pretty dumb.

You wouldn't get any sparks from shooting it either, haha. It's like you said, the creatures are made of meat not metal. A bullet passing through flesh doesn't produce a spark. I don't think anyone said anything about needing a spark, though. Death tends to lead to the release of chemicals (hormones, for example). The idea I've seen proposed in this thread is that the chemicals come together to produce an explosion. This reaction has been intentionally designed by genetic engineers.