Ant Colony

[JimmyAgnt007]

OK, so this is something for much farther down the line but It seemed like a neat idea.  I mentioned it in another thread and have been thinking on it while musing about my days playing SimAnt.  As a random event a winged ant lands near your colony.  It drops its wings, that can be harvested as a 'cloth' for clothing, and finds a place to live.  It either digs itself a hole in a mountain or if none are available makes its nest outside (more on how in a bit).  Ant Colonies would be 2D for simplicity.  It has a lot of energy to start and once it has a nest it produces two things, eggs and queen jelly.  Eggs hatch to create workers.  As long as the colony takes no casualties it doesnt create soldiers or not many of them.  Workers go out and 'harvest' berries and food.  Carry them back to the queen who produces eggs and jelly based on how much energy she has.  The more workers, the more food, the more eggs, and so on.  Jelly is a building material when combined with wood becomes a tough building material.  So if the colony is in the open, the ants eat trees, mix with jelly, and get their own buildings of sorts.  If underground they just line the walls with it.  They can all be hunted of Ant Meat, this produces soldier ants (in reaction to your hostilities) who's mandibles make excellent melee weapons.  Carapace can be crafted into armor. 

The main point of this is to produce an external threat that isnt a siege or raid.  Ant walls and roof could be immune to mortar attacks so that you cant just sit back and wait.  Any thoughts? 

[Wex]

What stops me from exterminate the first ant that comes down? It's pretty as a canvas, but the painting isn't finished. Also, what stops THEM from hunting colonists?

[Slimm]

....what stops THEM from hunting colonists?

The Buggers are coming. We need Ender!

[JimmyAgnt007]

Well I was actually thinking that the queen could be captured to produce jelly and eggs as resources but require some research.  Otherwise she could be an acid spitting beast tougher than a centipede before she starts the hive.  So she could be killed off for a small short term gain or you can wait, do the research, and capture her after she has started a hive for a long term benefit. 

[Damien Hart]

I like the idea of ant colonies (I've been musing on it myself actually), but not so much of them building structures outdoors. My idea was to have a chance of spawning an underground colony in a mountain of sufficient size, which is populated at map generation, but remains inactive until you breach it; afterward, the ants will defend the colony, and actively attempt to wipe you out for posing a threat to their queen. To work the queen in with existing mechanics, make her a workstation with a small amount of health that worker ants "feed" gathered food, in the same manner colonists work at cook stoves or stonecutter's tables, in order to produce more ants. If you destroy the structure, the queen unit appears (like mechanoids spawn from the ship part) and defends herself, and when the immediate danger passes, returns to her position and becomes a workstation again.

The underground colony could have rooms where a small assortment of random items are held, and any non-edible items that the workers come across after you breach the colony are stored. Having the walls lined with some special construction material that the player can mine for resources, and the ants would then replace is an interesting idea. That opens up the opportunity for players to set up high risk farms for high-end construction materials, but at the same time they have to actively guard their miners in case they are attacked.

Alternatively, if there are no mountains/colonies, a queen could arrive with a small-ish group of workers and soldiers(small enough that you can take it out straight away if you choose, but large enough to make that dangerous), and then create an anthill (looks kind of like a steam geyser), which behaves as a workstation like above. This version shouldn't be nearly as lucrative as the mountain version, primarily because this is a fresh colony, as opposed to an already established one.

[Damien Hart]

Instead of that wood and jelly mix, the ants could make Plasteel!  And the queen ant should be human sized, and the workers/soldiers dog sized!!! I
this is awesome. And why exact replicas from earthly ants ? They should be much bigger and weirder and special. Like maybe 2 more feet......

Lol they wouldn't pose much of a threat if they were earth size.

I was thinking more workers/soldiers are man sized, and the queen is the size of a centipede, or larger even.

[JimmyAgnt007]

Well I didnt much like the idea of a colony in the open, but I wanted something just in case the mountain was already occupied or there wasnt any.  Also only potential queens and their mates have wings, so maybe a group of them show up rather than one with workers.  The workers would be like they are in fallout (manish size), the queen centipede size.

The ant colony would be non hostile until disturbed.  or the colonists became the only food source.  I do like the queen/workstation idea.  Once beaten she is incapacitated and can be hauled into the colony to be used as a workstation there.

As for what she produces with the eggs.  Maybe it depends what she eats.  wood produces ant walls.  metal produces plasteel. silver or gold make some ultra valuable substance.

an anthill like a geyser was my first idea but i didnt want to use z-levels.  I dont think the outside hive is too bad of an idea, they bury themselves in their walls basically and do their thing.

[Avis]

I dont know how this would fit into the base game. but i would definitely like to see it. Could be a awesome mod, perhaps play as a ant colony?

[Halinder]

Oh, oh, oh. Look at the megascarab race description. Genetically engineered to work in tandem with an insectoid race meant to combat a mechanoid threat. There you have it.