Cold biome + caves = terrible idea

[Daguest]

I went to play on a -9°c average boreal forest, with caves. For the novelty and all that.
As it happened, at some point the hives died (cold ?), which somehow pushed the entire map worth of insects to attack my 3 people settlements, barely 1 day into fall of the first year. Needless to say, they spent days of heavy fighting, not without much damage done in return (they also attack your structure like raiders).
While injuries pilled in, a manhunter pack attacked, sealing the fate of this colony.
On top of that, all the mushrooms died without even being ready for harvest at any point, due to cold.

So yes, caves are extremely dangerous for cold biome, without even offering anything in return. I don't know if it's specific to them, or any biomes and the hives just died off eventually. But quite frankly I'll never play them again in this state.

[Shurp]

I haven't played a caves map, but this is exactly what led me to fear and avoid them.  I started one, saw the bugs sitting there, and thought "how long before they either got bored and decide to attack me or reproduce to outstanding size and eat my base just because it's in the way?" 

On Boreal Forest you have an advantage though: lots and lots of wood.  As soon as you capture any sort of incendiary device you have the ability to seal up the cave and light it up.

[Tynan]

Insect behavior in the cold has bugs, we're fixing it.

[Kraehe]

Some addition to that. Is it also a bug that when raiders or visitors move through this caves and start fighting the bugs that they also start attacking my colonists on the other side of the map?

[Third_Of_Five]

Insect behavior in the cold has bugs, we're fixing it.

I see what you did there...

[Shurp]

So how are the bugs on cave maps supposed to work?  Is it reasonable to expect that on a normal map, they'll leave you alone for the year or so it takes you to build up enough fire power to take care of them?  And that they won't have reproduced explosively in that timeperiod making them unmanageable?

[jamaicancastle]

So how are the bugs on cave maps supposed to work?  Is it reasonable to expect that on a normal map, they'll leave you alone for the year or so it takes you to build up enough fire power to take care of them?  And that they won't have reproduced explosively in that timeperiod making them unmanageable?

From my experience, in a normal map they just kind of hang out. Their hive has some kind of limiter on it (based on population I think?) so they don't generally reproduce. They also shouldn't haul off and attack you just because of a raider/trader, although I only had raiders try to cut through the insect cave a few times and they were pretty quickly overwhelmed, I suppose it's possible that they might swarm you if the hive itself gets damaged.

[mangalores]

So how are the bugs on cave maps supposed to work?  Is it reasonable to expect that on a normal map, they'll leave you alone for the year or so it takes you to build up enough fire power to take care of them?  And that they won't have reproduced explosively in that timeperiod making them unmanageable?

From my experience, in a normal map they just kind of hang out. Their hive has some kind of limiter on it (based on population I think?) so they don't generally reproduce. They also shouldn't haul off and attack you just because of a raider/trader, although I only had raiders try to cut through the insect cave a few times and they were pretty quickly overwhelmed, I suppose it's possible that they might swarm you if the hive itself gets damaged.

The pathfinding should make AI groups avoid those caves. Had vistors path by my colony waltz right through the hive because it was the shortest route. It was small so I could drag two survivors out of that mess but it was kind of derpy nevertheless.

[Snafu_RW]

The pathfinding should make AI groups avoid those caves. Had vistors path by my colony waltz right through the hive because it was the shortest route. It was small so I could drag two survivors out of that mess but it was kind of derpy nevertheless.

How would they know the bugs/mechs were there?

[Daimonin]

The pathfinding should make AI groups avoid those caves. Had vistors path by my colony waltz right through the hive because it was the shortest route. It was small so I could drag two survivors out of that mess but it was kind of derpy nevertheless.

How would they know the bugs/mechs were there?

Same way the player knows everything about the map.

[GridLink]

I find that you can just close off one side of the cave to prevent it from appearing to be the shortest route, if it seems like it would be a danger. Usually I'm fine with them pathing through they usually do some damage, so I have less to kill. I have had them attack my base during the winter frost, but so far never had too much issue with it.

Never had it followed up by manhunters though (usually I just hide inside my base during the first 1-2 of those anyway until I've got turrets and enough people I think I can win in a fair fight).

[Canute]

The pathfinding should make AI groups avoid those caves. Had vistors path by my colony waltz right through the hive because it was the shortest route. It was small so I could drag two survivors out of that mess but it was kind of derpy nevertheless.

How would they know the bugs/mechs were there?

Same like raids know where you placed your traps.