Greetings, Khabrovites! Eh, I feel that some kind people are minus me now ... However, as they say, the truth is more expensive, and risk is a noble cause. So I'll take a chance. To begin with, I'm never a gamer, it's more interesting for me to code (and it's even more interesting to understand all sorts of clever pieces of iron). Occasionally played Caesar, before Civilization. But after reading this article I wanted to see what kind of thing Factorio is. And something is stuck on it thoroughly, I can't get it off for a week. The game is really very high quality, it is very difficult for me to please. But completely finished off the YouTube channel of one kind personwhere unfortunate biters and spitters are burned with flamethrowers in industrial quantities and trees are smashed to pieces with grenades! Where is Greenpeace looking! Where are the insect rights advocates! Or have they not yet reached other planets? And since you can wait for an ecological starship from Earth for a long time, biters and spitters will have to take care of protecting themselves and their home planet.
Imagine that you are a peaceful, harmless and quite happy beetle with life. Live yourself, do not grieve, run after cute bugs, bring up bugs. And here the hard one brings a bearded space corsair to your planet! Apart from a pick, a cheap pistol and a couple of pieces of iron, he really has nothing. But he is malevolent and resourceful! At first he just bangs his pick on the rocks. Noisy, unpleasant, but nothing, you can crawl to the side. But then he begins to build some kind of incomprehensible factories and plants, cut down trees, ruin the ecology and, in general, violate all sorts of outrage! And as soon as you complain to him, they say, man, can you be more careful, he has no argument for you except a flamethrower! Although you seem to be courteous to him. But the worst of all is that the scale of his activities is only increasing and increasing.And you won't be able to crawl away peacefully. Tomorrow he will get you. And the day after tomorrow he will turn the entire planet into one continuous plant! You have no choice but to fight!
So biological civilization (I don't even know civilization or not, beetles are unreasonable) versus machine civilization. Your weapon is evolution. It is necessary to develop quickly in order to withstand more and more deadly technology. How do I imagine it? Life mutates from time to time. Mutations are useful and harmful. And there are generally unclear which ones, since at the moment they are clearly harmful, but in changed conditions they can suddenly become useful. Probably you will have to know EVERY (!!!) soldier in your bug army. It is not that difficult, even if there are millions of soldiers. Serious deviations are rare, and the game engine can simply track such individuals and display them on your panel. The monitored mutation rate can be set. For example, strength + 10%. All individuals with a strength above the average by 10% or more will be displayed on the panel. You will have to choosewhat qualities of your soldiers do you want to develop. Moreover, these qualities are likely to be contradictory. For example, a stronger beetle is more likely to be slower. And perhaps the beetle is completely sloppy, weak and slow, but it is capable of multiplying at lightning speed in a completely monstrous mass, in which any technique will get bogged down. You have to create all these varieties from a single initial species - the common bite, or the cusakus vulgaris (however, according to the plan, not even a bite, but rather a patience, because he endured clean water, and does not know how to bite properly). You will have to select beetles with interesting traits and settle them separately in resource-rich areas. Those. the same breeding method that has been used since time immemorial to create domestic animal breeds. Of course, Mendel's laws will be respected. So if you create an interesting bug,wait to rejoice. It may well turn out that the line is unstable. When a new breed is created, it is brought into battle. Those. several beetles are taken and settled closer to the base of the space aggressor, where they create a hive. And then the hives are settled as in the usual Factorio. You will have to bring different breeds into battle. For each breed is similar to the kind of troops. And a battle with one branch of troops is not won. For example, there is a completely harmless beetle that does not even know how to bite, but with an exceptionally high fire resistance. They roll into the base in mass, exhaust the oil supply from the turrets, and then attack the monster beetles. I think the attack tactics are the same as in Factorio - it is stupid to go ahead. Beetles are not intelligent. The result is achieved by a variety of "specializations" of the attackers. You do not control the battle. Just add the right bugs at the right place and at the right time.Since the different breeds of beetles you have introduced into battle live close to each other, they will interbreed from time to time. On the one hand, this is good, because individuals with interesting traits can be created, which you will select for further selection. On the other hand, it is bad, because it can destroy the drawn lines. It may be allowed to build walls between the hives to avoid unwanted interbreeding. Or maybe not, because the breeder should know what to expect from crossing and not settle nearby breeds, crossing of which is undesirable. Should we add molecular genetics to this case? I don't even know ... I'm afraid it will be an atomic bomb and the game will cease to be interesting. So I think so far in the old fashioned way, by selection. If anyone has interesting ideas on molecular genetics,not too distorting the game balance - I will be grateful.
Well, that's probably all. The only thing I will add is that, firstly, I would like to make the game as scriptable and modable as the usual Factorio, and secondly, as a complete realization of dreams, somehow screw it into the usual Factorio. It would be very funny to watch the battles of beetles and robots, where both sides are controlled by people. I want to start this as a hobby project, maybe for years. And finally, let's create a survey here on the topic, how do you like the idea of such a game?