[Teaser] Vanilla Factions Expanded - Insectoids 2 feedback

Hey folks! I know I owe you more devblogs about Insectoids 2, but we've been very busy beta testing it and applying feedback from the testers. I think Insectoids 2 is the mod that has undergone the most tremendous changes mid-beta thanks to the feedback from the community - and it's great! It's important we nail the economy aspects of the bug hives that the player can build, and it's equally as important to provide players with a lot of unique, engaging content.

In this cheeky teaser I will post nothing more than the feedback and how we have responded to it. During the beta process, I highlight concerns that people have and come up with solutions for them. I think it's a healthy way that ensures players get exactly what they want.

When it comes to 'at what stage is the Insectoids 2 development', it's nearing completion. All major systems are in place, all content is in place, we're wrapping up work and will proceed to release soon, probably within 30 days.

Lets take a look at that promised feedback list:

FEEDBACK FROM BETA 1

• Concern: Jelly farms yield too much insect jelly and are too easy to manage and build a lot of.

  • Planned solution:

    • It now spawns 10 insect jelly every 45,000 ticks to 65,000 ticks.

    • It has maintenance and needs to be maintained by worker insectoids.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Insectoids can be farmed for chitin easily by slaughtering them

  • Planned solution:

    • Disable slaughter gizmo on insectoids that belong to player-built hives. That gizmo should of course return if they disconnect from the hive and become normal colony animals.

    • Do the same for ‘Release to the Wild’ gizmo.

    • Make sure you can’t use slaughter designation on insects that belong to the player-built hive.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Empress is underwhelming when under player control.

  • Planned solution:

    • Royal Jelly is produced every day instead of every 2 days.

  • Assigned: Sarg

• Concern: Swarmlings are too easy and rarely offer a challenge.

  • Planned solution:

    • Swarmling do not attack the target. Instead, they will all flee from threat when made. 

  • Assigned: Sarg

• Concern: Insects spawn as adults from the player-built hives.

  • Planned solution:

    • Insects should spawn as babies when they emerge initially from the hives.

    • However, when changing the insect type, it should keep their age and not make them babies again. Only initially spawned insectoids should spawn as babies.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: There is little difference between Defenders and Hunters.

  • Planned solution:

    • Patch Megaspider Maturity Age: 0.2 years -> 0.1 years, Juvenile Age: 0.03 years -> 0.015 years

    • Hellbeetle Maturity Age: 0.2 years -> 0.1 years, Juvenile Age: 0.03 years -> 0.015 years

    • Macrofly Maturity Age: 0.2 years -> 0.1 years, Juvenile Age: 0.03 years -> 0.015 years

    • Megawasp Maturity Age: 0.2 years -> 0.1 years, Juvenile Age: 0.03 years -> 0.015 years

    • Gigalocust Maturity Age: 0.2 years -> 0.1 years, Juvenile Age: 0.03 years -> 0.015 years

    • Venomite Maturity Age: 0.2 years -> 0.1 years, Juvenile Age: 0.03 years -> 0.015 years

  • Assigned: Sarg

• Concern: Creeper produces creep too slowly and too randomly.

  • Planned solution:

    • Creep emerges from the middle (from the creeper), similar to moisture pump, instead of randomly on any tile in radius.

    • New tile becomes creep every 18 hours instead of 48 hours.

    • Creeper radius increased from 6.9 to 12.9

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Insectoids from hives wonder around anywhere.

  • Planned solution:

    • Implement Hive area designator

    • Implement Clear Hive area

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Tendril moss can’t be harvested.

  • Planned solution:

    • Tendril moss can now be harvested when fully grown. It has a harvest gizmo similar to normal farm plants.

    • Worker insectoids will harvest tendril moss when it’s fully grown.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Bosses are only present during thumper boss fights.

  • Planned solution:

    • Bosses can now appear defending Insectoid faction bases.

    • Depending on what insectoid geneline has been picked for generating defending force, it will now ALWAYS generate:

      • Either Empress or;

      • Boss of the chosen geneline.

    • It will only generate 1 boss. Never more than 1.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

FEEDBACK FROM BETA 2

• Concern: The sound when summoning a bosswave and the thumper sound are too quiet.

  • Planned solution:

    • Increase the volume of the sounds.

  • Assigned: Xrushha

• Concern: The Creeper changes player-built floors too. Should probably only change natural floors.

  • Planned solution:

    • Creeper will not turn any player-built floors into creep. It will only select natural floors to be changed into creep.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Empress is slightly too weak still, and doesn’t spawn enough swarmlings to really warrant her being a boss.

  • Planned solution:

    • Empress spawns 2~3 swarmlings each time she spawns a swarmling.

  • Assigned: Sarg

• Concern: Hive walls also break in chunks when deconstructed.

  • Planned solution:

    • Hive walls should not break all adjacent tiles when deconstructed, only when destroyed.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Mod options are a bit lacking and could use more options.

  • Planned solution:

    • Add mod options for Jelly farm jelly production amount, Creeper spawn speed, Tendrilmoss spawn speed

    • Add mod option for base artificial hive insect count, ranging from 1 to 5.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Glowpod spire is overpowered.

  • Planned solution:

    • Glowpod spire now has maintenance need similar to Insect hives.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Jelly morpher will eat through all of insect jelly without a way to stop it. It also produces royal jelly too rapidly.

  • Planned solution:

    • Add a ‘toggle automatic refuel’ gizmo, similar to campfire, to the Jelly morpher, so that the player can stop refueling it.

    • Numbers changed. The jelly morpher needs to be fueled with Insect Jelly and consumes 6 insect jelly per day (previously 10). It spawns 1 royal jelly every 19,000 ticks to 30,000 ticks (previously 13,000 to 21,000), so long as there is less than 40 royal jelly in adjacent tiles, and so long as it’s fueled.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Consuming royal jelly to speed up boss gestation in colonists is not communicated well.

  • Planned solution:

    • Update Royal Jelly description with:

      • A golden, shining jelly used by the insect queens to create new spawn. It is smooth, rich, and brings joy to those who consume it. Because of its unique biological composition, it boosts immunity and nourishes anyone who has a taste of it. Addiction to royal jelly can compromise the immunity system of the addict. It is also known to increase the speed of gestating hive leaders in victims.

    • Assigned: Xrushha

• Concern: Bosses are easy to lock in a killbox because they always arrive where the thumper was.

  • Planned solution:

    • The boss wave now spawns in a random place on the map. This can be anywhere, including in and out of the home area.

    • The thumper starts a fuse when it summons a boss and then explodes after 160~600 ticks, destroying the thumper. Explosion is in a 5.9 tile radius.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Weird spelling for ‘Needs to be constructed on the creep’

  • Planned solution:

    • Change all instances of ‘Needs to be constructed on the creep’ into ‘Needs to be constructed on creep’. Removing the ‘The’, essentially.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Not a lot of reason to get megawasps and macroflies since gigalocusts are better in every way.

  • Planned solution:

    • We’re swapping abilities around. They should be as follows:

    • Macrofly - Insect Farglide

    • Megawasp - Insect Glide

    • Gigalocust - Insect Shortglide

  • Assigned: Sarg

• Concern: Little difference between Ironclad and Tankroach.

  • Planned solution:

    • Increase Tankroach moveSpeed to 2.65

    • Decrease Ironclad moveSpeed to 1.45

  • Assigned: Sarg

• Concern: Xanides insectoids never regain their armor.

  • Planned solution:

    • They regain the armor upon reaching health again.

  • Assigned: Sarg

• Concern: It’s preferable to just make new hives instead of using the pherocores in any other way.

  • Planned solution:

    • Reduced base bandwidth of all hives from 3 to 2.

    • Decrease the bandwidth gained with Exotic hivetech research from 2 to 1.

    • Pherocores now increase the bandwidth of the hive by 2.

    • Applying a pherocore to the hive that still hasn’t spawned all its bugs (some died and are slowly respawning) respawns all the bugs of that hive instantly.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Jelly farms are still too strong.

  • Planned solution:

    • Jelly farms cannot be constructed in the radius of 3.9 tiles from another jelly farm. This includes placing blueprints of jelly farms.

    • Jelly farm maintenance need is double that of the standard maintenance drain of the hives.

    • Jelly farm now produces 6 insect jelly instead of 10.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Basic hives are subpar and get deleted later because of how bad and useless they are.

  • Planned solution:

    • Basic hives have no maintenance need and require no maintenance. They should still affect maintenance need of other hives.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

• Concern: Empress pawn could be more exciting under player control.

  • Planned solution:

    • Empress now acts as a mobile Sorne hive, with a base capacity of 2, just like normal hives.

    • She gets capacity improved with research, just like normal.

    • Sorne pherocores CANNOT be used on her to increase the size of the hive.

    • If she dies, her hive becomes normal animals.

    • We should test how it works in caravans if she’s taken as an animal. Ideally, all her hive will also join that caravan and travel with her.

    • Defender insectoids should walk around her and defend her. Hunters should deliver food to her too. She’s essentially a mobile hive.

  • Assigned: Taranchuk

We have also implemented quite a number of new structures that the player can build using the insects!

I'm excited to show them to you soon, but for now, have a screenshot submitted by the tester!