[DEVBLOG#59] New types of insectoids
Added 2020-05-02 14:55:22 +0000 UTCHello everyone, in today's development blog we will showcase new types of insectoids you will encounter as part of our Vanilla Factions Expanded - Insectoids mod.
I would like to start off by debunking a rumour circulating reddit and steam workshop alike. Vanilla Factions Expanded - Insectoids won't add a playable insectoid race. According to the RimWorld lore, which is our main source of inspiration, insectoids are hive-minded creatures. They don't have free will.
Whilst other Vanilla Factions Expanded allow you to play as specific factions (Medieval kingdom and Settlers bandits), Vanilla Factions Expanded - Insectoid will allow you to play as a new player faction type called Unit. The starting scenario is as follows:
Overrun
- Summary: A squad of imperial janissaries, overrun by the wrath of the hive.
- Description: The five of you heard the motion sensors tripped all around your base perimeter. With only enough time to suit up, you await the inevitable - the hive knows about your location. You can try and hold off the incoming swarm, or escape to safety, abandoning your outpost.
- Start with five people, chosen from eight
- They will be 'New Unit”'
- Arrive Standing
- Spacer faction, with a large amount of technologies already unlocked.
- Start in a small outpost map (same map generation as when you go fight the enemy outpost).
- Start with five weapons
3 charge rifles
1 charge lance
1 plasteel longsword
- Pawns start equipped with power armor and random augmentations.
- Start with basic supplies
- 200 silver
- 20 packaged survival meals
- 15 components
- 10 medicine
- 2 glitterworld medicine
- Start near basic building materials
- 200 steel
- 200 wood
- 12 insectoid hives and 6 large insectoid hives scattered around the map.
- An insectoid raid arrives after 12 ingame hours.
As you can see, we are not allowing you to play as the hive itself. Such an overhaul is way out of the scope of the mod, and adding new pawn race that you can play as would force us to use Humanoid Alien Framework - which is something we are hesitant about.
Now, the reason you came here. What are the new types of insectoids you can meet on the battlefield?
Queen - “A giant, genetically-engineered insectoid responsible for creating new spawn. A mother to the insects in her hive, a queen doesn’t do heavy work, and tries to avoid combat if possible. As massive as an adult thrumbo, the queen instills fear in most opponents. Her thick chitinous armor makes her hard to kill, whilst long, deadly blades can tear through plasteel shielding within seconds. Despite being quite slow in open terrain, an insectoid queen is capable of creating new larvae at a rapid pace, and should never be allowed to settle down.”
Larva - “A juvenile form of an insectoid, larvae are harmless, slow and easy to kill. After some time has passed, it undergoes a metamorphosis into an adult insectoid. There is no way to tell what kind of insect will crawl out of its cocoon.”
Megapede - “A giant, heavy insectoid that glides on dozens of tiny legs. Its thick chitin armor and sharp mandibles the size of an elephant’s tusk make it an excellent siege machine. Due to being extremely slow, they are somewhat vulnerable to hit-and-run tactics.”
Gigalocust - “A gigalocust is a genetically-engineered hunter drone the size of an elephant. It can fly over long distances, dropping down on unsuspecting targets, ripping them to shreds with it’s several sets of ripper-blades and sharp mandibles. Serving as special servants of the insectoid queen, these monstrosities are deadly, fast and nigh indestructible.”
Royal Megaspider - “Not actually a spider, the royal megaspider is a rhino-sized natural spawn of the insectoid queen herself, serving not only as her bodyguard but also a primary mate. Designed not for work, but for combat only, its thick chitinous armor makes it hard to kill, while its long deadly ripper-blades allow it to slay intruders in the name of his queen.”
That's it for today's devblog. Await further information in the upcoming logs!
Comments
No I understand that, i'm just a bug nerd. I was just saying that it was a slight shame, consider it little more than a pipe dream of mine. Also I am aware of the lore, I just find with genetic engineering lots of things can be possible. I understand that's not the vanilla experience though and it's far out of scope, I was just thinking outloud, if you understand. As far making friends, I definitely don't expect to be shaking hands, I mean it more in the sense that they are just wild animals - like an ant colony. Just how insectoids don't tend to leave their hives to hunt down your base unless expanding. (Sometimes.) Of course naturally expanding giant map wide hives would eventually run into conflict. They are monstrous bio-engineered bugs, that's the fun. I just hope it's more than endless swarms and raids to them. I always wanted Insectoids to be expanded a lot more in their behavior, AI, and things to do with them. (As well as Mechanoids.) Though I am the weirdo who tries to tame them and make weird insectoid farms when possible. Anyways, I don't expect to make friends with them, even a hostile hive of ravenous bugs is really interesting, I just hope there's a lot of depth! Though judging by the other work i've been following for some time, that isn't something to be concerned about. Excuse my rambling, you do good work and i'm looking forward to what comes next. I just like insects.
Kira
2020-05-06 05:39:23 +0000 UTCThis was never our intention - We would never simply just add a race for the sake of adding a race. At Vanilla Expanded we believe that if we ever wanted to add a new species of intelligent pawns, they would have to be as extensive as humans - hundreds of unique backstories, a brand new set of traits, different skills to those of humans, different body sizes, different head shapes - that all would take hundreds of hours of work, and this is not the kind of resource we have. On top of that, according to RimWorld lore, there is no alien races in the universe. It's just humans, spread across the stars. All creatures like thrumbo, boomalopes, wargs and insectoids are genetically modified BY humans and not alien in origin. And unfortunately I do have to burst the bubble here - Insectoids aren't intelligent. We are not changing what vanilla already set up - they won't be neutral, and they can't be friendly. Their purpose is to kill. You can wipe them out, but they will not make peace with you - same way Mechanoids never will. It's a dark universe, Rimworld is, and I understand the temptation to look for friends. We are looking into allowing insectoids to go dormant if your relations with them somewhat improve - they won't consider you a friend, but they won't attack you.
Oskar Potocki
2020-05-05 21:54:29 +0000 UTCSlightly sad you can't play as Insectoids - it would be a really unique change of pace, even if they were more like some sort of humanoid insectoid creatures. Some sort of smarter caste. Through the use of technology, or taming, or other such depth to them. Let me become one with the bugs. Really excited for this though anyways! I hope in a weird way we can make semi-peace with the creatures and they aren't exclusively hyper-aggressive raiders.
Kira
2020-05-05 21:47:45 +0000 UTCi hope they drop some fine chitin when i butcher them up
2020-05-03 00:18:30 +0000 UTCI'm curious about the Gigalocusts, what kind of flight are we talking about here? Averaging human movement speed at 4.6 cells per second (to simplify calculating debuffs from clothing and buffs from bionics), will it be possible to relocate pawns from Gigalocust's landing spot to a reasonable distance for ranged combat if the player reacts soon enough? And could we get a form of non-psychic "flight" in form of jetpacks in heavy armor/belt slot? As is, it's possible to close the distance with skips and transport pods (steel rain <3) but nothing beats a squad of marines in powered suits stomping bugs from above. I reckon you already have some equipment on the human side of this mod that's yet to be revealed.
ZenoLord
2020-05-02 17:59:47 +0000 UTCThe previous roadmap was made available to all tiers, but normally the live development roadmap is a tier reward for the gold tier.
Oskar Potocki
2020-05-02 15:26:19 +0000 UTC
