Leafcutter Ant

Leafcutter ants (*Atta cephalotes*) are playable as complete colonies in story missions, extra missions and freeplay.

## **Abilities**

A minim is spawned for free each time a brood tile is built and gets to work automatically. Minims can't be controlled or attacked.

Minors, mediae and majors use basic attack by biting enemies. You must choose either taunt or stun majors before playing a mission.

* Taunt majors can redirect attacks onto themselves and regain health while doing so. They can briefly reduce incoming damage at low health at level 3.

* Stun majors can stun enemies one at a time. They can stun multiple enemies at once and slow them down afterwards at level 3.

In the main story, you can unlock leafcutter ant majors for your gene-thief ant colony using Royal Jelly.

In freeplay, a leafcutter ant colony starts with a 19-tiled queen chamber.

## **Food processing**

Leafcutter ants can gather leaves from harvestable plants on the surface. Leaves can only regenerate in freeplay. Dead creatures aren't edible and disappear after 3 minutes.

Leaf storage and refuse storage is available only when you play as leafcutter ants. The 1st leaf storage tile and refuse storage tile is free. Each storage tile costs 5 food to build or upgrade.

Minors move more slowly while carrying leaves. Mediae and majors don't. Gathered leaves are placed in leaf storage. Each leaf storage tile can hold 10/ 40/ 100 leaves.

Minims bring the leaves to brood chambers to grow fungus over time. Brood chambers are the actual food storage. Each brood tile can cultivate 1 food per second and hold 20/ 30/ 40 of both food and waste.

Consumed fungus turns into waste that occupies brood tiles. Minims need to bring waste to refuse storage so that there can be enough space to grow fungus. Each refuse storage tile can hold 10/ 40/ 100 waste and dissolve 1 waste every 5/ 4/ 2.5 seconds.

Fungus waste is toxic to leafcutter ants. They lose 50% of their health every 60 seconds, move and attack 35% more slowly after walking over occupied refuse storage. Only ants in the respective colony are affected. Minims are immune.

Refuse storage removes 2 upgrade points from adjacent tiles and 1 upgrade point from tiles which are 1-tile away. Other refuse storage tiles and highway tiles aren't affected. You can only delete a refuse storage tile when it is empty.

Refuse storage usually can't be completely filled up. The extra space is reserved for the waste which are currently carried by the minims.

Fungus can only exist on brood tiles. Deleting a tile turns stored fungus into leaves. Minims can't drop what they are carrying when storage is suddenly deleted.

Minims get panicked and stop working when the queen is in danger. Preventing the respective pheromone groups from attacking will keep the minims calm.

## **Appearances**

Leafcutter ants are playable as complete species in:

* **The Harvest** *(either)*

* **Front Line** *(either)*

* **Cramped** *(taunt)*

* **The Crucible** *(no major)*

* **Adventure** *(either)*

Leafcutter ant mediae are playable units in:

* **Extremis**

* **Excavators**

* **Tug of War**

Leafcutter ant majors are playable units in:

* **Possibly the Final Experiment** *(either)*

* **The Final Experiment** *(either)*

* **Extremis** *(either)*

* **Tug of War** *(taunt)*

* **Tug of War 2** *(stun)*

* **New Year's Feast** *(taunt)*

Leafcutter ants are enemies in:

* **The Harvest**

* **Extremis**

* **The Other Foot**

* **Tug of War**

* **Enemy of My Enemy**

* **Beetles Rise Up!**

* **Adventure**

* **Tug of War 2**

* **Festive Spider**

## **Notable stats**

**Leafcutter ant queen**
* *Score*: 700
 **Damage modifications** | * *Physical resistance*: 40%
* *Venom resistance*: 40%
 **Immunities** | * Immune to stun/ confusion/ fleeing
* Immune to pickup/ execution/ knockback

**Leafcutter ant minim**
* *Movement speed*: 220
 **Immunities** | * None

 **Leafcutter ant minor**
* *Health*: 25/ 35/ 45
* *Movement speed*: 300/ 340/ 380
* *Score*: 5/ 8/ 12
* *Harvest amount*: 7/ 8/ 9
* *Regeneration speed*: 0.1/ 0.1/ 0.1
 **Basic attack** | * *Attack damage (physical)*: 0.6/ 0.8/ 1
* *Attack speed*: 1/ 1/ 1

 **Leafcutter ant media**
* *Health*: 100/ 115/ 130
* *Movement speed*: 310/ 320/ 330
* *Score*: 14/ 16/ 18
* *Harvest amount*: 15/ 17/ 20
* *Regeneration speed*: 0.1/ 0.2/ 0.3
 **Damage modifications** | * *Armor*: 0.2/ 0.4/ 0.8
 **Basic attack** | * *Attack damage (physical)*: 4.5/ 6/ 7
* *Attack speed*: 1/ 1/ 1.3

 **Leafcutter ant major**
* *Health*: 200/ 240/ 400
* *Movement speed*: 300/ 300/ 300
* *Score*: 30/ 42/ 54
* *Harvest amount*: 16/ 16/ 16
* *Regeneration speed*: 0.1/ 0.15/ 0.2
 **Basic attack** | * *Attack damage (physical)*: 12/ 15/ 22
 **Taunt** | * *Trigger*: User has above 30%/ 30%/ 30% HP.
* *Activation chance*: 30%/ 30%/ 30%
* *Attack damage (physical)*: 1/ 1/ 1
* *Cooldown*: 10/ 10/ 10
* *Effect radius*: 100/ 140/ 180
* *Total regeneration*: 20/ 25/ 30
* *Regeneration duration*: 4/ 5/ 6
 **Stat buff** | * *Trigger*: User has below 0/ 0/ 40% HP.
* *Cooldown*: 0/ 0/ 15
* *Physical resistance buff*: 0/ 0/ + 80%
* *Venom resistance buff*: 0/ 0/ + 80%
 **Stun** | * *Activation chance*: 50%/ 50%/ 50%
* *Attack damage (physical)*: 1/ 1/ 1
* *Cooldown*: 8/ 7/ 6
* *Effect radius*: 0/ 0/ 40
* *Movement speed debuff*: 0/ 0/ - 90%
* *Debuff duration*: 0/ 0/ 8
* *Stun duration*: 3/ 3.5/ 4

## **Trivia**

* Dead leafcutter ants can often be seen in the refuse storage. In real life, this is a normal behavior in most ant species because refuse storage can also serve as a graveyards.

* Leafcutter ant larvae don't spin cocoon. Their naked pupae can be seen in the game.

* Level 3 mediae and majors have 100% chance to fend off phorid flies, even if they are carrying leaves. This is represented by two minims hanging on the carried leaves, defending the carriers. This behavior also occurs in real life.

* In **Adventure**, minims are still alive after the enemy leafcutter ant colony has been defeated. They are treated as roaming enemies and can be attacked.

## **Community screenshots**

Leafcutter ant queen and fungus (by Antbzk64)Leafcutter ant minors and leafcutter ant mediae (by BakedBean)Leafcutter ant minim and level 3 leafcutter ant major (by Elcapitancrunch2000)Waste (by SyrianDugong)

## **References**

1. ↑ https://forum.slugdisco.com/index.php?threads/waste-management.2785/#post-13793
2. ↑ https://forum.slugdisco.com/index.php?threads/screen-shot-saturday-leafcutter-interface-mechanics.2485/page-2
3. ↑ forum.slugdisco.com/index.php?threads/faq-frequently-asked-questions-read-before-posting.3021/
4. ↑ Tested by Antbzk64#9884 on Discord (21/1/2024).