Basic Mechanics

This page shows the basic game mechanics. These mechanics may be applied differently in certain extra missions to provide more variety in gameplay.

## **Units**

You usually start a freeplay game or mission with a queen and 3 worker units. Queen chamber acts as both nursery and food storage. It has 7 tiles and each tile can hold 10 food. You can't build, delete or upgrade queen chamber.

Your queen can do absolutely nothing but laying eggs. It is also immune to disrupting effects and repositioning effects. The screen flashes red when the queen loses more than 75% of its health. You lose when the queen is dead.

Worker units do jobs automatically when they are put in nest group. They only do nearby jobs if they are put in pheromone groups.

Nest jobs include digging, building and spawning, and they will be done in this paticular order. Workers will ignore gathering and attacking when they are assigned with nest jobs.

The 7 nanitic workers can do anything that normal worker units can do. If you have no ant and no food, a worker unit is spawned for free to help revive the colony.

Soldier units can be divided into 3 types: melee unit, ranged unit and tank unit. They can't do nest jobs.

## **Digging**

The black area is diggable soil. You can see hexagon tiles light up when you hover your cursor over the diggable area.

Clicking on a tile in the black area turns it yellow, which indicates that this tile needs to be dug out. As long as the yellow tiles are reachable, nest workers or nearby workers will do it. Clicking again will cancel the task. You can only dig in your nest.

Digging is the most prioritized job in the nest. Up to 2 workers can excavate a tile at the same time.

The nest entrance acts similar to diggable soil. However, it is always left for last. Up to 7 workers can excavate it at the same time.

## **Underground marks**

Hidden creatures in underground caverns show up as marks in the black soil. Green question marks represent harmless enemies or allies. Red exclamation marks represent aggressive enemies. The stronger the creatures are, the bigger the marks get. These marks can move, which indicates that the corresponding creatures are moving underground.

Small food show up as silhouettes in the black soil. Large food don't have silhouettes and are entirely hidden.

The entire cavern is excavated immediately when you dig into it and residing creatures are released into your nest. Aggressive enemies will immediately move toward your queen.

## **Building**

Choose an option in the building tabs then click on any parts of the excavated area. A white symbol will show up, which indicates that the respective tile needs to be built. Nest workers or any nearby workers will do it one at a time. You can only build in your nest.

When tiles of the same type are built adjacent to each other, they connect and create a chamber. Ants which come from from the same chamber form a control group.

Ants move 10%/ 20%/ 25% more quickly on highway tiles and 50% more slowly on any other tiles. Only ants in the respective colony are affected. Each highway tile costs 5 food to build or upgrade.

## **Upgrading**

Choose the upgrading tool in the building tabs then click on the tile you want. Only tiles with enough upgrade points can be upgraded. You need 6 points for level 2 and 12 points for level 3. Upgrading cost is the same as building cost. You can only upgrade up to level 3.

Each tile gives 1/ 2/ 3 upgrade point to all similar tiles and highway tiles surrounding it. Highway tiles and walls give upgrade points to any adjacent tiles. If you enable tile information, you can see level and upgrade points of tiles.

A 19-tiles hexagon chamber is the most cost-efficient shape that allows all tiles to be upgraded to level 3. It is recommended to build secluded chambers that connect to long tunnels.

Upgrading a tile increases its capacity and effect. Ants will be healed completely when they are upgraded.

## **Deleting**

Choose the deleting tool in the building tabs then click on the tile you want. If the chosen tile has been upgraded, it will be downgraded first. Ants will be healed completely when they are downgraded.

Deleting a tile returns 66% of the building cost. Stored resources will be left on the ground along with the refund and the corresponding active ants will be dead.

## **Spawning**

Available workers will bring eggs from the queen to empty brood tiles. Eggs gradually turns into white larvae, yellow pupae and finally active ants. New eggs will be placed afterward but the larvae stops growing if the corresponding ants are still active. Each brood tile can only incubate one ant at a time.

Ants don't need food directly fed to them. Pupae will turn into active ants as long as there is enough food.

The population is always represented by a pair of numbers. The left one means active ants. The right one means the maximum population you can have at the moment, based on the number of brood tiles. Worker population is separated from soldier (non-worker) population. The queen isn't counted.

## **Moving**

You can only control ant groups, not individuals. Ants which come from the same chamber form a control group. Each control group is represented by an ant icon in the control panel.

If you want to split an established control group, you must split the respective brood chamber by deleting inbetween tiles.

New control groups will be automatically put in nest group.You have 5 pheromone groups, which are represented by roman numbers from I to V. Drag ant icons to a desired pheromone group in the control panel to assign them to that group.

Click on the roman number to choose that pheromone group. The icons on the right of the control panel let you prevent your ants from gathering, attacking and mounting enemies.

Right-click wherever you want your ants to be on the map or the minimap. A pheromone marker will be placed and ants in the respective pheromone group will move toward it. The shortest path is always chosen. Ants must form a trail while they are moving toward a pheromone marker. A small percentage of ants will stop midway and go back to the nest entrance if they are on the surface or to the queen if they are underground.

The number below each marker shows the number of ants that are responding to your command. The responding speed becomes slower the more ants you put in a pheromone group. Control groups in the same pheromone group respond in order from top to bottom and left to right.

There can only be 1 entrance in each nest. A nest entrance acts as a spawner that teleport units between the surface and the underground area. Place pheromone markers on top of a nest entrance to make your ants enter the respective underground area.

Ants are dead if they somehow get stranded and can't find the way back to the queen.

## **Gathering**

Ants will automatically bring any food they encounter back to the nest. Gathered food are placed in storage and disappears when it is used.

Small food can be directly carried away. Large food must be taken apart and may allow multiple ants to harvest at once. Each ant unit can only cut out a certain amount from large food. Enemy ants aren't edible.

If you enable resource information, you can see food amount and harvest capacity.

If you disable gathering, you can prevent your ants from further gathering food. However, it doesn't make your ants drop what they are carrying.

Each storage tile costs 5 food to build or upgrade and can hold 10/ 40/ 100 food.

## **Attacking**

Ants will automatically attack the closest enemies in range. Workers can ignore combat while carrying food. Soldiers (non-workers) will drop the carried food to fight.

There can only be a certain number of units fighting in an enclosed space. Small units can fight beneath medium units and large units. If a unit can't attack an enemy within range, it will be briefly prevented from attacking and move around to find better position.

If you enable creature information, you can see health bars and level/ rank of all creatures.

If you disable attacking, you can prevent your ants from further attacking. However, it doesn't make ants that are stuck in a battle stop doing it. Ants will fight back as long as they take damage, unless they are carrying something.

## **Camera**

You can move the camera around by pushing your cursor against the edge of the screen. You can zoom in or out by turning the wheel on your mouse.

You can press a certain hotkey (F9 by default) to enter basic photo mode, or press it together with Shift to enter free photo mode. The game is paused and camera can only be controlled by hotkeys afterward. User interface is also removed so that you can take better screenshots. You can look at unintended places on the maps or go out of bound while in free photo mode.

You can unpause while you are in photo mode. You can still play the game by using hotkeys in the mean time.

## **Trivia**

* Placing different pheromone markers makes different chirping sounds, which indicates that pheromone is a form of ant communication.

* In real life, the first few workers are nurtured using the queen's own body fluid. These nanitic workers are weak and have to take care of the queen for their entire life. They soon die after the stronger workers are ready to venture outside. This explains why you can't build, delete or upgrade the queen chamber in the game.

* In real life, nests are naturally designed with intricate chambers and pathways. In the game, upgrade points and speed penalty motivate players to strategically build tiles within chambers and establish pathways between them to facilitate efficient ant movement.

## **Community screenshots**

Digging, building and upgrading (by Antbzk64)Moving (by Heolx)Gathering (by TheRealStormCZE)Attacking (by Antbzk64)

## **References**

1. ↑ https://slugdisco.com/june-newsletter/
2. ↑ Confirmed by Mike on Discord (4/12/2023).
3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BQ2vdb4zGI
4. ↑ Confirmed by John on Discord (25/1/2023).
5. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1iyqSkO6cU