Antlion and safety

[froggle_bunwich]

Hey. I haven't played in quite. I can see a new mob is coming out who you can trade with. It is a great idea because usually players spend time away from their base, but if they couldn't get there on time without finding a desert. How could you protect your base. Move away? Is there even a sign that he is enraged and gonna make craters. I don't want my base destroyed cause I didn't want to decide to trade a few items by going to some pond lel.

[Diaboliko]

Well, wolfgang says something like "earth is trembling...". In overworld I didn't notice any visual signs of that coming, while underground there are. Also - AoE of those things is pretty low so even if you slack a bit, missing the event, you are unlikely to loose much.

[CaptainChaotica]

Hey, someone else who has the same problem as me!  How dangerous is it to not find the Antlion in time?  Funny you should say that--I have demonstration screenshots right here!

Exhibit A:

How many hit points I had after one UNPREVENTABLE attack (I was at almost full health before!), and, only four days later...

Exhibit B:

...

You've read my longer arguments about why this is so stupidly unfair in the other threads, in General Discussion (not everybody happens to explore the right area in time, not everybody plays with others, not everybody keeps the seasons standard, not everybody plays on the same size map)...  This proves that everything I was saying is indeed right.  YOU CAN DIE OF SOMETHING THAT IS NOT YOUR FAULT AT ALL, NOT PREVENTABLE, AND NOT ESCAPABLE.  NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE.  So please, please, PLEASE, Klei...

FIX.

THIS!

[Sudura2017]

33 minutes ago, CaptainChaotica said:

Snip snip.

git gud scrub

[HamBatter]

Except for slowdown from things like sandstorm, are you sure it's impossible to dodge the sinkholes, or are you trying to move in one direction hoping the next one doesn't appear there?

[CaptainChaotica]

FatCat, I hope to GOD you're kidding.  (A), Anybody who ever says "git gud"--without irony, that is--gets put on my unofficial "don't listen to this person anymore" list--ESPECIALLY if you spell it _that_ way and (B), you're the person who was giving away free pet skins!  I thought you were NICE!  What gives?

And, how the phrack was I supposed to heal myself when I was in the middle of a sandstorm and UNABLE TO GET TO ANY SUPPLIES?!  Also, there was a hound attack in between.  In a sandstorm.  Kind of hard to kite when you can barely move!  Most of the damage _was_ from the sinkholes, though--I was wearing a logsuit and didn't get hurt that much in the battle.

(If you _are_ kidding, I apologise, but it's absolutely impossible to tell tone of voice/expression on the internet, especially from someone you don't know.)

EDIT:  Didn't see your message before, Hambatter.  Sorry.  It seems to chase you no matter what direction you're going and how much you change it. The one that killed me did happen when I was extremely slowed down, but the other two times sinkholes hit me, I was moving freely through a forest.  I don't think there IS any way to dodge it.  It just follows your steps, no matter what.

...Notorious

[HamBatter]

Have you tried staying still and moving when needed?

It does not look like they can overlap, so you might be able to find a sweet spot where you don't take damage if not a good place to take some steps away from the next to spawn.

[Electroely]

@CaptainChaotica

I've been doing some testing with sinkholes, and apparently if you want to dodge them, there are 2 strategies:

1. Run in a straight line. You could get lucky and the sinkholes won't spawn in front of you. If they do, change directions. You get around half a second to react.

2. Stand still and wait for them to spawn. If you wait for them to spawn while standing, you could tell which direction would be the shortest way to get out of the sinkhole. I've tried it a few times. You do need pretty good reaction time, though. I panicked a few times while practicing and ended up walking INTO the sinkhole instead of out of it. If you want to practice, just open up a new world, set it to summer using

TheWorld:PushEvent("ms_setseason", "summer") 

, and then use this command 5 times (get some bacon/eggs, armor and weapon ready beforehand)

LongUpdate(480)

I mastered it after 5 rounds of practice. Good luck to anyone who tries this.

[CaptainChaotica]

Or, if all else fails, just put on my stupid armour like I should've done in the first place.  : P  But thanks for the testing.  I remember your server...leaping ahead hundreds of days at once, getting tons of giants to spawn and fight each other...  Then Klaus showed up and we died a lot....  And last but not least, we all went invisible and raced each other around the coastline for no reason.  That was fun. 

...the point of that being, I've seen you use the LongUpdate thing, so I kinda know what it does.  Heh.

Now, here's a random question...if you had a whole LOT of people playing on a server during the summer, and everybody was deliberately ignoring the Antlion (while dodging or protecting themselves during the cat-bug's wrath)..._how_ messed-up-looking could that world GET over time? With naturally caused sinkholes, not console commands?  I dunno why, but I'm thinking that might look sort of cool.  Like some broken, barren wasteland or something. Bonus points if you get a bunch of sinkholes to happen in the Dragonfly's desert so tumbleweeds can blow by as well. 

Bad for PLAYING, of course, but it'd be awesome atmosphere for storytelling and cool screenshots...

...Notorious

[Electroely]

12 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

Or, if all else fails, just put on my stupid armour like I should've done in the first place.  : P  But thanks for the testing.  I remember your server...leaping ahead hundreds of days at once, getting tons of giants to spawn and fight each other...  Then Klaus showed up and we died a lot....  And last but not least, we all went invisible and raced each other around the coastline for no reason.  That was fun. 

...the point of that being, I've seen you use the LongUpdate thing, so I kinda know what it does.  Heh.

Now, here's a random question...if you had a whole LOT of people playing on a server during the summer, and everybody was deliberately ignoring the Antlion (while dodging or protecting themselves during the cat-bug's wrath)..._how_ messed-up-looking could that world GET over time? With naturally caused sinkholes, not console commands?  I dunno why, but I'm thinking that might look sort of cool.  Like some broken, barren wasteland or something. Bonus points if you get a bunch of sinkholes to happen in the Dragonfly's desert so tumbleweeds can blow by as well. 

Bad for PLAYING, of course, but it'd be awesome atmosphere for storytelling and cool screenshots...

...Notorious

Antlion seems to spawn 2-3 sinkholes every time it rages. It also won't spawn the full number for each player if 2 players are too close to each other. So if you want to get a ton of sinkholes, just make sure everyone spreads out and keeps running (standing still only spawns 2 sinkholes, running may spawn 3.).

[CaptainChaotica]

Last time it happened, I put on my armour and just ran away from base to a blank spot of ground I didn't care about, heh.  Then, thankfully, the next day it was fall.  My Antlion desert is a GOOD ways away from my main base, so getting over there and back would take up most of my time.  So...it's actually more efficient to just let it beat the ground (but hopefully not me) up.  : P

The creature I especially feel sorry for on this map is this one poor catcoon.  When the game spawned in an oasis into my already-existing world, it put in other things that go _with_ birch trees along with the oasis's birch trees.  Including, amusingly, a stump lair.  Now there's a catcoon who has to spend all summer, every summer in a sandstorm! 

And see?  None of this would've happened if we had the proper palm trees instead. 

...Notorious

[TheKingDedede]

@ImDaMisterL, show them all what should be done with threads like this.