Questions and Issues with Playing as Wurt — Need Help and Advice

[Fusethebest]

Hello everyone,
I'm playing as Wurt and have encountered some questions.

 

1. How can I turn a regular Merm into a Shadow Merm early on without them attacking each other? What’s the best strategy to prevent infighting during this process?
   
    

2. What factors influence Merm loyalty duration? Does it depend on the type of food, freshness, or fullness? I’ve tried feeding Dragonpie, which seems to give the longest loyalty duration, but I’m unsure why.
   
    

3. How is Merm loyalty distributed? Is it calculated within a radius of 3 tiles, or is there a limit, like no more than 5 Merms receiving loyalty within a certain range?
   
    

4. What is the intended use of the Skeeter Bomb? Could you provide examples of how to use this item for maximum benefit?
   
    

5. I’ve trapped Merms in fences, but when I travel and come back, they often wander around my base. How can I prevent Merms from teleporting or escaping from their enclosures when I leave the area?

 

[ZeRoboButler]

1. shadow merms are useful but they are more of an extension of your merms durability and longevity, getting them on purpose could be awkward... perhaps cannons/gunpowder? Doesn't seem terribly worth it to be honest
2. All creatures that can be fed for loyalty (minus spiders as they changed them for webbers refresh) have a set hunger, and the food you give them will add to their stomach/timer. Now merms a bit different for 2 reasons, Merm's drain on hunger/loyalty is effected on if the king is alive or not and you can choose to use food items or fish to keep up the timer. If you were using dragon pie, (75 hunger dish) then they would obviously stick around for a long while, although ideally you should probably try to use more kelp as its very easy to get. The loyalty may seem shorter but you want to consider how much you are spending on merm time, and how likely it is that they all come back alive.
3. as for the loyalty distribution, can't speak on it, I just keep an eye out for grumbling merms who seem hungry and dish out another set of kelp rations.
4. The skeeter bombs... are very strange. They have some interesting use cases against some things, crab king is okay due to the way his attacks work, but the exploding part of the mosquitos is the dangerous part, but also the most useful. I use them personally as smoke bombs and distractions, say if you go into the ruins and want to distract a bishop, the mosquitos will do the job nicely. I like them mostly because when they die, I can use their sacks to make decent healing with full perks in the mosquito tree, what with the increased healing over time plus the additional "skeetos-per-bomb" going from 4 to 6.
5. The merms that are your allies have to be dismissed via fish murder first if you want to keep them in an enclosure. also make sure you are using walls, statues and other things are less reliable due to the nature of how things load in when you get close. Walls and fences are consistent though.

hope it helps!

[Megaerra]

Burn ordinary fish people next to the magma pool, and they will become shadow fish people, and it seems that shadow fish people will not be burned

 

[DegenerateFurry]

21 hours ago, ZeRoboButler said:

1. shadow merms are useful but they are more of an extension of your merms durability and longevity, getting them on purpose could be awkward... perhaps cannons/gunpowder? Doesn't seem terribly worth it to be honest
2. All creatures that can be fed for loyalty (minus spiders as they changed them for webbers refresh) have a set hunger, and the food you give them will add to their stomach/timer. Now merms a bit different for 2 reasons, Merm's drain on hunger/loyalty is effected on if the king is alive or not and you can choose to use food items or fish to keep up the timer. If you were using dragon pie, (75 hunger dish) then they would obviously stick around for a long while, although ideally you should probably try to use more kelp as its very easy to get. The loyalty may seem shorter but you want to consider how much you are spending on merm time, and how likely it is that they all come back alive.
3. as for the loyalty distribution, can't speak on it, I just keep an eye out for grumbling merms who seem hungry and dish out another set of kelp rations.
4. The skeeter bombs... are very strange. They have some interesting use cases against some things, crab king is okay due to the way his attacks work, but the exploding part of the mosquitos is the dangerous part, but also the most useful. I use them personally as smoke bombs and distractions, say if you go into the ruins and want to distract a bishop, the mosquitos will do the job nicely. I like them mostly because when they die, I can use their sacks to make decent healing with full perks in the mosquito tree, what with the increased healing over time plus the additional "skeetos-per-bomb" going from 4 to 6.
5. The merms that are your allies have to be dismissed via fish murder first if you want to keep them in an enclosure. also make sure you are using walls, statues and other things are less reliable due to the nature of how things load in when you get close. Walls and fences are consistent though.

hope it helps!

If you think about it, the lore implications of Wurt turning Merms into shadow Merms are horrifying. She's essentially speedrunning for merm civilization what happened to the Ancients. 

[ZeRoboButler]

6 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

If you think about it, the lore implications of Wurt turning Merms into shadow Merms are horrifying. She's essentially speedrunning for merm civilization what happened to the Ancients. 

I read that and had that "thousand yard stare" of horror... Wurt what have you done...