Doors, dogs, and swarms

[ZorkFox]

Tonight I had a strange situation occur:

While exploring a derelict, I met a dog. That was weird enough, since I've never seen one before, but what really boggled me was its behavior. It barreled through a door one of my drones was occupying, instead of being blocked, and pushed the drone through the border of the map as it sped past. I couldn't move the drone, even though it had taken no damage from the dog's vigorously wagging tail.

I tried to shoo the dog away with a Sonic upgrade on my rescue drone, but there was nowhere for it to go. To give it somewhere, I opened a door to a previously explored room that was also equipped with a magnetized sensor, currently showing green lines. As though it had been summoned by black magic, out of this room came a swarm that promptly attacked both drones. I was in a bit of a hurry because of an imminent asteroid strike. The swarm killed the trapped drone and went to work on the rescue unit, whereupon the asteroid hit and took drone, swam, hulk, and (presumably) dog into outer space.

• Where did the swam come from? I have the vent option disabled in my settings, but even if I didn't, shouldn't the sensor have warned me of the swarm?
  
• Why do mobs ignore obstacles? I've seen several monsters ignore impediments I would have to navigate around. I once had a leaper travel all the way through one of those upright cubes to kill a drone. If the corpse of a drone or mob can prevent a door from closing, a live drone ought to prevent a mob from passing.
  
• Corollary: why don't mobs attack each other? I can't believe they'd be working together. The security drone, which is often pooh-poohed here in the forum, especially seems like it ought to fire on other targets if it's firing on me. The indiscriminate ship defenses I can live with: if I forget to turn them off before venturing into their range, I accept that fate. If I can trick, lure, or draw a security drone into a room with another mob, I think they ought to duke it out.

I'm struggling with the game, even with all the settings on easy, but this week I've been feeling pretty good about my play… until I lost both my scout/sensor drone and my rescue/interface drone to something that seems like a hard-to-reproduce glitch.

As always, I value your thoughts, input, and experience.

[Misfits Attic]

Really sorry, it sounds like you ran into at least one bug there, and possibly two.

Being pushed out of the ship bounds should never happen, but the dog is something we put in as a surprise for 1.0, and so it wasn't as thoroughly tested as other elements were during Early Access. This is the first I've heard of it pushing a drone outside the ship. This seems more likely if your frame rate was somewhat low.

For the swarm: The sensor should definitely report any swarm, or any enemy for that matter. It's hard to imagine what could have happened without seeing it, but it sounds like something went wrong there.

Enemies attacking each other: 1) ran out of time to implement 2) wasn't sure how that would affect the balance of the game late in development.

[agris]

For such a logical game, the enemies not attacking each other really sticks out as odd. I know you're a small team, but it's something you should re-consider.

Maybe you could add some logic to spawn points to prevent dissimilar enemies from frequently spawning in the same or adjacent room.

[Velken Iakov]

About enemies attacking each other, I would understand that the Patrol bots attack other enemies and slimes damage anything that touches them (swarms are flying, therefore,they don't touch).

[ZorkFox]

Originally posted by Misfits Attic:

For the swarm: The sensor should definitely report any swarm, or any enemy for that matter. It's hard to imagine what could have happened without seeing it, but it sounds like something went wrong there.

I will keep my eyes peeled for anything similar. I'm not willing to say, categorically, that I was 100% certain of safety in that room. After all, I was focused on trying to save myself. Do swarms sometimes spawn in rooms that were previously cleared, or are all enemies set up only when docking for the first time?

Originally posted by Misfits Attic:

Enemies attacking each other: 1) ran out of time to implement 2) wasn't sure how that would affect the balance of the game late in development.

I think it's worth looking into. If you're worried about balance, consider having one pair of different enemies that can, occasionally, form a bond or sybiosis that transforms them into something even worse. (Not that I don't think they're all pretty bad as it is. I hesitate to make suggestions. Heh.)

Thank you, everyone, for your replies.