Ampeel Attacks

[viirinsoftworks]

I think the reason the Ampeels keep leaving the Bulb Zone and going to my base at the Safe Shallows is because they're following the line of Power Transmitters, but I'm not sure. I also have small base in the Lost River and Inactive Lava Zone, all of them with a visible power line connecting them to each other (that was a stupid amount of gold).

Has anyone else had this issue? I even bred a few Crabsquid and launched a bunch of Gas Torpedoes at one, but another one just came to replace it. Yes the first one was dead, it wasn't electrical anymore.

[admiral1018]

The Ampeels will normally appear in the northeast mushroom forest, which is fairly close to the grassy plateaus and safe shallows. They don't follow the power transmitter lines, but they do head towards the center of the map (in the shallows) if they take damage. The most common source of this is unknowingly hitting them with your Cyclops, but if you're shooting off gas torpedoes, that could also be the culprit.

This behavior will be changed in the next update so creatures will no longer naturally flee to the shallows.

[viirinsoftworks]

Oh the one I launched torpedoes at? He was inside my base (I built enough multi rooms in a square to make a complete square, three layers high so I could have every possible fish in a containment unit) and wouldn't go away. Instead he felt like killing gasopods and damaging the base constantly. So since he kept doing that I used everything I could to kill it.

[dreamrider]

If you know the general direction that the ampeels appear from (vector towards the Bulb Zone), one of the best ampeel defenses is to put a platform with a couple of growbeds full of tiger plants out in that direction. Make sure it is over 3 platform widths away from any airtight portion of your base.

If you are ambitious, build a small arc of tiger platforms out there.

If your locally annoying ampeel doesn't seem to go near the tigers, set off a decoy under the platform.

The other possibility, but a little riskier for collateral base damage, is to put a bed of tiger plants on the top roof of your base. You definitely want all the air bearing portions of your base below the LOF of the tiger bed.

Tigers won't shoot at gasopods or leviathans, but they do a number on ampeels.

[Just Chill]

Originally posted by dreamrider:

Tigers won't shoot at gasopods or leviathans, but they do a number on ampeels.

Tiger Plants are the only ones that I spare on my gardening for each base as of obvious reasons.

But you say you can make a turret battery out of them at specific locations? That's quite interesting.
Especially as below a foundation between the supporting pillars, they won't hit you, if their ext grow beds are on top of the foundations. :D

Another thing that has to be added on my to-do list. ^^

[admiral1018]

Originally posted by Just Chill:

Originally posted by dreamrider:

Tigers won't shoot at gasopods or leviathans, but they do a number on ampeels.

Tiger Plants are the only ones that I spare on my gardening for each base as of obvious reasons.

But you say you can make a turret battery out of them at specific locations? That's quite interesting.
Especially as below a foundation between the supporting pillars, they won't hit you, if their ext grow beds are on top of the foundations. :D

Another thing that has to be added on my to-do list. ^^

Yes, tiger plants can be very effective if you have a swarm of Ampeels or Bonesharks in the area, which tends to happen at 0.0.0 sometimes.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2388565814

[dreamrider]

There it is! Admiral, it was your picture and the story that goes with it that I was thinking of when I gave this advice.

[admiral1018]

This was the "before" image:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2388565517

[dreamrider]

Did you do anything to lure them to the plants?

[admiral1018]

No, that was the 0,0,0 mark, so the Ampeels were lured to that area on their own. And I would guess the same bugged flee response kept them in that area even as they continued to suffer damage.

[Just Chill]

I'm glad this weird zero-point-flee-behaviour got fixed in experimental. :)

Nice turret battery you have there Admiral. :D

[admiral1018]

It would probably be useless in experimental now though, as the Ampeels would flee in the opposite direction of the damage rather than hanging around to get slaughtered.

[Just Chill]

Ah, it's still nice to look at..... FROM A DISTANCE. :D

It always bugs me when these spawn on a Reefback. -.-

[admiral1018]

They are still pretty easy to kill with a few knife slashes. You can circle strafe and take them out without sustaining damage. The propulsion gun will also allow you to pick them up and punt them away.

However, my favorite way to get rid of them (late game) is to smash them with the Prawn's claw arms.

[dreamrider]

How can you apprach them close enough for knife slashes without getting at least the defensive field shocks? Do they not shock in stasis or something?

BTW, a decoy under the platform should bring them in for some significant damage.


And gasopods don't like them. Anything that gasopods don't like doesn't last forever in the Safe Shallows (except the player.

Unfortunately, leviathans pretty much leave gasopods alone. You have to go out and dance a bit in the seamoth, or swimming (under platforms, etc) to get a good gas cloud going. Then the neighborhood levi will take some damage.


BTW. I was under the impression that the new (?fixed?) retreat mechanism would be a vector addition sort of thing. The combination of the vector of the last attack with the vector toward 0, 0, 0. Did I misunderstand that explanation?

[admiral1018]

You won't receive shock damage when they are in stasis, so stasis+thermal blade is the easiest way to kill one.

With the new retreat mechanism, the creatures flee in the opposite of the direction of the damage vector. So, logically, this will usually cause them to flee away from you. This will actually work in the opposite way with the Cyclops, since a leviathan colliding with a moving Cyclops will sometimes register damage coming from the same direction in which the Cyclops is moving. This causes the leviathan to flee in the movement direction, which can be used to chase them well across the map. I've since has several Reapers follow me into the void from the Mountains biome.