Unprovoked attack

[QueenPixxa]

I am trying to gently introduce the biters in my game. I can't stand cockroaches so it's been very hard, but I decided to try a new save with peaceful mode. They are there but I don't have to look at them if I don't want to.
But last night I got a red alert of an attack! So I gathered my guts and went to see what was happening.
It was in a very remote corner where there's nothing but a thin path and a few electric poles. The biters were pretty cute actually, they were going at the pole like two dogs furiously digging a hole.
Now, what could have triggered this assault? I can't understand.

[Hurkyl]

Most likely they were trying to walk from one place to another, and their movements were sufficiently obstructed that they decided to tear the obstacle down.

[QueenPixxa]

Oh wow, do they do that even in peaceful mode? I had no idea. I was so surprised I went and checked the settings, and definitely peaceful mode was on, and no pollution as well.
I also had no idea they wandered away from their base.

Being the fact that we are the invaders, after all, I don't feel good about exterminating them. Is there a way to make them friendly? I checked the mod site but I couldn't see anything, but maybe I just didn't look too much in depth.

[Hurkyl]

Obstacles trigger a change in their normal behavior On normal settings, if biters aren't on the offense there are lots of things they leave alone, such as power poles. But if they are obstructed, then they will destroy it to clear the path. Same goes for non-player things too, like large rocks.

I admit I'm just assuming peaceful mode would work the same way, but I don't actually know much about how it works.

If you make sure your power poles are in places where there's plenty of space to route around them, you shouldn't have any problems with that. E.g. avoid congested areas like small isthmuses or thick forests.

[Glyph]

All peaceful does is disable retaliatory attacks from pollution. If you or they get too close to each other a fight will break out.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by QueenPixxa:

Oh wow, do they do that even in peaceful mode? I had no idea. I was so surprised I went and checked the settings, and definitely peaceful mode was on, and no pollution as well.
I also had no idea they wandered away from their base.

They wander away from their base whenever they do an expansion. Every so often one of the spawners will form an expansion party and the pioneers go into the wild to build a new colony. In default settings that can be up to 7 chunks (around 224 tiles) from the original nest. When they are doing that, if too many things make them detour enough they get frustrated and take out their frustration on anything and everything near by, even if it's not part of the original detour. Power poles and rails are the common things we notice simply because we get an alert. They also will attack rocks and trees.

Ever wonder around and find a pile of loose stone you can just pickup without having to mine it? That's the leftovers from some biters bashing their heads against the rocks.

Since you're not destroying nests and have pollution turned off, the only thing left which increases evolution is the ticking of the clock. Even with just that, however, evolution will keep climbing. As evolution gets higher the time between expansions gets smaller. Your only 'defense' against the results are mostly luck, or very carefully checking on bases with radar and seeing when an expansion happens and be ready to remove, or replace, things where they could be in danger from a frustrated colonist.

[QueenPixxa]

This is fantastic, I had no idea there were such intricate mechanics behind those guys. Intricate, I mean I thought they were just stationary, not expanding, not having much character at all. I went in this game more or less blind and every day it's a new surprise.
The more I learn about them the more I don't want to harm them, though.

[gpedro178]

If you want to have the challenge of bitters easy instead of peaceful mode you could try removing the expansion behaviour, this way there are not going to be more nest and the dudes pose a threat if you leave your pollution unchecked, also time and killing will make every nest harder.
Rail world comes with this config by default, it's quite a nice config to take your firsts steps on Nauvis.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by gpedro178:

If you want to have the challenge of bitters easy instead of peaceful mode you could try removing the expansion behaviour, this way there are not going to be more nest and the dudes pose a threat if you leave your pollution unchecked, also time and killing will make every nest harder.
Rail world comes with this config by default, it's quite a nice config to take your firsts steps on Nauvis.

The Railworld preset does, indeed, disable expansion. There is a caveat to this however. As of the experimental version 2.0.45, and whatever the next stable version is in Steam, turning off expansion will also disable 10, so far, of the achievements. Not a problem for playing the game, but can be an issue if you are also wanting any of those disabled achievements. (Only applies to new games started with the new version. Old games which get updated still follow the current rules of 2.0.43.)

[kaki_gamet]

Originally posted by QueenPixxa:

The more I learn about them the more I don't want to harm them, though.

Then will come the day when you too will think: "Okay, my name is not Nausicaa."

[MAX]

"unprovoked" attacks usually comes in two forms:
1. truly unprovoked. This happens when the bitters' path were blocked by other entities (not only player entities, also trees and rocks)
2. unintentionally provoked. In peaceful mode, this can happen if your train ran over a bitter or a forest fire you started spread to a bitter or a bitter base.

[cardzy]

Originally posted by Glyph:

All peaceful does is disable retaliatory attacks from pollution. If you or they get too close to each other a fight will break out.

Sounds like you haven't actually used this feature as the information you just provided is 100% incorrect.