lootbug behavior

[Stormtempter]

Do they have a limit to how much they can eat? Is the loose mineral target chosen randomly or by priority? If they increase the value of what they consume, can they be chained, so as to keep multiplying the value or if I pop one, does it's loot get flagged as non edibile?

I've been playing solo, so I often have Bosco just mine out everything while I set up platforms and explore each chamber and collect secondaries or primary objective tasks. This gives lootbugs time to gobble some minerals but I swear they seem to loose interest after awhile, though they seem to get back to munching if I pop one.

Is it worthy trying to 'farm' lootbugs by knocking loose all the minerals, letting them eat them and slowly pop them over the course of my mission? Should I just get all the crafting mats, primary and secondary objectives and peace out right away and not bother with the boosting, just pop the bugs as they come?

I'm still relatively new, so I'm unsure of the added value of going above the quota for the prime/second objectives, or hoovering up all the nitra on the map when I only ever call one or two resupplies, so I've been very meticulous and slow and clearing all mineral deposits and saving lootbugs and all that. Is that the way to go as a solo player, or is it more about quantity of missions at passing grade, over a thorough scouring of everything?

[RancidRevenant]

I'm not sure if theres a hard limit on the quantity of things they can eat. They'll eat any mineral including bits of red sugar as long as it strikes their fancy to go eat. And they'll eat minerals from other dead lootbugs if given the time.

They're painfully slow though so its not worth waiting on them to gobble up minerals to enhance a payout. only in the most rare circumstances i'd let them go have a feast. (like a Crassus detonator with pots of gold buff)

Otherwise i'd just pop them all as you see them, You can bait a room by knocking red sugar off of a wall. and assuming you're going to go back there. you'll often find lootbugs swarming to that location.

As for playstyles though most people will do passing grade to move onto another mission as generally you'll be getting xp faster.

But me i like to be meticulous and go over most of the level with a brush cause i love to mine personally.

[Polaris]

1. Be born
2.eat precious minerals
3.be cute enough some dwarfs actually want to pet, or even refuse to kill you
4.the consumption of nitra makes you volatile enough to mutate into the abomination known as a detonaters
5.assuming you don't murder yourself murdering dwarfs, continue to grow into the monstrosity known as the BULK detonaters
6.murder dwarves

(Note, with enough gold, they become golden lootbugs, and then Crassus detonaters)


In the end, they are slow and relatively harmless in there larval form, but they will eat any and all minerals, so your behavior ought to be as follows

1. See lootbug
2. Kill lootbug, cutting off it's lifecycle before it gets more good dwarves killed
3. Collect the loot, it's gold and nitra, need I say more? They drop enough to be worth it, but don't bother trying to lure them in, you'll find them faster just looking around, they are fiarly large, and pale enough to stand out
4. ROCK AND STONE

[CCShad]

As far as I know, they have no limit to how much they can eat. They'll always try to target the nearest mineral chunk relative to their position, their maximum range for detecting a mineral is 25m.

Everything they consume is multiplied by 1.5x upon their death, and yes they can consume drops from other lootbugs. You could chain it, but chances are it'd add an unreasonable amount of time to your mission: They have a 15 second cooldown on "munching" a mineral chunk, and as you know, exploding a lootbug scatters those minerals into many, many chunks. Aside from taking ages, you’re limited by the amount of lootbugs you got: They exclusively spawn upon level generation, and cannot spawn once the mission timer is past 00:01.

Is it worth it? Not really, we're kinda cutting into the "mine gold vs speedrun missions" topic here.
Gold and nitra are both only worth 1 xp per mineral (up to 3 xp if the hazard bonus is high enough), and gold is worth a relatively small amount of credits, at least when compared to Primary and Secondary objective payouts. The answer ends up being that it's not very efficient, but you're free to do it if you enjoy it. I know I certainly lootbug farm from time to time during On-Site Refineries and Point Extractions.

Note: From what I've heard, lootbugs no longer eat huuli hoarder drops. I believe they still eat cargo crate and lost equipment caches.

[GIRL]

I once saw a lootbug drop an error cube before. Turns out someone earlier in the mission found one, mined it out, and left to get it later because Molly was too far away at the time. Lootbug came by and promptly ate it.

By this logic, could they also eat other carry-able gems like Aquarqs? Imagine doing a point extract mission and complaining about "finding that last damn aquarq!", the whole time not knowing where it went because the entire team is lootbug-friendly.

[Polaris]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

I once saw a lootbug drop an error cube before. Turns out someone earlier in the mission found one, mined it out, and left to get it later because Molly was too far away at the time. Lootbug came by and promptly ate it.

By this logic, could they also eat other carry-able gems like Aquarqs? Imagine doing a point extract mission and complaining about "finding that last damn aquarq!", the whole time not knowing where it went because the entire team is lootbug-friendly.

I didn't realize they could eat the minerals you have to carry...that's amazing xD

[Stormtempter]

I swear a bug ate a pearl once.

I didn't know that they evolved mid mission into golden lootbugs or about these detonators or crassus thingys, I assumed like with boxes and miner packs they were a random spawn chance at the start.

I'll have to kill them as I go but leave one to pick things up and see what it becomes then.

The 15 second cooldown is very helpful info. It does help me gauge how much patience I should have before moving on. Appreciate all your insight and help everyone!

[ShugoTheRipper]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

I once saw a lootbug drop an error cube before. Turns out someone earlier in the mission found one, mined it out, and left to get it later because Molly was too far away at the time. Lootbug came by and promptly ate it.

By this logic, could they also eat other carry-able gems like Aquarqs? Imagine doing a point extract mission and complaining about "finding that last damn aquarq!", the whole time not knowing where it went because the entire team is lootbug-friendly.

They called me crazy but whos laughing now!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2682036932

[Killer]

Originally posted by Stormtempter:

I swear a bug ate a pearl once.

I didn't know that they evolved mid mission into golden lootbugs or about these detonators or crassus thingys, I assumed like with boxes and miner packs they were a random spawn chance at the start.

I'll have to kill them as I go but leave one to pick things up and see what it becomes then.

The 15 second cooldown is very helpful info. It does help me gauge how much patience I should have before moving on. Appreciate all your insight and help everyone!

The "evolving" part is just a silly joke lol. Normal or golden loot bug spawn upon mission start and never changes/respawn/multiply throughout the mission. Same goes for crassus det. In contrast, normal bulk det can spawn multiple times, albeit rarely, depending on the game.

[Optimus Prime]

normal bulk det can spawn multiple times, albeit rarely, depending on the game? yeah i dont buy that had 10 of those things over the course of 5 missions. almost every haz 3 i play they spawn

[Killer]

Originally posted by Optimus Prime:

normal bulk det can spawn multiple times, albeit rarely, depending on the game? yeah i dont buy that had 10 of those things over the course of 5 missions. almost every haz 3 i play they spawn

Guess you got personally chosen by the RNG gods themselves.

[SCamp]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

I once saw a lootbug drop an error cube before. Turns out someone earlier in the mission found one, mined it out, and left to get it later because Molly was too far away at the time. Lootbug came by and promptly ate it.

By this logic, could they also eat other carry-able gems like Aquarqs? Imagine doing a point extract mission and complaining about "finding that last damn aquarq!", the whole time not knowing where it went because the entire team is lootbug-friendly.

This behavior is somewhat disturbing.

[Zargothrax]

You can definitely run a lootbug farm if you find a good spot in Magma Core. I've seen it on a lot of missions, there would just be a huge pool of gold and nitra all over the ground near geysers and fire spouts. One lootbug gets caught in it and dies, the loot it drops attracts more of them, rinse and repeat.

It's absolutely not worth the time but if you got nothing better to do, might as well.

[Erin the Angry]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

I once saw a lootbug drop an error cube before. Turns out someone earlier in the mission found one, mined it out, and left to get it later because Molly was too far away at the time. Lootbug came by and promptly ate it.

By this logic, could they also eat other carry-able gems like Aquarqs? Imagine doing a point extract mission and complaining about "finding that last damn aquarq!", the whole time not knowing where it went because the entire team is lootbug-friendly.

You know... that might be why it took me like 20 minutes to find the last aquarq once. I have to test this. I eventually found it in a weird spot with no holes or glittery bits in the walls and it looked like someone had dropped it there and forgot, though I had been checking terrain scanner like mad in between trying to not get my ass bitten off after spending so much time in there. I'll test this and get back to you on this.

[Frisky]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

I once saw a lootbug drop an error cube before. Turns out someone earlier in the mission found one, mined it out, and left to get it later because Molly was too far away at the time. Lootbug came by and promptly ate it.

By this logic, could they also eat other carry-able gems like Aquarqs? Imagine doing a point extract mission and complaining about "finding that last damn aquarq!", the whole time not knowing where it went because the entire team is lootbug-friendly.

sweet, another reason to kill literally every lootbug I see regardless of nitra amount :D

[Stormtempter]

Loot for the Loot God! Nitra for the Exploding Throne!

Ooooooo....chaos space mining dwarves as rivals....now theres an idea

Appreciate all the extra info on the lootbugs as well!