I really like the extra challenge Cave Dwellers post in the Steam version, BUT their spawning habit needs a serious tweak.
As of right now, it has unfortunately forced me to turn them 'off' in the difficulty menu. Of which I'm still not completely sure whether it will make their spawning completely impossible.
The main reason is FPS. Seal the cavern off for a year? Congrats, all your FPS belongs to the dwellers. It forces you to deal with cave dwellers like it is a chore rather than an interesting enemy. It feels like you are at war with the game's internal mechanics rather than an interesting civ and the main award you get for winning is to be able to play the game at a normal pace.
(Quick disclaimer: I understand that some people do not care about fps and that given the nature of DF it will diminish a bit during the natural cause of an embark, but please understand that I believe the endless spawning of cave dwellers is an unnecessarily annoying feature that adds nothing but frustration to DF).
I'm not sure whether the endless spawning of cave dwellers is an intentional feature, something that has been overlooked, or a bug. But, imho, if you turn down their spawn rate I believe the way they spawn, passively, is still inherently broken in a game where 'death by fps' is every players main enemy. My solution is simple:
- Bind the spawn rate of Cave Dwellers to the amount of value mined/chopped/gathered in the cavern, rather than have them spawn passively even if you have sealed off the cave completely.
- Or, treat Cave Dweller attacks like a regular Siege and have them retreat off map after a while.
Another great solution posted by somebody in a reply on reddit:
- Treat Cave Dwellers like wildlife moving in and out of the map.
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Topic: Cave Dweller spawn habit could use some tweaking. (Read 1657 times)