should the ants in fallout games be more powerful?

[Tono Makt]

playing the games i feel the ants are severely underpowered.

compared to their size they should be faster, and stronger.

in many ways they should be the ultimate enemy. I hope next gen fallout game fixes this issue.

agree or disagree?

Disagree somewhat, but ninja'd in the thread already for some of my reasons why. At most, I would want there to be quite a few more ants and obvious signs of a giant ant colony in the area - ants that size should need an incredible amount of food to survive, their colonies should be an astounding size underground and setting off explosives above the colony (grenades, landmines, rocket launchers, etc.) should be a huge threat. It would be nice to have to use Sneak to get through an Ant area without alerting them, and it would be great if you could lure Deathclaws, Yao Guoi and Super mutants into ant-traps - you run through while being chased by the enemy, trigger the ants, and let the ants kill the enemy. 'Course it would mean that you couldn't loot the body (taken away by the ants for food) but at least you wouldn't be killed.

 

[Bluestorm83]

Honestly, I'd have to disagree, but only because the biological structure of an ant would fall apart at the sizes proposed. They're just too big to hold their own weight. Even under the assumption that they would be enhanced by the mutations they've gone through, they'd still be pushing the limits of physics. BUT!

I DO think that giant ants should be much much more NUMEROUS. I mean, the right type of ant colony can have thousands of ants, why limit their number? I'd like to see a Fallout game with a whole area that people just don't go to, due to it simply being Ant Territory. Maybe they'd have a bigass, crazy deep moat to keep them out. Maybe you'd eventually have to go there in some kind of Pheremone Suit to recover some kind of Plot Device. I don't know.

So individual ants? Should not be as dangerous as they are. But Individual Ants should be the kind of thing to RLH away from, since you'd know there's 99 more just around the corner.

 

[Odbarc]

Maybe if the ants came in 10X their numbers or something. When you see ants, you see like 10 of them in the area. What if there were like 100?

 

[redmoretrout]

Are you suggesting those giant, radioactive, fire-breathing ants are not realistic! I propose a boycott of their next game until this issue is remedied.

 

[pnts]

If the ants were powered more in proportion to their size I'd have to assume they'd be really weak. I don't think their body would be structurally sound under the greater gravity to move near the same speed they do in their tiny size, or lift objects in proportion to what they lift in their tiny forms. In fact I always kind of thought if those giant ants turned a little too quickly their heads might pop off. I'm probably wrong but that's my first impression.

 

[Laser Priest]

Logically, perhaps, but I am not sure on the science or psuedo-science.

In terms of gameplay, no, they're fucking ants. Even if they breathe fire, ants are pretty much just there to be smashed.

 

[Easton Dark]

The ants would be tough as they are now if they were faster and the engine could deign to handle more than a dozen or two NPCs reliably at once.

Gamebryo ruins everything, I'll keep saying this.

 

[piinyouri]

Hmm, guess I just suck, cause every time I saw the ants in FO3 I'd brace myself for one hell of a fight. Sometimes I'd just avoid them entirely.

The ones in NV seem to be a bit more manageable though.

 

[Nouw]

I reckon you should encounter them in larger numbers. I'm thinking Starship Troopers-style.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Maybe if the ants came in 10X their numbers or something. When you see ants, you see like 10 of them in the area. What if there were like 100?

Pretty sure there's at least one mod that increases mob numbers, so you could get swarmed by them with it.

 

[Piorn]

Mass scales cubic, or ^3, but muscle power scales with the muscle area, or ^2.
That's why, for example, fleas can jump several times their body size, but elephants can't jump at all.
Disregarding nuclear magic, an ant that was just scaled up into that size wouldn't be able to move, and just twitch on the ground.
If they made them the size of small dogs or something though, and made them attack in swarms, I'd be willing to suspend my disbelief.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

This is somewhat relevant:

Also... i agree with the science of the ants slowing as they grow. One thing I can't remember though is, were there flying ants in Fallout? That could be a good progression! I think the game would be a bit shit though, if the enemy you feared the most wern't giant mutated monsters, but ants... :/