Raise insect/spider intelligence to animal level

[Amoebka]

Summary

SUMMARY: Balance "Change insect/spider intelligence to be consistent with other non-zombiefied animals."

Purpose of change

Insects and spiders (and centipedes) are currently as dumb as zombies (no PATH_AVOID_DANGER flag). They will walk into raging fires, drown themselves in lava, etc. Obviously, this isn't consistent with how insects behave in real life. Other animals, such as mammals, birds and reptiles, all have PATH_AVOID_DANGER_1, which indicated normal animal intelligence (i.e. not killing yourself in lava).

Describe the solution

Add PATH_AVOID_DANGER_1 to all insects and spiders (and centipedes).

Describe alternatives you've considered

Reflavouring giant insects/spiders as proper zombies to explain their stupidity.

Additional context

N/A

[kevingranade]

Insects and spiders (and centipedes) are currently as dumb as zombies (no PATH_AVOID_DANGER flag). They will walk into raging fires, drown themselves in lava, etc. Obviously, this isn't consistent with how insects behave in real life.

I disagree, insects do not consistently recognize and avoid danger the same way mammals do, this is totally intentional.

…

[Amoebka]

Well, do you at least agree insects shouldn't be drowning themselves in lava and walking into fires? That behaviour is wrong, in my opinion, and removing it is all the flag does.

[Amoebka]

Rolling in a few papers to substantiate the claims:

1. Insects have thermal receptors and can feel heat:

"It is common to find dual-purpose thermo and hygroreceptor sensilla in insects" - http://cronodon.com/BioTech/insect_thermohygroreceptors.html

"The neuroreceptors can be excited by mechanical, thermal and chemical stimuli"- Rospars, Jean Pierre. "Structure and development of the insect antennodeutocerebral system." International Journal of Insect Morphology and Embryology 17.3 (1988): 243-294.

" Anatomically the temperature sense organs are simple
sensory cells and are usually localized by observation of the reactions of insects
to temperature and the way their behaviour modifies on amputation of various
parts of insect body. Temperature receptors can now be studied electrophysio-
logically (table 1)." - Abdullah, Mohammad. "Behavioural effects of temperature on insects." (1961).

2. Insects avoid extreme heat:

"Cooling may include shade-seeking behavior, such as seeking cooler environmental microhabitats or altered orientation on plants. Many desert insects avoid temperature extremes by burrowing. Some insects living in exposed places may avoid excessive heating by “stilting”" - Gullan, Penny J., and Peter S. Cranston. The insects: an outline of entomology. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

"The heat beam served as an unconditioned stimulus - in this case, a "negative reinforcer" or "punishment". " - http://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/operantinsects.html (some PhD thesis)

Here's a good one specifically about ants:

"In our study, we deposited a group of Polyrhachis dives ants on a heated platform and counted the number of escaping ants with two identical exits. We discovered that ants asymmetrically escaped through two exits when the temperature of the heated platform was >32.75°C. The degree of asymmetry increased linearly with the temperature of the platform. Furthermore, the higher the temperature of heated platform was, the more ants escaped from the heated platform." - Chung, Yuan-Kai, and Chung-Chi Lin. "Heat-induced symmetry breaking in ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) escape behavior." PloS one 12.3 (2017): e0173642.

So, yeah, while insect behavior might not be as complex as that of mammals, they are certainly "smart" enough to avoid death by incineration.

[kevingranade]

You're fixating on the fire/lava example, there are a much larger number of dangers that would be affected by this that are not heat related. If you want to add a mode that treats heat related dangers seperately, feel free, but adjusting insect reaction to danger to match mammals is an overreach.

[Amoebka]

I believe there might be misunderstanding about how much PATH_AVOID_DANGER_1 actually does? It's only 5 things currently:

1. Don't step into lava.

2. Don't throw yourself off a cliff unless you can fly.

3. Don't fall into pits unless you can fly or climb (absolute majority of affected creatures can fy or climb, so this is irrelevant)

4. Don't walk into fire.

5. Don't walk into electric arcs.

I can't really see anything that's unreasonable for insects in this list. I guess I could add a PATH_AVOID_FIRE flag if necessary, but it seems like the distinction between it and avoid danger 1 would be arbitrary.

[kevingranade]

I guess this is at an impasse, I asked for a more nuanced flag to handle just avoiding fires, and for some reason you're equating avoiding falls and electrical arcs with avoiding fires, so the status quo is fine.