Wild Natives and Fungus
Whenever a land or sea unit is moved into an unoccupied fungus square that is not adjacent to a Sensor Array or base there is a chance that the fungus will ‘spawn’ a wild Native life form. Encountering natives prevents movement into squares and does not cost move points. Multiple units failing to move into a square does not appear to trigger natives.[confirm] Backtracking through fungus, even on the same turn, will spawn natives as normal if the square was left unoccupied.
Wild native life forms will not usually attack natives controlled by a faction.
Spawn Chance
Some approximate values for the odds to discover a native unit per square are given below:
- Normal land fungus = 1/3
- Fungus + river = 1/9
- Fungus + road = 1/27
- Fungus within one square of
Sensor Array,or base = 0 (Note: Does not appear to be true in the case of sensor arrays. Tested on SMAXSid Meier's Alien Crossfire (Cross = X)/Yitzi, Thinker difficulty, with PLANET rating of 0 and wildlife set to "abundant." Might have been undergoing the perihelion event as well. Speculation: Odds are not constant but dependent upon certain variables, one or all of those factors created a nonzero chance to spawn natives.) - Fungus + Mag Tube = 0
- Sea fungus appears to have lower odds than land fungus
Note: that natives themselves and a faction that controls The Xenoempathy Dome use fungus road odds for normal fungus squares.
Combat Rules
Any Psi damage inflicted will be spread (at 100%) to all of the same type of native in the tile (and gives appropriate planetpearl bonuses) except for the Locusts of Chiron that must be destroyed one at a time. Native lifeforms do not suffer from hasty penalties.
If a wild native life form is successfully attacked and destroyed, the ‘husks’ can be harvested for their planetpearls at a bonus of 10 energy per lifecycle level (starting at 10 for hatchling).
Some wild lifeforms may be captured if a faction possess a positive Planet rating. The rating also sets a limit on the total number of native life forms that can be controlled by a faction.
