Mod «Insectoids Evolved» for Rimworld (v1.0 - 1.4)

Insectoids gain Hediff-based special abilities inspired from Starcraft 1. Most of these abilities are intended to complement their melee attacks, and make anti-Insectoid combat different from that of other melee animals. Insectoid unit has 40% chance to "evolve" and gain their abilities every year, which can be manually changed via editing HediffGiverSets.xml in Defs folder.

The abilities only activate after 1 years have passed from beginning of the game. This grace period can be disabled from the mod settings.

 Megascarab Spores (Megascarab)
Megascarab can carry spores of its own species. When implanted in a corpse, it is immediately consumed to produce additional hostile Megascarabs. Number of Megascarabs created is dependent on mass of the corpse. These Megascarabs have also been found to avoid active combat, increasing their chances of utilizing combat casualties mid-battle.

This evolution initially had uncontrolled proliferation which ended up indirectly harming the colony by ruining the econsystem. Aforementioned initial variant is now believed to be extinct as Insectoid colony systematically incorporated those with more milder behaviour over time. Now spore-based reproduction are only utilized as hostile response, and hive sends out a pheromone that arrests all proliferation when there are more than 30 Megascarabs in the area.

 Dark Swarm (Spelopede)
Some Spelopede variants possess unique metasynaptic processes to feed a colony of tiny organisms. Upon being threatened, Spelopede release this colony around them to form a cloud of protection against ranged attacks. Fortunately, this is one-time use ability as Spelopede must spend at least a year to re-establish another swarm acceptable for combat.

 Chitinous Plating (Megaspider)
Unlike other Insectoids which have developed support abilities, Megaspiders have evolved to gain powerful armours befitting of their role as main offensive unit. Megaspider variant with Chitinous Plating are slower than normal Megaspider, but feel no pain and gain +40% blunt armor & +20% sharp armor.

For Version 1.2+ :

 Evolution Chamber (All Insectoids)
Besides serving as site of proliferation and production, Insectoid Hive store significant amount of growth chemicals which are emitted when its offsprings are induced to launch a group assault. This action causes immediate aging of all juvenile Insectoids with biological age lower than 1, giving them a chance to develop useful mutations right before combat. Fortunately this chemical is found to have no effect on older Insectoids.

 Hivemind Network (Megaspider. Rare; 1% chance each year)
Greater utilization of psylink abilities in Rimworld has caused mutant strain with stronger connection to hivemind to be selected into prominence. The hivemind network prevents mental interference, and pollutes psionic plane with broadcast of multifarious Insectoid consciousness that reduce entropy limit of all psykers in surrounding area by 80%. Therefore although Hivemind Network cannot prevent activation of psionic abilities, it serve as effective deterrent by significantly increasing the consequences of doing so. This psychic contamination disappears within hour of killing the offending creature.
This ability is automatically disabled for players without Royalty DLC

• This mod is safe to add or remove mid-game (as long as there are no Insectoid unit present in player's map).
• This mod is compatible with all mods as long as it doesn't modify two things mentioned below.
• This mod is incompatible with other mods that modify AssaultColony DutyDef or insect behaviour, unless listed below.
• This mod has built-in compatibility with:
  
  • Better Infestations 1.2. Put below Insectoids Evolved in mod order. Bugs will use abilties when they appear as raiders or while aggressively defending their hive.
  • Vanilla Faction Expanded - Insectoids. New hostile Insectoid faction from this mod will use abilities as raiders. Adds Chitinous Plating to Royal Megaspider, and Dark Swarm to Gigalocust.