Overview

A simple mod that deletes the nasty-ass decorative textures biters leave behind once the nests have been cleared out. It isn't fancy, it isn't pretty, it just deletes them with no fading or anything - though it does do it in a random order so it at least emulates a natural process. But with any luck you'll be away from the scene of the crime when it happens so it won't matter either way.

Any biter creep decal on Nauvis that isn't near a spawner, worm, or corpse thereof will be deleted.

How it works

When the mod is initialised, it scans all surfaces in the game for biter creep decoratives. It then adds them to an internal list, tracking them by texture, position, surface and other internal properties. This internal list is then kept updated by scanning new surfaces as they are created, scanning new chunks on existing surfaces as they are generated, and scanning a one-chunk-radius area around any biter that sacrifices itself to build or expand a nest. (A command exists for player-initiated scanning, but this shouldn't be necessary outside of manually placing biter decoratives in the editor.)

Once this list has been created, a configurable number of decoratives are chosen from it at random to be checked for proximity to nests. If no spawners or worms are detected within range, the decorative is marked for deletion. The mod then checks a range around the deletion candidate, removing "secondary" creep decoratives (mud streaks, patches of fungi or worms, etc) that are close by, and then removes the deletion candidate as well. Conversely, if there is a nest entity is found in range, the decorative will not be deleted and the mod will simply do nothing until choosing a new decorative on the next tick it is triggered.

Please note: this version of the mod and its algorithm are still experimental, and bugs, errors or crashes may occur.

If using an experimental version (3.0.0 or above), please report any bugs or errors you encounter on the discussion page. If you prefer stability over performance, please consider reverting to and not updating past version 2.3.0 until the stability of the new version can be confirmed.

Compatibility

It should check any entities that use the types "unit-spawner" or "turret" (which is how worms are classified) and which are tagged with "placeable-enemy" when looking for nests around decals. This means it shouldn't delete creep decals near modded spawners like those from Armoured Biters, and modded worms too (though I don't know of any examples). A cursory test seems to agree with that assessment but it hasn't been rigorously tested.