After placing some nests, they grow ginormous and cause a LOT of lag when they are 'looking' for a new nest location to set down.
Another idea would be to make the nests dynamically seek out and hunt the other aliens as well. Or allow them to react to your base being attacked and move to the threat/attacked location.

Thanks for your idea! Yes, I’ve noticed that issue. The nests will grow uncontrollably and wildly over time, eventually causing the game to lag. My idea is to create something like a “Zerg factory” that requires a continuous supply of eggs in order for it to expand. I’ll also work on optimizing the lag issue. Regarding the base being attacked, I’ll try to implement a feature that calls nearby nests to protect it. I also want to make something like a “Swarm Queen” that can interact with the player—leading the swarm and enabling some special gameplay. All in all, it’s a huge workload, but hopefully I can make it happen in a future version, hahaha.

In version 2.., I plan to optimize the performance usage when nests expand, and also support a feature where idle bugs from nearby nests are called in to protect the base when it’s under attack. I’ll also implement the egg supply system. As for the nest’s queen—something like in StarCraft—that would require modeling. I may be good at coding, but art is probably not my strong suit. If I can find someone to collaborate with to complete this mod, or if I manage to figure it out myself in the future, there’s a good chance I’ll make it happen.

IRT to the Queen, have you thought about using a mega biter or something? Maybe shade/color it white/black or something the other biters do not use for color? Maybe even make it a nest that is colored differently for now? Maybe a 'nest' (Area) has each a Queen entity to interact and ONLY appears when the nest is sufficiently large enough, ala hivemind/gravemind.

As for the nests, maybe add a threat radius check based on LAST threat location? Several nests, only the closest nest according to the check will perform ANY logic checks to 'expand'. Else, maybe turn OFF the 'expanding' function for now or even add an option to slow down the tick rate or timer for expanding? This would allow players more fine grain control for their artificial biter army.

I DID notice that using the mod "Unit control (updated)" does work and clicking the nests, then choosing a waypoint or attack move makes the nest that do spawn bugs to automatically move. Maybe something close to that instead of bugs just forming up on the player. Maybe even a scouting function from the Unit mod or maybe a lightweight function to have the bugs move towards turrets/walls close to enemies as a 'fortification' effort?

One thing i did notice is when using the cleanup tool, it did not clean up all the nests but instead only a few select nests. This could be in conflict with "Rampant" as there are various Biter types in this modset.

“IRT to the Queen, have you thought about using a mega biter or something? Maybe shade/color it white/black or something the other biters do not use for color? Maybe even make it a nest that is colored differently for now? Maybe a 'nest' (Area) has each a Queen entity to interact and ONLY appears when the nest is sufficiently large enough, ala hivemind/gravemind.”

Yes, I have thought about using the in-game model for the Zerg Queen, but honestly it looks quite bad. And yes, I share your idea of creating a Queen unit based on the development stage of each nest.

"As for the nests, maybe add a threat radius check based on LAST threat location? Several nests, only the closest nest according to the check will perform ANY logic checks to 'expand'. Else, maybe turn OFF the 'expanding' function for now or even add an option to slow down the tick rate or timer for expanding? This would allow players more fine grain control for their artificial biter army.“

Yes, I agree with this proposal—it’s very good. I will add an option to enable or disable expansion.

"I DID notice that using the mod "Unit control (updated)" does work and clicking the nests, then choosing a waypoint or attack move makes the nest that do spawn bugs to automatically move. Maybe something close to that instead of bugs just forming up on the player. Maybe even a scouting function from the Unit mod or maybe a lightweight function to have the bugs move towards turrets/walls close to enemies as a 'fortification' effort?”

Yes, in my last version I actually implemented the ability to control the movement of Zerg units. This suggestion is great, but implementing it would take some time—I would probably need to handle automatic pathfinding and obstacle avoidance, and then set routes based on the player’s wall positions before moving the units.

"One thing I did notice is when using the cleanup tool, it did not clean up all the nests but instead only a few select nests. This could be in conflict with "Rampant" as there are various Biter types in this modset."

I will check this issue. Indeed, different mods may use different names for biters, and my current method iterates through entities by name.

Your logic is really impressive! I actually welcome the idea of collaborating on development. At the moment, I’m working on some other mods, so I’ll probably get back to this one once I’ve wrapped those up. But I’d be glad to have your input when I do—it could be great to work together.