The REAL Final Experiment

Information
Name	The REAL Final Experiment
Categories	Story Formicarium challenge
Environment	Formicarium
Player species	Gene-thief ant
Player units	Gene-thief ant worker Black ant soldier Wood ant shooter (either) Leafcutter ant major (either) Fire ant soldier (either) Matabele ant medic (either)
Surface	Yes
Features	Unlockables Timed attacks
Music	{{{music}}}

An unprepared colony will not survive the next challenge. Make sure you are well stocked on resources.

Objectives

• Survive the tests.

Rewards

• Base value: 6 territory, 475 food, 200 Royal Jelly

• Difficulty bonus: 1400%/ 1425%/ 1450%/ 1480%/ 1520%

• New game plus bonus: + 40% x plus number

Setting

Your gene-thief ant colony must survive the final challenge.

The male scientist drops Royal Jelly in your formicarium at the start of each test. It can be gathered even when food storage is full and is fed directly to the queen.

You can spend 5000/ 15000/ 50000 Royal Jelly to make your ants more resistant to each testing equipment. Your ants become immune and gain beneficial effects after you have upgraded the resistances to level 3.

• Acid resistance: Affected ants can leave acidic trail behind them to damage contacting enemies over time. Damage is venom.

• Laser reflectivity: Affected ants can reflect the laser onto nearby enemies.

• Electric grounding: Affected ants move more quickly and can discharge electricity once to damage nearby enemies. Damage is physical.

• Heat resistance: Affected ants are ablaze and can damage nearby enemies over time. Damage is physical.

You can only have up to 300 brood tiles before attempting the challenge.

Notable enemies

Enemies are on the same side. The testing equipments can affect any creatures.

The testing equipments inflict very high true damage, force the remaining enemies to invade your nest and evaporate any leftover Royal Jelly. Range and strength of each test increases over time.

The male scientist uses only 1 equipment during the first phase (4 tests). He releases enemies in your formicarium between each test. The testing order is randomly chosen among the following options.

• Choice 1: Acid - Group 1 - Laser - Group 2 - Electricity - Group 3 - Fire

• Choice 2: Electricity - Group 2 - Fire - Group 3 - Acid - Group 1 - Laser

• Choice 3: Laser - Group 2 - Acid - Group 1 - Fire - Group 3 - Electricity

Lab enemies in this phase include:

• Group 1: Bombardier beetles

• Group 2: Adult nothern dune tiger beetles, beach tiger beetles, six-spotted tiger beetles and African tiger beetles

• Group 3: Sand bear wolf spiders, beach wolf spiders, jumping spiders, magnolia green jumpers, green lynx spiders and huntsman spiders

If you keep most of your soldiers inside, he knocks on the glass to stun and randomly damage any active creatures. This only happens during the first phase.

The male scientist uses 2 equipments during the second phase (3 tests). Equipment combinations are random and unrepeated. He releases leaf-mimic praying mantises, small and medium African mantises in your formicarium at the start and at the end of the phase.

The male scientist uses 3 equipments during the third phase (4 tests). Equipment combinations are random and unrepeated. He accidentally destroys many containers and releases various enemies in your formicarium.

Lab enemies in this phase include:

• Group 1: Adult devil's coach horse beetles, tiny and small hermit crabs, adult northern dune tiger beetles, sand bear wolf spiders

• Group 2: Adult green rove beetles, jumping spiders, harvestmen, spiny devil bush crickets, leaf-mimic praying mantises, velvet worms and tiny whip spiders

• Group 3: Magnolia green jumpers, checkered beetles, bombardier beetles, false bombardier beetles, six-spotted tiger beetles, eastern newts and narrow-mouted toads

• Group 4: Juvenile and adult earwigs, African tiger beetles, huntsman spiders, small and medium African mantises

He stabilizes the equipments and connects 8 feeding tubes to your formicarium. Attacking waves periodically enter your formicarium and invade your nest until the end of the mission.

Wave enemies include:

• Group 1: Leafcutter ant minors, leafcutter ant mediae and stun leafcutter ant majors

• Group 2: Vigorous fire ant soldiers

• Group 3: Driver ant workers, small driver ant soldiers and large driver ant soldiers

• Group 4: Army ant mediae and army ant majors

• Group 5: Anesthetist Matabele ant medics and Matabale ant soldiers

• Group 6: Big-headed ant minors, big-headed ant majors and big-headed ant supersoldiers

• Group 7: Little black ant workers and little black ant soldiers

• Group 8: Trap-jaw ant soldiers

The male scientist uses 4 equipments at the same time during the fourth phase (1 test). He releases alligator back scorpions and large emperor scorpions in your formicarium at the start of the phase.

The equipment combination destroys your surface nest entrance. You lose if you haven't upgraded all resistances to level 3.

The equipments are automatically activated one at a time during the fifth phase. The testing order is the same as the first phase.

The male scientist transforms into a human-ant hybrid. He destroys various containers in the process and releases various enemies in your formicarium. You can encounter all previously mentioned lab enemies, as well as medium hermit crabs, huge sand bear wolf spiders, large whip spiders, dwarf salamanders, pine woods tree frogs, medium rainbow lizards, large sun spiders and large African giant centipedes.

You can control his hand to crush surface enemies after his transformation. It also affects your ants.

The fifth phase only ends after all lab enemies have been eliminated.

Achievements

(to be added)

Trivia

• During the ending cutscene, the primary colony mounts the transformed male scientist and is taken out of the lab offscreen.

• The acid testing equipment is a reference to Heinz Automato ketchup dispenser.

Minimaps

• 

  Surface