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}}}
Extra	{{{extra}}}

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 by the male scientist.

Royal Jelly is dropped in your formicarium near at the start of each test. Royal Jelly can be gathered even when food storage is full and it 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 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.

• Order 1: Acid - Bombardier beetles - Laser - Random tiger beetles - Electricity - Random spiders - Fire

• Order 2: Electricity - Random tiger beetles - Fire - Random spiders - Acid - Bombardier beetles - Laser

• Order 3: Laser - Random tiger beetles - Acid - Bombardier beetles - Fire - Random spiders - Electricity

Lab enemies in this phase include:

• beach tiger beetles, nothern dune tiger beetles, six-spotted tiger beetles, African tiger beetles

• Beach wolf spiders, sand bear 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 and giant 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:

• Devil's coach horse beetles, hermit crabs, northern dune tiger beetles and sand bear wolf spiders

• Green rove beetles, jumping spiders, harvestmen, spiny devil bush crickets, leaf-mimic praying mantises, velvet worms and whip spiders

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

• Earwigs, African tiger beetles, giant African mantises and huntsman spiders

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 level.

Wave enemies include:

• Leafcutter ant minors, leafcutter ant mediae and stun leafcutter ant majors

• Trap-jaw ant soldiers

• Army ant mediae and army ant majors

• Vigorous fire ant soldiers

• Little black ant workers and little black ant soldiers

• Big-headed ant minors, big-headed ant majors and big-headed ant supersoldiers

• Anesthetist Matabele ant medics and Matabale ant soldiers

• Driver ant workers, small driver ant soldiers and large driver ant soldiers.

The male scientist uses 4 equipments at the same time during the fourth phase (1 test). He releases alligator back scorpions and 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 activation order is exactly 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 dwarf salamanders, pine woods tree frogs, rainbow lizards, sun spiders and 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.

Minimaps

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  Surface