do something about dead enemies

[ahicks92]

Skipping the templates because it's not a feature, but arguably not a bug, and if we call it an enhancement we'd be "enhancing" a whole hell of a lot. Not sure what labels to add, but I've thrown the ones I think appropriate on.

When an enemy dies it will be on top of the tile. This breaks getting to things lower down. For example an enemy dying on a transport belt doesn't allow one to see the belt, cursor skipping into a dead enemy stops the skipping, they show up in the scanner, etc etc. I'm not sure if any mod makes them important but as far as I know they aren't in Vanilla. It's a bit important to know they're there just to know what was being attacked I guess. I see 3 options:

• Get rid of them like logistic bots, except just poof they don't show up no matter what you do. From the blind user's perspective they literally do not exist.
• Keep them, remove them from cursor skipping's consideration, and shift them to the "back" of the tile as far as our cursor and shift+f are concerned.
• Hide them away in all ways, and just say "transport belt with biter corpse" or "dirt with biter corpse" etc.

Probably more options than those, that's just what I came up with on the spot. I've proposed having sounds for cursor movements before--this is a good example of where one might be useful for instance. Seems like maybe I'm just failing to imagine, still the above are good fixes.

Also I don't know the cursor code nor do I know for sure that there's not some uber-popular mod that's like now you have alchemy and must put the biters in the cauldron (not at all thematic, but I have seen more ridiculous browsing the mod portal so...). In other words I know neither what's easiest nor whether any choice has knock-on effects in 6 months.

Hopefully one of these is--I'd b happy with any of them personally. Mostly I just want them to get out of my freaking way, I don't care how they do so. I have a weak preference for knowing about it but I don't really know how I'd use the info.

[LevFendi]

Dead enemies are remnant entities, in the same type as tree stumps and destroyed buildings. You can clear them with SHIFT + X. They also fade away within a few minutes.

I think it is useful to have them but indeed they should not block cursor skipping. I will add an exception in cursor skipping code for all remnant types.

[ahicks92]

Ok, shift+x is useful. Would have never known that. Basically that solves a large part of my problem. Agreed that cursor skipping ignoring them would be an improvement however.

I do know they fade but because of how things work out there's an incentive to be as close as possible as fast as possible e.g. for repairs. Sadly I couldn't find a config to make them fade faster.

[LevFendi]

The latest situation with this issue is that cursor skipping ignores dead enemies. However, tile reading is a different issue and will be addressed with its own post later.