Please fix enemy spawn rates once and for all

[Genitive]

I think the issue with low enemy numbers will have to be addressed eventually, so why not make another topic about it.

A lot of missions will have very low enemy count, which makes playing them extremely boring. And it's not low level missions, across the board enemies spawn rate is too low or widely inconsistent. For example, survivals often won't spawn enough enemies, which makes it harder to sustain life support. Excavations will have long delays before enemies appear and very often delay power cell carriers, which unnecessarily drags the mission. Or we will just have a series of empty rooms we have to run through without anything to do. Not exactly exciting.

The screenshot below is from steel-path exterminate. I just entered this room, there is all this space and only one guy. There were more later on, but it highlights how inconsistent things can be.

Spoiler

 

Then there is another extreme, when you have a lot of units packed in tight spaces which makes navigating annoying and also block enemies so they can't properly attack you. Endless steel path suffers from it on maps with narrow corridors, but not only. Some maps have these small storage rooms, and I frequently saw enemies inside struggling to walk and blocking one another. Or just void fissures dropping 10+ units into them and they spawn inside walls.

Finally, there is a problem of despawning. I realize the game has limited memory and can't populate the whole map properly. I also know the game doesn't despawn units when we leave them behind, but rather teleports them closer. Unfortunately, it doesn't do a good job hiding it. Then we have situations when we enter a room we haven't been to yet and are greeted by enemies under effects of statuses or abilities we inflicted. The game also can't keep up with players pace, so when move away from a group of enemies quickly, we have to wait before they start appearing in our location. It can take some time in a lot of cases and gives a feeling that the maps are empty. And it wastes our time by having to wait for the AI to sort itself out.

Here is a list of things I would like to see.

1. Increase enemy count across all missions so we don't experience empty rooms as often.

2. Streamline spawning so it is more consistent and flows better. Spawn units in groups of 3 or 4, make them appear in intervals, and even spawn them in a set distance to avoid having empty rooms. Also, increase number of spawn points or change them more often so we don't have situations when enemies arrive from one direction only.

3. Speed up the rate the game teleports enemies when we run around the map quickly to avoid waiting for them for too long. And hide the fact they are teleported. Heal them, purge of statuses, and reset their awareness if necessary.

 

Now I don't know how difficult would implementing these things would be, if possible at all, but I think it would make the game slightly more interesting in the long run.