Exploration and safer routes
Exploration reveals the world; safety is learned through experience.
Your slimes permanently reveal the surface within their sight. The camera alone discovers nothing. Another species becomes known only when one of your colony members, controlled or autonomous, actually comes close enough. Below ground, local perception replaces the broad surface map.
Learning danger
Colonies gather only the experiences of their own members. Repeated serious injuries, deaths or sustained poison exposure can build into a region of danger memory. AI-led colonies may turn that memory into warning trails on ground they have already explored; for the player, drawing a trail by hand remains a deliberate act. One observation therefore neither reveals the entire map nor keeps every danger visible forever.
From above, I could see the pond well before any slime reached it. The first of my own turned towards it only after finding the bank for itself.
