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. Every piece of land seen for the first time brings the colony a little closer to its next founding right; land already known does not count twice. 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.
Foragers and warning lines
Autonomous foragers favour reachable destinations. They follow food trails, remember empty sites for a while and heed warning pheromones. A warning line is not a wall: without a sensible alternative, a slime can cross it. Explicit attack, follow and escort orders place the player's intention above that caution.
Colony maps
Beyond ordinary sight, colony maps can be shown: environment, food, trails, known dangers and the colony's explored areas, each with [Shift] and a number. Their colours reach beneath the frayed edge of the fog but reveal nothing new there. A legend explains the colours, and over explored ground the pointer names the exact values. When another window opens, the map disappears again.
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.
A quiet view does not prove a quiet place. Small changes in the ground or water can precede the event itself.
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.
