Friday Facts #268 - The modern Biter

[Klonan]

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-268

[Gergely]

Well I definitely won't be feeling sorry for them now!

[ownlyme]

feel sorry for them? lol
i hope you provide the model files this time, so its much easier to spray blood on them for my gore mod

[Reika]

Well, I think this marks the first FFF where I read it and thought "I guess I will be making a mod to revert this entire FFF". Not because the models are bad or the underlying idea is wrong. But simply because the new models trigger such revulsion that I would not be able to tolerate having them in my game any more than if there was photorealistic vomit and defecation.

I suppose that is a sign you are getting exactly what you aimed for, but there is a threshold that if you make a thing sufficiently unpleasant to see on the screen, you might be straying from the foundational point of "a game must, above all else, be fun to play".

And I say that as someone who has no problem with (live) insects in real life. "Normal" ants are kind of cute, moths often are, as are bees. My reaction to this (vv) is how adorable it is.


Yet even I simply cannot play with the FFF's biters on my screen.

[Terukio]

Any work in terms of their AI?

[Gergely]

Yet even I simply cannot play with the FFF's biters on my screen.

How do you know without trying?

[Gebus]

Still no word on 0.17? It would be great to see a roadmap, even if inaccurate. It looks very much like 0.17 will be release candidate, any confirmation on this? Can I plan to play 0.17 on my xmas holidays? I love this game, but in early access I still expect to see a roadmap.

[POPISowyNumer]

Will the graphic updates of bugsies go hand in hand with upgrade of their AI

Also loaders when?

[VenomousFire]

Those eyes seem unnecessarily creepy. I don't mind the rest of the model to much, but the eyes just seem disproportionately large and weird.

[Fahrradkette]

Still no word on 0.17? It would be great to see a roadmap, even if inaccurate. It looks very much like 0.17 will be release candidate, any confirmation on this? Can I plan to play 0.17 on my xmas holidays? I love this game, but in early access I still expect to see a roadmap.

+1

I personally care more about gameplay than graphics. Some news about rails would be highly appreciated. Underground tracks/tunnels and/or automatic singal laying would really brighten my day

[eradicator]

we want you to feel sorry about planning massive biter massacres. In fact we want you to feel pity towards them

other surprises to make killing them extra gratifying to watch.

Am i the only one seeing a massive contradiction there? I would be quite fine with the cute+pity part (i can definetly imagine it with that model). But i hate any form of splatter or - how shall we call it? - glorification of xenocide?

I like the new style, even though i'd call the walking animation horse-like rather than insect-like. But i hope the "suprises" aren't gonna be too distasteful to me.

Btw, those squares on the pictures are not tiles are they?! That'd be quite huge...

[Wakaba-chan]

I'm very inspired with the underground map introduced in this FFF! This reminded me same idea mentioned in developing plans for Factorio. So I have one more idea: what if such small underground "submaps" would occasionally appears under biters spawners? I mean, spawners could be just ground part of some big biters hive. So when you clean it up - it give you some additional space. This can be used like it is in Factorissimo mod where you have small entity on the map which leads you to much larger subspace.

[Reika]

Yet even I simply cannot play with the FFF's biters on my screen.

How do you know without trying?

Because I had them on my screen while reading the FFF and am capable of imagining that being ingame?

[ClockworkPie]

I think what's more important for cuteness is how they sound than how they look (think Hunters from HL2: Ep. 2).



Very cute sounding, somewhat cute looking, but nonetheless very scary.

[dee-]

Hm. Those new biters left me cold. I find them neither dreading and surely not "cute". Nice to have them in HD, tho and the animation is very nicely done.
:shrugs:

[Drury]

hate to say it but those are even more creepy than before

would rather expect something more along these lines

[Hctib]

Cute is how we like them, we want you to feel sorry about planning massive biter massacres. In fact we want you to feel pity towards them

We are also working on their sound design, and apart from that we might have some other surprises to make killing them extra gratifying to watch.

You are an alien on Biter's planet. You destroy their natural habitat and kill them just to have bigger and even more destructive and toxic factory. I agree, you should feel pity towards them, however, I don't agree killing them should be gratyfing. It should be really unpleasant and you should feel guilty doing that. How about giving them a really heart-breaking death sound, for example Puppy Crying SOUND EFFECT?
Or, instead of inducing mental breaks among players hearing unpleasant or sometimes even annoying sounds every time the Biters attack, how about giving the Biters both defensive and offensive sounds? The first one would induce guiltiness and would activate near their spawners, the second one would be a neutral sound which don't make you crazy and would activate near player's structure or on neutral ground. Player's expansion doesn't happen that often in the opposition to Biters' constant attacks, so you wouldn't get annoyed unless destroying many alien bases one by one. In addition, dooming one base would discourage you from leading further wars for some time, until you can bear the guilt again.
What do you think?

[Gebus]

No one is going to feel bad for slaughtering biters after the first few waves, no matter how you dress them up. Graphical improvements are great, but not as good as functional improvements.

[Amarula]

the Factorio planet

on Biter's planet.

Hmm I think the Factorio planet needs a proper name: Factorium? Factination? Factinogo?
None of these seem quite right, I'll be interested to see what creative ideas the community generates

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

I wonder whether I'm in the minority for not playing with biters. I only played with biters once and found them annoying. Constantly having to go back to spots to fix things while I'm trying to figure out how to build my constructions was literally a chore.

Are there statistics on how many people play with/without biters?