Playing the other side...

[ssilk]

I was thinking, how difficult would it be to play not the "rich bastard from earth" (http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-64) , but playing the poor aliens.

I mean, currently the natives are unplayable, they don't have a goal, just want to fight pollution, spawn around, build bigger and bigger nests, lay some eggs. They don't seem to need anything, don't eat, don't drink, just standing around, watching.

What is needed to change the sides / to play the other side? How could the natives "behave"? Would that be a cool multiplayer mode? Would that be a good game?

[DaveMcW]

I think it is impossible to do balanced human vs alien PVP. You need to design the entire game around that, not add it in less than a year from release. Look how long it took Starcraft to do it right, even with that as their #1 design goal.

Maybe some dedicated modder could do it 2-3 years after release, if they have enough tools.

I could definitely see a separate game from the aliens' point of view. But seeing their side would make me feel pretty guilty for invading their planet.

[Piranha]

I remember reading a thread where people had solved for force spawning as the biter faction, using capsules to spawn new biters/worms/spawners.

I think the biggest problem was that the research was still combined between both players since they were using a force command to make player 2 recognized as an alien, and the obvious no research/ stuff to build as the alien race. I believe someone (I think it was Fish but I could be wrong) was toying with this idea and planning to do a YouTube series if it worked out to where any sort of fun game play was doable.

I think for multiplayer if you tested and played around with it you might be able to come up with something that could work, and figure out problems/ ways to solve them, after a few playthroughs. Something like starting a custom map that has a base already made so that the alien player could attack instantly and the human would have to defend/ build up to wipe out the alien player.

For single player I'm not sure you will ever have success because there would need to be extensive code for the now enemy human to build up a base and attack you while working towards rocket defense (or something else, I just used default end game as example).

[kovarex]

Well, for 0.12 the proper force separation is planned.
So different player can have different forces and the research and all related stuff works properly.

[ssilk]

I think it is impossible to do balanced human vs alien PVP. You need to design the entire game around that, not add it in less than a year from release. Look how long it took Starcraft to do it right, even with that as their #1 design goal.

Maybe some dedicated modder could do it 2-3 years after release, if they have enough tools.

I could definitely see a separate game from the aliens' point of view. But seeing their side would make me feel pretty guilty for invading their planet.

I don't think to something like Starcraft. Would be boring, there are tons of games doing that: balance two sides out and let them fight. Max 30 mins. Kaboom.

But a game like Factorio ... I mean you have 2 hours. Does anybody would like that? 2 hours of pure stress? 15 mins nice, 30 is enough, one hour too much. And above not possible.

I think more to games like Sims. Call me crazy, but that's about the same as what Albert wrote today in the FFF: The natives have a paradise! Really? They have needs (eating drinking, sex...) and do many things, we eventually do not understand. But let's take a look at them. They are the ants, you are the good, take a lense and look at them. Learning their behavior could be very useful, if you want to fight against other players.

[Tami]

You can play this as Brainbug, The brainbug is connected with the brain of each alien and the brainbug can send the other aliens to a specific point to do there, what aliens usually do

[Adil]

----Doubts----
I don't think the full fledged biter-players vs colonist-players scenario would fit here.
Actually, I don't think pvp in general is the thing for factorio.
You see, to me it's a game about the player, complicated systems and various interactions between them. And players trading all the manners of sucker punches o get onto each other hardly harmonize with thoughtful creation of anything. Also, given that average interesting factory takes at least 6 hours to build, I doubt that players would be in for the risk of losing all that progress.

---Ramblings---
Though speaking about interactions between systems, I could see this improving currently poor environment ability to push back on the player.
There is a game called zandronum, basically it's engine for various doom2-like games with various gameplay regimes, among those there is the multiplayer regime, where a few players play for demons side, but they do not just be demons, they are puppeteers. They fly around in spectator mode and interact with the game by spawning monsters and power-ups instead of directly opposing marine-players.
And then there's that new trend in games about invasions.

---Raw stream of thoughts---
Something along these lines could look interesting addition: you log onto server, probably a while later than human players, get a nil-character and then one of following may occur.

• 1.Maybe you become an combat-adviser and tweak their attack routes so they don't just run past bazillion of turrets and then log off.
  2.Maybe you can get to be a chief-spawner at some base and order nearby units around trying to drive players away from you.
  3.Maybe you get elected as a president of Biterland for a limited term and get to give orders all around map, but the seriousness with which biters take your orders depends on how much pollution is there.

To give you something else to do you can smuggle the pollution to the distant bases to convince them join your fight. For example you send squad of biters with sacks to a polluted area, they collect air samples, and if they manage to get from there to unpolluted village, that village will lend units based on both the amount of samples and severity of pollution in the samples.
I'm not sure why players would want to participate in that for any significant amount of time though, unless Albert writes more motivational posts for people to join biter protection association.
Also, this all still won't make much sense while player can just waltz through a dozen bases with a shotgun, the combat would need to be shifted from the "player fights biters" to "factory fights biters".

---Final remark---
Wow, got a little carried away in the previous section, depending on how things balance out I myself may be not up for the third and even second variant suggested there.
Finally this seems to be feasible with cripts, albeit people say unit orders are unwieldy now. And probably not by me. Not in the next few months at least.

[ssilk]

Also, given that average interesting factory takes at least 6 hours to build, I doubt that players would be in for the risk of losing all that progress.

PVP makes only sense if a game would last maximum 30 mins.What can be done in 30 mins? Maybe an hour for hardcore. For the current Factorio this makes really no sense, we speak here from another game. So, please, forget this thought.

When I say playing the other side, I would mean a game, which is really different. And only eventually playing with other players. And no idea, if with or against them.

1.Maybe you become an combat-adviser and tweak their attack routes so they don't just run past bazillion of turrets and then log off.

Nice. Spraying some pheromones, which warns the biters (What do biters do in their spare time?).

the combat would need to be shifted from the "player fights biters" to "factory fights biters".

Exactly my thought, we need some AI, which can built a factory.

And I think the target of the biters are not the fight. They love the peace. The game of the biters should not be to fight, the game should be "just life". Sounds boring, but if they are working on the base of pheromones only, this could be a really interesting game.

Not in the next few months at least.

Of course. I think to autumn.