Purple science require rare ore

[Flight]

TL;DR: Purple Science should require a rare ore that only spawns far from the starting area.

In my experience, the end-game felt short because of two things:

- Purple Science is too easy to collect.
- The game can be beaten (rocket launched and all science) without ever building trains.

To address this, I suggest that Purple Science should require a new type of ore, that must be mined, but only spawns really far from the starting area. This will force the player to explore the map more, engage in more territorial combat, build trains to transport the ore, and give more meaning to the final level of science research.

[Frightning]

Or they could just make the Alien Science Pack recipe not yield 10 of them for 1 Alien Artifact and instead give 1 for 1, now farming up those Alien Artifacts takes a lot more effort (and means that the bugs will be much more pissed off and dangerous by endgame).

[Bart]

So you have to search for hours and hours to find that ore patch far away. Sounds like real fun.

[bobingabout]

Or a better solution... also require something even harder to make, like processing units as an example.

In fact that's one of the things my tech mod does (Though only for the researchs in my own mods currently), it replaces the alien science pack with my science pack 4 for a lot of technologies, which costs strange things to craft... like processing units, express belts, and electric engines(depending on what items are available, most people won't see the motor requirement, it will have other items from my mods in there instead.)

I'm not saying use my mod in this case, just using it as an example!

Assuming it doesn't block any of them being researched, then in my opinion it should also cost a processing unit, express belt, and electric engine to craft (or something as equally challenging to create, through granted the biggest challenge for belt and motor both are the lubricant)

[bobucles]

Really all purple science needs is some high tier consumable to work out okay. It could be processing units, or maybe even rocket components.

Having only one single item for purple science might be easy, but factorio is about building stuff! A hard recipe that takes everything you learned in the game is ultimately more fun to figure out.

[Flight]

So you have to search for hours and hours to find that ore patch far away. Sounds like real fun.

It doesn't need to be THAT rare. Just far enough to justify building trains.

[bobucles]

There's not much point in adding a whole extra mining type just to build one single item.

[The Phoenixian]

There's not much point in adding a whole extra mining type just to build one single item.

Maybe not just to do so, but if the rare ore the product needed was uranium, for example, then it would make sense for it to take a moderate amount of extra work to get to that ore, as it likewise has uses elsewhere in the endgame factory.

[mooklepticon]

Really all purple science needs is some high tier consumable to work out okay. It could be processing units, or maybe even rocket components.

Having only one single item for purple science might be easy, but factorio is about building stuff! A hard recipe that takes everything you learned in the game is ultimately more fun to figure out.

This! Purple science packs are the least "factorio" thing in game. The theme is all wrong. Killing natives for their spawner drops is not a logistical puzzle, which is generally the theme. Grinding out mats is like a lazy MMO trick. "Get 10,000,000 boar livers to launch the rocket."

[Harkonnen604]

This! Purple science packs are the least "factorio" thing in game. The theme is all wrong. Killing natives for their spawner drops is not a logistical puzzle, which is generally the theme. Grinding out mats is like a lazy MMO trick. "Get 10,000,000 boar livers to launch the rocket."

Totally agree on that. It should be processing units and other hard to produce stuff. But it still must remain 10-science-packs-per-item-set because electric engines and purple circuits take a lot of time to craft on their own.

[Arch666Angel]

It would be funny to just have one item which does kinda unlock the alien research which you have to get/loot from a special biter, so if you want alien research you don't want to mindlessly kill all the biter you can find, but find the special biter, or maybe raise the pollution level on purpose because it only spawns on 90% evolution or something.

[TheDagmaar]

Reminder: The game is still in alpha. We still don't have a >>>LOT<<< of stuff. I think the devs know this problem, and will deal with it later, when they remaking the tech tree. BTW I think there will be one more lvl science bottle, so patience.

Hey devs! Code faster! Tak-tak-tak-tak! =D

[British_Petroleum]

I quite like purple science the way it is. With bobs mods you can get fragments of artifacts from biter corpses which you can use to craft alien artifacts. This means you can setup "artifact farms" with turrets near alien bases and belts to collect the dropped fragments, which is a rather unique thing to do in factorio.

[ssilk]

This is a balancing question. Moved.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I'd like to see alien artifacts grant much less science. I like being able to make purple science packs only from the artifacts, but getting ten science packs from one artifact is way too much. I'd like to see enemies often dropping artifact fragments that can be combined into an artifact, worms dropping an artifact, and large hive nests which are very well defended but drop many artifacts. I also like the alien ore idea, you could mine it and process it into artifacts. And with all this increased artifact production, you should get just one science pack per artifact and the artifact costs in recipes should be greatly increased.

[Harkonnen604]

With current vanilla way (like 10 artifacts from a spawner and this being your only source of artifacts) it's quite balanced. If you make biters drop artifacts, yes this will have to be rebalanced.

[thereaverofdarkness]

With current vanilla way (like 10 artifacts from a spawner and this being your only source of artifacts) it's quite balanced. If you make biters drop artifacts, yes this will have to be rebalanced.

It's not balanced at all. You can get a whole research project from one spawner.

[Harkonnen604]

Research I care about costs like 300-500 bottles, so it' not one spawner but an average biters base. The biggest issue is that this process can't be automated (though I liked idea of getting bottles from biter corpses via belt system).

[Tubbles]

a rare ore that only spawns far from the starting area.

I like this idea a lot, then again, I think I like the idea of adding more content to the game in most forms.

I don't think it needs to be a "hard to find" type of ore, just a "hard to get" type. I.e. it is found far away from the starting point, but once the player reaches such distance it can be quite abundant. Btw, isn't alien base strength already calculated as a function of distance from starting point?

[malecord]

a rare ore that only spawns far from the starting area.

Imho it's just a redundant requirement. The purpose of alien tech is force you to go outside, far from your base to harvest artifacts. And, by extension, to invest on military. Nests don't die on their own you know. And the don't come on their own to suicide against your turrets. You need to invest on offensive weapons. You need bullets, you need cannon shells, you need combat robots and poison capsules. And all that stuff requires production lines and quite a few resources.

So you see, purple packs do have a cost.

I won't object that now they are unbalanced. It's pretty obvious. I've modded my factorio to use a 1:1 artifact:pack ratio. The game is less no brainer this way but it doesn't feel done either.

The real problem is the military stuff. The costs for instance. I like the tank because it requires additional production line for shells. I like capsules/combat robots for the same reason. The shotgun shield combo on the other hand is kind of broken imho just because bullets are to cheap and shield... shield just auto repairs itself so it doesn't require any production line to back it up which imho is against the game theme.

Admittedly the whole military part of the game requires a complete rework (more enemies, more weapons, evo factors etc). Since purple science is an extension of military I'd expect it to be balanced at that time. 0.14 maybe? Once all the weapons and all the enemies are in the game and they works, to balance purple science is just a matter of adjusting drop and conversion rates which is trivial.