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The game feels like it has 2 phases. First, you build up your factory, then you get to science 4 recipes and then the game switches to mediocre combat. I don't see a lot of reason to continue building up the factory after getting some good science 3 automation running, since I don't care for the combat.

Phy wrote:The game feels like it has 2 phases. First, you build up your factory, then you get to science 4 recipes and then the game switches to mediocre combat. I don't see a lot of reason to continue building up the factory after getting some good science 3 automation running, since I don't care for the combat.

I think there are two decent goals beyond Science packs 3 atm:

• Establishing the Rocket Defense
• Build a huge automated train network

Obviously, more stuff to do beyond the - admittedly mediocre - combat would be great.

Phy wrote:The game feels like it has 2 phases. First, you build up your factory, then you get to science 4 recipes and then the game switches to mediocre combat. I don't see a lot of reason to continue building up the factory after getting some good science 3 automation running, since I don't care for the combat.

After playing for 10 days nothing else than Factorio, I was lacking motivation this weekend. I was around the point of progress you described: Having T3 automated. A few days later I saw some Factorio Let's Plays and I was instantly hooked again. I had so many ideas how to improve my current setup and build some new parts and things. I guess you can get a lot more gameplay out of it if you set your own goals, like having a nice working logistic setup, train network, switch to solar energy and so on. I got many things to do where i said "nah... it's working, why change it", but changing and optimizing it was half the fun. Don't see the rocket defense as the final goal (it's a placeholder anyway). If you have fun in building nice factories, try to make it better and bigger. Try adding new functions, like being able to using blueprints for easy setup of standard factory parts (got some for a furnace block, a solar panel setup, accumulators, and a standardized assembly setup that is easily configurable and works great with a logistic network for things that you don't need in pure masses, like some buildings or ammo for personal use).

And while I like the combat to mix things up a bit between engineering sessions, I think the balance is a bit off at the moment. Although there are some things to discover, too, and if you have the right tech, combat shouldn't be a chore. It can be pretty entertaining from time to time, if the enemy evolution works with your tech progress. That's off from time to time though, and that is when combat gets annoying.

I think they're not hard but tedious. Nothing seems particularly effective against big biters, everything takes forever to grind them down. They're easy to keep at bay with some slow capsules or just enough exos in your suit. Doing shotgun run-bys with a huge swarm chasing you is fun but after you've finally killed the last spawner you often sit there for minutes just grinding away at the big biters. Depending on the number it seems that discharge defense (for LOTS) or laser defense (for a few ones) in your suit is the best way to kill them but while it's low risk it isn't quick. Maybe being able to upgrade those defenses would help. Or maybe that railgun will do. It'd probably help to add enemies that are dangerous because of their attack style, not just massive bullet sponges. Comparing e.g. Minecraft that uses enemies with vastly different styles without making any of them insanely hard to kill.

KDR_11k wrote:I think they're not hard but tedious. Nothing seems particularly effective against big biters, everything takes forever to grind them down. They're easy to keep at bay with some slow capsules or just enough exos in your suit. Doing shotgun run-bys with a huge swarm chasing you is fun but after you've finally killed the last spawner you often sit there for minutes just grinding away at the big biters. Depending on the number it seems that discharge defense (for LOTS) or laser defense (for a few ones) in your suit is the best way to kill them but while it's low risk it isn't quick. Maybe being able to upgrade those defenses would help. Or maybe that railgun will do. It'd probably help to add enemies that are dangerous because of their attack style, not just massive bullet sponges. Comparing e.g. Minecraft that uses enemies with vastly different styles without making any of them insanely hard to kill.

Destroyer Capsules are very good against even huge packs of large biters and worms. IMO the problem with combat is not in the endgame, but in the early/mid game. You need quite a bit of research and iron/copper/oil throughput to mass produce the best stuff.

no - check out the youtube post at this link!

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=8&t=4683

Maybe some tougher aliens that spit spines and shoot some back? Stronger walls?
But hey you can always play alien shooter.

For me: currently the game is too easy or too hard.

Vanilla 1 attack last 3 hours.

If i enable mod i get attacked by 10983912380183173678167178712371231273817217851890865490ß24892141241234192391293123912313293 (atleast) big worms at once.

early game: build 10 turrets and put ammo on your toolbar.
walk 10 paces, place 2 turrets, click your ammo, then control click the turrets to load them.
repeat over and over until you are near the base, then do it with 4 turrets.

mid game: do the above with laser turrets and and basic power poles.

mix early/mid game. instead of moving your turrets, build walls around them and leave them. if you get swarmed, run past them and let them fight.

late game: power armor, 1 fusion reactor, 7 shields, and 5 mk2 batteries and you can walk around firing a shotgun for several minutes without dieing. if you stand still you will be swarmed and killed though.

Where I get into trouble is taking too long. I'll spend 20 game-hours futzing around with some superfluous project (i.e.: tiered fallback to backup power so that all my steam engines don't turn on at once) only to discover that while I was ignoring them, biters have effectively evolved into a whole new species that is ten times tougher and which I'm not equipped to deal with. At least they don't seem to eat all my CPU, like they did in the mid 0.13 days, ruining my gameplay entirely.

Early game gun turrets is good enough.
For Mid to early late game just get a tank, personal roboport, piercing rounds and 200+ repair packs. Shells are total crap, just ram everything, bots will repair your tank. It is working good for everything until you'll start encountering 5+ big worms.
And from the point when tank is not enough you need something what was mentioned above, like swarm of destroyers.

Anyway the most stupid mechanics is spawners not having some sort of cool-down period. Big settlements will just pour biters and it will take loads of time to clear. Anyway endgame map is just too red, biters are creating new settlements too fast for my liking. It would be better if they will rarely branch, but somehow upgrade main "city".

ssilk wrote:In later game you will find biter nests, which are so big, that you don't have a chance against them. 200 lasers or so, just overrun. With capsules: No problem. Some destructor, some slow down (40-60 needed!). Finish.

I admit, this is a problem, if you don't have researched that yet or don't have enough resources, but that is a completely different game.

I've cleared biter bases with Big biters and Big spitters that are HUGE with just 15 Laser turrets and no upgrades (note: I did need to use a lot of Repair packs but that's easy and their cheap), pretty sure fully upgraded I'd need no more than 25 to do that vrs. Behemoths.

Hm. Furcube, have you looked at the post date of that quote? It's from January 2014. Nearly 3 years ago! Happy reviving.

And to the conetent: The current lasers are now 4 times stronger than at that time and the current biters are not so hard to kill as 2 years ago (even if they added the Behemoths).

I never felt like the end game was too hard. Good Power armor with these killer drones was always enough. Sometimes I had to retreat for a few seconds until the shields regenerate, but that was rare and only with really huge bases.

Nova wrote:I never felt like the end game was too hard. Good Power armor with these killer drones was always enough. Sometimes I had to retreat for a few seconds until the shields regenerate, but that was rare and only with really huge bases.

I've been getting by killing bases with Big biters and spitters on foot with just Modular armor kitted out with NV, 2xMk1 shields, 3xMk1 Batteries, and 5xPortable Solar Panels. So yea, it's not hard to deal with biter bases endgame with a proper armor setup (try Mk2 Power armor w/ 4xfusion, 9xMk2 shields if you wanna feel invincible)

In my 0.15 Deathworld playthrough, I'm cleaning out nests at Behemoth Biter evolution level using the Tank Machine Gun with Power Armor (not Mk2) support: a roboport for repairs and 3 Personal Laser Defense. With poison capsules for crowd control this relatively low tech setup is proving perfectly serviceable, and there is still a lot of scope for upgrades: Power Armor MK2, tank cannon upgrades, combat robots, uranium weaponry etc. I don't feel it's too easy because considerable skill is required to keep the Tank alive vs behemoth biters.

Flamethrower and cluster grenades cure many ills. and legs (exo-skeletons). lots of legs. A few destroyer capsules don't hurt, either.

I havent seen too had bitter yet. Make blueprint for laser turrets & electric pole or use nukes.

totally not.

laser turrets to hold ground, nukes to expand. no issues here.

imho it would need even more powerful enemies, as you get ridiculous amounts of damage with the infinite laser turret science...

Maybe - maybe - has the game changed marginally since the almost 4 year-old first post of the topic
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