Factorio Forums

I'm posting this here mainly for awareness and discussion. Not sure whether or not it's a balancing issue or not. Tried doing a search, but came up short.

After reading up on the mechanics of the evolution factor and the mechanics of spawners, I had an idea. As you all know, the Alien Artifact is only required for a few of the end-game researches, meaning they only need to be farmed at the very end of the game.

So if killing spawners in the early and midgame isn't really needed, why do it at all?

The main reason is space and security. Problem with killing them is that it increases the evolution factor, resulting in a negative feedback loop where you think you are becoming more safe, but you're really not.

So, what happens if you instead of killing the spawners, attempt to contain them by placing laser turrets just outside of range of the spawners and placing walls around the spawner camps?

Turns out, this is an incredibly effective tactic. The laser turrets instantly kill any spawning biters, while leaving the spawners untouched. By not killing any spawners, you almost completly stop the evolution factor from increasing, resulting in the spawners only creating small biters for the entire game. Furthermore, having areas of your base littered with spawners, you also HEAVILY reduce the effect of pollution, as they eat it up at a crazy rate.

However, it's very clear that this is not the way the game is designed to be played, as while doing this, the game is kind of going crazy telling me turrets are engaging the enemy and that walls are under attack.

So the question is: is this something that should be fixed or dealt with somehow?

That's very odd.

The evolution factor should still increase with pollution, and with time. The only part you are preventing is killing spawners...

Can you post the number of hours in this game, and the evolution factor? Also any mods.

starholme wrote:That's very odd.

The evolution factor should still increase with pollution, and with time. The only part you are preventing is killing spawners...

Can you post the number of hours in this game, and the evolution factor? Also any mods.

I think the idea is that you can simply avoid the sharp jump in evolution factor caused by removing bases by simply not removing them. Pollution increasing evolution factor is accounted for when the pollution is created, so cleaning up bases inside the cloud has no effect on that part. In other words, you get a lower evolution factor by keeping those bases in a secure compound instead of removing them, as kills don't count towards it.

Hexicube wrote:

starholme wrote:That's very odd.

The evolution factor should still increase with pollution, and with time. The only part you are preventing is killing spawners...

Can you post the number of hours in this game, and the evolution factor? Also any mods.

I think the idea is that you can simply avoid the sharp jump in evolution factor caused by removing bases by simply not removing them. Pollution increasing evolution factor is accounted for when the pollution is created, so cleaning up bases inside the cloud has no effect on that part. In other words, you get a lower evolution factor by keeping those bases in a secure compound instead of removing them, as kills don't count towards it.

From what I know when pollution is actually consumed by base it increases the evolution factor. So this idea shouldn't work then. And all this energy used to power the lasers needs to come from somewhere - it's pollution free if you have big solar farm.

Plus, unless you use a mod, if you don't kill the spawner, you don't get any artefacts!

For the entire game I was cleaning the areas affected by pollutions from bugs around the main factory.. Then I decided to explore the map a bit to check how situation looks like in the distant sectors. Here is the result, over 40h game on one map:





Laser turrets and walls? Or maybe tank and automatic shotgun? I think we need kind of WMD in factorio.

This is a job for the orbital ion cannon... Or 6.

6 ion cannons?

i have 20......

Spawners don't reduce the effect of pollution. Evolution happens the very moment pollution is made.

Using ammo turrets for camping is a terrible idea as the ammo production will generate massive pollution.

Using laser turrets for camping is a bad idea because you need to drastically increase your energy income with solar power to even manage the trouble.

The most effective strategy to keep evolution factor low is to use efficiency modules. They short circuit the system by reducing pollution output. Less output means smaller red zone, fewer attacks, and your weapon research can race ahead of the biter evolution curve.

relevant to this is the tactic is building crap around spawners so they can't spawn anything. The cheesiest way I know is this:



I believe the "holey" containment doesn't work if small biters are still spawning (you can block them by filling it in completely with small pipe but that takes a great deal more pipe) so it's easiest done on spitter spawners after small biters stop spawning from them.

The above tactic of locking down a spawner with a sparse grid of pipes costs less than 100 iron per spawner - equal to 50 rounds of regular ammo. I expect that this one will get fixed , spawners probably need a small no-build-zone around them for safe spawning.

The spawner graphic also appears to be off centre.

building crap around spawners so they can't spawn anything.

That's truly fiendish. You win Factorio.