Factorio Forums

I'm not sure if this is considered a bug or if it is intended. Either way I think the current implementation can be improved and below I'll explain why.

If you build a small gap with landfill on water then biters cannot walk over the gap but the players can.


This makes it extremely easy to handle biters by exploiting this on maps with a lot of water. You simply build a safe-zone on water with the gap and no biters will reach you and you can then run in and out to easily handle biters on any difficulty level. Although this might not sound so bad and you might say it is up to each and every one to exploit this or not. But when it comes to playing these kind of levels in multiplayer it leaves out a very fun play style when this exists (since players tend to want to use the most easy way). If we were forced to take the decision to open up the path to a new iland instead then the difficulty becomes much closer to the intended difficulty of the game. It then allows you to build up a good defense at the place you plan to open up and then there would be no way to reverse this again (since you cannot "build" water).

I see three options that would improve this:

1. Make it impossible for players to walk over water gaps or...
2. Make biters able to walk over water gaps as well as the player or...
3. Make small biters unable to cross but larger biters able to cross.

With enough exoskeletons on, you can even go through walls

I like this exploit in OARC server, where the starting area can be circled with a moat filled with water, and you can make a little bridge for you but not for biters.

However, there are worms and spitters that will cover the bridge of acid which will stay on spot for a few second and kill you if you plan to use it as a shooting platform.
In this regard abusing cliffs is nice too if you find some good spots.

I like option #3 , biggest biters would be able to cross small gaps, but i doubt it would be possible in game to have 2 different pathfinding for biters, when a big group launch an attack, it will often be composed of big, and medium biters and it would be weird if they split.

Side note : there is this mod https://mods.factorio.com/mods/CobaltSky/Noxys_Swimming that allows you AND the biters to swim. It's a fun experience to play on a starting islands with other 'infested' island , having to build defense all around the coast, not getting caught by biters while swimming to another island , but it makes the game quite hard, because pollution spread very fast over water.