Disable aliens in Tutorial missions

Don't know how to use a machine? Looking for efficient setups? Stuck in a mission?
Post Reply
zOldBulldog
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1161
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 1:20 pm
Contact:

Disable aliens in Tutorial missions

Post by zOldBulldog »

I am a new player. I completed the first 3 missions and I am in the New Hope mission.
This mission quietly introduces us to a lot of important concepts taking a bit of thinking... which consumes time.

Because of the wasted time I got overrun, and I now find myself trying it again but doing things in a rush to avoid getting overrun. Not a good way to learn.

So I was thinking that it would be nice to do the training missions twice, the first with no aliens attacking and the second with aliens.

Is it possible? Can I disable the aliens before running a training mission?

Greybeard_LXI
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 122
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 10:48 pm
Contact:

Re: Disable aliens in Tutorial missions

Post by Greybeard_LXI »

The Wiki has a console command that kills all biters and bases. https://wiki.factorio.com/Console#Kill_all_enemies

More information on how to use the console is at the top of that page.

Using this console command disables achievements, but I do not think you need to worry about that for the tutorial you plan to try again.

I have not tried it on tutorials, so I do not know if it will work.

Zavian
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1641
Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2017 2:57 am
Contact:

Re: Disable aliens in Tutorial missions

Post by Zavian »

It's been a while since I played the tutorials, but biters are part of the story they present, and dealing with biters is part of what they aim to teach. So I don't think they should be disabled. However it's certainly possible that the balance should be tweaked.

zOldBulldog
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1161
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 1:20 pm
Contact:

Re: Disable aliens in Tutorial missions

Post by zOldBulldog »

Please don’t confuse my reply with “not wanting to deal with critters”, I totally plan to do it at least twice, and at least one time with the default settings.

It is just the learning and experimenting that I want to take my time with. Turning off monsters is one way to do it. That way I can try different layouts to discover the most efficient. I find doing that more fun and a far better learning experience than just rushing through the mission or worse, copying the solution from a youtube video.

Only then will I do the final pass, doing what I already figured out instead of rushing to a half baked solution that barely scrapes past the objective but fails to teach me important concepts.

And as I know someone will ask “what important concept?” I’ll give some examples of things I am still failing to get right and I want to experiment with: (1) The right distance and positioning of inserters, so that they load correctly. (2) How to position inserters so that they put stuff on the side of the belt that I want (and pick up the right ones). (3) Under what confitions I can do direct loads from one device to the nextwithout using inserters or belts. (4) To understand how much stuff I can add to an electric grid before I run out and things stop functioning. (5) How to setup turrets so that they are auto-supplied with ammo. And so on. There are many concepts that I would like to explore even before moving to the next tutorial, and all of that takes time in peace.

I hope that makes sense to you all.

@graybeard: ty for mentioning the console command. I will definitely try it.

bobucles
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1669
Joined: Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:37 pm
Contact:

Re: Disable aliens in Tutorial missions

Post by bobucles »

Small biters have a pretty unforgiving snowball curve. Their ratio of DPS:HP is very glass cannony (compared to the tanky but ultimately soft hitting big/behemoths). If you can't kill the small biters they end up dealing a lot more damage than if you leave big biters unattended.

I find that if the mission starts with laser turrets, your first priority is to rush out and pick them up. Using ammo for defense is a dangerous spiral because every ounce of pollution that goes into ammo production ALSO generates more attack biters. Lasers break that spiral and let you make devastating turret creep pushes to clear the map. The difference in difficulty between lasers and no lasers is quite huge.

Post Reply

Return to “Gameplay Help”