Factorio Forums

I always play with expansion OFF because although killing biters can be fun, constantly battling over o the same ground is not fun. Anywhos, with expansion off enemy bases still appear inside my cleared zone. I make regular patrols around the perimeter of my pollution ring and explore at least one chunk beyond said ring. Yet after some variable amount of time new spawners and worms appear. Is this a feature, a bug, or is there a setting I am missing?

Maybe you accidentally didn't switch expansion off?
The easiest way to check is by copying the map-exchange string from your savegame and import it into map generator (new game)

No, it’s off. Once it’s off it stays off for each new world.

MassiveDynamic wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 15, 2020 2:52 pm

No, it’s off. Once it’s off it stays off for each new world.

Check anyway, it costs little, and it allows to rule out the "oopsie, I forgot to uncheck the biter expansion".

As requested here it is. Further note; this has been something that I've noticed for years now, but never bothered to bring it up. Sorry for the lack of reporting.

If you can reproduce at will, and care to see it fixed, feel free to file in a bug report, the game should definitely not behave the way you described.

If it matters: I have never seen a new enemy base in a game where expansion was turned off. A way to reliably reproduce this would be crucial to fixing it.

I don't know how to make it happen, it just happens. Maybe I'll try to take regular screenshots?

Sorry for the double post, but it literally just happened in front of my eyes in another game as soon as I loaded in. Here is a screenshot of the explored area and the new base just north of my base.

Here it is 10 minutes later...

And another...

Post the save...

Save file

I loaded your save in editor mode, revealed a huge chunk of map around your base, sped up the time, and observed expansion candidates via debug options. There is no expansion. Once the nests are generated upon map revelation, there is no additional nest created in a given region.

Adding my two cents to Koub's explanation:
Looking at the screenshots it looks like the base was already there but just not discovered by the radar yet.

So are you saying the expansions that appear in the screenshots above are actually just delayed nest generation after revealing new chunks?

MassiveDynamic wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 15, 2020 8:34 pm

Here it is 10 minutes later...

The second screenshot looks like the area and the spawner was just discovered by radar, because it was black in the first screenshot.

But the spawner in the first screenshot is strange. Are you sure you revealed this specific chunk before (either by radar or manual exploration)? There are some black chunks on the other side, which can potentially contain other spawners.