Friday Facts #424 - Gleba Pentapod Enemies

[Ohz]

In my opinion about ennemies gameplay lacking is a flying Mutaslik-Zerg or diving Worm-Dune ennemy (why not both?) that rush through the defense walls with no effort. And therefore need some kind of a back up extra defense, like C&C:RA surface-to-air missile or Dune Thumper.

The tanky stomper is a superb hint of diversity, it gives a boss fight feeling, and very welcomed. Thank you for your very hard work.

While I only have a "okay why not, cool" feeling from those aliens, Im still super hyped and excited about this planet and its mecanics, thank you so so much !

Youtube comments:

@Niviso "Lore-wise it looks like this will be the planet where the engineer gets the idea for the Spidertron, which would explain the obvious similarities."
@ViniciusNegrao_ "I really wish they added a drop from those enemies, like a brain or something that is required to make a spidertron instead of the fish"

[Drury]

I love the idea of enemies who are expressly designed to be directly fought first, act as turret fodder second. This was never felt with the enemies on Nauvis, where at worst you have to dodge some projectiles and kite some biter balls.

I wonder how exactly the static defense strategy will play out, I struggle to imagine that just from the writeup. It seems like some enemies have different AI for approaching the defenses, but ultimately it still seems like a solid wall with lots of turrets will do the trick.

[Weromano]

When I saw the video of your splendid work on the new Fauna for Gleba,
the following two details about the animations looked weird to:

1. The head-movement of both the "strafers" and especially the "stompers" seem very mechanical, because they have no movement animation, so they look are very jagged.
In my opinion this needs to change, to give them a more organic appearance, else they look a bit too much like a reskinned spidertron.

2. For the "wrigglers" the movement speed doesn’t fit the movement animation speed, but I think this is far more of a subjective matter than my first point, which I deem to be dramatically more important in the context of creating a believable/immersive organic environment.

Wish you a great day!

[raiguard]

Someone's been watching "Alien Worlds", i suppose.

Or read Project Hail Mary.
They look like Rocky. Why make them look like Rocky, question?! Rocky is my friend, don't like fighting him! ♫♪♫♫♪!

I can't unsee this, now I feel terrible for murdering stompers. Bad bad bad!

[MiniHerc]

I think the first mod I get will be a change to the models
Devs, please consider a 'pentaphobia mode'

those things are disturbing and creepy and viscerally disgusting
like I had to close the window because they were that icky

and I say this as someone who loves spiders

[CPU_BlackHeart]

Yes... YESS!!!!

New enemies, new enemies- New ENEMIES! I absolutely love this. Holy goodness! These things look freaky, they look alien- they just look... fantastic. The military aspect is one of my favorite parts of this game right next to building so seeing new enemies really takes this from "Must Have Expansion" to "MUST Have Expansion". Are a few of the other planets going to get new enemies like Volcanus or maybe the storm world? I can see the storm world maybe have some form of zombie-like tin bots roaming around, but really whatever you guys are cooking up, it's going to be great.

Really this whole post is just full of fanboying and praise- but I can't help it, just extremely extremely excited and happy to see this. New enemies not entirely being a thing was something I was worried about and I'm glad to see that worry tucked away and put to bed.

[Mycroft4114]

I think the first mod I get will be a change to the models
Devs, please consider a 'pentaphobia mode'

those things are disturbing and creepy and viscerally disgusting
like I had to close the window because they were that icky

and I say this as someone who loves spiders

These could trigger arachnophobia and Trypophobia. Maybe an option to turn them into something cute. Cats maybe.

Nah, on second thought, it's been done....

[Mycroft4114]

The first thing while reading the pollution part:

I would try to put all production to gleba, because pollution is not of a concern here - am i missing something?

Not at all, with no pollution, put it all on Gleba. The enemies only care about how big your farming operation is, not your factory. Don't worry about efficiency modules either, just build more raw power.


Say, quick question - Gleba has no coal... or Uranium. How are you getting all this power? From farming products you say? Ah, good, no problem there then, carry on...

[Winged_Shade]

The first thing while reading the pollution part:

I would try to put all production to gleba, because pollution is not of a concern here - am i missing something?

Not at all, with no pollution, put it all on Gleba. The enemies only care about how big your farming operation is, not your factory. Don't worry about efficiency modules either, just build more raw power.


Say, quick question - Gleba has no coal... or Uranium. How are you getting all this power? From farming products you say? Ah, good, no problem there then, carry on...

This makes perfect sense to me as a theory, since we know that at least one organic product (spoilage) can be burned in a boiler. Depending on if we can burn fresh products or not, we may end up intentionally letting things spoil to fuel steam engines, which could lead to some interesting design!

[cpw]

I think the first mod I get will be a change to the models
Devs, please consider a 'pentaphobia mode'

those things are disturbing and creepy and viscerally disgusting
like I had to close the window because they were that icky

and I say this as someone who loves spiders

I'm not a fan of spiders, and these things are just awful. If they're a mandatory part of the space age expansion, I guess I won't be playing it. They give strong arachnophobia vibes, and I struggled to read the FFF as a result of the moving images. I mean, 10 out of 10 for recreating eldritch horror. But 0 out of 10 for adding it to a factory game. I really hope you consider a means to not have to see these god awful things in game.

[malecord]

I think the first mod I get will be a change to the models
Devs, please consider a 'pentaphobia mode'

those things are disturbing and creepy and viscerally disgusting
like I had to close the window because they were that icky

and I say this as someone who loves spiders

Awesome. We can always use some more Hatsune Miku mods out here.

[madpav3l]

The Wrigglers remind me of the octopuses in the very old Czech film "Chobotnice z II. patra".

[GreenTrapped]

The first thing while reading the pollution part:

I would try to put all production to gleba, because pollution is not of a concern here - am i missing something?

Not at all, with no pollution, put it all on Gleba. The enemies only care about how big your farming operation is, not your factory. Don't worry about efficiency modules either, just build more raw power.


Say, quick question - Gleba has no coal... or Uranium. How are you getting all this power? From farming products you say? Ah, good, no problem there then, carry on...

This makes perfect sense to me as a theory, since we know that at least one organic product (spoilage) can be burned in a boiler. Depending on if we can burn fresh products or not, we may end up intentionally letting things spoil to fuel steam engines, which could lead to some interesting design!

If you use farming to get more fuel for your power production, wouldn't this mean that your fuel source may get destroyed as a result?

[ManaUser]

Say, quick question - Gleba has no coal... or Uranium. How are you getting all this power? From farming products you say? Ah, good, no problem there then, carry on...

Seems like it. Although shipping in Uranium might also be a strong option.

[The Phoenixian]

The first thing while reading the pollution part:

I would try to put all production to gleba, because pollution is not of a concern here - am i missing something?

Not at all, with no pollution, put it all on Gleba. The enemies only care about how big your farming operation is, not your factory. Don't worry about efficiency modules either, just build more raw power.


Say, quick question - Gleba has no coal... or Uranium. How are you getting all this power? From farming products you say? Ah, good, no problem there then, carry on...

As an additional angle to add to this response, all these things you're presumably importing to produce on Gleba... How heavy are the raw materials? And how much storage space should they be expected to take up on the space platform?

Sure you can supplement that by just shipping the things that can't be produced locally and making the rest of the raw and intermediate parts on Gleba but brings us back to the original response: How big a farming operation are you going to need for that, and how much of a (tasty, delicious) stink is it going to raise for the locals?

(Why do I feel like the Gleba counterpart to the "trigger an attack wave" achivement is going to be "It smells good and now they're hungry" instead of "it stinks and they don't like it.")

[Cthuutloops]

I would love to see some of the more alien designes that didnt make it into the cut for the pentapod. Also there is a class of fossils of 5 pointed symetry creatures called crinoids a lot like modern sea lillies, that had all kinds of cool shapes to draw from.

I really like the fauna shown off, cant wait to experience them in real time.

[malecord]

Say, quick question - Gleba has no coal... or Uranium. How are you getting all this power? From farming products you say? Ah, good, no problem there then, carry on...

Seems like it. Although shipping in Uranium might also be a strong option.

? Why? On this planet petroleum is obtained through farming, thus it's renewable. And CO2 emissions are not a concern.

It looks to me that Ii there is anything that could use some uranium treatment here it's behemoth stompers.

[Ivankon]

2. For the "wrigglers" the movement speed doesn’t fit the movement animation speed

+1

[Xuerian]

Awesome, looking forward to it!

People have raised passive and phobia concerns, and those seem valid and addressable with mods worst-case.

[hojava]

First I'd like to say that the new enemies are amazing. They look completely awesome, I especially like the stomper. And the different fighting requirements and strategies are great, coming from a person to whom the fighting aspect of Factorio has only a minor appeal.

Just one thing seems off : the Wrigglers' feet seem to glide on the ground. Normally, when a creature has legs and feet, the feet don't glide on the ground while they wander around. The way they move on the ground makes them look like some kind of ice skating creatures. Especially visible on the dedicated Wrigglers video.

Agreed. The problem is that they rarely have a point (or preferably multiple) that are static relative to the ground, so they don't look like they're pushing off of the ground. But to me, it is a relatively minor problem.

I think eggs will be produced in the biochamber... so in theory you have to harves one manually to craft a biochamber and then with that chamber you can produe more. The issue is that if you don't process them fast enough they will hatch on your belts and thus cause damage. That part of factory production line will need to include turrets in the design in case any enemy spawns as a byproduct. Not a big deal, taken individually those are not a big threat.

IMG_1467.jpeg - you guys probably didn't notice it but the thing inside the biochamber is actually a wriggler with legs up and head down

Certainly seems like a possibility

It makes sense. But I have to say I hope it is not the case. Killing the locals in a battle is one thing, but indefinitely constraining one and torturing it to produce eggs so I can exploit it's potential offspring is a completely different level of wrongness. I really hope the eggs are produced by cloning or something.

And lastly, I would like to say that I really, really, really want to see some of the designs deemed too alien.