Friday Facts #431 - Gleba & Captivity

[Upserter]

Looking forward to isolating my biter production area from the main base, with inward-facing turrets, just in case!

[The Phoenixian]

One thought that occurs to me:

Can the copper & iron bacteria production chain be exported to other planets? Particularly Nauvis, since it has the most hospitable biosphere, the most biologic resources outside Gleba, and has the native production chain a player is guaranteed to have already explored in its natural state by the time of reaching Gleba.

I imagine it would probably involve keeping a few biochambers filled with bacteria alive operational in space long enough for a space platform to deliver unspoiled bacteria to Nauvis, possible repeat trips if recursive spoiling is a problem, as well as a renewable source of nutrients from Nauvis, but if Agricultural Towers allow harvest and replanting of Nauvis wood, then that would make for a possible nutrient source.

It just feels like If there's any path for the idea to work, renewable basic ores could be another boost towards going to Gleba in and of itself. All it requires is intentionally dragging in new invasive species from a foreign ecosystem for economic purposes, but it's not like that's not an old and storied tale of business and industry.

It would be fitting if the biologic planet is the one who's system of industry is infectious.

[doktorstick]

Can the copper & iron bacteria production chain be exported to other planets? Particularly Nauvis, since it has the most hospitable biosphere...

Presumably they evolved in different atmospheres, and while Nauvis is more hospitable, it doesn't necessarily mean they would thrive or survive there. But other than "organisms [biters] can't survive on other planets", how strict they are in biospheres and their ecology, I haven't heard. Personally, I hope there's some logical reasoning why biology from one planet can/can't survive on other planets.

[LySystems]

These Changes sounds pretty cool!
Additionally i wonder if it could be possible to breed some friendly biters and with a kind of bio-communicatior you could tell them which nest they should attack. I would be fun if we could have our own zerg rush in factorio. =D

Or if i think further, what if we could get some friendly biters to Vulcanus to help fighting against these giant demolishers? This would be an interesting choice going first to Gleba to make Vulcanus easier. Maybe if you die and some of them survive they could desert and start a new biter colony...
I general i like it if gaming world seems to be alive without your existence as player.

Well it has been said that biters cannot survive other surroundings than Nauvis. Though some medical treatment or gene editing could be a thing. And beware if they flee from you and taking the enhancements with them.^^ Other way around they could be dependent from gleba products to survive.

Either way, I'm really looking forward to the addon. =)

[Splitframe]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-431

Wait, do I understand it right that the lab in the last video with the pulsing biter spawner got discarded? The wording is somewhat ambiguous.
Because that one is absolutely metal I love it.

[bobucles]

Does the captured, the spawner consume pollution ?

A very important question! Biter nests and pollution have a strong interaction. If the players are going to mess with the nests, how is that going to change pollution mechanics? Will players be able to build their own pollution absorbing farms?

[Tertius]

So, each mind-controlled spawner should be in a secure perimeter surrounded by gun/laser turrets which can immediately incapacitate any newborn biters and a rocket turret armed with mind-control capsule in order to prevent disasters.

Seems like the start of a dystopic science fiction RPG.

"You awake after being ejected from a biomechatronic machine. It seem malfunctioning, dead. Looking around, you see an electronic eye nearby, closely watching your movements, and a pipe-like installation pointing at your location. Further down, you see a long line of the same biomechatronic machines each having just ejected a creature like you as well. You see one of the pipes firing at the creature next to you when it tries to approach you, and it explodes into bloody fragments."

Survive.

The final boss: "The Engineer"

[Darloth]

So, each mind-controlled spawner should be in a secure perimeter surrounded by gun/laser turrets which can immediately incapacitate any newborn biters and a rocket turret armed with mind-control capsule in order to prevent disasters.

Seems like the start of a dystopic science fiction RPG.

"You awake after being ejected from a biomechatronic machine. It seem malfunctioning, dead. Looking around, you see an electronic eye nearby, closely watching your movements, and a pipe-like installation pointing at your location. Further down, you see a long line of the same biomechatronic machines each having just ejected a creature like you as well. You see one of the pipes firing at the creature next to you when it tries to approach you, and it explodes into bloody fragments."

Survive.

The final boss: "The Engineer"

Can you imagine being in an endgame factorio factory as the drones come in to reformat the sector? Entire topologies and known things being deconstructed in seconds and replaced in only a few more dozens of seconds with entirely new stuff - perhaps a fluid processing setup this time. Sounds terrifying!

[ColonelThirtyTwo]

To be honest, I find the pulsing and undulation of the "tamed" nests and new lab to be uncomfortable and sickening to watch. I hope someone can make alternate graphics for them, because I can't imagine making an entire factory of them.

[The Phoenixian]

Can the copper & iron bacteria production chain be exported to other planets? Particularly Nauvis, since it has the most hospitable biosphere...

Presumably they evolved in different atmospheres, and while Nauvis is more hospitable, it doesn't necessarily mean they would thrive or survive there. But other than "organisms [biters] can't survive on other planets", how strict they are in biospheres and their ecology, I haven't heard. Personally, I hope there's some logical reasoning why biology from one planet can/can't survive on other planets.

I mean, the simplest and most natural way to lock a recipe or resource chain to Gleba seems like it would be "ensure this item's spoilage is fast enough that it can't survive the trip on a space platform and (for recipes that output their own inputs) disallow bioprocessing to extend that lifespan while in space"

So it seems like the intuitive barrier there and at least for this one it seems like more a question of whether the devs want to allow it.

[gnutrino]

Will there be a targeting logic for these controller missles in automatic firing entities like the turret or Spidertrons? Or will they try to kill biters with this presumably neither cheap nor effective ammunition? And related to as there is a timer until controll is established will it be a valid target for another missle during the process? How will biters behave towards the spawners during capture or after they are captured?

I'm just thinking about late game nests and how nice it would be to be able to pick a large 20+ spawner nest and just get half of its spawners to have an organically "grown" city block to make the eggs and the products in one place, probably including safe egg discarding. But trying to get all the bitters and worms (or could worms also be controlled as they are also a stationary entity?) removed from a latish game nest without blowing up most of the spawner sounds like a sysephean task, not impossible but time consuming as hell because the area of effect weapons can't beused.

Worth noting that poison capsules don't affect spawners but do kill everything around them (including worms)...

[adam_bise]

Ahh! enslaving the locals, cramming food down their.. something for your own benefit. Fantastic!

Reminds me of infested command centers in Starcraft

[MeduSalem]

Ah nice. Finally something else to do with biter nests other than blasting them away. :>


[edit]

Ah just saw that Kovarex wrote on the "disabling enemies" issue on reddit.

So you can still disable enemies. The nests will still be there; they just won't spawn any enemies.

And in any case it remains questionable if you can even make biter egg production large scale sustainable to feed the bio research labs or if it will be something that just complements the regular research labs.

[Koub]

I like very much the way you addressed the issues the testers experienced durung the LAN event, as well as the feedback you received on the Gleba FFF threads, especially considering how little time yo had on your hands to do so.

[yatebyavigu]

Really cool changes. I like graphics for new lab, but it would be cool if it looked a little bit more bit organic, kind of like spawner trying to mutate into the lab or disco spawner with lights

[linktothepast83]

Cultivating bacteria for minerals seems completely unrealistic, unless you feed the bacteria minerals you won't be getting minerals out of thin air from them. And then if you feed them minerals then it makes no sense to cultivate bacteria to get them, you brake down the food instead that is full of minerals. Bacterias don't bring into existance basic materials where there is none, you cultivate them to produce complex substances from basic material and not to bring basic minerals into existance from the void.
Tldr i believe breaking down food rich in minerals to get minerals makes more sense than cultivating bacteria.

[Thornkiddnaper]

The whole new bitter nest capturing and egg mechanics look very nice. However I do kinda dislike the productivity module 3 requiring the eggs. To me it doesn't seem rewarding but kinda punishing (and maybe a little scummy) because it just feels like... rather than making the Gleba stuff better, the already existing stuff is made more difficult. Also, I now see Gleba as a bit forced (instead of motivating) with the 2 best tier 3 modules (productivity and rarity) being locked behind it. I think it could be improved by:
-the eggs used for making tier 3 efficiency (or speed) modules rather than productivity (thought i doubt it would be as desired, and there might already be recipe changes to them)
-the productivity modules having 2 recipes: one very cheap requiring eggs and the other being expensive but without eggs (this would solve runs without enemies)
-adding a 4th tier that requires eggs and having the 3rd tier be without eggs (depending on the productivity gain with rarity it would likely be overkill, maybe even capping the 300 productivity limit)
That's my input about the latest FFF.

[MeduSalem]

Cultivating bacteria for minerals seems completely unrealistic, unless you feed the bacteria minerals you won't be getting minerals out of thin air from them. And then if you feed them minerals then it makes no sense to cultivate bacteria to get them, you brake down the food instead that is full of minerals. Bacterias don't bring into existance basic materials where there is none, you cultivate them to produce complex substances from basic material and not to bring basic minerals into existance from the void.
Tldr i believe breaking down food rich in minerals to get minerals makes more sense than cultivating bacteria.

Well, the bacteria don't create minerals out of thin air.

You have to feed the Bacteria something... That Yumako/Jellynut stuff. I guess the stuff comes from the plants grown on Gleba (I still have to get used to what those things will be called).

And who says that the stuff these plants yield is not rich in minerals since they extract minerals from the soil they grow on, which the Bacteria then can leave behind as a by-product of their lifecycle. ^^


Anyway it is a game. Not everything always has to make perfect sense. Some abstractions are tolerable.

[Erichteia]

I've always dreamt of somewhat controlling the biters. This is so amazing. Hats off for going for a (somewhat) plausible biological route to get ores on Gleba in a natural way. It's a much better solution than just increasing ore patches and let Gleba be some Nauvis 2.0. Really impressive stuff

[Erichteia]

Cultivating bacteria for minerals seems completely unrealistic, unless you feed the bacteria minerals you won't be getting minerals out of thin air from them. And then if you feed them minerals then it makes no sense to cultivate bacteria to get them, you brake down the food instead that is full of minerals. Bacterias don't bring into existance basic materials where there is none, you cultivate them to produce complex substances from basic material and not to bring basic minerals into existance from the void.
Tldr i believe breaking down food rich in minerals to get minerals makes more sense than cultivating bacteria.

Well, the bacteria don't create minerals out of thin air.

You have to feed the Bacteria something... That Yumako/Jellynut stuff. I guess the stuff comes from the plants grown on Gleba (I still have to get used to what those things will be called).

And who says that the stuff these plants yield is not rich in minerals since they extract minerals from the soil they grow on, which the Bacteria then can leave behind as a by-product of their lifecycle. ^^


Anyway it is a game. Not everything always has to make perfect sense. Some abstractions are tolerable.

I agree that that's the most plausible explanation. Sure, the ratio of iron ore per nutrient is way off, but who cares? The point is that there is a real-world explanation, and that suffices. In fact, the bacteria do exactly what the first post proposes: you bioengineer a process that extracts minerals from a mineral-rich food. Using living organisms to extract/process stuff at factory scale happens all the time.