I Miss Alien Artifacts!

[Calus]

Hey guys,

I recently started a new factory after a while I've been away from the game. The game improved immensly at 0.16, and overall the new research is way more challenging!
However I just had to share this feeling that I miss collecting Alien Artifacts... There was a great satisfaction in annihilating hordes of Aliens to recover this useful little stuff. Specifically, running over their Spawners!

Now that there's no use hunting them down, I feel the action is a little toned down somewhat. Not that they're no longer a threat (Though you do get better over time in destroying these buggers), but their genocide feels less of use...


[TL;DR] I don't know, maybe it's just me. But I like 'em little purple balls. You kill, you get reward. Reward is good!


Yours,
Calus

[Koub]

Related to very related topics.
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viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45822&hilit=Alien+Artifacts
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=44466&hilit=Alien+Artifacts
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=45069&hilit=Alien+Artifacts

Personnally, I miss the object which was kind of emblematic of Facotorio just behind the inserter and the belt, but I don't miss - at all - the mandatory grind (at first) and the overflow (once you were done with alien tech level research). But yeah, the object in itself was cool .

[zOldBulldog]

I never played with alien artifacts. And yet I can see the attractiveness of hunting for them.

At the same time I would not care for them to be part of the main research tree... because although there are some players that enjoy the combat aspect, combat is done much better in games that specialize in combat, and I suspect that for the majority of Factorio players what makes the game attractive is not it's combat part.

I know that if I was forced to focus on constant combat go progress I would most likely drop the game. I love FPS and RTS, but I personally play Factorio because I enjoy the engineering and design aspects. This is not where I like to do my combat. Wall defense and artillery based nest cleanups are more than enough of a distraction from the real parts of the game.

[dood]

Yeah, those things weren't good.
"Loot" doesn't fit this game at all and leads to all kinds of unnecessary problems.
Perhaps you should rethink why you feel the need of some sort of "reward" for killing things.

[lacika2000]

What about having true alien arrtifacts that would unlock some otherwise unresearcheable technologyor a story about the planet?

For this, you would need to explore the terrain, find the hordes of strongest aliens protecting it, kill them, recover the artifact and feed it to a research lab, which would then take its time to unlock the tech.

Alternatively, it could be also great if the player can collect alien remains to study (again in a dedicated lab or labs), so that we could gain some additional knowledge to reduce the impact of, e.g., worm spitballs, etc.

Or, there could be an interesting story that can be slowly discovered after finding these artifacts about those who lived on the planet before the current biter infestation happened to wipe them out all together (when and how would be part of the story, could involve automation going haywire or something... ).

[drachma]

I enjoy the biter aspect of this game, defending and clearing but the nice part about base defenses is that they are just another system that, at first is manual, but then you can automate (have bots/trains reload and repair your turrets, replace walls, etc).

The point of the game is automation and expansion so having some aspect of the technology tree require you to go out and kill aliens in a manual/grinding way is against the spirit of the game IMO and I'm glad they took it out. If they came up with an endgame way to automate biter killing I could see bringing it back. Artillery train is one step but it can't defend itself and can't lay its own rail, so we're not there yet!

I'm not against some little 1-off bonuses or story/flavor for killing them though. But as an integral part of the tech tree, no thanks.

[Tricorius]

I just had fun today grabbing a stack of cluster grenades and going nest hunting. So much fire...

I’m not against them coming back, especially if they were used in some infinite research. But I’d like an automated way of gathering them if that were the case. Perhaps combat bots which could be deployed by trains and could return artifacts... :: shrug ::

But it really doesn’t add much to the core gameplay I don’t think (yes, that can be said of a lot of things in Factorio).

[jaworeq]

I've started playing with mods recently. There are some nice mods that allow you to grow alien artifacts, so you can still automatize it + hunt for additional input.

[posila]

but their genocide feels less of use...

This always puts smile on my face

They were removed because it was not possible to collect them automatically, and because it wasn't possible to finish the game if you turned biters off (which is reasonable things to do, if you are interested in building in megabase, so you want the simulation not spend CPU time on things that are not your base). We don't try to make any social commentaries with the game, but that doesn't mean one can't try to interpret it - and I find it interesting that current incentive for fighting biters mirrors some of the real world incentives for conflicts between nations - you want their land, resources that are on their land, or you want to prevent them from building up enough force to become real threat to you.

[HurkWurk]

last time i played with alien artifacts, it was with a mod that had them drop stuff to make alien tech modified modules. they were too OP for my tastes, but i liked the idea that the aliens were useful for something, but not mandatory.
that mod allowed some manual configuration to tone things down, but i wasnt really interested in trying to discover my own balance.

someone wrote a basic "rank 4" module mod. that one could be ported to work from alien artifact drops fairly easily and you could end up with a useful addition to the game.

you could also just mod a mod if you like to make them ingredients for anything

[Alyssa]

It would be cool that, instead of artifacts, aliens would drop some special resources from which you can craft more powerful version of existing items(like an unbreakable pickaxe or an inserter even faster than a fast inserter).

[BlueTemplar]

You might be interested in this mod...
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/TheyreMadeOutofMeat

Biters drop Meat. Meat is fuel. Blood is steam. Bones are bullets.

[Alyssa]

Looks like an interesting mod, thanks for info

[Bunchie]

i get the reward but if u want to still have fun killing all of the natives just get a flamethrower, trust me its great.

[Ingolifs]

I never fully agreed with removing alien research packs. I just think their use should've been changed - made non essential.

An alien research line would represent research on alien physiology etc, which would translate into attack bonuses and debuffs against certain types of biter.

[Light]

Mods like Bob's make use of alien artifacts to improve combat technology, which makes perfect sense given combat and artifacts go hand in hand given you can't do one without the other.

Vanilla could benefit from having the combat system revolve around artifact collecting and it wouldn't impact players who choose to turn biters off. This would give biter hunting a purpose for those who like combat, while also saving the little girls trapped in pink bubbles... only to be sacrificed for better technology. Sorry girls, but that laser turret tech is too important to ignore.

[Hannu]

In my opinion there could be optional recipe for example for yellow science, in which alien stuff would replace part of normal ingredients. For example 1 blue circuit, 1 battery, 1 speed module and 1 alien artifact. Then it would not be necessary but it would give significant benefit if someone want to hunt biters. Also, alien artifacts laying on ground could disappear in 3 minutes to prevent UPS problems for those who do not bother collect them. In my opinion all items could disappear in short time. It works well for example in Minecraft.

[5thHorseman]

IMO best decision they ever made.

[pieterhulsen]

I don't miss them at all and I would not like it if they made "hunting" a required part of the game again to get to certain upgrades.
I would say the only thing they could give is recources that are otherwise also available.
Eg. 1 artifact is 10 iron ore or 5 stone ore if you want to put recipes in assembler machines.

Other than that it still is a real possibility for mods, having the advantage that you can choose which mod to download and not everyone is required to it.

[BlueTemplar]

Even not for combat-only upgrades ?

(Also, why would static items affect UPS? RAM maybe...)