Well, Fulgora sucks [Spoilers]

[BraveCaperCat]

But this would make the scrap sorting challenge much easier to deal with...

what challenge?

there are 12 things to find in scrap currently. 12 filter splitters, done. add a few more if you feed some of the output back into the loop.

The challenge is, because they all come from the same source, to not have any of them back up and stop the rest of the production (of course if you waste-recycle-loop, this is trivial, but we've already been over this...)

I don't know what to say here, is it a challenge or is it trivial? you are saying it's trivial, if you use the tools you are given. you are saying it's a challenge only if you ignore the tools you are given. so... it is then trivial if we are looking at the whole picture. anything is challenging if you remove enough of the tools that you have to deal with the problems.

The recycler can be used in multiple different ways, such as

Refining scrap

and

Breaking down items into their components

.

[mmmPI]

There seems to have been a mod for Fulgora enemies since the release of Space Age...

looks epic !

[Fharkas]

I loved Fugora's atmosphere the moment I arrived. The darkness, the music, the desolation, the scrap.
I hope they don't change that with enemy activity.

At least, not from the start.

The gradually awakening enemy is a good, fitting idea that preserves the initial total desolation of a failed civilization, planet.
As for the type...
- Automated, defensive turrets, outpost sounds nice but only if you need to expand far
- Disturbed vaults with swarm of creatures after x scrap mined is not bad, but you can just set up kill boxes there
- An oil-sand whale that regularly passes by, splurts some sticky, heavy sand at the buildings close to island's edge (limiting building space further) and can be only chased away, most effectively by tesla turrets and not killed
- Old, automated military factories, that create suicide drones, that go after recycling machines or EM plants specifically or accumulators - targeting specii buildings, would force the player to build differently, cluster them tightly
- Natural disasters like sandstorms, that may bring migratory birds that nests on the lightning rods, disabling them - in this case, upgrading to higher towers, so you have to defend fewer towers is a nice progression

Just a few random ideas, not sure how realistic they are gameplay, coding and balance-wise

Having infinite supplies is not a problem, not every planet has to be a different colored Nauvis. Though the distance between the islands could be increased further after the starting few, to give a better desolate, empty feeling.

[adam_bise]

The other thing that ticks me off about fulgora's lack of enemies.. There is a long list of tools and options for players to reduce the number of enemies. You can tweak the map settings, you can tweak pollution absorption, you can nerf their evolution speed, you can turn them completely off with peaceful mode..

I like doing the opposite. I like many, many more enemies, stronger ones that attack more often. But even if I'm playing death world, no amount of tweaking the map or any other settings will amount to squat when there is nothing there to start with.

[BraveCaperCat]

I loved Fugora's atmosphere the moment I arrived. The darkness, the music, the desolation, the scrap.
I hope they don't change that with enemy activity.

At least, not from the start.

The gradually awakening enemy is a good, fitting idea that preserves the initial total desolation of a failed civilization, planet.
As for the type...
- Automated, defensive turrets, outpost sounds nice but only if you need to expand far
- Disturbed vaults with swarm of creatures after x scrap mined is not bad, but you can just set up kill boxes there
- An oil-sand whale that regularly passes by, splurts some sticky, heavy sand at the buildings close to island's edge (limiting building space further) and can be only chased away, most effectively by tesla turrets and not killed
- Old, automated military factories, that create suicide drones, that go after recycling machines or EM plants specifically or accumulators - targeting specii buildings, would force the player to build differently, cluster them tightly
- Natural disasters like sandstorms, that may bring migratory birds that nests on the lightning rods, disabling them - in this case, upgrading to higher towers, so you have to defend fewer towers is a nice progression

Just a few random ideas, not sure how realistic they are gameplay, coding and balance-wise

Having infinite supplies is not a problem, not every planet has to be a different colored Nauvis. Though the distance between the islands could be increased further after the starting few, to give a better desolate, empty feeling.

What about all of the above?

The other thing that ticks me off about fulgora's lack of enemies.. There is a long list of tools and options for players to reduce the number of enemies. You can tweak the map settings, you can tweak pollution absorption, you can nerf their evolution speed, you can turn them completely off with peaceful mode..

I like doing the opposite. I like many, many more enemies, stronger ones that attack more often. But even if I'm playing death world, no amount of tweaking the map or any other settings will amount to squat when there is nothing there to start with.

1. Not all enemies and pollution have to be configurable that way.
2. Peaceful mode makes enemies DEFENSIVE ONLY. To turn them completely off, you should use No Enemies instead, which is a new option in 2.0.

[BlueTemplar]

But this would make the scrap sorting challenge much easier to deal with...

what challenge?

there are 12 things to find in scrap currently. 12 filter splitters, done. add a few more if you feed some of the output back into the loop.

The challenge is, because they all come from the same source, to not have any of them back up and stop the rest of the production (of course if you waste-recycle-loop, this is trivial, but we've already been over this...)

I don't know what to say here, is it a challenge or is it trivial? you are saying it's trivial, if you use the tools you are given. you are saying it's a challenge only if you ignore the tools you are given. so... it is then trivial if we are looking at the whole picture. anything is challenging if you remove enough of the tools that you have to deal with the problems.

Well, have you never told yourself (especially after your first game trying it out) : «No, I'm not doing that tactic (any more), it's too cheezy.» ?

For a Factorio example : how some people refuse to use turret push - there's even the case of a popular modpack that was so annoyed with it, they programmed in a way to punish you if you tried it ! (IIRC denying placing turrets too close to nests, and even spawning more biters if you tried ?)

(Or how even speedrunners (and you would think those would be the players with an «anything goes» mindset !) have a bunch of rules of what you are or aren't allowed to do.)

[testnewbie]

Not feeling to quote the above again, but maybe MrDoctor should not see himself as the only data point to measure difficulty?
To some people reaching Space is a big challenge, to others it´s a breeze. I, personally, challenge myself with crazy lategame factories and absolutely love trains. Others see both as a nuisance or maybe to challenging.
No offense, but I will never understand why people say "I don´t like this/it´s too easy/difficult and because this is a fundamental truth for everyone else, we need to change it." This game has settings and mods for a reason. Or you can finish the game just buy following the "tips&tricks" and go slow with a lot of chaos but that´s totally fine. Play the way it´s the most fun for you." It´s that easy.

[jamiechi1]

Not feeling to quote the above again, but maybe MrDoctor should not see himself as the only data point to measure difficulty?
To some people reaching Space is a big challenge, to others it´s a breeze. I, personally, challenge myself with crazy lategame factories and absolutely love trains. Others see both as a nuisance or maybe to challenging.
No offense, but I will never understand why people say "I don´t like this/it´s too easy/difficult and because this is a fundamental truth for everyone else, we need to change it." This game has settings and mods for a reason. Or you can finish the game just buy following the "tips&tricks" and go slow with a lot of chaos but that´s totally fine. Play the way it´s the most fun for you." It´s that easy.

I agree.
I have been disabling biters/enemies for several years and have never been bored. For me, I want this game to be about building Factories. Learning to write my own mods has also helped me to eliminate any boredom.

And I use mods. Sometimes to make some things easier, and sometimes to make Factorio a bit harder.
Play it your way.

[adam_bise]

Not feeling to quote the above again, but maybe MrDoctor should not see himself as the only data point to measure difficulty?
To some people reaching Space is a big challenge, to others it´s a breeze. I, personally, challenge myself with crazy lategame factories and absolutely love trains. Others see both as a nuisance or maybe to challenging.
No offense, but I will never understand why people say "I don´t like this/it´s too easy/difficult and because this is a fundamental truth for everyone else, we need to change it." This game has settings and mods for a reason. Or you can finish the game just buy following the "tips&tricks" and go slow with a lot of chaos but that´s totally fine. Play the way it´s the most fun for you." It´s that easy.

I agree.
I have been disabling biters/enemies for several years and have never been bored. For me, I want this game to be about building Factories. Learning to write my own mods has also helped me to eliminate any boredom.

And I use mods. Sometimes to make some things easier, and sometimes to make Factorio a bit harder.
Play it your way.

That's all well and good, I would love to have the option to "turn on enemies" but can only do so with mods, but instead of discussing mods let's talk about the paid expansion from the lens of expectations. Expansions by definition and practice in general expand on an existing game, adding to it with more features, maps, etc. When I bought the expansion and landed on Fulgora, it had not even occured to me that there might not be any enemies. I literally loaded my platform with turrets and ammo for the trip to Fulgora. I am accustomed to having all of the original features in the base game intact, and more additional features in the expansion. Having to defend yourself from enemies was an EXISTING feature that was REMOVED in half of the expo instead of expanded upon. I have all of these military items and weapons that don't even have any function anymore on Fulgora or Aquilo, and on Vulcanus there aren't any numerous enemy waves to defend against. It is kind of like eating pizza with no cheese, I am missing an ingredient.

Plus, where tf is that flying brain-like creature? The one that looked like a Starcraft overlord?

BTW I do appreciate the people who have made mods for enemies. I will check them out. It's just that I was really hoping for that Wube-level polish on new enemies for all planets.

[BraveCaperCat]

Not feeling to quote the above again, but maybe MrDoctor should not see himself as the only data point to measure difficulty?
To some people reaching Space is a big challenge, to others it´s a breeze. I, personally, challenge myself with crazy lategame factories and absolutely love trains. Others see both as a nuisance or maybe to challenging.
No offense, but I will never understand why people say "I don´t like this/it´s too easy/difficult and because this is a fundamental truth for everyone else, we need to change it." This game has settings and mods for a reason. Or you can finish the game just buy following the "tips&tricks" and go slow with a lot of chaos but that´s totally fine. Play the way it´s the most fun for you." It´s that easy.

I agree.
I have been disabling biters/enemies for several years and have never been bored. For me, I want this game to be about building Factories. Learning to write my own mods has also helped me to eliminate any boredom.

And I use mods. Sometimes to make some things easier, and sometimes to make Factorio a bit harder.
Play it your way.

That's all well and good, I would love to have the option to "turn on enemies" but can only do so with mods, but instead of discussing mods let's talk about the paid expansion from the lens of expectations. Expansions by definition and practice in general expand on an existing game, adding to it with more features, maps, etc. When I bought the expansion and landed on Fulgora, it had not even occured to me that there might not be any enemies. I literally loaded my platform with turrets and ammo for the trip to Fulgora. I am accustomed to having all of the original features in the base game intact, and more additional features in the expansion. Having to defend yourself from enemies was an EXISTING feature that was REMOVED instead of expanded upon. I have all of these military items and weapons that don't even have any function anymore on Fulgora or Aquilo, and on Vulcanus there aren't any numerous enemy waves to defend against. It is kind of like eating pizza with no cheese, I am missing an ingredient.

Plus, where tf is that flying brain-like creature? The one that looked like a Starcraft overlord?

BTW I do appreciate the people who have made mods for enemies. I will check them out. It's just that I was really hoping for that Wube-level polish on new enemies for all planets.

You can use those weapons on

Gleba

and

Nauvis

. Plus gun turrets are helpful for defeating

Demolishers

on

Vulcanus

, even if they aren't as numerous as enemies on the other

Planets

.

[BlueTemplar]

In a Vulcanus FFF :
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-429

About Aquilo

The freezing planet had flying enemies and among them were the jelly-like enemy from FFF-367, however since then these enemies have been dropped from the game. The last planet has a delicate mix of challenges and although we found a way to add enemies to the mix in an interesting way, it would make progression much slower. It might be better as a mod.

[adam_bise]

So, enemies were removed from Fulgora because people might think it resembles Dune... really?? Don't worry about the fact that biters and spiters resemble zerglings and hydralisks. Enemies were removed from Aquilo because they slowed progress... Isnt that kind of the point? Vulcanus you kill a demo and it doesn't come back, ever... Really?? So you literally have to be asking for it AND it is a one time battle, Lovely. So the only expansion planet where you ever need automated military is Gleba? Seems like a pretty fundamental shift in the core mechanics. An unfortunately surprising one at that. This is exactly what I get for avoiding spoilers.

[Hiekie]

Yea, currently I have a huge array of Q3 accumulators that happened naturally as side product of the EM science production.

How do you craft higher quality accumulators? i have already put some quality modules on the Accumulator assembling machines but i only keep receiving normal accumulators

[BlueTemplar]

How much quality do you have ? (Note that speed modules give negative quality.)

----

I'm suspecting that the main reason is that having too many planets with expanding enemies would have been too much for new(ish) players.

[Hiekie]

I had sticked 2 speed modules 3 and 2 quality modules 2 on the green assembler machines.
I now removed the speed modules and put 2 more quality 2 modules on the machines, will see if i will get some higher quality accumulators now..

[WOOL]

I had sticked 2 speed modules 3 and 2 quality modules 2 on the green assembler machines.
I now removed the speed modules and put 2 more quality 2 modules on the machines, will see if i will get some higher quality accumulators now..

If you are already on Fulgora use the Electromagnetic Plant as you get 50% productivity bonus making the accumulators

[WOOL]

I have been really enjoying Fulgora, I decided to go here first but should probably have done Vulcanus to get the Foundry

The new planets are like a game within a game, I'm enjoying the mechanics

[MisterDoctor]

boooo. to copy another thread "Fulgora has killed the game for me".

on the one hand, if other people are ok with it, ok it's good if you have a better experience than me. but on the other hand, if no one thinks this needs fixing or improving then it won't get fixed or improved... I suppose I may have to make my own mod or something... that could be fun I guess...

[sushi_eater]

There is no pollution and no reason to avoid waste.

Why does pollution matter? Once you have flamethrowers or bots + landmines, biters aren't a threat anymore and only a modest resource drain.

I have played with Deathworld settings on desert maps, where 90% of the pollution is converted into biters.

[BlueTemplar]

You haven't been to Gleba yet, have you ?

Also, these are experienced player tactics, I still expect that more players will experience Fulgora than figure them out.

(Also, have you forgotten that you have to manage to fight your way to oil first ? So that once is a pretty big deal. Meanwhile, most Factorio players never got farther than this.)