Something funny I've noticed

[DoctorWho?]

HI!

A funny thing I've noticed is that the way we build factories has changed completely. It used to be (about 6 months ago) everyone rushed stone for walls, built a big box, and made as compact a base as possible, with little thought to expansion until you reached the walls, and the build a bigger box, and reach the walls, etc.

But now, everyone just builds a factory, and ignores walls at least until spitters / medium bitters, and even then normally just adds laser turrets into robot blueprints.

So, what i'm wondering is: What changed? WHY do we now just build a free base, infinitly expanding without a thought to defense?
What's your answer?

[DaveMcW]

Spitters.

They can only be countered by massed turrets, the days of long walls defended by a handful of turrets are over.

[Martc]

Main cause is predictable bitters behavior. You know where strong defense is needed and where is no defense needed. So I think bitters need better AI to be able to go around your point-defense.

[vampiricdust]

Basically comes down to experience. In the beginning, most players are unsure of how severe or intense attacks are going to be and over builds. Now that most of the player base that is apart of the community tries new things and shares, we all learn & adapt our play styles to take advantage of the info.

Me personally, I would rather slap down a ring of 12 turrets around a big pole than lay a line of 20 some walls & turrets. It takes more to setup and tear down. It also costs a lot more power usage over time as a lot of the turrets are going to be idle the majority of their lifetime. I've personally found it's better just to use a lose ring of the 12 lasers & 1 big electric pole(I call this a pylon) than the Great Wall of Factorio. You can cluster the pylons more closely at areas getting hit harder. It gives a far more flexible control of my defenses that don't really get in the way of my factory & easy to pick up & spread out to cover more territory.

[ssilk]

Yeah, that is interesting. It's the one of the most basic blueprints: Big pole, 12 turrets, and a ring of wall around it, with the small difference if the wall is built with 20 or with 36 walls (biters can bite one tile over the wall).

[sbroadbent]

My style of play hasn't really changed, with the exception of acknowledging the existence of Spitters. I still build walls, as you still get regular biters, but much like the world's arms race, when cannons and gunpowder came onto the scene, castles lost their defensive advantage, and military defenses changed as a result to be a much lower profile to minimize the impact of longer rang cannon fire.

I commented in one of my episodes that I'd love to have some Terran Siege Tanks from Starcraft. Long range automated bombardment to deal with the spitter threat. Their downside would be that they have a minimum range that they can fire, so you still have to defend them against close-range attacks with other defenses.

If the devs add in flying or even swimming biters, that will also once again change how bases are built.

[aka13]

Oh well, it depends really. I always build solid boxes and fortified stations. The idea of empty, spaced out defense line which is only working because of the limited AI of the attacker is uncomfortable for me.