Factorio Forums

I got very minimal polution at my base and I destroyed all the alien bases that it would have hit. I also got radar systems a good distance outside my base to make sure they don't put any nests near me. For some odd reason I had a random alien group attack my base. There's like 3 alien bases just outside my radar range but nothing even near my polution or base. Was this some kind of glitch or can a small amount of polution hit them that doesn't register on the map?

I don't know your map, but as spawners absorb pollution to evolve the spawners areas often are not marked red, when pressing ALT du to the absorbtion.
So this could be a reason, if you have enemy bases at the border of your polluted area.

or they are trying to expand into your pollution cloud and then attacking the pollution source takes priority before they can build.

Ratchetfreak nailed it. Biters will make random expansion attempts, which can reach into polluted territory. They will usually attack outright (giving the impression of very rare attacks), but they can also make bases that you won't know about until either the radar blips it or you inspect first hand.

So that's where new alien bases come from? I'm playing with the Marathon mod, and thus I'm a little more concerned with pushing the aliens back than normal. I'm finding that I'll clear an area out, and then new bases will show up in cleared area. I wasn't too clear on how I could prevent this. I vaguely had the idea that bases spontaneously generated, and there were conditions, like not too close to your stuff, so I was planting outposts to discourage that, yet new bases show up inside the short-range radar zone of an outpost.

Gus_Smedstad wrote:So that's where new alien bases come from? I'm playing with the Marathon mod, and thus I'm a little more concerned with pushing the aliens back than normal. I'm finding that I'll clear an area out, and then new bases will show up in cleared area. I wasn't too clear on how I could prevent this. I vaguely had the idea that bases spontaneously generated, and there were conditions, like not too close to your stuff, so I was planting outposts to discourage that, yet new bases show up inside the short-range radar zone of an outpost.

if you press F4 you can show the expansion candidate chunks on the map. If you place something in its place you will prevent expansion in a 3 chunk radius.

Biters are VERY polite about not building too close to player stuff. Yes, a single wooden chest counts as an obstacle to biter expansion. This is called a "victory pole" and is a form of game exploit. You can pretty much cut off all enemy attacks by placing victory poles across the map, which means you don't have to build a gigantic death fortress.

Personally, I kind of like giant death fortresses.

bobucles wrote:Biters are VERY polite about not building too close to player stuff. Yes, a single wooden chest counts as an obstacle to biter expansion. This is called a "victory pole" and is a form of game exploit. You can pretty much cut off all enemy attacks by placing victory poles across the map, which means you don't have to build a gigantic death fortress.

But, Gigantic death fortresses are the best part of the game :O Its fun to claim territory with walls and concrete instead of "victory poles"

Yeah I would agree. The sure fire way to keep a clear area clear (that is not cheaty) is to enclose it with walls and protect those walls with turret.

Personally, I don't know why they are programmed to be so respectful of player stuff. In my opinion, if player stuff stand in the way of expansion then attack whatever is in the way. This would kill this exploit. Am I missing something here ?

I'd quite like to see an option in the map generating screen to turn off this victory pole behaviour.. If the biters want to make their base inside my base, let them

It might be nice to have a gradient to this kind of behavior. Early on it's pretty important to have shy biters because the player has few weapons and resources. As evolution factor grows the biters can then become less shy and expand more aggressively, even into player territory.

It may also be nice to have some of the harder numbers determined by map settings. For example a map with low biters will always leave large spaces and expand slowly, while a super monster map will have biters expanding their own supernests very rapidly. Right now it would appear that map settings only control nest placement, and do not affect biter expansion/aggression.

The victory pole concept should be based off of defences. Lasers need power.. and gun turrets need ammo.if it runs out of ammo its no longer functional and doesnt work as a victory pole any more.

The point is you need to defend your base, we got that.... so why not work it off that idea.

It's a parameter of biters - can be easily modded I think to stop respecting players base.