What is evolutionfactor?

[Ardagan]

I know, that should be insides of the game, but what is evolutionfactor and how does it influence the game?

[FreeER]

evolutionfactor is a double variable (from 0-1, I think) located in the table 'game' that increases over time, when spawners are destroyed, and when pollution is spread from chunk to chunk in the world. It is used to increase the difficulty of the game as you play.

How it increases difficulty:
It increases both the rate of biters spawning and the chance of larger biters spawning. This way you get a few small biters spawning in the beginning but as the evolutionfactor rises biters spawn faster and more of the medium, and big, biters are spawned.
It is used in determining the size of the group of biters sent to build bases.
and is used in expansion cool down (time between bases being built)

However it does not control when the biters attack, that is controlled by the amount of pollution absorbed by the spawners (small biters are 200, medium and big 1000) and is defined in the prototypes for each biter as pollution_to_join_attack, and if the player comes within range of them.

[Ardagan]

Thank you. That's quite informative. Probably I'll copy this info to wiki later.

one more thing to clear: is there a way to specify evolutionfactor growth speed? is there info on what are dependencies betwee evolution factor and creeps spawn/base growth?

[FreeER]

is there a way to specify evolutionfactor growth speed?

it's defined in Facotorio\data\base\prototypes\map-settings.lua (enemy_evolution). Note, all code is from 0.8.3 of Factorio

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      -- percentual increase in the evolve factor for every second (60 ticks)
      time_factor = 0.000008,
      -- percentual increase in the evolve factor for every destroyed spawner
      destroy_factor = 0.005,
      -- percentual increase in the evolve factor for 1000 PU
      pollution_factor = 0.00003

It could be modified with a script by using game.mapsettings ex: game.mapsettings.enemy_evolution.time_factor=30*3600

is there info on what are dependencies betwee evolution factor and creeps spawn/base growth?

Expansion cooldown:
min_expansion_cooldown + (1 - evolutionfactor * (max_expansion_cooldown - min_expansion_cooldown))=ticks til next possible expansion
min and max are defined in mapsettings.lua (inside enemy_expansion table)

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      -- Ticks to expand to a single
      -- position for a base is used.
      --
      -- cooldown is calculated as linear interpolation between min and max
      min_expansion_cooldown = 5 * 3600,
      max_expansion_cooldown = 60 * 3600

Spawning Rate:
min_cooldown + (max_cooldown - min_cooldown) * evolutionfactor=ticks til next possible spawn
min and max are defined in the spawner entity prototype Factorio\data\base\prototypes\entity\demo-entities.lua (at least with 0.8.3, I can not remember seeing this before lol).

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-- With zero evolution the spawn rate is 5 seconds, with max evolution it is 2.5 seconds
    spawning_cooldown = {300, 150},

For base builder group size:
settler_group_min_size + evolutionfactor * (settler_group_max_size-settler_group_min_size)=size of sent group.
min and max are defined in mapsettings.lua (in enemy_expansion table)

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      -- Size of the group that goes to build new base (in game this is multiplied by the
      -- evolution factor).
        settler_group_min_size = 5,
        settler_group_max_size = 20,

[Ardagan]

Wish there was this information inside the game ^_^

[FreeER]

Ok, I've added this information to the wiki, the growth info to Lua/Game with a link to the more technical details at Difficulty (since I wasn't really sure the best place, I didn't want to place it all in Lua/Game since that's more of a listing of the game object's properties and methods)

[slpwnd]

Ok, I've added this information to the wiki, the growth info to Lua/Game with a link to the more technical details at Difficulty (since I wasn't really sure the best place, I didn't want to place it all in Lua/Game since that's more of a listing of the game object's properties and methods)

Thank you

[FreeER]

Ok, I've added this information to the wiki...

Thank you

No problem...There should be a list somewhere (that others can add to) of what's left to do, then I could go through it (over time) much more easily than just whenever someone asks a question or I go to look it up and don't find it Don't suppose you have one lying around somewhere?

[slpwnd]

No problem...There should be a list somewhere (that others can add to) of what's left to do, then I could go through it (over time) much more easily than just whenever someone asks a question or I go to look it up and don't find it Don't suppose you have one lying around somewhere?

Actually this is a wonderful idea. I will put it on our todo list (haha so meta)

[ssilk]

I can set up a wiki page, which provides you with a template for todo-lists of todo-lists.
<totally serious looking>

no, not really...