Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

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spartan958
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Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by spartan958 »

So I just hit 472 hours and I can FINALLY say i've done EVERYTHING I've wanted to do in the game...! Below are some of my HONEST thoughts and feedback on the game. Some bad some good some neutral!

GENERAL FEEDBACK...


The artstyle is REALLY good for the game and the recent improvements are on the RIGHT TRACK. It has a kind of a retroish and real gritty feel to it. HOWEVER... The ground textures REALLY need an update. More variety pls...! Maybe add something similar to the BIOMES MOD to the main game. Also there should be different landfill types and more decorative grounds/walls...
This may just be me but upgrading belts absolutely SUCKS. Having to go over 1000+ belts when upgrading to red and blue feels HORRIBLE. It was okay the first 10 or 20 games but now doing this just makes me want to PUKE. I used the upgrade planner mod and it sort of made the game a bit too easy. Any ideas here folks? Maybe a building that's unlocked at around green science tech that upgrades belts around it???

ALIENS. 3 things. First, they arent needed for anything. I liked it back when you had to kill em for the artifacts. Now theyre just annoying PESTS that need to be nuked off the planet. I really didn't like this change. I REALLY think aliens should drop SPECIAL resources when you kill their units and buildings. I was hoping for an expansion in this area but it was just REMOVED...! SECOND. After a point they just MELT. Their late game difficulty is HORRIBLE. Make lasers, flamers and nukers and theyre DONE FOR. Come ON let's get some super HARD MODE late game aliens going. THIRD. Aliens should be more than just worms, rangers and melee guys. They could be an AWESOME race... Think ZERG from starcraft.

SERVER SIDE mods are the BEST thing about multiplayer. Oarc... AMAZING! I remember this one server where the aliens dropped COINS when killed and you can buy goodies with it at a market. Another one from MONTHS ago called the great divide. Copper at the east side and Iron at the west... And a few others I can't quite recall... But these mods make the game WAY better and WAY MORE fresh. I think EITHER they need to make server side mods much more extensive in potential or make it so mods are DOWNLOADED and SYNCED when entering a server. Right now the modded server list is almost DEAD. To the server side mod devs... You're doing a GREAT job...
Vehicles are a PAIN man... They are SO hard to drive. Also theyre VERY weak. Once you get power armor with all the addons there's 0 point for vehicles. Some of the vehicle mods should be added to the game!

Complexity is in a GREAT spot right now I think. The research revolution update REALLY hit the nail SQUARE ON imo. Maybe a BIT MORE complexity with the ores and mining/smelting but it's WAY BETTER ever since that update. I'm really not that big of a fan of bobs/angel because after a point my base got HUUUUGE and lagged like HELL. At some point complexity just has massive DIMINISHING RETURNS for fun.

Endgame in general is quite BLAND. Other than making a MASSIVE MEGABASE and getting the mining productivity research going there ISN'T much to do. It's really a sandbox at that point once you get a STEADY STREAM of rockets launching. I think the game is due for an endgame expansion with a difinitive goal.

TWO IDEAS for the game I'd like to see

Character progression, stats and abilities... Maybe someone can make a mod or SERVER SIDE mod of this but i'd REALLY like to see this added to the game. Not just per game progression but like saved progression. You start subsequent games with more items... stats that boost hp... damage... movespeed... craft speed. Abilities can get REALLY CREATIVE here. Other people probs have better ability ideas than I do. I'm not sure how this would work for multiplayer but for single player I think this would be AWESOME.

Building in SPACE... This would be a HUGE expansion and probably take FOREVER to develop and do the art assets but I think this would be an AWESOME expansion. Building space platforms, building spaceship technology, and mining ASTEROIDS for rare minerals and resources. It would open up possibilities for SO MANY features. The endgame could be GREATLY improved. PLUS this could decentralize the base into at least 2 PARTS... It would really help with LAG and MULTITHREADING.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Nasabot »

I completly agree.

Biters not dropping or giving anything is JUST WRONG gamedesign.

They could drop resources but personally Id also like it, if they just give player XP which allows you to upgrade things like movementspeed or inventory space (this solution could be more factorio like, but it has the advantage, that it can be global, so you dont have to collect items from the ground). Alternativly, Id prefer the "old" solution of artefact drops which are used for science which could then be used for progressing character skills.

Another approach could be a reform of evolution and biter bases. Imo the number of bases is unnessary high. Why not make bases MUCH stronger, but fewer and limit them to ore patches? (So you have to fight in order to free ore patches and also you can move on the map easier)

Also Id like to see a change in the pollution mechanics. Currently trees are overpowered in terms of cleaning. But if you start in a desert, you get attacked from ~8 directions all the time which is extremly annoying. If it is possible to have ~4 fixed direction where you get attacked strongly (like in fortresscraft) id prefer this much more.

Having to build a huge perimeter is boring. It would be more interesting if attack directions are more predictable but attacks are MUCH MUCH stronger and also reward the player for kills.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Bauer »

I agree. I always disable aliens because hunting them is not rewarding. They add a callenge to the early game. Later they just suck ass.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Koub »

Biters are not supposed to be rewarding, they're supposed to be a PITA and add a dose of challenge. If you want moar challenge, add moar biters. If you don't wan extra challenge, disable them in your map settings.
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Frightning »

I still think having biters drop items that can be used to make more advanced alien tech using weapons could be really cool, as long as nothing the player might realistically want to have in a peaceful game requires them (problem with old Alien science was that you couldn't research a lot of the late game tech, including the rocket which you needed to launch to win, without killing some biter nests, which is impossible in a no biters game).

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Koub »

See the biters as a ressource sink and a time sink.

The more biters you have, the more you have to invest :
- either in resource for bullets / flame turret fuel / mines ...
- either in power to feed your laser turrets.

And the more you have biters, the more you have to spend time fighting them - and the less you have time to take care of your base.

(That's the overall spirit, it may vary depending on your playstyle).
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by shadetheartist »

Jesus christ the caps lock spam made me think you encoded a secret message.

Try bold, italics, underline or a combination.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by HalfPastZulu »

I Love isometric games... I think that many of the games that were isometric and then later released versions of 3d, like C&C for instance, lost most of their allure for me. They just lost something in the transition. So needless to say I loved the fact that they developed a isometric game in the 3d age.

I agree with the terrain comments. Along with more decorative flooring I feel like concrete & maybe bricks should be able to destroy or at least hide any resources underneath it. This could also be a user selected option as easy as " Concrete Destroys Resources" enable/disable Checkbox in the options menu. This is a very aesthetic request but.... aesthetics are VERY IMPORTANT in Factorio!

Upgrading... Yes upgrading factories and belts is probably the only mind numbing awful thing about this game. There have been times I would rather start a new game than upgrade a main bus. Mods like Upgrade planner are really nice and do this job a little too quickly. I like the concept of upgrade planner but feel its a little O.P.. I think the mods developer was hinting to the devs that there should be a third ____Print in game... there is a red Deconstruction planner a Blue Blueprint and now maybe there should be a green upgrade planner. Having an actual green plan item would keep you from having to create a magic wand item like in the mod. This planner would have the same functionality as the mod by being able to select which item to upgrade and which item to upgrade it too! In the mod you just wave the magic wand created item over what you want upgraded and it instantly upgrades everything provided you have the items in character inventory. I feel this is the O.P. part of the mod. I think it would be a better if robots grabbed the new item from loginet flew to location and swapped items returning old item for recycling (assuming you remembered to setup recycling :mrgreen: )

Since we are on the subject of blueprints I would really like the option on a blue print to force replacement. Say we have a blueprint with requester chests and we use it over an area that has wooden chests in the same locations, normally nothing would get changed at all when you click the blueprint because wooden chests are already in those locations, but a force replacement option on the blueprint would tell the bots to upgrade those wooden chests to requester chests. It could be something as simple as a new key combination like CTRL SHIFT LMB which puts the blueprint in replacement mode.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Kotu »

They could give the Behemoths a chance of dropping the same science packs that come from sending satellites into space, it would provide an alternative way of getting them and give the biters a purpose again, it would also introduce an alternative military based late game for farming resources other than using the rockets.

My suggestion for making the game better would be to introduce ground based logistics/construction bots, make them available much earlier in the game but with the downside of needing space to manoeuvre, fuel to keep them running and also being much slower. They could be used to clear trees too without using grenades. The game can be quite boring before trains/logistics.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Nasabot »

Biters are not supposed to be rewarding, they're supposed to be a PITA and add a dose of challenge. If you want moar challenge, add moar biters. If you don't wan extra challenge, disable them in your map settings.
And this is exactly the kind of logic and wrong design philosophy which make so many game suck or at least keep them under their potential.

Games are art, a game is like a picture where every part fits together and forms an entity.
A game where it does not matter if you add or remove certain content is BAD BY DEFINITON.

Biters are part of factorio and it DOES matter if they reward the player or not.
The art is to design biters in a way so they are meaningful and scaling content for beginner and veterans alike (and not just implement them by "yes/no")

Please, dont come up with idiot arguments like "because it is supposed to be like this". WHO EVER SAID THIS? Nobody...!
Its the same lame argument like "because its the current year" or "because: why not?" which only the dumbest of people use!

If you want more "PITA" (I guess this means pain in the ass) why not make it so that every single mouseclick requires 2 or 3 clicks instead? This would then be "PITA". Good idea?
No, Biters are NOT SUPPOSED to be PITA, they are supposed to be a challange and ideally reward the player by interacting with the factory and progression in a meaningful way!

Biter need a change or additions. Removing alien artefacts was a bandaid fix (which I actually agree with)

Dont let people tell you that BANDAID FIXES are the optimal solution. This is just not true. Factorio can do it better. And it can do it better easily.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by FactorioParadox »

If they don't add an upgrade planner, they should at the very least allow buildings/strucutres in blueprints to be placed ontop of other tiers of that building/structure (i.e. Yellow belts on top of red belts or Mk3 Assemblers over Mk1s).

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Hellatze »

they said space are hiatus.

i don't know when they actually implement space. but do space important to them ?

it is.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Jap2.0 »

Nasabot wrote:
Biters are not supposed to be rewarding, they're supposed to be a PITA and add a dose of challenge. If you want moar challenge, add moar biters. If you don't wan extra challenge, disable them in your map settings.
And this is exactly the kind of logic and wrong design philosophy which make so many game suck or at least keep them under their potential.

Games are art, a game is like a picture where every part fits together and forms an entity.
A game where it does not matter if you add or remove certain content is BAD BY DEFINITON.

Biters are part of factorio and it DOES matter if they reward the player or not.
The art is to design biters in a way so they are meaningful and scaling content for beginner and veterans alike (and not just implement them by "yes/no")

Please, dont come up with idiot arguments like "because it is supposed to be like this". WHO EVER SAID THIS? Nobody...!
Its the same lame argument like "because its the current year" or "because: why not?" which only the dumbest of people use!

If you want more "PITA" (I guess this means pain in the ass) why not make it so that every single mouseclick requires 2 or 3 clicks instead? This would then be "PITA". Good idea?
No, Biters are NOT SUPPOSED to be PITA, they are supposed to be a challange and ideally reward the player by interacting with the factory and progression in a meaningful way!

Biter need a change or additions. Removing alien artefacts was a bandaid fix (which I actually agree with)

Dont let people tell you that BANDAID FIXES are the optimal solution. This is just not true. Factorio can do it better. And it can do it better easily.
Not neccesarily. Using this logic, there shouldn't be easy or hard modes in any game, or multiple maps, or that there shouldn't be options for resource generation in Factorio? I'm not saying you're wrong (I actually think the scaling idea is pretty cool), just that there are arguments against that other than "because".
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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by BlakeMW »

I like to play Deathworld and it was such a relief when drops were removed from the game. The reward for killing biters is staying alive and conquering their land so you can mine the resources on it.

The biters are like savages, they don't really have anything of value to you, they're just hostile and occupying land you can put to better use. The lack of direct reward for killing biters actually enhances the colonialism aspect of the game.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Hellatze »

BlakeMW wrote:I like to play Deathworld and it was such a relief when drops were removed from the game. The reward for killing biters is staying alive and conquering their land so you can mine the resources on it.

The biters are like savages, they don't really have anything of value to you, they're just hostile and occupying land you can put to better use. The lack of direct reward for killing biters actually enhances the colonialism aspect of the game.
They are just an animal / insect.

Unless we talk about sentient creature.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Oktokolo »

Hellatze wrote:They are just an animal / insect.
Of course they are just bugs. And as they sit on our oil we are forced to kill them. Also we are playing people coming from another land/world who use the resources of the newly conquered land and pollute it while doing that.

Obviously there is absolutely no correlation between Factorio and european or north american history here. It also is almost impossible to get reminded about current real world geopolitics when playing Factorio with biters enabled.

Irony and sarcasm aside, i love this game. I can deal with some politics in a video game and the biters do not look like the real indigenes anyway - so it is easy enough to not feel like a hitler while playing with biters enabled. I also do not feel like biters are really that much a pain. I avoid constant attacks using the perimeter method (just eradicate all their vilages in pollution cloud range and you are pretty safe while using only a minimum amount of turrets and ammunition).

I actually like that there is a reason to have any military at all. But the natives really need more AI. As it is, they chill out at their base waiting to attack and expand from time to time untill the entire map is red.
They should travel between their villages.
They should "use" their environment (felling trees, gathering clay, hunting...).
They should not be alone but embedded in a minimal eco system exhibiting any sign of natural balance. There have to be at least two species that keep each other in check (like some herbivores and som carnivores where the latter hunt the former and populations depends on each other).
Pollution should harm them at least a little bit instead of making them stronger - because they really have no reason to attack if pollution is actually benefitting them (they could just get harder the more they spawned away from the player spawn point to keep them from becomming too easy while the player advances in the tech tree).
They should get reinforcements from vilages outside the pollution cloud range before sending an attack squad (because of the preceding idea there would be not that much of a benefit clearing the perimeter otherwise).
They should have a minimal chance to migrate away from the cloud. Surely most will choose to investigate the source of the cloud. But it would be nice to stumble upon some deserted remains of biter bases from time to time when expanding.

I know, all that would probably cost way too much UPS when doing mega bases. But not everyone is into mega bases and AI is something that is easy to disable. Just make it optional. It also needs a lot of developer time and that surely has to be spend for improving the main game first. But maybe mods could add the AI. Are the biters modable enough so one could implement some of the mentioned AI improvements?

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by Hellatze »

Oktokolo wrote:
Hellatze wrote:They are just an animal / insect.
Of course they are just bugs. And as they sit on our oil we are forced to kill them. Also we are playing people coming from another land/world who use the resources of the newly conquered land and pollute it while doing that.

Obviously there is absolutely no correlation between Factorio and european or north american history here. It also is almost impossible to get reminded about current real world geopolitics when playing Factorio with biters enabled.

Irony and sarcasm aside, i love this game. I can deal with some politics in a video game and the biters do not look like the real indigenes anyway - so it is easy enough to not feel like a hitler while playing with biters enabled. I also do not feel like biters are really that much a pain. I avoid constant attacks using the perimeter method (just eradicate all their vilages in pollution cloud range and you are pretty safe while using only a minimum amount of turrets and ammunition).

I actually like that there is a reason to have any military at all. But the natives really need more AI. As it is, they chill out at their base waiting to attack and expand from time to time untill the entire map is red.
They should travel between their villages.
They should "use" their environment (felling trees, gathering clay, hunting...).
They should not be alone but embedded in a minimal eco system exhibiting any sign of natural balance. There have to be at least two species that keep each other in check (like some herbivores and som carnivores where the latter hunt the former and populations depends on each other).
Pollution should harm them at least a little bit instead of making them stronger - because they really have no reason to attack if pollution is actually benefitting them (they could just get harder the more they spawned away from the player spawn point to keep them from becomming too easy while the player advances in the tech tree).
They should get reinforcements from vilages outside the pollution cloud range before sending an attack squad (because of the preceding idea there would be not that much of a benefit clearing the perimeter otherwise).
They should have a minimal chance to migrate away from the cloud. Surely most will choose to investigate the source of the cloud. But it would be nice to stumble upon some deserted remains of biter bases from time to time when expanding.

I know, all that would probably cost way too much UPS when doing mega bases. But not everyone is into mega bases and AI is something that is easy to disable. Just make it optional. It also needs a lot of developer time and that surely has to be spend for improving the main game first. But maybe mods could add the AI. Are the biters modable enough so one could implement some of the mentioned AI improvements?
In short ?

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by PurpleGreen »

BlakeMW wrote:I like to play Deathworld and it was such a relief when drops were removed from the game. The reward for killing biters is staying alive and conquering their land so you can mine the resources on it.

The biters are like savages, they don't really have anything of value to you, they're just hostile and occupying land you can put to better use. The lack of direct reward for killing biters actually enhances the colonialism aspect of the game.
exactly.

also i really enjoy the freedom of being able to turn off biters at all

to me factorio is not command and conquer.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by PurpleGreen »

Oktokolo wrote:
Hellatze wrote:They are just an animal / insect.
Of course they are just bugs. And as they sit on our oil we are forced to kill them. Also we are playing people coming from another land/world who use the resources of the newly conquered land and pollute it while doing that.

Obviously there is absolutely no correlation between Factorio and european or north american history here. It also is almost impossible to get reminded about current real world geopolitics when playing Factorio with biters enabled.

Irony and sarcasm aside, i love this game. I can deal with some politics in a video game and the biters do not look like the real indigenes anyway - so it is easy enough to not feel like a hitler while playing with biters enabled. I also do not feel like biters are really that much a pain. I avoid constant attacks using the perimeter method (just eradicate all their vilages in pollution cloud range and you are pretty safe while using only a minimum amount of turrets and ammunition).

I actually like that there is a reason to have any military at all. But the natives really need more AI. As it is, they chill out at their base waiting to attack and expand from time to time untill the entire map is red.
They should travel between their villages.
They should "use" their environment (felling trees, gathering clay, hunting...).
They should not be alone but embedded in a minimal eco system exhibiting any sign of natural balance. There have to be at least two species that keep each other in check (like some herbivores and som carnivores where the latter hunt the former and populations depends on each other).
Pollution should harm them at least a little bit instead of making them stronger - because they really have no reason to attack if pollution is actually benefitting them (they could just get harder the more they spawned away from the player spawn point to keep them from becomming too easy while the player advances in the tech tree).
They should get reinforcements from vilages outside the pollution cloud range before sending an attack squad (because of the preceding idea there would be not that much of a benefit clearing the perimeter otherwise).
They should have a minimal chance to migrate away from the cloud. Surely most will choose to investigate the source of the cloud. But it would be nice to stumble upon some deserted remains of biter bases from time to time when expanding.

I know, all that would probably cost way too much UPS when doing mega bases. But not everyone is into mega bases and AI is something that is easy to disable. Just make it optional. It also needs a lot of developer time and that surely has to be spend for improving the main game first. But maybe mods could add the AI. Are the biters modable enough so one could implement some of the mentioned AI improvements?
there is a mod that does exactly this - improving the biter AI its great its awesome it does exactly what i was missing from the base game biter ai.

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Re: Thoughts on Factorio and how I would make it better...

Post by PurpleGreen »

spartan958 wrote:
TWO IDEAS for the game I'd like to see

Character progression, stats and abilities... Maybe someone can make a mod or SERVER SIDE mod of this but i'd REALLY like to see this added to the game. Not just per game progression but like saved progression. You start subsequent games with more items... stats that boost hp... damage... movespeed... craft speed. Abilities can get REALLY CREATIVE here. Other people probs have better ability ideas than I do. I'm not sure how this would work for multiplayer but for single player I think this would be AWESOME.

Building in SPACE... This would be a HUGE expansion and probably take FOREVER to develop and do the art assets but I think this would be an AWESOME expansion. Building space platforms, building spaceship technology, and mining ASTEROIDS for rare minerals and resources. It would open up possibilities for SO MANY features. The endgame could be GREATLY improved. PLUS this could decentralize the base into at least 2 PARTS... It would really help with LAG and MULTITHREADING.

isnt there a " rpg" mod with char leveling ?

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