Has Deathworld some hidden fixed settings regarding enemies?

[Dragony]

After I have beaten Deathworld-Marathon, I wanted to play a game with the same aggressivity of the enemies in that Deathworld-Marathon setting, but with much more ressources. I selected Standard and copied every setting of Deathworld-Marathon, except recipe difficulty and some resource settings. But it seems the enemies are much weaker in that setting. For example, in Deathworld-Marathon, they seemed to attack much more often, and, even "worse", then expanded much denser and faster. It was a red mess everywhere. This was kinda funny indeed. But I can't copy it.

So... is there a hidden setting only available in the Deathworld-Marathon selection?

[bobucles]

Trees are the biggest difficulty factor in the game. A lush green forest will absorb most of your pollution and thus cut down the vast bulk enemy attack waves.

Proximity is another major difficulty factor. If anything is too close to a nest it will trigger unlimited attack waves until you pull back or the trespassing structures are destroyed. Push back enemy nests so they don't get into aggro range.

There is also a little bit of luck involved with enemy expansion. If you constantly hit the minimum cooldown timing then you'll be swimming in local nests very quickly. The maximum cooldown is much easier to deal with.

[Klonan]

After I have beaten Deathworld-Marathon, I wanted to play a game with the same aggressivity of the enemies in that Deathworld-Marathon setting, but with much more ressources. I selected Standard and copied every setting of Deathworld-Marathon, except recipe difficulty and some resource settings. But it seems the enemies are much weaker in that setting. For example, in Deathworld-Marathon, they seemed to attack much more often, and, even "worse", then expanded much denser and faster. It was a red mess everywhere. This was kinda funny indeed. But I can't copy it.

So... is there a hidden setting only available in the Deathworld-Marathon selection?

Did you also copy the Starting area size?

[Jap2.0]

Also look at the evolution settings (in the advanced settings tab) - those are turned up for deathworld marathon.

[Dragony]

So... is there a hidden setting only available in the Deathworld-Marathon selection?

Did you also copy the Starting area size?

No. Actually I forgot to mention this. The starting area size is set to extra large, because I wanted a bit more preparation time before the action starts, also because I have set the enemy parameters even higher than default (group size min/max both maxed out).

Is the starting area a fixed area, which also has some special treatments IN-GAME? Honestly I thought the starting area just describes the initial distance to the first enemy bases.

To avoid further confusion, here is the map exchange string of my (boring) game:

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MB4xbZgYE+GDPq7hUGwDA6pWC<<<

My question is: Will the enemies catch up and its just a matter of time, or is the game ruined (in terms of desiring maximal enemy aggression) by using wrong settings? As I have mentioned, I wanted a game, which starts peacefully for a few hours, but then hell shall break loose.

[bobucles]

Factorio doesn't really have a "hell breaking loose" type of threat scaling. The hardest part of factorio is ironically the early game. Not only are you in a tech race against biter evolution, but tiny biter raids deal the highest DPS per "raid point" cost. An early raid gone wild will oddly enough deal vastly more damage than a mid game raid roaming free.

Keeping up on tech is super important so you don't get instafragged by biter armor scaling, but at the same time it means that the game gets very easy if you're ahead of the game. It's a bit strange that way.

[eradicator]

Is the starting area a fixed area, which also has some special treatments IN-GAME? Honestly I thought the starting area just describes the initial distance to the first enemy bases.

Starting area

The starting are is a special area around the central coordinates of the map which has different ore, water and enemy generation, from the rest of the map. Generally, this results in at least one confirmed ore source of coal, iron ore, copper ore, and stone, always results in a water source, and always removes biter nests from spawning for an area around spawn. Uranium ore and crude oil should not spawn in the starting area.

As far as i remember biters also never expand (build bases) back into the starting area, and start no (or reduced?) raids against buildings in the starting area. (Someone with more experience should confirm/correct this.)

You can change the starting area in a running game via command. Which should change the biter behavior (but not the resources/terrain).

Code: Select all

/c
local s = game.player.surface
local x = s.map_gen_settings
x.starting_area = 'very-small'
s.map_gen_settings = x

[Jap2.0]

If biters don't expand into the starting area, then it's shown incorrectly in the debug view. I have no idea about the rest of that - I haven't heard it confirmed, but it sounds plausible.

[Dragony]

They do expand into the starting area. However, the question is a different one. The question is: Do they behave differently in the starting area than outside the starting-area?

[BlakeMW]

Factorio doesn't really have a "hell breaking loose" type of threat scaling. The hardest part of factorio is ironically the early game. Not only are you in a tech race against biter evolution, but tiny biter raids deal the highest DPS per "raid point" cost. An early raid gone wild will oddly enough deal vastly more damage than a mid game raid roaming free.

Yup. It's especially useful to push through the small spitter era quickly as they have much higher dps than medium spitters and laser and flame turrets waste a lot of damage due to overkill (gun turrets are good, though). Sometimes in Deathworlds I've done everything I can to delay small spitters, and then once they evolve, gone on a spawner killing spree until medium spitters evolve.

[Klonan]

So... is there a hidden setting only available in the Deathworld-Marathon selection?

Did you also copy the Starting area size?

No. Actually I forgot to mention this. The starting area size is set to extra large, because I wanted a bit more preparation time before the action starts, also because I have set the enemy parameters even higher than default (group size min/max both maxed out).

Well then, that is the problem

The biter spawning is very heavily influenced by the size of the starting area,
By setting it to extra large, you are essentially spacing out biters 400% or so

[bobucles]

The biter spawning is very heavily influenced by the size of the starting area,
By setting it to extra large, you are essentially spacing out biters 400% or so

That sounds like something to fix. It doesn't make sense that world settings get so drastically changed by the starting zone.

[Dragony]

I did not know this! My game is ruined!

But how could anyone know that a "starting area size" decides about the general spacing between new alien bases? These sound like two completely isolated settings, which should be available for editing in the world generator settings.

It should have been this way then:

Starting area size: [SELECT]
Minimum enemy base distance: [SELECT]

Actually, there already IS a maximum enemy base distance. Why have you not included a minimum size as well?

Can you fix that? I want to select:

Starting area size: Very big
Minimum enemy base distance: 1

[Illiander42]

Factorio doesn't really have a "hell breaking loose" type of threat scaling. The hardest part of factorio is ironically the early game. Not only are you in a tech race against biter evolution, but tiny biter raids deal the highest DPS per "raid point" cost. An early raid gone wild will oddly enough deal vastly more damage than a mid game raid roaming free.

Yup. It's especially useful to push through the small spitter era quickly as they have much higher dps than medium spitters and laser and flame turrets waste a lot of damage due to overkill (gun turrets are good, though). Sometimes in Deathworlds I've done everything I can to delay small spitters, and then once they evolve, gone on a spawner killing spree until medium spitters evolve.

Try RampantAI, and turn the max biter level up.

[bobucles]

Try RampantAI, and turn the max biter level up.

I've been toying with that a bit. Rampant AI makes the early game even HARDER, because it gives more flat resist on low level biters. If you thought medium biters with 4 armor were bad, try small biters with 5 armor when your starting ammo does 5 damage. Ouch.

[Illiander42]

It also, (unless I'm getting my mods confused) has an option to turn up the max biter level.

It defaults to 4 (I'd guess it goes small->medium->large->behemoth), and has a max of 10.

I have the evolution speed turned down in my current game, because I'm playing angelbob, but I'd guess behemoth++++++ might just get interesting late-game.