Campaign Solution

[Factory Overlord]

I just recently read the campaign was cancelled and I feel the way you were going about the campaign is the wrong way.
You don't need to design a campaign to be played in a "specific manner" - a good example is Starcraft campaigns where you can use any strategy to win - you don't need a specific set of actions to win as long as it is designed in an open mindset.

The whole goal of the campaign is more to setup a "Lore" to the game.

The current problem I feel the game suffers from is lack of meaningful purpose - which I think the campaign would help solve.
What I mean by meaningful purpose is - you end up just building a rocket and that really is it.

You are a "Factory Owner" and really are not driven to produce anything but the rocket.
The campaign could solve this by having objectives and changing the end game.


Let's take the rocket for example.
We breakup the Rocket into 2 separate states.
Private Rocket and Company Owned Rocket.

Company Owned Rocket lands on the Rocket Pad at specific intervals requiring you to have minimum amount of resources ready in time.
If you can get more than the minimum you get paid extra based on the difference.
You get a list of prices of various commodities and prices - as well as random "emergency contracts" you can pick up for extra cash.
If you fail a contract or minimum you have one more chance of full filling your quota on next rocket ( missing previous quota + current quota )
While Emergency contracts will fine you.

You can use the money to buy research or buildings, or specific goods which will arrive on the next company rocket.

Though the main goal in the campaign would be to free your self from the Tyrany and make your own rocket and become a private company.
Which would require 2 goals ( Campaign )

1. Get enough money to pay back the company to free your self from Indentured Servitude
2. Reach far enough in Tech level to be able to craft your own rocket.
3. ( Bonus ) Earn enough Private Funds to buy out your company to enact revenge.

This, of course, is the overarching purpose not - each individual mission purpose.
Each individual mission would have it's own flair.


1. Lunch Meat -
As a young intrepid entrepreneur wanting to make a name for themself in this dreary universe you set off to the nearest recruitment center. Unfortunately for you are quickly blinded by the glow of hope in the recruiter's eyes ( or it could be the excessive radiation poisoning from handling dangerous goods, who knows! ) and didn't read the contract. Now you are being sent to Omega - 3 a backwater planet full of rabid aliens and scattered resources to enrich the powers above.

Objectives
Craft a Landing Pad
Gather total of 5,000 coal, Copper, Iron in 10 cycles


2. First Pay cheque
Proving you are more than Lunch Meat for aliens you managed to successfully fulfill your contract. Excited you read over your terms only to find out you owe the company 2,000,000,000,000 Factorians until you are free from Indentured Servitude! Thankfully you aren't great at math and full of pep, decided this may take only a few weeks or so. After all how bad could the pay be?

Objectives
Full Fill 10 Contracts


3. Call my Lawyer!
After receiving your first paycheque you realize there is no way you will earn enough to free your self. No wonder the recruiter said, "Once you join the company you would never want to leave!" apparently it would be more apt to say, "You can't leave!". Not disheartened by this further set back you decide to learn the ropes until you can find a solution to your problem.

Upgrade to Tier 2 tech
Full fill 10 contracts

4. Can I have a cup of Sugar?
You are soon contacted by a shady individual in a trenchcoat and a big fur hat of some sort of cat like creature. You aren't sure if it still alive or dead as you swear it's eyes are looking at you. As you gaze into the hat the creature below appears to be talking, yet you have yet to catch a word of what it said. You nod your head pretending to listen and it soon leaves a contract on the ground replacing it. A private company apparently wants to hire you to make products on the side. Giving you a new source of income! What could possibly go wrong?


Full fill 10 company contracts
Full fill 5 private contracts.


Etc.

[leadraven]

Offworld Trading Company?

There is no need to painfully invent the campaign. Sandbox format fits this genre perfectly.

[Factory Overlord]

Offworld Trading Company?

There is no need to painfully invent the campaign. Sandbox format fits this genre perfectly.

An off-world trading company is different, you are faced with competition and limited resources on the board.
This is you have the entire board but need to find an efficient manner to gather \ make required materials in time.

Essentially it is about forcing you to learn how to make an efficient build to maximize profits.
Then throwing challenges at you - forcing you to change your build to transfer specific resources into a different production to finish another contract.

This forces builds to be adaptable based on contract requirements.

[Deltasig]

I think it would be interesting creating some sort of economy in game. It would definitely remove some of the loneliness in singleplayer if there were markets or salvage to find.

[bobucles]

It sounds like it may be fun as a collection of game scenarios. I think a similar game mode already exists, where each round requires a certain pile of resources to progress.

[Zathuras]

Strongly agree! Do not scrap the Camapign!
I have bought 3 copies by now, just so I can introduce people by playing with them.
Do this and I am out

[JimBarracus]

Maybe a campain might need something like milestones that will guide you to the rocket.
Or more like objectives: "produce 100 gears" or research objectives.

[leadraven]

Let's start with the statement of the problem. Why do you want "campaign"? As a tutorial?

[Nemo4809]

Isn't the lore that you crash landed on this planet and have to build your way off it?

Anyway, a campaign with a guided path might make the game more accessible. It can have objectives and as long as players complete the objectives, they will eventually win - the objectives of course have to be carefully chosen such that victory (launching a rocket) is a necessary outcome. Difficulty of objectives can be controlled via map design.

[gravityStar]

Isn't the lore that you crash landed on this planet and have to build your way off it?

IIRC it is. And IMHO this particular part of the lore should not be changed. You crashland on an alien world. Hear scurrying creatures of in the distance. And instead of giving up and dying to those bugs, you do the math and science the shit out of them.

[PsyMaze]

I think that campaing may be wrong format for Factorio. Instead of mission or hand holding objectives, we should have motivational goals. I think, maybe interacting with crashed ship AI can do the work. It may give player some hints and insides, along with some flavor based lore in form of scanning results.

It should tell the player that time is against him, since biters will evolve and become more agressive, it should hint on some small goals, like maybe, having some walls with turrets. That factory must grow. That resources need to be found before you run out of starting deposit. That trains can be solution, but player must think about design of load and unload stations. Maybe to give some insight about tech tree. That a main bus can help. It should not force player to do anything, since its a sandbox type game, but when new player feel lost it need to give him some goals and motivation.

I don't want to loose this alianating vibe of the start, so maybe you should power it up to get started. Or you may ignore it, and do what ever you feel like.

[Nemo4809]

Instead of mission or hand holding objectives, we should have motivational goals.

I honestly don't see the difference frankly.

I think if the game is flexible with regards to how objectives are achieved, it's the same as having "motivational goals" - i.e. objectives can have child-objectives to guide the player to completing the parent-objective but if the player completes the parent-objective another way, it's counted as completed regardless if the child-objectives have been cleared. This way you can pretty much ignore the whole objective system and go your own way to the main objective, launching a rocket.

I feel the game should eventually have a campaign just to have "controlled" difficulty for a least a portion of the game - in addition to providing hints and conveying gameplay concepts. Right now in freeplay, the player is at the complete mercy of the map generator's RNG.