Challenge Modes

[NotABiter]

This is a thread for sharing/finding challenge modes. (Note: That's "modes" not "mods".)

What's a challenge mode?

This is some set of goals and/or limitations applied to the game in order to make it more challenging.

Why challenge modes?

The game as currently shipped can lack challenge (once you've learned how to play it). Simply turning up biter settings tends to increase tedium more than challenge (though perhaps there are some specific cases where higher biter settings increase challenge more than tedium).

Also, challenge modes can be a means of "justifying" playing the game in a very different way than you normally do, resulting in the play being fresher and more engaging/interesting than it would otherwise be.

Suggestions for things to share:

The main thing to share are the goals/limitations that define your mode.

If you have played your mode, then you may also wish to share:

• Whether or not you found it challenging (and in what ways).
• How gameplay differed from "normal" (if there were some differences one might not guess from the mode definition).
• The map string for the map you played (so others can "play along" - a mode's challenge might be highly map-dependent).

Some Examples:

• I am currently playing a game with all default settings, where researching laser turrets is not allowed. This turned out to not be very challenging. I am currently part-way through purple research, and have only had a few biter attacks that were all easily handled (probably due to use of solar energy and efficiency modules along with clearing out nearby bases). Wiping out more bases to expand and keep attacks down is not challenging, merely time-consuming. (Would probably be a little less time-consuming if I was on the latest version because I think they made the tank go through trees a bit better.)
Map string: >>>AAALABAABgADAwYAAAAEAAAAY29hbAMDAgoAAABjb3BwZXItb3Jl AwMCCQAAAGNydWRlLW9pbAMDAgoAAABlbmVteS1iYXNlAwMCCAAAAGl yb24tb3JlAwMCBQAAAHN0b25lAwMCzgJEVHwBAABBDgAAAAAAAAAAAA ADADVC8Zc=<<<
• An idea I have for a possible future play through: no laser turrets, no solar, no using coal as fuel
  All power would have to come from trees and solid fuel. That should result in both more pollution and fewer trees, so perhaps more biter attacks.

[safan]

I think you are ready to explore mods Some recommandments:

RSO adjusts the mapgeneration so the resources are rarer and further away. You will need to master trains to keep your factory running

Scalar increases the cost and time for research, so you will need a bigger factory with more throughput

Marathon makes electronic circuits extremely expensive so you'll have a big factory before even gettin to green tech. Expect throughput problems from the start

Bob's Mods increase complexity by increasing realism: Electronic circuits are not made from copper and iron, but copper and wood. The advanced circuits need tin, copper, coal, oil, quartz, stone and iron for basic materials.

these are the ones i play. Haven't tried dytech myself yet, but it's also popular

[NotABiter]

I think you are ready to explore mods

Note: That's "modes" not "mods".

I was already familiar with all of the mods you mentioned, with the exception of Scaler.

I don't like using mods that change the game-play mechanics, especially before a game has even been released and "finalized" with its last official patch. (After that mods/unofficial-patches that just fix bugs and anything that's seriously broken and improve AI are fine, as are optional new features, but I prefer they not do much else.)

The only mod I use is the blueprint string mod, and that's specifically because it doesn't really change any game mechanics - it just removes the monotony of having to recreate a blueprint by hand. (I would also be interested in any mods that make it possible to automate the actions of the player character, but I haven't seen any of those. Again, that would not change the game mechanics - the player character would still only be able to perform the same set of actions it can already do - it could just be used to remove some more tedium, and possibly reduce the amount of carpal tunnel syndrome the game causes.)

Also, a number of the mods you mention sound like they would just make the game drag out much longer than it already does, which is not my goal here (and is really counter to my goal). The goal is to increase the excitement/"play-density" of playing the game by increasing its challenge, not to decrease the same by dragging games out or increasing tedium. (Though, one of my ideas - no using coal as fuel - will certainly do that if you don't go straight to solid fuel, and will still do it a bit even if you do. {Fix included later in post.} But mostly my suggestions just cause more pollution and therefore more biter attacks and make those attacks more costly by taking away lasers. They may also require some more expansion for oil {for solid fuel}, but it's a much different type of expansion than for other materials because with oil you tend to keep all of your pump jacks running and polluting clear to the end of the game so oil-expansion tends to be pollution-increasing, not just pollution-moving.)

Another consideration is that the Factorio devs may not be that familiar with the various mods, so they don't necessarily know if a mod makes things easier or harder or just different, and even if they know a mod makes things harder they may not know by how much. People playing (and beating) challenge modes that are using all-vanilla game mechanics give the devs a clearer picture on how much difficulty is lacking in the vanilla game, which is something they need to address. And while I'm not saying the following is the case here, I will add that devs shipping essentially broken games with the attitude "mods will fix it" is not really something I approve of. This may of course all change in 0.12 when they rework the combat stuff. Hopefully they will have some game-config slider that can increase challenge without increasing tedium too much.

Moving on...

I have come up with some additional constraints that might be used:

• no using efficiency modules (except as an input such as for armor and rocket defense)
• some kind of time limits for reaching certain stages with penalties that increase over time if they are not met (though I haven't figured out what the stages/penalties would be, and this might be overly complex to apply in practice - but, I think something may really be needed along these lines because otherwise "staying small" is a boring but fairly reliable way to beat the game - time limits require you build bigger)

Also, to get rid of the potential tedium introduced by the "no using coal as fuel" rule, it could be modified to be "no using coal as fuel once you've powered up your first oil refinery". This still preserves much of the oil-side of the expansion/pollution aspects without the tedium of having to chop down tons of trees. (Unfortunately it will also leave more trees on the map absorbing pollution, but I believe this modification still results in a better challenge/tedium ratio.)

Another challenge mode I am aware of is gepwin's "Coal Age". (I was hoping gepwin would post his map string for that play through here and comment on whether or not the mode turned out to actually be challenging.)