Cliff explosives

[quineotio]

TL;DR

Make the cliffs on Vulcanus require Vulcanus research to destroy, and give back cliff explosives on Nauvis.

Why?

I tried. Fulgora first, then Gleba. Cliffs were fine on Nauvis, annoying but doable on Fulgora, annoying on Gleba, which already has restricted space with all the water. I understand not wanting to trivialize Vulcanus, but I feel punished for not going there first. It's annoying. Very annoying.

[Tinyboss]

I don't understand how some are just unable to deal with cliffs. I'm about to leave for Aquilo and I haven't produced a single cliff explosive. For no other reason than I just haven't bothered to do it. My world was generated with 100% default settings.

[quineotio]

I should add that I think Factorio is an amazing game, and Space Age is fun overall, thank you

[quineotio]

I don't understand how some are just unable to deal with cliffs. I'm about to leave for Aquilo and I haven't produced a single cliff explosive. For no other reason than I just haven't bothered to do it. My world was generated with 100% default settings.

Wow, you're amazing.

[Tinyboss]

I don't think I'm amazing at all. If I did, then I could understand.

[quineotio]

It has nothing to do with "are just unable to deal with cliffs". As I said, it's annoying. It's tiresome.

Factorio is most fun for me when it's a sandbox, and locking cliff explosives to Vulcanus is unnecessarily restrictive.

[Tinyboss]

I think the right answer then is for you to disable cliffs on Nauvis when you generate your world, or turn them down to a level that you can live with until Vulcanus. Nothing wrong with that.

[quineotio]

I abandoned my original save and turned them off entirely. But this is not a solution. I think cliff explosives being on Vulcanus is an unnecessary bottleneck. I hate that it forces a particular path through the planets, and I don't think it adds anything positive at all. I consider cliff explosives to be a basic tool that I arbitrarily don't have.

They could add carbon to the recipe to force you to get a space platform first, but then you don't feel forced to go to Vulcanus first.

[AileTheAlien]

Cliffs were fine on Nauvis, annoying but doable on Fulgora, annoying on Gleba, which already has restricted space with all the water.

I actually agree with your original assessment - cliffs are fine on Nauvis. They're fairly long, so they can be used for defenses, but are solitary and not clustered together. The cliffs on Vulcanus are only slightly more annoying than the ones that were originally on Nauvis.

I abandoned my original save and turned them off entirely. But this is not a solution.

This seems like a valid solution to me. Nauvis already has lots of wide open space to expand into, and you're mostly fighting aliens and trees. Gleba seems like you're mostly fighting soil requirements. Fulgora you've got very limited space, and on Vulcanus you're fighting the layered mazes of cliff and giant worms. It's the only one that really needs cliff explosives.

[Tinyboss]

As I said, it's annoying. It's tiresome.

Factorio is most fun for me when it's a sandbox, and locking cliff explosives to Vulcanus is unnecessarily restrictive.

Lots of people who enjoy sandbox-style play find combat tiresome and turn off or weaken the enemies. There's nothing wrong with that, but the default settings are carefully chosen as the "intended experience". I think the intent with moving cliff explosives to metallurgic science is that you suffer with the truly bad cliffs on Vulcanus for a little bit, then you develop the solution. This seems right to me for a default experience, but we have the tools to tweak it to our own preference.

[Sworn]

Have to say, also hate the idea that cliff explosives got locked behind a planet, only worst thing then that is platform.

but you see Navious still have landfill without having platform researched, so we should still be able to remove cliffs from Navious with navious research.

Having platforms locked behind the last planet just make it useless for most people. Quite disappointed

[Sworn]

TL;DR

Make cliff, land fill and foundation aligned for each planet, so one can destroy cliffs and landfill/foundation, based on each planet.

What?

Previous from space age, one had the option to fill out water bodies to be able to build its base without the water constraints and geographical limitation.
Same for cliffs, when they were added, annoying to most people, some loved, but ultimately it was still optional, and easy to get rid of them if one chooses to.

Now with space age, this got completely messed up, Navious one still can do landfill, but lost the ability to deal with cliffs.
Then you can go to other planets, but has no ability to deal with any of those, as it got locked behind the last planet, which makes it useless for 90% of the players.

Would have two choices that could easily fix this, one, the easiest, just lower the cliff/foundation tech back to Navious.
Second, more complicated, have each planet have its own level of cliff/foundation.
Navious already have landfill, great, give its cliff explosive back.
Then just have a tech for each new planet that will allow to destroy that specific planet cliff or build that specific planet landfill.

And have the ultimate universal cliff/foundation locked behind the last planet. That gives back the player the option to deal with each planet annoyance without been strictly mandatory to finish the game first as it is now.

Yes, one gets cliff explosives from vulcanos, but that is the point, its not align anymore, you have landfill but can't use in other planet, have to go to other planet to remove cliffs from Navious, and have no option for fulgora and gleba. Completely messed the system we had before

Yes those are delicate points, bitters were the same, cliffs were the same, and they were handled in a non-mandatory way, could disable bitters, could reduce cliffs significant, and remove them somewhat easily, landfill was just green tech.
Space age make it mandatory to finish the game, and that is the issue.

Sample case? Get to volcanos, wow gonna unlock cliff explosive, finally, well now everything is hidden behind lava patches, and guess what, no way to deal with it, and it is not "a little bit of lava" like we had a little bit of cliffs in navious, wait you can deal with them, but finish the game first.

Why?

Before space age, it was balanced, you had the constraints, but could also deal with them easily, now, its mandatory and one have no way to deal with it before you basically finished the game, which at this point is already useless.
And that is detrimental to the game play, it isn't an upgrade, by itself it is a downgrade from what the game was.

[mmmPI]

The settings to remove cliffs is still there.

And elevated rails makes many of the previous annoyance with cliffs just vanish to me.

There are already different tech to allow elevated rails support in deeper part of the oil ocean in Fulgora, and in Gleba you don't need any special landfill of cliffs explosives, you can just reuse the regular landfill from Nauvis and cliffs explosives from Vulcanus which is nice.

I don't share the suggestion if it somehow means Gleba be made harder by making it require a special landfill or cliffs explosive.

Vulcanus is already the planet of cliffs explosive and is made much easier with foundation, i think it would be detrimental to the general experience if players didn't have to try and build in Vulcanus WITHOUT foundations first, using elevated rails instead to go above the lava river. This gives a nice incentive to revisit the planets after the first settlement and to export things from other planets there. It also provide an incentive to players to advance in the tech tree instead of trying to make the perfect low tech build, which may be necessary to guide the player forward given how easy it is to get lost in space age and overbuild at early mid-game.

Having access to foundation + cliffs explosives makes all planet feels the same somehow, you can just make gigantic concrete grid of substations everywhere, i think this shouldn't be how they feel during the whole game, but only when the tech tree is "close to finished" as this is also close to "the end of the challenge/difficulties".

[Sworn]

What was take off the game is choice.
And I clearly suggested a path that wouldn't just "unlock" foundation to everything early, unless they want the easy way out, then yes. Still choice is the main thing, from what the game always had been, as I said, from bitter, cliff, water. This doesn't exist anymore so it's a basic change on the take of the game.

So because one have to go to space, it loses the ability to know how to blow up rocks? Can launch a rocket but can't blow a rock....
So one knows how to landfill a water body, but can't land fill oil, yes different problem, that is exactly why each planet should have its own landfill

[mmmPI]

So because one have to go to space, it loses the ability to know how to blow up rocks? Can launch a rocket but can't blow a rock....

Yeah and you learn how to make them by putting science bottle in a laboratory, it's a video game x). The gameplay implications seem good to me, and there is a setting to change them, by removing water of cliffs, as you said choice is there imo.

Edit : Was searching for something else but found this : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/id-like-c ... vis-please
which maybe be of some use x)

[Green Cat]

I still don't get who decided this was a good ideea

People hate cliffs

Now, we need to use mods, disable them entierly, or be end game where we can afford easily to transport them around.

Such restriction don't had to the enjoyment, they are pure chores, even torture for anyone who isen't a masochis or whatever you want to call them, a workcaholic? do you know that psychological issue or whatever it is since everyone loves to use correct terms. Well guess what, whoever isen't suffering from workaholism and wants to build, are swearing to whoever what the person, or people, on the dev team who decided it is a "good ideea" to do such "comprimises" to add to the game's "complexity" <- unecessary, ilogical, and completly not needed decision.

It was one thing to make the research exclusive to a planet, another thing that you need to ship... how many again? If I have 1 K cliffs I need to clear out around my megabase, how many rockets.... WAIT A MOMENT!!! there are so many cliffs on the planet where you craft them, that I need 1 K cliff explosives just there....

So yeah, again, you either wait end game

OR

Are a workcaholic who does everything calculated, with ration, everything planet, and this is supposed to be a game and not a Second job

People complening that the GAME was transformed into a JOB. Let me not even start with the spolage mess and what happens on a certain planet when you have to many overflow... Oh wait, how comes no one complains that that planet has infinite source of electricity, you get ice on top of metal and other products that make no sense? Ah yes, because it's a game. And the devs clearly forgot that.

[mmmPI]

Are a workcaholic who does everything calculated, with ration, everything planet, and this is supposed to be a game and not a Second job

If you don't need everything calculated with ration, it's ok not not have cliffs explosives or landfill early on, you could just fill in things later and use the improper ration in the meantime.

[quineotio]

I think the intent with moving cliff explosives to metallurgic science is that you suffer with the truly bad cliffs on Vulcanus for a little bit, then you develop the solution.

The OP - the point of this thread - the suggestion I made - was to make the cliffs on Vulcanus special so that you need to do research there before you can destroy them, but to give cliff explosives that work everywhere else on Nauvis.

The idea of having a problem and developing a solution is one of the things that frustrates me about moving cliff explosives to Vulcanus. It's an issue for me, and I have all the resources I need to make cliff explosives, and it's not a complicated problem to understand, and yet I have to go to another planet to develop the solution.

If you do go to Vulcanus first, then you'll have them on Fulgora and Gleba, so having those cliffs be destroyable from the beginning is clearly not a problem. I'd even be fine with cliff explosives being locked behind space or utility science so that you need to basically finish Nauvis before getting them. But as it stands, there seems like a clear and logical progression for the planets, which is Vulcanus first.

[Tinyboss]

But as it stands, there seems like a clear and logical progression for the planets, which is Vulcanus first.

Only if cliffs are such a central issue, and for most players they just aren't. I went Fulgora first and that was perfect. I probably won't in my next run, but strictly because I want to experience things in a different order. The biggest thing I've seen so far in terms of planet order is that tesla weapons from Fulgora are one of the few effective answers to stomper pentapods on Gleba. Other than that, they feel totally independent.

[quineotio]

But as it stands, there seems like a clear and logical progression for the planets, which is Vulcanus first.

Only if cliffs are such a central issue, and for most players they just aren't. I went Fulgora first and that was perfect. I probably won't in my next run, but strictly because I want to experience things in a different order. The biggest thing I've seen so far in terms of planet order is that tesla weapons from Fulgora are one of the few effective answers to stomper pentapods on Gleba. Other than that, they feel totally independent.

Would you have been negatively effected if cliff explosives were unlocked on Nauvis?