World Domination (Multiplayer)

[djvanryan]

Not expecting this to be a high priority code, but just for a future goal/plan, I believe this could catapult your game into an epic world-wide success!
Your game in itself has a very addictive base play. And I bow to your success. However, I can see people getting tired of the same old structure too soon. So what I would suggest is a multiplayer with following features:

World Domination

> Players can create a faction (country/clan/group/order,etc.) with their own customizable flag which when built creates an area of diplomacy. And as discussed in the forums earlier, have a diplomacy window where you can set players on the Friendly/Neutral/Enemy list.
> Make the world almost limitless, meaning it would take you several hours in a vehicle to make a complete loop through the entire map.

*Flags - Can be built in different sizes, from very small to very large, with the smallest requiring the least amount of resources and the biggest of course the most resources.
- Smaller flags capture small areas, while larger flags capture larger areas.
- You have to have a flag area to be able to build any kind of military structure. Everything else can be built in any area.
- Anything that is built outside of the flag area can be modified by any other player. Build within your own flag area to lock it from enemies or neutral.
*Friendly - players on this list can help build/repair/harvest and function anything that is within the area which the friendly faction possesses with its flags.
*Neutral - Players can walk through and view and interact with other players within that flag area without being able to be shot and killed by other players and/or turrets/robots/etc.
*Enemy - Players with enemy status will be shot at by defense systems of that faction and players in opposing factions can also shoot at each other.
*Diplomacy system where players can request to join a faction or declare war. Or just remain neutral/freelancer.
*Death - When a player dies, he can respawn at his own flag area/spawn beacon/etc., however, he cannot engage in combat or build defense structures for a set time (5 mins for example). He also remains invincible for that time.

This allows for a whole new open world of conquering land and defending against invasions. Players can join factions or create their own. Neighboring factions can build armies of people and defense systems, or a massive invasion army, robotic soldiers, mechs, conquer neighbors and replace their enemy's flag with their own and take over all the area of that flag including all of its machinery and resources. There are many other details you could build upon this system, like an economy of buying and selling resources, paying wages to players so they can buy upgrades for their character to become the ultimate fighting machine and earn even bigger wages, and so on. But for now the above would be a great ground structure for a MMO game that could bring in masses of players, which would also increase your pay

[Artman40]

Do you have any ideas how to overcome the defeat from a short battle which could have taken a long time to prepare for?

[djvanryan]

Do you have any ideas how to overcome the defeat from a short battle which could have taken a long time to prepare for?

This would support the idea of working together, strength in numbers.

[djvanryan]

Any more suggestions? Questions? I'm sure this isn't perfect, so if you can find any more issues with this I would like to work it out!

[sonnyskare]

I think the approach on the multiplayer should be similar to CK2 and AoE2 HD, instead of using persistent servers (this is kind of obvious but I just wanted to put that out there). The game can be continued from before very easily under this model. However, this would mean the game would function in a more friend environment, except there could be a public serverlist for you to post up your game. I'm not entirely sure but I think if the game were to migrate to steam then steam would supply game servers? I am not sure on that, please don't yell if it's wrong.

Different game modes would likely be somewhat key since as it is I don't think there'd be much point in playing against each other if you can easily be pulverized by a wall of laser turrets. World Domination (conquering a portion of the map) would make sense.

Also, perhaps some sort of competition in which players in teams build a spaceport for colonists to arrive. Of course each team would be from competing companies, and because it's a different planet, there's no rules against killing each other. Based on game options biters (if you set it to high base frequency) could be a big part in this game mode, but most likely your main competition would be other players. Now building the spaceport first means that company wins because they get to harvest all the planetary resources the earliest. This could probably be played with just one team against biters too, which would be equally fun, and less on edge. I can imagine one team would be for more casual players who like a challenge, but don't like to be pulverized by crazy cocaine addicts.

Units

But there should be at least a few other military units, mostly portable, in order to make competition in multiplayer more entertaining that simply playing alone, there should be some military units. I think the best way to handle this would be to include close range and long range tank-like units and perhaps a sort of bomber. If nuclear power were to be added then uranium could also be used for the bombs in a bomber. Adding too many units would complicate the main focus of the game, which is to build a factory, but you have to introduce a way to compete.

Some sort of command planner, similar to the construction planner, would allow you to highlight groups of units, and then direct them to a certain point on the map. It would make the most sense because the game does not have an RTS element, and I feel like that would remove the intimacy of the game, by distancing us from the battle.

To compensate for only 3 portable units, some upgrades for each unit should be available, to allow and edge to be taken over each team. Adding these military units would probably balance the game the best.

[djvanryan]

The only problem with having quick games like this (like in AoE) is that people don't have time to sit through an entire game from beginning to end. As you might know pretty well, time seems to just disappear when playing Factorio; you think only an hour past but you look at the clock and it's 8 hours later.
That's why you need to have an open server that is constantly running. An open world, mass multiplayer. Give people the freedom do roam and do whatever they please, whether it's getting a group of friends together and building an empire of factories, joining a huge faction to help defend its reputation, or just roam as a freelancer killing aliens. The whole objective of the game is for factions to fight over resources. These resources could be used to fight off a massive alien invasion from another planet or take out a boss alien encampment and gain special high-grade alien artifacts to use in personal armor or weapons, or technology; which in term helps gain an edge over other factions. Factions could work together to fight off aliens. Factions can try and take over other factions factories and resources to expand and conquer. Getting all these resources helps them gain access to building space ports and building reputation.
If players feel overwhelmed of the powers, they can temporarily join a strong faction to build gear, friends, resources, etc. then if they decide they want to break off, they can go and form their own faction with their friends in some foreign territory.
Factions could also send out some of their players to build up around a resource in a different area and work on transporting resources between each other. I agree with a spaceport for colonists to arrive, you can have factions build them to offer more homes for colonists; the more colonists a faction has the more reputation he gains.

With an open world like this, you can take advantage of all the features that this game has to offer, and add a ton of fun on to it.

[djvanryan]

Units

I also agree with what you say about units. Running up to an enemy factions gates with 10 friends and getting obliterated by its defense turrets would be pointless. So, with all the resources you gather from your factories you could build mechanized units, robots, gear like power armor and attack weapons like tanks or artillery. Planes/bombers would be great.
Introducing PvP to this game, would suck in hundreds of gamers.
I also like how you say to have different game modes as well for the more casual non pvp players, like having a separate server where players could team up against alien waves. Make it a survival mode. Or Make it a mission to take out a massive alien encampment together.
+1 on different game modes
+1 on having different military units

[Gammro]

It wouldn't be the only game that would only have instanced servers instead of persistent dedicated servers. In fact, I'd say session based gaming would be better.
Paradox games are infamous for taking much time, as are Civilization games. Those work with session based MP gaming, with being able to save and continue at a later time. You can say: guys I'm done for today, let's save the game and continue another time. You don't need to setup a full self supplying base that can withstand attacks while you're offline. So it's feasible to actually play shorter sessions.
The game (as it is right now) pretty much demands you're there all the time to react to emergency situations. With other players in the game, these emergency situations might be even worse if you're not in a faction and some other guy decides to raid your base.

Also, please don't double post. Just edit your previous one ಠ_ಠ

[sonnyskare]

It wouldn't be the only game that would only have instanced servers instead of persistent dedicated servers. In fact, I'd say session based gaming would be better.
Paradox games are infamous for taking much time, as are Civilization games. Those work with session based MP gaming, with being able to save and continue at a later time. You can say: guys I'm done for today, let's save the game and continue another time. You don't need to setup a full self supplying base that can withstand attacks while you're offline. So it's feasible to actually play shorter sessions.
The game (as it is right now) pretty much demands you're there all the time to react to emergency situations. With other players in the game, these emergency situations might be even worse if you're not in a faction and some other guy decides to raid your base.

Also, please don't double post. Just edit your previous one ಠ_ಠ

Session based is the most sensible, especially based on the points you make.

I guess servers should be able to be persistent in the case that someone develops a mod that extends multiplayer functionality (assuming my approach is the one chosen, which I'm not sure how they'll tackle multiplayer gameplay).

Units

I also agree with what you say about units. Running up to an enemy factions gates with 10 friends and getting obliterated by its defense turrets would be pointless. So, with all the resources you gather from your factories you could build mechanized units, robots, gear like power armor and attack weapons like tanks or artillery. Planes/bombers would be great.
Introducing PvP to this game, would suck in hundreds of gamers.
I also like how you say to have different game modes as well for the more casual non pvp players, like having a separate server where players could team up against alien waves. Make it a survival mode. Or Make it a mission to take out a massive alien encampment together.
+1 on different game modes
+1 on having different military units

Some mobile military units would be important to commit attacks against other bases, I agree. I think it should be kept simple to only a few units though, over-complicating the military system would just remove a lot of fun and make it hard to balance.

[djvanryan]

It wouldn't be the only game that would only have instanced servers instead of persistent dedicated servers. In fact, I'd say session based gaming would be better.
Paradox games are infamous for taking much time, as are Civilization games. Those work with session based MP gaming, with being able to save and continue at a later time. You can say: guys I'm done for today, let's save the game and continue another time. You don't need to setup a full self supplying base that can withstand attacks while you're offline. So it's feasible to actually play shorter sessions.
The game (as it is right now) pretty much demands you're there all the time to react to emergency situations. With other players in the game, these emergency situations might be even worse if you're not in a faction and some other guy decides to raid your base.

Also, please don't double post. Just edit your previous one ಠ_ಠ

Sorry for the double post

If you prefer session based games, with 4-5 friends, of course that would be fun to play a game of survival against alien invasions. However, this is a completely different game mode than what I'm referring to.

I believe a mass multiplayer persistent server could open a whole new world to this game.
I'm not saying 5-10 people on a map. I'm saying hundreds of gamers building factories to gain resources to use to expand their territory and to manage relationships with other players. Alliances can be involved along with trade and defense agreements. Creating name for yourself and your friends/team that could echo across the whole map.
Having/Harvesting the resources to defend your base while your gone is a challenge. You have to build your factories and base in such a way that it could withstand an attack on its own (automated). Of course, trying to do this on your own would be almost impossible, but together with friends you could make it a little easier. It brings more meaning to the sense of multiplayer.

If you're thinking, small map where neighboring base is only a minute walk away and everyone is in a deathmatch; no, this is on a map so vast it would take you hours to circumvent. Add way point marking (with labeling functionality) to make sure you don't get lost. You could almost feel like you're all alone. Too be able to attack another base, first you'd have to know where this base was then try and navigate all your military through the vast forests and around lakes.

People want to have a challenge. You want people to be thinking about the game while they are at work or grocery shopping or whatever RL situation they are in: "I can't wait to get home and check on my base to make sure it's still there!"
I'm not against session based gaming, I think it would be a lot of fun in itself but I'm trying to UNLIMIT the LIMIT. Not everyone is always going to have time to "hey lets continue our game".
I wish I could write the code for this mod/game to show you guys what I'm seeing, but unfortunately I don't have that amazing talent. I just want to create an Open World game. And if someone could create a mod for this, I would be paying $$$.

[djvanryan]

We are working on creating a multiplayer Mod for this. It would be great if we could see some support that people would play this.

[OBAMA MCLAMA]

Well, i hope it comes out in the next 2 weeks then. The dev's are already working on multiplayer and tomorrow's patch is a step in the direction. within 2 months you can expect a multiplayer from the devs that is expected to have lots of bugs. 2 months after that it should be clean

I don't mean to tell you to stop, I'm here to let you know that its planned for the game and is already being worked on officially.

[ysor123]

The core problem in this idea is, whenever someone comes with this kind of really nice idea: how do you want to deal with people not being able to play everyday? They come back and all their land is conquered.

So I like the idea. This is a very common type of idea, which usually fails in games by the problem mentioned above.

[djvanryan]

The core problem in this idea is, whenever someone comes with this kind of really nice idea: how do you want to deal with people not being able to play everyday? They come back and all their land is conquered.

So I like the idea. This is a very common type of idea, which usually fails in games by the problem mentioned above.

This core problem is solved by the core idea of multiplayer. Not playing alone.
If you have multiple people in your faction, the likelihood of your base being overrun decreases. The more people in your faction, the less likely you will lose your base.

[ysor123]

I don't think this solves the problem. Even in MMORPGs you have difficulties to have someone online all the time in your clan. And you may need more than one person online to protect. This only works for really huge clans, which is only a partition of few percents of all players.

Again: in theory the idea is nice and there are many such similar ideas out there not only in factorio. But there are heavy problems in practical implementation.
If you would give me a more deep concept which convince me that you'v found a real solution I will take it back and bow in front of you

[djvanryan]

I don't think this solves the problem. Even in MMORPGs you have difficulties to have someone online all the time in your clan. And you may need more than one person online to protect. This only works for really huge clans, which is only a partition of few percents of all players.

Again: in theory the idea is nice and there are many such similar ideas out there not only in factorio. But there are heavy problems in practical implementation.
If you would give me a more deep concept which convince me that you'v found a real solution I will take it back and bow in front of you

I agree with you that it would be hard to have everyone on your clan be there to protect. Or even just one. But then you also need to consider the fact that not everyone on the attacker's team is going to be there on the day of the assault either unless like you said it was a huge clan that had a lot of people; therefore it would make sense that if you were just starting off you'd might consider joining a bigger clan until you become more established and technologically advanced to break off on your own to settle your own base and supply your main clan with resources to defend its flags. Also you'd need to have the technology invented, the resources to build an army and then navigate far distances through alien terrain the get to the enemy base that you previously scouted out. Then when you finally arrive you have to break through their walls and turrets and whatever other automated defenses they have along with any defensive robots they might have patrolling. Also may consider having allies patrol/defend your base while you're gone. Can you think of other ways maybe to defend or attack?

[TGS]

Persistence doesn't necessarily equate to 'mmo' or even massive amounts of people. So there really isn't anything wrong with this and the logic that you have to be around to protect your base 24/7 is also flawed given that the game has very good defensive systems. A well designed defensive base wouldn't necessarily need to be protected because the most you'd have against it is like 2-4 people. And there is a good chance that even if you and a few of your friends were on it still wouldn't necessarily save your base.

The point I'm getting at is that I can't really see there being enough people in the game to constitute armies. Furthermore this whole idea of 'balance' being needed is quite silly. Why does the game need to be balanced? What does it need to be balanced against? Balance is for games that are intentionally competitive. This game doesn't have to be intentionally competitive. Just competition being an option.

[Sander Buruma]

I think adding competition (multiplayer) and automatching in a proper way will considerably enlarge the playerbase to people who have that mindset.