Spidertron Example

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adam_bise
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Spidertron Example

Post by adam_bise »

My idea of what Spidertron should be. What do you think?

- Spidertron MK1 -

Description: An AI controlled or manually driven, water crossing spider vehicle with inserters for legs (As if you didn't already know that) equipped with a gun turret. Consumes fuel, has inventory, takes magazine ammo, provides LoS. Will construct nearby ghosts if it has mats in inventory (slow). Will defend itself unmanned, acquire, move to, and engage nearby targets. Can be given a stop, move, guard, patrol, or attack-move commands RTS style.
Recipe: steel plates, iron gear wheels, green circuits, and burner inserters.
Required Tech: Spidertron MK1: Steel processing, Turrets
Stats: HP = 1000, Range = 18, Movement Speed = Slower than character
Resists: Acid = high, Explosion = low, Fire = high, Impact = low, Physical = moderate

- Spidertron MK2 -

Description: Same as MK1 (+) Consumes batteries rather than fuel. Adds a laser turret instead of a gun turret, Can equip a low number of Spidertron Modules
Recipe: steel plates, iron gear wheels, red circuits, and inserters.
Required Tech: Spidertron MK2: Battery, Laser Turrets
Stats: HP = 1200, Range = (20 Laser)(18 Gun), Movement Speed = Same as character
Resists: Acid = high, Explosion = moderate, Fire = high, Impact = low, Physical = moderate

- Spidertron MK3 -

Description: Same as MK2 (+) Ion Cannon (A very long range, very high damage, penetrating particle cannon with a long cooldown period). Adds flamethrower ammo. Ion cannon consumes nuclear fuel cells. Can equip a higher number of Spidertron Modules
Recipe: steel plates, iron gear wheels, blue circuits, fast inserters, portable fusion reactors, and accumulators.
Required Tech: Spidertron MK3: processing unit, portable fusion reactor.
Stats: HP = 1800, Range = (20 Laser)(14 Flamethrower)(42 Ion Cannon), Movement Speed = Faster than character, slower than tank.
Resists: Acid = high, Explosion = high, Fire = high, Impact = moderate, Physical = moderate

Tech:
Benefits from Gun, Laser, and Flamethrower upgrades.

Spidertron Modules:
A general set of Spidertron specific modules to increase its stats and versatility.

WHY?

To add to a possible step in the RTS direction with the long anticipated Spidertron, as well as an early game companion for the player.
The Spidertron MK1 could act as a low tech construction robot early on, a personal pet or guardian, while also providing more early game offensive options. They can also be mass produced and sent out to destroy pesky small biter encampments RTS style, provided you have enough materials to produce many of them. However, this is a nice option for a pre-plastics player who needs to take over a group of spawners and worms to get to that desperately needed oil field.
The versatile Spidertron MK2 and costly MK3 goes further into the RTS direction, depending on playstyle. You can still just drive it around, if you wish.
Oh yea, and cause it's Spidertron!

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Re: Spidertron Example

Post by dog80 »

i thought spidertron is a vehicle that can in comparison to car - its not as fast as car - but can walk over all structures ps tldr

+ i like the idea of consuming batteries, that would give them a bit more usability or so ^^
--- which brings another thing on the agenda - atm you have to transport steam as energy transport, which is the only way despite using raw materials and then burn them ( which produces pollution though ) - so how about an entity that takes batteries and gives energy etc.. nvm

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Re: Spidertron Example

Post by Jap2.0 »

Interesting, combining the original spidertron idea with robot army.
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Re: Spidertron Example

Post by Zavian »

I think it would be cool to have a few (one to four say) spidertrons following the player to help quickly kill nests. But they probably don't need anything more powerful than machinegun or tank cannon or laser weaponry. Might be interesting for a mod if/when we get a spidertron.

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Re: Spidertron Example

Post by darkfrei »

It would be nice to build entities without collision of spidertron's legs.

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Re: Spidertron Example

Post by adam_bise »

darkfrei wrote:It would be nice to build entities without collision of spidertron's legs.
Yes. Since they can cross water, they should also be able to walk over certain entities, albeit slowly. Perhaps large entities like storage tanks, trains, refineries, steam engines, or roboports would block it's path.

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Spidertron features/justification

Post by NotRexButCaesar »

I think a successful spidertron should probably have at least some of these features:

Mobility

The spidertron obviously has the ability to walk anywhere*, but in addition to this, I think it needs some other features:

1. Be as fast as a player can possibly go with exoskeletons(all exos, with only the top row of batteries/solar panels) (and possibly have two speed settings enabled/disabled with the exoskeleton button). This would greatly incentivize the player to use it in the endgame as they would be able to use their power armor slots for other things while still getting the speed boost.

2. Have instant steering/stopping/acceleration. If the player is to never leave the spidertron, it shouldn’t prevent building/navigating normally or players might not want to use it.

3. Be able to board trains. I know this sounds weird, but it makes sense both in universe and logically if you think about it: although spidertron will be the ultimate vehicle, players will still want the speed of trains. Preventing it from boarding trains may make it a no for some players with very large bases. It also makes sense that the spidertron would be able to grab trains using its long, nimble arms.

4. This is only a mild suggestion, but maybe it should have a limited fly mode. This would be as fast as a nuclear fueled train and would have limited steering(lots of drift). This would replace the train boarding.

Special Features

1. It would be very nice if the spidertron had a special vehicle equipment grid. This would one, be very nice for the player; and two, be even greater incentive to use it. This equipment grid would be able to hold shields (whether personal shields or a special vehicle shield I don't know), maybe exoskeletons(I don't know about this one, as it should already be fast), and maybe a (1.5.) reach modifier(for both incentive and convenience: it would remove the need for "long reach" mods).

2. It should have 3 or 4 weapon slots including: a rocket launcher, a player/turret like flamethrower, maybe a vehicle machine gun or just another rocket launcher(for things other than nukes), and some novelty weapon, like the railgun or a grenade launcher.

3. It should give the player an inventory bonus, or somehow integrate with the player inventory. If the player is never going to leave it, why separate the inventories. This would be very cool.

Cost

1. The spidertron would obviously be a very late game item, perhaps even post rocket(consuming 1000 packs for the first launch?). I think it should probably use the tank as an ingredient, maybe 16 inserters(for 8 arms), some iron sticks(maybe 32). It should use a lot of steel, some processing units and rocket control units, maybe tier 3 speed modules or some other modules, and probably a fusion reactor or two. It should be very hard to get all the ingredients with handcrafting(to encourage automation). it might accept only nuclear fuel, and burn it as fast as a train(but be able to stack the fuel to 10 or something like artillery wagons and shells)

Conclusion

I believe this could be a great feature that everyone loves, if it is done right. It doesn't have to interrupt the flow of the game, and would make neither cars nor tanks useless. Because it is post rocket, the entire early/mid/late? game flow would not be interrupted: cars would be used inside the base and tanks outside like normal until the vehicle was unlocked. This would be a lovely feature to implement(even as a dev authored mod or even a dlc), and I am sure no one would be unhappy with it. I am *very* open to feedback, whether critique, suggestions, or other ideas. Thank you devs for this lovely and wonderful game. Your work is very highly appreciated. I reiterate: thank you.
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Re: Spidertron Example

Post by Koub »

[Koub] Merged into older topic on the same subject.
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Re: Spidertron features/justification

Post by Hannu »

kephri wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:02 pm
The spidertron obviously has the ability to walk anywhere*, but in addition to this, I think it needs some other features:
Maybe expect deep water. It is very unrealistic and inconsistent.
1. The spidertron would obviously be a very late game item, perhaps even post rocket(consuming 1000 packs for the first launch?).
I agree. It should be ultimate tool to clear tens square kilometers very fast and non-tedious way at end game, when focus is moved from surviving and resource conquering to megabase building. It, or highest tier version, should fire atomic bombs, have limited tolerance for them (can survive outer areas of explosion), have tens of thousands of health and almost impenetrable armors, be very fast (200-300 km/h or more), use nuclear fuel cells or nuclear fuel as energy source etc. I know that combat oriented players feel it overpowered but they could stay on suitable lower tier unit. In my opinion it should be "honest" way to replace commands. It should need very expensive research with space science (like 16k all science packs including military) and cost about million raw resources through many highest tier intermediates.

Idea of automated robot action is also interesting, but I would make smaller and cheaper expendable spider-like units for that purpose. Movements should be modeled according to real spider movement. The way real tarantulas move with their 8 legs is extremely fascinating to see. If devs made such laborious graphical object, it would be practical to use also as a new type of enemy in slightly modified form (for example rare scorpion like alien species which use strong claws to destroy entities and can grab the player and sting him with fatal result, so it should be identified and shot first if player fight against swarm of biters).

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Re: Spidertron features/justification

Post by NotRexButCaesar »

Hannu wrote:
Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:43 am

In my opinion, it should be “ honest” way to replace commands.
I really don’t think so. I think it should stay within the bounds of “reality”. Making it *too* powerful would make the game pretty boring, as it would eliminate a lot of core problems in the game.

I believe features should generally alleviate(or replace), rather than eliminate core problems.
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Re: Spidertron features/justification

Post by Hannu »

kephri wrote:
Fri Jul 24, 2020 4:34 pm
I really don’t think so. I think it should stay within the bounds of “reality”. Making it *too* powerful would make the game pretty boring, as it would eliminate a lot of core problems in the game.
One core problem is slowness and tediousness of clearing large areas. It is not so bad, if you make a compact base and use nearest ore patches, but I like to build railworlds with 500-2000 units between separate factories. Factorio's game mechanics does not allow (practically) separate units with local defenses, because biters attack against trains and it wrecks whole transport system, so I have to clear enclose typically about 6000 x 6000 unit area. It takes couple of days (real time) to clear with atomic bombs and I do not want to use my limited free time for such superboring and annoying work.

Otherwise spidertron would be just graphical trick. Very beautiful, if walking is properly modeled, but not bring any interesting elements to gaming or avoid annoyances in my playstyle. Of course I can mod spidertron to run at practical speed (at least as fast as locomotive I use currently) and use commands so I agree very much if devs decide to make it.

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Re: Spidertron features/justification

Post by NotRexButCaesar »

Hannu wrote:
Fri Jul 24, 2020 5:41 pm
kephri wrote:
Fri Jul 24, 2020 4:34 pm
I really don’t think so. I think it should stay within the bounds of “reality”. Making it *too* powerful would make the game pretty boring, as it would eliminate a lot of core problems in the game.
One core problem is slowness and tediousness of clearing large areas. It is not so bad, if you make a compact base and use nearest ore patches, but I like to build railworlds with 500-2000 units between separate factories. Factorio's game mechanics does not allow (practically) separate units with local defenses, because biters attack against trains and it wrecks whole transport system, so I have to clear enclose typically about 6000 x 6000 unit area. It takes couple of days (real time) to clear with atomic bombs and I do not want to use my limited free time for such superboring and annoying work.

Otherwise spidertron would be just graphical trick. Very beautiful, if walking is properly modeled, but not bring any interesting elements to gaming or avoid annoyances in my playstyle. Of course I can mod spidertron to run at practical speed (at least as fast as locomotive I use currently) and use commands so I agree very much if devs decide to make it.
Why not just use the spidertron train ride feature? There could also be extra effective spidertron exoskeletons.
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Re: Spidertron features/justification

Post by NotRexButCaesar »

Hannu wrote:
Fri Jul 24, 2020 5:41 pm

It takes couple of days (real time) to clear with atomic bombs and I do not want to use my limited free time for such superboring and annoying work.
wouldn't it be faster to have an artillery train with high range research? Very tiny outposts can defend against practically infinite waves of biters.
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Re: Spidertron features/justification

Post by Hannu »

AmericanPatriot wrote:
Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:10 pm
Why not just use the spidertron train ride feature? There could also be extra effective spidertron exoskeletons.
Because it is one tedious step. It is certainly nice at beginning, but I run very often between factories with train. I do not see spidertron would give any help to that time consuming task, it if had to be loaded in train every time. If it is independent and very fast I can use it instead of train when I do not need much materials with me.

It may be good idea to give spidertron equipment grid and extra properties. But last tier should be more practical in end game megabase building, when biters are not real threat anymore and the most precious resources are player's time and computer's performance.
wouldn't it be faster to have an artillery train with high range research? Very tiny outposts can defend against practically infinite waves of biters.
It may be. I have not learn to utilize artillery efficiently. I do not like it's current operation. I want to keep biter colonies near my borders and constant attacks running when I am in stable endgame state. I have for example used pollution increasing modules in modded games in miners near borders. It gives little more interesting and varying logistic challenges in addition to trivially straightforward building of science. For that reason I do not usually use laser turrets. Machine guns need ammo, which need assembling and transportation.

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Re: Spidertron features/justification

Post by NotRexButCaesar »

Hannu wrote:
Sat Jul 25, 2020 12:43 pm
, it if had to be loaded in train every time.
It wouldn’t have to be loaded: it would just ride like a player
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Re: Spidertron Example

Post by ssilk »

How do you enter/leave a spidertron inside train?
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Re: Spidertron Example

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Re: Spidertron Example

Post by Hannu »

ssilk wrote:
Sun Jul 26, 2020 6:08 am
How do you enter/leave a spidertron inside train?
Spidertron could act as power armor. If it could walk over everything there would not be not need to leave it in normal situations.
AmericanPatriot wrote:
Sat Jul 25, 2020 5:20 pm
It wouldn’t have to be loaded: it would just ride like a player
Maybe, but I would have to go to train station for every transport and make sure that my personal train is on correct station and so on. Such things may feel negligible, but I have calculated that transports may take tens of hours if I play 200 hours. In last game I began to use command to get very high running speed and was quite happy. Such function could be part of game. There could be for example combat oriented mode, which would restrict such things to get balance between biters and possible other players, and building oriented mode which would give super fast movements and other real time saving quality of life -stuff. I know the peaceful mode but do not like it because it takes away defense as a logistic and production challenge.

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Re: Spidertron Example

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ssilk wrote:
Sun Jul 26, 2020 6:08 am
How do you enter/leave a spidertron inside train?
you never leave the spidertron: it is a bionic extension. Once you enter, you cannot leave.
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Re: Spidertron Example

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