Massive construction projects

[Raziaar]

I would love to see some sort of end game goal, which revolves around taking contracts for certain factions that develop either on the planet, or in the local solar system. I kind of envision a sort of bidding system, where you bid on contracts for corporations, government or military clients to create things such as tanks, shuttles or even heavier class starships. The main goal of this of course, would be creating these behemoth machines.

It would be great to have a bunch of different machines to play with on a large scale, which manufacture more specialized components which can then be moved into place and assembled/welded by other robots to finally create a finished piece. These items would be sold or traded for some special type of commodity / galactic currency which would have a benefit for the player to attain things he couldn't just manufacture himself.

Certainly there are a lot of difficult technical and animation aspects involved for such a thing, but I think moving away from "everything is produced in a x by x building as a completed piece" would be great.

I may not be explaining it entirely correctly, but I hope some of you get the gist of what I'm trying to say. Epic construction projects utilizing massive machinery, all fueled by the tinier manufacturing operations we're doing now.

[ssilk]

I think we are talking about the sandbox-mode here.
There are some sorts of goals thinkable. And I think we are nearly the same opinion, that there should be minimum one goal. (?)
I try to make a list of goals.

1. A goal like you explained. Build something really, really big. Defend it. It takes some steps, for example you need to build it, then fill it with fuel, then charge it with electricity. When you finally countdown for start, the creepers try to destroy it in a big wave.
Some notes about it:
- in the missions you need find your spaceship. It is ridiculous small. I cannot imagine how it should solve the above goal. It's maybe the emergency-capsule. And the ship you stranded was the emergency-capsule of that. (This is also a general critics: the dimensions in the game are sometimes not matching together, but this is an own subject.)
- why a spaceship? Could also be a big antenna to send a help-signal...
- I mean the obvious thing would be to build a ship to escape the planet. This can be played over and over. But for the game-story I would say, that is too obvious. I could think many options here, where the creepers are in the center of the options. One scenario for example: the creepers are also aliens on this planet and want to escape and you build a really big ship for them.
- it enables two important sub-goals
-- Finding the place, where it can be built. For example he needs to find the skelets of his old spaceship. This brings the player out of his base and view the vast landscape. I think you need something like a mobile scanner for that, which works with the time of radar reflections. Who ever played eve-online maybe knows, what I mean.
-- when it is found, he needs to build a train to it. This is the usage for it! Clear the area and build trains to bring all the material to the ship, because with belts it would take too long, because it is far away.

2. Another goal could be to survive. After you research the rocket defense, the creepers really begin to fight you with a tower-defense like mode (waves, which exponentially get bigger, tank-like creepers, very fast creepers etc.
- I think this should only be a game-mode, not the goal.

3. Next option is economics. The creepers will make peace, if you deliver them with goods. TVs, computers, cars, food, oil, power... Read here https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =33&t=1053
- I would like this idea, because it turns the game in a completly new direction and is a very refreshing concept. Think alone the completly new type of items, that must be researched and produced... Imensly crazy stuff, for example satellite dishes, and they are then installed on the creeper-houses.
- the hunger of the creepers for goods brings the game into a completly new dimension of production. I see a possible phase in the game, where you fulfill some contracts to get the needed alien-eggs. You need to switch on and off whole parts of your production.
- option #1 stays as goal. I like options, which offers more options than less.
- like TTD the creeper villages grow with the number of items you deliver.
- But I can think of many other goals, for example you need to built a city for them. Then the game becomes a Trafic tycoon like game with parts of sim-city. No, not that I think this should be done, but this economics-idea will give the game uncountable possibilities of where it could go.
- also here the idea of needing locomotives for that. But not as concrete as in #1, because the villages are so many. If there would be a city of creepers, this would make sense...
- and also here like in #1 the deal of exploring. Here the creepers, that they could be friendly, have big cities... And they know places of much more resources.

4. No . Hm. I mean its an option. There are so many games without end. But a endless game without is just boring... So there should be goal like "produce X items of Y", and then whe are at #1, #2 or #3...

5. As it is now. With researching of rocket-defense the sandbox-game ends.

6. I like the idea of exploration much. Go into the car and find other parts of the spaceship, bring it home (only by train), repair it or do something with it. See above.