Improving replayability

[Val]

The main issue with re-playability is not the land, its that assemblers, inserters, belts, etc all work the same way. Once you figure out how to maximize them the first time, there isn't much else to learn and discover.

It could still help if different maps forced you to build different factories, for example, one map would have very few (or none) of some kind of raw material, forcing you to use completely different production chains - if such a thing was available, for example, an alternative way to produce a high-level research pack or module.

[bobucles]

For that to really work, you'd need some sort of alternative way to get resources. As it currently stands the only redundant resource is energy, which can be coal or oil or solar. If a base needs iron and you run out of iron, well that's just too bad. There's no infinite iron pit or recyclable garbage or cheaper steel recipe or anything like that.

Base building is kind of a fixed process, and the resources you need are also pretty fixed. There's still plenty of room for players to master their building skills, which can work great for challenge levels. But when it comes to reaching the next step, it's all about mods.

[tobsimon]

The concept to achive the same things with different ressources depending on supply sounds intriguing, but I'm unsure if it is realizable in the factorio setting. A house may be built from wood or stone and be virtually equally good, but an inserter? Chemical plants may work with alternative organic ressources (e.g. wood), though. Higher tech may require rare earth metals, stuff which is generally not found in the starting area and may be substituted with other materials at a cost. This approach works well with trade, but I don't think that should be part of the game.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, that this idea is something for a heavily expanded late game. The coal-iron-copper phase does not facilitate it.

In this phase, I think the intersting thing to add is environmental restrictions. Later, you can bulldoze everything, but early on you need to discover and work around the environment. In short, add cliffs! https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=12771

[Kayser]

The main issue with re-playability is not the land, its that assemblers, inserters, belts, etc all work the same way. Once you figure out how to maximize them the first time, there isn't much else to learn and discover.

I really agree with this point. The solution is obviously to introduce more variation in how factorys must be designed to be efficient. This can be done in several ways: Playing as a different race (e.g. +100% belt speed; -50% assembling machine speed) would force analysis of new designs, which is the fun part, imho.

Of course the terrain could play more role. One idea is to build an abstraction layer on top of the current map settings, where parameters such as planet size, atmosphere, biosphere, rainfall, age, and similar, more abstract parameters could be set. This would in turn (in a transparent way) affect the current map settings, like patch size, richness, etc. but could affect other things too, like efficiency of burners due to oxygen level or solar panel yield due to clouds. These are things that vanilla could very well do, without altering the current game, as long as they keep the current "human" race and keep all settings on normal for the default planet.

It would be interesting to see experienced players play on some well defined evil combinations of planets/races.

I would also like to be able to pick my own starting materials, but that alone would not help much in terms of replayability without the above suggestions implemented.

[DerivePi]

I think different terrains could add some considerable variety to replay. Each terrain would have unique items that would lead to conquering other terrains. Also, each terrain would have unique problems to overcome. The trick would be developing a web of ways those problems can be overcome with different resources. Further, map generation may separate one terrain from another, which, as a minimum, would require the player to "conquer" the one terrain to get to the other.

Some examples:
- player spawns on a plain with the usual base minerals nearby. However, to advance, the player must proceed through a swamp area which slows the player to a crawl and requires a "piling" technology to build on. Research on piling can only be done with minerals found in a mountain terrain, but first the player has to learn how to use vines to traverse the mountains, etc...
- Player spawns on an island. Using wood, the player can create a slow boat that degrades quickly while being used. Player finds another chunk of artic land nearby with the base minerals to be mined, but must continually keep a fire fed with coal or wood in order to stay warm. Once the player develops leather production from biters, the player can create hides using minerals from a desert region to make a coat to keep warm, etc...

This is the idea I had from a while ago:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =33&t=5942

I wouldn't expect anything like this in the final game, but we can always imagine what Factorio 2 will be like.