Modular vehicles.

[Vykromod]

While playing this game, I just couldn't help but feel that while Factorio is a GREAT game, all those resources you collect just BEG to be weaponized. I believe there's a good way to do that. Also its style reminds me of an old RTS game I've played in my childhood which had a very neat system for producing vehicles. I believe a similar solution would fit very nicely in Factorio.

I do realize that new vehicles and weapons have been suggested very often. Thing is, this is not actually all about new vehicles. Well, let me explain.

Vehicles would be split into 4 components - Chassis, Engine, Control method and Weapon/Equipment. You would first have to build each of those components, then combine them in order to make a vehicle you want, probably with a use of some machinery, maybe an assembler would suffice. Below is a list of possible components I've thought up (though this can be expanded):
Chassis:
- Wheeled - Fast, fuel-efficient, low armor, essentially how the Car is now.
- Tracked - Opposite of the above. More expensive, fuel-hungry, can knock down trees and take a beating.
- Hover - Even faster than wheels and can cross lakes, but is fuel-hungry, cannot carry inventory and can only carry light weapons and equipment. Also does not support heavy engines.

Engine:
- Combustion - Same as current vehicles.
- Electrical/Solar - Recharges by itself while idle, but has VERY limited battery capacity. Can be recharged, but only at base with use of some machinery. Suffers a speed penalty and cannot be mounted in heavier chassis.
- Fusion - Very expensive, uses water as "fuel" and can run on it for extremely long time. Improved speed. Cannot be mounted on light chassis (wheels and hover) due to being too heavy.

Control method:
- Manual - You enter it and you drive it. Same as now.
- Radio control - This vehicle cannot be entered. Instead you control it remotely, with use of a radio, either in form of an item or a special building. Range is limited, and the vehicle suffers a penalty to all stats, unlike manual vehicles.
- Computer - This vehicle cannot be directly controlled by any means. Instead it's controlled like a unit in an RTS game - you give it orders and its AI follows them. This allows for usage of multiple vehicles at once. For example, make multiple tanks and use them to attack a bug base. As a tradeoff, computer-controlled vehicles suffer a significant penalty to all stats, even larger than radio controlled.

Weapons/Equipment:
- Machinegun
- Cannon - Cannot be mounted on wheeled and hover chassis.
- Flamethrower
- Rocket Launcher - Cannot be mounted on wheeled and hover.
- Laser - Not sure how it's supposed to be powered. Maybe exclusive to electric engines or separate battery rechargable at base.
- Bomb - Self-destructs vehicle when activated, dealing heavy splash damage.

[TuckJohn]

I like the idea to have modal vehicles, although I dont know how you would build the vehicles in a way that would fit the rest of factorio.
Also, a change this big would take a long while to code, and would un-doubtfully introduce tons of bugs that would have to be squashed.