Natural Disasters

[Overene]

These would all be randomly occurring events, with potentially devastating consequences but it would also be possible to drastically lessen the effects. These would help make the game much more interesting.

Solar Flare
The solar flare wipes out your electric grid. You would need to repair all of your solar panels and electric poles to get it up again. While solar panels and higher level electric poles would be wiped out, steam engines and the starting electric poles would be unharmed by this. Accumulators would also get a massive spike of energy which could supply you for a little while. Would occur only during the day, and once you have at least 1 accumulator placed down.

Earthquake
Earthquakes would only do minor damage to your builders, but would cause your inserters to shake violently, potentially misplacing items not where they were supposed to go, but instead on the tiles next to where the items were meant to go. They could happen at any time in the game.

Drought
These would be extended events, lasting anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. During a drought, water sources would 'dry up', turning into what looks like dry mud. Your steam engines would become useless and you would need to live off of previously stored water, but solar panels would still work as an alternative and would even be slightly more effective. Droughts would be localized, meaning they only happen in defined areas, and become more common and longer in highly polluted areas. Droughts would only start to happen after 10 hours of gameplay, to give new players some time to prepare before they are at risk of getting caught in a drought. Biter/spitter nests in drought-stricken regions would relocate, and worms would die off.

Blizzard
During a blizzard, grass would become white and water that isn't in a desert would freeze, which would also make it so you cannot pump water. Deserts would be unaffected. Blizzards would also be extended events just like droughts. Biters wouldn't attack during a blizzard, but they would launch a massive attack on you after it passes. Solar panels would still work, but be less effective. Like droughts, it would only happen after 10 hours of gameplay and would be localized.

Native Rebellion
Rebellions would only happen once evolution has reached 100% They would start with the enemy building nests closer to your base, progressively getting closer to it until it's surrounded. After it's completely surrounded, the biters would prepare for a massive attack you would be able to observe where they are gathering, because they would start grouping up somewhere close to your base. It would continue to accumulate for about an hour, giving you some time to prepare. The attack would be massive, making it a good idea for you to build a multi-layer wall defense with at least several lines of turrets. It would be reasonably hard, but not impossible.

[steinio]

Well maybe there are a lot of people which would like that approach.

But before factorio I played Sol 0 and this game has all that catastrophes and it annoyed me because you get in an always repair mode and can't expand anymore.

I play factorio without biters and I love the calm construction mode.

Greetings steinio

[ssilk]

I added this "very new topic" to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=342 Events (Environmental Disasters and Weather)

[Overene]

Well maybe there are a lot of people which would like that approach.

But before factorio I played Sol 0 and this game has all that catastrophes and it annoyed me because you get in an always repair mode and can't expand anymore.

I play factorio without biters and I love the calm construction mode.

Greetings steinio

Yeah, I thought of that too which is why almost none of the events can happen at the very beginning, which would allow players to get off of their feet.

[fenderpuddy]

Dear Wube,

I was thinking about factorio and noticed it started to rain I had an idea. What if factorio had weather and natural disasters? It would add as another challenge to the game. If you are planning to add weather or not I have a few suggestions. Firstly, maybe for upcoming releases you can add rain. For future releases I have some ideas, You can add a weather radar machine (It allows weather to be visible on the map) also you could add weather and natural disaster alert machines that warn you about storms and natural disasters. Storms could be for example, thunderstorms, rainstorms, cyclones, tornados, hail. Natural disasters could be earthquakes and tsunamis. Feel free to remove any of the weather forms and natural disasters I suggested and maybe think about Otherworldly phenomena, because factorio does take place on an alien planet. Weather and natural disasters can disturb biters (causes more to be spawned) destroy machines, cause electric interference, and so on. I think factorio is just missing weather and weather would be a interesting and challenging addition to factorio. Again If you are too busy with getting 0.17 or future updates out you don't have to work on weather, this is just an Idea.

Fenderpuddy

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into older topic with same suggestion

[fenderpuddy]

Hello I just wanted to say that I really enjoy some of the ideas that you guys have put out there and maybe we could get this natural disaster feature into factorio. Plus if people don't want to play with natural disasters in game than they can turn it off in game settings. I will keep you updated on my thoughts.

Fenderpuddy

[Engimage]

I do see how natural disasters can enrich gameplay.
However knowing Factorio players' mentality I do know a whole lot of people who do not like the feature.
So this has definitely a potential but only as a mod. IMO it has no space in vanilla.