Factorio Combat Upgrade

[DARKDDM]

Ok, So I'd like to start off by congratulating whoever came up with the idea for this game. I have played for hours already and enjoyed every second of it. The one thing that I have ideas for is the combat system. Defensive game play is on point. Walls, gates, turrets, all of these work great and are really fun to use. However offensive combat is slightly harder, I know there is power Armour and tanks and all that but those items still put me on the front lines in harms way. So here are some ideas that will improve factorio's combat system greatly (in my opinion)

1. Alien Growth:
similar to how the aliens begin attacking when my area of influence reaches them, when they sense that i'm there and begin attacking, the aliens should also develop along with the player, providing a challenging opponent that grows with time. The alien bases should multiply like a virus spreading to the adjacent tile creating large clusters of bases. when the bases create a 2x2 formation so four bases making a square, the bases should join into a larger base which spawns stronger enemies. these larger bases are randomly selected to produce the following enemies:

a. Beast: this enemy has a large amount of health and does large amounts of damage, however only one spawns per attack group, and it moves slowly causing the entire group to move slowly and giving the player time to prepare defenses.

b. Runner: these aliens spawn in large swarms and move very fast. They have low health and damage however.

c. flyer: these enemies are the same as their ground based counterparts, except for the fact that they can bypass obstacles such as water, and walls. They have a slightly lower health amount.

2. Player army:

just like the aliens are able to produce units to attack the player, the player should be able to create pawn-like robots which are commanded from a control center (High priority target for aliens). These robots are made and stored in drone platforms, structures that behave like the robo-ports except they only accept combat drones. these structures are described in detail below:

a. Command center:
this expensive structure uses large amounts of power to control robots in a radius of 500-1000 tiles. it can be entered like a car, and when entered the camera switches to a sort of free camera which can move around the area of control. In this mode the game turns into an RTS, with robots being selected by dragging a box around them and told to move by clicking. Construction robots can also be controlled and told to build structures in this mode.

b. Drone platform:
These structures build and store combat drones. Which are robots similar to the combat drones already in the game. these drones are able to live forever outside the platform, however they need to fly back and restock on ammo. These drones are only controlled by the command center and when they get close to an enemy the will begin attacking said enemy.

c. Gun drones:
these drones use ammo clips to shoot enemies. Same damage as the player.

d. laser drones
these drones are similar to the laser turret meaning they do not need ammunition to fire. Instead they have a certain charge amount which refills when the drone is landed at the platform.

Mobile HQ:
this new vehicle combines the command center and the drone platforms. It drives like a car except it can build drones, and command them when unpacked (when driving pressing "U" unpacks the vehicle into a stationary building, this puts the player into RTS mode).
Now here are some things that should just be noted:
1. drones should automatically fly back to the platform to restock on ammo or battery charge when they are no longer able to shoot.
2. alien bases should only spawn as one base instead of the clusters currently implemented.
3. Mobile HQ should be close to an endgame research like rockets.

Thank you for reading Please up vote this or whatever it is so devs can see it.

[deepdriller]

Well, that's a lot of suggestions in a single post.
Which is usually ill-advised, as that makes them more likely for them all to be forgotten.
That said, I believe a lot of them have either been suggested before or discussed in the Friday Facts.
Therefore, there's a chance these will be implemented.