New possible idea

[Raze1991]

Hello,

I have an interesting idea, which will be of interest to developers and to all game community.

Stone.
Stones is the only one in-game resource, which is not used as well.
It's used at Boiler, Burner Mining Drill and Stone furnace. Also, it's used at Steel Furnace, Electric Furnace and Oil refinery as Stone Bricks. And thats all, and no any subsequent uses.
At the same time, other resources are used at the all stages of the game.

How about idea to make new in-game recipe - Fundament (which contains Stone and Stone Bricks or something one). That recipe must be easy, available at first steps of the game and not mixing with other resources, like copper and metal. And it must be balanced to withdraw stones from the game, like others resources. Also, it should be good for the player, forcing him to build small factories that would make new «floor» for main base and for all outposts, to prevent sneaky attacks.

As you can see at my

picture

F.png (21.98 KiB) Viewed 6529 times

A. our base with wall around it
B. and C. base with Fundament near walls
D. basis of our base is fully protected

With that you can add new types of Biters or expand possibilities of current Worms. In the following context I will talk about new Biters with ability to burrow and move under ground with one purpose - find weaknesses inside the base (A) and destroy it from the inside. They can move under ground and under Fundament (B and C protection not productive to avoid easy way), but they can't dig out under last (D). To prevent more stacks under ground Biters under your base it can resolve something like they moves constantly with trying to find a hole in the defense and never stop.

Anybody play Duna? Main idea comes from it.
They also can hurt buildings or other structures from under, if these objects are not on the Fundament.

To prevent grey mass «floor» at base, textures of the Fundament should be different as much as possible. With random cracks on it, with grass and bushes that grow through the Fundament, that will be nice!

P.S. dont think a lot about Pipe-to-Ground and Underground belts conflicting with Fundament, not! It works as well as on other types of land surfaces, with one exception - Biters shall not pass!

[kovarex]

I like this idea, I had something similar in mind. But those burrowing biters would have to be very late game enemy.

[Raze1991]

I thought about it, and it really becomes a problem for your factory if they comes with first waves of Biters.
It's right, that they should not be allowed to attack in the early stages of the game.
How about 2 stages of burrowing Biters? First comes with medium Biters and second comes with big ones.
1-st type of burrowing Biters can't move throw one title of Fundament, and perimeter protection works fine (it's not so hard to build another «walls» under your walls)
at 2-nd stage they get upgrade and after that they can move everywhere and one way to protect is lay Fundament at all base.

First stages of your protection

0.png (1013.47 KiB) Viewed 6433 times

Way to protect against first type

1.png (805.16 KiB) Viewed 6433 times

Full base protection

2.png (580.42 KiB) Viewed 6433 times

One main feature must be: you can build on Fundament correctly, but you can't lay Fundament under any constructions (like at Duna).
And players will be planning their base with that fact. They can lay «floor» at start and not have any problems on late game, or engage in permutation, if second stage is coming, and they are not ready. I mean raise the building and then put it back after placing Fundament blocks.

As a result, you need a stone to a greater extent, like other resources. With that you can make stone deposits a little bit larger, as a default I mean.

Fundamentum (lat), Fundament (rus), Foundation (eng)

p.s. and like a said early, Fundament textures must be very and very different.

[Tenebrous]

I like this idea, I had something similar in mind. But those burrowing biters would have to be very late game enemy.

Plus it's not really fair to add a hidden enemy, without giving the player a way of detecting them. Perhaps a module the player can add to a radar

[Drury]

Reminds me of Tiberian Sun, Nod's underground units.

SUBTERRANEAN UNIT DETECTED

UNIT UNDER ATTACK

UNIT LOST

[Tenebrous]

Thinking about it, a little voice-over AI-type thing would be great

SCIENCE PACK BUILT SCIENCE PACK BUILT SCIENCE PACK BUILT SCIENCE PACK BUILT SCIENCE PACK BUILT

[HEXtheDark]

Reminds me of the early Dune games, where you had to lay foundations against the sand worms.

[Garm]

Reminds me of the early Dune games, where you had to lay foundations against the sand worms.

Tsk tsk tsk. Makers weren't able to enter rocky areas at all, where foundations could be built. Only difference was, that building was made with half health.

[Drury]

Thinking about it, a little voice-over AI-type thing would be great

SCIENCE PACK BUILT SCIENCE PACK BUILT SCIENCE PACK BUILT SCIENCE PACK BUILT SCIENCE PACK BUILT

...on a second thought, rather not.

It'd be neat for biter attack alert though.

ENEMY UNIT DETECTED (when they step within radar range)

TURRETS ENGAGED WITH ENEMY

STRUCTURE UNDER ATTACK

STRUCTURE DESTROYED

[Gammro]

ENEMY UNIT DETECTED (when they step within radar range)

I often have my radar range show a few or bits of an alien base. It would be more useful to get a notification like this when the biters are moving to attack, and show up inside your radar range.

ASSAULT DETECTED

[Tenebrous]

I imagine adding voiceovers adds a bunch of pain to the whole localization thing

[Gammro]

I'd imagine them being primarily in English, and possibly some other major languages, like German, French and Italian(the 3 biggest markets). And Czech, because the developers are Czech. Maybe even a way to have unofficial voice-overs, like text translations are now also crowd-sourced.

[sniperXPrime]

Back to the need of a stone recipe.

What about adding stone slabs as a building requirement to the conveyor belt recipe and stone in the form of gravel to the train track recipe. The effect of doing this would convey to players that stone is like a road and wall material that is used to surround and transverse bases, as well as giving it a reason to be mined from the start of the game all the way to the end of it.

[Sedado77]

I like the idea of the "Floor Wall", and all other stuff in it (underground bitters, Radar for underground, etc) AND i think this sould be the next "Evolution" for them bitters.

Like
Small bitters -> Medium bitters -> Big bitters -> Small Underground bitters -> Medium Underground bitters -> Large Underground bitters

Also from time to time, WORMS could appear from underground, making your base a mess...

I REALLY like the idea

[Berndue]

Thats a very good idea. Also there is more use for stone then what is actually not very usefull.

You could also produce different floor colors. For example you get red bricks if you put copper in it or black ones with coal. This would allow you to write things at the ground etc.

[Teurlinx]

Well, it is kind of balanced by that stone patches currently are very small. I've mined out at least half a dozen in my 50 hours game (0.9.8) and still looking for more, just to build walls and track. Yes it's not needed for enough recipes. But on the other hand its used by 2 that will take as much resources as you can throw at it already. Adding a 3rd would be too much for the current amount of stone imo. Keep in mind that you'd need 4*a stone walls and a^2 floor tiles.

[IOScream]

I'm aware this is a necro, but it saves me re-posting similar ideas.

I'd like to +1 some sort of floor covering for your factories, it'd hopefully make it clearer when you have a lot going on (Lots of machines, belts, etc and also various groundcovers, ores, etc)

The whole stops worms thing is also a great way to contribute to the usefulness of this, as worms struck me as more of a disruptive enemy, burrowing under your defenses and emerging near the source of the pollution to attack.

Another suggestion is stone roads which form over time (ala Settlers IV) as bots and bugs move over it, perhaps placing the concrete/brick floor could also provide some mobility boost to all units, with the drawback being the production cost for larger areas. (Think walls, but on every walkable tile in your factory)