Alien/Critter Overhaul

[Legion3321]

First of all, I just want to say this game had me hooked the second I saw YogscastSips playing it. It is very well designed for an alpha build and is a whole mess of fun that I enjoy immensely. Please keep up the excellent work. The trailer was a piece of art that I must have watched a dozen times while downloading the demo and the demo itself was just enough to get me interested.
Second, the "Critters" I speak of are the Aliens that you fight throughout the game.
There are five points in this idea.
1. New Critters.
2. Critter variants
3. New critter buildings.
4. Critter Stronghold
5. Endgame critter.

1. NEW CRITTERS:Just a few.

A. A flying critter(Swarmer). It ignores walls but is smaller then the ground variants and thus, weaker. Should come in large swarms for theatrics. Is mowed down by all turrets and weapons.

B. Someone already mentioned this but a burrowing critter. Rather then have it able to circumvent your entire wall it should only be able to go underneath one tile of wall, if there is two tiles it should go under the first and attack the second layer. If it destroys this layer it bursts free of the ground and is free to either damage the structures around it or burrow under more walls.

C. Teleporting Critter: Now I know what you are saying; Legion, a teleporting critter? That's ridiculous! To which I reply ho-ho-ho my friend they are Aliens and dont care none about our physics and reality. When this critter gets hit by any source of damage it should immediately teleport a random number of tiles in a random direction. This critter should have a set amount of teleports available per minute, refreshing every minute. Could have less health then normal critters. Has a deep blue hue.

D. Invisible Critter: Hunts the player, is invisible to turrets until it reveals itself mid attack. Does high damage. Doesnt harm structures. Adds an element of terror. Possibly add an item/structure that has a CHANCE to detect them. Possibly add a statement of "You feel a dreadful gaze settle upon you." when it enters the players view. [If you do add this critter, please dont inform anyone you are actually putting it in the game, only hint at it etc etc, it will make for an excellent/hilarious surprise.]

E. Jumping Critters: Extremely fast, roaming critters. Very weak, doesnt directly hunt down the player/'s base, simply wanders the landscape in small packs. Hates trains.

F. Drones: Dont leave their hive zone, run the hives infrastructure. Small. Weak.

Each of the types should be categorized in terms of danger level and added to the players map after set amounts of time. For example, you dont want to be swarmed by a horde of invisible critters when you are still using burner drills. These critters arent supposed to be ultimate threats to well prepared and well stocked factories, they are simply meant to be nuisances and to add more content to the game.
For example, Jumpers keep on harrassing your train lines, you need to add turrets every dozen feet to keep them safe. Burrowers keep on ignoring your walls, you need to make them deeper. Swarmers keep on getting past your defenses, you need more turrets etc etc. This should encourage expansion and add yet another sense of accomplishment to the game; not only did you build a completely badass and functioning factory with attached train line, you keep them safe from ravening hordes too!



2.CRITTER VARIANTS. Variations on all critters.
The first variation I can think of is adding more sizes. Huge, Gargantuan and Epic, as well as maybe one more size that requires a special and dedicated effort on behalf of the player to spawn.
These sizes should only spawn when you reach a certain pollution level. They should only actively hunt you when you reach an even HIGHER Pollution level. This prevents you spawning in next to something that blocks out the sun and thinks you might make a nice toothpick.
Other variants.
Exploding/acid/: Explodes on death, contact with a structure. Extremely weak.Susceptible to bullets, not lasers. The critter has yellow insides and emanates a sickly yellow glow. Does a fraction of the damage it deals to structures when harming other organics (Players, critters, biological buildings)
Tank/Armoured: Resistant to basic bullets (1/4 damage). Armour Piercing ammo does twice its normal damage. Lasers do half. The critter has a sharp silhouette/appearance, with blacks shaded with grey/iron for colour.
Noble/Praetorian/Leader/Boss etc: Boosts the base stats of critters around it. Has a crown of spikes behind its head to mark it out.
Polluted: Only spawns near high levels of pollution, very slow but huge amounts of health. Mutant. Think shambling monster H.P. Lovecraft

The same as the new critters, these variants should be introduced gradually throughout a single game/the campaign.


3. CRITTER BUILDINGS.
The aim of a freeplay game is to build rocket launchers to shoot down alien missiles. Where do these missiles come from? Possibly add something to do with that?

Try to think of an alien hives infrastructure/ecosystem, they have to eat something, sleep somewhere, drink something. What do they build with? So we would be looking at three/four basic buildings.
A spawner.
A hive. (Living zone, food collection area)
Sunken Pool (Critter building for food. Fish. Water)
Biodegrader (Critter building that slowly devours natural resources nearby, wood, iron, coal, players, copper. Strengthens and enlarges any hivezone it is attached to. Terraforms the ground around it into a more hospitable zone for critters, this adds more diversity and content to the games background and gives a visual cue to the player of "This place be dangerous". Maybe only add to stronghold areas?)


4. CRITTER STRONGHOLD.
A large, fortified, hive built off the remains of a destroyed factory/consists of several large critter structures as well as Biodegraders. Is the main source of attacking critters. Contains rare alien artifacts. Contains a Queen critter.

To make this concept a more daunting assault task for the player, maybe add infected structures? I.E Walls/An infested gun turret that shoots bio-toxic bullets at a slow rate that do huge amounts of damage to bare flesh. Things like that. Infested robo-port spawns hostile robots. If you destroy some of these buildings you gain rare material used to build a special item/building that allows the easy manufacture of said material.


5. CRITTER ENDGAME
The basic idea is that there is something, somewhere that is sending these large waves of hostile critters after you. It is intelligent and should appear so, maybe a larger braincase etc. It should be very very dangerous but nothing a military exoskeleton backed up by a robo-fleet can't handle in an intense fight. Think fast, dangerous and intelligent.

Looping back to the 2. VARIANTS section, Gargantuan and Epic creatures should be truly challenging tests of your factories defensive capabilities, slow but packing a huge punch, occupying dozens of tiles and having several ways of attacking. These should only spawn with a high enough Pollution level and should look the part. Sickly, mutated and rotting in some parts. Defying nature by their very existence, that sort of thing.



The majority of these additions hinge on which direction the devs will want to take the games style and general theme. If they want to maintain the wild-west theme they have going right now (which is brilliant) then several of these things would detract from that atmosphere. The sense of an untamed wilderness waiting to be conquered will be reduced if there is a giant queen behind all the attacks on your base.

These are just a few thoughts I had after the 13 hours of playing this fantastic game.
If you like my ideas, please say what your favourites are, brainstorm over new variants, sizes etc.
If you DONT like my ideas, please dont just say "This is dumb", give reasons to why something is dumb. Criticism is good as long as its constructive and isnt just being rude. Thanks!

[robhol]

They're already annoying enough that giving garden variety mobs (even in comparatively small numbers) wall breaking, teleporting, flying and other supernatural abilities might be taking it a bit far. I like 4 and 5 and respect the amount of time put down in the others, but honestly, I hope not.

[Legion3321]

It shouldnt be too much of a problem though, like I said, they arent meant to be threats to well prepared factories. Right now it just feels like the defenses in my first playthrough are too overkill. I have one line of turrets along the perimeter of my central factory which never run out of ammo because they are being fed magazines on a long conveyor that covers my entire perimeter. The only damage ever being done to my walls is graffiti in the form of biter blood.

Right now the game just feels too easymode. Adding more enemies would up the challenge and make for good content imho. It opens up new development paths on the dev-side of things as well: People complaining swarmers are swarming too hard? Here you go, anti-air turrets that mow those buggers out of the sky. Armoured biters too beefy? Railgun turrets that prioritise the bigger enemies.

I understand that some people dont want hordes of gibbering monsters knocking on their walls at night as they try to build their titanic factories so surely it would be simple to implement a function that allows the player to turn off specific alien strains. I know that there is already an "easymode" function that turns all the natives passive unless provoked.

All im saying is that if their was more of a challenge in the game, it would feel much, MUCH more rewarding hearing my turrets firing and seeing a giant pile of corpses painting the walls of my factory. If they break through the walls and destroy everything then I know my factories defenses weren't up to scratch, meaning I have to devise and build new ones for my next factory. Meaning more content and more time spent playing this awesome game.

Variety is the spice of life and losing is FUN.

[CruelOverlord]

Literally all your "ideas" are just rip offs from star craft. This is an indy game so please come up with some original ideas and not just cherry pick things from other games.

[Legion3321]

Literally all your "ideas" are just rip offs from star craft. This is an indy game so please come up with some original ideas and not just cherry pick things from other games.

Basically every game in existence is a rip off of something else. Starcraft is a lot of fun to play and I did take some ideas from it but if you try to shut out every idea just because "Its been done before" then there isnt any damn point in making new games now is there?

And no, not ALL my ideas are rip offs. An enemy stronghold is a basic facet of rts games in general. Enemy infrastructure is also general. Just because I use the word "Queen" doesn't mean its Sarah Kerrigan except for Factorio. I was actually thinking more of the queen from Aliens, the big, scary, broodmother.

You say "indy" game like its a title, with requirements to meet. Indy games arent the hipsters of the gaming community, their indie because they are small games being worked by small teams. This game already has elements of a dozen other games, are you going to say to the developer "Oh stop, start from scratch again, this game reminds of (insert anything here), can't have that."

The things I suggested, I suggested because I thought they would be genuinely cool additions to the game not because I wanted to make Factorio into Starcraft 3.0.
If you have a problem with the ideas functionality or if you genuinely think it would detract from the game, please speak up and give reasons why so we can iron out the problems together. However if you are just gonna talk smack, dont say anything at all. Thanks.

[Garm]

Let me try tackling this without any bias.

A. A flying critter(Swarmer). It ignores walls but is smaller then the ground variants and thus, weaker. Should come in large swarms for theatrics. Is mowed down by all turrets and weapons.

Valid suggestion.

B. Someone already mentioned this but a burrowing critter. Rather then have it able to circumvent your entire wall it should only be able to go underneath one tile of wall, if there is two tiles it should go under the first and attack the second layer. If it destroys this layer it bursts free of the ground and is free to either damage the structures around it or burrow under more walls.

You burrowing idea has few flaws - for example imagine 2 tile thick wall with roboport nearby. burrowed creature would constantly attack the wall from down under while bots would repair it above causing a tug of war. Unless burrowed critters can be attacked at any time, but then its just some awkward version of flying type.

C. Teleporting Critter: Now I know what you are saying; Legion, a teleporting critter? That's ridiculous! To which I reply ho-ho-ho my friend they are Aliens and dont care none about our physics and reality. When this critter gets hit by any source of damage it should immediately teleport a random number of tiles in a random direction. This critter should have a set amount of teleports available per minute, refreshing every minute. Could have less health then normal critters. Has a deep blue hue.

Why? What is the purpose of such critters. Remember this isn't minecraft nor RTS. Main gameplay revolves around player predicting future events and planning accordingly (e.g. building walls and turrets before increasing pollution). Random events, especially random negative events would punish players for no reason. I dont mind endermen in minecraft or chronolegionaires in RA, but I would hate finding out I lost some expensive structures simply because 1 critter was "lucky" enough to teleport into worst place possible.

Also dont forget in RTS i can move along the map quite fast. In Factorio I cant simply click on the map and appear where needed I have haul my ass there first.

D. Invisible Critter: Hunts the player, is invisible to turrets until it reveals itself mid attack. Does high damage. Doesnt harm structures. Adds an element of terror. Possibly add an item/structure that has a CHANCE to detect them. Possibly add a statement of "You feel a dreadful gaze settle upon you." when it enters the players view. [If you do add this critter, please dont inform anyone you are actually putting it in the game, only hint at it etc etc, it will make for an excellent/hilarious surprise.]

Why? Game isnt about the player, but about the factory. Player is a limitation of this game in fact.

E. Jumping Critters: Extremely fast, roaming critters. Very weak, doesnt directly hunt down the player/'s base, simply wanders the landscape in small packs. Hates trains.

Could be a decent idea, if implemented properly. why trains though? While mobile they are already invincible machines of death. No critter can stop them. Unless you want these roams to attack railroads then its a definite no.

F. Drones: Dont leave their hive zone, run the hives infrastructure. Small. Weak.

Why? Critters and critter bases arent the main part of the gameplay either its the driving force and limitation for the factory. Might be better to add something else.

Each of the types should be categorized in terms of danger level and added to the players map after set amounts of time. For example, you dont want to be swarmed by a horde of invisible critters when you are still using burner drills. These critters arent supposed to be ultimate threats to well prepared and well stocked factories, they are simply meant to be nuisances and to add more content to the game.
For example, Jumpers keep on harrassing your train lines, you need to add turrets every dozen feet to keep them safe. Burrowers keep on ignoring your walls, you need to make them deeper. Swarmers keep on getting past your defenses, you need more turrets etc etc. This should encourage expansion and add yet another sense of accomplishment to the game; not only did you build a completely badass and functioning factory with attached train line, you keep them safe from ravening hordes too!

This would encourage turtle defences, not expansion. If i get harassed on train lines I would simply not build them at all.

2.CRITTER VARIANTS. Variations on all critters.
The first variation I can think of is adding more sizes. Huge, Gargantuan and Epic, as well as maybe one more size that requires a special and dedicated effort on behalf of the player to spawn.
These sizes should only spawn when you reach a certain pollution level. They should only actively hunt you when you reach an even HIGHER Pollution level. This prevents you spawning in next to something that blocks out the sun and thinks you might make a nice toothpick.
Other variants.
Exploding/acid/: Explodes on death, contact with a structure. Extremely weak.Susceptible to bullets, not lasers. The critter has yellow insides and emanates a sickly yellow glow. Does a fraction of the damage it deals to structures when harming other organics (Players, critters, biological buildings)
Tank/Armoured: Resistant to basic bullets (1/4 damage). Armour Piercing ammo does twice its normal damage. Lasers do half. The critter has a sharp silhouette/appearance, with blacks shaded with grey/iron for colour.
Noble/Praetorian/Leader/Boss etc: Boosts the base stats of critters around it. Has a crown of spikes behind its head to mark it out.
Polluted: Only spawns near high levels of pollution, very slow but huge amounts of health. Mutant. Think shambling monster H.P. Lovecraft

The same as the new critters, these variants should be introduced gradually throughout a single game/the campaign.

Without major defence overhaul this is basically moot point. There is no point making all these things if only thing players would respond with is 1 more line of turrets.

3. CRITTER BUILDINGS.
The aim of a freeplay game is to build rocket launchers to shoot down alien missiles. Where do these missiles come from? Possibly add something to do with that?

I believe missile defence means defence using missiles, not defence against missiles.

Try to think of an alien hives infrastructure/ecosystem, they have to eat something, sleep somewhere, drink something. What do they build with? So we would be looking at three/four basic buildings.
A spawner.
A hive. (Living zone, food collection area)
Sunken Pool (Critter building for food. Fish. Water)

Kind of already there, unless you want more visual variability. If you want these bases to be functional Why? to add lag to the game even more? the game keeps all chunks loaded and having each of these bases performing extra calculations would only mean additional lag for player without much of a visible effect since 99% of the time critter bases are hidden behind fog of war

Biodegrader (Critter building that slowly devours natural resources nearby, wood, iron, coal, players, copper. Strengthens and enlarges any hivezone it is attached to. Terraforms the ground around it into a more hospitable zone for critters, this adds more diversity and content to the games background and gives a visual cue to the player of "This place be dangerous". Maybe only add to stronghold areas?)

Thats bad. Constant loading of the neighboring land would punish explorers, as well as builders. Not only that but constant respawn of enemy bases would mean players will be forced to clean up nearby resources every 30 minutes, or establish fortified posts way early in the game, punishing early factory construction.

Terraform is moot point - this is THEIR planet, it is already 100% hospitable for them. Critters arent zerg colonizing a planet new for them.

4. CRITTER STRONGHOLD.
A large, fortified, hive built off the remains of a destroyed factory/consists of several large critter structures as well as Biodegraders. Is the main source of attacking critters. Contains rare alien artifacts. Contains a Queen critter.

To make this concept a more daunting assault task for the player, maybe add infected structures? I.E Walls/An infested gun turret that shoots bio-toxic bullets at a slow rate that do huge amounts of damage to bare flesh. Things like that. Infested robo-port spawns hostile robots. If you destroy some of these buildings you gain rare material used to build a special item/building that allows the easy manufacture of said material.

Stronghold would definitely work as endgame. destroyed/infected factories - not so much: I believe player is the first to land on this planet.

5. CRITTER ENDGAME
The basic idea is that there is something, somewhere that is sending these large waves of hostile critters after you. It is intelligent and should appear so, maybe a larger braincase etc. It should be very very dangerous but nothing a military exoskeleton backed up by a robo-fleet can't handle in an intense fight. Think fast, dangerous and intelligent.

Oh yes! It already exist in the current game already! Its fast, smart, intelligent, and sends waves after waves of critters....its you.

Please dont personalize them. Biters work well as force of nature, there is no need for them to have evil mastermind behind their actions. Its poor taste and shoddy design.

Looping back to the 2. VARIANTS section, Gargantuan and Epic creatures should be truly challenging tests of your factories defensive capabilities, slow but packing a huge punch, occupying dozens of tiles and having several ways of attacking. These should only spawn with a high enough Pollution level and should look the part. Sickly, mutated and rotting in some parts. Defying nature by their very existence, that sort of thing.

And it would incur same answer as well unfortunately.

The majority of these additions hinge on which direction the devs will want to take the games style and general theme. If they want to maintain the wild-west theme they have going right now (which is brilliant) then several of these things would detract from that atmosphere. The sense of an untamed wilderness waiting to be conquered will be reduced if there is a giant queen behind all the attacks on your base.

These are just a few thoughts I had after the 13 hours of playing this fantastic game.
If you like my ideas, please say what your favourites are, brainstorm over new variants, sizes etc.
If you DONT like my ideas, please dont just say "This is dumb", give reasons to why something is dumb. Criticism is good as long as its constructive and isnt just being rude. Thanks!

I dont think your ideas are dumb per se, just not best suited for this type of gameplay. At least most of them.
AThese are my thoughts after being bored with my 188+ hr last world save

[inthev01d]

I have to say I kinda like the infestation idea in general. Imagine an alien organism like in Natural Selection 2, rapidly spreading over the surface of the planet and towards your base, which you have to defend using fire turrets or a ditch filled with burning stuff (that you have to constantly feed with oil/coal/whatever burns). Your task might be to set up a base on a planet that is completely covered by infestation with only the starting area being cleared using a napalm bomb prior to your arrival, and you having to clear more using the flame thrower, and secure a perimiter before the infestation grows back. Infested buildings (inserters, assemblers, …) would stop working because the moving parts are jammed, and there might be no effect on passive entities like rails or power poles.

This is something big that needs loads of artwork of course, and nothing we'll see in the near future, but I'm sure Factorio will be around for a very long time (I'm thinking TTD here…), so I can dream
Sooo looking forward to all the mods, scenarios and expansions that we'll hopefully see in the next couple years

[Chthon]

I would like to see the ground work for this implemented so modding this in is actually possible. It does not have to be implemented in the main game, just allow for modders the possibility to create some sort of survival scenarios against an unending horde. Having to hoard resources to travel to distant resource areas and build new bases out there. That kind of stuff would be nice to have when the main game starts to get stale for the player.

Mine craft allows for a lot of this. StarCraft also allows for a lot of this. A lot of nice mods exist for many games, that were never thought of by the game designers, nor were intended by the designers at the time.

[saykhia]

I do feel that the aliens need a counter against walls - currently walls built several tiles thick are just far too effective. Once implemented with turret line, the player can move on without further consideration of future improvement of base defense.

I feel that a direct counter is to have aliens appearing mid/late game with the ability to circumvent (jump over, burrow under, etc) walls altogether. Or "battering ram" types that can smash through walls in one hit, for example? This would encourage the development of more rigorous base defense.

Maybe more varieties of walls can be introduced e.g laser fence which damages the battering ram types. Jumping types will still need other ways to be dealt with. It becomes a question of how much variety should the game provide the player in terms of base defense? Would it shift focus too far away from factory design?

There is a somewhat related suggestion thread here where I talked about integrating lights into base defense and light-sensitive enemy types:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=3814