We really need more uses for Silo / Rocket Launches

[redlabel]

Hey guys,

Nearly 100% of my Factorio experience has been in multiplayer games. I currently host one of the most popular servers and I our main objective is to have fun together.

One thing that I don't like is how "boring" launching rockets is. After hosting a new game every couple days for nearly 2 months, I can tell you that a lot of players consider researching/building silo and launching rockets a bit of a chore. Maybe the main reason to do so nowadays is to get science to improve bot speed and little else. But I still think silo/rockets are important for the game, just wish there were more reasons to launch them.

A few things that could be done:

- Launch radar - very large radar covered area around silo or increases radar range +X% (radar combined with spy sats yo). As in nuke, you could also select map and uncover that area permanently..
- Launch nukes - I made a specific suggestion for this. But essentially lets you nuke far away. Radius larger than normal. Can require multiple nukes..

Anyway just a couple thoughts. This is mostly to motivate people to launch the first 1-5 rockets and thus get the silo setup going. I think these two things could work.. Particularly the ICBM thing, people love dem nukes..

Cheers,
-

[Factory Lobster]

An interesting idea would be to opt for a reward other than space science, like a smaller permanent increase to some tech by launching a tech-related item. For example, launching a stack of solar panels to get a 1% increase all solar production per launch.

[SyncViews]

Pretty much my experience as well.
Only infinite techs of any real interest to most players is a few levels of robot speed or just piling on mining productivity for something to do. Weapons are already more than strong enough for biter evolution 1, never had anyone rush to get those upgrades for turrets, or even player damage. And in the event you do get them, it just makes defending completely boring since biters will never overcome turret lines with that much bonus (while needing less ammo/power than before).
Ideas like tech/reward for boosting say solar fall into this same problem without a lot of rebalancing (e.g. for solar, nerf nuclear substantially, but then also dont want to just make solar the only choice again...).

I previously wanted to spend some time modding in target-able cruise missiles and such to clear large biter camps from several chunks (would use rocket components but in smaller numbers per missile plus warheads). But unless biter bases become a lot harder late game, there isn't a great deal of interest in that from most players I play with (similar to the already existing ion cannon mod). Same general issue with biters becoming uninteresting and no longer a resource sink in late game.

Radar/surveillance satellites could be interesting, I think be better to just position the satellite surveillance zone in some way (e.g. each satellite can watch 25 chunks total), rather than having to put a silo there (a base could just have a normal radar, so the use would be for monitoring nearby or along tracks, etc.), but on most maps as stands, I do not see a use for building very many such satellites, so that only takes care of a few launches while any sizeable base can launch many per hour.

[FasterJump]

Every launch could reward you with RNG based items (for the modular armor or for special beacons). You could have only few actives on a time so you need to find the best ones.

[Patashu]

It would be cool if there was a mod that added infinite researches for things that would unbalance the main game, in the sense of making blueprints and ratios too dependent on how far into infinite science you are. Some ideas:

* Assembler speed (maybe also for oil refinery, chemical plant, furnaces)
* Assembler productivity (ala the module)
* Pipe capacity/storage tank capacity
* Stack sizes
* Steam engine efficiency/steam turbine efficiency/heat pipe capacity/boiler efficiency
* Accumulator storage
* Accumulator discharge/charge speed
* Solar panel effectivity
* Mining drill speed
* Belt speed
* Robot power efficiency
* Robot battery capacity
* Robot cargo size
* Train acceleration
* Train max speed
* Train braking force
* Inserter capacity
* Inserter speed
* Lab research speed
* Lab research productivity
* Turret range
* Power pole wire reach
* Power pole supply area
* Movement speed bonus from exoskeletons
* Beacon supply area
* Beacon effectivity
* Module slot numbers
* Offshore pump/pump/pumpjack effectivity
* Chest/cargo wagon/fluid wagon storage
* Roboport range/storage/power storage/power charging speed
* Personal roboport range/robot count/power storage/power charging speed
* Electricity efficiency
* Lower pollution
* Infinite levels of power armour with progressively larger grid sizes

I have no clue how many of these can be done with mods, but it's clear that there's a LOT of potential for a more infinite research mod.

EDIT: I can see a few such mods exist:
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/wormmus/wormmus-inf-tech
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/NukeDuke ... nfResearch
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Emmote/I ... y_Research
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Emmote/I ... y_Research

After investigation though they seem to mostly cover basic stuff - braking speed, inserter capacity, worker robot cargo size, lab research speed, logistics slot, military stuff. There is certainly room to make a mod with infinite science for even more esoteric upgrades.

---

You can also look into the SpaceEx mod, which extends the ending of the game to require many, many rocket launchers and a huge base to supply them.

[torne]

Most of those things aren't currently possible in the game - infinite researches are only possible for things that the game engine has tech modifiers for (which is mostly only things that are already modified by research). So, a mod can add the things you note as infinite research because they all already exist as non-infinite research, but almost all of the things you mention are just fixed properties of the individual items in the game - to take one example, the number of module slots in a building is fixed in that building's definition, and the only way to provide more slots is to define new types of building with more slots: you can make as many better tiers of assembler/etc as you like in a mod, but you can't make an *infinite* number because each tier actually has to be individually defined.

So, you'd first have to ask the devs to add research modifiers for these things..

[Patashu]

Most of those things aren't currently possible in the game - infinite researches are only possible for things that the game engine has tech modifiers for (which is mostly only things that are already modified by research). So, a mod can add the things you note as infinite research because they all already exist as non-infinite research, but almost all of the things you mention are just fixed properties of the individual items in the game - to take one example, the number of module slots in a building is fixed in that building's definition, and the only way to provide more slots is to define new types of building with more slots: you can make as many better tiers of assembler/etc as you like in a mod, but you can't make an *infinite* number because each tier actually has to be individually defined.

So, you'd first have to ask the devs to add research modifiers for these things..

Yeah I did some research after making that post because I was curious as to how hard it is.
It turns out that you can only define prototypes at config time and can't change them afterwards. So for example you can't make a solar panel more or less powerful at any time except config time (e.g. not while the game is running and research is being done).
But I came up with an idea for a workaround.
If the cost doubles with every research, then after say 64 researches it's infeasible that anyone would actually reach that far. (2^64 is about 18 quintillion.)
So what if for infinite 'blue belt speed' research I did the following:
1) at config time, make 64 slightly faster versions of blue belt
2) as a hook on research completed, find all blue belt entities in the game and replace them with the one one tier higher (as you can quick replace a belt as a human player and not disturb its contents, I assume that this is possible for modding too)
3) also hook entity placed and upgrade it at that timing too, so all future blue belt made and placed will also the correct faster tier (EDIT: need to think about how blueprints, robots, assemblers, etc. will all agree on using the same tier of blue belt so they can be automatically constructed properly)
Of course this is obscene, but would it work?

[torne]

Yes, in theory I think you can do that.

[doc]

I guess I should plug the mod I'm working on, it will give you plenty of things to do in the endgame with the rocket silo. Right now you can deploy portals to remote asteroids to then travel there to mine them for huge amounts of resources, and launch orbital solar farms to power your outpost remotely. (It also already supports remote power around your main base and for your suit.) I have a lot more features planned ... cargo drops, high-productivity orbital research platforms, space shuttle network, orbital mining lasers ... New and vastly improved release coming very very soon!
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/docpaisl ... l-research