Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

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Deadly-Bagel
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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Biters are a secondary gameplay mechanism and due to the incredible nature of the game engine of running everything always you can't just "make biters smarter" - smarter means more CPU, which means lower performance. But that is another discussion.
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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Aeternus »

Deadly-Bagel wrote:
Aeternus wrote:What would be handy I feel would be a "Biter Repeller"-like structure. Something that generates a small exclusion zone that biters that aren't in their "charge at the target" mode will avoid.
So what you're suggesting here is rewriting biter pathing algorithms to allow for a new structure to achieve exact same thing as my suggestion (which is literally changing one word for another btw), except way more overpowered?
I guess I am, yes. 'Though your suggestion seems to be to have them be able to walk through power poles (make them transparant collision wise) whereas mine is to deny them the ability to approach them, unless in "attack target" mode when they are charging some structure.

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Engimage »

Aeternus wrote:I guess I am, yes. 'Though your suggestion seems to be to have them be able to walk through power poles (make them transparant collision wise) whereas mine is to deny them the ability to approach them, unless in "attack target" mode when they are charging some structure.
Any means to interfere with pathing are unlikely to b eimplemented as this consumes a lot of CPU and biters are already a heavy CPU hitters.
I am not sure about reducing collision box as it will affect other sides of gameplay. Maybe reducing a bit would be fine as biters actually can path around small objects like trees so they should be able to pass around big power poles.
I am sure they actually CAN path around big power poles given there are no other obstacles. However if they are moving in a dense crowd they will occasionally destroy any objects in their way including trees as they obviously do not consider each other a valid obstacle and will destroy anything that is blocking their path if they are able to.

So actually I do not see any easy solution here.

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by mrvn »

I also think it's good that they destroy poles. Otherwise where is the challenge?

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Aeternus »

I'll have to see if the biter pathing logic is in a file modders can access to see what's possible. The way I see biters work is:
- Spawn and gather in a herd at rally point X
- Decide wether to migrate and make a new home at point Y, or attack source of pollution at point Y
- Move to point Y (judging by their movement paths, a pathing akin to rail laying is used)
- If blocked by object, attack what is in the way -unless- object is a tree. (I've never seen biters chew through trees, but they will readily attack the generic rocks)
- If attacked or perceiving a polluting structure, charge it and attack until it's dead, then find next target
- When at Y and no targets in range, merge multiple biters into spawners

If this is the case, then it should be possible to add power poles to the exclusion list, forcing biteys to go around them (via a mod).

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Jap2.0 »

Hannu wrote:I think that biters should use better strategies. They should prefer attacking against critical things or areas with weak defense instead of stupid running to death straight to nearest wall with overwhelming turrets. That would force player to think and work harder instead just building trivial defenses and forget enemies. Especially now when we have easy solutions to clear large areas and keep them under player control.
This thread is literally about biters being annoying. Which is pretty much the point of an enemy. So I'd argue (along with the dev time and CPU cost arguments) that it's fine now.
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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by mrvn »

Hannu wrote:I think that biters should use better strategies. They should prefer attacking against critical things or areas with weak defense instead of stupid running to death straight to nearest wall with overwhelming turrets. That would force player to think and work harder instead just building trivial defenses and forget enemies. Especially now when we have easy solutions to clear large areas and keep them under player control.
Mods already do that. With natural evolution and Bobs enemies they attack power poles before laser turrets if in range. Or concentrate on turrets that are out of ammo. Laser turrets that are out of power also cause attack waves making brownouts doubly bad.

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by DanGio »

Jap2.0 wrote:This thread is literally about biters being annoying. Which is pretty much the point of an enemy.
I strongly disagree. They're made to be challenging, which is not the same at all.
Jap2.0 wrote:CPU cost arguments
I'm pretty sure that the initial suggestion doesn't cost any CPU or much dev time. :)

Things have to be defended, right. But rails are a thing in Factorio, and don't need to be defended, right ? As it is impossible to defend efficiently and in long term each pole in a railway connecting main base and outpost, stating that everything must be defended is, to me, just a way to say that our kind of play isn't viable. And this game has always allowed many approaches to the same issue, so... I don't know, seems we're not understanding each other on this subject. :?

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Aeternus »

Well, then you have answered your own question. If the poles can't be defended, then they can't be guaranteed to survive. The solution to that is self-powered mining bases, sending only rail to them and figuring out how to handle an erratic amount of trains carrying ore (or preprocessed metal/copper/whatever - I prefer to smelt at the mines since iron/copper plates stack higher) back at home base. There will also not be circuit signals going to those bases so they will be completely isolated from the main base.
Caveat: The devs have indicated that independent power grids add processing overhead, so this may slow the game.

Self powered mining bases can still be supplied by main base power using trains that send steam - 3 turbines can easily power a large mining base, requiring a fresh 2 tanks of 500dgr steam train every 3 or so minutes if at max capacity (which they won't be). Or completely independent: Solar powered, with a big cluster of batteries.

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by mrvn »

Aeternus wrote:Well, then you have answered your own question. If the poles can't be defended, then they can't be guaranteed to survive. The solution to that is self-powered mining bases, sending only rail to them and figuring out how to handle an erratic amount of trains carrying ore (or preprocessed metal/copper/whatever - I prefer to smelt at the mines since iron/copper plates stack higher) back at home base. There will also not be circuit signals going to those bases so they will be completely isolated from the main base.
Caveat: The devs have indicated that independent power grids add processing overhead, so this may slow the game.

Self powered mining bases can still be supplied by main base power using trains that send steam - 3 turbines can easily power a large mining base, requiring a fresh 2 tanks of 500dgr steam train every 3 or so minutes if at max capacity (which they won't be). Or completely independent: Solar powered, with a big cluster of batteries.
Is that true in 0.16 with the reduces fluid wagon capacity (75k -> 25k) or is it one steam train every minute now?

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by <NO_NAME> »

I wouldn't really mind bitters destroying some pole every few hours. That would force me to make some redundancy and backup systems. However, after some time number of outpost increases and bitters become more aggressive. More and more power poles are destroyed and player is forced to repair them personally because there is no sane way to automate it. This doesn't create a challenge or interesting gameplay. This is just annoying and it forces player to perform boring maintenance work while there are much more interesting task at hand. There is no good solution to that so I believe that power poles should not be destroyed at all.

Self powering bases are also not an option. Not only because they require to copy and paste simple power setups everywhere, when huge central nuclear power plant is much more interesting, efficient and challenging. I could probably get over this.
But the real problem is that power poles are used not only for power. I have all outpost connected with circuit network to gather information about production and control various processes, to send trains when they are needed, etc. You can do this only by connecting outpost by power poles, there is no workaround.
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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Aeternus wrote:The way I see biters work is:
- If blocked by object, attack what is in the way -unless- object is a tree. (I've never seen biters chew through trees, but they will readily attack the generic rocks)
I have seen them attack trees, however it's not as common. I think this is because the number of trees forces biters to spread out a bit so they don't get trapped between each other as often - there is also that it's harder to spot a dead tree as it doesn't drop Wood and forests are random, and Biters don't stop halfway through like with rocks. It's also possible that any offending trees are destroyed with the first few waves, subsequent ones can then path through without much issue. But I know they can and do attack trees.

And at the end of the day, assuming it were possible it would achieve the same thing.
mrvn wrote:Mods already do that.
Indeed, and likewise if anyone feels that regularly traipsing around a giant train network just to replace a few poles is actually fun they can download a mod to revert the change. They might as well download that one that has them aggressively attacking -any- structure they come across, be it rails or poles or whatever. Maybe I should be telling them to play that mod, then come here arguing against this.
Aeternus wrote:If the poles can't be defended, then they can't be guaranteed to survive. The solution to that is...
You clearly haven't played a Deathworld. Go do that (no changing any values - maybe oil if you want) then come back trumpeting about independant power generators and setting up walls everywhere.

So far we're hearing lots of good reasons for the change, hadn't thought of linking outposts via circuits even though I did that in my Bob's Mods run, and only people who play with passive biters are against it with flimsy excuses.
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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by sathill »

<NO_NAME> wrote:
sathill wrote:... Destroyed trains and power poles. Answer its big trains (i use 10loco+28mix wagons) behemoths gets run over without slowimg down. ...
WOW, this is so imprectical! Sure, it solves this single problem but it creates ten new problems. Maybe it would work in megabase but rather not earlier.
I was similiar in mind before I actually dit it. I even stop playing in 0.15 when behemoths start to appear and need to swith to big trains was must. Remember that one train with 28wagons have bigger cargo transmission speed that 14 trains 1loco+2wagons. Ok i just calculate entire factory and completly redone it. BUT its always an option to make 2 independant train tracks. One inside base for small trains and one outside for bigass trains able to kill bitters. Betwen those two lines build some kind of sorter or splitter to re-load for smaller trains. Why not.
Btw there is some kind of "send signal" to train in train yard but i never look into it and what it does actually
<NO_NAME> wrote:send trains when they are needed, etc. You can do this only by connecting outpost by power poles, there is no workaround.
Well of course its simple workaround. For sending trains at least. Simple deactivate train stop. All my outpost have same names (there even its option in blueprin creation too keep train stops names). For example my suppler-buldier train only arrives with steam/repair packet/walls/ammo when needed. How? All outposts have train stops for supplies deactivated but when for example fuel is lower than 3k crude oil its activated and train start to travel. I do it also for ores. If cargo for 28 wagons its not there train stop is deactivated. When there is enough ore it activates and train choose most close activ station to load. Very simple not even combinators needed for ore. For supplies only few combinators.

I only have one train for one ore type (iron, copper, uranium) and one supplier with things need for building outpost and repair packs, construction robots, ammo. So with few trains i build only two-ways tracks. When i was using multiple small trains only 2xone way have no problems with waiting times. Also with two way there is no problem with train stopping in middle of bitter terrain. Smart use of train semafors for few train its best solution for evolution 99% for me.
Last edited by sathill on Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:01 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Behemoth Biters actually wouldn't be that difficult either, for example you could set their hp to 600 (currently 3,000 I believe) and all resistances except Impact to 80%. They have 20% of their old HP but only take 20% of any damage your weapons do, but trains will just kill them. The tank might be able to run them over, but it has trouble running over Big Biters when they group so it's not really a viable strategy.
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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

This has been mentioned in dozens of topics, and many bug reports and suggestions were created, what's one more? Oh, apparently that specific thread was taken more seriously than the rest of it. Wtf?

Well at least it's fixed now, a better solution than this as it turns out.
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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Aeternus »

<NO_NAME> wrote:But the real problem is that power poles are used not only for power. I have all outpost connected with circuit network to gather information about production and control various processes, to send trains when they are needed, etc. You can do this only by connecting outpost by power poles, there is no workaround.
There are workarounds:
- Round robin method. Service outposts by trains and grab whatever cargo is available, leaving when the boxes appear empty or the train is full. This keeps the train moving, sometimes without a full load. Mainly useful if you have multiple small outposts that don't generate a full cargo fast enough.
- Redstop method. Deactivate the train station until a cargo is ready. Comes with it's own set of problems if the station is serviced by multiple trains. Useful for midsized rail grids... the larger the grid, the more difficult this becomes. This method does not handle extremely large distances with multiple trains well. Very useful for one train that needs to service multiple stations with a low frequency however (such as uranium mines needing an acid refill)
- One-train-per-outpost method. My preferred one. Simply have one train per outpost and sort out the arrivals at your main base with a cargo transfer area. Supports any number of outposts, just make sure your input stacker can handle a backlog of arriving trains.

Anyway, the original problem was solved with a mod :)

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by AileTheAlien »

Just set up actual defenses, or use trains (coal, direct steam, nuclear cells...) to power your train outposts. You've already got the rails right there...

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by Aeternus »

Coal or other burner fuels will require water, not always available. When it comes to truly universal power generation in a vanilla game, you're basically limited to either using central power and defending your power grid, using solar, or ferrying steam, or a combination of these.

The "try it in deathworld" arguement doesn't hold stock with me. In deathworld I'd probably not even bother with outposts very far from the main plant - expanding slowly outward would be the way to go, consuming resources and pushing back the biters as you go - keeping pollution low with efficiency modules to prevent excessive biter growth - which in turn frees up power for laser turrets.
The typical game mode that promotes distant outposts would be Railworld. I've been running a vanilla railworld game (single player) and I've been running into exactly this problem - biters chewing up my poles leading to distant outposts. My solution has been to go solar and use some combinator magic to cut power to the mines when the batteries run below 60% (and reactivate them once the charge is >70%). As long as the poles are up that power flows back to the main grid and the mines draw from the main grid during nightfall. When the poles go down, the outpost falls back on local power.

You can do the same with steam tanks. Each steam tanker holds 2.4GJ of energy (assuming 500dgr steam), enough to run a single steam turbine for ~7 minutes. Typically I've found that my outposts (laser defense based, efficiency module boosted smelters to preprocess the ore) require 10 to 15MW. Using steam is possible, but would probably require probably a 4 wagon train and some tanks at the outpost, which means a bigger rail station and more traffic on the rail grid leading to your mining outposts. Your (nuclear) power plant will likely need a stacker to load up those wagons and a big buffer, but that's usually not a big problem. Main risk is that if there's a gridlock that blocks your power plant, you risk losing -all- outposts. Single point of failure basically. Solar doesn't have that issue if it's set up right, but it requires a lot more room.

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Re: Solution To Biters Destroying Power Poles

Post by MeduSalem »

Aeternus wrote:Still, what you're really hunting for is self repair and self defense capabilities. Which would mean roboports, construction robots, turrets and optionally ammo, at least every other pole. Which presents problems if the logistics grid isn't in a straight line - bots will fly to their repair target in a straight line and can fly right into a biter base that way. Repairing/rebuilding things on the fly by passing trains doesn't really work well since the trains move too fast.

So yea... the way I see it, to work around poles being eaten, either:
Engineer for failure (expect periodic interruptions to the grid and have the remote bases be able to function without power/circuit network)
Fortify, which in practical terms will mean you extend your base along the rail grid.
I actually fortify along the rail tracks just for fun to see how far I can get with that method.

I use a Roboport for every 3 Big Poles (1 where the roboport is, and 1 on each border of the logistic network)... and a group of Turrets and walls around each pole everything spaced between the 2 parallel rail tracks.

I avoid L-shapes etc by making the point where I change the rail direction a seperate Roboport network, where stuff gets put into requester chests on one network and handed over by inserters to a provider chest in the other network. That way the Bots are trapped to fly within a straight line of roboports and don't fly into biter territory.

The method has been working well so far... and helps expanding the rail network relatively fast due to slapping down a blueprint and the construction robots doing the rest.


But realistically speaking it might be the same or even easier to just put an impenetrable line of walls/turrets along between the rail tracks... all the way out to the outposts.


That said I haven't tried the method on a death world yet. I can't seem to find map settings that I like... somehow the generator produces awkward results... so I am waiting for the upcoming major fixes to the map generator in 0.17 before I try that again.
Aeternus wrote:The "try it in deathworld" arguement doesn't hold stock with me. In deathworld I'd probably not even bother with outposts very far from the main plant - expanding slowly outward would be the way to go, consuming resources and pushing back the biters as you go - keeping pollution low with efficiency modules to prevent excessive biter growth - which in turn frees up power for laser turrets.
That is probably what I would do as well if the attacks are too excessive. Pushing them further and further back, first manually, later on automatically using Artillery Cannons to clear out space before setting up a new defense line, then deconstructing the old one to be reused. That way giving them no chance to reconquer any territory.

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