how a story/lore could potentially fit into Factorio

[MicFac]

I already posted this as a reply to the FFF #262 but wanted it here too as it got pretty big and suggestion-heavy. I hope this is okay.

I think the idea of the Compilation is great and it got me thinking about a potential lore in the normal freeplay mode. I think the game having more of a story could help make it even more interesting (not to say that it isn't already) and add a lot of immersion. I'm not saying that you should get lead through the game by a story as discovering things yourself can be super fun. Rather I would suggest a very loose lore that could be tied into the usual game in many different ways, like ancient ruins or accidental discoveries when researching for example. This could even make Compilatron useful in freeplay, he could analyze these discoveries and propose parts of the lore (special sounds and music that play when discovering lore could be awesome too). Besides, if lore pieces are too frequent, they could be annoying and distract from the main game so they should be a rather rare occurance.

Of course a lore like this would also have downsides. After a few playthroughs you would know all important story pieces which could scare people away from replaying the game as part of it would be repetitive (and I think replaying the game feeling natural is a very important part of Factorio). A potential solution to this could be that more questions get asked than answers given. This way, discoveries would act less as the player getting told a story but more as a reminder to think about what could have happened on this alien world. This would add mystery and a lot of atmosphere in general.

All in all, what I am suggesting here are huge changes to the game and I think adding something like this could be a big risk but it could also make the Factorio experience even better.