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Tldr: Uranium needs balancing especially lategame and on large maps. Create uranium sinkhole with "super radar" (doubles reveal map area while doubling radar's energy consumption) and ICBMs.

Hey,

I'm currently on my second long game play run - around 300h each - and i'd like to suggest some improvements in terms of balancing:

Issues

• Radar to reveal the map is super ineffective on large maps

Radars have become pretty much useless on a big map like mine. This is for me a very big issue because I'm on maxed bitter settings and expanding is very costly. So I need to know the map prior to expanding to not waste resources and time. Therefore I use the artillery to reveal the map. It works but it kinda feels like a shitty workaround.

• Uranium/Nuclear is stupidly OP

I'm 300h in, the last 150h on 15-20GW energy consumption and still on the very first U-patch. Pretty soon my energy consumption gonna increase to about 40GW and I'm almost a 100% confident that my first u-patch will supply me for the next 200h just fine. That feels very wrong.

Proposals

• Super Radar

New infinite research "Super Radar". Every upgrade doubles the radar reveal area at the same time it doubles the energy consumption of the radar. This gonna escalate quite quickly but it gives the player a nice path to make radars more effective on large maps while at the same time increase energy consumption drastically so that a player might actually tap into more the one u-patch.

• Nuclear ICBMs

Let the player build nuclear ICBMs. Basically led use build rockets that can be loaded with a nuclear warhead. Each warhead costs a 1000 uranium 235. Destroys a huge huge - I mean really huge, Trump huge - area. I don't know about you guys but it really feels kinda lackluster immersion wise that I can launch rockets with a satellite into the the orbit but when it comes to warfare my "atomic bomb" is basically a "tiny" rocket launcher. Feels like me the player isn't allowed to play with the big guns.

Best regards and a big thank you for this amazing game!

Lewoke

PS: I play vanilla + (base game with some minor quality of life mods)

ICBMs...

Are you saw M.I.R.V mod?
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/MIRV
Maybe this is what you are looking for.

Radar distance research sounds neat. If there isn't a mod for that already I can look into making that. Definitely also been disappointed with late game map FOW clearing. I usually end up just setting up rail to go really far and using whatever patches I find out there, rather than continuing to evenly round out nearby. Otherwise it's using artillery as radar.

Would also be nice to see some more advanced radars - directional, or remotely targeting an area, or charging up to be used to clear an area of interest. Those feel much more mod-y than base game though.

I think the hard part of balancing uranium patches is that if you weaken them too much the first one is annoying/difficult. Once you switch to nuclear you absolutely must keep getting more uranium so the game has to be somewhat forgiving on giving you uranium more often than technically required. It's definitely arguable that it's too forgiving right now, but that's also what resource slider settings are for. Uranium bullets, nukes are already pretty good sinks too. Several good nuclear use mods are out there too.

Keep in mind, current atomic rocket was made before artillery. The game overall has moved towards artillery being the true end game weapon.

Cribbit wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 11:28 pmKeep in mind, current atomic rocket was made before artillery. The game overall has moved towards artillery being the true end game weapon.

I think quite a lot of people find the atomic bomb kind of underwhelming - probably expecting a missile-type weapon that detonates with a mushroom cloud and a huge blast radius.

Right now it's basically a glorified RPG.

Targetable missile with a blast radius of 400 tiles IMHO.

Cribbit wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 11:28 pm Radar distance research sounds neat. If there isn't a mod for that already I can look into making that.

Of course there is a mod for that.

I think uranium richness should be decreased so one can get out of uranium in other case than marathon, just building up for long hours or finding some unusually small patch. It would also encourage players to research Kovarex process. Furthermore, I think uranium ammo should not depend on researching it but rather it should be under some military research (perhaps a new one).

You can reduce the amount of uranium on map gen settings not only by decreasing richness, also use size/frequency and you ran out of uranium very quickly.