Factorio Forums

It really annoys me that I don't know what path the aliens are taking when they move to my base to attack. Often, early game, I'll find them in the center of the base, with no clue as to whether they came from north, south, southeast or what.

I'm thinking some kind of cheap-to-build electronic gadget with a range of 7 tiles. If an alien gets within that range, the gadget turns on a light, and it stays on for like 150 seconds. Then you just build a lot of those, and place them around your base (ideally there should be some kind of run-and-hold-Shift-down function so that you automatically can place then 12 tiles apart, same way as with Electric Poles).

They have to be cheap, though, otherwise that defeats their purpose. They don't have to be long-lived. I think it'd be fine if they had a built-in power supply (that they're born with - I hate having to add Coal or Wood to an item to initially fuel it, after I've plonked it down) after which they just "die" and disappear. With two sets, built 20 minutes apart, you have 40 minutes to get Turret/Ammo production going.

But really... I just feel like the game is depriving me of infomation that I ought to have. Both this (where the alien visits are coming from, as in what direction, and at least a rough indication of what path they take) but also the previous post about Turret range and grid. There's no good reason not to give such information to the player.

Radar?

Radar isnt really the same...

I guess a proximity sensor would be ideal, when triggered it would ping its location on the map, and notify the player to check it. It would not matter if the area is revealed by radar or not.

Radar and using the alt view for the map will get you a long way.

Radar + Exploration to find the nearest nest + Sounds + Being aware to be attacked in any second. In my opinion, the gameplay is very well done and push you to explore and protect yourself in this way.

But an alert button on minimap in multiplayer could be useful

Yeah, I also miss alt+g for pinging things on map to allies.

Anyway, Enemy sensor will be on the 0.12, just found that by accident:

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-66

ssilk wrote:Radar?

The Radar shows only what's happening right now. With the Motion Sensors I've proposed, I become able to "go back in time" by a few minutes, and see what path the aliens took. I can see that after I've killed them.

This is for early game, when the player character is just about to start setting up Turrets, but have little idea about where to set them, and don't have the resources to make 48 Turrets and thousands of units of Ammo.

Ok, some more. Easiest first:

- I always make some kind of "first exploration"; where are the first biter nests? Then I turn on the pollution map: Is there some pollution coming very near to a nest? Well, that will attack per sure!
. The easiest form of "sensor" is to place 5-10 gun turrets all around in the base. Then I see, which one is emptied/attacked. I see also their dead bodies around and can clearly estimate, where they came from.
- You can turn on "show_paths" in debug mode https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... Debug_mode
- You can save the game and look into the replay and then reload the game.
- It is planned, that in the coming 0.12 there are "motion sensors", which will create a circuit-network-signal, that can be used for example to light a lamp or make an alarm-sound.

I'm sure, there are more ways...

This is not an issue to the game, it's an issue, on how someone plays it, the basic stuff is already there. There are many ways to do this really good, make that an endgame-content, it is currently totally open, how the player uses that.

To make this a good suggestion you need to go more into detail: Why would you like to have it so and not differently? It is never a good idea to add one new item to solve a very special problem, that can be solved also in some different ways.