[MOD 0.16] EMP Biters 1.2.1

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Supercheese
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[MOD 0.16] EMP Biters 1.2.1

Post by Supercheese »

EMP Biters

No big preview image, but here's a video of the mod in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtILyvVVoEE

Info / Long Description: Many mods give the player a whole host of new weapons and defenses to play with, but the poor biters are left behind. It's time they received an upgrade!
Now, large biters have a chance to give off an EMP blast when they die, temporarily disabling nearby turrets, radars, and logistic & construction robots. Large spitters also have a chance to EMP with their spit.
The larger the enemy and the higher the evolution factor, the bigger the chance of EMP is.

Gun turrets and flamethrower turrets are only disabled by EMP for half as long as laser turrets, to encourage using mixed defenses.
Big Worms have a high chance to cause a large EMP blast with their spit, to make turret creep more challenging.

This mod also supports Bob's Enemies, Dytech War, and Natural Evolution Enemies.

The area of effect, minimum & maximum durations, etc. are stored in config.lua. Feel free to edit these values to increase or decrease the difficulty.

FAQs:

Q) How are biters/spitters able to generate an EMP anyway?
A) Magic. The same magic that lets FactorioGuy carry around 20 Tanks, Locomotives, and Steam Engines in his pocket.

Q) Jeez, this mod really makes things a lot harder. How do I defend my base now?
A) Landmines. Lots of landmines. Or spread your turrets out more. Maybe even make a secondary defensive line. I'm sure you'll come up with something!
EMP attacks won't become a threat until you reach Big Biters anyway, and by that time you might already have construction robots to automatically repair damage and replace destroyed structures.

Q) Is there any way I can fix my structures when they've been hit with an EMP attack?
A) Yes, you can pick them up and replace them. You can use bots to deconstruct/reconstruct them too, but this is risky because the bots themselves are vulnerable to EMP. Other than this, you must wait for the EMP effect to wear off.

Q) Will this mod hurt my FPS/UPS?
A) I have benchmarked this mod under very heavy biter attacks, and even then it still had better performance than the popular YARM mod. So if your game runs fine while monitoring several sites with YARM, it should run just fine with this.
Of note, when no entities are affected by EMP, the mod shuts down its on_tick function to improve performance.

Q) What happens if, after I load the mod, later I chicken out and decide I want to remove it?
A) Well, if you remove this mod from a running game where some entities are disabled by EMP, those entities will not be automatically re-enabled; you'll have to manually pick them up and replace them to re-enable them.
Other than that everything else should be fine.
Version history
Attachments
EMP Biters_1.2.1.zip
(516.39 KiB) Downloaded 144 times
EMP-Biters_1.2.0.zip
(516.56 KiB) Downloaded 165 times
EMP Biters_1.1.0.zip
(503.77 KiB) Downloaded 176 times
EMP Biters_1.0.7.zip
(503.74 KiB) Downloaded 247 times
EMP Biters_1.0.6.zip
(503.74 KiB) Downloaded 222 times
EMP Biters_1.0.5.zip
(516.18 KiB) Downloaded 753 times
Last edited by Supercheese on Sat Feb 24, 2018 5:44 am, edited 19 times in total.

Choumiko
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Re: [MOD 0.12.29] EMP Biters 1.0.0

Post by Choumiko »

Sounds and looks quite evil :twisted:

At first i thought: Oh, this should make gun turrets more viable. But looking at the code it seems they can be disabled too. How about multiplying the min/max duration with a "emp-resistance" value that's different for each affected type? Or altering the chance to be affected at all depending on type.
Note: Haven't tried the mod yet, due to no save with big biters (and me being chicken anyways :D )

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Re: [MOD 0.12.29] EMP Biters 1.0.0

Post by donkeystealing »

Is this compatible with bobs enemies and warfare? Would be amazing if reguler turrets weren't affected or affected as strongly, to give your defensive strategy more choice.

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Re: [MOD 0.12.29] EMP Biters 1.0.0

Post by Supercheese »

Having gun turrets be disabled for a shorter time than lasers is a good idea, I think I'll make that change for the next version.

EDIT: v1.0.1 is now out; now gun turrets are only disabled for half as long as other turrets, but also the default difficulty settings in config.lua have been increased.

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Re: [MOD 0.12.29] EMP Biters 1.0.1

Post by DenFromEarth »

This looks very interesting and I appreciate the recent tweak on the bullet turrets. Looking forward to trying this.
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Re: [MOD 0.12.29] EMP Biters 1.0.3

Post by Supercheese »

Thanks to vigorous testing on a multiplayer server, some coding mistakes were revealed, and now version 1.0.3 is released to fix those bugs.

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Re: [MOD 0.12.29] EMP Biters 1.0.3

Post by *frumple* »

This mod deserves recognition and praise.

It acomplishes two thigns. First, i'm once again affraid of the poxy spawn, and second, they remain a challenge throughout the game. Previously, once the walls were up and laser turrets researched, there was no challenge or threat left anymore. Wiping out chains of mega-nests was tedious and mostly about kicking the beasties out in order to get more room for expansion, or to push back nests from the pollution zone near the player base.

Yeah. Good times. I wish for tedium now...

There's all kinds of Factorio players and some will not enjoy EMP Biters. Others may try it eventually once they feel the normal biters are too weak. That's certainly how i felt. And what has changed? Well, where to begin?

First of all a Big Worm is once again a formidable foe. *Very* formidable! It's still possible to "cheese" a small number of them by using the long range of a laser turret. But there better not be a spawner nearby otherwise getting overrun is almost guaranteed. Several extra defense lines of turrets are needed because the EMP blast radius of a Big Worm is simply yuuge!

Without a Big Worm as backup, early nests, even if they are large, can be taken out as before. I'd rather have lasers than guns, but either turret will do. However, once evolution causes Big Spitters to join the fray, battling with the Zerg, er Biters becomes very challenging. Medium Spitters are only a medium annoyance, as it should be, but the big ones are properly going to wreck things. Blindly rushing with power cables and lasers is still viable, but better have a LOT and learn to accept losses. Or, you know, pace yourself and build several lines and backups. Feels more like trench warfare now, instad of lazily mopping up.

And that is partly why i'm enjoying EMP Biters so much. It doesn't make anything impossible, it just asks a much higher price than vanilla. It makes sense to me that such a numerous enemy would cause breaches and damage. I find it fair that i have to repair and rebuild. Occasionally i have to flee in terror and abandon assaults. Even run for my life and leave a chunk of a factory or outpost for biters to chew on. As for attcking nests? Well, i'd recommend picking fights you can win, and only if they're worth it.

The other major reason i'm enjoying the mod, is that now things like power armor Mk2 feel justified. It's not just for surviving trains anymore, you know? Before and after top tier equipment becomes available, trying to take on nests feels both dangerous and satisfying. Esp. if you're a little underpowered compared to the size and evolution of the enemy.

I may have actually pushed the difficulty up too high for myself. Since i also used the RSO mod, i kept base frequency normal but maxed their strength and size. And as a result the evolution rate as well, because destroying so many spawners definitively speeds up the arrival of more dangerous spitters. Another mod i used, that didn't help things was the Gloom mod which makes Solar Panels less dependable and increases consumption of Steam Engines. This together with power hungry Laser Turrets isn't a recipe for succesful early/mid game biter nest stomping!

One mod that did help is the Air Filtration mod. I found it to be a little on the OP side for normal gameplay, but once forced to consider having very strong nests quite near my factories it seemed more justified. Still a bit OP compared to having to use green modules. Your mileage may vary.

At any rate, i would not recommend going too hardcore with enemy strength, this mod gives them just the punch they lacked before.

Thank you for your work on the mod. It's a perfect addition to the game for those Factorio players who feel the player can eventually become a boring, unstoppable force. And for those who like lots of fighting.

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[MOD 0.12.29] EMP Biters 1.0.3

Post by marijn211 »

It would be very nice when the game is in a further stage and your multiplayer joiners could also be enemy's that you maybe could make EMP weapons that open doors and disable gun turrets for a short time :D
Keep calm and play Factorio.


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Re: [MOD 0.12.33] EMP Biters 1.0.5

Post by Supercheese »

Version 1.0.5 released, featuring an optimization that roughly doubles mod performance. (Thanks to Afforess for the helpful advice!)

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Re: [MOD 0.12.33] EMP Biters 1.0.5

Post by Shrooblord »

Nice review, *frumple*, and, if I have observed correctly, what a first post to come barging into the forums with. Welcome! (I'm new too so we should welcome each other and not just me you. Or not. Suit yourself.)

Reviews give me a little more insight into what I can expect from a mod - and since this is the first one I've read here (there's been some vid reviews of course), I'd like to say "more please"!


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Re: [MOD 0.13.1] EMP Biters 1.0.6

Post by Ranakastrasz »

Nasty little mod. Makes turret creep infeasible, and even turret support while you assault difficult. I aprove.

Friggin Big Worms....
My Mods:
Modular Armor Revamp - V16
Large Chests - V16
Agent Orange - V16
Flare - V16
Easy Refineries - V16




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Re: [MOD 0.16] EMP Biters 1.2.1

Post by Supercheese »

Minor update, version 1.2.1, just some optimizations and fixes.

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