Friday Facts #129 - The late game

[DaveMcW]

It's nice to see oil transport getting some love. Please help the oil pipes too! Lay repeating underground pipes like power lines

[neocortex92]

Hello I'm a new Factorio Player and want to leave some Ideas:

- I like the Idea of dirty ore, but i want to see it in the late Game and combined with the Feature of Underground Mining.
ie. if your Factory slowly tend to loose more Ore Fields and you dont want to build another base you have the option (Technology) to infinitely dig deeper into the dirt with the side effect of mining "unwanted" ressources like dirt or anything... And you have to manage these Ressources to get rid of them (Landfill, etc.) This will lead to more and more pollution making it harder to stay your ground on the Planet but it will make you want to build a big base (For those (us) logistic nerds). Because you dont want to loose your progress and play repetetive, you want to make ur base shine. And for the Casuals there is the Option to build many small bases which will lead to same result but in an easier way. So the player have the chance to choose its way of playing (difficulty).

- Me and my mate also noticed the Wall with the blue science and we like the Idea of a smoother progression to get into the new features... Because they can be a bit overwhelming... We often dont know what we should build next without looking it up. Thumps up for this idea.

- And we also have an Idea to implement the RTS Features: Try to give your Minimap (Or Zoom-Out feature with pictograms for your factorys if you zoom out) an option manage your mega bases, trains, building and maybe also units (attack robots, add more) in huge scale (Supreme Commander).

- And last but not least the Biters, i like them but... GIVE US A BOSSFIGHT (helps a lot in action games (Doom ), why not in factorio?)

- PS. Add Bridges

A big thank you from me and 2 mates who found about factorio and immediately fall in love with factorio (And sry for my english, im not a native speaker (German))

[pigreko]

Hello and first of all: great game.

Ok about the "fact". I'm that kind of player who plays on the long term investments. I like to think that when I colonise a sector to build a mine, it is also a tactical movement, a foothold for future ventures. I really dislike the idea of having to drop it in few hours cause it is useless, and I copy paste it on the next nearby deposit. The point is that there is little to do with them once they are mined out. Maybe add a "reclaiming territory" thing, versus the bug infestation? so that building those outposts are also useful, and impact the game even after they are depleted.

on the same note, I like big mining sites, and for different kind of drills being able to prolong the mining or mine differently (like mining already depleted sites?) But I would also love to see something different, like ores with very very very high yield (or with multiple special kind of yield) hidden faraway, maybe protected by huge bug cities. Maybe we can find it thanks to the radars, maybe linked to a research allowing us to search for them in the radar panel... and then instead of building a ring of mines around the main base, we may choose to develop in a line, using previous mines as stops in between.

Anything to keep the game interesting without adding chores.

[MeduSalem]

Actually i think the opposite is true, with the fluid tanker we could remove the barrels from the game

Oh god no, that might be enough to stop even me from playing factorio . . . or at least sticking with old versions. Pipes in current form are insane over any serious distance, and oil spot generation is just random all over the place . . . without fixing world generation AND cumbersome piping (that seems impossible) barrels are only thing enabling easy oil mining . . . fluid wagons don't remove the need for crazy manual tedious pipe placing.

Ok enough ranting, I was just scared for a moment someone might seriously consider removing barrels from the game.

Barrels are completely useless once Fluid Tank Wagons are integrated into the game in one of the upcoming Updates. It would make sense to remove the Barrels at that point as they don't add anything to the game then. So I cannot understand your argument.

Because how do you get those barrels to your base currently?

Let me take a wild guess: With trains.

So you already have to build a train network and trainstations to even use the barrels.

Once tank wagons are a thing you can skip the barreling/unbarreling part and directly fill the fluid of your choice into the Fluid Tank Wagons.

Where in this scenario would anyone need to do more piping if Barrels are removed in favor of Fluid Tank Wagons? If at all it would require you to do less!

[Marvin]

Changes sound really good. RSO-style with denser ore further away is the only way to be able to keep increasing production. Another tier mining drill would also be welcome, having to clean dirty ore but get more out of it sounds like a good deal.

When it comes to research what I usually really whish for is more tiers of increased robot speed and another tier of armor+equipment. I've tried out those parts of the factorio extended mod and I love the new armor so that I can finally move about with real speed in the late late game.

[Supercheese]

It's nice to see oil transport getting some love. Please help the oil pipes too! Lay repeating underground pipes like power lines

This is planned for 0.13 -- finally, proper dragging of pipe-to-ground!

[o6dukeleto]

Like the idea of more late game resource sinks. Could take a cue from civilization and create a "future tech", it could be repeatable and each time you complete the research, your score would increase by one, much like launching a rocket.

It would be neat if there were a few different resource sinks and if you distributed resources to each of these sinks, maybe your score would increase faster than just focusing on one of them.

Maybe even more complex and making your score based upon being able to sustain production of late game products instead of just scoring based upon each created.

[TH3FL4M3]

I like infinite research, should be possible for anything in the game like ammo, armor, production speed etc.
Also dirty ore, and richer ore fields is a very nice idea

[The Phoenixian]

As far as making green science more expensive, I think it depends a lot on how. If part of blue science, steel for example, is moved from to green science, I could definitely accept that. That said, while that might work for the goal of making the gap between red and blue science smaller, the first thing I'd look at is I'd look first to whether adding more technologies to research could help first.

One of the things I've noticed is that setting a goal of producing a set amount of research per time, 1/sec in my case, won't change the fact that the research goes very quickly goes quickly unless you have more stuff do with all that science capacity.

I'll expand on that in the next section.

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Infinite upgrade techs as a resource sink is something I can say for certain that I don't like. Again, how you do it could make a difference but I think at least I'd want to see massive diminishing returns; As it stands, infinitely more and more powerful lasers just seems like something that would take the already boring state of combat, and exacerbate it. It could work in theory, but not without some way to keep the player challenged by combat, or at least engaged by it, instead of bowling over everything. (As is already a problem with huge numbers of combat drones.)

Instead I think that much of the work of extending the endgame and research tree in general could be done via having vastly more classes of upgrade technologies rather than just adding to later levels.

Radar scan speed, radar sight range, flame turret upgrades, gun turret range upgrades (per type), landmine damage, more landmines per production run, logistic robot energy efficiency, all that sort of stuff. It's easy to come up with new types and easy to say "okay, stop here" at each one. (No more than two extra chunks in radius for radar sight lines means only two tiers of research, for example)

As a bonus, this adds a complication to the tech tree early on: With so much more to choose from, then if you have a small base you need to pick a focus, a technology and defensive setup you want to run with, and you need to pick a stopping point so you can return to upgrading core technologies.

Even better, players have to option to adjust their defenses to make a setup work. If gun turret range is nerfed (or spitter range is buffed) but an option to extend it exists, then players can choose whether they want to switch to lasers, use a mix with turrets to pick off close enemies, or invest heavily in gun turrets.

And there's a bonus for players who build big early too: If you want red and green science packs at 1/sec or 2/sec you can absolutely do that and you have plenty to occupy your base with while you setup the massive structures needed for blue science at 1-2 per second.

I'll admit this doesn't solve the complication issue issue, but honestly, I don't see that as enough of an issue that it needs to be solved. At least not with things as they stand. (Though I will admit, my perspective here is limited as I am the guy setting up 1/sec science, not the guy going for everything with a small base.)

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Lastly, I like the idea of the mining changes, and having ore purification for a specialized miner that produces a dirty ore at the same rate but with allows the mines to last vastly longer sounds like a very good idea and keeps with the idea that, in a game like Factorio, any new technology that makes your old problems simple to solve should do so in a way that introduces entirely new problems to tackle.

As a bonus, it can easily exist alongside other kinds of high level miners: A mobile mining drill, like the old C&C harvesters, could easily have a fast mining speed and a nearly trivially ease of setting up new mines balanced against the option of making a single mine viable for 5 to 10 times as long. (Plus attendant "new problems to tackle" for each type)

[Buggi]

Steam engines should NOT push out smoke. They only process steam, which is non-polluting and more white.

[MeduSalem]

Infinite upgrade techs as a resource sink is something I can say for certain that I don't like. Again, how you do it could make a difference but I think at least I'd want to see massive diminishing returns; As it stands, infinitely more and more powerful lasers just seems like something that would take the already boring state of combat, and exacerbate it. It could work in theory, but not without some way to keep the player challenged by combat, or at least engaged by it, instead of bowling over everything. (As is already a problem with huge numbers of combat drones.)

Exactly. Like I mentioned earlier in the thread I have the feeling that endless research upgrades might cause some things that are already boring to become even more boring when not done right.

If you upgrade the Turrets endlessly with more firing speed/power etc then at some point you annihilate even Behemoth Biters with a single Bullet hit (over exaggerated, I know), turning the defense mechanism in a meaningless affair.

So eventually you face the problem that you are so overpowered that you lose the fun in going on, instead of prolonging the experience.

Going that route is a possibility for now, but without the environment (Biters, etc) scaling with the more powerful player it opens up a lot of potential for additional imbalance, which might be hard resolve once the system is implemented and people getting used to all the fancy additional upgrade levels.



That's why I favor approaches like the below a lot more though they require additional work:

Late game:

Thematically, once your base is at a certain point, where you can control the aliens and launch a rocket, is that not a good time for your fellow humans to begin to land and colonise the planet?

Your role then would be to build the cities they require, supply the goods they need, and keep the aliens at bay.

Plenty of late game material there!

[kovarex]

I have the feeling that endless research upgrades might cause some things that are already boring to become even more boring when not done right.

This can't really happen, as the research cost would grow exponentially, but the bonus would stay linear.

[MeduSalem]

I have the feeling that endless research upgrades might cause some things that are already boring to become even more boring when not done right.

This can't really happen, as the research cost would grow exponentially, but the bonus would stay linear.

Interestingly in another thread on the forum (viewtopic.php?p=33419#p33419) I read about the interesting problem that after a certain point the resource patches are so far away that it would eventually cost you so many resources for the infrastructure to get to the resource patches that you can't reach them anymore.

Which somehow makes me think, that if the research costs scale exponentially you eventually would exhaust so many resources to get to the next level that you would have to expand your base faster and faster to the point that all you are doing is building new outposts.

The increasing overhead for the expansion, additionally growing in a squared fashion, is a problem not to be forgotten about, because you might hit the break even point after which you are unable to expand further into the outlands because you exhausted all the resources by sinking them into the research upgrades.

And I guess that's somehow a natural cap on how much fun there is to be had in endless upgrades.


Seems like an additional reason to change Resources patches into infinite resource patches that work the same way like Oil Patches do: Decreasing yield over time, but never running out so you have a steady stream of guranteed resources.

The dirty Ore concept could be applied on top of that, meaning that at a certain lower limit of the yield the only thing you get is Dirty Ore. Actually leaving you the decision either to suspend mining there or to invest on the additional infrastructure to deal with the increasing amounts of dirty ore.

[Align]

I can't say I relate to all this talk about green science tier being mostly waiting after it's set up, but I think that's because of RSO and needing to scout with my car and set up train lines. So, if you're going to do something similar with default resources being richer further out, it might not be necessary to change that part of the tech tree.

[patmo98]

One problem I've always had with laser turrets in vanilla is that there comes a point where it's really hard to take down the spitters without them taking a chunk out of your turrets. First you have to wait for them to come into the laser's range. Then you have to shoot them down, all before they get into range of your turrets. What about upping the speed on laser movement a little, and giving a range bonus to lasers?

What about +2% or +5% range bonus on every attack power upgrade that uses alien science?

(Ideally it would increase the range more, but the farther the laser travels, the less damage it does. This sounds over-complicated, unintuitive, and game-breaking though.)


As for the cargo wagon, I'd suggest a small and a large cargo wagon. Both have the same footprint, but the bigger one looks taller. The smaller one is made of mostly iron. The bigger one takes mostly steel.

[torham]

@medusalem: I think you would hit frame rate limits before that happens. You would have so much infrastructure that the game would simply slow down to unplayable levels before you actually hit a soft cap on expansion.

[MeduSalem]

@medusalem: I think you would hit frame rate limits before that happens. You would have so much infrastructure that the game would simply slow down to unplayable levels before you actually hit a soft cap on expansion.

Yeah probably. I haven't suffered frame rate problems yet so I can't say anything about it.


Another reason eventually to stop expanding for some people and why infinite resource patches would be a relief for them. They could at least continue playing, altough at a lower throughput level using low-yield mines.

[theoturtle]

Deep mining sounds like a good idea - i dont want to build mining sites that are useless after some time.
Maybe combined with some research tiers - the more research you do the deeper you can mine, combined with new "deeper" drills, upgrading the mining sites and adding research content to the late game.
About resource generation - maybe a difficulty option where you can set an infinitive amount of ore that connects to a certain type of research - the player has the choice to either have infinite resource or not

About the research generally:
I just played the campaign missions for the first time - and felt it was much too fast researching green science. I was still looking around and planning/building my base - and after a few minutes I researched another technology ... and another ... and had no time at all to use these new enhancements. I think that the research time is not high enough.

More lategame research is always a good thing for me - there could be enhancements for train speed and capacity (for all the vehicles maybe) , power generation of solar panels and steam engines, pollution clearing and so on.
But infinite research could really be hard to balance if not done right. I agree with that.

BTW, the smoke looks nice

[Frodoctorio]

i do like the idea of changing the ore-paddern & adding that advanced mining drill.

for the science: I think its to simple to just allow unlimited upgrade-techs.
Maybe some crazy weapon which allows you to crush the enemy bases like its was in the beginning (like some kind of lasergun or chemical weapon, or A-Bomb? something fun and direct to use, shot by the player). The tech should be so expensive that its easier to build the rocket to win the game. But if you desire to make an even bigger factory or the biters are annoying you just too much -> build a big science-complex, make that weapon and then have lots of fun again (i think in late game atm its kind of annoying to kill enemybases)

I very much like the idea of a big science complex!
following this, and the mega base concept, leads me to the idea of 'Biter City'. Deep into enemy territory where mining is more rewarding lies a walled of, hidden biter city with tough enemies, strange buildings and new challenges for the player(s). The exact location is given once you have a satellite researched in the same 'big science complex'

crazy weapons, yes! air strike with napalm, plasma bolts coming from big bugs (as seen in starship troopers), ion cannon, base shields... possibilities, possibilities...

edit: I found a post containing elements of this idea from 2014:

Allow me to stray qquite far from the path you are walking.
How about a dystopian finale?
Basically at the end of the tech tree is the ultimate automatization gadget, a factory that expands itself. (maybe programmable logistics bots?)
So the factory basically starts doing everything by itself, and you don't need to do anything, but eventually the factory itself realizes that you are nothing but a waste of resources at this point, and kills you. THE END
(or you escape and build a new faactory to ward from the swarms of robots your old factory throws at you... and the cycle repeats)

Not sure if this would encourage people to play the game for a second time.

I like your idea of the ultimate automated factory as an endgoal though. However, I feel their are a few "pre-endgoals":
1: energy production: fusion reactor (needed to have the power for the next goals)
2: military power: long range powerfull artillery (to kill large biter bases and/or their next evolution?)
3: intelligence: satellites (scanning device that is much faster with a much larger FOV than the radar that would work very well with your artillery)

These 3 would than lead to the ultimate endgoal:
4: ultimate automatisation (game ends with a short video of a large automated city being build and colony ships arriving? followed by lots of statistics )

[ps666]

I´m realy realy happy, that you see the problem with the resources. I don't like the aspect of building mining outposts. Yes, it is a very importent part of this game, but i don't like it that much.
Maybe the new tweaks bring me back more pleasure into the game.
Can't wait to try 0.13.
Thank you for your game!