Fight

[slpwnd]

the other is a mind control beacon

I like how it sounds

[Imp0815]

[quote="FreeER"][quote="ssilk"]Eventually a simple button, which shows how I can stand against the selected enemy with this weapon, or some more ideas like that.[/quote]So something like a Heads Up Display (HUD) that can be inserted into modular/power armor and shows the weaknesses/resistances the selected enemy has and, possibly, the best weapon to use? I say possibly because it may be difficult to calculate the 'best' weapons, if it's a group then you'll probably want a weapon with Area of Effect (AOE) damage, unless the damage is weak or you are too close to your own structures and if the target has a long attack range (worms) you might want either a long range weapon to use against them (rocket/sniper) OR a high damage weapon like the flamethrower. That's why I said probably on the suggested weapon, there are many things to think about (and would you want the HUD to display only from the weapons you have equipped, or in your inventory, or unlocked, or the 'best' in the game unlocked or not?)

[quote="Imp0815"]So i'm asking you know "What should be done to Improve the fighting in Factorio?"[/quote]First, sorry about being so critical, and yes Factorio is not BF3 Now, My personal opinion of the fighting in factorio is that there is little interaction with the 'natives'. You either build a large base which produces pollution and causing attacks, or you stay as small as possible until you get enough weaponry that you feel comfortable expanding/attacking (my choice, I also use the treefarm mod to absorb as much pollution as possible, my base looks like some weird national park lol).[/quote]

Great you only can play this game with mods because the enemy attacks are to hard to deal with? I know your feel, i for example deactivate the pollution because its not a very fun game mechanic for big base builders. Maybe they need to introduce electric fencing (like in Starship Troopers 2 or 3) to hold off and kill roaming creepers. Also i see these creepers not as native they are design as very primitive insect like creatures, i don't know why people think we must "interact" with them.

[quote]The other side (which you were talking about) is that the fighting is very repetitive, they come and you shoot at them (or use turrets/robots). I think the best way around this is to have different types of enemies (that are not just harder to kill, and/or look different) and instead of having all of the enemies in range of the player head straight at you have, say, a commander that can send the small (fast) biters behind the player and prevent him from running back to his base, and then send the big biters (to absorb the damage) straight at the player with some medium biters right behind. Taking out the commander would send the biters either back to normal behavior or, once several have been killed, back to their base (morale/fear level).

If the player is attacking a base then, if it is a small base and there are other relatively nearby bases, perhaps the commanders (perhaps one for every two or three spawners) would send some biters off to bring reinforcements and have the rest take up guard positions, taking out the commanders quickly would prevent this and also stop/slow the spawning of reinforcements. If it is a large base then it would be less likely for the commanders to send reinforcements (it's one small human against dozens of aliens right?), but taking out the commanders would still slow the spawning of reinforcements, and perhaps send some of the nearby biters off to hide from the player. The spawners could also have a "max produced in time" so that they are not constantly bringing more biters into the fight, instead only being able to spawn say, 20 biters every five minutes (if this was done the un-produced biters would not stack, say if 10 were produced and five minutes past it would not then be able to produce 30).

Also, from looking at some of the changes to the enemies it seems like it could be possible to have the biters (or another enemy unit) use something other than a melee attack, maybe even a weaker version of the acid projectiles the worms use. This would change the fighting a good bit, you wouldn't just be swarmed by biters but you'd also have enemies standing back and shooting at you (of course there is the question of accuracy, especially if they fire while chasing you).[/quote]

Sorry but after adding this commander unit the game is just the same: "they come and you shoot at them". But the moral/fear idea is very good, after a certain amount of dead creatures lie around ,they run in fear and won't attack for a long time. That would be a gameplay changing mechanic and it would add a little bit of immersion to the overall game.

[quote]Also, not sure how much this may change combat for people but I'm working on two mods, one that will introduce cloning (you build cloning-tank, die, respawn at cloning tank with some remains, and your items, back where you died so you can retrieve them) and the other is a mind control beacon (place it, enemies that come within an area of 10 have a 20% chance of being converted to your allies every 6 seconds, when they leave the area they currently are reverted back to enemies), the mind control mod probably will need some additional balancing though [/quote]

So you see this is more of an "add this item to make my game easier or harder" but I'm not talking about adding items or something a player can use, but more of gameplay mechanics.
To the basic core the fighting mechanic is run and shoot. Some enemy need more "shoot" and some need less. Some of them are fast others are slow. These are the current mechanics and when you are fine with them every thing is ok.
But to really improve the fighting there must be more than adding more items to make killing more easy or adding enemy's that make your day harder.
When you really want to make a difference you need to make the fighting different and colorful.(btw. the rolling is just an example -_- jesus)

For example: When you want to know what weapon type are effective against the big creepers you need to catch one with a net or a stun gun and bring it to a cage then you can research it and get more information (Think about Starship Troopers Brain Bug).
The mechanic here is that you have to kill all creepers around the big one to have free room to catch it(Challenge). Then you must manage to catch it (Luck). And then you need to bring it back to base/cage without killing it or getting attacked by other creepers that want to free there imprisoned comrade (Skill).
These are thing a good game experience in my eyes.

[Ardagan]

Hm...

One thing for developers is to decide what they want to do.

Right now I see the game as production chains setup. That is what I like in it. Why not keep up with that? Why add fight or politics.

Ok. That was genera. But if we suppose we still want fight. First I'll agree with previous post: we want not new items, we want diverse gameplay.

1) Add more creep types for example: ranged, resistant to laser. etc.
2) Add energy weapons to main character otherwise with limited resources on our side except energy and unlimited of all on their side, we lose.
3) Add all technical information in game: do laser turrets consume energy when not shooting? Do Factories consume energy when not working? Do factories produce pollution when not working? those are minor, but obvious that are missing.
4) Add option to research enemy motives/strategy. Predict attack times, predict group size etc.
5) Think of the option to scale enemies with players base size for example.
6) Add encyclopedia that contains all information to the game. That will work as 2 things: a) player information b) design document for devs

Hm... There are still some more ideas of things that are missing, but these are about fight process. Hope to read any comments from devs or other players.

[Nova]

Right now I see the game as production chains setup. That is what I like in it. Why not keep up with that? Why add fight or politics.

Because it was a part of the game from the beginning. And to be honest: I really want the politics. An intelligent enemy, which can even interact and trade with you? Like. :>

[Darthlawsuit]

Right now I see the game as production chains setup. That is what I like in it. Why not keep up with that? Why add fight or politics.

Because it was a part of the game from the beginning. And to be honest: I really want the politics. An intelligent enemy, which can even interact and trade with you? Like. :>

I could live without the politics. I could see this being added in an expansion or DLC but this isn't really needed for the core game.

[ssilk]

Right now I see the game as production chains setup. That is what I like in it. Why not keep up with that? Why add fight or politics.

Well, to have a reason to produce other items. More items. Every war will end at some time, but isn't consumption not a much bigger war?

What is easier? Kill some worms and have war or kill a whole planet and having peace?

Those questions are important for good games.

Ok. That was genera. But if we suppose we still want fight. First I'll agree with previous post: we want not new items, we want diverse gameplay.

1) Add more creep types for example: ranged, resistant to laser. etc.

Yes, but this is this stupid game of "I need every kind of weapon in a good mix". Yes, because it works, and "but" because the opponent isn't just a stupid thing, in my eyes it's the whole planet. We cannot win, if we only go for fight, we need to be smarter. I really dunno, how this could work, but we will see.

2) Add energy weapons to main character otherwise with limited resources on our side except energy and unlimited of all on their side, we lose.

That can and should happen. This is no game you will sooner or later win. Of course it should not happen too often.

3) Add all technical information in game: do laser turrets consume energy when not shooting? Do Factories consume energy when not working? Do factories produce pollution when not working? those are minor, but obvious that are missing.

Well, this isn't that easy. Factorio is in big parts a physical simulation and I can say, that describing how an inserter works takes about 100 words. But it's much easier to see him working.
Most stuff can be found out yourself. This is a game about experimenting.
But well, sometimes even me just don't get it. Therefore is currently the wiki. I would like to include that into the game, because things change with every version and the time the devs need to keep the docs uptodate is the time, which cannot be used for programming.
In my eyes this work should be done by the community.

4) Add option to research enemy motives/strategy. Predict attack times, predict group size etc.

Good idea. Keep in mind, I have for example made a base, where I have been continuously been attacked, the number of attackers never goes below 20. This would make such knowledge practically useless.
But basically I like the idea to research the enemies. For example catching a biter and researching him. Or talking with them.

5) Think of the option to scale enemies with players base size for example.

I mean with the evolution factor, we have a base to play with it. But, well, a player with 3 layers of walls, 3 rows of lasers and repair robots everywhere yawns over that. There should be enemies or other things (hurricane?), which make even that useless.

6) Add encyclopedia that contains all information to the game. That will work as 2 things: a) player information b) design document for devs

That's the wiki. you're invited to help.
https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/index.php
Just ask for an account. We are really no biters.

Hm... There are still some more ideas of things that are missing, but these are about fight process. Hope to read any comments from devs or other players.

Hm. Well. Hm. There are more things to think about. Much, much more...

Perhaps like so: try to see the big picture, the devs are going and how they do this. It can't be explained, just read, play and ask smart questions.

[FreeER]

Because it was a part of the game from the beginning. And to be honest: I really want the politics. An intelligent enemy, which can even interact and trade with you? Like. :>

+1

Now for specific responses

1) Add more creep types for example: ranged, resistant to laser. etc.

DyTech. Though it is in progress. The devs are busy building the features and functionality of the base game, be willing to use mods and or create your own and they have much more time to add new content that will diversify the game play.

2) Add energy weapons to main character otherwise with limited resources on our side except energy and unlimited of all on their side, we lose.

Yes.

3) Add all technical information in game: do laser turrets consume energy when not shooting? Do Factories consume energy when not working? Do factories produce pollution when not working? those are minor, but obvious that are missing.

Do you even realize half of ALL the technical information in the game? Spawn rates, pollution spread between chunks, how inserters place items, max limit inserters will insert, numeric speed of each inserter, each combination of splitters, etc. There is FAR too much technical info to display in the game, perhaps more than would fit on a typical monitor in some cases, but there is a wiki and the forum has a lot. Not to mention you do not need this information to enjoy playing, the basic concepts are (mostly) all fairly simple. The wiki needs a bit more love so if the technical info is something you really like feel free to add anything you learn (searching/asking on forum, playing) there.

4) Add option to research enemy motives/strategy. Predict attack times, predict group size etc.

Current moitve/stat kill you, in straight line. There are no 'attack times' anymore, it's based on how much pollution is absorbed by the individual spawners (thus no pollution = no attacks, unless you are close). Not really hard to figure out But when there are more options this would be nice.

5) Think of the option to scale enemies with players base size for example.

Go about 1000 or two away from player base...easily done with cars and trains (use F5 to see coords)

6) Add encyclopedia that contains all information to the game. That will work as 2 things: a) player information b) design document for devs

Wiki, again needs some love. Maybe this could be added in game...but I don't thinks it's really needed.

[Ardagan]

6) Add encyclopedia that contains all information to the game. That will work as 2 things: a) player information b) design document for devs

Wiki, again needs some love. Maybe this could be added in game...but I don't thinks it's really needed.

I love wiki, but sometimes it is much better to get info in-game with internal quicklink than to switch to browser, open page, type search phrase, look for proper info...

Maybe it's just being lazy, but this info will just generally make game easier for new player to get into. As well as experienced ones to adjust to new version changes.

One more thing: in-game this information can be tied to real values. If I write in wiki that some tower does XXX damage and some mod changes to YYY, that will not change wiki. In-game that can be reflected. This is obvious example, I know this parameter is shown in game, but others are not.

[ssilk]

Factorio works well with two monitors, one for the game, the other the browser. But ok, not everyone has two. Just want to mention.

And to the in-game info: all informations are in the lua prototypes. When you go into the factorio directory you will find the text-files, which describe every entity, how the recipes are, etc. Really the most stuff is already available, only some information is also borrowed in the code. I tell this not because I want you to read that files, but because that you see, that it is there and can be used in mods, which do that.

(Some month ago I had the idea to create the wiki pages from that info, but I found out, that I love much more to write about the hidden rules, which aren't programmed)

[dusho]

not sure if this post belongs here..
as a new player I had no problem finding about mechanics on my own, but I have no idea how rocket launcher targeting works.. no idea about range and targeting itself.. SPACE seems to change the targets (or not) and also trigger the rocket to launch
it's a bit confusing
would really like to see combat having some nice mechanics with different reloads of weapon, aiming, damage arcs. Have some more types of enemies where tactical thinking is needed and so on.. to make exploration fun and add more 'survival' into it (something like Don't Starve maybe?)
Also, I have no idea how to use grenades.. it's not equipable?

[ssilk]

Point with the mouse and press fire or C. C releases the weapon even if there is no enemy.
For grenades and capsules: place it in the hotbar and press the button.

It's a little bit crude. I hate it.

[Pandamonium]

For grenades and capsules: place it in the hotbar and press the button.

It's a little bit crude. I hate it.

I haven't researched into grenades yet simply because i couldn't work out how to use them...

sigh.

[Ardagan]

Point with the mouse and press fire or C. C releases the weapon even if there is no enemy.
For grenades and capsules: place it in the hotbar and press the button.

It's a little bit crude. I hate it.

You missed the step where you configure the hotkey for slot on middle-mouse

[ssilk]

Well, not really needed, but I said It's crude...

[kovarex]

We will make alternative and much more intuitive way to fire these tings (grenades capsules setc).
What if you can just take into the cursor and right click, the same as if you tried to "build it"

[BurnHard]

What if you can just take into the cursor and right click, the same as if you tried to "build it"

The first way I wanted to deploy the capsules was just like placing logistic robots: Take them into the cursor and click

[ssilk]

Would be more intuitive, yes.

Besides that, Kovarex, I think there are many other ways, how things can be done. I don't have a special way in mind, I just say: open the keyboard/mouse control for some tweaking. I know it's very difficult (timing is critical here) and I don't see this in the first line of tasks. Not even in the second.

[dusho]

aiming with mouse and right click to fire seems like solid idea
gives also freedom to shape the targeting cursor to represent the accuracy of weapon (new attribute) and also range of fire
though people would need more skill to target fast and small bitters, but at least players will be pushed to research new and better weapons to survive

[boki]

I would like to see indirect rts, but where you can not control your units, but give basic orders. Moving it to full rts control does not feel right to me in this game.

The thing how it can be done is:
-first you would build a factory for mass production of robots
-than you would need to make a special targeting gun

You can use the gun to laser aim, and where you aim robots would move to that position. If you aim on enemies, they would attack.
Or make them with basic order like follow you, search and destroy, defend (maybe depending from what AI moduls you instal in them, they will act different)


Another way to improve the fighting is implementing more enemies with different abilities.
Here are some ides:
-basic range ones
-slow moving long range ones (artillery), it would make players to be more active and move to offense before they destroy the turrets from afar
-monsters that can burrow under the wall and attack maybe electric poles so your turrets get offline
-huge slow moving boss one (walls can not stop them, as they will crush it), where you will be warned in advance that attack is coming
-flying ones
and similar.

[kengonakajima]

I'd like to play factorio with minimum fight by-hand and maximum fight by robots or automated missile defence.
Automation and optimization of extermination of enemies could be a point of this game.