[MOD 1.1] Natural Evolution - All things Alien!

[TheSAguy]

Hi there, I am using your mod, in concordance with a couple of others. So to balance things out I have started tweaking some values in the natural evolution expansion mod, e.g. the values for pollution evolution etc. I also found that biters were expanding too close to my base so i started experimenting with the variables that govern this. In the control.lua file I found the 'phases' which correspond with the settings in a particula evolution factor interval. I set the variable NE_Min_Player_Base_Distance to 10 (in my current evolution phase) in the expectation that biters would only expand further than 10 chunks out of my base. I was surprised to see the following: (See next post)

As you can see this new base is at most like 6 chunks away. Am I misunderstanding how this variable works? Or is the distance calculated from like the centre of your 'base'?

What is your evolution factor and is that a totally new base, or there from the start? Seems large for a new base.

[TheSAguy]

Would this mod be compatible with these mods?

Bob's Enemies
5Dim Mod - Battlefield
Swarm
Rescaled Evolution Factor

Really only want this mod for the small alien artifacts, the other features might be cool too, but I'm not a fan of breeding aliens race.

Do you have a smaller mod with just the small alien artifacts?
I'm really interested!

If you're mainly interested in small artifacts, you could use my Enemies module or just Bob's warfare module. Those both add small artifacts. Bob's adds a lot of colors if you don't disable it in the config.

[Murlocking]

Would this mod be compatible with these mods?

Bob's Enemies
5Dim Mod - Battlefield
Swarm
Rescaled Evolution Factor

Really only want this mod for the small alien artifacts, the other features might be cool too, but I'm not a fan of breeding aliens race.

Do you have a smaller mod with just the small alien artifacts?
I'm really interested!

If you're mainly interested in small artifacts, you could use my Enemies module or just Bob's warfare module. Those both add small artifacts. Bob's adds a lot of colors if you don't disable it in the config.

Thanks man

[Ackos]

Appears to work fine with misanthrope. Can be brutal if your not prepared.

[orzelek]

Appears to work fine with misanthrope. Can be brutal if your not prepared.

I think you might be getting attacks from both mods then - only guessing since misanthorope is not my thing - I don't want to defend each piece of rail I place with RSO active

[Targa]

Quick question: I tried the Expansion mod a couple of times when I first started playing, because I wanted a challenge, but gave up when I found my base constantly under attack and couldn't get anything accomplished. I decided to play a mostly vanilla game except using RSO so I'd have to use trains. However, now I find myself about 75% completed with research and all, and the enemies appear to be not really doing much of anything other than evolving. In the beginning of the game I killed a few bases in order to remove them from the vicinity of my base and outposts, but other than that it's been fairly dull. So the question: Does the vanilla game EVER get more difficult without using a mod? I don't really want to finish the playthrough if it's going to be that easy. I had assumed that eventually the enemies would start attacking, or spawning closer to my base...or something. Is that the main reason for this mod, because there's practically no alien interaction in vanilla?

[TheSAguy]

Quick question: I tried the Expansion mod a couple of times when I first started playing, because I wanted a challenge, but gave up when I found my base constantly under attack and couldn't get anything accomplished. I decided to play a mostly vanilla game except using RSO so I'd have to use trains. However, now I find myself about 75% completed with research and all, and the enemies appear to be not really doing much of anything other than evolving. In the beginning of the game I killed a few bases in order to remove them from the vicinity of my base and outposts, but other than that it's been fairly dull. So the question: Does the vanilla game EVER get more difficult without using a mod? I don't really want to finish the playthrough if it's going to be that easy. I had assumed that eventually the enemies would start attacking, or spawning closer to my base...or something. Is that the main reason for this mod, because there's practically no alien interaction in vanilla?

Well, vanilla enemies are not much of a challenge...that's why I created my mod.
Remember, there are a lot of ways you can customize Factorio. Your starting conditions, for instance can affect the game greatly and mods to suite your play stile.

I like a challenge, so I play with RSO, all of Bob's and this mod, set on hard.

You can make it as challenging or easy as you want, but as you pointed out, you could run into a situation where it's just a pushover in late game.

Up to you...

[TheSAguy]

Update to 5.0.7 (Expansion Module unchanged.)

- Small fix when using both Enemies and Buildings module.
They both use the same tech, Alien Understanding 1 & 2 and Enemies overrode Buildings tech. I believe the error fixed itself when you loaded a save, but now fixed from start.
- Updated Tech Graphics. 128 bit graphics
- Trying out Afforess's Path finding logic.

[OvermindDL1]

I have a game with 2 days of play in it and the artifact collectors have stopped working, they do not gather artifacts, they just seem to act like normal logistics chests now. Nothing in the log.

I made a new type of collector, does not magically teleport items. I do need a new graphic, it is just using the radar currently: viewtopic.php?f=93&t=23074

EDIT: Also, is the biological ammo a bit overpowered? Compared to, say, Bob's Mods Cordite ammo line it still does significantly more damage than any of those and they take significantly more processing to acquire, I can single shot any creature but behemoths with the biological ammo from Natural Evolution, which take two shots, and spawners take 3...

Any chance at significantly reducing their damage? Making it configurable? Or have an option to disable them in the config?

[TheSAguy]

I have a game with 2 days of play in it and the artifact collectors have stopped working, they do not gather artifacts, they just seem to act like normal logistics chests now. Nothing in the log.

I made a new type of collector, does not magically teleport items. I do need a new graphic, it is just using the radar currently: viewtopic.php?f=93&t=23074

Not sure why you had this problem, but glad to see you made an alternative for people to use if they have any issues.

EDIT: Also, is the biological ammo a bit overpowered? Compared to, say, Bob's Mods Cordite ammo line it still does significantly more damage than any of those and they take significantly more processing to acquire, I can single shot any creature but behemoths with the biological ammo from Natural Evolution, which take two shots, and spawners take 3...

Any chance at significantly reducing their damage? Making it configurable? Or have an option to disable them in the config?

I'll reduce the damage in the next release and give you a config option

[TheSAguy]

V5.0.8 - Released.

Natural_Evolution_Buildings Module:
Only Tech Graphic updates. 128bit.

Natural_Evolution_Enemies Module:
- Bio Ammo Damage Reduction and made it so you can set the damage in the config.
Remember that the damage needs to be high, since the late game is challenging and you are limited by the production, since you need Alien artifacts to create the ammo.
- New Worm, launches units at you
- Gave Vanilla worms some resistances.

Natural_Evolution_Expansion:
- If Harder Endgame enabled, the cost of rocket parts will be doubled. This will cause you to work harder to get off the planet!

[Sedar]

Hello. Thank you for this perfect mod.


My two penc about OP biological ammo, for short: it is not.

Now i use this mod with vanilla game version + some other mods with minor gameplay changes (not BobMod). And in this case a biological ammo is the only way to defend base when evolution gain over 50%. Besides in my wersion (5.0.6) biological ammo very well balanced, you cannot to spam it, becouse of lack the artifacts.
So i thing the config option is the nice thing.

Just my opinion. Thank you.

[Enriss]

Got this error any time i try to load, whether in game and rolling back a save or loading from main menu.

Mods running are:
Bob's enemies 0.12.6
Evolution Factor Indicator 0.4.15
Natural_Evolution_Expansion 5.0.8
Natural_Evolution_Buildings 5.0.8
Natural_Evolution_Enemies 5.0.8
RSO 1.5.0

[IGotBaconSoda]

Got this error any time i try to load, whether in game and rolling back a save or loading from main menu.

Mods running are:
Bob's enemies 0.12.6
Evolution Factor Indicator 0.4.15
Natural_Evolution_Expansion 5.0.8
Natural_Evolution_Buildings 5.0.8
Natural_Evolution_Enemies 5.0.8
RSO 1.5.0

I made a rough fix by reading the author's other codes, just replace the control.lua file in the Natural_Evolution_Enemies folder with this one.

[Enriss]

Got this error any time i try to load, whether in game and rolling back a save or loading from main menu.

Mods running are:
Bob's enemies 0.12.6
Evolution Factor Indicator 0.4.15
Natural_Evolution_Expansion 5.0.8
Natural_Evolution_Buildings 5.0.8
Natural_Evolution_Enemies 5.0.8
RSO 1.5.0

I made a rough fix by reading the author's other codes, just replace the control.lua file in the Natural_Evolution_Enemies folder with this one.

Worked, thank you very much.

[TheSAguy]

Got this error any time i try to load, whether in game and rolling back a save or loading from main menu.

Mods running are:
Bob's enemies 0.12.6
Evolution Factor Indicator 0.4.15
Natural_Evolution_Expansion 5.0.8
Natural_Evolution_Buildings 5.0.8
Natural_Evolution_Enemies 5.0.8
RSO 1.5.0

I made a rough fix by reading the author's other codes, just replace the control.lua file in the Natural_Evolution_Enemies folder with this one.

Thanks IGotBaconSoda,
For now, I just commented out:

Code: Select all

	for k,force in pairs(game.forces) do 
		force.reset_recipes()
		force.reset_technologies() 
	end

Version 5.0.9 up

[TheSAguy]

V5.0.10 Enemies: I still had a problem loading an old save, so did a few more tweaks with script.on_load. Should work now

[orzelek]

Added new worm you say... ouchies. More integration needed in RSO and will need to figure out how to merge it with bob's mods presence ;D

If anyone uses RSO - new worm won't be spawned till integration happens.

Also a tip for buildings part since it seems resource hungry atm.
It can be amended a bit by restructuring code to check for presence of attactor and it's state first. Then if it it's enebled run the target search - that search is a cpu hungry thing that makes mod eat up to 0.3 per player active. It's quite important in multiplayer I think due to code execution per active player.

Switching to find_entities_filtered for enemies (you can filter by force) would improve speed of working attractor - hard to test for me atm so won't try it for now.

Attached modified file that should work (not tested extensively tho).

[TheSAguy]

Added new worm you say... ouchies. More integration needed in RSO and will need to figure out how to merge it with bob's mods presence ;D

If anyone uses RSO - new worm won't be spawned till integration happens.

Also a tip for buildings part since it seems resource hungry atm.
It can be amended a bit by restructuring code to check for presence of attactor and it's state first. Then if it it's enebled run the target search - that search is a cpu hungry thing that makes mod eat up to 0.3 per player active. It's quite important in multiplayer I think due to code execution per active player.

Switching to find_entities_filtered for enemies (you can filter by force) would improve speed of working attractor - hard to test for me atm so won't try it for now.

Attached modified file that should work (not tested extensively tho).

Thanks Orzelek! Appreciate it! I don't play MP, so good to have someone look at that.
Will update in next release.

[orzelek]

I didn't test it in multi since I don't play it too. It's a bit of a guess and I seen reports that buildings part had big time usage.
And area search per player would scale linearly with number of players I think.