What's your favorite play challenge?

[Captain Taz]

Simple question really. What rules or limitations do you make on yourself in order to make things interesting? I've got about 250 hours under my belt and have only one rocket launch so far, but I've delved into bob's mods and natural evolution, as well as a lot of multiplayer that gets ended due to scheduling conflicts.

I personally, limit myself with this rule:
- After trains have been unlocked, any single base enclosed in defenses cannot have more than one type of process (with very minor exceptions). This basically means that I need seperate bases ore mining, for smelting/refining, for making intermediate items, for making final items/research, etc. etc. (Subrule: Bases cannot be within zoomed out sight from one another when using the Natural evolution expansion mod. When not using that mod, they must be a considerably longer distance away.)

I'm really interested to see what everyone else does.

[Lightning_Bird]

I combined the complexity of mods like bob's and similar with difficulty of dytech and similar.

Basically I need a factory just to get a single desired ore. Multiple factories to craft the simpliest of things.
All of which needs to be protected from aliens with thousands of health.

Once you get into it, it is actually fun. Though it may push you back if you can't handle all the things combined.

Ps. No need to add any other self restrictions. Mods make more than enough.

[Peppe]

Most of my games I never build defense. I clear out biters to the edge my pollution and then continue to push them back as needed. They never are even near my pollution and never move back because of a simple chest/victory pole.


I don't like major mods that totally rework vanilla, but I am planning to try a new game with a few tweaks:
Tweak 1:
Disable victory poles....
game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.min_player_base_distance = 0

Tweak 2:
Based off the Power Armor Revamp mod, but drop all the new items/mechanics. I re-scaled modular armor power/usage to align with portable roboport. Basically fusion reactor is 4MW of power. Personal Roboports are unchanged and can consume 400KW. Legs 1MW, shields mk2 use 1.8 MW. Solar is half as efficient as fusion. Batteries equally scaled to power-- basically 50x. Generally same setups from vanilla work the same, but personal roboports are not constantly empty.

Tweak 3:
Launching a rocket searches for biter groups near the launch and sends them on an attack run. Search area increases per launch.

Still figuring out what other mods I want/need to go with it, but adding the ones that add to or incentivize launching rockets seems good.

The common set of gui enhancements / quality of life mods.

Major change to vanilla:
Nuclear Power mod -- I really don't want solar and steam only seems fairly boring. So I think nuclear will be the end game power.
Robot Army -- Not sure on the balance of this, but if there are no victory poles I think this may be a reasonable automated way to keep the border pushed.

Moderate Changes:
Ion Cannon -- Space laser.
Sat Uplink -- Complements Ion Cannon for remote vision
Sat Radar -- improve radar on the ground with more satellite launches.
RSO -- Standard change to how resources spawn.
Angels infinite ore -- converts part of a patch to infinite. Should make outposts basically permanent...
Bergius_Process -- Coal to Oil process
Logistics Mining -- to me a super cool mod to make setting up mining outposts faster, but not necessarily easier with the battery management required.
Interface Chest -- my own mod... basically slipstream chests that can push/pull from other inventories in addition to belts.

Minor change:
8L Train mod -- train length fix.
Auto Fill -- Pre-load things when you place them.
Landfill -- landscape control.
Mineable Rocks -- Construction bots can clear an area on their own.

[Tnarg]

When I first played I used trains a little but realty I didn't need to I only used them because I wanted to. I've started playing with marathon Mod which is great because now not only am I using trains but have a real network going. Had to lower the settings on the enemies and I'm using a bigger bags mod but I'm glad I have a reason to use trains. I'm setting up a second base to make green circuits not as a challenge but to keep my main base simple great mod would recommend to anyone with time.

[Xterminator]

Well I have played around with a ton of mods, Bob's, Dytech, and many more add-on type mods as well. But on top of that the challenges I set for myself are actually pretty simple.haha

I try to challenge myself and make thngs interesting by trying to build things at least a bit different every time. For a long time I was stuck in my ways were I would build the same exact designs every single playthrough. It got boring pretty quick. So now I try to do things differently every time.
On top of that I try to build bigger each time as well. That alone can add other challenges that you have to go through just to get everything working and supplied.

[Shokubai]

I tend to start each new game as a new type of challenge.

A couple I've played

• A) LOW Frequency High RIchness Resources. Ive done this with RSO, Extreme Resources, And Vanilla. This adds a nice level of "I must locate, gather, and transport resources over long distance to grow.
  B) MAX BITER settings. This one can be fun...or a nightmare and can be combined with A for added challenge.
  C) Halo (ring world) Maps. Set your map width to a small number 20-250 and keep unlimited height...Now Get creative.
  D) No bots/No Belts. Take your pick. Both challenges have their fun.
  E) No Biters. Design, Test, Design bigger...repeat.

To Do's for me are mods like Bob's/Dytech combined with A and B and maybe Victory Research or Marathon for a major challenge.

[againey]

• D) No bots/No Belts. Take your pick. Both challenges have their fun.

The way you wrote that made me first imagine a challenge of disallowing both bots and belts simultaneously. Nothing but inserters! That could be interesting, albeit painful at times. Might make train usage become more pervasive; maybe lots of instances of isolated two-way trains on shorter track segments where belts would normally be found.

[Ackos]

No hand crafting, often go with no solar

Must have mods:
RSO
Misanthrop/Marathon

[Lee_newsum]

thinks i have done:
A) NO Solar Panel
B) No Solar Panel and Electric Furnace
C) No Logistic robot
D) MAX BITER settings (not as fun as you think)

[brunzenstein]

Well
I try to challenge myself and make thngs interesting by trying to build things at least a bit different every time. For a long time I was stuck in my ways were I would build the same exact designs every single playthrough. It got boring pretty quick. So now I try to do things differently every time.
On top of that I try to build bigger each time as well. That alone can add other challenges that you have to go through just to get everything working and supplied.

Thats exactly what I found out to be most interesting:
Do it yourself is the perfect way to go, your own way, find new solutions - steadily leaning from others like Xterminator but never copying anyones build.
I build anew every time, try to find with every start a better solution. I don't care for shooting rockets but for perfecting the design. Starting from scratch (to get that early map and staring point right is a overlooked and underrated thing - think big - is a very important step indeed) but especially in midgame and improve my overall knowledge.

[siggboy]

Lots of interesting replies already. Good idea for a thread topic.

First of all, the "Tight Spot" challenge that is actually a playable campaign is very recommended. So if you want a challenge, by all means play it, it's a lot of fun. I've scored quite well in all of these.

Here's what I've tried so far (I always play with RSO, so it won't be mentioned):

• "Harder Energy" mod, basically reduces the MJ value of all fuels drastically (30-50%) and makes solar useless; this was fun and interesting
• I usually skip solar entirely; only steam power allowed. I don't really consider this a challenge, solar is just boring and playing without it makes the game more fun for me. In a megabase I'd reconsider, 100% coal might not be viable in the long run.
• "Expensive Research" mod, makes science a lot more expensive. It's a bit like Marathon without some of the silliness that Marathon implies. Recommended. Usually I have this enabled in every game, no matter what other mods I use.
• "Bob's Mods", not much to be explained here, they make the game a lot more complex. Unfortunately there are many balance problems, and a lot of tweaking would be necessary to make this a staple for my games. The new ores and the chemical processes are very interesting though. I recommend to everybody to try it at least once.

Some plans I have for future games:

• Build a megabase (i.e. 20k+ iron plates per minute or something in this ballpark for a starter); be able to launch at least 5 rockets per hour.
• Tweak the RSO settings so resources will be extremely spread out and concentrated (rich). Not very original, but I want to take the train game to the next level.
• Try a few mods, like "Hard Crafting", "DyTech", ... anything that adds depth or complexity

I'm not interested in combat, so I usually disable aliens.

[Lightning_Bird]

Lots of interesting replies already. Good idea for a thread topic.

First of all, the "Tight Spot" challenge that is actually a playable campaign is very recommended. So if you want a challenge, by all means play it, it's a lot of fun. I've scored quite well in all of these.

Some plans I have for future games:

• Build a megabase (i.e. 20k+ iron plates per minute or something in this ballpark for a starter); be able to launch at least 5 rockets per hour.
• Tweak the RSO settings so resources will be extremely spread out and concentrated (rich). Not very original, but I want to take the train game to the next level.
• Try a few mods, like "Hard Crafting", "DyTech", ... anything that adds depth or complexity

I'm not interested in combat, so I usually disable aliens.

You should try to play around angel's mods. They add extra complexity to resource managment (you get multiple levels of ore refining etc)

[tuplex]

I've had fun going for speed, trying to launch a rocket as fast as possible on a random map. My best time so far is 6.5 hours. That gives me a lot of respect for what FactorioSpeedruns has managed to accomplish.

[Qon]

I have my mega base build that I aim to make vanilla compatible in the future. And I want to make a nice blueprint out of my 1 minute rocket base that is going to be ratio correct and focused only on rocket launches. Currently almost completely bot based since I want to use productivity modules and speed beacon rows everywhere. The focus is getting the highest rocket production possible in vanilla without self imposed limitations.

When I'm done I will do it without bots which will be another interesting challenge.

I also have a NESTT playthrough. It is a 16 tile wide ribbon/halo map inside a train. The mod is alpha though and not quite ready, balance issues and stuff. But it's way cooler than a regular ribbon map. I don't work well in constrained spaces though. I really like compressing down designs further and further. But I want to design my compressed blueprints somewhere where I have no space constraints so that I can scale up us much as I want to without running into another factory. The point of designing small blueprints is that you can build big high throughput factories easily later by repeating the optimized design. So being limited in construction space is fine for me, but I don't want to be limited in design space. So while it's interesting it's not really for me. I can recommend it to someone who do like extremely limited space and ore. Unstable ground is a mod I haven't tested but that also seems like the same kind of fun. I might not complete my NESTT playthrough though.

Which is why I also have a designer save with Flatland mod that prevents all the trees and rocks from spawning and can make concrete the natural floor of the world. The challenge is simply to make the best designs for my mega base. All cheats are allowed here, as long as the final blueprint is usable within my mega base build. Toybox is used for infinite supply of everything. Will install Test Mode soon. I have infite space, energy, safety, ore resources and buidling material. And the most important resource: fps/ups! Lol.

I recently started a really intereresting new challenge: No electric network and burner units as much as possible. I have mods for burner assembly machines (crafting speed 0.25) and I'm using only burner inserters with burner leech mod which fixes burner inserters so that they can pull coal when available. If I need to use electricity for buildings that I don't have a burner version of then I use my hot water pipe network so that I can place steam engines next to the buildings and power that machine directly from the machine with unconnected poles only. I like this challenge because it changes the designs a lot. You basically need to have one side of every belt filled with coal before you extract from it with a burner inserter which means multi-ingredient product need special designs since you can't have one ingredient on each side and you can't use long inserters. Blue science will require 4 input belts and 1 output belt, all reachable with only burner inserters! Also requires you to deliver coal to all manufacturing units in a calculated fashion once you get far enough. The electric energy delivers energy to all units easily without any thought required. The slow assembly machines will force me to make grand designs if I want to achieve my goal: Rocket launch and decent production comparable to an average newbie's first rocket launch base. I might use some logistics bots later for low throughput items but since I have no electric network a big logistics network isn't really feasible so I'm going to be using belts mostly.
If anyone wants to try this then I could collaborate on the mod list. I'm currently using the 'No handcrafting challenge'-something-mod (which I then changed myself to allow handcrafting) for it's burner assembly machine since it can do most recipies (but sadly not all). I would like to know about more burner units if you find them, like chemical plants, more capable burner assemblers that can do fluid recipies, radars, labs, rocket silos...