Distant production and more complex chain.

[stylistic_sagi]

Factorio is a great game.
But it lacks a bit of challenge.
My suggestion is that there would be spots created where only certain items can be created.
Now it is only a question about getting ores and oil into your main base. never to get something out.

If you make such a thing it would be more challenging to auatomate stuff and therefore gives more game statisfaction.
For example:
To produce item X wich needs steel and microchips but that factory can only be built on a specific spot.
So you need to bring down ores make steel and microchips and then transport the microchips to that place and create X and then return X back to the main base.

Since we are on an alien planet implementing this into a real thing can be easy.
-natural gas opening wich can,t be transported by pipes.
-geisers
-something volcanic
-another kind of water type
-unharvestale type of ore (diamonds or something)
-etc...

It would be nice to make your factory having to adapt more to the map instead of looking for a good working setup and use it every time again.

[Bart]

You can already do this. Just say to yourself not to build this or that in here, but only over there. Ofcourse you have to listen to yourself when you say that.

[ssilk]

Hm. That are some suggestions in one, but I try to split this a bit for you.

Some items can only be build at a distant area
I would call that "OpenTTD-Mode", cause that is the basic idea of all the transport-tycoon-games.

I must say, I like that and that this has already been suggested (more than once), but - due to the kind of suggestion - it's hard to search/find them.

Random effects
Weather-effects (and I count volcanoes to that) are here:
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=342 Events (Environmental Disasters and Weather)

[TheDagmaar]

Hmmmmmmm..... what if you need resources and factory (or something) to mine the alien artifacts from an alien base? What if there are some free deposits? What if aliens only can build above these deposits? What if I am an idiot and asking stupid questions? What if nobody reads these posts?

[ssilk]

What if that all is already suggested?

[Hannu]

I have done such game. I have about 20 separate factories (iron main, iron smelting factory, green circuit factory, chemical factory, machine factory, space center etc.) in about 3000 x 3000 units area. Just use little rolegaming, set your own limitations and install couple suitable mods and go on.

One of the best things in Factorio is that you can play it with many very different ways. Your kind of suggestion would prevent many of them if it is hard coded in game. In my opinion separate gamemodes would also be waste of programmers time. I prefer that they make new content and functionality and players choose their styles by themselves.

[TheDagmaar]

What if that all is already suggested?

Off:
Oh god! Why we are trying to make some new stuff when EVERYTHING is already ready? =D
So the dews just needs to code faster I guess. Tak-tak-tak-tak! Faster! Faster!
/off

[ssilk]

I do what I can (every week a new whip) but they begin to get blunt:

[Qon]

Things that can only be placed at certain tiles are not blueprintable and just makes it impossible to build big bases. Water already limits where you can build. Water pumps can only be built in water which makes steam power non-blueprintable. Mining/oil outposts are limited to specific spots and also run out, making them non-automatable and also use increasingly much of your time until you only spend your time replacing outposts and don't build anything at all. Train networks are also non-blueprintable and non-automatable and have to be built together with new outposts.

Be very careful when maing suggestions that risk making the game about automation impossible to automate anything at large scale.