Alien Expansion - Aliens need to Produce Something.

[kiba]

I find...aliens...BORING.

They have no logistical requirement to speak of and they spawn infinite aliens from basically nothing. There is no thinking other than, bomb their nests, stop them from spawning.

It would be interesting if aliens has to work for their strength and build actual bases. i would have them mine, transport, and decide what to produce.

Then, as a player, we would be able to decide strategically how to response to those bastard aliens stealing his iron and copper.

For example, bomb their transport network, production facility, smelters....a true industrial war.

Hey, I think it would turn factorio into a grand strategy game.

[ssilk]

Well, that is ... taste. And it depends on your skills. So I move it to balancing and point to
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=13022 World Generation / Map Generator / Game Modes / Scenarios
and
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=16592 Game Setup, Game Configuration, Init Screen, Mod-Config

[kiba]

Well, that is ... taste. And it depends on your skills. So I move it to balancing and point to
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=13022 World Generation / Map Generator / Game Modes / Scenarios
and
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=16592 Game Setup, Game Configuration, Init Screen, Mod-Config

It is not a balancing suggestion. Aliens being hard or easy is not necessarily the same thing as 'interesting'.

Aliens have no industries, or logistics to speak of. They don't produce or build so much as simply spawning. They're not an opponent that you would see in a RTS game, with constraints that they must explicitly operate under.

[ssilk]

It is not a balancing suggestion. Aliens being hard or easy is not necessarily the same thing as 'interesting'.

Indeed I overread the part with "It would be interesting if aliens has to work for their strength and build actual bases. ".
I'll move it back and changed the topic..

And I could say, they already do a lot of work: They stand around and built alien eggs.

What I'm riding around is eventually this: If you say "make them stronger", it doesn't automatically increase the gameplay-value, cause the next will say "Uh, that's too strong, bad game".

[kiba]

It is not a balancing suggestion. Aliens being hard or easy is not necessarily the same thing as 'interesting'.

Indeed I overread the part with "It would be interesting if aliens has to work for their strength and build actual bases. ".
I'll move it back and changed the topic..

And I could say, they already do a lot of work: They stand around and built alien eggs.

What I'm riding around is eventually this: If you say "make them stronger", it doesn't automatically increase the gameplay-value, cause the next will say "Uh, that's too strong, bad game".

Like I said, making them stronger isn't making them interesting. It's making them 'challenging'.

If they say...mine iron and uses it to make stronger biters and spitters, it's TAKING away irons that the players could use.

So you would have three choices on where to attack.

You could target a) their miners at the iron deposit, b) their transport network, c) their hatchery.

Attacking any one of those would disrupt the production of iron-reinforced aliens, but you have to decide what is the good use of your resources.

The iron deposits is so far away behind enemy line that it's pointless. The transport network got glob of biters patrolling it. The hatchery are behind an array of defense towers and walls. But there is an undefended single line of defense...maybe you could send in some terminators...

[aRatNamedSammy]

set your map to very large enemy base, very frequent and very rich... ..... welcome to bitter land..and try to survive.....just to try to make any simple expansion is a challenge

[kiba]

set your map to very large enemy base, very frequent and very rich... ..... welcome to bitter land..and try to survive.....just to try to make any simple expansion is a challenge

It does not make aliens more interesting. There's just more aliens.

[ssilk]

I understand now what you mean: Some more intelligent behavior.

Well, I ahave added it to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=139 Enemy Variations / Enemy Variety / New Enemies / Boss

There is also a thread, I would like to point: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=3440&p=165012&hili ... me#p165012 What do biters do in their spare time? (Pheromone pathfind)

[MeduSalem]

There is also a thread, I would like to point: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=3440&p=165012&hili ... me#p165012 What do biters do in their spare time? (Pheromone pathfind)

I guess this is what the thread here is about... What are the Biters doing all day long?

Currently they pretty much only complain about pollution by attacking your base and that's about it. If you reduce your pollution cloud then not even that is happening.

I think what kiba wants is that the Biters themselves engage more openly in the resource battle/conflict. To begin with I find a whole logistic system for the biters way too calculation intensive... BUT:



For example they could enjoy building their biter nests ontop of resource patches. And depending on the resource type the spawner sits on top it spawns enemies which have different strengths/weaknesses according to the resource type (for example on Iron Patches the Biters/Spiters have a thick Iron-like armor, on Coal they are more like Carbon Fibre or something, etc). The nests could also drop different "alien eggs" accordingly. That alone would make the biters already more interesting.

But on top of that if you don't kill the spawners off the spawners will take a few resources from the resource patch (acting like a mining drill) with every wave of respawned Biters/Spitters. So eventually you have to clear out the nest or otherwise you might have nothing left to mine.

That would introduce another layer of challenge... a race not only against the evolution factor which is depending on pollution, but also in terms of resource conflict since every generation of respawned enemies will drain more resources from the resource patch until nothing is left.



Of course when the Biters look for new spots to build new nests they will look out for new resource patches with no nests on them.

One could take this even a step further... If no resource patches are left in vicinity they will build a nest in the middle of nowhere... and with that they could spawn new resource patches UNDERNEATH the spawners... so basically they "uncover" new resource patches that were hidden underneath the surface, generating/spawning new resource patches in the process.

That would be even more funny... because then you have to decide how big you let a nest grow before killing the nest to harvest the resources or otherwise they might drain the resource patches with their biter waves before you get to mine them.

On the other hand that would also mean you have to let biters be somewhere around your map to let them find/uncover new resource patches (since they are natural talents in uncovering new hidden resources)... which means a real symbiosis. If you kill them all then you only make life harder for yourself because then you have to expand to the edge of the map to uncover new biter nests/resource patches yourself.

So basically this would allow the huge wasteland you leave behind to be resettled with resources eventually, if you are willing to deal with the increasing biter threat again.

[ssilk]

I understand now the conflict with this.

Assuming, that the biters need resources. That is probably not the right way, cause the biters are the natives of this planet and they where here, looooong before you. And they did it, because they took care of the resources. They are the "native americans" or take any other nature peoples.

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND

I just remembered now (and one of that suggestion is also by myself): There are a lot suggestions around thief-biters. New types of natives. See for example this old one: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1234

I already pointed to this thread with all the ideas around them: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=139&p=82957&hilit=native%2A#p82957 Enemy Variations / Enemy Variety / New Enemies / Boss
Search in the linked articles around for "thief" or "steal"...

(and there are really creative other ideas around new types of natives and natives behavior)


I think such a type of enemy would be really fun.
I don't think, the biters should begin to create own production. That is something for Factorio 2.0, when we have 10-100 times faster computers.

[MeduSalem]

I understand now the conflict with this.

Assuming, that the biters need resources. That is probably not the right way, cause the biters are the natives of this planet and they where here, looooong before you. And they did it, because they took care of the resources. They are the "native americans" or take any other nature peoples.

Well yeah, before we (the player) came to the planet they never had an enemy to fight, which means they didn't have to reproduce that fast/often to counter our presence.

Also if they are there this long we can't tell if they didn't already mine half the planet away before we came.

But one could also see it like that... whenever an enemy died they eventually rotted away and their remains got fossilized... for us and the biters to mine again in future generations. Nothing really "vanishes".

I just remembered now (and one of that suggestion is also by myself): There are a lot suggestions around thief-biters. New types of natives. See for example this old one: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1234

I already pointed to this thread with all the ideas around them: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=139&p=82957&hilit=native%2A#p82957 Enemy Variations / Enemy Variety / New Enemies / Boss
Search in the linked articles around for "thief" or "steal"...

(and there are really creative other ideas around new types of natives and natives behavior)

I could live with thief biters as well... I think I recommended something like that in the pheromone pathfinding thread... where some biters might get attracted to certain resources/items which they think of as a possible food alternative.