[MOD 1.1] Natural Evolution - All things Alien!

[Berkys32]

Hi!
I really like idea of this mod. It increases difficulty in way i like - more HP for spawners, more enemies and so.
But only expansion is quite unbeatable for me - at first Im playing mostly in work, second I dont like "rush" or "grind" games. So everytime before I was able to reach far deposits, there were spawners everywhere. Best solution i found is sniper rifle with ammo from Bio Industries (2 shot for spawner), but even in this way my ammo stock for turrets is depleting really quick. Not because of low damage - its one shot, one kill - but because of number of enemies that come every time i destroy spawner. Than i got stuck in one or other way - Im almost out of ammo, so i have to wait for new. But before I fabricate enough ammo, spawners respawn (victory poles doesnt work - spawners are spawning right next to them) and Im in situation where I was before. Or worse, Im out of resources...
So I was looking for some more "easy" setup. Turn "normal" mod in config doesnt seem to change anything in current game, so later I just turned off whole expansion, so I could clear some spawners. Event though I wasnt able to survive, so I have to start new game. Right after some time i remember I still without expansion mod, so I turned it on. So this is where my first question came from:

1)What will be different for me, when I use NE - Expansion AFTER starting new game?
2)Is there any max Evo rate from time - Vanilla / NE?
3)Is Normal / Hard mode affecting current games?
4)Is "spawners everywhere" state meant as "game over" - like were not supposed to deal with it?
5)If I secure all pollution not getting to spawners, will I get 0 Evo increasing from pollution?

Thank you for this mod!

[TheSAguy]

1)What will be different for me, when I use NE - Expansion AFTER starting new game?
2)Is there any max Evo rate from time - Vanilla / NE?
3)Is Normal / Hard mode affecting current games?
4)Is "spawners everywhere" state meant as "game over" - like were not supposed to deal with it?
5)If I secure all pollution not getting to spawners, will I get 0 Evo increasing from pollution?

Thank you for this mod!

Thanks for all the feedback and questions.
Let me start by saying that I feel the mod was pretty well balanced for 0.12, but 0.13 has brought new enemy behavior. (For the better)

I don't have a ton of time to test and balance and when I do, I play with RSO, Bobs and Bio-ind.

Now to answer some of your questions.

1. No problem adding to existing game, the problem comes with removing.

2. No, N.E.'s time based evo is 10x slower than vanilla, but if you start a game and do nothing, eventually (very long time) the evo will reach 100%

3. Yes, hard increases health and resistance, bio damade and some expansion settings like group size.

4. Not sure what you're talkingabout here. There are 10 phases of expansion and Armageddon. Each phase gets harded and harder. Again 0.13 made v-poles go away, so it is already harder by default.

5. N.E. penalizes you for pollution much more than Vanilla, so play green! If you stop pollution from reaching spawners, evo won't go up due to pollution. Hint, use gardens (bio-ind).

I want people to lose the first, second and possibly 3rd game using the NE mods. You need to chande your play stile. Green and focus on defensive tech.

EDIT: It sounds like you're doing most things correct. Just focus on not polluting, using solar and/or gardens.
Create a artifact collection area. Thumpers works well.
Use Bio Cannon to help with expansion.
Research all turret and bullet upgrades
Use terraforming stations to bring evo down
Make sure you secure your next resource before the current one is out.


P.S. bonesbro is helping me tweak expansion mod a little, will release an ypdate this coming week.
Also, this is the settings I play with:

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[Berkys32]

I play with RSO, Bobs, Bio too plus few more

1) So if I add Expansion mod to current game, it changes penalties from time and pollution? And wheres problem with removing? I removed Expansion mod and played for some time, and only different thing was that spawners were respawning much slower (but not sure if even respawning)

4) Im talking about "state", where spawners expanded so much that they are literary everywhere around your base. Its normal, or did something wrong?

5) I dont use gardens, I just build circle from trees around my base. If its thick enough, it will stop all pollution to go through to spawners.

6) I find Bio-Canon useless. Its ammo is pretty expensive, at it needs about 10 basic ammo for one spawner. Thats pretty much compared to two shots of bio ammo from sniper rifle or turret. I didnt try better ammo for Bio-cannon, but just from recipes I can see that damage isnt so much bigger and cost for poison capusle is quite expensive too... But in my eyes, it seems weird that two shots from sniper rifle can destroy spawner, but that huge canon needs 10 shots. I would like it to be opposite - two shots from cannon, 10 from sniper rifle...
7) Can you explain what those "states" mean? Like phase 1 means that some amount of enemies attack me and one spawner spawns somehere? Or one spawner in every region?

8) How can I affect where spawners spawn? In my last game, I was around 22% evo-rate for quite long time (green power + baterries + T stations + tree wall), but spawners where everywhere (literary everywhere, as I said before), and another were spawning just ouside of range of my sniper turrets, so all enemies that spawned almost immidetly attacked me. Constant attacks made me unable to gather ammo to expand...

In my last game:
I was able to have constat Evo rate at +/- 22% due to solar power (steam just sometimes in night, when weather over day was too bad so batteries wont recharge enough), 4 T - stations.
Due to constant attacks and many destroyed spawner I had hundreds of artifacts
As I said - i find Bio Cannon useless. I dont have problems to destroy spawners, im unable to survive attacks that come bcs I attacked spawners. If I want to expand, after some time Im out of ammo, so I have to stop. Bcs that way I made longer border, more attacks come, Im not able to make enough ammo - game over
More research wont help - now its one shot - one kill (I use mostly sniper turrets), so more damage is useless. And there isnt any research for Bio Canon atm.

As I said - At moment, when I was able to expand (research for trains and so), I cant go through spawers everywhere. So now Im trying to Normal option from start to see, if there will be less spawners. And Ill try to destroy sometimes...

(Im not complaining, just debating. I understand your goal. But my style isnt much different from one that should be victorious, and Im not sure where I made mistake. But i want to know, so I can play better next time)

[Jools]

Im fine with hardiness with NE in 0.13, but stability issues trouble me. In my actuall game at 40% evolution, biters started to attack each other causing huge fps drop (its more like bullet time).

Screenshot:

[TheSAguy]

Im fine with hardiness with NE in 0.13, but stability issues trouble me. In my actuall game at 40% evolution, biters started to attack each other causing huge fps drop (its more like bullet time).

Jools, please give V6.1.0 a try. Veden was so kind to write some code that should help with the Biter Civil war.

[TheSAguy]

V6.1.0 - NE Buildings: Added a living wall. It will heal itself, but can't be fixed by repair packs. It also defends itself.
V6.1.0 - NE Enemies: Civil War Fix. Loot won't drop if enemies kill each other. Some other minor tweaks.

Download on Mod Portal.
I should have Expansion released later this week.
Berkys32, I'll answer you tomorrow.

[Jools]

Patch 6.1 - Confirmed FIX to civil war and bullet time.
I just loaded my yesterday load with massive civil war and now its gone. Perma 60 FPS is back.

[Berkys32]

Why mods cant be updated using in-game option, but can be installed this way?

[Jools]

Why mods cant be updated using in-game option, but can be installed this way?

I updated NE mods to 6.1 via Mods menu in game.

[Jools]

@TheSAguy
A question about Pollution Cleaner - aint it abit overpowered?
I mean 5-10 of them and your pollution is droping (even with consequential 10% bonus punish).

[TheSAguy]

@TheSAguy
A question about Pollution Cleaner - aint it abit overpowered?
I mean 5-10 of them and your pollution is droping (even with consequential 10% bonus punish).

I agree. I've just released an update. The pollution deduction is not -20 vs. -30. Also, when the next NE Expansion version comes out, Pollution penalty will be x2.5 vs. the current x2.

[TheSAguy]

I play with RSO, Bobs, Bio too plus few more

1) So if I add Expansion mod to current game, it changes penalties from time and pollution? And wheres problem with removing? I removed Expansion mod and played for some time, and only different thing was that spawners were respawning much slower (but not sure if even respawning)

If you remove NE Expansion, the current Phase settings will persist in your save. So if Expansion was false (During Peace) you won't have any more expansion. Some with all the other settings.

4) Im talking about "state", where spawners expanded so much that they are literary everywhere around your base. Its normal, or did something wrong?

I think this is more to do with 0.13 than my mod. "Victory Poles" was removed, so bases will spawn closer than they use to. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I like it .
When I release the next version of NE Expansion, I'll make it be easier in the beginning than vanilla, meaning that bases will spawn further away, and get harder and harder with each phase, having vanilla settings be around phase 3

5) I dont use gardens, I just build circle from trees around my base. If its thick enough, it will stop all pollution to go through to spawners.

Cool, same outcome. Though 1 garden = a lot of trees. Like 20K

6) I find Bio-Canon useless. Its ammo is pretty expensive, at it needs about 10 basic ammo for one spawner. Thats pretty much compared to two shots of bio ammo from sniper rifle or turret. I didnt try better ammo for Bio-cannon, but just from recipes I can see that damage isnt so much bigger and cost for poison capusle is quite expensive too... But in my eyes, it seems weird that two shots from sniper rifle can destroy spawner, but that huge canon needs 10 shots. I would like it to be opposite - two shots from cannon, 10 from sniper rifle...

Well, let's disagree here. I find the Bio Cannon Extremely useful when expanding in late game.
Remember to also try the Alien control stations. They can be nasty

7) Can you explain what those "states" mean? Like phase 1 means that some amount of enemies attack me and one spawner spawns somehere? Or one spawner in every region?

There are a lot of settings that get adjusted with each Phase. With higher evolution, your chances to hit a higher phase goes up. Here is the settings that get adjusted:

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		local min_Base_Spacing = 5
		local max_Expansion_Distance = 5
		local building_coefficient = 0.15 -- vanilla 0.1
		local other_base_coefficient = 2.1 -- vanilla 2.0
		local neighbouring_chunk_coefficient = 0.6 -- vanilla 0.5
		local neighbouring_base_chunk_coefficient = 0.5 -- vanilla 0.4	
		local settler_Group_Min_Size = 2
		local settler_Group_Max_Size = 4
		local min_Expansion_Cooldown = 60
		local max_Expansion_Cooldown = 120
		local max_Group_Radius = 30
		local min_Group_Radius = 5

8) How can I affect where spawners spawn? In my last game, I was around 22% evo-rate for quite long time (green power + baterries + T stations + tree wall), but spawners where everywhere (literary everywhere, as I said before), and another were spawning just ouside of range of my sniper turrets, so all enemies that spawned almost immidetly attacked me. Constant attacks made me unable to gather ammo to expand...

Not really, again in 0.13 bases are allowed to spawn closer. My mods just make the groups of enemies bigger. As said before, in the next release I'll make early phases easier than Vanilla.

In my last game:
I was able to have constat Evo rate at +/- 22% due to solar power (steam just sometimes in night, when weather over day was too bad so batteries wont recharge enough), 4 T - stations.
Due to constant attacks and many destroyed spawner I had hundreds of artifacts
As I said - i find Bio Cannon useless. I dont have problems to destroy spawners, im unable to survive attacks that come bcs I attacked spawners. If I want to expand, after some time Im out of ammo, so I have to stop. Bcs that way I made longer border, more attacks come, Im not able to make enough ammo - game over
More research wont help - now its one shot - one kill (I use mostly sniper turrets), so more damage is useless. And there isnt any research for Bio Canon atm.

As I said - At moment, when I was able to expand (research for trains and so), I cant go through spawers everywhere. So now Im trying to Normal option from start to see, if there will be less spawners. And Ill try to destroy sometimes...

(Im not complaining, just debating. I understand your goal. But my style isnt much different from one that should be victorious, and Im not sure where I made mistake. But i want to know, so I can play better next time)

At 22% Evo you should have no problem killing enemies with basic ammo, and a few upgrades. If you can't expand at 22% you're screwed.
I'll have to plan better and secure new sources of copper and iron before you run out.

Very Brief way I play:
Get power ASAP, that way you don't have any burner miners. They do 9 pollution each.
Once you have power, replace all burners with electric drills.
Get turrets, get first damage and speed upgrades.

No you can or go for solar or gardens. Or both.
Use rail to get to new resources. Biters can't destroy your rail.
Supply your outposts. I usually have all my trains have 3 wagons. 2 for ore and one for supplies.

Build a few T-Station once you're able.

Setup artifact collection network.

What you could also try is use your own worms. They don't use ammo...
Control Station can be deadly. I sometimes use them to expand.

And the Bio Cannon. You can safely take out bases from a distance. Then move your turret wall.

Again 0.13 has brought a lot of new challenges and I have not yet completed a game myself on 0.13, RL is keeping me busy and I don't get to play that much.

[orzelek]

Few things:
1. Killing spawner by hand at 22% evo... might get hairy without some heavy tricks. Or flamer. And lots of turrets as backup (Or sniper turrets )
2. Please don't punish pollution more because of adding the bio-garden to different mod. Evolution reducing buildings are far enough already to have problems obtaining them in games modded for longevity. And after you get them.. it can get very-very easy. So I'm not using those and would like that kind of gameplay to be still viable

As for 0.13 - migration is nasty now. I'm getting only to phase 2-3 I think and biter bases migrate 10-15 tiles away from sniper turrets on perimeter defences. I needed to make additional mini forts to actually keep certain areas biter-free.
Edit:
Addition - they will migrate to location inside sniper turret range and build spawner there. So new spawne less then 30 tiles from turrets and phase states paceful when it happens

[Matryoshka]

Hi! After update I got that error :

Code: Select all

 "Natural_Evolution_Enemies 6.1.0"
__Natural_Evolution_Enemies__/libs/recipe-functions.lua:75: attempt to concatenate local 'item' (a table value)

[TheSAguy]

Hi! After update I got that error :

Code: Select all

 "Natural_Evolution_Enemies 6.1.0"
__Natural_Evolution_Enemies__/libs/recipe-functions.lua:75: attempt to concatenate local 'item' (a table value)

Matryoshka,
I'm not getting this error.
Did you change any config settings?

Thanks.

[funnysunnybunny]

Few things:
1. Killing spawner by hand at 22% evo... might get hairy without some heavy tricks. Or flamer. And lots of turrets as backup (Or sniper turrets )
2. Please don't punish pollution more because of adding the bio-garden to different mod. Evolution reducing buildings are far enough already to have problems obtaining them in games modded for longevity. And after you get them.. it can get very-very easy. So I'm not using those and would like that kind of gameplay to be still viable

As for 0.13 - migration is nasty now. I'm getting only to phase 2-3 I think and biter bases migrate 10-15 tiles away from sniper turrets on perimeter defences. I needed to make additional mini forts to actually keep certain areas biter-free.
Edit:
Addition - they will migrate to location inside sniper turret range and build spawner there. So new spawne less then 30 tiles from turrets and phase states paceful when it happens

I second this
I'm not always fast enough to cope with the increase in Biters and I'm using all kinds of mods that put very high constraints on achieving anything above military2 and electric furnaces are really complex and expensive to get, so I have a very long phase of gigantic pollution, for the first 20% I now have considerably less time than I had in prior games and in the game before that I already was at 55% when just breaching Techlevel3
are there any options in the config to change the weighs? I'll have a look again
and I also prefer forests over gardens

[Matryoshka]

Well, yes. Forgot about it. I changed difficult and extra loot setting. Game launched when I had changed these value as it was before (i.e difficult to 1 and extra loot to false)

And I got it why error appear: I have SupremeWarfare mod which contain small artifact too. Therefore when in one of mods I removed this item I had to do this with another one and conversely.

Anyway thanks for remind me

[TheSAguy]

Well, yes. Forgot about it. I changed difficult and extra loot setting. Game launched when I had changed these value as it was before (i.e difficult to 1 and extra loot to false)

And I got it why error appear: I have SupremeWarfare mod which contain small artifact too. Therefore when in one of mods I removed this item I had to do this with another one and conversely.

Anyway thanks for remind me

Is there a SupremeWarfare for 0.13? I don't see it on the Portal.
I'll dig into this a little when I have the time.

[Matryoshka]

Is there a SupremeWarfare for 0.13? I don't see it on the Portal.
I'll dig into this a little when I have the time.

Ported myself. Just added couple of strings such as turrets radius and maybe something else (Run game -> Search error string file -> Try to edit -> Repeat ).

[chlue]

Hello TheSAguy,

I have recently made a new play trough and was unhappy that the mineable worms were filling up the inventory at various health level, so I made this change which completely heals the worms upon mining. Due to only getting the exhausted variants it should not impede gameplay (would obviously be imbalanced with normal directly replaceable turrets)

control.lua inside function On_Remove

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  --- fully heal the items that need a refresh in the alien hatchery anyway to avoid having multiple item stacks for damaged items.
  if event.name ~= defines.events.on_entity_died then
    if (
      event.entity.name == "small-worm-turret-player" or
          event.entity.name == "medium-worm-turret-player" or
          event.entity.name == "big-worm-turret-player"
    ) then
      event.entity.health = 100000 -- Note: Just needs to be higher or identical to maxhealth
    end
  end

You may want to apply this to the spawners too.

Additionally why did you comment out 'force = "enemy"' in the SpashDmg definition in worms.lua? This means that the splash dmg let the worms dmg each other and surrounding structures (walls, normal turrets, themself,...) This really makes them quiet unusable as 'team players'. Was this a desired change such that they only useful as 'lone warriors' or an accident?

Also in locale.cfg you should make some replacements (I fear some of this garbage is from me...)
- liveforms --> lifeforms
- strutures and strucutures--> structures
- Extreamly --> Extremely
- Nutrientant --> Nutrient
- ememy --> enemy

I also wonder if the worms deserve a slight buff against spitters. They hold up reasonsable against biters, but spitters doing 10, 20, 30 and 50 acid dmg and the worms only have 3, 5 and 7 flat dmg reduce against acid dmg. I am always surprised how quickly a bunch of small spitters were out a medium worm, but maybe thats still fair. Once the worm fires back they die as flies,...

I am just to lazy to create a proper github pull request because I am still on Natural_Evolution_Buildings_6.0.4 and don't want to rebase.