Reclaiming the planet

[eddyvegas]

Here is my main "problem" with the game: I don't see the point of building all this stuff. I really don't care about building a rocket defense, it's not compelling enough to make me want to jump through all those hoops. I think there needs to be an escalating counter need to make me care about building more advanced stuff. I think the concept should be, reclaim the planet. Reclaiming the planet makes perfect sense from the story point of view. You are the vanguard. The settlers are coming. You need to make the place safe for democracy. But there needs to be more to it than 'get to the end of the tech tree'.

The two most basic drives to do this are:

-monsters keep attacking me, I don't like that, I'm gonna kill 'em;
-monsters are camping on resources I need

(Maybe there could be others. Clear land to build houses for the new settlers. Contact a distant outpost on another part of the planet. Something something something.)

So the game starting parameters need to take this into account. Too hard, and the player gets sick of rebuilding his defenses. Too easy, and you don't see the point in advancing down the research tree, like me. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the robust map generation. I think people should be able to play the way they want to. But there needs to be pre-designed Easy Normal Hard Impossible settings where you brilliant designer guys turn Factorio into a game with a beginning, middle, and end, where the pressure to reclaim the planet grows at a steady rate, keeping pace with his technological state, that will make the player build all that new stuff.

And yeah, I know it's alpha, and you probably thought of all this already. Whatever. I'm predisposed to like your game already (I'm working on a YouTube review), I'm just wishing you the best.

[Zourin]

part of it is that the game suffers a fair bit of 'turtle syndrome' where players generally fall into a passive-aggressive 'wall and tower' scenario until they need purple packs This makes the game significantly less dynamic, particularly since you have to reload 6+ times to find even a viable starting position (unless you like cuddling with biters near infested resources).

The new abundance of virtually invisible trees (or porous walls of forest) has made even getting around by car troublesome, further reducing player ranges.

IMO, given the reasonably well designed map generation (sans starting zone standards), most of the dynamic gameplay would emerge from the ways that players spread out in organic (or inorganic) ways along the map. Less repetitious 'superfortress construction', and a little more of the 'territory expansion' has been something I've been hoping for in the long run.

[Coolthulhu]

The worst part of map generation and early game IMO is getting all 4 base resources (iron, copper, stone and coal) in convenient location. If there was "guarantee all base resources around start" setting (I recall always having everything at spawn around 0.8), early game on "hard" would require much less bullshit.

Designating difficulty levels in a game without clear definition of "progress" is rather hard to do right. You often get serious difficulty spikes. Recent example most people know about: Skyrim - if you go for crafting early on, everyone will 1-hit you, later it makes you invincible.

In Factorio, if you went by tech tree advancement, you'd get a very tedious optimal gameplay. Giving the player a choice between fun and effective is one of the worst things that happen in game design (it always happens to a degree, but still should be minimized). Staying in "stone age" with no car would mean running everywhere.
If you went by resources gathered, turtling behind trees with tons of productivity modules and low infrastructure overhead would be good.
You could go with arbitrary points in time based on someone's gameplay - this one would be relatively foolproof and wouldn't have a cheap trick to override. But it would be a time limit - time limits in sandbox games tend to be one of the most disliked features.

[Zourin]

time limits in sandbox games tend to be one of the most disliked features.

However, because of the mutation factor in Biters, this is effectively the case. You're on the clock before they tier up to mediums/larges and overrun your location, and then to keep your defenses paced ahead of them. Having high pollution ratings, such as triple-productivity chipping, can significantly accelerate this timer. It's one of my biggest beefs with prod chips. In my book, they're suicide chips.

[Coolthulhu]

It doesn't really count as a time limit if it's this dependent on player actions, doesn't result in immediate loss and stops having any effect if you remove "offending" buildings. If you go slow, you can get all upgrades that don't require purples before mediums start spawning.

[Tami]

Pollution could be a factor that will be harder to manage, so you have to Spread your Factory to split the Pollution to keep Pollution ina single Factory low. For example if you exceed a Pollution Value, the enemy sends Mega Biters like Brain Bugs.

It could be managed by a intern growrate. For example a Pollution for 70 (fictive Number) gives a Growrate of 2 (fictive Number) to an affected Alienbase. That means every 10 Minutes the enemy gets Stronger. That means after 60 Minutes of Pollution, the Base reaches Level 12 (2 per 10 minutes). If the Pollution becomes 20 for example, the Base gets weaker (-2 per 10 Minutes for example). If the Base reaches Level 36, the enemies starts sending Mega Biters, they are slow and dont(!) chase the Player, they go straight to the Factory.

The Mega Biters also gets Stronger.
At level 36 they have 50% reduced damage Taken.
It increases by 4% per Level. At Level 48 they have 100% reduced damage taken.
Mega Biters have the same Level like the Base who sends it. That means if the base decreases in Level, the Megabiter gets weaker too and can be killed again.

In this case you have to do huge amount of Pollution for 4 hours. So if you spread your Factory, single enemy bases dont reach such amount of strength.

[RMJ]

Maybe its just me. But the first thing that struck me while playing this. Was if the aliens or whatever they are actually could build as well as you. and had their organic way to get resources and spread creep like thing. It could even be possible for the player to play them.

But yeah taking over the planet, it needs more continuation, like you bring resources into next mission. you explore a few techs each mission. You kinda see your progress, you win sectors, but in the mean time you can loose sectors. So its an on going battle. The more defences you set up combined with good automation the longer the factory base can hold out.

Kinda like you could the old Command and conquer games, where you pick the next area / sector to attack, and after you where done, you would see other sectors being won by the other factions.

This game definitely has lots of potential. I really hope there is gonna be a good story line with interesting plot twists and stuff. Because i love the gameplay. I hope they can incorporate the reclaiming the planet, in a fun, interesting and visual way, so you feel like you are on a journey.

You could maybe even do it so you have your main hub base area, where all your complex building / factory is and evoling over time, but as you use up all resources and you fight the aliens in new sectors, you build up small outposts after you clean the sector and then construct railroad to then send resources back to your main factory sector to again build more there and expensive and research or something..

I would hate to loose the depth and complexity of this game, but having to rebuild everything each and every mission, that would get old fast not to mention time consuming, and it would be sad if it were dumbed down.

[Hyena Grin]

Frankly, I'd like to see the game expand to the point where you must create expensive and tech-heavy habitat structures which allow the colonists to actually arrive. They would be AI controlled and would provide a new tier of products/resources/features based on the human-operated structures you build for them. But for the most part it's just your job to keep them safe and supply their habitats and workshops with materials, unlocking new building and tech options. Different structures could be introduced to add in new game mechanics, like a space port where you can trade goods/resources for goods/resources, and perhaps special expensive modules/gear that can only be purchased. Kind of an optimistic wishlist, but I can hope.

Another thing which would promote exploration is more varied and unique terrain features/biomes with unique resources which, although not required for mandatory construction, might be used for more specialized, powerful, unique construction. Some modules or weapons could be locked to resources that can only be found via exploration, for example.

[BinaryMan]

Well, with like a medium starting zone if you do have enough resources nearby (or can make a path to them that doesn't trigger attacks), then you don't even have to face a single one if you control pollution. I used the effectivivity modules on the stuff that pollutes like 9, then on my regular factories, but didn't find the other types worth it from a power consumption standpoint let alone pollution. I ran mainly solar and left the forest that was near me mostly intact, and built a wall but didn't see a single biter until like 30 hours in or something. Yeah eventually you have to go kill them, but by then I had most of the tech, took out easy ones to get power armor, and the rest was relatively easy even with large biters. I had like 200 laser cannons and walled off the base.

It leads you to wall in and play a passive defensive game.

[just_dont]

Well, with like a medium starting zone if you do have enough resources nearby (or can make a path to them that doesn't trigger attacks), then you don't even have to face a single one if you control pollution. <...>

It leads you to wall in and play a passive defensive game.

That's why when I feel like playing a building game, I set nests frequency to "very low" and starting zone to "very large" (there's also "peaceful mode", but I don't like that at all).
You still are likely to pollute some nests when you go full-scale automation (blue potions and up), but at least there're no limiting factors before that, and you can fully automate smelting and early mass-production of some needed things; all that without subjecting yourself to biters' attacks.
Slow start can be fun to try once or twice, but after that it becomes boring.

[scatterlogical]

Frankly, I'd like to see the game expand to the point where you must create expensive and tech-heavy habitat structures which allow the colonists to actually arrive. They would be AI controlled and would provide a new tier of products/resources/features based on the human-operated structures you build for them. But for the most part it's just your job to keep them safe and supply their habitats and workshops with materials, unlocking new building and tech options. Different structures could be introduced to add in new game mechanics, like a space port where you can trade goods/resources for goods/resources, and perhaps special expensive modules/gear that can only be purchased. Kind of an optimistic wishlist, but I can hope.

I think this is an utterly brilliant idea - very large in scope, but perhaps something fitting for an expansion or a mod? As wonderful as Factorio is, it gets lonely with nothing but inserters and logistic bots to talk to.

[GewaltSam]

Frankly, I'd like to see the game expand to the point where you must create expensive and tech-heavy habitat structures which allow the colonists to actually arrive. They would be AI controlled and would provide a new tier of products/resources/features based on the human-operated structures you build for them. But for the most part it's just your job to keep them safe and supply their habitats and workshops with materials, unlocking new building and tech options. Different structures could be introduced to add in new game mechanics, like a space port where you can trade goods/resources for goods/resources, and perhaps special expensive modules/gear that can only be purchased. Kind of an optimistic wishlist, but I can hope.

Another thing which would promote exploration is more varied and unique terrain features/biomes with unique resources which, although not required for mandatory construction, might be used for more specialized, powerful, unique construction. Some modules or weapons could be locked to resources that can only be found via exploration, for example.

Just yesterday I thought a bit about the endgame, and I came to something similar to your first part: build some structures for the settlers to arrive, like a big shuttle airport where you need to finish different buildings and fill up resource tanks for them to arrive. But in my opinion, I don't want to see settlers running around except for the victory screen. I think some of the charm of the game is that you are completely on your own (with regards for multiplayer: you and your team), and you need to get everything ready for the other humans. That's why you automate everything. There are enough games out there like the model you described, but i haven't played a lot (if even any) like Factorio. And the desolation and solitude of that planet only add to that.

Just my two cents.

[ssilk]

Just yesterday I thought a bit about the endgame, and I came to something similar to your first part: build some structures for the settlers to arrive, like a big shuttle airport where you need to finish different buildings and fill up resource tanks for them to arrive. But in my opinion, I don't want to see settlers running around except for the victory screen. I think some of the charm of the game is that you are completely on your own (with regards for multiplayer: you and your team), and you need to get everything ready for the other humans. That's why you automate everything. There are enough games out there like the model you described, but i haven't played a lot (if even any) like Factorio. And the desolation and solitude of that planet only add to that.

Just my two cents.

Thats nearly my thought: I think that the settlers will arrive and stream into their homes. This phase needs to be very fast, cause they already begin to use the food and it would be bad, if the last settlers arrive the first half has been starved by hunger.

[LostAlone]

I'd definitely like to see some more direction built into the game.

The game just isn't a creativity toy in the same way that Minecraft and it's like are. In fact, I think it suffers from the same exact problems as the original Terraria did. You can only build in two dimensions which radically limits your ability to build things and feel a sense of accomplishment from them. You could theoretically make pictures but you can't really make objects. Factorio, at least as it is today, isn't the kind of game where you can just make your own fun. You can keep building bigger and better and more efficient, but that's about it and while that's really cool, it's also all you can do. You can't just decide you want a skull fort made of diamond and work diligently for many months to make that so.

When Starbound was released I played it for way longer than Terraria, even though they start out as literally the same game. Why? You have the freedom to explore and screw about to your hearts content. No-one is ever going to make you progress further along the progression tree if you don't want to. But when you have created all you want to it tells you what to do next, pointing you towards the next stage on the tech tree with all of it's exciting new possibilities.

I feel Factorio would strongly benefit from this kind of progression - Having just some kind of continuing goal that you can be working towards, in fact that really justifies the kind of megaprojects that I see people working on. As of yet I have never once felt any need to learn how to use logistics bots and trains because nothing that I've ever done has required anything beyond belts. Yes, long belts at times, but still, I had all the resources I ever needed and just... It felt a bit pointless to build these things since everything was running pretty well.

Actually building the colony would be awesome, and it doesn't even have to be that complex just buildings that you create and eventually you can signal back home that the colony is ready and they can come show up. And maybe that's game over and you get scored based on how many colonists you can support, or maybe it's not and the game switches over to a more time pressured thing where the colonists continually demand more and better living space, less pollution, less biter attacks and so forth and the focus of your production has to go from research to expansion but it's still all down to you.

Every one of my games so far I want to just keep rolling in that first session, but when I come back I kinda can't see the point of still going in the same game and just start over. At some point it'd be fun to go the whole way to the top of the tech tree, but the beginning part is by far the most compelling because you are against the clock and have to balance competing needs. Once I'm starting on oil industry and have everything walled off and protected it all feels like a bit of a foregone conclusion. Having greater goals would definitely help push the game over the top, and make a single persistent game that you play continually for months seem much more plausible.

[Akrai]

The settlers are coming. You need to make the place safe for democracy