Friday Facts #169 - Combat revisit 2

[silverkitty23]

Just a couple thoughts, probably useless:

* You could nerf the stack size of turrets in inventory (as opposed to in boxes). If you had to devote a slot to every turret...

* You could require radar coverage to make turrets work at their full range. Around your base this is no problem, but it might slow down creep a little? Probably not enough, radar is cheap and activates quickly.

[Wolfolo]

I use turret creeping only at the "beginning", to gather some alien artifacts from small nests.
Since artifacts will not be used for (weapon, or any) research, I wouldn't need to do it any more, as I usually wipe out any (yes even the bigger ones) nest with just cluster grenades / combat robots.

Btw some different enemies would be cool, like a Dune's sandworm which might roam around the map or near big nests (and you might need a satellite to find where it is), this will force you to pavement under anything you want to keep safe, and surely you won't pavement around a biters' nest to do some turret creep, not practical.

[AcolyteOfRocket]

Still bothered by turret creep ? Its not a thing, its the side effect of failure. Discussing it as a thing is a mirage, a distraction

If combat is good, turret creep will go away. If not, turret creep will be used as the only practical option, or combat (or the game ) will get dumped anyway.

IMHO the main mistake you made was to make combat armour too powerful and flexible while neglecting tanks. Go-fast legs and roboports are good upgrades to aim for, but shields are too powerfull, compared to tanks. Armour got waaaayy too much attention that should have gone into vehicles and trains.

So put some love into tanks, let us add equipement (yeeeeees I know there are mods for this). Let us set some, or all, of the weapons to autofire, giving a more fun form of limited turret creep. Give us projectors for our capsules. Let us spend meaningful research point on upgrades and let us invest in our machines of war instead of having some psycho-denial-based-mind-lock-crap because we-didn't-want-the-game-to-be-about-mass-murder-or-did-we ?.

I still want artilliery for a combat-free way to clear biter nests, but if you want combat in the game then your design objective should be to make so I never want to deploy artilliery because combat is SOOOOO much fun. We are a long way from that at the moment.

As for the tower defence thing :-

" which you can use to purchase any number of upgrades " - YUCK

Part of the reason Factorio is such a good game is that it avoids mechanics like this. We build - by automation.

Don't lose faith now !!!

[3trip]

As for the tower defence thing :-

" which you can use to purchase any number of upgrades " - YUCK

Part of the reason Factorio is such a good game is that it avoids mechanics like this. We build - by automation.

Don't lose faith now !!!

Simple solution is for bugs to drop resources why they die instead, or allow their bodies to be harvested for resources.

[Kazaanh]

About turret creep/long-turret-walls

*Make turrets less effective if they are close to each other, like very close. They lose dmg or speed or drain more power.
*Add more biter variety/ resistances so you won't be able to spam laser turrets and expect to kill every biter , because some will be more resistant to lasers and some less. That would force players to mix&match turret defenses/creep
*Add a Rhino type of biter, that could block projectiles in front./reduce incoming dmg ( also ram into the walls to open holes for smaller biters )
*Give worms a long range acid attack that will disable turrets temporarily, like shutdown. Should be dodge-able. Or reduce their effectiveness
*Add a turret-animation-setup upon placing, that would take few seconds instead of *pop* theres turret
*Dune worms, they would add a bit more tension because your base could get attacked from inside, to counter it build some underground-radars

but soon or sooner you will have to add more new biters.

[Sigma1]

I support more biters.

[Marcus Aseth]

Sometimes ago I add posted on a Steam topic what I thought would improve the combat and survival aspect in this game, I'll repeat that in this forum as well in the hope devs see it and consider it for future updates

What I would like to see to improve combat and survival side of the game:

The ability to build and set patrols of war bots, war bots logic schedule system, stronger radars, maybe more types of damages and monster with different vulnerabilities and abilities, like fragile flyiers enemies that can bypass traditional defenses and are better countered by tesla coils kind of defense turrets, electrified walls (no stone required, only steel/copper and energy and enemy can pass trough it, but get "zapped"), reactive walls (in the sense that you load them with dynamite and if an enemy hit them, it gets a blast in the face), Energy shields portable devices that if upgraded can even encapsulate the entire base in an energy dome and if attacked drain heavily on your electricity until it black out your system in case you don't have enough extra power (thus only affordable with nuclear power research), upgrade to mines into homing mines and water mines that also counters the new water traveling spitters, new Dune inspired worms that can bypass walls but take triple damage from mines, a chainsaw, which is also good to remove forests in the beggining, wagon platform for the train in which you can place wathever, like 3 turrets so you have defended and lethal convoys, teleports, jetpacks to bypass water pools forests and obstacles in general, maybe using the flamethrower while flying over an alien base, and yes, let's put in a missile as well.

Well, just some ideas, but so much more can give this game the depth I think it deserves combat and survival wise (though already deep in other aspects, i.e. build)

By the way, people here where talking about turret creeps... how it would work out if you add those flyiers enemies I've mentioned?! Projectile shooting Turrets can't aim at those (only the player or the tesla coils in the base or the electrified walls can), so now you killed the turret creeps while adding more content to the game and deepening the strategy side! You're welcome.

[Marcus Aseth]

Now to elaborate on what I said above, one may think "ok, you've added water traveling worms, dune kind of underground worms and even flyer worms, does it mean that now we need mines/water mines and tesla coils in addition to traditional turrets on every side of our base?!"
Well I see how that could be a bother to someone,maybe me included, thus to implement those changes would be required to revise how colony spawn works.
Instead of having all type of worm spawning at every colony, each colony can have at most 1 "specialization", meaning that if produces flyiers then it doesn't produce other "special worms", therefore if the flyier colony is at the north of your base, you shouls expect to need tesla coil defenses only on the north side of the base, thus knowing your surrounding is actually important on planning the defenses. In the same way, water traveling colony can spawn only near water body and they swim inside it (protect your pumps!)

And on top of this, would be cool to have every colony type represented with a different color on map instead of all red.

[SQLek]

Turret creeping... but what other options i have? What with turrets as a support but not main fire power?

For example, i got new base near my train line, and i want take it down.

New biter base

20161217165110_1.jpg (477.49 KiB) Viewed 8987 times

Seems small. I have ca 20 follower bots, military shotgun with damage 6, speed 4.
As for bots, in mass production i have only defenders but bullet upgrades i have 4/4 so they should take worm attention or weaken something.

Ok then lets try non-turret-creep...

...result

20161217165233_1.jpg (202.71 KiB) Viewed 8987 times

Soo yeah. Nerf turrets, buff bitter expansion, disable victory pooling, sure.

Maybe "easy mode" where bitter still attacks, but evolution doesn't grow that fast? I personally want to tinker with my base, and have slow paced game play, not speed run to next tier of weapons.

[AmbulatoryCortex]

I do not like the idea of a minimum range for the flamethrower. It's entirely counterintuitive and will make it annoying to use. It already damages the player, why does it need a minimum range also?

[MeduSalem]

It already damages the player, why does it need a minimum range also?

Probably because it damages the player and Klonan and/or the other devs who played around with it found that behaviour somewhat annoying so they think it might be better to have a minimum range so you don't set your feet on fire by accident?

It at least seems logical to me because that's what happens quite often to me too if I haven't played the game in weeks and start shooting without properly aiming somewhere far away.

Also Klonan raised the damage stacking of fire so my guess is that he probably knocked himself out by one of these accidents because he tried to facetank it.

[SQLek]

The same mission as above with support help from turrets

20161217175052_1.jpg (352.55 KiB) Viewed 8978 times

In my opinion the real problem with overpowered turrets is that other options sucks.
Bitters will swarm you, block you and works will kill you in like two-four shots.

Armors: Modular armor works only for having first construction bots. If you account batteries and shields then power armor is much more economic.

Personal laser: It does nothing. Doesn't prevent being swarmed/blocked end die in process.

Tank: can't call it from another location like train, ammunition is kinda expensive and from forum i think it will be even easier swarmed away than i on foot.

So what alternatives to turrets we have? None.
In end game: Sure, power armor 2, two fusion, four mk2 shields and lots of destroyer bots. But before alternatives simply sucks.

[Marcus Aseth]

In end game: Sure, power armor 2, two fusion, four mk2 shields and lots of destroyer bots. But before alternatives simply sucks.

or 3 Exoskeleton, super fast and impossible to catch

[anarcobra]

I think solutions that make turret creep weaker, like for instance adding a delay to start up, are trying to solve the wrong problem.
The underlying reason for getting rid of turret creep (I think) is to make the game more fun.
Turret creep is used because other approaches are annoying and time consuming.
By making turret creep more annoying to use you just make the game less fun.
Instead, making the player, and other weapons, stronger as suggested in this friday facts seems like a better approach to me.
Also, on max biter settings before you have power armor I don't really see any viable alternative to turret creep at the moment.

[bobucles]

Perimeter defenses HAVE to be hard and for good reason. Once the perimeter is breached, nothing inside has any inherent defensive ability. You could try countering that by placing defenses inside your base, but those same defenses could just be used for a harder perimeter that didn't break in the first place.

I think it would be good for ordinary structures to have some kind of defense. Consider that biters are ripping apart heavy industrial machinery. It's filled with electric wires, heavy moving parts, and looms over their heads in many cases. There is nothing safe about ripping heavy machinery apart, especially with your own bare hands. Let the lesser biters get electrocuted, crushed, and mauled by the very machinery they aim to destroy. This would act as a "soft defense" where you can still lose your perimeter to the enemy, but their maximum damage remains limited. Players can't really abuse such a mechanic for defense because it's WAY more expensive than ammo. Better off not losing your stuff in the first place.

Spitters have infinite ammo so they would be able to shoot a defenseless base apart with impunity. If they had limited ammo they would be forced into melee or retreat, thus ending an unchecked spitter attack.

[SQLek]

Spitters have infinite ammo so they would be able to shoot a defenseless base apart with impunity. If they had limited ammo they would be forced into melee or retreat, thus ending an unchecked spitter attack.

Spawners also have infinite ammo of bitters/spliters that can spawn out of thin air.

Maybe just end this infinite nonsense. For example:

• Laser turret have finite internal buffer and finite charging of it. It will handle attack wave in defense, or as a support, but not as a first line of attack.
• Splitter or spawner also can have finite energy/mana/ammo. Spawners will slowly recharge hp of mobs that they can spawn etc.

[Olipro]

If you're going to make the Flamethrower have a minimum distance then I would be highly in favour of enabling an automatic secondary weapon that is fired whenever you target an enemy that's too close for the flamethrower to fire on, otherwise when raiding bases you're going to get into a very frustrating situation of having to constantly switch weapons in order to take out the units that are swarming you.

[Avezo]

You know what I'd like to read another FFF about? Your plans about fighting agains griefers in multiplayer maps.

[Supercheese]

Tank: can't call it from another location like train

*Cough* *cough*.

[Ghoulish]

I see nothing wrong with turret creeping.

Taking it out of the game just limits the players, and reduces the various options to choose from to achieve the goal of clearing bases, which I have to point out is a bit of a chore and a tedious thing to do anyway. If that's how I or anyone else chooses to clear bases.. Well where is the problem? For me the OP nature of flamethrowers should be nerfed long before turret creeping (And yet there's going to be a stacking feature on them?!). There should be a fast simple way for players to kill enemy bases, and the more variety and choice left to the player in this regard, the better. I feel it should NOT ba a case of our way or the highway, please leave turret creeping in as no one is forced to use it after all. If players want to just clear bases ASAP and have a minimal combat experience - well let them. And if a player wants a deeper more micro orientated play style - well let them have that too! Besides you're adding an artillery train soon, which seems to me to be an even bigger click-and-forget system of killing biters than turret creeping is!

Combat in general needs more than a rebalance however. There should be other types of biters, both mobile and static, combat just feels very flat to me currently with only having 2 types of biter. Add swarming biters, burrowing biters, heavily armoured slow moving behemoths (that'll crawl into your base forcing additional defensive systems!) Or artillery biters, just a little more variety.

It does sadden me that an automation aspect of biter killing isn't being added (like Robot Army) This would fit Factorio down to the ground.