Getting rid of alien artifacts is a bad idea

[BenSeidel]

So let me get this straight.

You guys want artefacts reintroduced to the game to give some meaning to meaninglessly running out and killing biters because without artefacts it feels hollow and pointless (despite artefacts having zero value past a point) but you still want to do it anyway?

Mkay then.

Could that argument be made about the game in general?
"You guys want assemblers in the game to give some meaning to meaninglessly running around and building things because without production it feels hollow and pointless (despite production having zero value past a point) but you still want to do it anyway?"
It's a game, let people express how they would like to play it and please don't judge them on their preferences.

[Ingress]

I both agree and disagree with this. I think a good way to fix this problem is having 2 paths in the tech tree. One would focus on diplomacy and the other on domination. IE friendly exiting of the planet or saying f the natives, lets kill them and use what we can from them to get the hell of this waste of a planet. Depending on which path you take opens different techs you can research witch will require and possibly open different science packs. I also think this will add a bit of replay value to the game. Don't get me wrong I love the game and I very much enjoyed and still do enjoy the base defense aspect of the game. I like utilizing a static base defense (no lasers) and not allowing bots to deliver ammo. This adds a lot of problem solving to the game. I even utilized a half a belt of ammo and the other half coal with hu8ndreds of burner inserters to feed turrets ammo as they ran low. After a while I transitioned this coal to solid fuel. I very much enjoy the hostility of the aliens but the required artifacts was a burden if you did not have the correct tech to farm them. I an ultimately neutral on this but I see a lot of ways to go bath ways and even a few to satisfy both options utilizing the tech tree.

[Escadin]

Alien science packs didn't add anything to the game - neither the warfare part nor the science automation part. I'm really surprised by the amount of people who supposedly grabbed their guns to go hunt some artifacts on a regular basis. The way I played, I always had WAY too many of them without ever actively searching. Merely driving the aliens off the resources and space I needed was enough to provide me with a life time supply of artifacts. And that's were OP is already wrong: You still need weapons to take the natives resources and ground.
Alien artifacts were just the icing on top and not a very elaborate (or let's say a poorly balanced) one at that.

I would like to see some more tension and necessary aggression between player and aliens, comparable to the campaign. However, alien artifacts never even came close to providing that. Instead of demanding to stick with a pointless mechanic people should ask for something more sophisticated.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Could that argument be made about the game in general?
"You guys want assemblers in the game to give some meaning to meaninglessly running around and building things because without production it feels hollow and pointless (despite production having zero value past a point) but you still want to do it anyway?"
It's a game, let people express how they would like to play it and please don't judge them on their preferences.

Assemblers are in the game to provide a logistic and mathematical challenge to the player, entertainment isn't naturally derived from a thing existing. In the case of Assemblers it is a puzzle to lay them out in such a way that is compact, tidy and (usually, depending on product) expandable. You proceed to lay out several hundred over the course of the game in such a pattern that they complete complex recipes and it is your job to ensure it all runs smoothly and efficiently.

Combat has very little to it. You run out and you hold the space bar. Sure there's different weapons and a tank but at the end of the day it's not difficult, it doesn't test your logic or your reflexes or anything, it's just putting to use some of the items you worked so hard to set up assemblers for. Most players get bored of it very quickly because it isn't particularly engaging and the presence of artefacts doesn't change that, they only make it more tedious because if you're even mildly OCD you have to go around picking them up again afterwards.

So no, you could not make that argument about the game in general.

[AileTheAlien]

But still biters are no real threat and no real fun to engage with and are just boring to deal with.

Sure there's different weapons and a tank but at the end of the day it's not difficult, it doesn't test your logic or your reflexes or anything [...] Most players get bored of it very quickly because it isn't particularly engaging and the presence of artefacts doesn't change that, they only make it more tedious

The solution seems obvious, to me. Make the aliens interesting to deal with; Don't force/reward/incentivize boring gamplay. Alien artifacts are an incentive structure, not an interesting mechanic.

[5thHorseman]

The solution seems obvious, to me. Make the aliens interesting to deal with; Don't force/reward/incentivize boring gamplay. Alien artifacts are an incentive structure, not an interesting mechanic.

I have another solution that is more obvious: Remove them. They're not fun and they're not part of the core game mechanic. I'd think the same thing about a requirement to eat and sleep daily, or a romantic side quest.

That said, I don't *mind* biters all that much, now that I don't have to go and get stuff from them. I really like the "they don't ever expand, ever" mechanic and think they're perfectly fine now that I can set them up on my terms. When victory poling was removed from the game, though, I stopped playing for almost a year.

[AileTheAlien]

It might seem just as obvious to simply remove the aliens, but the tricky thing is, that games need a variety of mechanics and systems. Not only to keep peoples' engagement, but also to stop the game feeling like a chore. The fact that there is a player character in the game to me seems even more silly than the fact that there are aliens in the game, but I would be hesitant to take either the player character or the aliens out of the game. If they were removed (alone or together), that could also make about half of the game obsolete (guns, turrets, trains, etc) which would necessitate removing those things too. It might still be an interesting game at the end of that process, but it would be vastly different.

[Tricorius]

The solution seems obvious, to me. Make the aliens interesting to deal with; Don't force/reward/incentivize boring gamplay. Alien artifacts are an incentive structure, not an interesting mechanic.

I have another solution that is more obvious: Remove them. They're not fun and they're not part of the core game mechanic. I'd think the same thing about a requirement to eat and sleep daily, or a romantic side quest.

I was under the impression that the core premise is to survive a crash landing on a hostile alien planet. The core mechanic is to get better over time at dealing with said hostile world and eventually leave. Seems like the aliens are a pretty core mechanic to making the game feel hostile.

It also seems to me that with advanced settings you can get pretty close to effectively removing them from the game. Or at least basically ignoring them.

I agree with many others here. After I learned the core mechanics of the game I got pretty efficient at burning through the tech tree. Once the research were done, alien artifacts were essentially useless clutter. In the hundreds of thousands in games with high biter settings.

[immibis]

It might seem just as obvious to simply remove the aliens, but the tricky thing is, that games need a variety of mechanics and systems. Not only to keep peoples' engagement, but also to stop the game feeling like a chore. The fact that there is a player character in the game to me seems even more silly than the fact that there are aliens in the game, but I would be hesitant to take either the player character or the aliens out of the game. If they were removed (alone or together), that could also make about half of the game obsolete (guns, turrets, trains, etc) which would necessitate removing those things too. It might still be an interesting game at the end of that process, but it would be vastly different.

Basically this. By removing alien artifacts they have successfully made aliens optional - which means you don't have to go around killing aliens, which means there's not much point to going around killing aliens, which means you might as well just turn them off. Which means there's a bit less of a game now.

[arcturus_88]

I feel like there should be a custom option to select alien artifacts exist or not. That would make it more fun for everyone.

[Hannu]

Basically this. By removing alien artifacts they have successfully made aliens optional - which means you don't have to go around killing aliens, which means there's not much point to going around killing aliens, which means you might as well just turn them off. Which means there's a bit less of a game now.

I do not agree. Actually, there are more game. Or at least more flexible possibilities. Now you have freedom to choose alien activity from large scale. If you want to fight much, set small starting area and hard biter settings. Then you must fight to get room and resources for your factory. If you do not want to fight much, but use resources and think to defense, choose large start area and medium biter settings. And if you do not want to biter element in your game at all, turn them off. I am sure that it is also easy to get those pink balls back with mods soon, if resources are not enough reason for fight. I can not see other problems than someone is annoyed that someone else plays with different style. I am sure that everyone will find suitable settings by playing few test games.

[Silba]

Basically this. By removing alien artifacts they have successfully made aliens optional - which means you don't have to go around killing aliens, which means there's not much point to going around killing aliens, which means you might as well just turn them off. Which means there's a bit less of a game now.

I do not agree. Actually, there are more game. Or at least more flexible possibilities. Now you have freedom to choose alien activity from large scale. If you want to fight much, set small starting area and hard biter settings. Then you must fight to get room and resources for your factory. If you do not want to fight much, but use resources and think to defense, choose large start area and medium biter settings. And if you do not want to biter element in your game at all, turn them off. I am sure that it is also easy to get those pink balls back with mods soon, if resources are not enough reason for fight. I can not see other problems than someone is annoyed that someone else plays with different style. I am sure that everyone will find suitable settings by playing few test games.

The point is that aliens are now completely optional which is a bit silly considering WE ARE ON THEIR PLANET... They definitely need a rework to 1. not be dumb and useless and 2. provide a valuable but optional offensive resource to keep warmongers happy and also not impact at all those who wish to play without biters.

[stm]

From My point of view getting rid of alien artifacts is a huge step in the right direction.
When playing with peacefull aliens you had to actively search them out instead of beeing able to build your base peacefully (which should have been the point of that setting). On the other hand whe you take your time with a game the biters expand so rapidly and close, that I have more than an order of magnitude more artifacts than are usefull to me even without seeking them out, just from clearing bases that were located at places that were bothering me (even without collecting all of them).
So by definition, they were not ballanced. Especially as - like already hass been mentioned - they were the only resource you only could reasonably harvest yourself (exept wood, which has no real worth in the endgame anyway, and can be used as fuel).
Stm

[Deadly-Bagel]

The solution seems obvious, to me. Make the aliens interesting to deal with; Don't force/reward/incentivize boring gamplay. Alien artifacts are an incentive structure, not an interesting mechanic.

The devs have repeated several times they can't give the aliens any usable intelligence without massively impacting the game. I mean you think about games like CoD or Warhammer 40k, most of the processing goes into enemy AI because there isn't really much else going on (other than graphics being processed by the GPU). With Factorio most of the processing is already being used up by the factory itself and as a theoretically nigh-infinitely expandable sandbox the biggest limitation is your processor. You think about how "smart" the AI is in strategy games and that is with a LOT more resources to play with.

There are a few tweaks they could do to make it slightly more engaging, I'd like to see an end to the infinite horde of biters emerging from any nests you attack, but at the end of the day you only want occasional short sessions of biter murder before going back to the real game.

However I don't think removing them is a good answer either. There is a lot of military science and production that would become totally redundant without some kind of antagonist. However good your walls are, gun turrets with no damage research are not going to see you through the game, even with the simplest of AI. It opens up a whole range of production requirements that expand the main aspect of the game and if you do it properly you are rewarded with a touch of gratuitous slaughter every now and then to break the monotony.

[Hannu]

The point is that aliens are now completely optional which is a bit silly considering WE ARE ON THEIR PLANET...

It is purely fictive assumption and does not relate to game. You can imagine as well that you wreck to the planet with no larger animal life than small insects on Earth.

They definitely need a rework to 1. not be dumb and useless

I agree this completely. It is annoying how stupid biters are. I know that devs tell about CPU load but I would prefer small number of enemies with consistent behavior instead of thousand head swarms of superstupid enemies who run straight into their death without any combat tactics of group co-operation.

and 2. provide a valuable but optional offensive resource to keep warmongers happy and also not impact at all those who wish to play without biters.

This is not so clear, in my opinion, if I think the story. I am going to build industry to produce rockets capable of satellite launches. What artifacts could uncivilized anthropod like aliens which are far less clever than ants give to encance that process? I do not want to eating in Factorio. Maybe researching and fabricating of special chemical or biological weapons could need alien body materials or their primitive develop stages (should artifacts be eggs?). But how on Earth piece of alien meat would make better speed module or power armor parts?
Maybe that could be a working tradeoff for all. Destroyed spawners would give alien eggs, which could be used to research and fabricate super efficient poison capsules and tank cannon shells. It would not be necessary but it would give more and better options for offensive warfare. Maybe later research could give some microbes which would infect from one biter individual to another in near contact and kill them during time. It could clear 90 % of biters in whole base in couple of game days.

[Deadly-Bagel]

I know that devs tell about CPU load but I would prefer small number of enemies with consistent behavior instead of thousand head swarms of superstupid enemies who run straight into their death without any combat tactics of group co-operation.

The problem is there usually isn't much difference processing-wise between a small elite squad and a horde. The strategies themselves are different but it's basically "determine suitable weakness in defence and exploit it" so either way it's needing to interpret many variables and calculate a plan of attack. Take a game of chess for example, there are FAR fewer options, pieces and variables plus it's not realtime, but would you say it's a much simpler game to automate in a way that's challenging but processing-efficient?

As for your second point, I think any gain to be had by biters and/or spawners dropping anything is eclipsed by the tedium of needing to go around afterwards picking everything up.

[ziipher]

I agree with the OP.

I understand the artifacts caused issues for strict base builders. That's been fixed by changing recipes. But what about the players who enjoyed the artifacts collection process?

The simple way to make the alien artifacts viable is adding another tab where we choose regular or expensive recipes. This gives the player the option of including them in the game or not.

So then even the players who want biters in the game but don't want to have to farm artifacts, they have their way too.

Devs can also integrate these artifacts into automation as well. Something along the lines of building equipment that farms the leftover bases you destroyed. Once an alien base is destroyed it leaves behind an area that unless you burn it or farm it, it will grow back say 25% of the time with new biters.

Or taking it down another route where you use the alien artifacts to learn more about the biters anatomy. This would open research options for many aspects (critical hits, vital organs of biters to aim for). Or even coming up with recipes like sulfuric acid and alien goop to make a poison to kill them.

Military needs to be separate from base building imo. Some want just base building. Some want base building with the option to fight biters and not farm them. Some want base building, fighting biters, and farming them to come up with greater ways of combating them.

Open the options up, don't remove them from the game.

[Lav]

This is not so clear, in my opinion, if I think the story. I am going to build industry to produce rockets capable of satellite launches. What artifacts could uncivilized anthropod like aliens which are far less clever than ants give to encance that process?

IMHO alien stuff shouldn't be relevant to technological research at all. However it should impact weapons research. And a large number of non-combat techs aimed at interaction with aliens could be introduced as well. Influencing alien expansion and hostility in certain directions (which may have huge impact on PvP). Slowing or accelerating alien evolution. Influencing alien genetics and creating your own alien breeds. Training aliens to be more tolerant to pollution. "Feeder" stations where aliens could get food in exchange for collecting resources for player (effectively semi-taming them). Posing as alien pack leader and leading alien charges into other players bases in PvP...

All these techs could be safely skipped by a player whose interaction with aliens only happens via the laser turrets. For others, those techs could be the entire game focus.

[ftbreizhbugs]

I think alien artifacts and alien science pack could have had a use in infinite damage research: the more you know the alien, the more you are able to spot their weak point ...

[Wakaba-chan]

Agreed with topic-starter. Harvesting alien artifacts was pretty fun point in the game. I think they may have their place in researches. For example, for some special upgrades that relevant bionic-technologies? For example, for advanced manipulators or advanced armor? There are lot of things inventors took from nature and it would be nice to have such researches in the game, I think.

And yet again, it was pretty fun to hunt artifacts and have such non-automatable aspect of the game. Bring it back, please.