Resource depletion or infinite resources?

[0positivo]

I have gotten the game very recently, and just got into the whole oil extraction part... and found that oil isn't a numbered resource, but rather an infinite, "X per tick", resource

And I found that really interesting, considering it's quite different than any other resource

Then, just today I experienced my first resource depletion from my iron mine, and am then in the process of relocating my entire iron line. And this got me into thinking:

Do I actually like that? Do I like having to tear down a major part of my factory, including coal supply, power cable, and iron plate to assembler delivery?
Part of me says that's it's the entire point. That's where the challenge lies into, having to constantly move forward as some kind of ore eating mechanical insect, slowly devouring the entire world.
That's rational. Irrationally, I can't help but feel that I like the Oil approach a lot better. Sure, that line might have been newbish, and flawed, and ugly, but I spent HOURS building it, defended it against invasions, and now I have to scrap it all, without any way to prevent it. Depletion might come late, but it's inevitable

What do you guys feel? And what is the feeling you devs want us to experience?

As far as me, am I going to miss out much if I install one of those "no depletion" mods out there? I'm really considering it...

[BurnHard]

I also don't like to tear down parts of my factory just because of depleted resources.

I like the way oil works and have proposed that copper/iron/stone/coal should work just like that a few months ago. With proper balancing these "endless resources" will not feel "cheaty", I really hope the devs are testing and considering

(Oils get's down to 10% of the original production over time, balancing would involve the initial rate and the timespan from 100% to 10% production" The "endless resource" mod works that way, you need to expand and find new resourcefields nevertheless, but you can keep your old structures.

[Teurlinx]

I think it's fair enough. Oil always seems to drop to a trickle when you need it most. (The yield will go down to only 0.1/s over time)

Also, you don't need to break down your base. Just move the resources to the base. I always see these let's plays obsessing with tearing down and rebuilding, I don't get it.

[just_dont]

Oil is very far from being "practically infinite", it's only "technically infinite" at the moment. To support even such a (relatively) minor thing for the oil industry as blue potions production, you'll need LOTS of those "depleted" 0.1/s oil wells.

[Garm]

Problem with infinite resources is that players would entrench even more into their factories.

Right now I have no need to expand my oil network simply because I do not use it fast enough even at the lowest output possible, while ore nodes, while plentiful still encourage me to expand.


Infinite ore "could" work if:

- amount produced per node is very small.
- nodes are rare and far spread out.
- no nodes present near player spawn.


This way players would still need to expand further and further in order to satisfy their factories hunger for ore, but wont need to deconstruct mining platforms so often.

[0positivo]

That's some good food for thought. For some reason, I had also never considered to detach my extraction from my production area... I have just been comining the two quite closely all the time

Infinite ore "could" work if:

- amount produced per node is very small.
- nodes are rare and far spread out.
- no nodes present near player spawn.

That' interesting, and I do agree a lot.
Here's a thought, tho. What if the current way it's set up were to stay (with depletion), and in fact make the ore nodes even smaller, but allow for some later tech to tap into deeper deposit, and eventually even the crust?

[Garm]

That' interesting, and I do agree a lot.
Here's a thought, tho. What if the current way it's set up were to stay (with depletion), and in fact make the ore nodes even smaller, but allow for some later tech to tap into deeper deposit, and eventually even the crust?

I would keep them completely separate.

- more flexibility during world creation.
- initial resources would serve two functions: early resource acquisition, and later game resource rush.
- players would be less encouraged to rush in research.

[Teurlinx]

Problem with infinite resources is that players would entrench even more into their factories.

Right now I have no need to expand my oil network simply because I do not use it fast enough even at the lowest output possible, while ore nodes, while plentiful still encourage me to expand.


Infinite ore "could" work if:

- amount produced per node is very small.
- nodes are rare and far spread out.
- no nodes present near player spawn.


This way players would still need to expand further and further in order to satisfy their factories hunger for ore, but wont need to deconstruct mining platforms so often.

I'd rather see chance for richness increase in far out nodes. That would help a lot with the not having to move so often. Infinite just is wrong both from a flavour and game mechanic stance imo.

[Zourin]

Oil is a bit messy.. pardon the pun, but it's an accurate description of its problem.

Oil is that gremlin that breaks your **** at the drop a hat. if there is ANY kink in design, whether it's layout, consumption ratios, or even delayed research, it will break. Unlike any other process where you can easily see what's going wrong, Oil is a royal buttmunch when it comes to sorting out what went wrong.

Adding total oil resource depletion would essentially kick the player back into Greenpack technology once the field ran dry, and odds are, you aren't going to notice right away. Being hooked up to a small number of 0.1 "Depleted" fields means that you can 'keep' your technology, but it's throttled back until you expand out to a new patch and bring in some fresh barrels.

On that note, 'overproduction' is a problem with the oil industry. The only appropriate way to deal with the extreme front-load of producing oil is having a very large crude resevoir and barely enough refineries to meet product demand.

[Phy]

I feel like the biters encroaching on me is far more limiting than resource acquisition. Conveyors are easy to make, defense/offense is not.

[Zourin]

I feel like the biters encroaching on me is far more limiting than resource acquisition. Conveyors are easy to make, defense/offense is not.

and oil fields have a particularly large base pollution factor, which only draws more attention. On top of that, the farther out you build, the bigger the swarms get.

[Garm]

Here is some food for thought:

What if these infinite ore excavations were non-electric? I.e. players would need to feed them coal, solid fuel, and eventually liquid fuel in order to keep them active.

[muzzy]

i just build really really long belts from nearby resource fields to go into my old iron/copper processing lines

and when all nearby fields go out, i make trains to remote mining sites and unload their stuff into chests which unload into belts going to the old processing lines...

the infinite oil is kinda silly though, i have some remote power plants that are designed to work with 0.1 oil outputs to produce solid fuel in funny remote places for infinite everlasting energy

[Teurlinx]

i just build really really long belts from nearby resource fields to go into my old iron/copper processing lines

and when all nearby fields go out, i make trains to remote mining sites and unload their stuff into chests which unload into belts going to the old processing lines...

the infinite oil is kinda silly though, i have some remote power plants that are designed to work with 0.1 oil outputs to produce solid fuel in funny remote places for infinite everlasting energy

A simple solar panel / accumulator setup would accomplish much the same though

[muzzy]

A simple solar panel / accumulator setup would accomplish much the same though

When you have hundreds and hundreds of accumulators and they're not enough to power everything through the night, it suddenly becomes interesting to make these silly power plant bases here and there

[TGS]

The main issue here is that the only thing you can really produce 'infinitely' out of oil is solid fuel. Fuel is then used to power everything. Which can also be essentially unlimited through solar. So the 'unlimited' aspect of oil isn't actually unlimited because every recipe that produces some form of solid component requires additional finite resources. Be it iron, copper or coal. So basically the oil resource might be infinite. But the only thing that you can produce from only oil and nothing else is fuel.

Thus there is no 'limitless' resource at all except for fuel and thus power.

Now the main problem with actually having infinite production resources is that all production resources go into expanding and researching. That's it. Those are the two things you can do. Now if you had unlimited resources, you would simply need to only expand to cover those resource nodes then bunker yourself in to a point where you can produce as much as you was indefinitely and no amount of biters could get in. Which would essentially mean that the only resource that matters is time. So you could just leave the game on overnight... or even for a few days. Or simply increase the game time via the console and voila. You've amassed tons of resources with which to produce everything and it's required no additional work beyond your initial infrastructure.

Currently if you do that (And you can do that) you will eventually run out of resources. You will eventually grind to a halt and you will need to search for more resources. This is a good thing. It means there is more to do than just sit there.

[ssilk]

That's a very cool explanation. Yes indeed everything about energy is more or less endless.
I understand the other point, too. Look at my downloadable maps: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=7&t=3524

There are miles of depleted and now unuseable areas. I mean this isn't so useful... And - more important - there are game situations, where you just cannot come out of your factory because of too less resources.

Perhaps like so: the colony ship can fire from time to time a laser. You can either destroy some biter nests or when you fire into an former resource field it reappears partly.

[Kiapha]

That's a very cool explanation. Yes indeed everything about energy is more or less endless.
I understand the other point, too. Look at my downloadable maps: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=7&t=3524

There are miles of depleted and now unuseable areas. I mean this isn't so useful... And - more important - there are game situations, where you just cannot come out of your factory because of too less resources.

Perhaps like so: the colony ship can fire from time to time a laser. You can either destroy some biter nests or when you fire into an former resource field it reappears partly.

Now that is a nifty idea. I have had to abandon a few games because I never got enough resources to survive leaving my base, and I upped the resources. Then I ended up with so many resources I maxed out the tech tree without moving, so restarted again. Currently looks like I will end up stuck again. Of course, in my case it is also partially due to buffing the biters quite a bit, so my own fault there. But a way to renew resources or attempt to carve a path to a new area would be quite useful.

Another possibility would be something like a deep-core drill which lets you create a new resource node of low richness every now and then. Limit it to being placed where there was ore before and just bring more to the surface, more or less. One square of low richness would be far from overpowered with a long cooldown, yet would still potentially allow a way out of situations that are currently impossible.

[murillokb]

I personally love when my initial resources get depleted so i can tear down the miners and use the free space when you get to the point of using trains, you'll have a fixed place to deliver the goods so you won't need to tear your base down anymore but then you need to expand and that can be rough.

I also hate that after a little time the Pumpjacks start to give so little oil that it's almost useless so I tear it down (space!) and go out looking for more.
I was thinking about starting a new world with richer oil but instead I just solved the problem by having 5 different spots for oil and building a huge train line to get the barrels. So i have an steady income of oil even if they are producing 0.1 oil per tick.

[ssilk]

I personally love when my initial resources get depleted so i can tear down the miners and use the free space when you get to the point of using trains, you'll have a fixed place to deliver the goods so you won't need to tear your base down anymore but then you need to expand and that can be rough.

A very good point and me also: In the beginning it's sometimes like a relief, when the stuff is finally mined.

I think the consequence is not to have endless resources as a default. That makes it difficult to plan...

So i have an steady income of oil even if they are producing 0.1 oil per tick.

Consequence for me is: Sometime it's nice to have some endless, sometimes some ending resources. I wouldn't be against when there are oil fields, which really depletes. And also the other way around: Some spring with water, rich with copper... or something. Complex handling of the copper-water.