The purpose of automation.

[Daviquini]

But what if we could domesticate aliens? Instead of killing them capture them. Put them to work in factories or power generation. Wouldn't it be just cool to have a big hamster wheel with a biter running in it to make it spin?

Interesting thought, but I worry about the biter's health. Guinea pigs can't use hamster wheels because, unlike hamsters, their backs don't bend backwards. Given the biters apparent exoskeletons, I suspect they can curl their bodies inward but not outward, so they may have the same problem. So long term hamster wheel use may put them at risk of developing bad backs, which would be a terrible thing to do to them!

Well, in my country guinea pigs are food

[Silba]

I agree with your point.

I love factorio, it's an amazing game but i can never play for longer than 40-50 hours before taking a long break (2-6 months) because i get to a point where i just think "What's the point?" there's nothing to do other than build a factory which towards the end game is just tedious without a goal and the biters are just completely useless and a complete waste of time and lose all relevance once you get laser turrets.

This games needs ways of us being able to actually do something... why are we building the factory? Other than for the sake of building it? (yeah, i know you guys love this and it's why you play but you aren't the only people playing.)

Reading OP i came up with a cool idea, we find the queen and she wants x of y resource per second/minute/hour? or will send armies (make biters an actual enemy rather than walking pieces of plop) to flatten our factories. Kind of like those resource time trials but with a purpose... lol.

It's cool, this game has so much potential i just hope the devs cater for a wider audience going forward.

[mrvn]

But what if we could domesticate aliens? Instead of killing them capture them. Put them to work in factories or power generation. Wouldn't it be just cool to have a big hamster wheel with a biter running in it to make it spin?

Interesting thought, but I worry about the biter's health. Guinea pigs can't use hamster wheels because, unlike hamsters, their backs don't bend backwards. Given the biters apparent exoskeletons, I suspect they can curl their bodies inward but not outward, so they may have the same problem. So long term hamster wheel use may put them at risk of developing bad backs, which would be a terrible thing to do to them!

Hmm, you need a belt based machine instead of a wheel based one. Actually this works out great. At the start of each belt you need to put an alien in a cage that runs in place and pushes the belt backward. This gives the belts their power which is transmitted from belt to belt. And maybe every X belts you need to add another alien. And for fast belts you need a faster alien. No more magically self moving belts.

[Jap2.0]

But what if we could domesticate aliens? Instead of killing them capture them. Put them to work in factories or power generation. Wouldn't it be just cool to have a big hamster wheel with a biter running in it to make it spin?

Interesting thought, but I worry about the biter's health. Guinea pigs can't use hamster wheels because, unlike hamsters, their backs don't bend backwards. Given the biters apparent exoskeletons, I suspect they can curl their bodies inward but not outward, so they may have the same problem. So long term hamster wheel use may put them at risk of developing bad backs, which would be a terrible thing to do to them!

Hmm, you need a belt based machine instead of a wheel based one. Actually this works out great. At the start of each belt you need to put an alien in a cage that runs in place and pushes the belt backward. This gives the belts their power which is transmitted from belt to belt. And maybe every X belts you need to add another alien. And for fast belts you need a faster alien. No more magically self moving belts.

I believe that the devs once said (jokingly of course) that belts are powered by hamsters in hamster wheels. Also, requiring biters to move belts would make the early game practically impossible.

[5thHorseman]

I believe that the devs once said (jokingly of course) that belts are powered by hamsters in hamster wheels. Also, requiring biters to move belts would make the early game practically impossible.

Not if the early biters were tameable. Maybe your first "gun" is a taser instead of a pistol (nobody uses it anyway) and your first task is to go to a biter base and tase some breeders.

I'm saying this jokingly of course. Any interaction with Biters that doesn't involve destroying them on the way to world domination is a waste of valuable factory building time, IMO.

[featherwinglove]

Actually this works out great. At the start of each belt you need to put an alien in a cage that runs in place and pushes the belt backward. This gives the belts their power which is transmitted from belt to belt.

I think I saw too many old screensavers on my school's old Macs (Full Disclosure: I hate Apple even worse than Steam) and so my imaginaion instantly booted up the old "rat race" screensaver and thus: The biter can't always make up its mind which way it wants to run, and whether, and how fast. So the belt is randomly changing speed and direction (speed being the sine of whatever direction the biter wants to run in times how fast he wants to run.) Could get interesting if they still follow standard patrol patterns.

This is totally going to happen I know, it's going to be in Factorio 2.0, which is coming out on

2018 April 1

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