Pollution !

[( Tchey )]

I'm a small human being, crashed on an alien world, and like i've done before on Dead Earth, i'll will kill this alien planet with my factories !

Or not...

I think, behind the very nice mecanics and concepts of Factorio, the "spoil the aliens with my human shit" should be considered.


Adding some strong benefits from "clean energy" or something, may be a good way to start with ecology ?

Maybe the noise, the smoke, can attract very nasty creatures ?

Even slowly kill our character, rendering him unable to perform certain tasks, moving slow, higher cost to produce something, etc ?

Make the factories producting trash. Trash cannot be destroyed. Trash come out of the factory like the items do, maybe with a growing ratio. At first, only items, then 1/10 trash, and growing.

Trash culd be recycled to a neew form of energy ?

[kovarex]

There is just one reason there are not pollution problems in the game, we didn't have time to make it so far!
We discussed the pollution factor, noise and such several times already, and I totally agree with you that it should have both strategic and RP factor in the game.

I really like the trash idea of yours a lot! This could be extended and it could add nice aspect to the game, we have to balance features that make it easier for the player with stuff like this

[Poiasdope]

Can't wait for the future of this game! So promising!!!

[slpwnd]

So the background story:

Couple of months ago, regular Factorio coding day, fiddling the bits and stuff.

We started working on the demo tutorial and were looking for inspirations. Marwin found this fantastic game: Super Energy Apocalypse. It is a browser based, fast paced RTS with some great concepts. Pollution was one of them. You could have cheap energy from coal plants but that would hurt the environment and made the zombies stronger. Or you could go for expensive, clean and less efficient energy sources - like thermal power I believe. Marwin played it for half a day and I watched it for a while as well. It was a lot of fun. Sort of the game that captivate you for an afternoon.

That is where some of the inspiration came from:) Or migh come in the future.

[( Tchey )]

Good to see you do not rejecting the idea, and even better you're thinking about gameplayed it.

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Add a pulloto-meter : Nature friendly... Neutral... Trash planet.

Neutral : aliens attack like they do now.
Going to Trash : much more aliens, more powerfull.
Going to Nature : much less aliens, les powerfull.

Trash cap : special event, boss alien, earthquake, something really awfull for the player.
Nature cap : aliens don't attack, only if attacked first. Special event maybe they give the player an free artefact or something really cool.

Killing aliens raise the trash level. So at first, you "have to" kill some aliens, and prove yourself to lower the trash level.

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Factories produce smoke, noise and trash. Each raises the polluto-meter, and also :

Smoke : raise the density of fog of war. Smoke cap : you see nothing but the lamps and the player's light. Lower the player's hitpoints.
Noise : raise the number of aliens attacking. Lower the plaayer's ... i don't know. Speed ? Accuracy ? Lower the science's lab speed ?
Trash : produced from the factories, first very little, then more and more if you do nothing. Burner create lot of trash, electric moderatly, solar less, new energy none.

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Dealing with the trash :

Trash is an item, like coal or cogs, etc. It cannot be destroyed, but can be stored into chests or inventory. actories produce trash as said before, in a growing rate. First only 1/10, 2/10, and so on until 9/10. So if the player decide to be a trash-one, he will be soon over busy dealing with the trash.

New tech allows the player to use trash as "new energy". New Trash Energy (NTE) can be used with the car MKII, the plane MKII, the train MKII... NTE is less effective than a proper solar or electric one, so the player doesn't want to produce trash.

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Reducing Trash level :

Installing filter on factories (from a global tech research with Filter I, Filter II, Filter III...), building trash recycler, water survey institute, and things like that.

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In my opinion, Trash and Nature sould not be two options with two distinct benefits. Trash should harass the player, and Nature should gift him. Our real world is trashed enough, even within a videogame you should incitate the player to be nature friendly.

[MatLaPatate]

I would quite like a pollution system . This is something that have been suggested many times before on IC² forum, as an example, but they said that couldn't be done because of Lag/ability to destroy items with lava ^^.
But this game could implement pollution . I think a cool thing would be a way to recycle every kind of your waste, to generate some new components, so at a high cost, your factory could become even more efficient, and it would also avoid additive mob attacks ^^.
Also, I guess some pollution + air cleaners for things burning coal could be implemented. Moreover, what about making Aliens FRIENDLY, if you don't pollute at all, and even more, use machine cleaning the air up ? I mean, for the planned 2v2 mode ^^

[Verbesity]

Sounds like a great concept. Although I would prefer the option of researching Alien language and the further you progress the more you can interact with them. At first just getting basic stuff coming up when they attack you to eventually being able to trade with them if you aren't ruining the planet with pollution. They would refuse to trade with you or even attack you if you caused too much pollution. Water could get polluted and lower their spawn rate if it was near their base offering an offensive and a diplomatic option (pollution to hurt them or purification to up your reputation with them).

It would take a lot of work to convince them and maybe some nice gifts considering that you slaughter tons of them when you first start, but would be an interesting element a long way down the development line if implemented.

[Xinvoker]

Sounds like a great concept. Although I would prefer the option of researching Alien language and the further you progress the more you can interact with them. At first just getting basic stuff coming up when they attack you to eventually being able to trade with them if you aren't ruining the planet with pollution. They would refuse to trade with you or even attack you if you caused too much pollution. Water could get polluted and lower their spawn rate if it was near their base offering an offensive and a diplomatic option (pollution to hurt them or purification to up your reputation with them).

It would take a lot of work to convince them and maybe some nice gifts considering that you slaughter tons of them when you first start, but would be an interesting element a long way down the development line if implemented.

Awesome idea! But I think the "reasonable" ones should a separate faction.

Right now Research is the black hole that eat all of your production capacity, but some trading aliens could be the 2nd black hole!
(Actually a trading item could be the alien artifacts, so it would be research too)

[MatLaPatate]

Sounds like a great concept. Although I would prefer the option of researching Alien language and the further you progress the more you can interact with them. At first just getting basic stuff coming up when they attack you to eventually being able to trade with them if you aren't ruining the planet with pollution. They would refuse to trade with you or even attack you if you caused too much pollution. Water could get polluted and lower their spawn rate if it was near their base offering an offensive and a diplomatic option (pollution to hurt them or purification to up your reputation with them).

It would take a lot of work to convince them and maybe some nice gifts considering that you slaughter tons of them when you first start, but would be an interesting element a long way down the development line if implemented.

Awesome idea! But I think the "reasonable" ones should a separate faction.

Right now Research is the black hole that eat all of your production capacity, but some trading aliens could be the 2nd black hole!
(Actually a trading item could be the alien artifacts, so it would be research too)

I also strongly agree with that

[( Tchey )]

Now pollution is there, maybe this post will have a second life !

So, we have critters gettings angry and attacking the player's character, and that's one good first step.

To reduce pollution, maybe we can have some modules, like the ones to speed up the laboratory ?

Coud be nice to have water creatures that come out of the deep after a while, because pumping water should not be without risk. Maybe the water can turn darker after a while, announcing an immitent attack ? And then, we need some new water defence... Floating turrets ? Bridge ? Kind of patroling boat ? Want about electric panic button, a big sparkling lake to kill the "monster" (poor little guy), but then the factory in out of service for a few seconds.

[ficolas]

I guess is more normal them to get angry because water pollution, not pumping water, its a huge lake for a small pump :3

But I think water mobs would be cool, but water defences are unecesary, just normal turrets.
The problem is that they can be too underpowered (just attackimg your pumps boilers and stuff), or too op (long range shooters, hard to evade since youneed to get water.

[ssilk]

I know it, I know it:
For the life in the lake the pollution is like fertilizer.
The fishes will get more and more until they plug up your pumps.

Wouldn't that be a nice change in direction?