Harmless Wildlife?

[Pongard]

After completing the tutorial, I started a normal difficulty game with regular settings. Compared to the Tutorial, the wildlife is totally harmless. From time to time a small wave arrives, but they don't even scratch the walls. Is this how it should be?

[eradicator]

Yes. In freeplay it depends mostly on how much pollution you produce and how many nests you killed. You can see pollution on the worldmap when you activate the red button in the upper right corner.

[Pongard]

Ok thanks, is there a way to upper the difficulty a bit? Do I have restart in another mode, if so, which? Or do I just have to be patient and it will get harder the more I pollute the planet?

[eradicator]

It will get more difficult, though probably never as extreme as the infinite waves the campaign throws at you. You can restart the map on "Death World" preset or use a mod like https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ChangeMapSettings to change the settings in a running game. And if that's not enough you can install mods that make biters significantly more annoying, the most popular one being https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Rampant

[Pandrosos]

Don't assume it will stay that way. I've seen some big hordes of small biters in the early game.

It depends partly on the luck of the draw map wise. If you start in a grassland with forests around your pollution won't spread easily. If you start in a desert it spreads much further. Biter bases are randomised too of course. And then how much pollution you make is also a factor - the current game balance arguably punishes building too big too early.

[Pongard]

Thanks guys!