Come up with new infinite research

[Silari]

Vehicle power.
We have braking force research on trains. Why not more vroom?
After ludicrous research, a train can simply burn an entire stack of rocket fuel in the first tick after leaving the station and then brake the entire way to the next stop at near light speed.

This kills the engineer.

It'd also take away what's supposed to be a primary reason to upgrade your fuel types - the acceleration and top speed bonuses.

[T-A-R]

Vehicle power.
We have braking force research on trains. Why not more vroom?
After ludicrous research, a train can simply burn an entire stack of rocket fuel in the first tick after leaving the station and then brake the entire way to the next stop at near light speed.

Braking force is not infinite (max = 7), neither is max speed (nuclear fuel).

Point about a lot suggestions is game balance, or rather increasing unbalance.
It's also not fun if you benefit most by redesigning your entire factory each research round.
I agree infinite combat bot limit research could use revision.
Shooting speed could stop later.

[FasterJump]

I would prefer infinite research that doesn't make blueprints obsolete. I can think of (like others suggested):
-Stronger defenses (small HP buff to player/buildings)
-Faster recharge speed for bots (although one could think that it makes some blueprints obsolete)
-Bitter pacifier (could makes bitter ignoring pollution bellow a specific threshold for a certain time)

But overall I'm happy with mining productivity. What I want from infinite research is just a resource sink, it doesn't needs to be useful in the first place.

Great thread, lot of ideas.

[DerGraue]

Maybe biter evolution could be a part of infinite research.

Right now, biter evolution is capped at below 100%. If biter evolution would be reworked and could go higher than 100% (maybe not just increasing spawn rate of higher tier biters, but also increase biter stats, like HP, damage, shooting and attack range, speed) it would become a whole new challenge and way to play the late game.

To counter that infinite biter evolution you could implement a new infinite research to decrease biter evolution.

[NotRexButCaesar]

Maybe biter evolution could be a part of infinite research.

Right now, biter evolution is capped at below 100%. If biter evolution would be reworked and could go higher than 100% (maybe not just increasing spawn rate of higher tier biters, but also increase biter stats, like HP, damage, shooting and attack range, speed) it would become a whole new challenge and way to play the late game.

To counter that infinite biter evolution you could implement a new infinite research to decrease biter evolution.

How would that work? Would evolution increase exponentially to keep you from just building a factory that “keeps up”, causing every factory to eventually die? Or would it be linear, so a player just dedicates a portion of their science to devolving biters?

Is this any better than laser damage research?

[DerGraue]

How would that work? Would evolution increase exponentially to keep you from just building a factory that “keeps up”, causing every factory to eventually die? Or would it be linear, so a player just dedicates a portion of their science to devolving biters?

Is this any better than laser damage research?

Well, of course it has to be possible to "keep up", but it could provide an additional challenge. So the research probably should always cost the same amount of science packs and reduce a fixed amount of evolution. How exactly? I don't know, I am just throwing this idea out there, maybe the devs get inspired by it, they have to do the maths

[pichutarius]

Honestly i dont like the idea about removing evolution cap. Factorio is not a war game (for me).

I prefer QoL, not "research me or lose".

[Rubypoker]

There is two paths to go, one were we are ok to buff structures and items and were we are ok to change how our blueprints should be made later in the game. This way we can buff solar efficiency, chest storage assembly crafting speed, belt speed etc. Hare there are countless of options and easy to come up with new research. But the game will completely change as you unlock more research. The other path is were we want our blueprints to stay relevant. This makes it more difficult to come up with new research. But I think it is the path to go.

I made a mod once were I tried to add more research and infinite research and found this:
https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/Con ... l#Modifier
A list of all the modifiers that can easily be made into infinite research.

Among them the best are
laboratory-productivity
worker-robot-storage
stack-inserter-capacity-bonus and inserter-stack-size-bonus
worker-robot-battery
character-inventory-slots-bonus
train-braking-force-bonus
character-logistic-trash-slots

So this is what I found out after playing with all current modifiers made into infinite research.
worker-robot-storage, stack-inserter-capacity-bonus and inserter-stack-size-bonus will make belt unviable at some point, and change how you build your lategame base to be more bots/trains no belt. So this might not be desirable for a vanilla game. But it will save a lot of ups.

character-inventory-slots-bonus might take away the challenge of using spiders and trains for construction purposes so it will probably be a no.
follower-robot-lifetime would be nice to increase during the mid game, but it should probably not be infinite as it is not worth it in the late game.
We do have spidertron now that can act as a mobile roboport for construction so worker-robot-battery might be unnecessary.

laboratory-productivity seems viable to me as it does not change how you make your base but gives you a bonus so this seems fine, and it is a truly powerful upgrade that can easily compete with mining prod.
train-braking-force-bonus seems fine, but its not worth it if it is expensive.
Weapons upgrades could be made more viable if it was not to expensive.
The only good weapon upgrade for the lategame currently is artillery range. None of the other weapon upgrades are worth it as they increase by 2x,this is to expensive and can be lowered.

[blazespinnaker]

Maybe biter evolution could be a part of infinite research.

Right now, biter evolution is capped at below 100%. If biter evolution would be reworked and could go higher than 100% (maybe not just increasing spawn rate of higher tier biters, but also increase biter stats, like HP, damage, shooting and attack range, speed) it would become a whole new challenge and way to play the late game.

To counter that infinite biter evolution you could implement a new infinite research to decrease biter evolution.

Yeah +1!, spawner immunity to artillery! Randomly, biters/spitters spawn with immunity to one of fire / physical / explosion.

Don't want to make it impossible, but there are some things that can be done to maintain a real and continual challenge.

[blazespinnaker]

Honestly i dont like the idea about removing evolution cap. Factorio is not a war game (for me).

I prefer QoL, not "research me or lose".

I'm pretty sure you can get all achievements with peaceful mode on, except trigger attack of course.

Why invest so much engineering effort in a feature and then remove it from the game at some point? Makes no sense.

[pichutarius]

...
Why invest so much engineering effort in a feature and then remove it from the game at some point? Makes no sense.

if u meant producing military science, then yes i remove it from my factory after enough research. with this in mind i isolate military science production so that i can remove them easily.

if not i dont understand wha u mean, and how "peaceful mode on" is relevant.

[Silari]

Honestly i dont like the idea about removing evolution cap. Factorio is not a war game (for me).

I prefer QoL, not "research me or lose".

I'm pretty sure you can get all achievements with peaceful mode on, except trigger attack of course.

Why invest so much engineering effort in a feature and then remove it from the game at some point? Makes no sense.

You can't get either of the victory speed ones, raining bullets, or steam all the way with peaceful either.

[bormand]

Maybe biter evolution could be a part of infinite research.

Yeah, infinite research to increase biter evolution beyond 100% should be fun!

[Lacero]

People might see it as a nerf, but number of simultaneous spidertrons would be a good infinite research I think.
Maybe even number of simultaneous trains?

Wall hitpoints would be good too.

I can't think of much that isn't a new limit.
edit: oh, power generated by solar panels and power stored by accumulators would be cool, you could research them in a special ratio to change the ratio of panels / accumulators to something you like better for tiling a solar plant

[Koub]

[Koub] There are 2 threads (one in General discussions, one in Ideas and suggestions). I think it would be best if the whole discussion was in the same place.

I'll lock this thread, and encourage anyone interested to get there