Why no new alien graphics / overhaul / addition mods?

[Locane]

I'm wondering why there seems to be a dearth of new enemy mods in the game - I'm not talking about re-shaded "exloder biter!" or "look the same model but bigger!" mods; I'm talking about new, fresh enemies, buildings, evolutions. An enemy expansion, if you will.

The only one I've been able to find with original art is the Armoured Biters mod - everything else seems to be re-colors and re-skins of existing Factorio graphics, which is fine! I'm glad they're there! But really, it would be nice to have something more.

Has anyone else felt the same? Feeling like there's something missing from your Factorio re-plays; like there's a lot of room for improvement and expansion on the enemies side of things?

I feel like we need a kickstarter to pay some people to make something interesting...

[ptx0]

1. it's hard
2. it's not very interesting
3. it's badly performing

just my thoughts

[Veden]

What type of additions are you expecting?

[darkfrei]

Ball Biters! https://mods.factorio.com/mod/BallBiters

The asked mod needs a modder / modding team with free time and good modding skills, but it's hard and can be not popular.
So, such mod can be done if the modder want to make it

[Mernom]

I'd guess that making animation for units is a lot more effort than making animations for buildings.

[kirazy]

I'd guess that making animation for units is a lot more effort than making animations for buildings.

Organic with the soft curves and squishy flesh and smooth animation is always more difficult and involved than industrial with the hard angles and rigid, fixed motion.

[eradicator]

A very important difference is that animating living organisms requires rigging, while animating machines does not. So it's another skill hurdle. In large commercial productions animation and rigging can even be seperate jobs.

[heyqule]

I'm trying it with https://mods.factorio.com/mod/enemyracemanager

Making new graphic is hard for original contents. I think most modders have coding skill but not the other skills. A proper alien mod will need new graphic and sound effects.

Game performance is actually not really an issue. It's mostly handled by native AI/unit code.