Walls need to be cheaper

[imTheSupremeOne]

I always felt that way, but never dig into "tests", but now for a challenge I'm playing a deathworld desert map, with acutally increased starter boarders to 200%. So it's even less harder then a deathworld. So in the early game I need to keep my pollution really low to keep attacks at none or manageably low...

And this time I feel it so bad so I started doing calculations. One wall assembler mk1 can produce 1 wall/sec consuming 5 bricks/sec. To make 5 bricks/sec we need to use 16 Stone Furnaces which would require 10 stone/sec, and to make 10 stone/sec we need 20 drills, which also would consume 1.8 MW worth of Electricity which is full working boiler.

Drills in early game are expensive AF, not even saying about logistics, belts and inserters, and walls, especially in deathworld are something that you might need before you can afford having automatic setups for smelting and crafting.

You can probably go with a halfed setup for 0.5 wall/sec, but, I did some measurement in editor and for even my base that is from one side is covered by water, and could use cliffs as a natural walls it still used 400+ walls to cover the perimeter in efficient way so that even if I got less area it anyway could be worse as this way I don't reach good and narrow gaps in terrain. To produce 400 walls with 0.5 walls/sec(which is still expensive by resources and pollution) it would take 13 minutes, and on early deathworld it would be just AFK, which I don't find enjoyable...

[Qon]

If you can't afford it, maybe you are doing it wrong?

You increase the difficulty and then complain about it being hard. If you are new at the game, ask for help on how to improve so that you become good enough to play on deathworld. Don't say that hard mode is too hard so the devs should make it easier, that's not an argument because it it was then we could just call default mode "hard mode" to make people feel better about their skill level. It's OK to be bad at the game, we all start out inexperienced.

I'll give tips on how to improve your defences in early game without a lot of walls later, maybe. Maybe I'll wait until this thread has been moved to gameplay help (where it belongs) or someone else tries to give some tips before I think it's worth doing.

[wobbycarly]

Without giving too much away, have you considered using other entities rather than walls as a barrier? There are some items - admittedly with fewer hit points than walls - that are much cheaper to construct (time and materials) but can be nearly as effective, so long as the player can't squeeze between, neither can biters...

[DarkShadow44]

Don't think this should be changed in vanilla Factorio. Buuut, this should be very easy to mod!

[MEOWMI]

Walls are at least much more of a one-time investment. Ammo is even more of a resource drain, more like a resource black hole if you're constantly getting attacked.

[mmmPI]

I did some measurement in editor and for even my base that is from one side is covered by water, and could use cliffs as a natural walls it still used 400+ walls to cover the perimeter in efficient way so that even if I got less area it anyway could be worse as this way I don't reach good and narrow gaps in terrain

I have few experience in deathworld, because i don't find it enjoyable , but in general i would advise to wall off around the most active turrets at first instead of trying to enclose your base to reduce wall's number.

maybe on early deathworld you can mine things by hand a little, it's slow and boring but you are not polluting and still getting material.

Also walls are very quick to handcraft, and there are rocks you can mine early on for stone. both of which reduce the amount of electricity needed to reach that number of wall that will protect you.

[imTheSupremeOne]

If you can't afford it, maybe you are doing it wrong?

You increase the difficulty and then complain about it being hard. If you are new at the game, ask for help on how to improve so that you become good enough to play on deathworld. Don't say that hard mode is too hard so the devs should make it easier, that's not an argument because it it was then we could just call default mode "hard mode" to make people feel better about their skill level. It's OK to be bad at the game, we all start out inexperienced.

I'll give tips on how to improve your defences in early game without a lot of walls later, maybe. Maybe I'll wait until this thread has been moved to gameplay help (where it belongs) or someone else tries to give some tips before I think it's worth doing.

Walls are at least much more of a one-time investment. Ammo is even more of a resource drain, more like a resource black hole if you're constantly getting attacked.

As I told I don't see afking as hard. And yes making turrets, and ammo is not cheaper either, and this is why i think that exactly walls should be cheaper and not be another nuisance so even a small setup could give you protection while you are polluting and spending resources to make all the iron that you need.

[jodokus31]

Place 2 electric miners into 2 stone furnaces early. Maybe an inserter into a chest, if you don't get the stuff often enough. Done.

AFK'ing in early death world is the worst thing you can do. Evolution per time is massive, you have to go quick and do stuff manually.

[Qon]

As I told I don't see afking as hard. And yes making turrets, and ammo is not cheaper either, and this is why i think that exactly walls should be cheaper and not be another nuisance so even a small setup could give you protection while you are polluting and spending resources to make all the iron that you need.

Wow you completely missed all the tips in the thread. Not a single thanks to anyone who spent time giving you advice on managing the challange you were facing and asking for help with (in a roundabout way).

You are going to make a thread really soon complaining about how unbalanced time based evolution is in death world, right?

Death world requires so much afking for walls and then it gets impossible to win because the biters are suddenly really big and scary and their bites hurt. Plz reduce time based evolution for the death world settings preset, it's unfair!

No one told you to AFK.

[NotRexButCaesar]

No one else has this problem, sic they must be doing it differently. This would imply that the problem is not game balance but player technique.

You implied earlier that you are trying to wall in your entire base: I do not believe that anyone else does this. Most people use “pillboxes” consisting of a few turrets with walls on either the front & sides or surrounding the entire box.

[netmand]

Walls expensive? This isn't my experience. It is very easy to make walls at the very beginning of the game, mining a box of rocks is one of the first things I do.

If you are waiting for things to happen/complete, then you need to re-evaluate the layout and methodology in handling the scenario. I mean really this is why you are taking on the challenge of the deathworld desert map, right?

I recommend mixing the priorities of walls in with others, have a broader approach to handling aggressive biter activity. Good Luck.

[ssilk]

I’m sure this will not be changed to help out users in deathworld being able to afk.

Closing thread, before anyone gets hurt.