survival focused game map ideas

[rhynex]

hello everyone.

I am sorry if this thread should be in another subforum, I could not decide where to ask.

I am looking for ideas (mods are completely fine and welcome) for a map setup which will force the player to defend the base and train network somehow but not with a wall surrounding entire map or something like this.
here is my "wish":
- a couple of de-centralized facilities, all defended and powered within facility. I need around 20 + outposts which are many
- defense of each facility is as usual you can expect, gun/laser/flame turrets plus artillery
- should be compact. small layout so open wilderness. I have done this already with builtin beacon mod. facilities are ready.
- crazy biters, which I mean expanding quickly and aggressive, maybe with rampart like mods
- open train network, which means trains are going to run in wilderness. trains are nuclear fuel powered, 1-4-1, single direction
- no electric network from one facility to another, so no power poles around map, every facility is self powered, nuclear most probably or advanced solar panels.
- megabase, target is 3x 900spm facilities, total lab output 2.7k spm

as you can guess from above, train (and rail) defense shall be the serious problem. if trains stop by signals or encounter a large group of biters then they are dead meat, and the wagons shall be destroyed for sure. I am looking for ideas about how to secure trains (and rail but there is indestructible rail mod for that)

some ideas I thought:
- train vehicle grid: works in theory but automation is serious problem. for locomotives they make sense but also I need for wagons too. bots cannot put equipment grid so it is manual process, which shall be quite difficult. in my current 900spm base I have around 400 trains and I cannot put equipment to vehicle grid manually.
- defended rails (like walls): so boooring! I want to avoid it
- invulnerable entities : again booring, I do not want to go into that direction
- no pollution : actually not "no pollution map" but using one of the air filter mods to clear pollution. I like "better air filter mod" and it shall cleanse the pollution for additional complexity and fun. not sure if this shall reduce biter attacks on trains. in theory only expanding or artillery agitated biters may encounter. so no pollution triggered biters.
- special trains: some mods introduce locomotives/wagons that has turrets. has anyone tried these? I tried two but stopped train is dead train still.

any other ideas or something I missed?
cheers

[mrvn]

How will you stop players from simply building a wall? Or using artillery or similar to eliminate all biters in range of the pollution? After all the best defense is an aggressive offense.

[rhynex]

I dont think you understood it. this is single player. whatever I do is the rule.
I already said building wall surrounding the factory area is boring. I want other ideas.

[mrvn]

Generally aliens don't attack rails or power poles unless they accidentally run into them and get stuck. If you take a bit of care where you put your rails and keep a margin of nest free space around it then there shouldn't be a lot of aliens running over tracks. So I don't quite see the problem with trains getting stuck. Maybe you need longer trains with more locomotives so they just barrel over any strays.

One thing I've done in the past is build little artillery outposts. Have a train visit each outpost in turn to destroy any nests that creep back into range. Have the outposts stick out from your main rail lines on both sides so aliens looking for the evil artillery will not run into other stuff but run straight into a well defended artillery outpost. Lure the aliens to specific kill zones. Given the range of the artillery that will give you a wide corridor where it's reasonably safe and trains don't get stopped.

[JimBarracus]

I stopped to protect the train tracks with walls and turrets a long time ago.
The ore fields are protected, some space is left for the train station/loading area and thats it.

To be safe just make sure that all the tracks are within artillery range or at least covered by radar.

[mrvn]

Wasn't there also a cow-plow mod that would make trains barrel through aliens on the tracks better?

[FuryoftheStars]

Wasn't there also a cow-plow mod that would make trains barrel through aliens on the tracks better?

I think any mod that increases the weight will do that.

[AmbulatoryCortex]

For serious biter infestations, I install vehicle grid and personal generator mods. Then the locomotive can defend itself. I also use huge trains(4-8 at least), since those can barrel through even behemoths. With a huge train loaded with personal lasers, you can expect a train to never end up dead.

It also has the side effect of making tanks actually good, which I love.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/VehicleGrid
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Equipment ... ableEngine
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/PortableReactor

Edited because I linked the wrong mods.