Automatic mining bases expansion (or eliminating the need)

[Cordylus]

...personal roboport

Mmmm i like this

Oh yes, me too!

[mward]

A totally different approach to, not eliminate but at least reduce the need for mining base expansion, is a slight change to the terrain generator. Currently it appears that there is a maximum size for resource deposits. If the maximum were rasied to a very large value, with a correspondingly small probability, then it would be worthwhile to explore a huge area: since you would stand a good chance of finding a huge resource. You would then need to build a huge mine, train station, probably twin tracks in a loop with many trains etc.

But the payback is that this one mining outpost would last a long time.

[Graypup]

I totally agree with your points, and there are plans (not official) for the (far) future to solve this issues.
There are going to be ways, 1 or 2 major releases in the future to do it more centralised.

3) Create a rail all the way to the new base

I have a plan for much alternative convenient rail placing mechanism.

4) Pass power via power poles

Well this is one thing I don't have plan for, but this is the less annoying I guess. But who knows what will the future bring.

Electric Train Engine w/ Electric Rails.
Electric Rails could therefore expend the electrical network.

That's not very realistic however, as the current third rail power systems probably wouldn't be able to handle transmitting power over them for purposes other than running trains.

[BrinCaspian]

That's not very realistic however, as the current third rail power systems probably wouldn't be able to handle transmitting power over them for purposes other than running trains.

Realistic as in real life, or works in the game? This is a game, so realism isn't high up there. Stranded alone with nothing but some scrap iron plate, you can build a huge factory and train system...
In game Electric Rail mod works just fine for this. I recently made an outpost for oil using this mod. In fact, I ran the rail line mostly with the Rail Layer mod, and just made corrections by hand. I'd like more control of connecting to the third rail, maybe a specific power pole for tapping into it, but otherwise it works great.

[Bleda]

Resource fields should get bigger as the distance to the starting area increases. This way you are still forced to get out and explore, but you don't get to that point where your resource usage is so big that the fields deplete faster than you can connect others. If you go really far out you should be rewarded with huge and rich fields, where building up a sophisticated outpost is worthwile.

And the personal roboport sounds great!

Oh man, can't you work a little faster? I can't wait to get back to this game with all these features included!

[hitzu]

Resource fields should get bigger as the distance to the starting area increases. This way you are still forced to get out and explore, but you don't get to that point where your resource usage is so big that the fields deplete faster than you can connect others. If you go really far out you should be rewarded with huge and rich fields, where building up a sophisticated outpost is worthwile.

What's the point to land on the poorest site of the planet?

[HulkingUnicorn]

Resource fields should get bigger as the distance to the starting area increases.[...]

Makes sense to me. I'd like new types of minerals (needed for advanced recipes/can replace other resources in some recipes) to spawn quite some distances away from the starting area as well, to promote long distance logistics.

[…]What's the point to land on the poorest site of the planet?

Possible reasons:

• Emergency landing w/bath luck (matches current scenario)
• Enemy concentrations are too high to land in richer regions
• Poor sensors on arrival ship can't determine ore vein sizes and richness
• The only area with necessary starting resources close together don't have very rich veins

[xnmo]

Resource fields should get bigger as the distance to the starting area increases. This way you are still forced to get out and explore, but you don't get to that point where your resource usage is so big that the fields deplete faster than you can connect others. If you go really far out you should be rewarded with huge and rich fields, where building up a sophisticated outpost is worthwile.

The way the game currently works, this is a feasible solution. A more detailed and fine grain world creation process would also improve things a lot.

My personal wish is that there will be options later on for far more sophisticated methods of exploration, expansion but additionally also ways to simply relocate an entire factory. If you've completely exhausted all the available resources in a 1000 tile radius it would be great if were reasonably simple to just pack everything you've got up and drive to some new location way way out in the wilderness and then easily set back up the factory as it was before moving.

Now, nothing is really stopping you from doing that as the game currently is, however it is mighty inconvenient to do so. Between all the trees and biters blocking your path, the infeasability of transporting liquids or 1 time shipments of massive quantities of materials, and that one poorly placed tile of water blocking you from putting down the massive multi-screen sized blueprint of your entire factory down in your otherwise perfect dream location, it would probably be the most tedious thing you could possibly do in the game.

[Bleda]

The nice thing about not being able to move your entire factory so easily is that you get a reason to build a nice and big transportation network. If you could just pack everything and move to the next location, you will never have a reason to build train lines. think about it

[Olix]

I like the idea of coal, iron and copper becoming like oil in that the speed of extraction decreases over time. I hate how mining expansions just become useless eventually, it means I don't really feel like developing them properly as I know I just have to disassemble them in a few hours. If the expansion would still send out the occasional resource train even after the fields were depleted, I would fortify and develop it properly.

For me though, the biggest frustration in Factorio remains the combat. I just don't enjoy it at all. I think it should be possible to automate it. I'd like it if the factory could automatically build & deploy autonomous military robots that head towards the nearest enemy base and attack it - sort of like how the aliens work, but in reverse. If the factory was building at a fast enough rate, the alien bases would be destroyed without direct player intervention.

[psihius]

Well, it's all interesting and good ideas, but the thing they really need to add is ability to preserve the blueprint collection between games. Like a library of some kind. Make it cost additionally to import that blueprint (like the empty blueprint + some other resources, so it's not like totally free).
I get that from game to game you should start with an empty world, but when you play a lot, especially multiplayers, rebuilding your blueprints over and over again is very tedious Like that roboport + accumulators + solar panels + substations design that you can't really remember from the top of your head, because it consists of almost 500 parts...

Or other idea - you wana save your blueprint and re-use it? Make it cost you, like building a power armor MK2 or something like that.

I get that there are mods, but you can't mix modded and non-modded in MP.

[Trepidati0n]

I agree...carrying blue prints or at least allow you to "ghost" a design between games would be HUGE for me. Problem is right now is instead of focusing on getting better at end game automation i still spend a lot of time trying to remember simple things. My classic screw up the ratio of inserters for coils and gear. Talk about way to hobble a design.