Deathworld Marathon: Great game

[NineNine]

I just got to artillery in my first vanilla 2.0 Deathworld Marathon game, and wow! What a great experience that was! I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had to micro-manage much of the game to stay alive to this point. I thought the level of difficulty was pretty perfect, and made for a game that was challenging, but not impossible. I felt like I was holding my breath the entire game to get to artillery. I feel like it would be a great default "hard" setting if there were such a thing.

Anybody else's thoughts on Deathworld Marathon?

[angramania]

I have not tried marathon, only regular deathworld and I do not understand why artillery was a gamechanger for you. Usually deathworld just add one hour of early game and have minimal impact later. If you can travel space then hard part is long over. There are plenty of ways to kill all nests in pollution cloud without artillery or you can just ignore them and burn attacking waves with flamethrower turrets.
With 2.0 marathon you will wait longer to get key techs but it is compensated by much weakened attack waves. Boring. If you really want fun then try "warp drive machine" with all recommended mods. Vanilla deathworld is a piece of cake compared to it.

[waterBear]

Currently entering late game on a Death World play through and I enjoyed it. There were definitely some close calls in the early game. "If I don't win this fight and take this ore patch, I'm dead." Unlocking artillery did feel like a breaking point. Could finally drive everything far enough away from my Nauvis main base to get comfortable.

Now that I have legendary laser turrets everywhere backed up Tesla turrets, nothing does more than scratch the outer walls before dying. At this point it just feels like normal, sadly. But it does feel rewarding to have made it this far.

So what's Marathon?

[Panzerknacker]

Deathworld Marathon is just a x4 research cost multiplier with easier enemies than Deathworld. Unlike in 1.1 where it was true hell with the expensive recipes on top.

[NineNine]

Deathworld Marathon is just a x4 research cost multiplier with easier enemies than Deathworld. Unlike in 1.1 where it was true hell with the expensive recipes on top.

If the enemies are easier... why is it called "Deathworld"? Wouldn't they have called it "Niceworld" instead?

The description of Deathworld says "Biters are more dangerous and evolve faster".

[angramania]

Deathworld Marathon is just a x4 research cost multiplier with easier enemies than Deathworld. Unlike in 1.1 where it was true hell with the expensive recipes on top.

If the enemies are easier... why is it called "Deathworld"? Wouldn't they have called it "Niceworld" instead?
The description of Deathworld says "Biters are more dangerous and evolve faster".

Because waves in "Deathworld Marathon" are much weaker than in "Deathworld" but still bigger than in "Default". For example first attack can be 5 biters in "Default", 20 biters in "Deathworld Marathon" and 50 biters in "Deathworld".

[jodokus31]

Deathworld and Deathworld Marathon are slightly different in map settings.
Pollution "Attack cost modifier" is 50% (DW) and 80% (DWM)
-> This means, that less pollution is consumed to spawn a biter for an attack group in Deathworld. Similar pollution amount leads to bigger or more attacks.
Evolution "Timefactor" is 200 (DW) and 150 (DWM)
-> Evolution is faster in DW just by time passing
Evolution "Pollution factor" is 12 (DW) and 10 (DWM)
-> Evolution is driven by pollution harder in DW.
And of course the science multi, which is 1 in DW and 4 in DWM
-> Research is 4 times as expensive except first automation tech

The thing is, in DWM, you have to produce 4 times the amount of science packs, which leads to higher pollution output. All the settings in DWM tame the pollution effect slightly and also the time factor. But I would guess, that DWM leads to higher evolution and more attacks for the same science progress. You also need to expand further. But everything is a bit slower.

So, a regular DW with 4 time science multi would be quite a bit tougher, than the DWM preset.

[angramania]

Pollution "Attack cost modifier" is 50% (DW) and 80% (DWM)
-> This means, that less pollution is consumed to spawn a biter for an attack group in Deathworld. Similar pollution amount leads to bigger or more attacks.

Just of curiosity have started the same seed with DWM and DW, placed the same number of drills. First wave was 33 in DWM and 183 in DW.

Evolution "Timefactor" is 200 (DW) and 150 (DWM)
-> Evolution is faster in DW just by time passing
Evolution "Pollution factor" is 12 (DW) and 10 (DWM)
-> Evolution is driven by pollution harder in DW.

I think it worth to add default settings: 40 and 9. Timefactor of DWM is closer to DW, but pollution factor, which is more significant, is almost the same as in Default.

But I would guess, that DWM leads to higher evolution and more attacks for the same science progress.

In later stage, when science eat 95% of resources - yes. But in early game - no. 45SPM for red+green requires only 113 copper and 338 iron per minute, half belt total. Multiply by 4 and it is two belts. In the same time you need one full belt of iron for ammo only. And two belts of iron and half belt of copper for mall/craft. I would guess that turning point will be after land mines/flamewave turrets/efficiency modules. Any of them can dramatically reduce amount of iron, consumed by defense

So, a regular DW with 4 time science multi would be quite a bit tougher, than the DWM preset.

It will be significantly tougher.

[jodokus31]

Pollution "Attack cost modifier" is 50% (DW) and 80% (DWM)
-> This means, that less pollution is consumed to spawn a biter for an attack group in Deathworld. Similar pollution amount leads to bigger or more attacks.

Just of curiosity have started the same seed with DWM and DW, placed the same number of drills. First wave was 33 in DWM and 183 in DW.

Waves buildup takes a random time, the longer it takes them to start the attack, the bigger the wave gets.
from Wiki (https://wiki.factorio.com/Pollution): "Every 1 to 10 minutes (random) the mustered biters launch an attack"

Math-wise, the attack cost modifier should act like this:
f.e. You have produced 1000 pollution, which directly reaches the nest, without getting consumed by land, trees, etc.
in default settings (Attack cost modifier 100%), a spawner consumes 4 pollution to spawn a small biter for an attack group.

in DW it takes 2(50%) pollution, so 1000 pollution results in 500 small biters overall.
in DWM it takes 3.2(80%) pollution, so 1000 pollution results in 312.5 small biters overall.

The attacks should averaging out, while DWM has about 37.5% smaller attacks overall.

It also matters, in which chunk the pollution is generated. One chunk further away from biters takes longer to reach them. And f.e, it can be a matter of placing the miners one tile to the left to be in another chunk.

[Panzerknacker]

TBH the Marathon and DW Marathon presets make no sense in 2.0 or SA because they just axed the expensive recipes without any retuning.