Role playing direction

[TGS]

This has been discussed at other places before, so just in short.

Using turrets offensively is something we consider to be more of a bug than a desired feature. It creates complications because they need to be strong enough for the defense, but also not too strong for the offence. So the solution I like the most so far is use something like "zerg creep" around the enemy bases and prevent using turrets for offensive this way. And yeah, this would also solve the "build-walls-around-yourself-in-couple-of-seconds-when-being-attacked-by-the-biters" strategy. Which I also consider flawed.

Yeah, that's kind of my thinking too tbh. I mean yes it works atm. But not exactly 'working as intended'. But I think this is more an issue of there not being enough viable alternative options... yet. But as I think you were the one that said the tank will be coming I think that it won't be the optimal offensive option for much longer.

I guess it's mostly an issue (at least in my eyes) that the armor and combat drone later techs are quite research expensive. And those are ultimately what make biter base assaulting a possibility. That all being said. The rocket range adjustment that was made in 0.8.0 has actually been helping a lot in its own right. I've noticed I can actually get a few rockets off before my car starts taking significant damage from the worms and in some cases if I can deal with/tank the biters I can literally just sit outside their range for a short period of time whittling down their hp then retreating and rinsing and repeating. Obviously this doesn't work on the larger bases, but on the smaller ones that tend to pop up around my factory it's certainly viable. Much more so than it was before, where even trying to get close enough to fire off 2 rockets ended in a nearly destroyed car. Also being able to drive into a repair bots range and get repaired then rinse & repeat without having to get out pick up car then re-drop car has helped a lot. The whole getting out of the car then picking it up then dropping it again was awkward.

[Nova]

Mh, how about a small "construction time", until the turrent can fire after it got placed?

[Darthlawsuit]

Mh, how about a small "construction time", until the turrent can fire after it got placed?

This is really needed before beta. Everything should have a construction time. However that will take a lot of time and add a "completion" feel. Seems like a good thing for the Beta.

[Zero_Berz]

See this is where I have to say I'm confused. A 'turret' is a fixed defensive structure.

that`s turret too;)

this is my preferred method of delivering turrets to hives (NB to devs. Plz add something like this as an ultimate manifestation of techno-fascism and bending nature by force;))

BTW, using defensive structures(turrets) offensively is ok too. For making foothold near really large hive clusters.

I guess maybe this is just a breakdown in communication or language barrier perhaps

Sure.What i was talking about, was an idea of technical evolution. You gain power not through exp, but through making new weapons, and armor. As irl, if i need to hunt bear,i will not do it through physical training and then strangling bear with bare hands . i will use rifle=). Automatic preferably.

Also I apologise if I came off as if I was bashing your opinion

Ah, not a problem. =)

This has been discussed at other places before, so just in short.

Using turrets offensively is something we consider to be more of a bug than a desired feature. It creates complications because they need to be strong enough for the defense, but also not too strong for the offence. So the solution I like the most so far is use something like "zerg creep" around the enemy bases and prevent using turrets for offensive this way. And yeah, this would also solve the "build-walls-around-yourself-in-couple-of-seconds-when-being-attacked-by-the-biters" strategy. Which I also consider flawed.

Ah, not a bug really.
Solution is simple. Tanks. Armored cars with built in weapons, explosives (no, grenades is cool, but we need more powerful things), artillery turrets. Heavy flamers, suicide drones, bulldosers(much needed to plow through dense forest), salvo-type rocket\mine\acid\napalm canister launchers(insane reloading time, but serious damage).
Adding something effective at hivekill wil completely reduce offensive role of turrets to foothold-making

And btw. It would be nice to have different types of hiveclusters. For example check distanse to nearest structure and if more than some number of tiles, spawn heavy artillery worms. They should have insane damage, splash and range (1 shotting group of turrets 3-5 screens away for example) but easily escapable for moving targets due to slow moving projectiles.

This is really needed before beta. Everything should have a construction time. However that will take a lot of time and add a "completion" feel. Seems like a good thing for the Beta.

Nope. Not really needed. There are a lot of ways to solve turret crawl and instawall problem.
As i posted slightly before,all we need, is a wide selection of tools. More weapons and weapon types, more combat vehicles, more turret types. No1 will turretcrawl, if there are better ways;)

[FreeER]

Ah, not a bug really.
Solution is simple. Tanks. Armored cars with built in weapons, explosives (no, grenades is cool, but we need more powerful things), artillery turrets. Heavy flamers, suicide drones, bulldosers(much needed to plow through dense forest), salvo-type rocket\mine\acid\napalm canister launchers(insane reloading time, but serious damage).
Adding something effective at hivekill wil completely reduce offensive role of turrets to foothold-making

And btw. It would be nice to have different types of hiveclusters. For example check distanse to nearest structure and if more than some number of tiles, spawn heavy artillery worms. They should have insane damage, splash and range (1 shotting group of turrets 3-5 screens away for example) but easily escapable for moving targets due to slow moving projectiles.

Interesting ideas. Just cause I immediately thought of it when I saw "grenades is cool, but" I'll say "landmines" lol. I know they don't really count much (might be nice defensive with blueprints though). White phosphorus grenades could be a nice item though I think artillery turrets (currently) would be a bit over kill, same with artillery worms also slight issue with the fact that you can not outrun missiles, either the old actual rockets nor the new worm ones, they never stop, at least I do not think they do. It could have been fixed, but I kind of doubt it. But if they are implemented, you'd need a way to protect your base, either SAMs or forcefields. As for suicide drones, interesting but I'd rather be able to have combat drones patrol the area and then order then to follow me when I'm ready to take the fight to the enemy (or even just send them off on their own), though I wouldn't mind combat drones suiciding if they were about to die. As for salvo-type launcher love the idea (devs would have to separate weapon reload times though, or make it so that you can quickly drop a weapon and switch to a faster one). Heavy flamers, sure no complaints whatsoever

as for the hive clusters, I've always wanted to see the hives (especially the old ones that actually looked like buildings) form into one giant building instead of just have lots of them. Instead of having little cottage looking things everywhere it would have been nice to have them build up into massive palaces with many doors, now it'd simply be larger and more grotesque spawners (most likely) but more visually pleasing (to me) than simply massive numbers of small hives (also, massive health so you'd really need those weapons).

[ssilk]

You gain power not through exp, but through making new weapons, and armor. As irl, if i need to hunt bear,i will not do it through physical training and then strangling bear with bare hands . i will use rifle=). Automatic preferably.

Yes, this is the right way!!11

And another aspect: Take the character away from a all tech etc. and he is absolutely helpless. This might happen due to some reasons.

This interesting situation: if the player wants to make peace, he's not allowed to wear any weapon, shield, etc. he must switch off all offensive weapons, before making any negotiations. And there is no real guarantee, that the biters stop. I swear I would really sweat in the moment, when found the "big native city" some chunks away and begin negotiations with the "biter-queen".

[TGS]

See this is where I have to say I'm confused. A 'turret' is a fixed defensive structure.

that`s turret too;)

[SNIPed for clarity by FreeER]

Lol I see what you mean. Though that definitely confirmed the breakdown in communication, at least on my end. I have never heard of anyone referring to a tank, or a jeep with a gun/cannon canopy as a 'turret'. Yes technically they have turrets, but they are not turrets. They are tanks or armored vehicles.

Those are definitely the direction the game should go imo. Though they have to take care not to end up with overlaps where one is clearly more powerful than the other when it is 'easier' to obtain in the tech tree. But I certainly thing that the current armor/offense is... lacking. But that's just me lol.

I also think there really needs to be some incentive for the player to expand outward and go on the offensive. Not just "I need this space" or "They are encroaching" which seems to be the only reasons at the moment.

[Ardagan]

Hm... too much to read, so sorry for me being ingnorant. Hope the topic is not closed yet.

Adding RP may make sense for the main character to be in game. Otherwise his presence only screwed up my economic RTS gameplay. Well, it gives a way to lose the game though.

However I do not really see the way to add RP to the game:

1) Experience is bad idea: a) game is focused in preparing production chains, experience goes to human player, not to game character b) you can't get experience in fights, that will switch the purpose of game to: risk my main char to get some exp...

2) Classes do not really make sense here. You have research labs. What's the difference between changing what you are going to research and getting experience/changing skill?

3) If diversity is needed, then there can be some mutual exclusive technologies like: building/using mega-sub-space-killa-power-generator will not allow you to use teleporters. (well that is not part of the game yet, but who knows)

Will try to ignore the discussion of vehicles as that is an offtop.

[FreeER]

Hm... too much to read, so sorry for me being ingnorant. Hope the topic is not closed yet.

read these and you'll pretty much be caught up, I even made links for you the specific posts, At the very least read TGS's

• Last post of page 3
• skim first half of Page 4
• *TGS's post on 5

PS. I've looked through 20+ pages for a specific sentence that I knew I'd seen somewhere but that the search couldn't find for me. Skimming 7 pages was/is nothing lol

[Ardagan]

@TGS +1000
Actually... that what I wanted to write at first, but then read through like 2-3 pages of posts in this thread and then lost the though.

[Alfdaur]

Knowing that the origional post is from more than a year ago. I think that the current direction of modular armour is better that using a experience leveling skill. Seeing that the core of the game is about building things, experience would just be a stark contrast in parralel to the game. I would like exploration in the cave like caverns, but to make this into a complete adition to the game, it would take a expansion pack in my honest opinion.

I like the ideas of GTS: adding large bitters clusters on top of rare resources. This would make incentives to go on a large killing spree. Also, the abandoned high-tech factory idea could be nice, but needs good implementing, as it wouldn't fit in the current form of the game, yet.

I am a little confused about the robot squads that are being talked about in this topic. Haven't we already got robot squads in the sence of the destroyer bots?

What I would suggest for RPG elements is to completely overhaul the assualt bot system. Instead of having like 14 generic bots, use the same costumization that the modular armour has. We already got shield, laser, battery and power elements. Using these may add more depth and rpg elements to the game in a meaningfull way. In this way you could make a tactical squad like in X-com.

[Grimtongue]

I don't want the character to have a separate progression system (exp), especially not a system that involves doing a task repetitiously for the sole purpose of increasing a "skill." That kind of experience-grinding is horribly tedious work.

Research techs that can enhance the player's statistics or abilities would be a much better direction for Factorio.

[bobingabout]

Research techs that can enhance the player's statistics or abilities would be a much better direction for Factorio.

We already have a few of those, Toolbelt, weapon damage increases, Logistic slots etc. The issue is that in multiplayer, once the skill is unlocked, all players get it. And for grinding for experience, well, you could just gain experience from things you'd be doing anyway, like killing biters, or building things in your suit.




I know this is old, but I have a few comments.

Classes: I like the general idea, but some of the things could be harder to implement.
Engineer: having cheeper recipes... Doable, but you'd effectively need multiple sets of recipes, 1 for the engineer, 1 for the factories, and possible another set for every other class too, depending. I suppose an easier way would be Engineer overide recipes, so they use they default recipe for an item, unless a specific recipe is specified specifically for the engineer class.
Fighter: well, no notes there.
Scientist: Cheaper science... well, how would this work in multiplayer?


An alternative, and easier solution for the Engineer could be a personal Productivity guage. like having a productivity module installed in the player entity, so if you make 10 runs of copper wire, you get an 11th run for free, so instead of ending up with 20 wires, you get 22. The bonus could possibly be higher(or increased with experience). The problem is, how to choose what this bonus applies to, and if it should keep track of indevidual recipes, you might not craft 10 wires in a row, does it reset when you choose a different recipe, or does the bonus gague just fill for everything you build and apply to the item you're crafting when it fills? The best solution would be a seperate gague for every item you can craft, so when you eventually build a 10th item, you get the 11th for free, but it could end up being messy internally keeping a track of it for every possible recipe, then there's the issue that currently, most of these gagues and things reset when saved and loaded, including fluids inside a factory.

Fighter, perhaps a health bonus, and/or damage output multiplier bonus?

Scientist... well, i have no sugestions here, I just don't think this idea would work.

A sugestion could be miner: improved mining speed, though I suppose this becomes redundant when you're automating miners, in fact since you get a burner mining drill for free, you can play a game where you only have to mine 1 tree, or piece of coal, and don't have to mine anything ever again (though it is tricky without chopping down more trees for wood untill you get construction bots to remove them for you)


another thing you mentioned is experience gain, well, there are 2 directions you can take classes and unlockables...

The first is an EVE Online method, where everyone can unlock and learn everything, different "Classes" just start with different unlocks, and as you spend points, you learn more things. You could have a single entry point in different positions for each class, and as you go through the tree, you can learn everything from all classes, or you could have multiple small trees in specialised areas, say one aimed at combat that gives things like bonuses to health, resistances, and damage output, and another for the engineer, with mining speed, construction speed, and personal productivity bonuses, different classes just have different points spend in different areas.

Things like the Damage bonuses, Toolbelt, Logistic slots etc could be removed from science and placed within your personal Experience tree system.

The second direction is a unique level up tree for every class (so only the engineer would have the engineer tree, only fighter has the fighter free etc), and honestly, in a game like this, I don't recomend it.

I'd recomend the multiple small trees method, and every class has access to all trees, they just start with a few points already spent in different areas.


The next point is... where do you get experience from? Only enemy kills would be a bad idea, not everyone wants to hunt things down to gain experience, but it is a good way to gain experience. Crafting items yourself could also be a good way to gain experience.

A question you also need to ask yourself is... is there a single experience gague, so if you spend a couple of hours crafting constantly, you can gain enough experience to max out your combat skills, or seperate experience gagues so you have to go out fighting before you can level up your combat skills?

[DerivePi]

A couple thoughts:
To make classes meaningful, they must be exclusive. I would allow access to the class abilities through the research tree with something like:
Scientist - Stealth, Teleport building (move from one to another instantly) and resource locator (indicates where mineral sites are - above and below ground)
Engineer - Next gen mod armor, biter repulsor building (biters stay away unless provoked - good around new mining sites), larger manipulation range - place elements at a further distance from player
Soldier - Two handed weapon armature, Citadel building (self contained long range military building that houses 9 lasers), increase to weapon range

The story line would be - before player leaves home planet on expedition he picks up an advanced research library that gives him the option to adapt further specialized technologies that can't be locally reproduced.

For coop play, the upgrades can be mutually beneficial (every player on team can use the teleporters placed by the scientist and repulsor will keep away local biters.) I think it'd be nice to also offer powerful advances for cooperative developments - like a building started by a scientist and finished by the soldier - something to encourage the meshing of players together.

For head to head play, I was thinking of a DOTA kind of balance - Engineer is faster and more defended, Soldier can put down more fire power and scientist can sneak up and finish wounded players and sneak away when wounded.

[Dracohouston]

I don't like the idea of classes and leveling in this. Also I don't see a problem with other players getting toolbelt etc if they join late in coop. The factory you make is always progressing and looks different each game

[Jythier]

There already are RPG elements. There's leveling up through technology. I assume eventually multiplayer will have the ability to split up the techs so that each player has their own - great. Hopefully it retains the ability to share tech.

The game is about factories.

Factories are about consumables. We're talking about one person here. So iron pickaxe is important, because it lets you get through things faster, but you rarely have to craft a new one and using it is absolutely the worst usage of your time.

The main consumable is ammo and that's eliminated at the laser phase.

In fact, lots of consumables get eliminated throughout the game while others are created. At the beginning, it's ammo and coal to power individual things. Then it's coal to run power plants. Then it's no coal at all with solar power.

The character is needed but at the same time, you're preparing for a landing. You don't have time to level up. You need to get that rocket thing up now, not 10 years from now.

However, your technology needs to level up. You don't start with everything.

I think the problem here with adding RPG elements is that the character is NOT the main character. The character is the factory itself, and that already gets stronger, levels, changes the entire face of itself, throughout the game. You can build different classes of factories. You can have 5 or 6 characters that you completely customized that are linked together by a railway you built. So really, what the developers need to do in this game is continue to make the factories the interesting characters they are, by giving us new tools, new levels, new ways to eliminate dependence on natural resources, new ways to use natural resources, etc. Because the little guy who runs around is NOT the focus. That's why the multiplayer game is so strong in co-op - you're building characters (factories) together.

[Align]

Yeah, I always felt things like XP or special skills would feel awkward and out of place in this game, and Jythier managed to put a finger on why.

[L0771]

I just saw this post just now. I didn't read all messages, but there are good ideas.

Since I started playing I have the idea that the character not progresses at the speed of the game, there must be a difference between the newly begun character and a character that takes months playing.
The November 3 started a mod, knew nothing about programming in lua, but with the help of other users I could continue.

In my mod I try not to change the bases of the game, you can have it installed and continue playing without a difference.

Here you gain experience for differents actions (mining resources, cutting trees, crafting items, exploring the map, taking damage and dealing damage), each one has a bonus, like more items, health regen and more damage.
And for other side, you have some like perks, buying talents can customize your character...

I want add, i'm programmer, not graphic designer



I like the idea of "clases", can i steal it?

And please vote my poll, next release is for Friday or Saturday.

[Ichigoshollow]

This game wasn't made to be an RPG plain and simple. Why would you want to turn Factorio into a Dungeons and Dragons game? Seriously.... The direction they should go in is the one they have been going in. Yes they should add more content but more in a way that doesn't involve turn-based or any type of RPG.

[NotABiter]

I have read a lot of comments here that indicate many people have no idea how well RPG and RTS can go together. I would suggest they go play the Warlords Battelcry (WBC) series of games and become enlightened.

The RPG elements need to be seen as both of these:

1. A way for players to try significantly different approaches to the game without just intentionally crippling themselves by doing things like "no laser turrets" or "no solar" or "no burning coal" games. Rather they can play a character with certain strengths and weaknesses one game, and a different character with a very different set of strengths and weaknesses in the next game. (In WBC playing as an Empire Merchant is vastly different than playing as a Fey Alchemist which is vastly different than playing as a Dwarf Tinker which is vastly different than playing as any of the hero types that specialize in various flavors of combat. Among many other things, a merchant has skills in acquiring resources, an alchemist has skills in transmuting materials, a tinker has engineering skills that boost building HP, dwarves have the ability to do some free building repairs - all of which are relevant to base building and maintenance. And that's really just scratching the surface of the available differences.)

2. A way for the Factorio developers to reach a wider audience. For example, if a character can choose between developing their personal combat skills and weapons vs developing (yet to be added!) autonomous robot armies, then the developers can target both players that like to get their hands dirty in real-time combat and those that prefer to hang back at the base and issue orders (and perhaps really detest anything remotely like "twitch gaming") -- and they can do so without either type of player feeling like they are "really missing out" because they are not fully utilizing everything they have available, because they are in fact making use of what they have developed their particular character to be good at.

Another possibility is to borrow a feature from RPGs (as WBC does) that can be used to break up the monotony that playing Factorio can currently end up being. And that feature is quests. Adding quests to Factorio would certainly take some thought though... One possibility is having special "long range scanners" that detect "alien tech". Maybe if the player can get to the tech quick enough they can obtain some kind of bonus. (Not sure what tech biters can have though as they are so stupid. Maybe other aliens have crash-landed there in the past and got eaten by the biters.) Another possibility is requests for resources. Maybe "pickup ships" will stop by and pick up resources/parts they have previously requested and which the player had promised to deliver within a certain time. (There might be some unique rewards for these, such as an "Assembly Machine 4", or a small stack of "Long Range Laser Turrets", or a special item that can go in one's power armor.) There could also be "Clear and secure sector X" type quests, though there would need to be some story to go along with that. (Maybe some building complex then starts getting auto-built there and is intended to be used to house/feed/etc. colonists when they arrive. The player then has to keep that building defended all the way to the end of the game.)

Some people have pointed out that Factorio is more about the factory and less about the character. While trying to use that as an argument for staying that way is nothing but circular logic, there is more that can be done on the factory side of things while still giving an RPG-like customization feel, and that is "side creation" as per the game "Warlords 3: Dark Lords Rising". That is, at the start of the game a player may choose to customize their "side". What that does is give you a certain number of points to spend, and you can select what units will be available in game. For Factorio this could include selecting what bonuses/nerfs the side will receive and what techs/buildings/weapons/bots/etc. will be available in the game. (You still have to research/construct them in the game. The ones not selected, however, will be completely unavailable in the given game.) "Buying" each one costs points, and in some cases there may be a "synergy charge" - e.g., solar panels and accumulators have a synergistic relationship, so the cost of getting both would be more than the sum of their individual costs. (The game "Stars!" has a similar system for race customization, and like WL3:DLR it also uses a "synergy charging" system to maintain balance.)

You can run around naked

Thanks. That's all I needed to hear.

Engineer - {...} larger manipulation range - place elements at a further distance from player

I don't care how bad Engineer is in terms of "game play advantage", I'd play it just to reduce that oh-so-annoying "you're not close enough to place that" nonsense. (When oh when will they just make it so if you're not close enough, the character just auto-walks a bit closer? Instead they just beep at me and not do what I want.)

The factory you make is always progressing and looks different each game

I find that unless I really go out of my way to play the game differently (which generally means intentionally playing the game in a "stupid"/non-optimal way), factories are really only superficially different.

The main consumable is ammo and that's eliminated at the laser phase.

I'm currently playing a "no laser turrets" game with all default settings. I'm already at the point where I am setting up blue circuits so I can make power armor, and my gun turrets have killed all of 7 biters. Gun ammo (for use in guns) is really not a significant strain on my factory. (Making combat robots has consumed much more resources than gun ammo, though I believe even that is still insignificant compared to what's been spent on research and modules.) If you kill all the spawners that are in/near your pollution range, then biters/spitters (almost) never attack your base.

To those few people that said that the game should reward the player for hand-crafting items: What are you smoking?
(And you're already getting "rewarded", as hand crafting doesn't cost energy, doesn't produce pollution, doesn't require a factory, doesn't require you to travel to said factory or set it up, and automatically produces all prerequisite items in the required amounts. The devs should make it so hand-crafting produces way more pollution than using an assembly machine. They could even ding your health to represent all of the times you accidentally hit your thumb with your pick-axe while trying to use your pick-axe to place copper traces on a circuit board. And they should make hand-crafting about 10x slower than using an assembly machine, maybe less so for lower-tech stuff and more so for higher-tech stuff.)