[0.11.x](1.1.0) Dynamic Expansion (Feel the wrath!)

[AlyxDeLunar]

Hey there, feel like the combat aspect is a little stale? Need something a little more fresh?
Well hey, don't complain too much. The game is still in development

In the meantime, use this! (Maybe) Making use of the expansion settings found in map_settings, I've made the biters spawn new bases a little more often, based on current pollution levels. Hopefully this will keep things a little more interesting, and also encourage static defenses in ALL of your bases.

As a disclaimer, I have not heavily tested quite how the balance works with this mod. You are welcome to edit the mod or give your thoughts on how this affects things.

How it works

-Expansion is only enabled once the evolution factor is above 0.10 (out of 1). In experience, I don't really know how long it takes to reach this level, but it should prevent the yucky aspects happening until you are progressed a bit.
-After that point, there is chance (increasing with higher evolution factor) of the enemies going into expansion modes. There are three modes, and the higher your pollution factor, the greater the chance of getting a higher level of expansion.
-The expansion levels are:
Level 1: Low-key expansion, biters don't expand too close or too far away from their current bases. They won't expand within 10 chunks of your base, and they only be a small group (4-8 biters). During this level, biters will make 4 to 30 bases.
Level 2: More aggressive expansion, they will expand a little further out and closer to their own bases (making them potentially more difficult to take out later). They won't expand within 8 chunks, and will move in groups of 15-30 biters. During this level, they can make 4 to 48 bases (in a smaller time frame)
Level 3: The plan is that they will try to build bases right at you. They can try to build bases right on your base (they are set to build far away from their own bases to encourage this, with no limit on how close they can build towards yours). They can move in large groups of 40 to 100 biters. During this level they can make 3 to 48 bases (in a 1 to 3 minute window)

Depending on the level, the evolution factor will be reduced (but no lower than 0.10).
Level 1: Reduces by .001
Level 2: Reduces by .0015
Level 3: Reduces by .0025
This way, potentially, you aren't always stuck at the highest level of evolution forever.

Alright, did that all make sense? Hopefully. If I didn't explain things clearly, feel free to yell at me for it.
Questions/Comments/Concerns are of course welcome

Changelog:
1.0.0 Release!
1.1.0 Decreased the amount of evolution factor that was reduced after an expansion period

[n9103]

I don't know the exact definition of "player bases" but I do know that biters will not create new hives within 3 chunks of a player structure.
I would guess that any player structure counts as a player base.
You can see this distance if you use the debug overlay (F4) to show biter expansion candidates. (or something like that)

[Dariel92]

RU: Довольно интересный мод) для себя в редакторе я специально выделил островок, а вокруг разместил огромнейшее количество баз врага и даже несколько королей и королев из мода MO, сумел уничтожить примерно половину и на меня уже прут берсерки из того же мода MO, но все равно этого недостаточно, но если мобы будут ставить новые базы то это будет еще круче) спасибо)
EN: Pretty interesting mod for yourself in the editor, I would take the island, and placed around a huge number of bases of the enemy, and even a few kings and Queens of fashion MO, managed to destroy about half and I already Prut berserks from the same fashion MO, but still this is not enough, but if mobs will put new database that will be even steeper thank you:)

[XyLe]

This mod is a great idea, probably needs some balancing, i'm gonna try it and see how things work out. cheers!

[Adil]

So, I've used this on my save with evolution factor of 0.999... and it was amazing. Biters actually went on crusade against me and even managed to wear down few squads of mocombat robots, so supply train actually became useful. The edges of my territory kept blinking with combat reports. And then I was happy when things calmed down a little. It all came to stalemate: I've secured control over my resources, they took over everything else and settled with occasional raids on my facilities.
And then it all slowed down: without significant increment, evolution went down below 0.4 and they got stuck in the passive and peaceful modes without even bigger units.
Then I've commenced a major cleanup, killing spawners for about two hours but still barely upped the evolution factor to 0.68 and getting only a couple minutes of aggressive expansion.

Maybe this needs to be balanced around some higher value of evolution factor? Or maybe define a reference point each 30 minutes or so and make calculations based on value deviation from that point.

[AlyxDeLunar]

Thanks for the report Adil, I really appreciate it. Somehow I got to the point where I don't have enough time to play the game, right when I started modding! Man, who does that?
Anyway, I was really curious how well it played out in a usual longer game, and I'm pretty happy with how you think it works. I had evolution factor go down with expansion waves, because I was concerned otherwise it would spike up way too easily with all the additional bases and biters you'd be dealing with. However, it seems that maybe it's being reduced too low? If so, I'll tone that down a bit.
So, I reduced that factor by about a tenth, hopefully that will clear up that boring bit. Who wants the biters to stop attacking, eh? Not I!

n9103
Thanks for that info. Helped assure me my guesses were correct

Dariel92
Thank you for the reply. It sounds like this mod may be what you are looking for If you do try it on that map, be sure and tell me how well you fare.
Спасибо за ответ . Похоже, этот мод может быть то, что вы ищете Если вы попытаетесь это сделать на этой карте , обязательно расскажите мне, как хорошо вы тариф .

XyLe
Thanks! If you have any ideas or feedback, I'd be happy to hear it!

[JamesOFarrell]

This looks awesome. I am going to fire up factorio again to check it out. Thanks.

[Choumiko]

Somehow I got to the point where I don't have enough time to play the game, right when I started modding! Man, who does that?

Ha, tell me about it, haven't played in 3 weeks, since i got into modding. Only loading a save, quickly testing the new stuff and back to the editor

Some more info about biters, though you might already have seen it: Understanding spawner parameters

[starholme]

I had a chance to try this out, and I think it's great. Didn't really notice a big difference until my evolution factor hit .9 something, then every few days in game I'd get hit with some massive attacks.

My base was pretty spread out, so there is a lot of wall and a lot of turrets. Only one turret per medium pole on most of the perimeter, only beefed up where I was hit often. The first large attack that happened at night nearly crushed me. Was hit in 5 places with enough enemies that the poor 14mw of steam power couldn't even keep the lasers firing.

The two things that saved me was my original start area still had gun turrets full of AP ammo, and I had my MK2 power armor.

By the time the sun came up I'd lost my copper ore outpost entirely, the iron and coal outposts were damaged(holes in walls, very few working turrets, some of the miners trashed). My main base had lots of damage to the perimeter, but minor damage inside.

[AlyxDeLunar]

I'm glad you guys have liked it! I was taking a break from gaming a bit, but I'm back!

starholme, I like your experience! That's the kind of assault I was hoping for when evolution got high. Fun fact, they aren't actually starting attacks on your base, they are just looking to set up their own bases, and you just happen to be in the way

Chuomiko, thanks for the link! I had been a bit confused by some of the spawner settings, but it looks like I accidentally got everything right anyway!


I've been off for a long time, so I don't know if anybody still cares about this mod (I'm not that cool). But for anyone who has tried it, I'm interested what you think, or any ideas you might have for it. I'm the kind of person who would love to have numbers and stats and stuff for everything, so I try to keep things simple so I don't go crazy overboard.
But for this change in gameplay, anything else that would go nicely with it? An indicator for when biters expand? Tweaked numbers? Change in biter strength? I'm curious what you all think could be improved!

[XyLe]

Hey ) i still care for your mod, it's pretty cool !

Actually i can't really imagine playing a game on standard settings anymore, there's just no challenge at all xD

So please keep your mod up to date

Regarding balance i can't really say that much, i also had to take a break from this game, but mostly with your mod it's hard to test things because they don't go the same way every time. Balancing something that's not consistent is tricky. You know, there' are also changes you can make for biters when generating the map, and their position is different every time for every map.

I think some sort of indication may be fun unless it's too overpowered, maybe think about some kinda radar that you can make and which will let you know something about biters. I'm not too sure yet, maybe if i get a good idea i'll share it with you )) thanks for being very opened to feedback and suggestions!

[Triblade]

I am very interested in more aggressive enemies.
Is this mod 0.11.17/18 compatible?

[XyLe]

Ye i'm playing 11.18, almost got reckt today evo factor was about 0.6, even without big biters the attacks just started to get so much bigger

[Triblade]

Ok, thanks.

Only one more: Is this multiplayer compatible and/or could I install it in a saved game??

Thanks! This looks great! I'm going to try it anyway

[XyLe]

MP compatible. Saved games will probably work, i don't see why not. Although i can't be sure, never tried it on saved games myself.

[Degraine]

Things are getting pretty intense for me in my current game, but I'm playing with Better Turrets as well, so that rather hamstrings me with the lack of lasers. To the point that I started drawing up plans for a Better Laser Turrets mod as well (once I figure out the problems preventing me releasing the next version of Slipstream chests).

[AlyxDeLunar]

Thanks for taking over the answering session for me XyLe

Yeah, this will definitely work with saved games as well (I wasn't sure about the MP, but I guess that works too!). This just runs some logic on base-game values, the evolution factor and some of the map_expansion settings. There won't be any problem whatsoever starting it on a save that doesn't have it, you won't miss anything (although with a high evolution factor and unlucky random roll, you may get an expansion attempt pretty soon).

This makes me think of a sudden possible issue of disabling the mod, where it might be in one of the expansion states that you will then be stuck in...so uh, just don't remove the mod

Haha I can feel the pain Degraine. I was doing my original mock-up of this mod with an older version of Hardcorio, and being stunted on defenses was not helping at all. I didn't know you were having issues, I hope you have a resounding victory over those pesky modding issues!

[XyLe]

Depending on the level, the evolution factor will be reduced (but no lower than 0.10).
Level 1: Reduces by .001
Level 2: Reduces by .0015
Level 3: Reduces by .0025
This way, potentially, you aren't always stuck at the highest level of evolution forever.

I'm interested in how this idea works. it would be great if you could clarify it for me. Because i don't really want to dig the code since i'm practically unfamiliar with lua. Maybe an example would be nice, let's say my evo factor is 0.6000

It's about that time in the game when big biters show up. How likely is it for lvl 3 expanding to take place?

How exactly does it work, at any point in time any level of biter expansion is possible? only the probability is different? obviously lvl1 is more likely, lvl 2 is less likely and lvl 3 is even less likely? what evo factor do you have to reach to make lvl 2 and lvl 3 possible at all? i doubt that every level is possible at 0.1. Or does lvl 2 always start after lvl 1 and once lvl 1 is over it's never gonna happen again?

And the most important thing about that reduction of evo factor - does it only work once each time they enter expansion mode? i mean if they take a few bases in a 1-3 minute window, does it mean for all the bases they spawn i get a reduction of evo factor by .0025 ? or is the value .0025 applied each time they take one new base? considering multiple and random amount of bases they can take it makes a huge difference.

evo factor increases significantly every time you kill their nest. so i'm guessing if every time they spawn bases you go to destroy those bases , you probably increase evo factor more than it reduces with the mod mechanics. so you'll be stuck at high evolution factor anyways. or am i wrong?

thank you )

[Degraine]

Haha I can feel the pain Degraine. I was doing my original mock-up of this mod with an older version of Hardcorio, and being stunted on defenses was not helping at all. I didn't know you were having issues, I hope you have a resounding victory over those pesky modding issues!

Just posted the newest version. So I guess I can start looking at buffing up Better Turrets.

[catt0]

First I must say I really like this mod, haven't played with out it for quite a while!

But in my current world I ran into a little problem with the expansion (it was a small one at 0.1). As I am focusing on trains I have quite some rails lying around and one expansion just happened to spawn a biter base on my tracks. Weird thing was that the tracks did not get destroyed under the base, but my poles, signals. lights and all other rails really did not please the biters

I never saw rails getting attacked before, except from AoE attacks, so I don't know if this is something that could be caused by this mod.

I am using quite some mods, the ones that might interfere in this case are dim5 trains (powered rails got destroyed), DyTech-War and maybe mocombat.

Any idea on whether this is caused by using different tracks, meaning the biters purposely ignore the vanilla tracks, this mod, or did I just have really bad luck?