[Idea] Blackmailing aliens

[Goumic]

Hey guys, I had an idea for a simple mod I think would be kinda fun. I tried searching for similar mods but couldn't find any.

The idea is simple - when you achieve certain technological threshhold, you will (naturally) attract attention of much more advanced alien race. But their goal isn's to destroy you (as usual), this time they're smarter - they want to take advantage of your factory and blackmail you into giving them your stuff. From time to time they would demand some items and if you fail to provide them, they'd somehow hurt you (tbh I'm not sure how exactly, destoying your factory is not a good idea imho - maybe supplying the biters somehow?). You'd have to build a special building in which you'd store those items (perhaps a chest could do it) and after the given time passes, alien ship would come to extract that (graphic is not important in this) - and than the next demand would come. E.g. they would require 100 tier 2 engines in 60 minutes, then 500 smart inserters and so on. The time given to complete this should be realistic, so it would be fun and not stressful.

The whole goal is to provide a way to "test" your factory and give you some kind of purpose. I dont know about you but I'm not playing this game to "win" (like the planned end-game content is meant in my opinion), but rather to build a ridiculously big factory. But when I'm done with the research, theres no goal for me anymore - the possibility of endless expansion is not enough. This way I would have a "need" to expand (the demands would get bigger and bigger) my factory and generally "test its capacity", which is in my opinion very fun. Its very similar as the idea to have to supply some kind of army.

What do you guys think?

[hoho]

How about throwing random space rocks in general direction of your factory as a punishment for not being able to supply enough goodies?

[Goumic]

That was my idea too but I'm not sure if it would be fun to have to repair your factory (in case you dont have construction bots) But if the time to complete the demand would be sufficient, it could be appropriate punishment

[Drury]

Reminds me of Caesar 3. Caesar makes requests and if you fail to provide what he asks for, he gets pissed. Get him really pissed by ignoring him a few times in a row and you've got his OP army knocking on your gates.

Yeah I agree that'd be too harsh in Factorio. Might work like gods in Caesar 3 - when they feel like you're not worshiping them, they punish you by doing things like magically rotting all your food or causing ore veins to disappear.

In the context of Factorio, they could teleport resources out of chests or have a VTOL craft sucking them in from belts. Perhaps they'd send in recon craft looking for military technoogy research/development, so you'd have to keep that hidden. If you manage to build tanks, exoskeletons and combat robots without them discovering, time for revenge

I'm a proponent of the whole idea of intelligent aliens as well as a political element in Factorio, but I'm not sure if everyone would be happy about it.

[MF-]

Sounds like the "supply" scenario from the scenario pack.

I was unable to get very far in that, cause
it turns out I don't like briging the operations to big scales.