End game theory and gameplay ideas

[ArchJudge]

Another thing interesting to see that might already be in the game and I don't know about, is the ability to use combinators to be able to change assembler recipes at a set command after a specific number of items have been built for example, so one can be more efficient with space, especially on deathworlds, maybe make the UI more easy to understand for foolish players like myself that are still confused on how to use combinators effectively

[brunzenstein]

Another thing interesting to see that might already be in the game and I don't know about, is the ability to use combinators to be able to change assembler recipes at a set command after a specific number of items have been built for example, so one can be more efficient with space, especially on deathworlds, maybe make the UI more easy to understand for foolish players like myself that are still confused on how to use combinators effectively

As far as I know there is no way to connect assemblers direct via red/green cable to a combinator without a in-between network aware storage chest - or is it?

[WolfsRain]

Idk if this is idea is posted yet...

My idea is that when you launch the rocket or build a massive antenna (to call for help from your home planet) the message/rocket gets intercepted by Aliens or the message is transmitted successfully.

Aliens intercept the message scenario:

Aliens are evolved sentient things from the planet of Factorio(where you build, idk it's official name) who abandoned the planet a long time ago so it can recover itself from the damage of civilization progress (reason for the alien technology in the planet and maybe ruins?). Those aliens who intercepted the message sends to the planet some kind of exploration team who will land and start looking for the source. They find you and your factory and see the damage you have done to the planet(i hope they add some kind of residual liquid or scrap from production to add more complexity). Then you can fight em or let them go, anyways, they will be back and destroy your antenna (which you have to build again, i will explain maybe later...)

Aliens do a massive invasion on the planet to kill you and your only hope it's to fight 'em back with your tanks and weapons (AI for tanks also robots?) until you die or repel the waves of enemies ruining your beloved factory. Or send another message (costs a lot of resources) so it can arrive to Earth who will help.

Message is received scenario:

Earth congrats you and sends an exploration team to see how are you doing. They see the potential of a colony of humans in this new planet and let's you in charge of fulfill the needs of all those new colonists (food, water, consumer goods, etc). Waves of new colonists come to your planet, demand rises until there's a crisis.

What is a crisis?

It's when colonists start to die or get angry because they are not getting their goods, then they may revolt and attack you or Earth sends troops in order to give security or even depose you from the government of this new proclaimed Earth's colony.

I did not want to go deeper with this, idk if people or the devs whould enjoy this idea. I know it will be difficult to implement it, a lot code and so.

Thanks for read, have a nice day

[safan]

I'd like to make the endgame more interesting by having a better map generation. Seems weird, but i'll explain.

first the setup menu:
I'd like to chose numbers of suns, distance to the sun, atmosphere density, planet core temperature for the planet i'll be dropped on.
They will give a variation of daylength, temperatures, resource density etc.

Then i'd like more terrain features: atm it's just all plains with lakes.
I'd like continents with rivers and lakes. Inpassable mountains and flat valleys.
This way real estate becomes more important: you'll need to build the factorys in the valleys, while the resources are mainly in the rough mountains. Out of this follows adjustments as tunnels, bridges, terraforming (to make flat area out of hills) but also river current power, automated ships, etc
To compensate you'll also need new biters, aquatic, amphibious and flying to make them go for your base.

Add in a more expanded biome:
Cold biome makes everything move slower. Hot biome makes stuff overheat. Wet biome has less stable ground to build on. Dry biome has dust storms
I'd like forests to regrow over anything that is not concrete. i'd like some local fauna exploring your base.
Weather influencing your base. Floods, draughts.
In short, a whole new world.

I'm not so worried about endgame, i'm worried about new features that can be used. For example the code that was ment for the spaceships is now being used by modders to create an underground. Thats what i'm talking about. The developpers shouldn't be thinking about new buildings but about features that can't be modded.

Some things that could be wanted for a mod, but can't be done right now:
-i'd like to choose to only have desert biome.
-i'd like to have machinery run out after 10000 uses. After that they need to be replaced and the old machine recycled.
-I'd also like to them react more to enviromental issues: cold makes them slower, hotness makes them need a cooldown period every so often. Rain and dust makes them detoriate faster.
-I'd like to have all items have a weight and a maximal workload for my guy: time to use that car, and you can't run around with a car in your pocket.
-I'd like to have several mutual exclusive tech trees. You can't research all, you have to choose between nuclear or solar power

How would this work with endgame:

Imagine having pollution influencing global temperature influencing weather influencing how your factory works
Imagine ordering robots to move a mountain to make room for your factory.
Imagine having to explore a new continent with a new biome to expand.

I'm a bit against all events that need you personally: when i'm working on an expansion two continents away, i don't want a message that godzilla is attacking my main base.

[ArchJudge]

More terrain variety wouldn't hurt either. Big mountains, canyons, etc. that obstruct your ability to build a 'comfortable' base like you're used to.

I like the idea of mountains, they could play well being integrated into resource generating, so for instance starting with mid-game, especially in deathworld settings where expanding to get more iron ore gets increasingly difficult, they could introduce the choice, instead of getting control of new iron ore/copper/coal fields you can research deep vein mining where at the base of a mountain a rather expensive and invulnerable structure (Mining shaft/geological probe?) can be built that accesses an infinite amount of ore (and you also have to manufacture and install extra drilling bots that go mine inside the mountain automatically if in roboport range, if they are destroyed, the yield of ore stops until you rebuild them and the structure is useless without them)

The mining shaft with drilling bots would have to be very limited and comparatively small yield (so expanding the base or building outposts in search for surface ore to be mined with electric mining drill is still a preferred choice as it has well understood consequences), the yield could be just enough maybe to have iron ore to keep up with ammo supply and replacement drilling bots (much like oil gets extracted) and with different types of modifiers, challenges and choices that impact costs, for instance one can try to make the yield cycle faster with speed modules but at the risk of vein expanding into an underground biter lair so the mining shaft becomes infested and now after losing most of the drilling bots inside, you also have to re-establish control over it, as natives start pouring out.

Or if one goes for productivity modules, it makes yield slightly better at the end of longer cycles but with each cycle you increase the chance of having the mountain partially collapse on the inside, causing earthquakes and cave-ins that further adds pollution to the area and traps driller bots inside (crushing some) until new ones can dig them out, temporarily diminishing yield. All of this could be implemented rather easily without the need of animations or graphics, just as a simple dialogue window popping up or notification, it adds choice and decision making to the player when figuring out how best to tackle the need for resources (since it would be static, endless in capacity but challenging to mine with a limited yield/time) and also adds mining-themed roleplaying elements making Factorio more varied in gameplay and hopefully more successful (all at the sacrifice of poor driller robots). Obviously the balance of this needs better ideas than I can come up with, so hopefully someone smarter can pitch in.

[xuhao]

This is just a thought..

Were stuck on a planet with an endless amount of ressources and we manage to build square miles after square mile of factories... And now we have the option of flying home to our good old 3 room appartment and an average space engeneer salary..???.. Well - were rich on this planet- insanely rich actually. And as long as the local lifeforms can be controlled or held back, we could bring back some of the riches. We could invite other humans to settle and prepare for their arrival. Or we could poppulate the planet with our own intelligent creations (androids, bio-engeneered humans) and proclaim ourself as the supreme ruler of the planet factorio!

[Stede]

I like the alien boss idea. Currently once your factory is set to start building rocket parts, you're left kind of just waiting. You check your power situation, maybe drop a few more modules into certain places. Finally lay down some concrete and wait.

Fact is when the rocket launches, you've basically already won for about an hour. Then what? I think the construction of rocket components should be locked until a silo is placed, and the silo should trigger an endgame - what that endgame is and how it works, I'm not certain, but I'm really open to any ideas.

I think, though, that it would work best as an evolution of previous mechanics or concepts. Turning the game into a resettlement builder after launch seems like too far of a departure from all the time spent up until launch. I remember watching -root's youtube vids ahead of my 1st playthrough and how mindblown I was when I watched the tutorial on Bots for the first time. It was like a whole new game. Trains were a slower burn, but once I got them figured out, I realized how big of a deal they were. Finally, modules were another big twist - and the re-designs that were available to use with them.

The endgame should be a similar twist. It should be something you can only prepare for so much before it starts (similar to early game power building - you typically want 2 labs and 10 red packs in the hopper so you can get your SMG built ASAP bc those boilers will be attracting unwanted attention quickly). In addition, I think the endgame should also serve as a handoff to post-endgame. An alien boss is an idea that could work here - the first ones start after building a silo, and after launching, there could be some kind of buildup on that mechanic to present some kind of challenge once the rocket has been launched.

I think with the addition of more content, we could also see more technologies added to facilitate that content. Currently, things like infinite robot follower count currently seems to trivialize offensive combat - I can roam with 20 destroyer caps deployed and auto-shotty through bases in my 2 roboport MK2 armor. But you could have bosses drop new tech items. You could make combat have more depth at the endgame (think remote orbital supply drops that are built and launched as payloads on rockets/satellites, and then called down on the battlefield in remote locations. There's tons of stuff that could be done even with just that mechanic - satellite specializations - payload, microwave solar power beams on a cooldown, orbital lasers, etc.

I'm pretty open to anything that would add flavor to the endgame & beyond, but my personal favorite would be to load a train with explosives and run it into an alien nest.

[hi_impact]

Stede's on the right path here.

The game delivers. From smelting, to Science 1&2, to Science 3, to trains and outposts and dealing with running out of your first mine, to bots... the game provides this steady stream of "WOW" moments.

There's not much to change. The rocket is a good goal. But it could be a little bigger, and the answer lies not in some entirely different game, but reaching juuuust a bit farther. Having modular thingys to put into the rocket that unlock the next and perhaps final endgame goal(s). One more puzzle that unlocks with the first satellite, that adds to game while building on the previous elements, the same way the other "WOW" moments were. This will make the rocket parts of your factory more permanent fixtures, if for example there were 6 things you could launch into space, but only 2 of them progressed the game while the others provided utility like Power or Resources or Combat. Like asteroid miners that drop-podded resources obtained off-screen, or advanced satellite scans that revealed (and generated) underground objectives, or an official stamped and fleshed out Ion Cannon.

I'm down for a space platform or moon base, as long as it's fleshed out. I don't want a chore moving resources back and forth with a reskinned newgame+. As long as it's well thought out, which I trust it will be, I will be happy with anything.

[Ravlen]

Here's my somewhat simple idea, to expand Factorio into something a bit more well-rounded: "Levels" of targets. This would be more popular with newer players, than experts, I think, but it's good to get the game into more people's hands, right? This isn't just the End Game, but also a slower Starting Game to fill it out a bit.

Level 1.

First would be to decrease the difficulty/time for the first satellite. This would also require the tech tree to be limited (stopped) after certain tech. The newer tech requires information you don't have, so you launch the satellite to scan the planet to find a "library ship" or something. It's so far away that you have to build a plane to get there. At this point, you wouldn't be able to use electric furnaces, for example, solar panels, etc... You could conceivably be missing part of the oil processing system too (chemical plants, for example). Limited weapons, no research above the level 1 type. You then fill the plane with assorted resources and fly away from your factory. Because there's no runway near the library ship, you crash land and start anew. No alien science yet, only biters which are too dumb to have science knowledge. No nests, no power armor.

Level 2.

You have new knowledge from the library that allows you to research advanced topics. This allows you to make more advanced buildings, and instead of a satellite, your new goal is a rocket to get off the planet. Starting from scratch, but with your experience, previously researched tech, and resources you brought, allows you to build a new base in a new style, and then aim towards the "manned rocket". Research goes up to level 2 in many things, level 3 in some things. Better weapons become available. Oil processing becomes advanced with chemical plants. The goal would be things like rocket fuel, plastics, batteries, solar panels. No low density structures yet, maybe. No Alien research yet, even. Biters are joined by spitters, and there are nests, but no alien modules yet (you get some kind of resource useful for building the first "manned rocket", for now). Electric furnaces become available. No oil cracking yet, maybe. Powered armor Mk I, but limited components. That kind of thing. When you finally build the rocket, you get in, with a load of resources again, and launch into space! No logistics/construction robots yet. Level 1 modules.

Level 3

Unfortunately, your rocket only got you as far as the moon of the planet. Now, your game changes quite a bit. The scenery is much greyer, and there are no trees, but there ARE abandoned alien outposts, still protected by ancient defences. It is at this point that you can start getting alien artifacts from the outposts. You continue the research tree and get access to things like Powered Armor Mk II, rapid belts, all the advanced stuff, and new items for the moon. Unfortunately, there is no oil on the moon, no wood, and no coal, so you need new ALIEN research to convert the new moon resources (Helium-3, Tritium, or something stuff like that) into what you need, with the goal of a proper "interplanetary capsule". Recipes become complex, and harder to plan out. You have to use your experience and smarts to make an efficient base this time. Maybe the low gravity slows down production slightly so things you used to craft yourself should be automated too. Thankfully though, the low gravity allows you to make the first logistics/construction robots now, and they need less resources to make than in the current game. Now you can make low density structures. Tritium or whatever can be processed in chemical plants, and you can fuel Fusion Reactors with Helium-3! Level 2 modules are available now. Tanks available, too. You need BOTH a rocket (level 2) AND an Interplanetary Capsule. You blast off again!

Level 4
... and land on another planet, but STILL in the same planetary system. This time, you have all the research you need in general, and any new research is now for fun stuff, like the cool powered armor parts, faster machines, the level 4-5+ research trees (and going infinitely, perhaps), upgrades, etc... The new planet has ALL resources, but the moon resources are much more limited. While tritium was easy to find on the moon, it's now very scarce and you need to use chemical plants, cracking, productivity modules, research, to get enough. Robots are more expensive as they have to fly in a regular gravity environment. You now have to get ALL the resources working together to finally make "Interstellar Space Ship". All enemies are here, too. There are both giant nests, and abandoned alien cities (but still with automated defenses). Fusion Reactors, etc... etc...

This is the End Game. It's great, because you can have it so the Space Ship has an "infinite" number of Space Ship Modules. People will decide what they want to spend their time on. Modules for space ship speed, modules for space ship resources, modules for space ship fuel, space ship scanners. When ready, players will blast off and jump to another planet, to rebuild. Or they keep building modules and build bigger and bigger spaceships.

Here's the key: When you blast off, you jump only so far, before landing on the next planet, based on your space ship's components. If you spend a LONG time loading it up, you will jump farther. If you do the minimum, you don't go far at all (but you do get a new planet to play with). The End Game players will get two counters keeping track of their distance from the starting point. "Ravlen is now 20 Billion Kilometers from the start, after 3 Jumps". Every jump lets you increase your counter, which you can share publicly somehow. Forum users would have a signature showing how far they are, and how many jumps they've done. There could also be a counter for "Number for modules on current Interstellar Ship". Some people will spend a long time working on huge jumps, others will do multiple small jumps. You can continue the infinite tech tree during this, try out new strategies on new planets. The planets themselves don't have to differ much, but should have some variety to them to keep it interesting. Gravity could make it interesting (more/less expensive logistics), as well as end game resources scarcity (Tritium/Helium-3, etc...). Having scanners could mean you choose from a list for the next planet. The more scanner modules you have, the bigger the planet list for the next landing. Some people won't jump at all, and just work on one planet refining their base. But in general, people will keep going farther and farther away. You could even create a point where you get back to earth, maybe after 100 billion kilometers, but find it abandoned. You build a new base, and jump farther away...

This was just written out on a break at work, in stream of consciousness style. It's rough, but I think it's actually much easier to implement than other ideas here, because it's all the same mechanics, for the most part.

Well?

Ravlen