I propose changing this to "some survivors" have crash landed. Although at first it could still just be the player. I realize Factorio is already finished and these are sweeping changes, but I wanted to throw it out there in case people like it, who knows? There is always expansion packs, sequels, and over achieving modders
Say, as you begin producing electricity, workers will begin appearing to maintain the infrastructure. These workers then will "need" all of the various aspects of civilization: Residential buildings, roads, un-polluted skies, etc..
In order to raise the global electric production cap, or unlock tiers of research, or whatever the population related hard cap winds up being, you will need to sustain a greater and greater population. Which is directly affected by biter attack casualties, or indirectly by quality of life infrastructure and researched tech. A devastating biter attack with horrific deaths and bodies piled up on the street would significantly decrease your population, for example.
Your global pollution level, in conjunction with biter evolution, would determine the frequency and size of biter invasions, which is a little more organized, by way of multiple biter cells building and attacking in unison from several different directions.
Imagine the chaos if you suddenly lose half of your population and in turn, cannot adequately power your defensive structures.
I feel like this sort of foundation would create a whole new dynamic with which to build from. For example, "automated rail system" could be a relatively high tech, where "manned rail system" would be much easier to achieve, for the cost of a few workers who want families and recreation and so forth.
Obviously this doesn't line up with the fleeting UPS / SPM chasing crowd, but still.
