Factorio Forums

TL;DR:

• If desired, this could be gated behind promethium science

Why?

1. This maintains only 1 landing pad per planet as a logistic puzzle, and to keep GUIs simple FFF-417
2. This maintains "it's cool to have a single location with lots of activity"
3. This maintains "shipping spoilable Ag Science to another planet should be rewarded" 129833
4. When megabasing, players now have up to 4 Landing Pads (one on each planet) to ram science packs through, alleviating the throughput issues we currently face trying to ram everything through a single landing pad on Nauvis 130388
5. This encourages producing the 6 basic science packs on each planet, which is more interesting than only producing them on Nauvis
6. Nauvis is still relevant as the only source of biter eggs and uranium, and Bioflux still has to be shipped to Nauvis
7. If desired, the ability to place Biolabs on planets other than Nauvis could be gated behind promethium science
8. Any lore excuse can be made. Maybe Biolabs are allergic to the spores on Gleba

HeliGungir wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 7:11 pmAny lore excuse can be made. Maybe Biolabs are allergic to the spores on Gleba

eugenekay wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 10:50 pm

HeliGungir wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 7:11 pmAny lore excuse can be made. Maybe Biolabs are allergic to the spores on Gleba

I think that this bit of Lore is the ONLY reason worth considering, and explains perfectly why Biolabs must stay only on Nauvis: they are based on Biter Biology! The crafting recipe's major ingredient is Biter Eggs, which means the Lab is performing ethically questionable animal testing. Vulcanus' pressure is too high to support non-Demolisher life; Fulgora's soil is poisoned with Heavy Oil from a long-dead industrial civilization; and Aquilo's Ammonia atmosphere is as unbreathable as the vacuum of a Space Platform.

This idea seems like a good candidate for a fork of an existing mod, so that folks can try it out and see what the resulting factories actually look like.

crimsonarmy wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 11:31 pmThere is the issue of biters survive everywhere.

HeliGungir wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 7:11 pm [*]Any lore excuse can be made. Maybe Biolabs are allergic to the spores on Gleba

eugenekay wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 11:40 pm

crimsonarmy wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 11:31 pmThere is the issue of biters survive everywhere.

Survive? Biter Eggs spoil into a "Big Biter" with reduced health; not into a Spawner. Bacterium may "survive" in space, but they are not happy about it, and definitely not reproducing or usable for Scientific Research.

The Biolab can be used only on Nauvis as the organism inside would die on other planets, but in turn it only consumes half the amount of science packs for any given research.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Aug 23, 2025 7:51 am My opinion is that this incentivize players to make all their labs in Vulcanus and not on every planets.

crimsonarmy wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 2:33 am

mmmPI wrote: Sat Aug 23, 2025 7:51 am My opinion is that this incentivize players to make all their labs in Vulcanus and not on every planets.

I do see what you are saying (and kind of agree), but each planet has it's benefits for having your labs on it (other than Aquilo): Vulcanus has the ability to easily make a lot of science, Fulgora is in close proximity to Aquilo, and Navius is centrally located and is your home planet (so many people will use it by default).