Factorio Forums

I've started to think: what would the gameplay be like if you've started the game on just the infinite plane of grass beig given a chest with some basic machines with some mods that would make all the resources renewable? Kind of what treefarm does, but with metallic/ore resources too. Or is there already mod for that I'm not up-to-date with?

Youki gives the ability to create ores and it also has an "infinite value" recipe, but i dont know how you would make this idea work. Please share if you have any success tho

An idea would be to have no resources on the map, only patches were you can build certain buildings, which can produce resources, you have to choose which resource you generate on a given patch.

I'd rather like to see not being limited to use designated spots at all. How I imagine the idea:

You start on a small island with a device that can filter water/mine underground/etc using electricity to get random resources you further process which is alot less efficient than standard mining but doesn't require any specific place. To expand your teritory you have to use landfill (or similar mod), to get oil-based products - something treefarm-ish. Goal is the same as usual.

How about something like this.
Factorio has combinators which work on signals and are connected in networks that perform certain functions.
Now, imagine being able to construct networks using physical objects (e.g motors, wheels, manipulators etc).

Say you are offended by all those forests on your map and decide to construct a tree harvester.

So you go to your workbench (1 chunk square) and connect a chassis,controller, wheels, an engine, drive train e, a chainsaw, a smart inserter (set to wood), and a chest (and maybe a nice paint job).
Once finished, you release the harvester and do other stuff.

In effect you've made a mini (mobile)factory.

The BIG difference is that this "factory" was constructed from primitives . I used examples of: engines, controller, wheels etc, which can be connected like Meccano. This is currently not possible. Various machines that can be currently constructed give the impression they are generalized, but I do not believe they truly are. Designing a proper set of generalized primitives would be a major undertaking.
But if the design team buys into it, it would be amazing.

i have started to make a mod pack that stiel

In skyblock the main thing to get over is space because you have a 9x9 grid to start. why not generate a map where ores are very low and the whole map except for a very very small chunk is covered in those big rocks? that way it acts like a fog of war that you have to mine away in order to make room.

How about a mod that made you deal with another scarcity.. a scarce recipe. Perhaps blue science, for example, could not be built in your pocket or in an assember. Instead, there are rare 3x3 blocks scattered around the world (randomly, and ~1000 tiles apart) which are "natural assembers". Call them alien ruins, or geographic flux generators.. but in its mechanics it's just a 3x3 structure that acts just like a blue science assember, but you can't change its recipe or mine or move the building so you have to bring input materials to them instead of building an assember anywhere you want.

In terms of gameplay, now suddenly you have to handle the logistics of moving many new types of materials by train.. gotta get raw parts to the assember and bring the blue science back to the megabase. And there's only one assembler in any location, so you need a bigger sprawling train network to link up the scattered generators, meaning lots more complex and tangled logistics. Complex and tangled logistics is what Factorio is all about!

You could make a different recipe, or or more than one recipe "rare". I picked blue science since you only need red and green to get railways, and admittedly this whole mechanic is just an excuse to encourage more rail logistics and complexity. Making all three basic rocket parts assembers distributed and "rare" would also be a challenge.

Sorry, it's hard for me to distinct between discussion and suggestion. This becomes a suggestion if you continue, so please make a new thread in Suggestions (if you want to discuss this last idea) and go back to the subject here.