Mods that take advantage of large MP numbers now possible

[Robot721]

With the ability to now host large games, there should be mods that cater to this. I'm watched the larger games on Youtube as of recent (and played on a couple), but they're generally rather chaotic, and on vanilla result in most major technologies unlocked within a few hours.

To take advantage of these far larger numbers and to get greater overall involvement, what if there were enhancements to Factorio?

A few suggestions off the top of my head

- Specialist roles each player can adopt. Scouts, soldiers, etc with different strengths. Support roles following fighters around, that perhaps possess energy transfer lasers, etc.
- More diversification of activities in general.
- Some sort of GUI tool to aid in coordination.
- Expanded "end-game" items requiring vast amounts of resources (think the effort to craft 500-1000 god mod 6's). Perhaps one thing is a PA module called "crafting assist" that distributes crafting loads across players with that module as well within range in the logistics network that is currently not crafting anything.
- Various bonuses through teamwork

Misc
- Ways to make it easier to ban people other than typing in their name verbatim. Such as a GUI with a full list of connected players, and by highlighting the name and clicking the ban button, all it does it automatically type and press enter the command.
- Misc other admin controls (control deconstruct, pausing, grenade/explosive possession)

I'd like to see any other ideas or suggestions people have. I see a lot of connected users as a lot of potential energy. Finding a way to more properly harness that adding some MMO elements can result in large, long-term servers that drive even more popularity towards this game.

Thanks

[aubergine18]

Specialist roles each player can adopt. Scouts, soldiers, etc with different strengths. Support roles following fighters around, that perhaps possess energy transfer lasers, etc.

From vague memory the spacebook mod does something like that: https://mods.factorio.com/mods/binbinhfr/SpaceBook

Some sort of GUI tool to aid in coordination.

I think everyone's waiting to see what the new GUI stuff in 0.15 will bring before attempting anything like this.