Factorio Forums

The purpose of this post is to bring light to a mechanic change in the game which has had fairly significant (and I believe unintended) consequences to the game. I find this issue to be rather game-breaking so much so that it's really holding me back from actually playing the game. How could such a game-breaking thing go unnoticed? Well it only really applies to worlds of great size (megabase sized worlds) hence why I believe it may have been overlooked or missed as an issue that I believe to be rather extreme.

I have previously posted about this issue being a bug, but it was ruled not a bug and hence why I am posting it here. For reference here is that bug report: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=31949

The issue is that due to certain ways in which biter path-finding works biters can be prone to taking out power poles along rail lines and it has only become an issue post the 0.13 patch. Why? Because previous to v0.13 the common method of defending against the biters was the use of 'victory poles'; these were items that could be dropped in the world (a simple wooden chest for example) and would disable biter spawning in the surrounding 3-4 chunks. Whilst this method was effective it was most certainly overpowered and more or less negated the threat of biters to the player and buildings.

So in 0.13 this mechanic was changed such that biters might expand to a given chunk based on a probability mechanic - if the player had more structures in that chunk the lower the chance of biter expansion. This made 'victory poling' useless and as such the biters have now become a real threat again; forcing the player to properly defend his structures with the use of walls/turrets.

First and foremost let me say this: I completely agree that victory poling was overpowered and very much welcome the changes that have taken place to stop this mechanic, I do not think that it needs to go back to the old 'victory poling' way.

However, it has had a rather serious consequence on the way that players must approach megabase sized worlds. Previously the player would not have to defend outposts and/or rail lines, however this is now a necessity. Defending outposts makes total sense and I strongly feel that this is now ballanced - the player must protect his investment. However, the defending of rail lines is a large issue. Rail lines can often extend great distances (especially in RSO maps) and most players will run a power-line down these rail lines to supply outposts with power.

Here's where it gets tricky - biter path-finding tells biters to attack sources of pollution and since power-lines and rails are not sources of pollution they are normally left alone. However, if a large group of biters path over a large power pole when they are on their way to attack a source of pollution (an outpost for example) they can sometimes get stuck. If they get stuck they will attack whatever is in their way - in this case the large power pole. This can have devestating consequences as there is potential for entire sections of worlds to lose power due to this.

Here's a nice gif which demonstrates this issue happening: So what can the player do? Well, to ensure 100% protection they can wall and turret entire train lines. This does work, however it is extremely detrimental to the game-play experience. Why? Because doing so is just not fun when you have to wall and turret massive sections of the world. It is an extremely laborious task even with the use of blueprints and helper mods such as FARL. Furthermore, to ensure that these turret walls are maintained you need to setup roboport networks with supply trains - with a different roboport network if you want to change direction as to avoid construction bots pathing over biter nests.

As someone who has spent 3k+ hours in the game and built multiple megabase sized world I believe this to be a massive issue in the game at the moment. In my current megabase I have spent enormous amounts of time doing this turret and walling of the train lines and it is really taking away from the fun of the game - I want to be out building outposts, launching rockets etc.

The proposed artillery/combat train I do not think will be able to combat this issue as it would be by chance that a train was passing as the biters were pathing over the rail line.

I have not put much thought into possible ways in which this issue could be addressed, however thought I would make a post here to see if any other players are experiencing this issue - particularly those who have made megabase sized worlds also.

I can see how this biter behavior can make it very frustrating to maintain train lines. Even with a train with roboport that replaces recently destroyed poles when driving along.
I started to clean all nests in a wide radius around my base with Ion Cannon and Robot Army and placed Border Posts with Auto Targeters to keep biters from expanding.

Hm. This is an interesting question.
I had that situation also many times. I did never use victory poles. And I think it is a reasonable behavior.

My opinion: What we would need here is some kind of auto-train-repair. Some very expensive stuff. But don't ask me, how that would work. There is already a suggestion about that:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=23534 Railway maintenance and repair
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27824 New Support companion


Reminds me also to viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6048&hilit=train%2A+maintenance Maintainance for Solar Pannels

The suggestion I would make is to not have a single point of failure in your power system, I always build a backup power supply and loop supply so one tower being destroyed will not disrupt power.

Albrat wrote:The suggestion I would make is to not have a single point of failure in your power system, I always build a backup power supply and loop supply so one tower being destroyed will not disrupt power.

We have no indication if one part of a redundant power line got destroyed. Biters could just keep destroying poles until they randomly hit the last one connecting an outpost.
Having power supplies at each outpost would make noticing disconnected posts even harder than noticing the radar in it going down.

Biters follow preset paths, when looking for a new path they check to see if any nearby paths meet their needs.

I utilise this behaviour by moving any power poles that get attacked rather than just rebuilding them. The biters will continue taking the same path every time (unless attacking from a totally different angle or trying to go somewhere else and just happen to pass by) so generally you won't have problems again.

That said it sucks the first time it happens and your base gets wiped out but gun turrets are a good failsafe for that.

Biters are fun... until they are not.
While victory poling was "op", it really was a required mechanic as there is no way to play without biters. Peaceful mode is there, but you still have to clear out their nests, a time consuming task, and when they attack it's even more devastating because you have no defences. And, yes, they do attack. Ever had a train kill a biter in peaceful mode? It's not pretty. 0.15 will make biter-free worlds viable (unless the developers find some way of putting in artefacts in some game-required way again), so I personally am just waiting for that to come out.

I agree 100% with Xeneth, the current behaviour is sooo painful. Placing defences along track is not good game play. But its not just that they occasionally attack a power pole. Biters really do need some additional settings or some fundamental change in their behaviour. A long running game makes an impenetrable wall of worms around my walls. A difficulty setting would be nice as well. Maybe "peaceful", "medium" and "hard", each with different evolution factors and/or aggressiveness. Ultimately biters are fun to play with, but have a long way to go before they are polished (I hope that the developers feel this way as well). It's also going to be fun to play without them.

I also acknowledge that it may not be the biter mechanics that are at fault, but a lack of counter-measures for these behaviours.

Biggest problem I have is that in the endgame there is literally no alternative to running out with 5 shields in MK2 armour and either a flamethrower (slow) or destroyers (expensive). It's just time consuming and dull.

I don't even care about the artefacts, just clearing a track and area for an outpost is tedious, droll work. I don't think there's any point in making them easier, they're already pretty easy once you have the technology, we just need faster or automated ways of dealing with them. Hopefully 0.15 or 0.16 will bring out a large equipment grid for the tank so we can roll around with hundreds of lasers automatically shooting everything, if not then an artillery cannon or something that I can just say "clear out these chunks" and do something else for 10-15 mins.

Deadly-Bagel wrote:Biggest problem I have is that in the endgame there is literally no alternative to running out with 5 shields in MK2 armour and either a flamethrower (slow) or destroyers (expensive). It's just time consuming and dull.

I don't even care about the artefacts, just clearing a track and area for an outpost is tedious, droll work. I don't think there's any point in making them easier, they're already pretty easy once you have the technology, we just need faster or automated ways of dealing with them. Hopefully 0.15 or 0.16 will bring out a large equipment grid for the tank so we can roll around with hundreds of lasers automatically shooting everything, if not then an artillery cannon or something that I can just say "clear out these chunks" and do something else for 10-15 mins.

Right on point. Clearing space in endgame is just a chore that should be automated as either Orbital Ion Cannon or Robot Army demonstrate.
Personally I prefer Robot Army a bit more since weak robots are available early on and they progress with your tech while Ion Cannons are pure endgame doomsday weapon.

My personal Solution to the problem (other than redundant supplies.) is to find where the biters come from and place a couple of walls / laser turrets in their way. Admittedly Do not obstruct their path to the power pole. Just build a defence that lets them walk into the middle of two rows of turrets. They should alway follow the same path up to the point they meet your new defences... At which point they will try to attack them (and be killed in the process.)

My Main solution on my current game was to setup walls accross a massive expanse of land / water. Then build defences along the walls. Once i had built my massive perimeter... I then eradicated every Biter and base within my newly estabilshed area. They can not get inside my defensive walls and I have miles of area to expand in. (each area gets its own defences just incase) But for now my biter defences hold them outside polution range by a few hundred tiles. (It was very agressive expansion of mine.)

I think the devs could probably 'solve' this problem for relatively minimal UPS impact if biters would simply recalculate their paths every few seconds. As shown in the .gif, the one Big biter started attacking the pole because it was boxed in by it's friends, the pole because the path of least resistance. Of course, in a few seconds, it was all alone there, and yet continued to attack rather than realizing the way was now clear and that it could path around the pole. Obviously, the pole would still get damaged and might eventually even get destroyed, but you'd have a chance to address this most like before that happens (having the pole in roboport range is an easy solution for the example in the .gif, but that won't work for all poles (some might be far from an outpost).