Factorio Forums

Maybe I just haven't come across it, but I would love to see a mod (or the vanilla game for that matter) do something with the alien concept that actually felt like it took from what the alien behaviour and organic nature lend themselves to.

Ideas:

a) "Organic" Facilities - Structures you "grow" rather than build
Placing down a simple structure that you can then tell to "grow" into one of a number of options with multiple "tiers" each.

-> the base type could be context sensitive "farm" that either creates an organic material to be used in this new technology branch, or mine a raw resource and convert it into different raw resources or refine them into new or existing materials.

-> one form these could develop into would act like the furnaces or oil refinery, converting base organic materials into refined ones, or combining two basic materials to create more advanced ones.

-> perhaps another form would be the organic equivalent to the assemby machines - creating organic machines that act as specialized forms of the existing types
--- eg. new miners that cover larger areas, are small but much faster,
--- underground belts/pipes that are more like power lines, not needing to be in a straight line to move the materials along them.
--- new power options that let you convert polution into energy or send out little creatures to destroy trees and conver that to power.
--- new types of defeneive structures like self healing walls that let the player walk or drive vehicles through them. long range artillery options, and perhaps structures that are defended by their own types of biters that it is able to generate more of when existig ones are destroyed/killed.

-> and maybe you'd have a researching form that lets you research the new branches tech.

b) Hybrid Vehicle/Creatures
Vehicles that offer new options, and open up new playstyles

- A Crawlers that lets you ride it like a car, but will also follow you when you're moving around on foot (mobile storage)

-> Underground trains that move from point to point (avoiding enemies, and without colliding things)
--- You would place down things like the power poles to create the routes from "station" to "station".

c) New survival systems
The base game seems to imply tha the player is able to survive the planets hostile enviroment with the aid of his space suit and little else. If the aliens are going to be a bigger part of the game (with this mod?), perhaps having some new enviromental hazards that the new technology could enable the player to overcome.

i) harnessable envrimental hazards
I'm sure you could think of a bunch of new enviromental hazards that feel alien and interesting, but here are a few I think could work well.

-> Thorn fields
A new enviroment that is hostile to the player. The player would move more slowly over it, and some parts of it would act like trees, blocking your movement, but also do damage to the player when they collide with it.
--- The player might not have a way to cross this in the early game, but the vanilla flame system would allow the player to "push it back". Alternatively the player could create technology that takes advantage of it with alien tech. Perhaps the crawler vehical/creature could travel more swiftly across this than normal terrain, and the player could then harvest it, and grow it as a means to defend against some types of biters.

-> Liquid Sands
The desert area could be host to a "quicksand" like substance that would sweep the player away. It would act like the transport belts do in how it affects the players locomotion, but would be constantly changing.
--- The player could overcome it by building flooring across it, or with alien tech, harness it. You'd be able to construct it like flooring only it would be controled by the player to always move them faster than the concrete movement bonus.

ii) buffs and debuffs

-> Hunger
The player never needs to sleep in the game, which makes sense from a gameplay standpoint, but perhaps there could be a mechanic that causes the player to perform less reliably over time without consuming some item to restore him back to peak status. Maybe not a damage over time thing like most games do, but a slightly decreased move speed, crafting speed, and mining speed?

-> Stimulants
Adding some items that the player can craft and consime that enhance the players base attributes. Move speed, Crafting speed, Mining Speed, Health regen, etc.

-> Cybernetics
Like Stimulants only permanent. There are components for the power armor, but why not components for the players body?

And lastly
d) Some more space grade technology
I realize the games concete is that the player is able to do a bunch of things because they are a crashed space faring person... like craft by hand some really complicated things (all while still maintaining a decent walking speed), but what about a hand scanner, or a mining lazer/multi-tool?

-> Mining Lazer Tool
The games system for crafting basic tools feels slapped in there to make the by hand mining suck less... why not make the by hand mining even faster, but require some recharge time? Start out the game with a "damaged mining tool" that consumes energy that very slowly recharges.
Later in the game, the player can repair the tool
--- fix the optics to let you mine from a distance (early game upgrade)
--- improve the energy efficiency so it lasts longer and charges faster (green circuits)
--- increase the power capacity so you never have to worry about it running out (batteries)

-> Bigger Mining Lazers
The slow rate of the electric mining drills are all well and good for the early game, but you'd imagine a space travelling being such as yourself would be able to come up with something better than them right?

-> Better Power Sources
I know the base game is adding nuclear soon, but wind (already a mod, I know), tidal energy, etc.

-> Better Power Storage
We have all kinds of power storage options in the real world (tension coils for kenetic energy storage, underwater balloons for convering energy to pressure and back again) why not some power storage options before we get acid batteries? Also, some better late game ones that don't require huge solar farms?


I could go on, but maybe I should spend some time making a few of these instead

> Thorne fields

Love this idea. It's already possible to set tile-specific movement speeds for pedestrians and vehicles, so that aspect is certainly feasible - just needs someone to do the sprites and work out the autoplace settings.

As for the damage aspect, that could possibly be done with land mines styled to look like thorn bushes - so as player moves through the field, the "thorn mines" explode causing some damage. The mines would be "enemy" force (so they attack player but not biters), thus giving the aliens an advantage in that terrain.

Player could potentially use flamethrower or something like that to destroy the bushes in order to avoid damage, or just get in an tank and not care so much about the damage.

> Liquid sands

What you're describing sounds more like ice than sand - the player would slide when on ice.

For liquid sand... quick sand... the player would sink in it. I can think of some ways to do this, by putting entities over the quicksand patches that would give the effect of the player sinking when player is behind those entities, and also setting movement speed modifiers for the tiles to be really slow or something. Again, it might be that some damage is done to player when moving over such tiles.

> Buffs and debuffs

I've been tinkering around with this sort of stuff already but haven't completed it yet. I'm working on adding character classes (Factorian, Human, Metahuman, Cyborg and Android) each having their own pros and cons. For example, humans are easier to damage, but also easier to repair (eat fish, rest, etc), Androids would be harder to damage and harder to repair (repair packs, lubricant, etc). The more dymanic buffs, like stimulants, would ideally be done via stickers, but I have no idea how to add stickers to players via the current modding API - it seems that entire feature is not currently available to mods.

aubergine18 wrote: > Liquid sands

What you're describing sounds more like ice than sand - the player would slide when on ice.

For liquid sand... quick sand... the player would sink in it. I can think of some ways to do this, by putting entities over the quicksand patches that would give the effect of the player sinking when player is behind those entities, and also setting movement speed modifiers for the tiles to be really slow or something. Again, it might be that some damage is done to player when moving over such tiles.

I can see why you'd think that... ice fields was one I was thinking of too (where you'd have to build momentum in order to move, and overcome if when you change direction). I didn't suggest it thought, as it would mean making a lot of new assets, and I am not sure how to accomplish it mechanically.
As for the fluid/liquid sand, the thought is this:
The sands are like a shallow ocean you can walk across, shifting under your feet, but the surface is still solid enough to stand on. So you'd enter onto what appears solid enough ground, only to be swept away in it. Creating a cluster of belts that constantly change directions is the mechanism, but the justification is perhaps flawed.