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0.17 has brought massive fields of biter nests far earlier and larger than what we'd see in 0.16. The assault waves are also stronger, so where before we could make do with a bunch of lasers now it is essential to also have flamethrowers and bots to repair the damage. Even using artillery it now takes a pretty long time (with the weapon strengths before space science and infinite improvements) to clear the nests.

Sure, I can handle it... but I do not enjoy wasting so much of my time on such garbage gameplay, making t harder to resist the urge to switch the map to peaceful. But I would prefer to roll back the alien behavior to something similar to what it was in 0.16.

I tried to do that on my own, with some success but not enough once I started to clean up nests with artillery in order to expand. So before I give one last shot at keeping aliens around, I must ask:

Are there settings that can be used to turn back biters to 0.16 behavior (nest sizes, evolution rate, size of the assault waves, and "durability" of the attacking enemies)?

If yes, what are those settings?

0.16 had a bug where biter nests absorbed too much pollution, resulting in weak attack waves.

To simulate that in 0.17, go to New Game -> Advanced and increase the attack cost modifier to 500%.

DaveMcW wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 4:46 am 0.16 had a bug where biter nests absorbed too much pollution, resulting in weak attack waves.

To simulate that in 0.17, go to New Game -> Advanced and increase the attack cost modifier to 500%.

0.16 and every version before it had a "bug"? Or is it just that the devs changed their idea as to how they want the game to be and now they want the game to be all about combat?

Sounds more like a game direction choice, more than a bug.

And for those that prefer design to combat... it has made the game a lot less fun, with far more tedious, annoying and boring aspects having been added. I enjoy combat games but I came to factorio because I also enjoy design and automation, and Factorio was the first game I ever found that truly did that right (before 0,17). If my first version had been 0,17 I would have dumped it immediately after trying the demo, because it is lame as a combat game and it no longer lets you enjoy the process of designing in unless you tweak the settings.

I will try that 500% attack cost though, BTW, did you mean increase or decrease by 500%? Increase would seem to mean that it would make enemies tougher, not roll them back to 0.16 like behavior.

zOldBulldog wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 8:14 am 0.16 and every version before it had a "bug"? Or is it just that the devs changed their idea as to how they want the game to be and now they want the game to be all about combat?

Sounds more like a game direction choice, more than a bug.

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-283

Zavian wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 8:20 am

zOldBulldog wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 8:14 am 0.16 and every version before it had a "bug"? Or is it just that the devs changed their idea as to how they want the game to be and now they want the game to be all about combat?

Sounds more like a game direction choice, more than a bug.

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-283

Interesting long analysis.

I am looking at it from a practical point of view based on my 0.17 experience:

CURRENT BASE STATE:
- I am playing railworld.
- I have not yet completed all of the yellow research.
- So far I have a basic "slow" research and production mall, just started on smelters and green/red circuit lines, and a small Artillery shell production line.
- I have not even built a true science/rocket production line yet. Just the very small science supported by my 3x3 chunk early base.
- I originally pushed the enemy back a little with tank and explosive shells.

FIRST REAL EXPANSION:
- I needed space to place a blue circuits line. I figured it would be cake with Artillery and almost fully yellow-upgraded lasers. Nope. I lost my outpost and train. I was already being attacked by behemoths. Yes, this early.
- 2nd try I added flamethrowers, 100 repair bots and 300 repair kits. Better, but my defenses still took damage.
- I kept at it and noticed that the nest fields were massive. Not a solid red wall, but it is getting pretty close to that... On railworld with expansion off, and I am barely into the midgame. And yet the aliens are already near max evolution and covering most of the map.
- I am coping with them, but pushing them back has become very tedious and time consuming, having to do mostly manual targeting at this stage of the game. I can envision it getting better after space science with automated assaults, longer ranges and aliens maxing out in evolution not much farther than they are now. But hell, this is NOT fun, it is boring and annoying.

That is why I want to dial them back on my next playthrough. I am losing interest in Factorio as it plays with the current behavior, and I can't imagine enjoying it either if I set it up as fully peaceful.

0.16 behavior was the sweet spot for me, and I really want to figure out all the necessary settings to reproduce it.,

So I cant tell you how to make biters to be 0.16 like, but since I like to play on "biters easy" settings I can share what I have been playing so far on latest experimental 0.17 version and I got to the 1K spm stage pretty much without concerns about biters:

So I started with the Rail World settings which turns off enemy expansion

Enemy bases: Frequency and Size both 50% (Default 100%) - this makes biter nests much smaller so they are way easier to destroy and they are less frequent so in general you wont be bothered with destroying bases so much
Enemy Expansion: off (Default Rail World)
Evolution: Time factor 10 (Default Rail World 20) Destroy factor 100 (Default Rail World 200) - this slows down evolution somewhat, but I cant really tell how much exactly, all I can say is that I installed efficiency modules in pretty much almost everything and didnt have any behemoth biters by the time I completed initial 90spm base and something like 35 hours in to the game. However main factor for evolution in my game was pollution which I didnt change, so if you are worried for behemoths too early on I would probably go with Pollution factor 5 (Default Rail World 9) as well.

phi Seeker wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 2:43 pm So I cant tell you how to make biters to be 0.16 like, but since I like to play on "biters easy" settings I can share what I have been playing so far on latest experimental 0.17 version and I got to the 1K spm stage pretty much without concerns about biters:

So I started with the Rail World settings which turns off enemy expansion

Enemy bases: Frequency and Size both 50% (Default 100%) - this makes biter nests much smaller so they are way easier to destroy and they are less frequent so in general you wont be bothered with destroying bases so much
Enemy Expansion: off (Default Rail World)
Evolution: Time factor 10 (Default Rail World 20) Destroy factor 100 (Default Rail World 200) - this slows down evolution somewhat, but I cant really tell how much exactly, all I can say is that I installed efficiency modules in pretty much almost everything and didnt have any behemoth biters by the time I completed initial 90spm base and something like 35 hours in to the game. However main factor for evolution in my game was pollution which I didnt change, so if you are worried for behemoths too early on I would probably go with Pollution factor 5 (Default Rail World 9) as well.

Thank you very much!