Stone & biters issues

[tux_mark_5]

Hello,

I've been playing factorio for a week or so and I've run into a couple issues that prevent me from enjoying the game.

First of all - stone. No matter what map generation settings I use, I always get little to no stone. I get seas of other resources (iron, copper) that can cover the whole screen, but finding anything beyond 4x4 of stone is tricky, to put it mildly.
I've spent over 20 hours in my current game (which now I gave up on) where I was looking for remote stone expansion, only to realize that there are no viable stone expansions (I've converted my save to scenario and saw only tiny patches of stone in far away locations).

Another issue - biters. My main save was generated using Normal/Medium/Regular bitter settings, but this is way too much I can handle. In my starting area I've got only small enemy bases that I've already eliminated using destroyer capsules. However beyond my starting zone there is a never ending sea of clustered enemy bases. The problem is that I want to expand and to do so would mean that I would have to go through hundreds if not thousands enemy spawners. After seeing this absurd amount of spawners that cover pretty much entire map beyond starting zone I've decided to throw away my current 20 hour game, because killing biters while having resource deficit is too frustrating and tedious. Especially without stone, because having no stone means that I have like 2 stacks of brick walls during my entire playthrough and this is not enough to shield my turrets and lasers.

So, I've decided to start a new map with less biters and more stone. And guess what - no matter what settings I set, I still get way too many biters for my liking and little to no stone (compared to other materials).

So, I'd like to ask - is this an intended behavior of map generation settings or just a bug?

This is what happens when I set the lowest possible biter settings (Very Low/Very Small/Very Poor) with no starting zone:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/246 ... _scrot.png
I paused the game just to take the screenshot, because I would get immediately killed in a few seconds just after starting the new map.

I much rather play without any biters if no biters or never ending sea of biters are the only two options. But then there would be no legitimate way to get 4th level science packs. And killing an occasional biter or two is a way to vary things up.

[sillyfly]

I always find I have way too much stone - much more than I need for plenty of walls and rails. What do you use all your stone for?

As for dealing with the biters - I don't understand why you set the map to no starting area - set it to very large starting area, and you will have plenty of room without biters.
Aside from that - progress intelligently - if you mine too much too fast you will cause lots of pollution, which will make the biters evolve and attack you more frequently. If you plan your progress, and not delay the military techs too much it shouldn't be too difficult to handle.
I find distractor capsules to be very useful - much more so than the defenders, and they don't require alien science packs, unlike the destroyer (Though I have to admit I prefer the distractors even after I have researched destroyers )

[tux_mark_5]

I want to surround all my facilities with a stone wall. And that requires quite a bit stone.
Also I barely had enough stone just to build railroads on my previous map.

As for biters: I'd prefer to be able to expand without restrictions (meaning no arbitrary starting zone). Also I'd prefer that biters would be evenly distributed through entire map.
Since there are no mods that directly/indirectly fix these issues, I'm looking to mod these changes into the game myself.

[FishSandwich]

What version are you running? I just generated a map with those settings in 0.11.11 and got a fairly decent starting area. Map string if you want it:

Code: Select all

>>>AAALAAsAAQADAwYAAAAEAAAAY29hbAMDAgoAAABjb3BwZXItb3Jl
AwMCCQAAAGNydWRlLW9pbAMDAgoAAABlbmVteS1iYXNlAQEACAAAAGl
yb24tb3JlAwMCBQAAAHN0b25lAwMC1jRstsebAAAevgAAAAAAAAAAAA
ADAMMcKIs=<<<

Looked around in god mode and there was I think a single biter nest far to the west, a few far to the south, so the settings seemed to work fine for me. Sometimes you have to exit and generate another map with the same settings to get decent resources, but this one popped up straight away.

Biters will also expand their bases on their own as long as the game progresses, usually a bunch of biters will run off somewhere and generate a new biter nest. So if you played for many hours, biter nests will start to get quite big.

Also about the screenshot, if you set your starting area to none then biters will be generated next to your spawn area, this is unavoidable. The starting area tells the map generator "don't spawn biter nests within this range", as well as some other things.

[tux_mark_5]

I've experienced this behavior with both latest experimental and latest stable versions.

Map based on the provided map string has some stone in the starting area, but there seems only minor stone patches outside starting area.
What I want i a huge patch of stone. The doesn't need to be many of those, but I would expect 1 stone patch to 15-20 patches of other resources. But map generation settings don't seem to allow that.

Basically I want a game where I transport all my primary resources to the main base using railway (and that includes stone). Because of that I set very low frequency and good richness of all resources and thus I get giant patches that are somewhat more sparsely distributed. But that doesn't affect stone much and there is less stone with these settings compared to default ones.

Also, after scrolling a while I get plenty of biter nests outside the starting zone.
Modding this thing out seems to be the only way to go.

[FishSandwich]

Maybe your map generator is broken, because with that string the map I generated had 3 patches of stone with at least 10k of stone each in the starting area. Having a quick look around I saw another 3 patches of 10k stone each about 30 seconds walking distance from the start area. No biters apart from the ones I stated in my first post.

Basically I want a game where I transport all my primary resources to the main base using railway (and that includes stone).

If you're interested, the RSO mod helps with this, it also spreads out biters a little better.

[Xterminator]

Okay a few things:
First of all, having the starting area to none is somewhat counterintuitive. As you found out, it pretty much makes the biters start right on top of you. I would suggest using the largest starting zone option that's possible. As for stone, that is quite weird that your having so many problems with it, as I have played numerous maps with default settings, and get plenty of stone.

I have discovered though that the resource settings are a bit funky. Like setting the frequency to low and richness to high, doesn't usually do what you would think. You might have tried this already, but if not I would suggest doing something like: All resource frequency on low, except stone which you leave normal. Leave the other settings for resources at normal, or perhaps bump the size up by one. But put size and richness for stone only on max.

Also, as Fish suggested, the RSO mod really spreads out the resources like you want, but I feel that might cause even more stone problems for you, as when I used it, I had like no stone or oil for a huge distance. :/

[FishSandwich]

Also, as Fish suggested, the RSO mod really spreads out the resources like you want, but I feel that might cause even more stone problems for you, as when I used it, I had like no stone or oil for a huge distance. :/

Well, the RSO mod is configurable, so you can change what it does with stone.

[DerivePi]

Since there are no mods that directly/indirectly fix these issues, I'm looking to mod these changes into the game myself.

I find that Treefarm mod indirectly fixes the need for stone walls. What better way to get rid of extra wood than by making seeds and planting them into a tree wall around new settlements. Even better, when I'm done with the settlement, I have no desire to remove my "wall."

[tux_mark_5]

It's ok. I've already rolled my own mini-mod that fixed both of these issues. Apparently creating mods for factorio is easier than expected. Lack of value documentation is a bit of PITA, but it's manageable.

I'm working on balancing now. I don't want too few biters, but also I don't want too many.

[FishSandwich]

I'd love to see the mod when you finish it.

[tux_mark_5]

Here it is:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/246 ... _0.0.1.zip

It modifies biter spawners, worms and stones:
The way it is 'meant' to be used (through it's just a personal preference):
* Set all resources to Very Low frequency/Good Richness (that includes stone too).
* Set enemy bases to Normal/Medium/Regular

Now stone appears in large/huge chunks, just like every other resource. However stone chunks should be a bit rarer than other resource chunks.