Enemy Bases: None = Can't finish game?

[Mara 🐿]

After the tutorial and a failed attempt at freeplay I've pleasantly been durdling around in an enemy free freeplay map, but I've run into an issue where I need Alien Artifacts to progress.

I know there are mods out there that allow you to craft them, but it's kind of astounding to me that there is an unmarked toggle that just makes the game unwinnable (that only becomes apparent a dozen or so hours in).

Is there a way for me to salvage my game and continue on after all?
I was going for a Lazy Bastard Achievement run and everything, and really don't want to have to redo all of that work.
Thanks,

Mara.

[Lawlzer]

Nope. With mods, or with console commands will disable achievements.

[Ruldra]

How did you get an enemy-free map? If that's a mod then you wouldn't get any achievement in the first place.

[Lawlzer]

Originally posted by Ruldra:

How did you get an enemy-free map? If that's a mod then you wouldn't get any achievement in the first place.

For size you can set it to "none"

[KatherineOfSky]

If you are inerested in playing the game without alien pressures, you should set the aliens to normal (or even scarce), and enable Peaceful Mode.

Indeed, without mods or console commands, you will not be able to launch a rocket in your current game.

There's always the option of starting a new game.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by Mara:

After the tutorial and a failed attempt at freeplay I've pleasantly been durdling around in an enemy free freeplay map, but I've run into an issue where I need Alien Artifacts to progress.

I know there are mods out there that allow you to craft them, but it's kind of astounding to me that there is an unmarked toggle that just makes the game unwinnable (that only becomes apparent a dozen or so hours in).

Is there a way for me to salvage my game and continue on after all?
I was going for a Lazy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Achievement run and everything, and really don't want to have to redo all of that work.
Thanks,

Mara. :azra::parts:

Sorry, but there's nothing you can do to get that acheivement except start over. It's disabled in peaceful mode, and your current game can't give you artifacts without mods or commands, both of which will disable acheivements.

The <8 hours acheivement and the no-solar acheivement also require you to avoid peaceful mode.

[AlexMBrennan]

Sorry, but there's nothing you can do to get that acheivement[...]your current game can't give you artifacts without mods or commands, both of which will disable acheivements.

You are wrong. Yes, mods do disable achievments but you can just apply the same changes to the base game files to get the same effect without achievements being disabled (the downside being that you have to manually merge the mods changes and you have to verify game files to disable the changes you made). Developers will never be able to prevent this, but somehow they still do for unknown reasons.

You could go through prototypes/technology/technology.lua and remove every reference to "alien-science-pack", or prototypes/recipe/recipe.lua and change the ingredients for "alien-science-pack" to 1 copper plate or whatever you want, or any number of other things.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=800920059

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Sorry, but there's nothing you can do to get that acheivement[...]your current game can't give you artifacts without mods or commands, both of which will disable acheivements.

You are wrong. Yes, mods do disable achievments but you can just apply the same changes to the base game files to get the same effect without achievements being disabled (the downside being that you have to manually merge the mods changes and you have to verify game files to disable the changes you made). Developers will never be able to prevent this, but somehow they still do for unknown reasons.

You could go through prototypes/technology/technology.lua and remove every reference to "alien-science-pack", or prototypes/recipe/recipe.lua and change the ingredients for "alien-science-pack" to 1 copper plate or whatever you want, or any number of other things.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=800920059

Really? Cheating to get an achievement? How low do you wish to stoop?

[AlexMBrennan]

Who cares? You can get most achievments on peaceful mode (as has been pointed out above), and going through the motions of massacring an enemy force who don't fight back doesn't exactly make your victory any more impressive. Telling someone to redo everything on a difficulty setting that is just as easy, but in a slightly diffferent way, is just silly.

More importantly, the point of achievments is to nudge players to look at different areas of the game they might have overlooked otherwise - they are useless to actually compare skill or acomplishments (because you are running on the PC platform where I can arbitrarily modify every file, every memory location and every packet being sent or received from any server).

If someone doesn't like the vanilla Factorio experience then punishing them by removing something that is designed to improve the player's experience just seems needlessly mean. I have said before that the early game in Factorio is pointless and unfun (manually mining stone/coal/wood/iron to build miners to bootstrap), and by far the worst part of the game, and if people can have more fun by not going through the motions then I don't see what you could possibly hope to gain by making them sit through the parts of the game they enjoy least. I do not feel remotely bad for "cheating" in that sense (but if you enjoy manually mining rock then you are welcome to not skip that part).

Are you trying to reach the widest possible audience, or the narrowest possible audience?

[KatherineOfSky]

Alex, from your long posting history, I thought you actually cared about playing the game... I never thought you'd just advise a person to do a single runthrough, and then cheat to complete all the achievements.

For me, Factorio is most fun after having played MANY factories, all of which have different variations.

EARNING the achievement for an 8 hour run was a PLEASURE and a CHALLENGE... not a burden... And I didn't mind starting yet another factory to do the handcrating challenge.

Factorio is one of the most entertaining games to replay over and again!

[daemonworks]

You have to admit, the game really should have a warning to let you know if the settings you're picking will invalidate particular achivements or cause play to stall out part way through.

You'd generally expect that a game wouldn't let you start it in a way that completely breaks it...

[SeaBee]

Had this same thing happen to me on one of my early games. Now I always make sure not to check the none button.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Who cares? You can get most achievments on peaceful mode (as has been pointed out above), and going through the motions of massacring an enemy force who don't fight back doesn't exactly make your victory any more impressive. Telling someone to redo everything on a difficulty setting that is just as easy, but in a slightly diffferent way, is just silly.

They fight back in peaceful, they just don't attack first. '

Originally posted by daemonworks:

You have to admit, the game really should have a warning to let you know if the settings you're picking will invalidate particular achivements or cause play to stall out part way through.

You'd generally expect that a game wouldn't let you start it in a way that completely breaks it...

yeah...it kinda should warn you about that.

[Mara 🐿]

Wow, this garnered a lot more replies than I expected over night.
Thank you all for the comprehensive replies.

If this game was less awesome I might cheat to get ahead, because I really feel that I put quite a lot of work in my current game (see screenshot, please note the Lazy Bastard progress in the top left corner especially, it was going perfectly!).
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=793334969

However, this game IS awesome. Spectacularly so, even.
So I will start over, again. However, I would request of the developers to see this as a cautionary tale and either affix a warning to the Enemies: None option, remove it entirely or come up with some way to prevent this setting from basically making the game unwinnable.

Thank you all again,

Mara.

[Alfonso Matador]

They are removing the alien goo altogether in 0.15

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by Alfonso Matador:

They are removing the alien goo altogether in 0.15

Not completely. It won't be required for research, but will be used in high-level crafts, similar to level 3 modules, etc.