DLC playing as a bio factory

[TheWatchman]

Thinking like zerg from starcraft where everything is biological. So many ways to expand on the foundation of whats already here. Thoughts? Ideas? yay/nay?

[kolorotur]

I think there was a mod that allowed you to play as biters in a multiplayer game.

[shadain597]

Yeah, I thought that'd be neat too.

Originally posted by kolorotur:

I think there was a mod that allowed you to play as biters in a multiplayer game.

Hive Mind is probably the mod you are thinking of. MitchPlay's (?) version is more updated than the original, but still severely lacking in areas. There's basically no instructions on how to use it and currently it's something of a barebones PvP thing to antagonize the engineers.

One thing that would make it much more enticing for me is if you could play coop as a team with some engineers, though I suppose it'd totally break vanilla balance--since the "science labs" absorb pollution to do research, you'd get plenty of biter tech ups while being able to absorb enough pollution to keep it from spreading to the enemy AI nests. Possible fixes would be to either play with extreme deathworld pollution settings or get a mod that changes the AI attack prerequisites.

[dxmc]

Not sure how close this is to what you're thinking but here's an overhaul mod called Nullius where you terraform barren planets and seed them with life. Some of that life produces materials which you can integrate into your production lines. Haven't played it personally but I've heard it's pretty interesting, and it's one I hope to try out sometime.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/nullius

[shadain597]

Originally posted by dxmc:

Not sure how close this is to what you're thinking but here's an overhaul mod called Nullius

Nah, not close at all. It is, however, a good overhaul worth checking out if you aren't afraid of dealing with a bit more chemistry than you'll find in vanilla or Krastorio 2. And if you aren't a combat junkie, since you'll spend quite a bit of time in the "lifeless ball of rock" phase. I really, really like the way the author gives you options for how to build the factory.

There's several different options for generating and storing power, each with it's own pros and cons. You can't just build coal-powered boiler plants because it's a pre-life planet with zero coal and even if there was some, there's not enough oxygen in the atmosphere. And you're frequently given options to upgrade to more efficient but more complex recipes, but you can delay that if you aren't ready to do so. Plus, recipes can give byproducts that you can decide to process and get rid of ("void " them) or take and integrate into your production lines.

But yeah, you don't play as biters/zerg/whatever in it.

[Galileus]

Nay. From the way you describe it it feels like an overhaul, not an expansion. Wouldn't like that at all.

[dxmc]

Originally posted by shadain597:

Nah, not close at all. It is, however, a good overhaul worth checking out if you aren't afraid of dealing with a bit more chemistry than you'll find in vanilla or Krastorio 2. And if you aren't a combat junkie, since you'll spend quite a bit of time in the "lifeless ball of rock" phase. I really, really like the way the author gives you options for how to build the factory.

I like the whole idea. Biter combat gets old after a while. In my K2/SE game it just comes down to flying around the base area every once in a while with the jet pack and a bunch of destroyer bots sweeping up new nests. It's pretty monotonous, just another chore.

[AlexMBrennan]

I don't think it's a good idea - you can't make big changes to the game (Factorio is fundamentally a game about finding the most efficient way to transform inputs into outputs) without annoying a lot of players, and making small changes to the theme of recipes (e.g. angelbob's fish recipes) isn't going to make any difference. What is this zerg DLC supposed to look like exactly?

No offence to the Nullius developer but I don't give a damn about Von Neumann androids - I care about the recipes and the production chains the mod comes with.

[shadain597]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

I don't think it's a good idea - you can't make big changes to the game (Factorio is fundamentally a game about finding the most efficient way to transform inputs into outputs) without annoying a lot of players, and making small changes to the theme of recipes (e.g. angelbob's fish recipes) isn't going to make any difference. What is this zerg DLC supposed to look like exactly?

Just to be perfectly clear, this would essentially be an overhaul DLC, or possibly stand-alone content. Nobody is suggesting that it be forced on anyone else.

No offence to the Nullius developer but I don't give a damn about Von Neumann androids - I care about the recipes and the production chains the mod comes with.

As far as this goes, you don't know much about Nullius, do you? It's got about as much story-driven content as vanilla Factorio--which is to say, a brief MacGuffin excuse for why you are building towards a factory goal and not much else. The goals are definitely different, but it's not like there's a bunch of cutscenes or anything. And as I mentioned previously, there's plenty of recipes and production chains to be had. Whether or not you personally like getting upgraded recipes--something that vanilla only really does with oil--is something that only you can decide. From what I've been able to gather, that's a fairly polarizing topic, where people really like or dislike it, not a lot in-between.

[TheWatchman]

My thoughts on it to be clear would be still input output but the difference would be like terranm and zerg in starcraft. its still fundamentally starcraft but with different races and mechanics for doing it. Perhaps they rely on some sort of pollution or creep? Maybe water?

Theres a few ways to do it some good some bad. but id be keen to see how they would do it as I think the devs would do a good job of it. If they did it.

[Errata]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

No offence to the Nullius developer but I don't give a damn about Von Neumann androids - I care about the recipes and the production chains the mod comes with.

Don't really understand where this is coming from. Are you suggesting that Nullius doesn't have new recipes and production chains? It's extremely non-vanilla, with an intricate web of all new recipes and densely interconnected production chains. The mod story is just the logic that ties the new content together coherently. The recipes aren't a bunch of random sci-fi nonsense, but make sense given the difference in setting. The end game goals are a lot different from vanilla due to the story, but ultimately these goals mainly just result in new Factorio production challenges.

[nash]

The idea is cool, but I dont think the engine/technology is really fit to do it. Imagine an open world strategy game, where you control the biters insert some new units for transporting and strategical use. Use large flying units like Overlords in sc2 to transport large amounts iron and other minerals to central structures allowing you to expand your swarm.

After reaching a satisfying infrastructure you start sending attack squads to these annoying little human factories which gets bigger and harder to destroy the further you go outwards. Eventually clearing the planet and using their rockets to send spores of your highly developed swarm to new worlds in order evolve further and further and finally got rid of pest called ♥♥♥♥ sapiens ^^

[Peter]

Originally posted by Errata:

Don't really understand where this is coming from.

Alex loaded the mod, saw the game restart, rage quit, then proceeded to ♥♥♥♥♥ about it.