alien hive respawn mechanics

[StonkOverflow]

why. i wipe out a hive so that i can construct things nearby and the entire hive just respawns itself 10 minutes later. why is this a mechanic of the game? it's so stupid. i love building factories but i hate that every 5 minutes i get interrupted because some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bugs attack my factory after magically respawning the hive i wiped out 20 minutes ago INSIDE the pollution cloud. i can maybe understand if the hives respawn OUTSIDE the polluted area, just so that defending your factory is a legit part of the game, but it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that they can just respawn 20 feet from your factory, inside your turret perimeter, and wipe out all your ♥♥♥♥. if anyone knows why they decided to introduce such a moronic game mechanic, please enlighten me. i'd love to know

[7Soul]

There is an option to disable enemy expansions during the map setup

But you can also use the console (with the ~ key) and put this in to disable it afterwards:

/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.enabled = false

Also chill

[StonkOverflow]

Originally posted by 7Soul:

There is an option to disable enemy expansions during the map setup

But you can also use the console (with the ~ key) and put this in to disable it afterwards:

/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.enabled = false

Also chill

ty. but does this disable any achievements?

[PunCrathod]

Originally posted by StonkOverflow:

Originally posted by 7Soul:

There is an option to disable enemy expansions during the map setup

But you can also use the console (with the ~ key) and put this in to disable it afterwards:

/c game.map_settings.enemy_expansion.enabled = false

Also chill

ty. but does this disable any achievements?

Yes it does. Also enemies do not respawn. Other nests send expansion parties that walk from the nest somewhere nearby to make a new nest. If you surround an area with walls and turrets and then clear every nest inside the area they will not come back unless they break the wall.

[StonkOverflow]

Originally posted by PunCrathod:

Originally posted by StonkOverflow:

ty. but does this disable any achievements?

Yes it does. Also enemies do not respawn. Other nests send expansion parties that walk from the nest somewhere nearby to make a new nest. If you surround an area with walls and turrets and then clear every nest inside the area they will not come back unless they break the wall.

ok well then that console command is useless. maybe i'm in the minority but i don't like that the bugs can just wander right back into your pollution cloud and spawn in a new hive right when you've finished wiping out the last one. it makes the game unbalanced and forces you to focus on defending your factory rather than actually building it. i would like to be able to play a factory building game not a factory defending game. the fact that turning off the stupid hive respawning feature disables a bunch of unrelated achievements is dumb as well

[Khaylain]

Originally posted by StonkOverflow:

Originally posted by PunCrathod:

Yes it does. Also enemies do not respawn. Other nests send expansion parties that walk from the nest somewhere nearby to make a new nest. If you surround an area with walls and turrets and then clear every nest inside the area they will not come back unless they break the wall.

ok well then that console command is useless. maybe i'm in the minority but i don't like that the bugs can just wander right back into your pollution cloud and spawn in a new hive right when you've finished wiping out the last one. it makes the game unbalanced and forces you to focus on defending your factory rather than actually building it. i would like to be able to play a factory building game not a factory defending game. the fact that turning off the stupid hive respawning feature disables a bunch of unrelated achievements is dumb as well

Play with Railworld settings. That disables expansion, but you can still get most (all?) achievements in such a game. EDIT: It's only using the console commands that disable achievements unilaterally, using the settings just disable some and you can check what settings disable those achievements on the wiki.

[StonkOverflow]

Originally posted by Khaylain:

Originally posted by StonkOverflow:

ok well then that console command is useless. maybe i'm in the minority but i don't like that the bugs can just wander right back into your pollution cloud and spawn in a new hive right when you've finished wiping out the last one. it makes the game unbalanced and forces you to focus on defending your factory rather than actually building it. i would like to be able to play a factory building game not a factory defending game. the fact that turning off the stupid hive respawning feature disables a bunch of unrelated achievements is dumb as well

Play with Railworld settings. That disables expansion, but you can still get most (all?) achievements in such a game. EDIT: It's only using the console commands that disable achievements unilaterally, using the settings just disable some and you can check what settings disable those achievements on the wiki.

railworld preset looks like a good idea. thanks. i still don't understand why trying to fix the balancing of the game via console commands completely disables all your achievements, but i guess not much can be done about it

[PunCrathod]

Originally posted by StonkOverflow:

Originally posted by PunCrathod:

Yes it does. Also enemies do not respawn. Other nests send expansion parties that walk from the nest somewhere nearby to make a new nest. If you surround an area with walls and turrets and then clear every nest inside the area they will not come back unless they break the wall.

ok well then that console command is useless. maybe i'm in the minority but i don't like that the bugs can just wander right back into your pollution cloud and spawn in a new hive right when you've finished wiping out the last one. it makes the game unbalanced and forces you to focus on defending your factory rather than actually building it. i would like to be able to play a factory building game not a factory defending game. the fact that turning off the stupid hive respawning feature disables a bunch of unrelated achievements is dumb as well

Once you get construction robots you can automate the repair/reconstruction of your defenses. Then put some walls and a flamethrower every once in a while with some gun turrets or laser turrets in between and it wont matter if you get constantly attacked.

Once you get good at the game defending becomes a non issue.

[Fel]

You can also check ingame, there is a button for achievements near the minimap that tells you which ones you can get, and why if you can't.

Another way to prevent the expansion going back into the pollution cloud is to set defenses beyond that range to not let any get through, and destroy all nests "inside".

[knighttemplar1960]

Worms and spawners don't randomly appear. They are created by bugs that "sacrifice" themselves to become worms and spawners. When you attack a group of spawners and worms, some of the bugs that are injured can scatter. If you make sure no bugs escape your attack, bugs to form new worms and spawners have to come from much farther away to resettle in that area.

Spawners create expansion parties of 5-20 bugs every 4-60 minutes (more often when evolution is high, less often when evolution is low). That expansion looks for a location that is 3-7 chunks away from existing worms and spawners and at least 1 chunk away from any player built structures. (A chunk is a 32x32 tile grid on the map. You can see the chunk boundaries and tiles by pressing F4 and selecting the show tile grid option).

You can proactively prevent the problem you are having by making sure you let no bugs escape when you eliminate a group of spawners and when you build your walls that you build it 1 or 2 tiles into the adjacent chunk. (If you want to cheese it you can leave one worm, if you are careful with your attacks, in that chunk and an expansion party won't settle in that chunk. When you arrive to build you can take out the last worm and start construction).

If you do these things then the expansion party can only come from a spawner 7 chunks away from the area you cleared at maximum. Once you have an area clear but before you have begun building in it you can set out radar to keep an eye on your cleared area and make sure no expansion parties have wandered in while you were still clearing terrain to build.

[Niinix]

with all the military options in game you shouldnt be having trouble with bugs unless you are playing slow back at home. Be proactive and stomp the nests outside your pollution cloud before the bugs send you a surprise nest expansion inside your cloud.

Are you surrounded by mostly desert? That will force you to be a bit more aggressive towards the bugs since you dont have a natural pollution handler and by extension the bugs will more likely be reached by your pollution cloud.

If it's annoying to take care of bugs then focus more military technology like grenades, flame-thrower turrets, better ammunition, the tank, and artillery. You can hold against bugs for an incredibly long time but you really should make a system that catches the expansion groups before they walk into your polluted lands.

[Nibbie]

Originally posted by StonkOverflow:

Originally posted by PunCrathod:

Yes it does. Also enemies do not respawn. Other nests send expansion parties that walk from the nest somewhere nearby to make a new nest. If you surround an area with walls and turrets and then clear every nest inside the area they will not come back unless they break the wall.

ok well then that console command is useless. maybe i'm in the minority but i don't like that the bugs can just wander right back into your pollution cloud and spawn in a new hive right when you've finished wiping out the last one. it makes the game unbalanced and forces you to focus on defending your factory rather than actually building it. i would like to be able to play a factory building game not a factory defending game. the fact that turning off the stupid hive respawning feature disables a bunch of unrelated achievements is dumb as well

Elaborate on how enemies being present is "unbalanced". There are dozens of techs dedicated to defeating enemies in increasingly powerful and easy ways, putting a few turrets around your base is hardly a big cost as its literally starter tech, and there are multiple ways of reducing your pollution to slow down or prevent such problems in the first place. You are doing something very wrong if you have to "focus on defending your factory".

Also, only certain settings disable achievement, and even the "no enemies mode" only disables certain achievements. From the wiki: "Within the freeplay game, enabling peaceful mode or setting enemy bases to anything lower than default disables the following achievements: There is no spoon, No time for chit-chat, Raining bullets and Steam all the way. Any other changes to map generation or using the debug modes does not disable achievements." You can confirm this yourself by checking the achievements panel in game.

Thus, you can still accomplish what you want and still have all the achievements be possible if you wish. You can turn off enemy expansion and evolution, set their starting area size to max (makes hives spawn further from your spawn) and turn off pollution, which prevents them from attacking you. Doing this (among other settings) was even recommended by a guide I saw for how to get the speedrun achievements.

Or you could just not care about random meaningless achievements and play the game how you want *shrug*

[shadain597]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ChangeMapSettings
1) Create a separate saved game file, just in case.
2) Download the above mod through the in-game mod manager.
3) Load the new save with the above mod active.
4) Open up that mod's little menu, disable enemy expansion, and apply that change.
5) Save the game, exit, turn off the mod, and load back into the save.
6) Open the achievements menu and double-check that they are all still available.

Note that this is something of an exploit, but IMO not that big of a deal. I mean, if you'd have simply started on the railworld preset you'd have had an easier time anyways. Also note that if you don't want to fight enemies at all there's other changes you might want to consider, though many of those disable some achievements.

[StonkOverflow]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

Originally posted by StonkOverflow:

ok well then that console command is useless. maybe i'm in the minority but i don't like that the bugs can just wander right back into your pollution cloud and spawn in a new hive right when you've finished wiping out the last one. it makes the game unbalanced and forces you to focus on defending your factory rather than actually building it. i would like to be able to play a factory building game not a factory defending game. the fact that turning off the stupid hive respawning feature disables a bunch of unrelated achievements is dumb as well

Elaborate on how enemies being present is "unbalanced". There are dozens of techs dedicated to defeating enemies in increasingly powerful and easy ways, putting a few turrets around your base is hardly a big cost as its literally starter tech, and there are multiple ways of reducing your pollution to slow down or prevent such problems in the first place. You are doing something very wrong if you have to "focus on defending your factory".

Also, only certain settings disable achievement, and even the "no enemies mode" only disables certain achievements. From the wiki: "Within the freeplay game, enabling peaceful mode or setting enemy bases to anything lower than default disables the following achievements: There is no spoon, No time for chit-chat, Raining bullets and Steam all the way. Any other changes to map generation or using the debug modes does not disable achievements." You can confirm this yourself by checking the achievements panel in game.

Thus, you can still accomplish what you want and still have all the achievements be possible if you wish. You can turn off enemy expansion and evolution, set their starting area size to max (makes hives spawn further from your spawn) and turn off pollution, which prevents them from attacking you. Doing this (among other settings) was even recommended by a guide I saw for how to get the speedrun achievements.

Or you could just not care about random meaningless achievements and play the game how you want *shrug*

it's unbalanced because you have to focus far more on defending your factory than actually building it

[StonkOverflow]

Originally posted by Niinix:

Be proactive and stomp the nests outside your pollution cloud before the bugs send you a surprise nest expansion inside your cloud.

bruh. it's an infinite map. there are infinitely many nests. even killing the ones close to the pollution cloud does very little cause they just come back 10 minutes later

[StonkOverflow]

Originally posted by shadain597:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ChangeMapSettings
1) Create a separate saved game file, just in case.
2) Download the above mod through the in-game mod manager.
3) Load the new save with the above mod active.
4) Open up that mod's little menu, disable enemy expansion, and apply that change.
5) Save the game, exit, turn off the mod, and load back into the save.
6) Open the achievements menu and double-check that they are all still available.

Note that this is something of an exploit, but IMO not that big of a deal. I mean, if you'd have simply started on the railworld preset you'd have had an easier time anyways. Also note that if you don't want to fight enemies at all there's other changes you might want to consider, though many of those disable some achievements.

yeah, i wish i had started on the railworld preset but this was my first real save file after the tutorial so i wanted to use the default settings. didn't know the game was unbalanced, or i would have selected the preset. always next time : )