Requesting An RTS Multiplayer Mod

[ThomasDiy]

So I spent my whole life playing RTS is like Age of empires, Empire Earth, Stronghold, Banished, SimCity. But what Factorio did was fill a gap in what was missing in the industry. When I play Factorio I hate having a character that I must run around and manage. I prefer playing in God mode where I have control of units like you do in Age of Empires. I believe that you should have citizens,which would allow you to collect resources before automating your base. Housing would give players a population limit. But players must also manufacture and produce food to produce citizens and military units. Players will have the ability to manufacture and create barracks, tank factories, siege factories and hospitals. Each factory could produce upwards to 10 different units.

However unlike age of empires where you can just produce units with resources, you must actually build an assembly line on Factorio to create military units. These military units would be controlled in a RTS fashion. So imagine producing one tank on Factorio and your character getting inside of it. Now just imagine producing 100 tanks and using a drag and drop selection and move all 100 tanks at the same time and attack enemy basis. This would be the ultimate RTS strategy game that could easily put StarCraft and many others to shame. Players would start on a set size map and there base would have a border for the first 120min essentially a peace timer that could be set. Afterwords players can engage each other's bases directly with military units.

No more biters, just other players shooting nuclear weapons into your base and blowing it all to hell. Military units and weapon turrets called anti-nukes could stop such an attack. Players would have several options to victory, First rocket into space wins or destroy the other players crashed spaceship. Players would have a spaceship in the starting area that includes 20 citizens, the ability to create more citizens. The spaceship can be repaired and would be able to withstand 10 direct nuclear blast. So it would have a very high hit point and be very difficult to destroy.

[Fel]

It's not a new idea, mods like AAI tried to give controlable units like that, but there are at least two big problems with it when it comes to turning factorio into a RTS.

For starters, what you are proposing is a PvP mode, which is not exactly the most popular way to play the game.
You would need a pretty large player base in order to not have a few good players just crush everyone else as well as a way to pair people of similar skill levels.
You might think that you covered this with the 120 minutes of peace time, but in reality people that are good at quickly going up the tech tree (speed runners for example) would be able to have a whole army of end game units while a normal player would struggle to have a half-decent mid-game army.
They would also be able to just rush the rocket launch, the current world records are under 2 hours to launch the rocket.
Admitedly they are doing that with very large resource patches, default settings speedruns can take about 2h50.

Of course speed runners and similarly skilled players would need a few runs to adapt to the changes but it would not change the nature of the game all that much (and admitely not being limited to your character might even make things easier for them).

This is of course without even taking into account blueprints.

The different ammo makes a lot of difference too, uranium ammo for most weapons is so potent that if one player gets to them and not the other, it would turn into a very unfavourable engagement where the higher tech wins even against larger quantities.
The base damage of a cannon shell is 600, the base damage of the uranium cannon shell is 1200, and that's without bonuses from technologies.

Reaching artillery more or less means that the player with the most artillery wins

If a player doesn't manage to get to tanks and only has access to cars, that player better hope that the other side doesn't have tanks either because piercing rounds will either do no damage because tanks substract 16 from the damage of hits with "physical" damage type before further reducing it by 60%.
Piercing rounds only have 8 base damage and you can't double the damage output before blue science.
Flamethrower turrets could in theory damage tanks because they out-range tanks by 5 but tanks resist fire damage by 15 flat and 60%.
You might argue that this difference in skill also happens in other RTS games, and you would kind of be right, but this type of game can die very quickly if the player base is not big enough to match people of similar skill levels so that one player doesn't end up getting destroyed 99% of the time in games that last for at leat 2 hours each.

If you take all of this into account, you would more or less need to make defensive play more viable and higher tier technologies less potent, possibly on top of putting debuffs on a player that plays well just to even the playing field a bit (or else you would quickly have next to no players).
As you probably know from playing empire earth where static defenses were way too potent for low skill players, it turns the game in a very long grind where both players try to expand and end up only attacking mostly undefended areas until one player has a big enough advantage to push for the victory (and even then it takes ages to find and destroy all buildings so comebacks are not entirely impossible).



The other main problem is that pathing takes quite a bit of CPU, so multiplying the units a player could control could quickly bring the game to a stats where it is no longer able to sustain its cap UPS, which often causes issues in multiplayer.
On top of this, pathing in this game is pretty aproximative if you compare it to proper RTS of the current era like Starcraft 2 (It's still the RTS that any other game in the genre needs to be compared with).


As you can probably tell by now, the amount of work needed to make a game mode like this that is somewhat balanced would require a steady player base using it to make it remotely worth attempting, unless it's a mod that is paid for by someone of course.
I could very well be wrong and a superb mod could come out making this a reality, that would be great but I kind of doubt it.

[dragonsphotoworks]

I would like this myself as i love RTS games. And had same issue with them you do. Stronghold was closes one. As you had to make the weapons and armor for troops. Men of war would also be close due to having items for troops and vehicles except "unless mod i missed" you dont really craft them. You call them in off map.

Personally i dont do PVP normally the player base is toxic. But a single player version i would deff get. Havent tried AAI though after Fel's comments i might check it out.

[ThomasDiy]

I fully understand all of your concerns Fel. I've been playing Factorio since v0.12 and since then the developers have designed the game around speed runners, and done so much to make the game easier by creating automated splitters, doing away with alien artifacts, and creating more research. Even the recent nuclear update was bad, because you need water. If you don't supply a nuclear reactor with water on Factorio it should explode like a nuke. I have honestly been waiting for the introduction of aircraft and cargo planes. Since 0.15 and the developers have ignored that.

Just like they ignored implementing an anti-grieving system for multiplayer. Alot of the updates are based upon the opinions KatherineOfSky. Which I absolutely despise, because since she started making YouTube videos it basically ruined Factorio. Everybody wants to use split belts in early game, which drives me insane. Most every oil refinery is a disaster because people want to go off of her design instead of coming up with their own. Setting up oil refineries is one easiest things to do on Factorio, if done right. What essentially has happened to Factorio is the game developers take the opinions of YouTuber like KatherineOfSky and throw the rest of us under the bus. I mean there's no excuse, there should be multiple game modes, besides sandbox mode. Because that's what's Factorio currently is a giant sandbox game. Since they removed aliens artifacts.

But in reality there needs to be multiple game modes for any game that you play. People want challenge modes, More difficult aliens, in game high score systems is all been ignored by the developers. I think every speed runner would love to have a high score system. What I'm really proposing is a competitive multiplayer mode. This way you can build your own base and they can build their base as well. Speed runners would absolutely love this because you could have four guys compete against each other in real time. You can also have other game modes like king of the hill, hold the center of the map for a period of one hour and win. But just because you have a competitive mode doesn't mean it has to be RTS based.

In order to get a high score ranking you must play ten individual games and launch rockets as quickly as possible. This would allow for the system to collect data in order to give you a proper ranking. Players would be ranked based on their expertise in efficiency, rail management, oil refinery. Factories that are not producing and setting idle would lower your score. This would all play a factor in multiplayer matchup. If I was the highest rank oil refinery player on our multiplayer team. Then I would be responsible for everything oil related.

But with a rts game mod like this you wouldn't just be playing against other players. There would also be option AI computer that builds its own factory that you could play against. Players will have the ability to create up to eight different bases. These bases could either be individuals or teams. So you could have a starting base for multiplayer RTS, That consist of eight teams with 10 players each. So it would be an 80 player match. Each team would have ten players in God mode. So 120 minute peace time would be nothing with 10 players.

In order to create or produce food there would be a new map resource called "fertile land" this would be similar to iron or copper. By placing a miner on top of fertile land you create food. By placing food and water in a factory you create a "food pack".

There would be more units than just tanks and cars let me give you some crafting examples.

Infantry:
1 citizen + food + shotgun = shot gunner
1 citizen + food + machinegun = machine gunner
1 citizen + food + grenade = grenade man
1 citizen + food + medicine = medic
1 citizen + food + radar = spy
1 citizen + food + flamethrower = flamethrower infantry
1 citizen + food + explosives = terrorist
1 citizen + food + machine gun + explosives = commando

Advanced infantry would receive food packs instead of food. But would require armor. The higher the level of armor the more powerful the unit. Advanced infantry with modular armor can be equipped with exoskeleton and other upgrades by selecting a chest. Military units without nightvision would receive a 50% damage reduction and 50% increase damage at night.

Cars:
1 car + 10 food pack + Stone = Catapult
1 car + 10 food pack + Log = Batter ram
1 car + 10 food pack + Light armor = Transport unit (transport 20 military units)

Tank:
1 tank + 10 food pack + 100 fuel + Energy shield = Defense shield (protects units against fire)
1 tank + 10 food pack + 100 fuel + Explosives = Artillery siege equipment (for destroying walls)
1 tank + 10 food pack + 100 fuel + Gun turret = Machine gun tanks
1 tank + 10 food pack + 100 fuel + Laser turret = Laser tank
1 tank + 10 food pack + 100 batteries + substation = Mobile electric unit (increases laser tanks damage by 100%)
1 tank + 10 food pack + 100 fuel + Roboport = Transport helicopter (airlift 20 units)
1 tank + 10 food pack + 100 fuel + Flying robot frame = Gunship (helicopter)

This kind of gives you a general ideal of what I'm talking about. But I tank would actually be a crafting item. But you would place a tank in a factory along with other units to create an entirely new production line. But this would be considered as competitive multiplayer instead of sandbox multiplayer. Which is what everybody plays now. But you would actually need to set up a game lobby where players would meet before starting a new match. Instead of the current system where anybody just joins the game whenever. You also have visible map mode, explored maps and unexplored. There would also be an option population limit. To make the game more challenging players can even set limits on to how much it belt or inserter's are allowed. I mean imagine a maximum of 10,000 units of belt. That makes you rethink constructing things like a main bus.

[ThomasDiy]

Originally posted by dragonsphotoworks:

I would like this myself as i love RTS games. And had same issue with them you do. Stronghold was closes one. As you had to make the weapons and armor for troops. Men of war would also be close due to having items for troops and vehicles except "unless mod i missed" you dont really craft them. You call them in off map.

Personally i dont do PVP normally the player base is toxic. But a single player version i would deff get. Havent tried AAI though after Fel's comments i might check it out.

I absolutely love playing Stronghold. I remember playing Stronghold Crusader on GameSpy arcade when I was younger. But they ran the franchise through the ground with Stronghold 3. Since then the quality of games is awful.

But Factorio PVP drives me insane. Every time I tried to build a nice base it gets trolled. So I would much rather play against other people in multiplayer, then play with them. Kinda why I think and RTS would be nice. If I'm not mistaking Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds was bugged. So if you had two players login with the same username they would automatically be on the same team. The issue with this is if you were not communicating properly you would burn through all of your resources. But if you did have team God mode on Factorio I don't think it would be an issue.

[dragonsphotoworks]

This sounds cool, but many of the aspects you mention are dont think are possible on this platform. But it would be really cool if could. But would be a massive undertaking for a mod. And whole new game on stronger platform would probly be needed.

Ya stronghold went downhill. And the remakes were horrible. Battlegrounds i dont remember that glitch. But i dont do pvp so.. lol

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

I fully understand all of your concerns Fel. I've been playing Factorio since v0.12 and since then the developers have designed the game around speed runners,

What do you base that opinion on?

The game actually got MORE difficult for speedrunners, not less.

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

Just like they ignored implementing an anti-grieving system for multiplayer. Alot of the updates are based upon the opinions KatherineOfSky. Which I absolutely despise, because since she started making YouTube videos it basically ruined Factorio. Everybody wants to use split belts in early game, which drives me insane. Most every oil refinery is a disaster because people want to go off of her design instead of coming up with their own. Setting up oil refineries is one easiest things to do on Factorio, if done right. What essentially has happened to Factorio is the game developers take the opinions of YouTuber like KatherineOfSky and throw the rest of us under the bus. I mean there's no excuse, there should be multiple game modes, besides sandbox mode. Because that's what's Factorio currently is a giant sandbox game. Since they removed aliens artifacts.

I wonder why you want to attack me and not the dozens and dozens of YouTubers (who came before me) and published hundreds and hundreds of videos.

I also think you are giving too much credit to YTers... the developers have a VERY strong vision of the game and they do what they want to do. They have NOT implemented many of the mods that have been published in the portal (and been popularized by YTers).

As far as Oil goes, I've created several tutorials because it was extremely difficult for people to understand how to set it up. People have thanked me for my advice, and they can now get to a different stage of the game. How does that make me a bad influence in your world?

I feel like you are directing your anger at me... instead, you need to direct it at yourself. Why do you care how others play the game? You should play it YOUR way and not care about how anyone else enjoys the game.

As far as game modes: there is a puzzle mode, scenarios, as well as Freeplay. Is it an RTS? Yes. If you want some significant difficulty try a Death World. However, don't try to make Factorio a copy of Starcraft... just play Starcraft if that is what scratches your itch. Games don't need to be exact copies of each other. At its core, Factorio is a FACTORY building game.

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

But in reality there needs to be multiple game modes for any game that you play. People want challenge modes, More difficult aliens, in game high score systems is all been ignored by the developers. I think every speed runner would love to have a high score system. What I'm really proposing is a competitive multiplayer mode. This way you can build your own base and they can build their base as well. Speed runners would absolutely love this because you could have four guys compete against each other in real time. You can also have other game modes like king of the hill, hold the center of the map for a period of one hour and win. But just because you have a competitive mode doesn't mean it has to be RTS based.

There IS competitive multiplayer in the game (and has been for years): there are different scenarios where you have up to 8 different teams, each with their own base. Why isn't it more popular? Because there is very little interest.

In short, ThomasDiy, refrain from attacking me or anyone else further. You need to really adjust your perception of reality if you think that the current state of Factorio is any one person's fault. Instead, look at the game as a product of the developers having their own vision, listening to EVERYONE (including forum posts, emails, reddit, discord, etc.), and deciding to incorporate some of those ideas into the game.

You may not like the devs' vision, and you'll just have to live with that... or download some mods, or learn how to program and make your own game.

In any case, if you want to communicate on these forums, keep your vitriol in check and write respectfully.

[ThomasDiy]

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

I fully understand all of your concerns Fel. I've been playing Factorio since v0.12 and since then the developers have designed the game around speed runners,

What do you base that opinion on?

The game actually got MORE difficult for speedrunners, not less.

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

Just like they ignored implementing an anti-grieving system for multiplayer. Alot of the updates are based upon the opinions KatherineOfSky. Which I absolutely despise, because since she started making YouTube videos it basically ruined Factorio. Everybody wants to use split belts in early game, which drives me insane. Most every oil refinery is a disaster because people want to go off of her design instead of coming up with their own. Setting up oil refineries is one easiest things to do on Factorio, if done right. What essentially has happened to Factorio is the game developers take the opinions of YouTuber like KatherineOfSky and throw the rest of us under the bus. I mean there's no excuse, there should be multiple game modes, besides sandbox mode. Because that's what's Factorio currently is a giant sandbox game. Since they removed aliens artifacts.

I wonder why you want to attack me and not the dozens and dozens of YouTubers (who came before me) and published hundreds and hundreds of videos.

I also think you are giving too much credit to YTers... the developers have a VERY strong vision of the game and they do what they want to do. They have NOT implemented many of the mods that have been published in the portal (and been popularized by YTers).

As far as Oil goes, I've created several tutorials because it was extremely difficult for people to understand how to set it up. People have thanked me for my advice, and they can now get to a different stage of the game. How does that make me a bad influence in your world?

I feel like you are directing your anger at me... instead, you need to direct it at yourself. Why do you care how others play the game? You should play it YOUR way and not care about how anyone else enjoys the game.

As far as game modes: there is a puzzle mode, scenarios, as well as Freeplay. Is it an RTS? Yes. If you want some significant difficulty try a Death World. However, don't try to make Factorio a copy of Starcraft... just play Starcraft if that is what scratches your itch. Games don't need to be exact copies of each other. At its core, Factorio is a FACTORY building game.

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

But in reality there needs to be multiple game modes for any game that you play. People want challenge modes, More difficult aliens, in game high score systems is all been ignored by the developers. I think every speed runner would love to have a high score system. What I'm really proposing is a competitive multiplayer mode. This way you can build your own base and they can build their base as well. Speed runners would absolutely love this because you could have four guys compete against each other in real time. You can also have other game modes like king of the hill, hold the center of the map for a period of one hour and win. But just because you have a competitive mode doesn't mean it has to be RTS based.

There IS competitive multiplayer in the game (and has been for years): there are different scenarios where you have up to 8 different teams, each with their own base. Why isn't it more popular? Because there is very little interest.

In short, ThomasDiy, refrain from attacking me or anyone else further. You need to really adjust your perception of reality if you think that the current state of Factorio is any one person's fault. Instead, look at the game as a product of the developers having their own vision, listening to EVERYONE (including forum posts, emails, reddit, discord, etc.), and deciding to incorporate some of those ideas into the game.

You may not like the devs' vision, and you'll just have to live with that... or download some mods, or learn how to program and make your own game.

In any case, if you want to communicate on these forums, keep your vitriol in check and write respectfully.

Well maybe you should stop attacking gaming communities and going after people's revenue. I cant even enjoy FactoryTown because you've taken over that game as well. Private interviews with the developers, Its like every videogame I try to play, what comes up KatherineOfSky. It's like you're trying to put a monopoly on the RTS community.

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

Well maybe you should stop attacking gaming communities and going after people's revenue. I cant even enjoy FactoryTown because you've taken over that game as well. Private interviews with the developers, Its like every videogame I try to play, what comes up KatherineOfSky. It's like you're trying to put a monopoly on the RTS community.

I have never attacked any game community. I build communities up, not tear them down. I have no idea what your beef is, but I think you actually delusional. I advise you to look at some other YTers and realize that I am one of literally millions of content creators.

[Archaephobos]

I read that OP and was like... I'm glad KoS isn't here to read this. Then I scrolled down!

I just wanted to say that KoS makes great YT vids and she's helped me become a better Factorio player. I do get some of what your saying ThomasDiy; this game is really the RTS nerds holy grail when it comes how detailed strategy can be. There just needs to be a little more "umph" when it comes to combat. Walls and turret creep are ok, there just feels like there is some wasted potential here. I started a mod discussion today that is a little bit of a middle ground to this discussion. I call it War Machine (or War Factory, which ever sounds cooler), please check it out and let me know what you think.

We need good YTers helping people and spreading interest in the genre so we can get more modders and maybe new game developers to finally scratch that itch that all of us old school RTSers have.

Peace

[fractalgem]

Yeaaahhh trying to blame one youtuber for everything you don't like in the game is...quite the stretch to say the least.

[ThomasDiy]

Originally posted by fractalgem:

Yeaaahhh trying to blame one youtuber for everything you don't like in the game is...quite the stretch to say the least.

It goes alot deeper than that. Her community members vandalizing people's Factorio multiplayer servers. Then when people complain about her community members conduct. Then she deletes the post, because she's a moderator. What needs to be happening is people who are vandalizing and trolling multiplayer servers need to have their Factorio multiplayer access revoked. People who are caught cheating on other multiplayer games typically get banned from multiplayer. I've suggested that the developers implement some type of anti-grieving system in a future update. That way you can undo all changes made by a player. But when you have white list servers and somebody comes in and deletes half of your megabase only to put a giant KatherineOfSky flashing icon in the middle of it. That upsets alot of people.

Archaephobos I'll definitely check out that post.

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

Originally posted by fractalgem:

Yeaaahhh trying to blame one youtuber for everything you don't like in the game is...quite the stretch to say the least.

It goes alot deeper than that. Her community members vandalizing people's Factorio multiplayer servers. Then when people complain about her community members conduct. Then she deletes the post, because she's a moderator. What needs to be happening is people who are vandalizing and trolling multiplayer servers need to have their Factorio multiplayer access revoked. People who are caught cheating on other multiplayer games typically get banned from multiplayer. I've suggested that the developers implement some type of anti-grieving system in a future update. That way you can undo all changes made by a player. But when you have white list servers and somebody comes in and deletes half of your megabase only to put a giant KatherineOfSky flashing icon in the middle of it. That upsets alot of people.

Archaephobos I'll definitely check out that post.

I have no idea what you are speaking of. I have not deleted any such posts.

Also, why are you blaming me for others' conduct? I do not control people, nor would I EVER suggest that anyone behave in the manner you describe.

Griefing on MY server is punished with a permanent ban. That kind of behaviour is unacceptable. Stop blaming me for the childish behaviour of others.

I have ALWAYS promoted harmony, cooperation, and the building of communities. You seem to have some personal grudge against me, and I have no idea how that originated. I do not know you, do not recall any interactions with you outside this forum. Stop flaming me NOW.

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

But when you have white list servers and somebody comes in and deletes half of your megabase only to put a giant KatherineOfSky flashing icon in the middle of it. That upsets alot of people.

As a side note... most people post pixel-art phalluses on multiplayer servers. Do you suggest that we blame all the men the world for that? That every man on earth should be demonized and blamed for some child's griefing?

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by ThomasDiy:

Originally posted by fractalgem:

Yeaaahhh trying to blame one youtuber for everything you don't like in the game is...quite the stretch to say the least.

It goes alot deeper than that. Her community members vandalizing people's Factorio multiplayer servers. Then when people complain about her community members conduct. Then she deletes the post, because she's a moderator. What needs to be happening is people who are vandalizing and trolling multiplayer servers need to have their Factorio multiplayer access revoked. People who are caught cheating on other multiplayer games typically get banned from multiplayer. I've suggested that the developers implement some type of anti-grieving system in a future update. That way you can undo all changes made by a player. But when you have white list servers and somebody comes in and deletes half of your megabase only to put a giant KatherineOfSky flashing icon in the middle of it. That upsets alot of people.

Archaephobos I'll definitely check out that post.

CITATION NEEDED.


NOTHING I've seen from her indicates this is the kind of thing she does or endorses.

You're making some very, very serious accusations there. Now come up with the proof or, to put it bluntly...shut up.