#PvP for fun and profit

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tiny spear
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PvP is the best idea but never have we seen sustained success

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Throwback to when I was making maps like this for PvP scenarios ๐Ÿ˜„

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nocturne mirage
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Looks like a mindustry map

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Which should be unsurprising:V

still ice
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@nocturne mirage, I never played Factorio PvP with artillery and nukes.

surreal quarry
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some bb's recent "fun" maps had this enabled on weekends

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but since they redefine the "cloud" utility function that limits your expansion to, well, quite the lack of thereof, it basically means the auto-threat makes it an armageddon -like ending gradually heating up both teams on a clock
noone's too happy about these late attrition maps though

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but well, the main limit on the "competitive" side is that it boils down to blueprint painting

still ice
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Btw, it's not possible to place ghost entities on top of other ghost entities as player, right?

tiny spear
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Its not possible, but I think you can place them over enemy ghosts

still ice
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Hm, I'm not sure. I can't test it with drones and manual placement etc. currently.

tiny spear
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So one major problem with PvP, as @silver halo mentioned, is that its not fun building a factory only to have someone destroy it

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we even had it years ago with team production, where you build for only 10-15 mins at a time, but still it felt dissapointing when the rounded ended and it was wiped

still ice
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This is very different perspective from PvE.
Any abuse will be used by a player eventually.
Players have different styles and they got used to their own styles, but PvP is highly different.

Subjectively, moments of frustrations are more intense in Factorio vanilla, and, in some cases, it can feels like "griefing" when a player loses too fast or too much by spending a lot of time.

There are a lot to discuss, and there are a lot of solutions. Many game communities talk about PvP, TvT, but many rts games don't satisfy players enough.

surreal quarry
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there is a lot

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maybe even just too much at once even

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  1. "the factory must grow" also means there is no "final goal".
    No finalizer. And thus only ever-growing "expansion".

while it has benefits on the complexity scale and linear progression, it has noticeable drawbacks on pvp.

nothing is balanced to be "lost". because it is not lost usually.
be it "griefing" or plain old military expense.

and with how it is, you also get the point of expansion means (among else) more effort, which is then just easily lost.

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as a side effect, you can't reliably transform a -> b, only "garbage collect" the whole block, and then build a new, better one.
You can expand previous prints, but not "sunset them".

surreal quarry
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but there is a deeper issue about that game-about-no-automation one.

compare this one to the "usual" classy green sci.
this is not cheesing in biter-battles nowadays, it is just "spam-them" strategy that works.

image.png
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((the screenie is taken rn on that purple server.))
and there is also a mixed-build concept there that is of interest if anything else.
in short, it smelts raw ores - to - lds+blue-chips+speed-modules (rocket parts) in a close-to-perfect ratios onto the same belt

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but that is all simply put just "some kind of speedrunning". ofc it works better than non-speedrunning.
yet what is being contested here?
there is an old joke that rain (speedrunner's nick) places inserters faster. And thus would come out on top on average.
because running-around-and-placing-inserters is the the most of what-is-going-on once you have the plan.

and once the plan is done, you repeat it on the game, painting the blueprint of a to-be-base.

still ice
tiny spear
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Yea the 'speedrunning is the best strategy' means its not so fun

surreal quarry
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indeed

tiny spear
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and blueprints also make that 100x worse

still ice
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In short, less people would be happy in general.

surreal quarry
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blueprints are disabled also due to ram consumption and network-channel-spam reasons afaik
but that is just how it is, and also out of scope

still ice
tiny spear
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What makes PvP (in general) fun is the interation with the other players, adjusting to their tactics/strategy
What makes PvP not fun in Factorio is that other players have grenades

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sure I mean blueprint importing moreso

still ice
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Mindustry game has blueprints, PvP, TvT. But blueprints are much smaller there.

tiny spear
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where you start the game, stamp down a 'win the game' blueprint and then just build that

surreal quarry
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ore-to-win style, hehehe

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well, bb is kinda like that as of now; except no bp import, but you can copypaste

tiny spear
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thats fine

surreal quarry
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and a perfect smelter is also fun, since, well, it is a perfect smelter :>

still ice
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I have to say it, some players love tank battles in Factorio.

tiny spear
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I guess making a PvP game mode also has the root question of, what should be the optimal goal of the PvP,
Is it to produce the most stuff?

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Is it to build a factory the quickest?

surreal quarry
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or maybe not chinese :> well, seems to be korean

still ice
surreal quarry
still ice
surreal quarry
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well anyways
usually the attack-defense like games are geared towards "cooperation" tasks.
as in, you can hardly compete alone vs a "team".

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but well; eh; how do I say it...
in factorio it is hard to even cooperate, let alone make a scenario relying on cooperation

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the research queue is off by default, hehehe

still ice
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Vanilla research forces people to build one base.

surreal quarry
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or two of the same in parallel

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and then the bus monopoly happens

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and ppl do not even know how to play it cool, courtesy to youtube

still ice
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Only if ores are far from initial base or there are enough players...

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Let's "pick" questions with ~2 options for some time.

surreal quarry
still ice
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Nvm, I'm sleepy, my questions have too many variants.

surreal quarry
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I am cheating by having notes on the other screen trianglepupper

still ice
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Except one for sure:

  1. Small map
  2. Big map
surreal quarry
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oh the scale issue

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it also causes the "broken speed" curse

still ice
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Welp, nothing for sure, I guess.

surreal quarry
# surreal quarry oh the scale issue

compare:

  1. 1x1 entity
  2. ~3x3 assembler/nest/cliff; cliff? so small :>
  3. point of interest. assembly line, station, ore-lake etc; 48 furns is ~100 tiles (3.5 chunks)

the default speed and small reach is okay for "I am a newb, what is happening around me, aaaaaa"
but the longer you have fun with running-around, the more of a small-and-slow-bubble it becomes
YET you can't make the speed buff too much cuz it starts to go crazy on the per-assembler-scale.

jetpack is a nice option (modal choice); acceletation when running is another option.
yet, no real option on the scale as to go "adventuring" around.
trains? maybe, but nobody loves taxi trains. and cars, well, no, thank you, even though cars are somewhat fun

still ice
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I just recalled some interesting solution.
There's warcraft 3 map which combines all aspects and separates on zones and what people can do.
For example: 1st builds, 2nd manages army, 3rd is hero.
Players don't destroy buildings which build army etc.

surreal quarry
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yes, separation of concerns is fun. I did prototype some of it, where different classes had run-a-train (immersive trains) (ss13/baroutrauma/amongus style), except it did not quite shoot at playtesting

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I've since came to a more fun idea:
you can have multiple concurrent labs, if they are on the managed forces and you only get to see a proper tech tree while inside one of the factorissimo-like "lab" rooms

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that, for example. allows to have say mil research slowly progress alongside the miner bonus one (though it is kinda out of scope for pvp probably)

still ice
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There are turn based games that includes several winning conditions.
However, I think it'd be more fun to have not conditions, but winning points, so any result would feel more beneficial between teams in Factorio.

surreal quarry
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winning points brings us to the utility function of awarding such points

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oh

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and that actually gets us to the most important part of them all.
the FEEDBACK

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the cooperation is mostly hard not on;y due to the lack of means or reasons for it.
it is not apparently obvious if doing X or Y is more fun/beneficial.

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in vanilla you can't "go faster than X" due to the cloud. (aka cloud utility function)
once you have say 5 ppl, at least 2 of them would often be going around (remember the speed issue) spending literally hours killing them bitors
but what if this was not the case, then there has to be another utility function :>

silver halo
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Echoing what someone said earlier, I think you need to really think about map size. It would be fun with a micro base and a handful of people. It would also be fun to have a real-world scale battle with a hundred people.

surreal quarry
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zwer u are the cool someone :>

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and ye, we've seen mass maps done before, the engine can manage it

still ice
still ice
surreal quarry
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well factorio is not a sc2, for better or worse; adventure map as they are just do not ring the proper bell

surreal quarry
silver halo
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I'm thinking of the notorious WW2 simulator with logistics and hundreds of people. You could do something similar in Factorio

surreal quarry
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would be hard: shared state

still ice
fringe wind
surreal quarry
fringe wind
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@surreal quarry you know you can shift click emoji right

surreal quarry
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oh

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the more you know

fringe wind
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that one looks weird

surreal quarry
still ice
surreal quarry
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does clusterio allow to "rpc" from one instance to another btw? from lua-to-lua I mean; in some form at least

paper plinth
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We currently run the scenario Towny, which mostly works "okay"-ish but real PvP mode is lacking yeah ๐Ÿ˜„

fringe wind
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Not directly from lua without anything running externally, but you could easily write a plugin to just forward arbitrary data

surreal quarry
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recent towny has the NEAT edge of a walking water btw (a chunk of walking water around the "usual" map area)

paper plinth
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We even have (not running) Planet prison where the enemies are players and "custom built" character AI with merchants that show up from time to time

still ice
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@stray quest

surreal quarry
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AND WE CAN NOW COLOR THEM NOT ONLY BLACK! the ai chars kappa

paper plinth
still ice
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@twilit holly @languid violet

surreal quarry
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they managed to somehow balance out mines by doing a x%25 damage I recall

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but ye still, the session time... (even with 0.5 sci rates, or was it)

paper plinth
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scrapyard with pvp was fun, while scrap existed kappa

surreal quarry
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no more scrap for u

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and no more planes!

paper plinth
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we're taking the step to move towards modded, seeing how vanilla is so limited in so many things - so scrapyard with pvp will surely return

surreal quarry
# surreal quarry and no more planes!

all that's left
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surreal quarry
paper plinth
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I imagine the game will be butter smooth since with modding we can actually utilize event filters

surreal quarry
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but you still run the lua sandbox per each mod ยฏ_(ใƒ„)_/ยฏ

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but ye, native filters are just out of the world

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if only modded mp got more popularity

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speaking of which, how does the fish defense fares nowadays?

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it kinda got the pvp cousin of hatchery, but I think that was outshadowed by the bb back then

paper plinth
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yeah it's the same and hatchery is fun but does not have the same feeling as biter battles

tribal pulsar
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I've always felt like space exploration had a really good setup for pvp, though I've never had a chance to test it at any real scale.
You unlock the means to defend yourself long before you even know where the other players are, let alone have the ability to attack them, so everyone is guaranteed to have their main base be relatively impenetrable.

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SE takes way too long for a real pvp game, for most people, though I'd imagine you could lift some of the same mechanics.

silver halo
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Maybe the trick is to make it PvP-like by giving the biters more powers and personality. Like if they have a research queue and can "learn" to prioritize attacking power poles, rails, etc. Or add rogue-like modifiers to change things in novel ways, ex can only mine at night

surreal quarry
paper plinth
tribal pulsar
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I see nothing wrong with having 10ups

silver halo
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My multiplayer SE world hit 10 ups. It's not fun

tribal pulsar
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my single player would hit 5, it's sufferable.

surreal quarry
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well in fact yes, having about say 30 ups is perfectly fine if it is for competitive sport and UI is responsive (not sure though if the input actions would even go in okay here)

paper plinth
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And then there is the limit of how many forces there are - so TLDR; factorio is not meant to be PvP

surreal quarry
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but well what if we were to see it done kappa

paper plinth
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Who knows, maybe 1.2 is multithreaded and force limit is increased and everything is heaven?

fringe wind
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๐Ÿ˜…

surreal quarry
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and bitors eat candies, not ore

tribal pulsar
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but yeah, I'd ideally find a way to make the players primary base extraordinarily difficult to attack but also require them to leave for resources and etc, that way the pvp engagements never really focus upon the large production base, but rather the outposts required to get resources and etc.

paper plinth
surreal quarry
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it does not work for factorio without some elaborate scripting

silver halo
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Maybe we need to think more about pushing the feeling of scale of Factorio. Imagine needing to output a blue belt of tanks to keep up. Maybe the fight should happen on a different surface with simple tug of war mechanics

fringe wind
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I changed it up by doing an attacking, defending and neutral force. This way I could apply buff/debuffs to attackers/defenders and also circumvent the 255 force limit

surreal quarry
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was it not 60 >_>

paper plinth
surreal quarry
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but eeeanyways

fringe wind
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Oh right. Well, never got that far in testing :P

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Now I just need 6

surreal quarry
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64 where 3 are predefined from what I remember

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but ye, some buffs are only fun to do via force level

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attacker party does get its own force if you want it done fun

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with the attacker-defender, we come to the claim area stuff

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some sort of zone-claim system that only allows the friends to build in the area is quite a common option to at least put borders

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spamming a wall around a running player is a long known "fun" trick

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the reverse is spamming unnerfed landmines to breach walls (as seen in say crashsite)

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well, half the issue about factorio-is-a-no-automation game might actually be hotfixed if non-war buildings were indestructible (assuming pass-trhu or smth to prevent pipe walling)
and maybe changed force once say super-claim falls down (opposed to regional claim points of interest)

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that does add the scale where you have "more-than-one" smelter

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that actually may somehow feel like a new experience for a lot of freeplay players, who just build the "resource monopoly around the bus" or smth

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I shall revisit my scarce notes on direct combat and also see if any "balancing" efforts ever brought up any notable conclusions

one still has to limit the ever-building player so as not for it to become a build-a-bot on steroids
yet I do not immediately see how does one create an utility function on a specific player skill, having in mind the good old timmy-johnny-spike problem from the belts-vs-bots era.

from now I remember the "green-gold" idea, where you have to collect the oil from green oasis-like islands, then train it to hubs where you convert it to lube, which is then train-ed to the "main base". Yet most of it was scripting and special "minigames" so to say, not so much direct confrontation (bullets kinda expensive, plates bought by "green points")

and another fun one was where you manually roll in "tunnels" on the same rails network as others without a single traffic signal on it
gates closed-by-wires, some cars and tanks, loot and stations.
But again, that is heavy scripting with the biggest effort done on a car to follow a rail curve from what I recall.
assuming one can fit enough neutral assembling points and provide an motivation to "purchase" plates, it might still be fun :>

long steppe
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I haven't read most of the conversation here, but I've found that the shorter games are the most fun ones

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defcon mode (research happens on a timer, and it chooses randomly) and some choice map settings make for some really fun games

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then you don't have to worry about out-progressing the other team(s)

surreal quarry
long steppe
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you always have the same tech, so it becomes a battle of wit, skill, and execution

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it's fun because there's much less cognitive overload

surreal quarry
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so the solution is make it as context-free as possible huh

long steppe
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I'm not sure what you're referring to with the word "context"

surreal quarry
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I think close to context-free grammar

In formal language theory, a context-free grammar (CFG) is a formal grammar whose production rules can be applied to a nonterminal symbol regardless of its context.

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as in, no "global vars" somewhere else in the background affecting us

long steppe
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I'm still not quite sure what that means in this scenario

surreal quarry
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cognitive overload I suppose

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you rarely see people join games with 10h+ of gameplay

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the golden times are around 20-90 minutes or smth

long steppe
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it makes for a less stressful game in general when you know it's going to be over quick

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anyway, if there's enough people interested, I'd be open to hosting more pvp games at some point

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I'm sure I could scrape up the settings I used from an old save

surreal quarry
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oh, actually

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@modern fern you might find this thread of interest to your liking :>

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((hope discord correctly works on ping-to-thread))

tepid garden
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honestly as long as factorio remains a logistics game, PvP is gonna suck. Because it's like a speedrun race, except the contestants generally aren't speedrunners.

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Soon as you make the slightest error against anyone who actually knows what they're doing, might as well forfeit

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this is why I hate biter battles tbh

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you can usually tell pretty quickly who's gonna win

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and there's no chance to invert things

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turn a loss into a win or vice versa

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once you pull ahead it's done

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even if you were gonna do something like space exploration PvP on Nauvis, the meteor RNG and such wouldn't be a notable factor

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would be a race to the defenses if the RNG was actually significant

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minecraft's another game that is never gonna be a good pvp game

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honestly, factorio's pvp problems are the same as Minecraft's, except bases are mandatory by the game's design.

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In Minecraft's case, there's literally no reason to set up a base long-term.

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Because the main strategy when it comes to Minecraft is to just wait for logoff and raid then, or outgear the enemy

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throw everything you can into your ender chest, carry the bare minimum, and never set up a base anywhere and you literally can't lose in minecraft compared to someone with a base

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with factorio, same incentive exists

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except there aren't enderchests, so losing is at least theoretically possible

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I'd say pvp is the kind of thing you have to design for when making a game. it can't really be feasibly done as an afterthought

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you either make a pvp game, or you don't

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you also need matchmaking for a good pvp game and factorio pvp just isn't popular enough for matchmaking to work

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tl;dr: factorio pvp is an exercise in futility

long steppe
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have you played pvp

tribal pulsar
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I've never done pvp on the same planet, that just seems like an unending hell of harassing attacks. Or if turrets are an effective defence then it's a race to artillery and then the other side is wiped off the map, because there's no actual defence from artillery in the game.

long steppe
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it's hard to understand how pvp plays without actually doing it yourself

tribal pulsar
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That's fair

long steppe
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I have played many, many pvp games and it was some of the most fun experiences I've had playing factorio

tribal pulsar
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got any recordings you'd recommend as examples?

long steppe
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unfortunately no, I do have a couple save games of how the good ones ended but that's about it

tribal pulsar
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no-one really does this on youtube, do they?

long steppe
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not really

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if they do it's probably bad quality

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but if I do end up doing more pvp that is a good idea

tribal pulsar
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Do try to account for people who are just incessant arses who immediately try to cheese you in any way possible. Cause you can't count on always having people to play with who will be courteous. And a lot of games that aren't really designed for pvp have that kind of case, where the people who actually enjoy it have unwritten rules of "doing these things just makes you a dick."

tepid garden
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that said I will say again: the best speedrunner wins because once you get a lead there's virtually no clawing it back

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if I had to personally guess, most pvp games are over at milsci, yes?

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or, if not over at, decided by

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the whole point is that in factorio things snowball really hard and once you start snowballing you've basically just won

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unless the enemy is also snowballing at the same time

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I personally find biter battles at a minimum to be infuriating

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because I can usually tell at least 30min to an hour before the game even comes close to ending that the game's decided

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If it's 1v1, I usually forfeit at that point to save everyone the time.

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I've never tried direct pvp but I feel like it'd be the same deal

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unless biters are more of a wildcard than I expect

tribal pulsar
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I mean, If you can sever your opponents supply line, sever a rail line, a belt in a mining outpost... then you can easilly halt their progression until they find/notice/fix it.

tepid garden
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You get an alarm when that happens.

tribal pulsar
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you'd be amazed how little that means

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I'm used to getting 10's of alarms per second on a relatively safe base

tepid garden
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H O W

tribal pulsar
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biters, walls, bots

tepid garden
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ah

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fair

tribal pulsar
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bots especially, since those idiots love to fly over enemy territory like they've got a fetish for it...

tepid garden
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LMAO

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true

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but like, seriously. it doesn't sound fun to me because in a lot of ways it just seems like the majority of the game is playing out a situation that an aware opponent knows is already decided

still ice
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List all OP stuff.

  1. Rockets can make any defense useless fast (if there are no drones or they are not fast enough)
  2. Best PvP tank driver - best annoyance for any slow responsive/afk base
  3. Big differences in defensive/offensive technologies makes one of side OP.
  4. Nukes, artillery are always OP
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Vanilla flame turrets are good in PvP, also they are good as a "lag machine" between massive bases and for some mods.

tepid garden
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i will say combat mechanics overhaul mod could help

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so you can't fire over walls and such

still ice
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... no walls, no problems for tanks

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Bots gather around fire like moth.

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The bigger base, the harder to respond on attacks.

tepid garden
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eh fair

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automated defenses suck

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turrets and such can just be tricked by strafespamming if they shoot projectiles

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since they lead shots, no?

still ice
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@tepid garden, tanks, grenades have bigger range. Gun turrets deal immediate damage in Vanilla.

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One of disappointing experience, I played on a server, building power all the time, but we lost everything pretty fast. Power were destroyed, no one couldn't response fast, we didn't have bots at that moment. It took too much time to move to a safer place.

tepid garden
tepid garden
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In fact that's why Minecraft PvP sucks; just wait for the enemy to log off and raid at your leisure.

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Sounds like my assessment of the similarities was even more accurate than I thought

still ice
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Could teleports be fun/fix some issues?

tepid garden
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Teleports?

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Maybe.

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Would help with response time, ig

still ice
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But it also helps to attack fast in several places...

tepid garden
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maybe change the alarm to make it more useful (easy to tell when it's just biters on your defenses vs. a building that was destroyed)

tepid garden
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every defensive tool will be used offensively if it can be

still ice
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It could be better by fixing max building of teleports from main base...

tepid garden
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Or by making it be something you have to set up bidirectionally

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like portals

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rather than just a waypoint thing

still ice
tepid garden
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no the idea is that you have to have a tp at the destination AND where you are to use it

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maybe an arming time too

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so it can't be used to blitz a base

still ice
tepid garden
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honestly I like EVE Online's structure warfare as far as balance goes.

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Structures have 2-3 health bars, depending on some conditions

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The first healthbar is always exposed, then when it is depleted, the structure becomes invincible for a relatively short grace period. (24 hours, but could be shorter for this)

Once that's done, if the health bar is depleted AGAIN (some don't do this middle state) it goes invincible for longer, before being destroyed

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The first healthbar favors the attackers.

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An attacker can show up at any time and pop it.

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The second and third health bars favor defenders in EO, (the PC game) as they become vulnerable at times scheduled by the defenders. In EE (the mobile game) the second favors the attackers (as it's just 24 hours from when the first health bar got eliminated)

tribal pulsar
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yeah, EVE wise, poping the first health bar is how you request a large pvp battle with the other faction XD

tepid garden
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"knock knock, hey I wanna fight"

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Unless you're me

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in which case I run around in a stealth bomber, hit structures until they scream to their owners

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and any owners come online and chase me off

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At which point I run and go hit something else!

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Because I like being a little shit.

tribal pulsar
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heh

tepid garden
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half the time it's like

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not even intended to lead to any structure destruction

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sometimes it's just me baiting enemies around to try and lead them into deathtraps

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I've had some enemies learn that I get bored and leave if nobody responds

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but no the idea is that the multiple healthbars with HP gates means that there's an actual fight over the thing, not just... fuck you, your thing is destroyed.

tepid garden
#

You place it in your base and buildings in your base become โ€˜reinforcedโ€™.

still ice
tepid garden
#

An area.

still ice
#

I'm not sure about performance... it's hard to say about balance right now for me...

tepid garden
#

Essentially, around the shield generator, the base becomes unable to be killed. Once a certain amount of damage is dealt to the base (possibly w/ some resistance for explosives or something) all buildings in the shielded area become inactive and indestructible (unable to take damage).

#

Then, some time later, the shield becomes vulnerable again.

still ice
tepid garden
#

The idea is that the shield turns an area of your base into an EVE Citadel esque fortification.

#

So attackers must first knock on the door with their guns (relatively easy)

#

then beat active defense (hard)

#

THEN start destroying shit.

#

As for attacking, create a โ€˜resonantโ€™ shield that can be placed to create a โ€˜siege engineโ€™ of sorts, turning an area invulnerable while a nearby enemy shield is invulnerable, letting you set up for the active defense phase in peace.

#

After it kicks in anyway.

#

All shields would take time to kick in and would alert players when placed in a charted chunk, so you canโ€™t run up and slap a shield next to an enemy base.

tepid garden
#

keep a table of shield positions by force, make their radii standard, check the attacker force. (ignore shields if biter)
Then check if the closest shield belonging to your force is in rangeโ€ฆ and if so, apply the damage to the corresponding shield and trigger the invuln if it reduces the shield to 0

#

might chug for AoEs tho

tribal pulsar
#

though it's worth thinking, you do still want the sheild generator to be big and targetable, not to attack it directly but so the attacker can easilly find, and mouse over it to find out when the invuln is going to run out.

tepid garden
#

mmm true

#

could give it a distinct map color too

still ice
tribal pulsar
#

oh neat, didn't know starmade had that

#

oh, I see, it's a mod.

tepid garden
#

this sort of thing is basically mandatory for PvP base building to work

tribal pulsar
tepid garden
#

Well, something has to be done so that someone can't just wait for the defenders to leave and win that way

#

that's what I mean

#

in order for pvp to be balanced, you have to first ensure that fights happen at all

tribal pulsar
#

yeah, just saying that while it's a good solution, and anyone whos dabbled in EVE will find it familar, I could see a decent subset wanting something else. So ideally there'd be a decent set of mods to tune pvp towards whatever solutions can be found.

tepid garden
#

Oh absolutely.

#

But there needs to be a core PvP facilitator I think for max fun

#

otherwise people will play like cowards

tepid garden
#

btw

#

I heard of it but like

#

never looked

#

checked it on steam, reviews are 'mixed'

#

67% positive

tribal pulsar
#

It's.... interesting...

#

Plays like a very unpolished baby of eve and minecraft.

tepid garden
#

Lol, interesting

#

last update was three years ago, though

#

least, last major update it seems

#

oh nvm they just stopped updating their website xD

still ice
tepid garden
#

apparently the dev got robbed?

#

or, well

#

scammed

#

out of his entire budget

#

(and this is why you don't trust anyone with your goddamn wallet)

still ice
#

Also, there's misunderstanding and criticism about updates.

tepid garden
#

oh absolutely

#

I actually really hate the reviews that are like

#

"i disagree with X update"

#

the only thing that actually holds my curiosity with this game, and why it wasn't killed by the 67% positive review rate in my eyes, is the fact that it has not received reviews for forever and a half

#

to the point that steam has no gauge on the recent reviews

#

also it looks like it might suffer from the issue of "discussion is kept mostly to official channels"

still ice
tepid garden
#

so it looks really dead on steam but it gets at least some community interaction elsewhere

#

all the descriptions I can see is that the game is 'comatose' but not 'dead' lol

#

curious

#

anyway, tangents aside

#

there's really gotta be something to ensure that fights happen rather than stalls that defeat people via IRL or other constraints

#

if the only reason you win is because someone's not standing guard, that's just boring

still ice
#

Should PvP depend on research a lot?

tepid garden
#

It depends on the level of speedrunnyness you want to incentivize tbh

still ice
#

Ah, how to inform players fast?

tepid garden
still ice
#

I mean, I spam coordinates in chat as a player, but it's not enough.*

tribal pulsar
#

Custom map alert

#

that a sheild capacitor has been tripped and will be fully drained at/in X:XX

tepid garden
#

yeah, accompanied by a loud custom sound or sth

tribal pulsar
#

that would be kind of annoying... since the alert won't go away for a very long time, it should be more than enough for it to be noticed, and it won't stack with other alerts, so it'll stand out.

tepid garden
#

oh yeah I mean like

#

when the thing trips

#

it should make a loud noise

tribal pulsar
#

oh yeah for sure.

tepid garden
#

like WAKE THE FUCK UP MORON YOU'RE GETTING ATTACKED

#

xD

still ice
#

Does PvP lack variety of weapons, turrets, ammunition?

tepid garden
#

Idk. I donโ€™t play it but I definitely feel like weapon options are a bit limited even in k2se

#

thereโ€™s just about a handful of defense setups that work

#

i feel like we could use more diversity in weapon options in general tbh

#

shotgun turrets would be sick, especially w/ combat mechanics overhaul bc itโ€™d mean youโ€™d have to deal with turrets outside of your walls

still ice
#

How the shield should interact with biters? @tepid garden

tepid garden
still ice
#

So, biters can destroy everything and ignore the shield as shield, but not as a building?

tepid garden
#

yeah

#

they work normally

still ice
#

Welp, it makes stuff more complicated...

tepid garden
#

not really

#

on_entity_damaged.cause

still ice
#

||So much code to optimize||

tepid garden
#

not really

#

just an on_entity_damaged event handler and a on_built_entity handler, I think

still ice
#

Well, it changes, impacts a lot.

tepid garden
#

the former just needs to, in order:

  • Check if the damage came from 'enemy' force and ignore it if so (default biter force)
  • find_entities_filtered{position = entity position, radius = shield radius, type = shield, force = entity force}
  • Figure out whomstthefuck that shield is and subtract from its shields
#

though you might be able to optimize the second one by just caching shield positions by force and checking the minimum distance-squared

still ice
#

||I wish for sub-thread||

tepid garden
#

lmao sub-subthread

#

essentially optimizing it shouldn't be any harder than going in order of 'easiest to hardest' checks and aborting when one fails

still ice
# tepid garden the former just needs to, in order: - Check if the damage came from 'enemy' forc...

Figure out ... that shield is and subtract from its shields
I thought about tables, 1 table for 1 force will be too big to store all entities under shield and it's Lua 5.2.1, so it's more beneficial to pre-compute some stuff and store in tables.

find_entities_filtered
For what exactly? Events for buildings refer to its building and shields can be in tables...

Iteration through all force shields can be tricky if there a lot of shields.*

tepid garden
still ice
#

A, I thought about referring to a shield by entity index. However, I'd like to ignore units under shields...

tepid garden
#

?

#

that's not hard

#

check the thing being damaged

#

if it's a unit, exclude it

still ice
#

How about shields protect chunks?..

tepid garden
#

could be easy enough but would be really limiting

#

if you only care about square radii you could save the multiplication

#

do math.min(abs(entity.x - shield.x),abs(entity.y - shield.y))

#

and if that's more than the radius, no shields ;-;

still ice
#

Tricky misunderstanding: should be buildings fully under shield or not?

tepid garden
#

I'd say it should be fine for them to be just centered within the shield

#

walls are 1x1 anyway and you want those to keep enemies out bc otherwise they could look for an unshielded area to blow up or otherwise muck with things

still ice
#

Some turrets can be 4x4 in mods.

tepid garden
#

okay, and?

still ice
#

That's it, visual confusion.

tepid garden
#

if you wanted you could force the building to be entirely within the bounds of the shield

#

esp using a square radius

still ice
tepid garden
#

That should be set to true whenever the shield is vulnerable, because we want to pick up the damage events

#

indestructible buildings can't give off damage events

still ice
tepid garden
#

Mm, fair

still ice
#

It could be solved by new force, but it'd lead to more issues...

tepid garden
#

Hmm.

#

Wait... wouldn't that just mean the biters turn around and target whatever isn't under the reinforced shield?

#

I actually kinda like that idea.

still ice
tepid garden
#

Only if the entirety of their base was under one shield.

#

And the abuse would be dependent upon someone else attacking.

#

So they could target a segment of a larger base to 'herd' biters towards a weak point

#

or to up pressure on other segments to break through

still ice
#

It's not an issue to make a small hole for players.*

tepid garden
#

how would players abuse it?

#

just make it so they can't damage their own shields

still ice
#

tunnel + stun + fire

tepid garden
#

stun being...?

still ice
#

mines

tepid garden
#

ah

#

that would only work while you're being attacked

#

hold on lemme check something

still ice
#

or second line of defense...

#

Shotgun turret would fit perfectly...

tepid garden
#

Maybe set military buildings to be entity.active = false?

still ice
#

Mm...

tepid garden
#

so that invuln turrets can't do anything and mines won't explode and such

#

so things built upon intentional openings either don't work or become active vulnerabilities

still ice
#

Imagine handling this case by a nuke. :e

tepid garden
#

wdym

still ice
#

nvm, it's more important for other variants.

tepid garden
#

nuke could make the game chug really hard tho xd

#

Could just disable nukes.

#

It's not like nukes are REMOTELY balanced

#

and they would probably just delete the shield if you fired them at a wall

still ice
#

Btw, it should be almost easy to balance amount of shields, but it's possible to cover everything in shields.

still ice
tepid garden
#

oh I know

#

But nukes slam for thousands of damage in a MASSIVE area

#

I'm saying that the total damage over the area would pop the shield HP instantly

still ice
#

What about reactor?

tepid garden
#

same as nuke

#

400 base explosion in a 35 tile radius

still ice
#

It's possible to use a reactor as weapon in theory...

peak oasis
#

well if you can go unnoticed long enough sure lol

still ice
#

@tepid garden, destroy first shield, place reactor, protect reactor for N minutes, profit.

tepid garden
#

the idea is that you have to bust first layer

#

bust second layer

#

THEN when the shield goes down (another delay)

#

you can directly damage buildings

#

so it'd be third layer

still ice
#

@tepid garden, in building consideration, it''s possible to build turrets after 1st shield, so flame turrets would mess around with everything.

tepid garden
#

how would flame turrets mess with things?

still ice
#

Their range is longer, they cause a lot of damage events, they forces bots to repair buildings and die from fire damage.

#
  • mines would be more useless for defense.
tepid garden
#

hm

still ice
#

Well, one of simple solutions for some stuff would be restriction of buildings near enemy shields at least.

tepid garden
#

I mean

tepid garden
#

unless it's a siege flamer

still ice
#

Well, should we just nerf fire?

tepid garden
#

nah

#

unless playtests indicate it's too insane it should be fine

still ice
#

It does too much damage for long time.

#

1000% damage efficiency comparing to other turrets.

tepid garden
#

walls are 100% fire immune tho

#

worst comes to worst we can give buildings, especially combat oriented ones, fire resist

still ice
#

well, shield won't be immune?

tepid garden
#

the shield won't be but if we use the final damage amount to calc the shield damage...

#

fireproof shit won't take fire damage to shields

#

which should make logical sense

#

from a gameplay perspective anyway

still ice
#

flame turrets target turrets.

tepid garden
#

tbh combat mechanics overhaul is probably a good template for this

#

but yeah I see what you mean

#

flamers would die to defensive flamers tho

still ice
#

Depends on technologies in some cases.

tepid garden
#

nah bc the shield

#

shield keeps an underpowered flamer safe for long enough to burn down enemy flamers

#

make sense?

still ice
tepid garden
#

Shields would cancel the damage out to prevent destruction, so bots should never pop up

still ice
#

which is even worse

tepid garden
#

no?

#

it's just a number setter

still ice
#

Imagine endless battle with "endless" fire

tepid garden
#

they have to run out of oil sometime, right???

still ice
#

You make consumption more, but it'll force too much logical issues.

tepid garden
#

Exclude flamers from shield protection?

#

So that the flamers destroy each other?

still ice
tepid garden
#

Custom damage type?

#

oh wait fire damage is exclusive to flamers

#

IIRC you can make new damage types

#

k2 does it for radiation

still ice
#

Even with 100% resistance, they fire as far I remember.

tepid garden
#

check for 0 damage upfront so the 0 damage ticks get ignored before any heavy logic happens?

still ice
#

Well, it's question of scalability.

#

It's possible to build 1000 flame turrets which could cause 1000*N fire...

tepid garden
#

hm.

still ice
#

Anyway, nerf its range.

tepid garden
#

could help

#

or make it so that shields again, can't be placed near each other

#

so the defender wins

tepid garden
still ice
#

Btw, lower attack range for worms

tepid garden
#

why?

still ice
#

Their range is much bigger than any turret.

tepid garden
#

that's intentional so you can't cheese them

still ice
tepid garden
#

for 100! fire damage per second for 30 seconds

still ice
tepid garden
#

https://wiki.factorio.com/Flamethrower_turret

Official Factorio Wiki
Flamethrower turret

Flamethrower turrets work similarly to the flamethrower, setting enemies and the ground on fire and doing damage over time. Unlike gun and laser turrets, they have a limited firing arc, and should therefore be placed at choke points or behind walls. They can use crude, heavy, or light oil as ammunition, which must be provided via a pipe connecte...

#

direct hit with the stream sets enemies on fire for 30s and burns them for insane damage

surreal quarry
#

fire turret also puts a small slowdown sticker

tepid garden
#

if that can be changed it should probably be tuned down...

tepid garden
surreal quarry
#

yet the whole ignore-bitors case kinda means you can suicide-run with a bitor horde on your tail

tepid garden
#

?

#

for shields?

#

yeah that's fine

still ice
tepid garden
#

if you don't build to handle big biter attacks, I'm fine with enemies provoking hordes and leading them to you

#

that's not really unbalanced

#

plus that could keep flamers viable even after a hefty nerf to hurt their offensive potential

#

since they do AoE damage that biters don't usually resist

still ice
#

well, they are OP against biters.

tepid garden
#

exactly

#

nerf their damage so they're not so insane on direct hit

#

that should handle the dps issues

#

for lag issues, not sure

surreal quarry
#

anything AOE in factorio is OP :> (well, usually)

tepid garden
#

i suppose you could code the mod to batch shield ops or something

#

but idk if that'd be useful

surreal quarry
#

yet anyways this comes up as another claim-the-zone option

tepid garden
#

I mean the main idea is to ensure battles happen

#

rather than your base being obliterated instantly

surreal quarry
#

yep, there is no "defense" anti-players in the non-scripted vanilla in that sense

tepid garden
#

yeah

#

they just wait for you to wander off and then rip through your base

still ice
#

Some important issues can be caused by ping and internet instability. It's not possible to drive and even shoot with high ping correctly which leads to unplayable experience sometimes.

#

I think blueprints should be allowed, otherwise it could discourage people to build and it'll prolong building and researching even more. You think ~N hours isn't long enough?

#

Another issue, current PvP requires too much experience and determination for building. Any mistake leads to severe consequences.

#

Also, it's hard to get PvP experience for players. They could practice etc., but it requires a lot of time because of building, but any experienced PvP player can win much more easily and ruin long building process without even engaging direct battle etc.

#

Some stages are complex in several ways and more dependent. For example: oil requires separate and more complex factory and oil isn't always near a base, but oil is important to advance in various aspects.

#

@tepid garden, btw, how to advance if enemy has 2 layers of shields?

#

Probably, it'd be good to restrict rebuilding a shield for some time...

tepid garden
#

Entities only benefit from the nearest shield generator. Shield stacks are a no-no. If the radius is a square, no overlaps and the shield should only affect things fully in its area.

still ice
tepid garden
#

the shields would have a startup time

#

so they can't be placed reactively

still ice
#

? They'll just build shields everywhere first.

#

Essentially, shields don't need protection against players if players are building them to slow down attack on base.

tepid garden
#

No overlaps.

still ice
#

sure, but bases can be big.

tepid garden
#

Which is fine.

#

If the base is big enough to need multiple shields to reinforce, then it shouldn't fall in one go.

still ice
#

I consider like it could lead to "dynamic" bases in late game. They could endlessly try to build shields everywhere in some pattern, not just in a base.

tepid garden
#

make them require science packs to fuel

still ice
#

Now I like it much more.

tepid garden
#

donโ€™t make it like, a lot, but make it enough to be unmanageable by hand for a base of any appreciable scale

#

you could even do this natively via burner energy sources

#

create a โ€˜dataโ€™ fuel type that consists of all science packs and assign science different values based upon the machine time required to make it

still ice
#

Your bills: space science packs

stray quest
#

Hey guys I haven't really followed this discussion but I'm the maintainer of the Wasteland PvP scenario and server. Anything interesting you concluded?

still ice
#

~50% discussion about PvP shields so far.

stray quest
#

Hm yeah necessary evil to keep things balanced imo

long steppe
#

@stray quest what is the wasteland scenario

tribal pulsar
#

PVP really needs a set of playtesters I think, people who are willing to regularly play through setups and give their opinions on the pros and cons of that setup.

stray quest
long steppe
#

I would rather have a quick explanation here as I am not able to do any multiplayer currently

tiny spear
#

Gimme the elevator pitch

surreal quarry
long steppe
#

on the wasteland scenario

surreal quarry
#

on the "classic" towny one:
you start as an "outlander" force; all the minimap is black, tech tree disabled, you can only craft REALLY basic stuff.
there is lost of "junk" around much like on the mountain-fortress. on-mined uses loot-table; mostly intermediates but small chance to get the tank even.

you have the furnace. once placed, it creates picrelated base.
mart on this one is kinda simple, but a few other ones oarc-like (and even more so on AWF) even allow for loaders to trade ore and stuff from-to mart.
((the scenario included))

the sci multiplier is ~0.5; local evo around you depends on your tech level;
you can drop (depends) fish/coin/coal/iron-gear onto players and other team's marts to invite/accept new player or do cease-fires.

image.png ๐Ÿ“Ž Towny.zip
surreal quarry
#

the non-gun turret number is limited by "slots"; slots are bought at mart for coins; price[N+1] is usually price[N]+X
rockets and spiders are disabled ofc;
once a bitor is killed, the coin is dropped at the location of the "cause", usually around turret or given directly to player.
in some optoins only nests/worms produce coins and bitors don't.
landmines are often disabled or nerfed to 10-25% of damage.

since smg range is a bit further then gun turrets, only "real" obstacle are lasers. car turret also > gun turret.
tank cannon is op, but needs oil, which is not too plentiful.

the starting ores numbers are at 100k, which allows to get kinda to the blue-sci tier, but not further.
and since evo also rises once you get there, (and gun turrets, as everyone knows, -- suck) you are pretty limited in what you usually build.
you do get plenty of plates-and-stuff from the junk (top right on the screen above); since it does not pollute, manual mining is quite fun.
the rest of the meta is about sushi-malls, blue-sci-direct insertion-with-one-only-one-sci-assembler and sometimes (when you are rich!! and have looted or mined enough) even smth like on the screenie.
overall it is still a base-in-the-book feeling, like you get with the mf (mountain fortress) train, but on the free ground instead.
((I might have other related prints, but since search only works on the top level and I did not finish a standalone tool, tough luck :>))

discord_2023-06_wagon_sci.png
surreal quarry
#

wasteland then did a few more tweaks on top; well quite a few;
but maybe @stray quest would know them better.
guys and myself have recently blacklisted that one server from the lobby-overview tools and have not been there for quite some time, probably since it went modded for the first or second time.

still ice
still ice
#

If you want to have more/precise info, then it's better to ask blubFisch and read changelog of the scenario.

stray quest
# tiny spear Gimme the elevator pitch

Wasteland: All parties build compact and well-defended factory towns. Biters will attack them as a "warm-up", but the main action is PvP in a last man standing fashion. The special addition in Wasteland is a PvP shield, which allows players to logout without losing their town (matches last 3 days) and also allows late joiners to catch up. Also we've added tons of other PvP balancing.

paper plinth
still ice
#

Also, you wouldn't complain about it if all the features by blubFisch would be in your repository as it was before.

paper plinth
#

Sometimes, a "map-creator" can choose with what they want implemented/added to their map, the same way Factorio devs or any other dev does - some features are added, some are denied.

Comfy still hosts Towny, yet another server arose just because some features weren't implemented or they weren't "merged" fast enough.

If we're ever to push something new, it would probably be with a stricter license version. Else the same thing will happen as Biter Battles and Towny etc.

Also, DM if you want to continue this rather odd discussion

Sorry for going off-topic here dolan

still ice
tiny spear
#

Why would you want to enforce a stricter license? Isn't the goal of Open source that others can experiment and host their own versions so that custom and interesting improvements and changes can be made?

paper plinth
#

Of course, for modules/utils files I'd rather see them open source
The license version that Earendel is going with seems fitting for some reason when it comes to maps

still ice
#

In such case, shouldn't author(s) of a scenario decide a licence?

long steppe
#

the license earendel is "going with" is the one they made and is horribly written

still ice
#

Hosting a Factorio scenario is a distribution, isn't? (in most cases)

tepid garden
#

oh wait, scenario?

#

probs

#

but like, playing with a mod? probably not?

still ice
#

Clients have to download a save and saves can have lua files etc.

tepid garden
#

tbh if I ever release my mods under a custom license I'm going to probably make it have only a couple major terms

#
  1. Give me credit if you take inspiration from/fork my mods.
  2. Don't portray your mod as superior or inferior to my mod. Outline the differences, etc. and let the players decide for themselves.
  3. Tell me you're doing it so I can make a mention of your mod under similar terms.
still ice
#

Any license is huge messy deal, but custom licenses have more issues in some countries.
Go for multi-license.

tepid garden
#

a codification of what I consider dickish

tepid garden
#

I'm never gonna enforce it

#

I literally can't afford to sue someone for violating my license.

#

Any licenses my mods release under are going to be COMPLETELY toothless

still ice
tepid garden
#

so I might as well use the license to indicate "this is what I consider to be a dick move. don't do a dick move"

#

There's no jurisdiction in the world that will automatically enforce a license because that would be functionally unmanageable.

still ice
tepid garden
#

?

still ice
#

Invalid licence -> "all rights reserved" (not always)

tepid garden
#

once again

#

I am incapable of enforcing licensing

#

It does not matter if the license is valid or if it gets, legally speaking, replaced with an all-rights-reserved license

#

because I have no intent or capacity to enforce the license

#

besides. I'm kinda fundamentally opposed to suing people to get my way

still ice
#

Btw, about main topic. I'd like to try to make something similar to Castle fight from Warcraft 3 in Factorio. (there are a lot of versions of it in many games)

tepid garden
#

you do get what I mean right

tepid garden
still ice
tepid garden
#

...and this is a problem for me how?

#

someone else firing off audits on my behalf?

#

@still ice

#

like, yes, I realize that people can and do troll with licenses and patents

#

I am not going to do that and the whole point of a license on my side is to say I won't do that

still ice
#

tl;dr it's complex topic, it's more apparent issue in USA etc., benefit in suing is more apparent when something was used for profit.

tepid garden
#

I know

#

I'm saying I have no means to sue

#

even if I could benefit from it

#

and besides, I'm again, against suing the crap out of people for pointless shit

#

I'm the kind of person who would never take a company public because of personal beliefs, and would only pass on ownership of the company if I could get an agreement to bind the company so that it never ran contrary to my beliefs.

#

in my case I would literally never be this kind of threat

#

and ik that sounds like an 'easy for you to say' type deal

#

but yeah offtopic

long steppe
#

I would classify hosting a scenario as use

tepid garden
#

like...

#

most of those aren't mine

#

and I didn't download any of those directly

long steppe
#

only if you keep the mods they came from

tepid garden
#

Mmm fair

long steppe
#

even if it is distribution, that's within factorio's rights

#

By uploading a mod to the mod portal, you grant us the irrevocable right to reproduce, adapt and distribute the mod and its content as necessary to operate the mod portal and provide the service to our users.

#

that includes someone downloading a scenario from a mod

tepid garden
#

yeah you're right

#

factorio's the one doing distribution, not the server host

long steppe
#

vanilla scenarios are also mods, they just don't have data stage files

#

and they're just not uploaded to the portal

tepid garden
#

yeah

still ice
still ice
tepid garden
#

otherwise desyncs happen

#

iirc

still ice
#

Nope and scenarios aren't mods.

tepid garden
#

ok

#

how do you get the scenario without someone else doing the distributing?

#

hmm?

#

and do the others get a copy of the scenario when they join?

still ice
#

Clients download the save.

#

Scenario's stuff in the save.

tepid garden
#

my point is you're not distributing the scenario

#

you're using the scenario

#

they don't get the ability to click the new game menu and create a new copy of that scenario

#

not that it matters, they'd be lunatics to sue over it

#

it's way more effort than it's worth

#

and a court would probably just toss it out as frivolous

still ice
#

I don't need to justify it anyway :P

long steppe
#

scenarios are mods with a save file

still ice
tepid garden
#

no like

#

that's the definition of a scenario as far as how it works

long steppe
#

data stage and control stage are also optional in mods

tiny spear
#

scenarios can ship without the map data, which prompts the user to generate a map, such as PVP scenario

long steppe
#

they're very customizable

tiny spear
#

scenarios can also ship without a control.lua, which starts it using the freeplay script

long steppe
#

vanilla freeplay is a scenario yeah

#

that's how the ship and starting items get spawned

remote salmon
#

@tiny spear You were making maps for PVP right?
Can you send me a download link for 'em?

clever peak
#

Some thoughts: forced blueprint library sharing. Anything you choose to bring in at the start ends up giving a copy to the opponent. In theory this would let everyone come in on relatively equal playing field over time. Second thought: let the two players โ€˜fightโ€™ over map settings. Put in a choice, the game balances between the two settings semi randomly. This could allow for more early fights vs later fights with distance between players / biters on map / resources. 3. Premade starter base: let the player have a nice starting point with some basic smelting lines, automation systems. Then if you get rushed itโ€™s happening in the first 5 minutes like most rts instead of in 30 minutes, and a quick loss because you werenโ€™t ready for your stuff to be grenaded to pieces ainโ€™t hurting so much

#

And then ofc thereโ€™s 4. Rebalance tech tree and weapons to better match pvp rather than Pve (can start doing this as you noticeโ€ฆ trends on a ladder)

long steppe
#

have you tried the vanilla scenario? there's a crap ton of settings you can change for balancing

clever peak
#

Only ever joined other peopleโ€™s pvp games running in server browser shoob

#

Usually noobs who I promptly grenaded lightly before feeling bad and pulling punches and then leaving

long steppe
#

yeah but have you ever hosted one

#

there's a myriad of settings most people don't even bother looking at

#

you can balance pvp however you want, there's just always tradeoffs

tiny spear
remote salmon
#

Oh nevermind, do you know if there are any newer ones or where I can find them?

long steppe
#

I need to go back to the vanilla combat rebalancing mod, stuff like turning the stuff into bullets instead of instant damage, kind of like K2 weapons or KS combat but betterโ„ข๏ธ

tiny spear
#

there are none

remote salmon
#

Okay, were you making them in the editor?

tiny spear
#

yes, back in 2015

remote salmon
#

Okay thanks!

tiny spear
#

the map generator these days is much more powerful, it is somewhat a nicer idea to figure out good settings for PvP using the map gen

#

This is possible even with just the base game 'islands' preset and some refinement of distances:

image.png
#

With custom noise expressions and other magic, it would be very possible to make RNG for PvP maps

remote salmon
long steppe
#

you can copy the pvp scenario file into the map scenario folder

remote salmon
#

I would like to force players into fighting

remote salmon
long steppe
#

the control.lua file is what makes the pvp scenario into the pvp scenario, you could copy that into a different scenario and it would have the same effect

remote salmon
#

If I copy that into the different scenario and make a map for that scenario, it would work, do I get it?

tiny spear
#

you can start the PvP, save it, then edit it in the map editor

#

I think it should all work fine

remote salmon
#

Oh yea, I didnt think about that ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™‚๏ธ

#

Okay and another thing, is there a way to make a main Island and some smaller ones around it, so people can fight even on the sea?

#

automatically

#

of course I can make it in the editor

tiny spear
#

all things are possible with noise expressions

remote salmon
#

eh

#

what

tepid garden
#

noise expressions let you change the worldgen however you like

#

they're just also kinda arcane bullshit

remote salmon
#

I mean I know what you are talking about but I cant find that in the generator

tepid garden
#

?

tiny spear
#

it would require a mod

tepid garden
#

data stage modding

remote salmon
#

okay

#

I think thats all I need, for now ..., thanks

wide daggerBOT
#
Island Start

Allows map presets that attempt to give you an island start, but with other islands/continents instead of the infinite ocean from vanilla's Island mode. If you wish for a biter-free start, please use map preview - as your starter island may collide with a larger island. Also offers a mode using vanilla terrain generation but with a guaranteed island.

Owner

Yehn

Downloads

11543

pure badge
#

@remote salmon

remote salmon
#

Oh thanks

#

That may come in handy ๐Ÿ™‚

pure badge
#

I think it lets you set the starting island size independently of the other islands?

#

And there's a setting in secret settings to allow you to increase the map preview size

#

+faq the rest

clever urchinBOT
#
Error

Could not find "The Rest" or any similarly named tags in FAQ tags.
Would you like to search the wiki?

To see the list of all available FAQ tags, use +faq
remote salmon
#

That would be great

pure badge
#

+faq secret settings

clever urchinBOT
#
Error

Could not find "Secret Settings" or any similarly named tags in FAQ tags.
Would you like to search the wiki?

To see the list of all available FAQ tags, use +faq
pure badge
#

๐Ÿ˜ฆ

remote salmon
#

do you know a command that sets the force of a player? @pure badge

#

I know it exists cuz ive already used it but I just cant find it

pure badge
#

/c game.get_player("Xorimuth").force = "my-force"

#

probably

remote salmon
#

@pure badge is ther a command to list all forces?

#

oh wait i dont need it sorry

pure badge
#

In editor

remote salmon
#

yea it worked, ty

#

Thank you all for helping me!

remote salmon
#

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=87784
I have a similar issue, but I would like to change this mid-game, as I wanna make diplomacy a part of the game, so people can have artillery set up and it wont shoot at ally structures.

Factorio Forums
Cooperative PvP

Hello, glad to be here! I have a burning question I wasn't able to find clear answer for. Basically we'd like to play a multiplayer game with a friend of minโ€ฆ

tiny spear
#

PvP scenario used to have a diplomacy menu

#

but it was just cheesed, like you be allies, then set them to enemies and rip them

#

I think there is a mod which took my code and made it a standalone mod

wide daggerBOT
#
Diplomacy

Adds advanced diplomacy system, diplomatic requests, needful commands, auto-diplomacy, customizable protection from theft of electricity, custom balance settings, building prohibition radius near enemy and integration with chat mod, etc etc.
Has compatibility with any PvP scenario.
High performance with the system.

33 translations

Owner

ZwerOxotnik

Downloads

2199

remote salmon
#

I dont think, that that is gonna be an issue, as my friends are solid and if we make verbal rules, they will follow them.

#

@tiny spear thank you so much, you are always there to help ๐Ÿ™‚

surreal quarry
# wide dagger

last time I've seen it being around, zwer was working onto some land-claim system along the diplomacy; not sure which one was it, maybe eco or smth mart-related tbh;
revolved around power-poles with mutually-exclusive areas of control that resolved from that. was kinda fun hehehe

still ice
still ice
tepid garden
#

I actually wonder how Comfy and co do the whole 'connect to other server' thing

pure badge
#

Mods can write files and receive input from other programs using RCON

#

So the servers have to have separate software running to interface with the game using these methods

tepid garden
#

right

#

but how does the client use that to reconnect to a different server

pure badge
tepid garden
#

Huh.

remote salmon
#

Update:

Everything is working so far, I've got mods installed, map created, forces assigned.
All I'm waiting for is a nice day to start the PVP.
I've made some rules such as no atomic bombs and that artillery shouldnt have range to the main island.
There are 7 forces. Every force starts on the same island, the resources are placed in such way that people will be encouraged to fight for them.
There are more islands around the main one which werent modified by me, but the resource generation was set lower than usual. I also made some ruins of ancient factories containing some useful loot. Thank you guys for helping me. If anyone for some reason wants the map, DM me. There might be some minor changes before starting the game such as adding a small mod.

modern fern
remote salmon
gray root
#

a brief evaluation of PVP Factorio:

#

looking at the flow of the game, it has the following aspects:

  • gather resources
  • build base
  • create military
  • tech up (improve base and improve military)
  • destroy enemy base
    this is very similar to RTS games, so I will make some comparisons between PVP Factorio and RTS games
#

probably the most important question is "why would I play PVP Factorio instead of other RTS games?"
im sure that everyone will have their own preferences and ideas on which game to play,
but I do believe that the economy complexity and automation potential should be major factors of the design
there obviously is room to experiment with a much more minimalistic design for example something similar to Warcraft III Castle Wars,
but at that point the purpose of making this PVP mode is just to mimic another game with different units which in my mind just misses the goal
in my mind, the goal is to tweak the vanilla gameplay so that the major problems of PVP gameplay are solved, making PVP gameplay much more enjoyable

#

the first problem is the importance of the factorian engineer
as they are the only entity to build the base until a bot network has been established,
the player cannot leave the base to scout the enemy base, figure out what they are building, counterbuilding against that,
scouting the map to find more resources, build outposts, and attack the enemy base as rush
as long as the engineer is away from the base, the factory does not grow... which is a big problem. the factory must always grow!

the solution to this could be by using something similar to Unit Control or AAI Vehicles
this would allow the engineer to keep building the base while the units or vehicles are scouting, attacking, etc

maybe using Unit Control and turning biters into controllable units, the player can create a biter army for which the balancing between base defenses and armies is mostly already settled
this also keeps the familiarity of what enemies to expect instead of inventing new units

#

the variety might be an issue though, given there are only biters and spitters there is little room for diversity in playstyle, strategy, and mixed-unit tactics
also, because of the 4 levels of strength (small, medium, big, behemoth) there will be 3 major power spikes instead of gradual incrementation of power
Natural Evolution Enemies might provide a good variety of biters/spitters, each with their own strength and weakness
for example fast biters for scouting, fire biters/spitters for attacking when the base is defended by flamethrowers, tank biters to move in first to aggro the turrets, etc
and it would provide 20 levels per unit allowing for a more gradual power growth than the vanilla units give
new researches can be added to unlock and upgrade each biter and spitter so that the players have to choose which units to prioritize

AAI Vehicles might be much more interesting as it would also involve logistics on resupplying fuel and ammo and provides an equipment grid for customization of vehicles with personal laser defense or energy shield for example
however, it is much more difficult to understand the production process than Unit Control so for new players, this could become a struggle to learn

#

another problem is the slow starting phase of vanilla gameplay
when starting a new world, you are given one miner and one furnace to start the base
often first gathering some huge (coal) rocks and mining iron, then mining copper, building power, and finally doing research

one way that might be interesting is to have a consistent starting area with a starter base that has some stuff already set up
maybe even allow players to create a blueprint with a specific name so that blueprint can be used as starter base
obviously checking for size and used items and add the remaining items in a chest in the base

simply giving a lot of starting items would create a massive difference in skill level because of building speed
it would also be quite repetitive to place all those items and take quite some time without any difference between the games

optionally giving the players some robots to keep building the base even when the player is looking away to control the attacking/scouting units would probably also help with the game speed

#

a skill difference is nice, but if it is very large, the playerbase would also need to be large to allow you to play against players of similar skill level
reducing skill level difference would benefit a smaller playerbase
another way to help here is with a very rare feature which Age of Empires has, which is to allow multiple players to play as the same force
this helps as the force only has limited resources and multiple players make it easier to control everything
luckily Factorio has this feature already, focusing the design on a multiple player per force might make the gameplay more satisfying

#

the game duration should also be taken into account in the design
if every game takes more than 5 hours to complete, its a massive investment of time to play a single round
obviously the starter base, multiple players, and starting bots would help a lot to reduce round durations

#

as for maps, there should probably be an incentive to move out of the main base to gather more important resources like oil
this would require the players to set up outposts to gather those resources to get better production and military
maybe Leighzer's Science Ores with disabled vanilla recipes might also add more incentive to go out in order to get chemical and higher science

#

the last item is on control, which might be one of the harder ones to improve upon
like in most RTS games, you have access to control groups and easily available hotkeys for unit management and selection
in Factorio, I do feel we are a bit starved on how few keys we have left to use
Unit Control does a very good job at unit management, but it would be great to do a review on that to see if it could improve a bit

#

(sorry for wall of text, but ive been looking into Factorio PVP lately so im a bit excited about this topic ๐Ÿ˜„ )

remote salmon
#

Ive quickly read through this, only thing I dont agree with you about is the round duration. I created my map just because I want that factorio experience with option to fight, which I made worth it for the resources. However I wanted it so players would be able to be allies and stuff possibly creating world peace, but the way resources are placed (I made the starter island of the map by hand) encourges people to fight for them. There is also an option to expand to the far islands, but the amount and richness of resources is decreased. The only reason I chose factorio over some rts game is that it can last a long time and make people have that proud feeling about their factory.

Basically so it feels like real world diplomacy and stuff.

gray root
#

you could indeed design it for longer games, but people would drop out half way through... however, others would join, so it might work out really well
i did overlook the fact that in factorio, people can just join existing maps

still ice
#

2023 year, players troll hard as they could in PvP:

  • Stealing of electricity, fluids and trains
  • Stealing of resources by belts and inserters
  • Wasting of electricity
  • Trash on belts to prevent fuel for boilers etc.
  • OP weapons against low activity bases by outranging turrets
  • Flushing of fluids, especially connecting to enemy's pipe to ignore fluid turrets.
  • Traps by uncancelling removal of walls
  • Walls everywhere
  • Wall trap-spam, good luck with damaging them by your pickaxe
  • Spam by flamethrowers, laser turrets
  • Fake belts, pipes, etc.
gray root
#

only if you troll your own team

#

most of these just sound like viable options to loot enemy bases

still ice
#

Fake entities are annoying because it's can be used to mess up bases for very long time.

still ice
#

It's hard to notice stealing of electricity in some cases.

long steppe
#

isn't it hard to sneak into someone's base

#

all the pvp I've played had some form of starting wall/defense

#

seems to prevent all of the trolliness

still ice
#

Radars or big base is enough to notice weakness points etc. faster.
Also, some maps etc. forces players to expand, build factory etc. fast to get important technologies like drones etc.

long steppe
#

the way I used to play pvp didn't really allow for much tomfoolery

still ice
#

The most basic vanilla balance forces players to steal/get tanks faster.

long steppe
#

the vanilla scenario defcon mode is much more fun imo, locks all sides to be the same research progression, and all that matters is producing military

#

no science to worry about, it's harder to fall behind

tiny spear
#

Bonus points to anyone who knows which game I copied that idea from

long steppe
#

DEFCON? lol

tiny spear
#

no

long steppe
#

I have no idea

tiny spear
#

no points for you. NEXT

still ice
#

You can just place like 1000 poles, no one is going to destroy each one.

long steppe
#

and then what

#

it's really easy to see a power line going to the other person's base

#

what are you going to do, have 20 different connections

#

all you have to do is break the conenction in your base and they won't be able to reconnect

still ice
long steppe
#

I don't know what that means

#

waste the power?

still ice
#

yeah

#

Pretty a lot of people builds simple straight walls, so it's pretty easy in early games to build poles etc.

long steppe
#

what exactly do you waste their power with

#

radar?

still ice
#

yeah

long steppe
#

I've always played pvp with the starting wall

#

so it's not easy to sneak in and connect to the base when they have a giant area and the base is in the middle of it

still ice
#

How do they supply defense then?

#

Or they use more complex logic for power?

long steppe
#

games don't go on long enough to where you need automated defense

#

especially in defcon mode when all of the base is focused on producing military, you have tons of ammo production

#

grab a bunch and stick half a stack in every turret

still ice
#

Well, I guess, we play/played rounds with different balance.

long steppe
#

I used to play pvp a lot, every time there was some cheese that someone discovered, the next game we did something different to prevent that

#

we refined it down to a pretty fun and evenly matched scenario

still ice
long steppe
#

what is that exactly

#

our terminology probably differs

still ice
#

Tank speeds up to avoid flame turrets.

long steppe
#

I mean that's not exactly cheese, that's just flame turrets being dumb

#

if you're doing all that you're probably alerting the other team and they will handle it

#

there's also regular gun turrets

still ice
#

Tank has more attack range as far I remember.

long steppe
#

for a single turret, yeah

#

if you have a line, you have to eventually get closer

#

and having multiple layers of turrets makes that much harder to break through

#

also this is defcon mode so everyone gets tanks at the same time

#

fight tank with tank

#

if the game even lasts long enough to get to tanks

#

it's random research because of defcon, so you might not even get tanks until very late