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With alien science gone I feel the distinct lack of a reward when taking out biters.

The biters themselves didn't give any rewards before, which I felt was a negative experience, but now even the spawners don't. It feels like it downgraded the biters from something you clear in bulk to stock up on artifacts to mere clearing work so you can build or not be attacked all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want alien science back. There are good reasons for it's removal and I felt it improved the game in most regards. What I want is a feeling of getting compensated or rewarded for the time and effort spent killing biters.

Killing biters is not that important to give rewards, because it hasn't previously. Spawners really should give something though, because right now you aren't only annoyed by having to take care of them, but you actively seek to not do it because you're going to inflate the evolution factor by doing so.

Unfortunately there is no meaningful choice here for the player. If you keep spawners alive they will absorb pollution for the same effect. So whatever you do it's bad.

Possible ideas what spawners could give:
- Consumables, one time use items that have a positive effect on the factory - e.g. an item that increases the ore amount in an ore patch (there was a mod for converting alien artifacts into an item that did that) or a factory-wide speed buff for a short time etc.
- Permanents, e.g. modules - they could drop special "alien" modules that give other bonuses than the craftable modules - e.g. small speed/productivity bonuses that cause no energy consumption increase (bonus should be small enough to not compete with speed/prod modules in optimized setups)
- Powerups, temporary buffs, ... it's something at least (all about feeling here, so something >>> nothing)

The biggest reward you get for killing spawners is space to expand your factory into. Also, destroying spawners in your area of influence (the pollution cloud) prevents biters from attacking, which counts.

Syrchalis wrote:You actively seek to not do it [kill spawners] because you're going to inflate the evolution factor by doing so.

This is a good point, this mechanism isn't intuitive.

Syrchalis wrote:- Permanents, e.g. modules - they could drop special "alien" modules that give other bonuses than the craftable modules

This reminds me a suggestion I made about earning powerful modules with randomized mods after a space platform mission is complete.

I actually feel like there is quite the significant choice to be made with when to kill bases. Killing spawners will boost the evolution factor sharply, but keeping them around to absorb pollution will over time also slowly grow the evolution factor and send alien waves, which consumes resources to fight off. Ideally you would lear all nests the moment pollution reaches them to keep evolution at it's possinble minimum. However there are areas you don't plan to expand into for a long time, maybe with only little pollution reaching the nests, so the evolution hit from clearing those nests would greatly outpace just leaving them alone and using the easier time you now have with other nests to grow faster. So you have to balance wich nests you need to kill for expansion, which to kill because they absorb to much pollution and which to leave be and for how long to buy you just a bit more time.

I agree with all points. Biters were fun in the first few games I played, but since then they've just been annoying. I like the idea of alien modules. You could also go in the rpg direction and give the player experience for killing biters, which is used to gain levels and learn/improve skills

The evolution factor increases when you emit pollution (and when you destroy spawners and when time passes). The presence of spawners inside or outside the pollution cloud have no effect. Trees and other pollution absorption have no effect.
Actually, unless I'm wrong, the pollution cloud have literally no effect on the evolution factor.
Link: https://wiki.factorio.com/Enemies#Methods_of_increasing

Oh, hmmm, good to know. That kind of renders my argumentation moot. And makes this whole thing a lot less interesting. Crap.

FasterJump wrote:The evolution factor increases when you emit pollution (and when you destroy spawners and when time passes). The presence of spawners inside or outside the pollution cloud have no effect. Trees and other pollution absorption have no effect.
Actually, unless I'm wrong, the pollution cloud have literally no effect on the evolution factor.
Link: https://wiki.factorio.com/Enemies#Methods_of_increasing

Was already thinking that this is how pollution raises evolution. So the decision is more meaningful, but still a bad one - essentially you choose the lesser evil:

• Keep fighting off biters
  OR
• Destroying spawners and increasing evolution factor permanently

My main point was not the choice though, but the negative feeling. It's a game and everything should be as fun as possible. Alien Artifacts made killing alien bases a lot more fun, because it felt more meaningful, since you needed the artifacts for science and modules. Now you just do it so you don't have to deal with annoying defenses. Again - I don't want alien artifacts as science/module cost back.

The reward itself doesn't have to be the most amazing thing ever or be super useful. It's more about there being something at all.

you can adjust their evolution rate now at a start of new game.

my liking is
time = 0
polution = as low as it goes
killing them = as low as it goes.

this is really nice, i can just AFK letting my base work for hours without worry of them evolving,

and taking out enemy base does not make them bloom worse.

im 50 hours into my game and just getting median biters. I really like this because i do like the biter fight but i never enjoyed how hard they got.

BLuehasia wrote:you can adjust their evolution rate now at a start of new game.

Sure, but evolution rate isn't my problem. I honest would appreciate harder biters, but there is no really satisfying solution at the moment for that.

What I care about is that the interaction with biters in nearly any way is mostly tedious and not fun. Part of that is the lack of proper combat systems, but I give Factorio a pass on that because it's not an RTS. The other part is that you gain nothing out of it other than delaying the next time you have to deal with them.

I don't miss having pink dots all over the map and tons of them taking up space back at the main base. Alien science could have been cooler with the new infinity mechanic... or if you could use those pink eggs to make fuel.

Bitters are just an annoyance right now, and they do their job fine. I wouldn't be against making them more fun though.

netmand wrote:I don't miss having pink dots all over the map and tons of them taking up space back at the main base. Alien science could have been cooler with the new infinity mechanic... or if you could use those pink eggs to make fuel.

As I said, I dont want alien artifacts or science back. I just want there to be something other than "you don't have to deal with them for a while" as reward when taking out biters or their spawners.

Maybe have them drop some useful manufacturing resources instead of sciency stuff? Like a chemical fuel with a high energy density, that you can use in your factory? That'd help out in early to midgame when power is still an issue.

need actual reward for killing bitter.

I think the only needed reward for killing the aliens is the space you get for your base.
You're not on that planet to massacre its natives, you're there to build your factory. If the natives are on the way, it's okay to negociate with them to convince them to free some space for your base.

Koub wrote:I think the only needed reward for killing the aliens is the space you get for your base.
You're not on that planet to massacre its natives, you're there to build your factory. If the natives are on the way, it's okay to negociate with them to convince them to free some space for your base.

I agree that this should be the main reason you do it, but it would feel A LOT better if the biters or their spawners dropped something. Even if it's just a short-time power up.

Have you tried turret zerging? I use 6 legs 4 personal roboports mark II's

Then place about 100 turrets right around their base. Almost no challenge and I only very rarely lose a construction bot much less a laser turret.

or if you are really flushed with resources Nukes are stupid easy.


Biters are actually easier to clear then trees because they don't clog up your inventory when you get to late game. (I have never been a fan of burning or exploding trees)

Koub wrote:I think the only needed reward for killing the aliens is the space you get for your base.
You're not on that planet to massacre its natives, you're there to build your factory. If the natives are on the way, it's okay to negociate with them to convince them to free some space for your base.

But we do negotiate! They leave in exchange for hot lead, high powered directed energy or ignited incendiaries. Negotiations, the American way!

Nich wrote:Have you tried turret zerging? I use 6 legs 4 personal roboports mark II's

Then place about 100 turrets right around their base. Almost no challenge and I only very rarely lose a construction bot much less a laser turret.

or if you are really flushed with resources Nukes are stupid easy.


Biters are actually easier to clear then trees because they don't clog up your inventory when you get to late game. (I have never been a fan of burning or exploding trees)

Effort and difficulty are not the problem. Just the fun factor of dealing with biters is very low.