Factorio Forums

I got sick of biters destroying my power poles. I didn't like the mods that made them invulnerable, that seems like a half-solution because they'll still path and get stuck. I tried all sorts with the collision box but that only messed up the placement of poles. After losing another pole out in the middle of nowhere I had another crack at it, dug through LUA documentation and the base game files (only started modding about a week ago) and came up with the Layer Mask. Voila! Biters now walk through Big Electric Poles. You can download this mod here. It also does Medium and Small Electric Poles if only because it felt a bit empty that it was literally a single line of LUA, plus the pointer and info files, and you can practically walk through them anyway. Writing version 2 to set ALL power poles (thus including modded poles) to the Object mask, and probably add an option to set Lights as well if I can so that you can drive a tank or car up your rail line if you use lights.

Doesn't this make sense to implement in the base game (just the big poles)? Having your power cut to outposts is a huge issue in rail worlds and a pain to fix. There's no reasonable counterplay and it means you need to trudge halfway up your rail line - in a hurry if you rely on laser towers to defend your outposts. I think this is well worth the tradeoff for no collision box, Big Power Poles tend to be spread out and spanning large expanses of nothing (what they're designed for). You could also say that due to their size and shape there is enough room to move under them so it's not even illogical either.

Just protect them properly..

Fine for a mod to ease game play but not for vanilla.
In vanilla you can even disable biters - so no destroyed power poles any more.

Seriously...?

We are the baddies...

You kill entires alien cities, hunderds of little guys, living peacefully for ages, and you are complaining about some poles?

Lol. I like to play vanilla Rail World spanning thousands of tiles, twice I've got to the stage of walling off literally everything, including my outposts. The first time (in 0.13) I finished three walls and got bored, the second time (in 0.14) I finished the walls and spent probably three hours clearing out all the biters. It would have been slightly less but there was a pesky nest that had been set up after I'd already cleared the area, so I was forced to Radar the lot as well to find it. When I finished, I put down the game and didn't pick it up again except to try Nuclear Power.

"Just protect them properly" eh? Please advise how to do that in a Deathworld (my current game) - note that I don't have robots yet, or enough power to use more than a few Laser Turrets.

I like playing with Biters, military science is probably 3/4 if not more of the resource consumption through the whole game. Disabling them completely would make it way too easy and casual. There also is an air of impending doom when your factory is churning out a steady stream of pollution, if you don't keep upgrading your defences then biter evolution will eventually overrun you. Your suggestion to "I don't feel like spending 50x longer setting up and maintaining pointless defences" is to disable them completely?

How about this then, can you give a good reason they should remain as-is, from a gameplay perspective? What exactly does it bring to the game?

mp0011 wrote:You kill entires alien cities, hunderds of little guys, living peacefully for ages, and you are complaining about some poles?

That would be a valid argument if the engineer was complaining about it. I am not an invader on a hostile world, I am the father of a two-year-old and husband to a wife with several crippling health issues, and that around a full time job. I'm playing a game and I expect it to be fun.

I do not see a problem here.
If you do not expect biters to attack - set peaceful mode.
If you do not want biters run over power poles - clear them out around tracks.
To reduce chance of biters running over power poles clear trees around them so they can easily walk around them.
Make a backup power for far outposts. There are some weird methods like bringing steam by rail but still - be creative with it.
You can set up backup defences with gun turrets and/or flamethrowers.
And I see no problem in replacing destroyed power poles. There is nothing in Factorio that can't be undone.
Also use efficiency modules to reduce pollution and dramatically reduce number of biter attacks.

mp0011 wrote:Seriously...?

We are the baddies...

You kill entires alien cities, hunderds of little guys, living peacefully for ages, and you are complaining about some poles?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

PacifyerGrey wrote:If you do not expect biters to attack - set peaceful mode.

So, if you don't like the way Chain Signals occasionally cause trains to lock up, don't use trains? Better yet, uninstall the game! This early in the morning, I don't have words for how inane this suggestion is. I expected something more intelligent from you, especially in your first point.

PacifyerGrey wrote:If you do not want biters run over power poles - clear them out around tracks.

You... don't normally play with biters enabled do you? Or if you do, you turn their expansion off.

PacifyerGrey wrote:To reduce chance of biters running over power poles clear trees around them so they can easily walk around them.

The poles that got destroyed were nowhere near trees, I had a desert start.

PacifyerGrey wrote:And I see no problem in replacing destroyed power poles. There is nothing in Factorio that can't be undone.

Oh yes, I've got nothing better to do than to trudge a half thousand tiles along my railroad every 20 mins to replace power poles that are only incidentally being attacked.

Tell you what, go play a Deathworld with default resource and biter spawn options, then come back.

And again, if you don't have anything POSITIVE to say about why power pole hitboxes should be kept, please don't bother.

It is annoying, yes. Especially if you play with a large base with a railgrid to expansion bases. I got so sick of it myself that I now self-power mining bases with a ~12 MW solar power cluster and batteries, and cut back on mine power consumption with efficiency modules. This leaves enough power available to defend it all with laser turrets, a radar for map viewing and a roboport to handle repairs by bots. For safety I use a small level based latch that cuts power to the miners once the batteries drop below 60%. Added advantage of the efficiency modules is lower pollution so less biters. The only thing such outposts need is a lot of space and tracks leading to it.

Not your solution, but it's also a fix to get rid of the pole problem.

That's more a workaround than a fix, and it has its flaws. Either you also need to supply ammo to the base or it needs to have a large enough solar grid to power laser turrets to defend it.

In vanilla play I tended to play with the biters toned right down, while artefacts were still a thing I started with the largest, or second to largest, starting area which put them so far back the pollution never reached them, so they evolved very slowly. In the one game I played through in 0.15 I played a Railworld, no biter expansion, so I could clear nests out of the pollution cloud. In this sort of environment it's feasible for outposts to hold their own power supplies. I actually just used multiple rail routes so even if a pole was taken out there was generally another path for the power to take, then I'd move the destroyed pole out of the biters' path.

I'm now testing a combat mod and decided the best experiment would be on a deathworld - woah! It's a seriously different kind of game. Biter expansion is very aggressive so there's no point clearing them out unless you're expanding there, and huge nests with often 15+ worms make it difficult to just tap into a nearby mine. Turrets need constant repair and restocking so you're loathe to expand anywhere because it's just more area to defend. I finally got nuclear power up and running so I can afford to use Laser Turrets (even without them I've already burned through over 600,000 Coal), so at least my Steel and Copper will have a bit of reprieve now. With constantly having to add and restock Gun Turrets I've used tens of thousands of AP magazines, and that's even considering the mod I'm testing increases the AP Rounds clip size and Gun Turret HP by 50%. I'm not even sure I could have afforded the solar panels even if I'd had the space.

I do play with biters. And I always play railworld-like settings. I do not enjoy deathworld tho.
In a railworld I still prefer clearing all biters around out and set up defence perimeter. Yes this is a ton of work but I prefer doing so so I never encounter destroyed power poles.
And lyrics aside I would gladly appreciale reduced hitbox

Like I said, in a railworld-type game having your poles destroyed is annoying but you just deal with it, with 400+ hours in the game (always playing more passively) I could see why it's occasionally a hot topic but didn't really care either way. When you play with more aggressive biters it's downright grievous.

I have nothing to add. (I generally agree with Deadly-Bagel.) I write this post only to subscribe to the discussion.

I like this suggestion. The "protect your poles" argument is completely obsolete. In a "behind enemy lines outposts" base, outpost defenses can be automated (if you get millions of ore by exploiting it, then it's worth to build walls, turrets, roboport with repair packs, even automate repair packs distribution). Poles defense in comparison, is huh.... what ?

In a railworld I still prefer clearing all biters around out and set up defence perimeter.

So this argument, as you say, is only valid on giant base without outposts, and without poles behind main walls.

I'm not sure to understand the "auxiliary power" argument : if it's "build secondary grid for each outpost" as Aeternus do, it's a lot of work, but I'm quite OK with it, because of long term workability. If it's "minimal power until you replace the pole", it's obsolete. The point is to avoid annoyment, not displace it in time.

Have a look at this :

Fun always wins: I prefer changes that are more fun and less annoying even if it means it could be slightly unbalanced.

It's from : https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-169

Self powered outpost. I play normal bitter settings but now i cant even pass them because so many nest spawn there is no way. Destroyed trains and power poles. Answer its big trains (i use 10loco+28mix wagons) behemoths gets run over without slowimg down. Powering outpost can be made in 2 ways. Solars or turbines. Personally i prefer turbines. Modules for lowering power usage are great in outposts. Deliver ammo for outposts? Crude oil and flame turrets are king. I use in my production base prod modules everywhere to minimise need of ores (outposts) so power gets high now 16 nuclear rectors are in use. 2 science/second. But most important bitters can go ckuf themselfs

DanGio wrote:I'm not sure to understand the "auxiliary power" argument : if it's "build secondary grid for each outpost" as Aeternus do, it's a lot of work, but I'm quite OK with it, because of long term workability. If it's "minimal power until you replace the pole", it's obsolete. The point is to avoid annoyment, not displace it in time.

It's from : https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-169

Doesn't need to be a lot of work. There's multiple ways to selfpower. Once you get nuclear, sending a wagon or two with 500dgr steam and having 2-4 turbines locally is also an option if you don't want to use solar. But then you are using 2 trains per outpost, at least, and risk losing an outpost if rails themselves are destroyed. Solar is fully independent but a bigger resource investment and requires more space.

To everyone that propose to just create self-powered outpost: I wan't to remind you that electric poles can also have circuit network wires on them.

sathill wrote:... Destroyed trains and power poles. Answer its big trains (i use 10loco+28mix wagons) behemoths gets run over without slowimg down. ...

WOW, this is so imprectical! Sure, it solves this single problem but it creates ten new problems. Maybe it would work in megabase but rather not earlier.

While really static objects like power poles will never aggravate animals they can still be destroyed occasionally if a horde is running by.
So while being annoying in some cases of gameplay I still think they should be vulnerable.
You just HAVE to protect your stuff. The nature IS hostile so you need to find out ways to. Yes it consumes time, effort and resources. But it is pretty natural.

True, and the circuit grid can be a nice addition to alert you when a selfpowered base is detached from the main grid, if you have local backup power. Simply have a constant combinator send a signal over the signal going to the distant mines, then set a warning light on the mine when that signal is absent. Won't fix the poles themselves being down, but it will alert you to a grid failure.

Still, what you're really hunting for is self repair and self defense capabilities. Which would mean roboports, construction robots, turrets and optionally ammo, at least every other pole. Which presents problems if the logistics grid isn't in a straight line - bots will fly to their repair target in a straight line and can fly right into a biter base that way. Repairing/rebuilding things on the fly by passing trains doesn't really work well since the trains move too fast.

So yea... the way I see it, to work around poles being eaten, either:
Engineer for failure (expect periodic interruptions to the grid and have the remote bases be able to function without power/circuit network)
Fortify, which in practical terms will mean you extend your base along the rail grid.

What would be handy I feel would be a "Biter Repeller"-like structure. Something that generates a small exclusion zone that biters that aren't in their "charge at the target" mode will avoid.

Aeternus wrote:What would be handy I feel would be a "Biter Repeller"-like structure. Something that generates a small exclusion zone that biters that aren't in their "charge at the target" mode will avoid.

So what you're suggesting here is rewriting biter pathing algorithms to allow for a new structure to achieve exact same thing as my suggestion (which is literally changing one word for another btw), except way more overpowered?

I think that biters should use better strategies. They should prefer attacking against critical things or areas with weak defense instead of stupid running to death straight to nearest wall with overwhelming turrets. That would force player to think and work harder instead just building trivial defenses and forget enemies. Especially now when we have easy solutions to clear large areas and keep them under player control.