Factorio Forums

It could be interesting to add some feature like weather impact on our factories like:

- Cold wave (Steam machine less efficient - can be deadly )
- EMP Storm (disable electronic feature)
- Hot wave (raise pressure in canalisation - can be deadly )
- ...

The idea would be to add some challenge in a survival way and to add some challenge in the base expansion

That would be interesting, though it will probably not come in vanilla play. I know the devs talked about adding some DLC in the future once the game is out of early access, maybe this would be a possibility. What I'm wondering is if it is moddable. There are already some terrain-changing mods, like Alien Biomes, and I wonder if something similar could be made with this idea that affects aspects of the game.

I like the idea of adding weather effects to Factorio. In the late game there are very little unpredictable events. Hazardous weather effects that interrupt a little bit the overall repeating steps to enlarge your factory complex / enlarge your territory might spice up the game play.

For example :

If the pollution level is low, you will see from time to time a rainfall. This decreases for a short period of time your solar farm's output. But this is not very troublesome.

In the mid game with more pollution the rainfall is more likely a heavy downpour. Although it is annoying to have a longer power shortage, a larger accumulator array is a simple solution. In some cases this heavy rain is beneficial : The increased pollution decreases the output of solar panels due to dirt and dust ( dust storms maybe later ?). A good rainfall cleans the solar panels more than the ( to be implemented ) maintenance ( adding pipes with a low soapy leach ). Thunderstorms are getting more likely. This is more troublesome due to aoe power failure.

In a late game with pollution out of control, the rainfall might last several days ( need more backup power plants besides solar panels ! ) causing local floods ( damaging a bit the factory and interrupts material flow ). Although the rain temporarily cleans the polluted air, it is more like a acid rain damaging the complex where it rains. Lighting bolts might destroy critical infrastructure, so you need a good working C-Bot linked mall.

In the last case you might learn your native neighbors are not stupid animals but at least semi sapient : While you struggle with the effects of the weather, they take advantage of your weakness and start their attacks tuned with the nasty weather.

______


And this is only a small list of possible weather effects.

I like idea of acid rain which clean up part of pollution and deal proportional damage to all structures.
Chances should increase with steam emission but damage with pollution level.
Low pollution rain could regreen forest.

It would force players to build repairing infrastructure and keep pollution in control.

I think it would be more important to implement permanent modifies that are determined by the biome, rather than temporary modifiers that are determined by the weather.

Biomes have been discussed a bit in the following suggestion threads:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3219 Biome resource variation
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=49048 Global map of the planet
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=62627 Select Starting Biome