[MOD 0.13.17+] Rampant

[Veden]

So would you prefer the old pollution mechanic and switch off Rampant attack waves all together?
or
Bump the threshold up, so it takes more than the current setting to have attack waves trigger?
or
Using the pollution cloud to determine what bases can attack and have Rampant only form group that are under the cloud?

[Ranakastrasz]

Well, A config option, so you can choose. I can't know exactly which one is best without testing them.

The first one, well I am not really sure how the rampant waves themselves are different from vanilla, so I am not entirely sure how that will work.

The second one. Making it take longer to start up would be great, allowing you to scale it via config would be nice as well. Its largely how the waves tend to come a lot earlier than vanilla that is the problem.

The third one would make it vanilla but nastier, while allowing you to push the enemy bases or cut back on pollution to drastically reduce or stop enemy attacks.

Its hard to say. I think the second one would be what I want personally. No idea what other people think however.

Edit:

Unfortunately the attacks are not stopping now, so I am forced to take the mod off. I love the new behavior, but the increase in enemy attacks is unmanageable for me. So, I would have to use the third option.

[Galacticruler]

So I noticed you wanted to add new enemies and I was wondering if you had seen this discussion topic I posted a few months ago:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=23986

[Veden]

Unfortunately the attacks are not stopping now, so I am forced to take the mod off. I love the new behavior, but the increase in enemy attacks is unmanageable for me. So, I would have to use the third option.

I've added some configuration options to make some of that difficulty adjustable. Might still need to add a knob for attack frequency.

So I noticed you wanted to add new enemies and I was wondering if you had seen this discussion topic I posted a few months ago:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=23986

I believe I had seen this before and there are a couple more lists in different spots on the forums.
Answers below are in regards to Rampant and the idea:
The hunters - are triggered by player proximity to biter nests.
Floaters - are potentially tough do to because pathfinding is wonky with units without collision masks.
suicide biters - are on the list. (already have code written for this)
tunnelers - are on the list. (have some tunneling code written for this)
Shield bugs - is something that I think would be interesting to add.
Brain bug - Would have to come up with some different attack behaviors due to the complex behavior of the biters is built into the pathfinding logic.
Flame spitter - are on the list (already have code written for this)
Centipede - might be something worth considering

The new mechanic is difficult because it causes potentially a large overhead in the game.
Having the biters do some kind of harvesting would be interesting, but I don't know what that would look like.
I'm open to hearing more on the idea or different ones if you have any in mind.

[Smoovious]

I'm encountering an error, 5 different games now, preventing my save from loading...

Looking at script.dat in the save file, it looks like it is relevant to Rampant AI...

Code: Select all

Error while running deserialisation:
[string "do local
_={regionMap={[1]={[1]={[1]=0,[2]=0,...
"]:1: unexpected symbol near '.'

I am running several other biter-related mods, and around 180 mods in total.

I can't rule out it being caused by a bad interaction with some other mods I probably shouldn't be using (like Natural Evolution), but no evidence to suggest there is, either.

Are there some mods you already know have problems running alongside Rampant AI?

-- Smoov

[Veden]

No bad interactions that I'm aware of.

I haven't ever seen anything like that.

Does it still persist regardless of Rampant being active?

[Ranakastrasz]

Disabled all but Pollution trigger, and its great now. Thanks.


The other triggers seem too sensitive, No idea why they trigger so quickly. What kind of range are on those anyway? How close do you have to have entities/turrets/the player to trigger attacks?

[Smoovious]

No bad interactions that I'm aware of.

I haven't ever seen anything like that.

Does it still persist regardless of Rampant being active?

(assuming you mean 'active' as in the mod is enabled)

Was about to test that... (just woke up)

-- Smoov

edit: Just tested, and the save did load with Rampant AI disabled.

edit2: aaaaand... all 10 of my autosaves have the same error. I haven't expanded much, with only a handful of researches.
want my saves and mod folder? (I have also heard, friend of friend, who has encountered this too)

[Veden]

How large is your save file?
Was this an upgrade, if so from what version to what version?
Is there anymore of the error message you can provide?

How large is the 180 mod pack + saves?

[Smoovious]

How large is your save file?
Was this an upgrade, if so from what version to what version?
Is there anymore of the error message you can provide?

How large is the 180 mod pack + saves?

I zipped up the appdata folder last night, and the archive comes to a little shy of 644MB.

I can't tell you specifically which mods got upgraded during the run, but current Factorio is 0.14.13, and I believe I started that game under 0.14.12. I haven't played it for longer than a day or two.

The error message I posted, was the complete message.

-- Smoov

edit: I got that same error under 0.14.12 as well, and I do know that I updated Rampant AI at least once, probably twice, since the very first time I've seen that error a few games ago.

[doktorstick]

Indeed, I reported a deserialization bug and Klonan said it appears to be caused by Rampant. The save and mods are attached as part of my report. It so happened that I updated both to Factorio 0.14.13 and Rampant 0.14.3 before starting the play session that corrupted my saves.

[Veden]

I have no idea what is causing it, but I will take a look at your save when i get some time.

[doktorstick]

I have no idea what is causing it, but I will take a look at your save when i get some time.

Good news. They were able to reproduce it and it will be fixed in 0.14.14.

[Smoovious]

I have no idea what is causing it, but I will take a look at your save when i get some time.

Good news. They were able to reproduce it and it will be fixed in 0.14.14.

Ohh, nice... so it is sounding like it is actually a Factorio issue, and that Rampant AI just happened to be what exposed the issue?

-- Smoov

[DarkPaapi]

Man... This is serious FUN.... Turn the mod on, loaded the savegame and aprox halfen hour and 4 out of 6 my outpost are crushed under the pressure... Another 10 minutes, the horde was knocking on my main base door, and that was the point when the hello kitti adventure turned into prety much hell.... Kinde of love it But i seen an odd beheviour, when they forming a group and im walking closer without firing they start to run away, basicly they wont attack me directly, i can simply walk into the middle of their nest.

Edit: As long as im not start to killing them they runing away, circule around and going after structures.

[Xerkus]

I came here looking for a mod that will make attacks happen even without pollution, among other things.
Dunno if it is too late for the suggestion seeing how you removed base/defense proximity attack triggers in current mod version, according to changelog.

It would be nice to have those extra triggers back but inactive until first pollution triggered attack evolution factor reached 0.4. After that pollution or close player presence should "agitate" affected nests, forcing them to launch base/defense proximity triggered attacks. As long as there is any structure in range they should stay agitated, entering long calming period otherwise. Also it would be nice if new nests will have high chance to start agitated if they created by biters from another agitated nest.

Essentially, player's base is safe-ish, but once spawners tasted the pollution and learned to hate buildings all bets are off. That will urge player to clear spawners that are potentially in a pollution zone since dead nests can't warn others about dangers of industrialization :P Should player fail to prevent that, clearing agitated nests while carefully avoiding walking too close to the calm ones should help to reduce attacks. I think that will introduce another interesting mechanics.

My need for defense proximity triggers comes from the way i play. In vanilla, once i can setup laser and solars production I start to slowly wall off big section of the map, further than my base pollution ever reaches and then hardly any attacks ever happen. Roaming biters looking for nesting spots pose no threat, few firing lasers can't drain power grid and cause critical defense collapse.

My base from the latest game, nvm lack of the outposts, it was with rich resources.

Now, please excuse me, it is time for a new game with a very low resource frequency and this mod.

[Xerkus]

Damn they are good! Slipping through small unprotected gaps between turrets. One problem now, unprotected belts and rails are no longer viable >.> Biters chew on them when they are probing defenses. I never built as many gun turrets in all of my previous games, combined. I like.

[EldVarg]

I love the idea of this mod. But unfortunately it makes the game easier not harder as it is. If you walk away from security and get near alien bases - it actually much easier as almost every time you attack aliens the all flee in terror, and come back after a while, making you kill of a few at a time.

* I would love the aliens to run way and collect huge amount of other aliens from other bases to attack your base - trying a larger and larger force each time.
* Better remember where they tried to attack your base and try new ways if it was too hard.
* I don't want the big attacks to wait until full evolve state with huge aliens, but also huge armies with tiny aliens at lower evolution.

[TheSAguy]

I love the idea of this mod. But unfortunately it makes the game easier not harder as it is. If you walk away from security and get near alien bases - it actually much easier as almost every time you attack aliens the all flee in terror, and come back after a while, making you kill of a few at a time.

* I would love the aliens to run way and collect huge amount of other aliens from other bases to attack your base - trying a larger and larger force each time.
* Better remember where they tried to attack your base and try new ways if it was too hard.
* I don't want the big attacks to wait until full evolve state with huge aliens, but also huge armies with tiny aliens at lower evolution.

I'd like to add to this. I've not played with the recent few updates, so the below is from a few weeks ago.

I agree that at times it seems easier, with the re-treat mechanic. I think it makes a lot of sense in theory and is almost there.
If seen in my last game, with a high Evo factor, that they would keep fleeing and there were groups of thousands.

I few tweaks maybe.

Have the 'flee' threshold also be dependent on the number of enemy spawners in the area.
That way they will flee when attacking your base, but not flee as easily when you're attacking their base/spawners.
If there is just one spanwner, the flee threshold will be much lower than attacking a cluster.

I know you have a kamikaze mechanic, not sure what it is, maybe add another like:
If a base was killed in the last 60 sec, and the number of biters in a certain radius around the player is larger than 1,000 have them attack. Might want to add the evolution factor in the formula so it scales.

[Veden]

Thank you for the feedback, I much appreciate it and hope to get more.

I would love the aliens to run way and collect huge amount of other aliens from other bases to attack your base - trying a larger and larger force each time.

I will see what I can do.

Better remember where they tried to attack your base and try new ways if it was too hard.

Some of the attacks are still initialized by the vanilla AI, so I don't control them until the first time they retreat.
Otherwise can you elaborate a little more on what you would like to see.

I don't want the big attacks to wait until full evolve state with huge aliens, but also huge armies with tiny aliens at lower evolution.

This is something that I would be happy to add, because it makes the game a little more dynamic in that attack wave sizes will vary.

Have the 'flee' threshold also be dependent on the number of enemy spawners in the area.
That way they will flee when attacking your base, but not flee as easily when you're attacking their base/spawners.
If there is just one spanwner, the flee threshold will be much lower than attacking a cluster.

I will have to check to see how lean I can make that process and if turns out to be quick enough I will add that.

I know you have a kamikaze mechanic, not sure what it is, maybe add another like:
If a base was killed in the last 60 sec, and the number of biters in a certain radius around the player is larger than 1,000 have them attack. Might want to add the evolution factor in the formula so it scales.

I will add something to spice up the combat a little when destroying nests.