Ideas about the "End Game"

[katyal]

I was discussing an idea for a mod and it got me thinking about what I would like to see as end game content and wondering about what other people envision.

What I've started to envision would be shifting the scale of the factory up one notch. Imagine building a factory bigger than any we have seen so far, with outposts taking the place of assemblers and trains taking the place of belts. At this scale a cargo plane would replace logistics robots. This is the direction my thoughts have been taking when I think about the end game ...

Think of the trailer that got so many us to play and imagine if it were longer and the camera kept zooming back what more would be revealed? What do you think?

[spacesloth]

Spore meets Factorio

[GewaltSam]

Bigger scale is good. I would like to build much bigger than I do now.

[Lee_newsum]

like sim city??

yes but the pint? what is new? what can you get from some were that you do not have??

[velosepappe]

I was thinking about this yesterday, what would be a neat and sensible game ender. Since factorio is all about automation, a game end could be the creation of a von neumann machine and letting it run for x generations. A von neumann machine would be a very advanced blueprint that once deployed would be able to find out and gather the necessary resources to create one or multiple copies of itself and find out a suitable location to put down its spawn. Think of it being the "proof" that the planet is terraformable and thus colonizable.

What would be needed, given I haven't gotten to the endgame so I don't know if this is implemented yet:

• A way for blueprints to be deployed automatically

• A way for blueprints to be built automatically

• Perhaps the possibility to script a blueprint (eg if assembler has build x instances of gears, switch to something else, or disassemble)

• A way to find out if a blueprint has been built entirely automatically

Perhaps people that have no idea how to do this, could research a von neumann machine blueprint which has been designed to be very hard to achieve by normal means: perhaps because it has to be so general it could work on any kind of map which means very high defenses for aliens, possibility to spread very wide because resources are sparse. The creative player could build a more efficient von neumann machine blueprint that is more adapted to the map, makes better use of scripted events.

Maybe this is impossible, or just to hard to implement, or maybe even not that exciting but I feel that being able to build even the preset self-replicating blueprint and see it in action for a even a few generations until the game crashes due to the explosion of activity would feel immensely rewarding.

[katyal]

like sim city??

yes but the point? What is new? What can you get from somewhere that you do not have??

I'm not trying to tell anyone I have the answer. I'm trying to start a discussion.

We spend so much time on this board analysing every little detail of this game, I just thought it would be fun to take a step back dream a bit.

[ssilk]

Nearly the same thread on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/commen ... _would_be/

Well, the devs said many things about it. I think what's clear is, that there will be something, which needs to be mounted together from some big parts. The reddit thread mentions a rocket. Sounds very logic. I think something like this, cause for what else should there be a rocket defense? Or maybe a satellite? The devs mentioned also that (no -root, no link here , maybe someone else will find that).

And then? What can be done with a rocket? Or with a satellite? I mean you need the rocket to fire the satellite into orbit. And the rocket can be used to fill in more stuff. Food? They mention it here http://www.factorio.com/content The last point. Deliver food to ... Other planets?

[Lee_newsum]

you and all the over 30+ post on "End Game" waht is new to add...
all looking biger and more Complexer. down in to the planet and to the macro level

[Eurofighter1200]

In fact at some point you have all goods produced you need you mabee only consumption is energy for lasers and the boots and repairkits maybee sometime a new wall tile or laser and if you fight the equipment for that. So i think we build up for colonize this planet? So why not let a ship landing that brings in the inhabitants and they need goods much goods food electronic devises and so on so we have a reason to build more stuff to find new iron and copper tiles and we can expand our civilization. Maybee houses with stages if they get more stoff they get biggger Or maybee we find some other aliens they are smarter and we can trade with them and for that they give us a ressource what is not extractable from ground.

[ray4ever]

The greatest difficulty in making end-game content is that many people have different opinions on what "proper" and "fun" end game is like. I think you can define 4 category's of gamers who are playing factorio:
1. The peaceful gamer who finds joy in defending the base from aliens but doesn't really like attacking them: Proper end game content might include something like building the biggest factory ever, supplying the home planet with x amounts of goods etc.
2. The fighter for whom the factory is just a tool to destroy and kill the aliens: Proper end game might include something where you have to "destroy" and/or conquer the aliens.
3. A gamer who wishes that the game would never end: You would need a goal to start working, but the goals should get harder with time so that you can play on and on and on...
4. A gamer who likes short games with a defined, reachable goal in a few hours

Personally I would fall into category 1 and 3 so for me a good end game would mean building more and more outposts, optimizing their HUGE factory and finding joy in the feeling that I produced x amount of end game goods (food for home planet, supplying colonists, whatever) in y amount of minutes.

[Architekt]

What about never ending end game?

1) Build a factory.
2) Build a spaceship.
3) Fly out to you home planet.
4) Crash on some unknown planet.
5) ---> 1)

[ColonelFailure]

Having completed the game only once I found the current ending a little simplistic.

Thought 1
The idea of preparing the planet for colonisation is fine, but rather than the marvellously expensive rocket defense I'd be interested in having to build a bigger set of facilities to set the place up. A couple of for instances :
- Landing pads for inbound colonist shuttles
- Radar/air traffic control to guide incoming shuttles in
- Habitats for colonists
- Hydrophonics

Thought 2
The other alternative is that you can start to manufacture consumer products rather than practical ones for export to other worlds - can you become a millionaire engineer? The rocket defense is then used to protect freighters who will land at your designated landing area and load up whatever you've made for export elsewhere.

I think the one thing I was expecting that didn't happen was an almighty biter rush, maybe with a boss of some kind that would warrant a weapon as all-powerful as rocket defense to ward it off. I also really liked the build a ship and fly off somewhere else in order to crashland again notion, that's fun. It would also then set the challenge of not being able to re-roll your starting location on subsequent worlds : how far can you go without rerolling?

[GewaltSam]

What about never ending end game?

1) Build a factory.
2) Build a spaceship.
3) Fly out to you home planet.
4) Crash on some unknown planet.
5) ---> 1)

Well, he is an engineer after all, and not a space pilot...

[katyal]

I like the thought of a never ending game.

When you play a "factorio" right now the you start in the burner stage....the challenge is to get some kind of automation going, then there is the red and green science era where things actually start to look like a factory but the recipes have a single intermediate step (plate -> gear -> inserter, gear being the intermediate step). With blue science routing becomes a greater challenge, a new raw material is added (oil) and requires end to end infrastructure, and then the final (for now) phase where the challenge becomes to ramp up production and tackle the resulting throughput problems.

If you notice the challenges and game mechanics involved in overcoming them are always changing and we need more of that. One of the reasons I haven't really tried the larger mods is that they only add more work not new challenges or game mechanics.

[spacesloth]

One day, skies are blue, science is running smooth and ore is flowing in, *zap*. What's wrong with that construction robot?

*Tinker* *Tinker* *Tinker*

*Zap* "Ouch!" *Zap* *Zap* Oh gosh, more are malfunctioning!

*Zap* *Zap* *Zap* ... Driven from my base eh?

*Rustle* *Rustle*

Oh, hey little bitter, you lost?

And so begins the story of how you raised the army of bitters and spitters to overthrow the bots that became sentient and threw you out of your pollution factory.

[katyal]

hehe not sure I`d really want that spacesloth, but great narrative and imagery. Lol`d for real

[spacesloth]

hehe not sure I`d really want that spacesloth, but great narrative and imagery. Lol`d for real

True, maybe that's only the alternate ending if you create over 1000 robots.

Now if you kill over 10,000 bitters and spitters... I think there should be a giant boss bitter named Golith and a tiny boss spitter named David that get sent to crush you base!

[OBAMA MCLAMA]

Fear not, we now have an idea of the End Game content >> https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-64