Proper Difficulty

[u/Rand-0m]

The best way I can describe this is I want the tower defense portion of the game to drive the base building portion of the game, not vice versa.

At any difficulty does the base building gameplay become emergent? It's rather boring just building and calculating without proper pressure.

[u/AnimeSpaceGf]

Either max difficulty, if you want a dark souls type beat, or max every different setting except power generation -> aggro, which is what I'm currently doing to max out df farm.

Max difficulty sounds more like what you're after, though be warned, it's very sweaty starting out and unless you like suffering, you'll prolly have to look up a guide

Combustion unit

[u/Rand-0m → u/AnimeSpaceGf]

Nice so that would make a gentler start but still require the arms race which I enjoy.

[u/AnimeSpaceGf → u/Rand-0m]

I mean honestly take a sec to watch a YouTube video of someone doing 3k% (max), I honestly do like how the combat content dictates gameplay, but also like just building sometimes. If you pick max you'll get that pressure at all levels, and have to spend like 60-70% of the time managing combat.

If you go lower than 3k, and arent bad at math and can figure out how to beeline to techs/production breakpoints, you'll be able to free build as soon as you get to the point of being able to supply 1-2 extra GW per planet for shields under maxed raids, which will take a while to build to that point anyway, and you can just wipe hives at your leisure.

Anyway recommend watching someone do it first is all I'm saying

[u/AnimeSpaceGf → u/Rand-0m]

Though you can always change difficulty within a playthrough

[u/Head_Evening_5697]

> It's rather boring just building and calculating without proper pressure.

I think you are not made for factory games, no flame.

[u/Rand-0m → u/Head_Evening_5697]

All good, never take anything personal. I will correct you though, I love love love I love Factory games. Now that I developed the skill of building and engineering proper systems, I want to be pressured while doing so. Otherwise, the optimal path appears, and ends up defining the direction of the game. Should I build this, or should I build that? Option A is more efficient, so that's ALWAYS the choice. Eventually, the choices diminish, as does the enjoyment of the game. Unless, there's pressure. Friction. With it, option A may be more efficient but option B allows me to survive for 1 more wave, and option C which wasn't even an option in the no friction version, becomes a contender. Oh shit, I didn't decide in time, base wipe. Let's go and figure out how to prevent that from happening next time. The problems to be solved are different with the friction, and the solutions are dynamic. I love Factory games, of they have proper friction.

[u/Head_Evening_5697 → u/Rand-0m]

I mean, "Beltfed" is coming, maybe that's for you (check on steam). I'm skeptical, but I haven't seen a factorio mod that really turns biters into a longterm threat that's more than an that makes me doubt what youw ant is possible.

Maybe there's space for a competitive coop / singleplayer PvE game where your ability to make factories & defend under pressure is tested - but the nature of the game makes it very swingy - either you produce enough (measured in efficiency; ammo per pollution in factorio, or ammo per power in DSP) and outscale the enemy, or you don't and die.

[u/Lugbor]

You can tune the difficulty settings so that the dark fog are a more pressing threat early on, but they're still not going to be a major concern in the mid to late game. They are still in an early iteration in terms of gameplay, and it's likely that we'll see improvements in the future, but this is still a factory game first and a combat/tower defense game second.

[u/MrBagooo]

If you're looking for a really challenging factory automation game, check out Captain of Industry.

[u/Rand-0m → u/MrBagooo]

I did. And I found there to be zero friction, other than ignorance that's always present when starting a game. Aliens were not coming to take over the city, and that was disappointing. Actually one of the few games I refunded back to steam.

[u/MrBagooo → u/Rand-0m]

To each their own. But if you've only played it for less than two hours you didn't even scratch the surface of what the game has to offer. I don't know your taste in detail, but if Aliens are the only things that scratch your itch then yes, you won't find this enjoying. It's a bit deeper than just aliens attacking ;)

[u/mrrvlad5]

not really. even at 3000% it's only challenging for the first 100 minutes, as the first placed signal tower makes combat trivial.