Warpzone 8 - Warptimer Disabled, Now What?!

Alright everyone, here is the first video in the post-warp-timer-disabled-era! I tried a different approach to writing the script this time, a 2-step process where I first describe only the "big events" happening chronologically, and only then write the actual script with those gudelines. The idea behind it was trying to get me to cover more footage wit less script, and while that was somewhat successfull, in the end I still ended up writing a lot of script. I still think the video pace and level of detail turned out decent, even though I would've liked to cover more "playtime". It's only the first post-timer-disabled video though, I'm hoping that I can cover more and more ground per episode now that we're getting deeper into the run.

Anyway,

Now that a bunch of votes are in, I'll share my quick thoughts on some of the stream poll options.

- No ore patches / Kill biters for resources:

My personal favorite I think. Very Vanilla Factorio, but this small change in resource acquisition will make the game so very different compared to a normal game. I have no idea how I'm gonna pull it off though lol.

- Rampant DeathWorld with only Vanilla Weaponry:

I love this one as well, but it'll be a high stress playthrough with probably a lot of saving and reloading to try different approaches until we find one that works (well, hopefully, IF one exists!). Rampant is designed around default settings evolution/pollution, and rampant's own biter factions introduce a lot of biters with high resistance to the only 3 automatable vanilla damage types (physical/fire/laser). Rampant arsenal adds tons of powerful combat options, greatly negating the difficulties introduced by rampant (if you saw Dosh's very entertaining rampant deathworld video, you'll know what I mean, you can't pull that off without the help of helpful combat mods)

- 1000 SPM: Return to the Ultimate DeathWorld Challenge:

We finished the playthrough with a 100% green base, minimizing pollution output so the "quantum biters" stayed in their quantum state... There's no way we'll keep it like that if we need a base that can produce 10x more power, so the World Peace Pact will be broken with the quantum biters popping into existence soon again!

A return to my most epic playthrough with the goal of reaching megabase status, but OTOH, with unbuffed ore patches and maximum biters, the map isn't suitable for expanding further to a full 10K SPM base later on (gotta save those UPS!)

- Finishing the 100% indestructible biter bases series on stream:

I hate the fact that this series hasn't gotten a conclusion yet. It's been the only series I went into without having endgame goals / a plan for the endgame. This was a mistake, and I think it's the main reason why I still haven't returned to it. Playing it on stream would allow me to edit down the stream for the conclusion, regardless of how the game will unfold, as unfold it will...

- 100x science cost on default settings.

This is probably a horrible idea with tons of tedious grindy processes involving biter clearing (spend all "biter evolution points" with destroying biter nests, thus keeping a small factory until 50% evolution and unkillable big biters show up, then beeline a way to damage big biters before they take over the cleared area again (RNG), if success then slowly win. Probably 1000x science cost with non-default map settings would be more entertaining (like decreasing biter evolution speed and increasing resources), IDK

- Rogue Planet DeathWorld.

Has a cool title/story to it. Planet got ejected out of the solar system. No sunlight = Eternal darkness. Scary noises coming from the darkness. No map to guide the way home. Can we escape? I'm not sure how well this would play though, I didn't do any tests.

- Ultracube

Warns the player you'd better get used to using the full power of the circuit netwirk. Therefore may be better suited for "computer engineer" type of players, which I am not. Nevertheless, it may still be interesting to see if we can come up with enough low-tech, or even fully mechanical solutions to solve the ultracube problem.

- All the other modpacks

Except for space exploration (v0.5), I don't have any experience with these. Any of these will be a discovery process, and unlike the krastorio playthrough, which was still quite overseeable as in what you'd need to get through all the way to the endgame, things will go a whole lot less well with the "full mechanics overhaul" mod. I said before I won't play space exploration until v0.7 or v0.8 or so (as there are many many recent SE playthroughs out there), but I guess if it does well, I may just end up playing it.

Enjoy the episode!

Michael