Oh yeah, the graphics really insist that they are captured spawners, not converted, raised, or otherwise “friendly” spawners.

Seems like the very first, very outdated trailer from 2013 contains some of that - though in the trailer itself it seems more like bio-zombies than eco protesters. The game could only be pre-ordered at this point, though the video’s description suggests there was already a demo available. I don’t know if the game’s lore at this point was already “you play as an engineer that has crash-landed on an alien planet” – if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t surprise me that the decision to make that be the lore ended up convincing the dev team to abandon humanoid enemies.

In any case, starting from the following year’s (2014) trailer the fauna is already in the form of biters, spawners, and worms.

tagging @causepix@lemmy.ml in case they’re interested in this tidbit of history.

The game has long eschewed “good” and “bad”; thematically I’d say it’s more of a “water & oil” situation where you, the crash-landed engineer, don’t really have a way to both get off the planet and not pollute – you are of a fundamentally incompatible nature compared to the bugs. I imagine it could be possible to do a play-through that deliberately avoids automation and attempts to launch a rocket with the minimum of pollution emitted, though that’s more of a self-imposed challenge to try out when you already “master” the game (it will be long and dull, for the most part). As this analysis puts it, “Factorio is a game about building factories, and only uses environmental devastation as a minor background mechanic.” Another analysis comes to more-or-less the same conclusion.

It’s worth noting that, as of the Space Age DLC that released almost exactly 1 year ago, things get pushed even further away from morality. On the one hand, the dlc introduces a way to replant trees, including automatically, finally allowing players to get to a point where no blurb of pollution ever extends into the rest of the world/map. On the other hand, to complete the dlc you will need to farm the fauna by literally capturing the spawners and harvesting biter eggs from it. It’s a very fun automation and logistics challenge (harvested eggs hatch into aggresive biters if not used in a recipe quick enough, and nutrients for the spawners must be produced off-world and imported via rockets else the spawner reverts back to a “wild” state). Things are even less clearly moralized by the end of the dlc, where you obtain the capability to craft new spawners and plop them down wherever you want. This means you can add to the native fauna, not just take from it. In a sense, you get more agency in how your relationship to the native fauna ends up. The road to that agency, however, remains that of the base game. Neither planting trees nor creating new spawners is available without launching a rocket off-world (in fact, it takes many many rockets to get to this point). As the first analysis I linked so succinctly puts it, “[i]t is manifest destiny that a rocket be launched, so exploitation of the environment is unavoidable and the efforts of the bug race stand in the way of fate.” Cynically speaking, the DLC basically just lets you green-wash your dominion of the planet/solar system, after-the-fact.

You’re welcome!

I’m just glad the length of my response didn’t intimidate you. Factorio is really one of my favorite games of all time, top personal contender for “if you were stuck on a desert island and could only bring 1 video game with you”, so it’s easy to ramble far too long about.

In a very real sense, the game is only intended to be played in the manner that makes it actually fun for you.

The fauna is an integral part of the game only in the sense that the pollution produced by your machines makes them angry and makes them evolve, and a lot of work has gone into balancing the pollution/evolution rates to provide a sort of tension and pressure that adapts to how fast you are progressing. If you care a lot about experiencing things “as the devs intended them” then I understand not wanting to cut off an entire system and set of mechanics. In that sense, dealing with the attacking fauna without completely stalling or falling apart is one of the first hurdles you are “meant” to struggle with.

There are intermediates between keeping the attacking fauna and removing them: you can disable their expansion, you can make them only attack when damaged, and you can tweak the numbers that determine how your factory’s pollution affects them. You can also change the amount of “safe space” the game forces the map to give you around where you spawn - this alone can be the difference between the early game being anxiety-inducing or quite relaxed. These can only be done at map generation (unless you don’t mind using console commands to change things on an existing save/map).

Without changing any map settings, it’s not immediately obvious how many options you have to address the problem in-game, but here are some pointers if you ever do give it another try:

• trees will absorb pollution, preventing it from reaching biter nests. They can absorb a decent amount but will eventually die and stop absorbing. Starting in a forest can be a bit more cramped than in a desert but at least you don’t have to fend off as many attacks early on.
• avoid overproducing just to fill up buffers - you probably don’t need to have 2k green circuits sitting in a chest as soon as you can make them. avoid emitting all of that pollution until you actively need those items.
• try to set up defences before they are needed. You can build a new production line first to know what space it requires, but set up walls and turrets before you turn it on. This should help prevent you being interrupted by attacks on undefended machines.
• researching damage upgrades gives you more damage output per unit of pollution produced, helping keep the balance in your favor
• only a nest that is exposed to pollution will send attack parties. You can toggle displaying pollution in the world map (now called “Remote View”) and proactively clear out nests before the pollution his them. You’re essentially choosing between proactive defensive efforts vs reactive efforts.
• reloading a previous save to change your approach without restarting an entire game is totally legit and nothing to be ashamed of.

At the end of what I would call the early game, you unlock even more options.

• efficiency modules reduce the pollution a machine emits. They also reduce the amount of electricity the machine consumes, which will indirectly lower your pollution by making you burn less coal
• solar power is a great way to lower the amount your factory is polluting once your panels and accumulators are already made. Making enough to power your whole base, however, takes a lot of steel and other ressources, whose refinement emits pollution. So don’t expect solar power to automatically fix your fauna problems - it’ll take a little bit of thought
• laser turrets do away with the need to produce ammo and get it to the front lines, though the spikes in power consumption they cause keeps them from being a total, immediate fix. Similar to solar power, you’ll need to plan a bit.
• flamethrower turrets are much easier to supply than gun turrets, and can be waaaaaaaay cheaper depending on how much crude oil you have available to you

Finally, you could also first play the game through once without the fauna to get familiarized, and then do a second run with them activated. in my experience, it’s a lot more fun to deal with them once you know your way around the other mechanics.

This is a nice follow-up to the article that was shared several months ago here discussing the strategy of (re)making land sacred as a way to durably shift mindsets.