Version 0.7.0

[slpwnd]

Heya, this is my first post here, so it might be a little bit excessive.. yay<3

Hello and welcome:)

ust tried out the 0.7.0 version and the first thing I'm noticing is, that the nearby forest soaks up my pollution pretty good, the red squares on the map keep flashing like crazy as they try to expand into the forest, but are being absorbed immediately. That way, building a wall of trees might actually be more beneficial than building a wall of bricks, if you wanna keep the aliens out. Saplings, anyone?

True, big forests are now very effective in absorbing the pollution. In the future we would like to add one more mechanic here, being that the pollution also slowly kills the trees (and changes them to dead tree trunks).

On another note, I think you should restrict the alien colonization to reclaiming destroyed bases. So they won't build new settlements all over the place, but rather just try to reclaim the bases that you destroyed beforehand, or something.
The spreading of settlements should be optional, though, otherwise it might get a bit annoying if you want aliens but don't wanna see them occupying the whole map.

Yes, we need to tweak the alien colonization. It is a bit unpredictable at the moment. For instance imagine there is a transport belt in the open moving stuff from your mining facility to the base. Normally the enemies would not attack the belt itself, just for the sake of it. That is good, because otherwise you just have to protect everything and that imho kills the fun. On the other hand if they happen to build a colony close to the belt, then they will go and destroy it, because it is a players creation close to their base. So this is wrong.

Also, what kinda baffled me was that boilers don't produce any pollution, and that electrical mining drills produce more pollution than the burner variant. Why?
Electrical drills don't produce any CO2, as far as I know. I mean, have you ever had your room polluted by an electric fan or even an air conditioning machine?
Sure, they might stir up some dust from the ground, but I don't think that's what pollution is about.

The boilers do produce pollution. Pretty much anything that burns coal does. But maybe not as much as the mining drills. The reason for this is twofold:
1) The "pollution" in case of mining drills is more related to the fact, that they destroy the ecosystem by mining resources.
2) If mining drills don't produce any pollution at all then you can freely build mining expansions without worrying about them being attacked.

One final question: I noticed that there is actually wind in the game, which blows the steam/smoke puffs around in different directions. Will you utilize that for pollution mechanics, too?

We though about it. However at the moment the wind changes direction way too often. That means there would be practically no strategical benefit to having pollution depend on the wind. But maybe if the wind would be more stable (and then different in different parts of the world) we could change it.

Oh and of course, this is a great game which I already recommended to some of my friends. We're anticipating the multiplayer part, and have no doubt that this will be a big hit on Steam Greenlight and Early Access. Keep on rollin' and stay on track~

Thank you, it means a lot to us.

[( Tchey )]

Hello, we just released 0.7.0.
P.S. Linux release is postponed, because of technical reasons (until tommorow).

Are we tomorrow ?

[Coolthulhu]

Why do productivity modules increase pollution? They waste less materials, so they should produce less pollution if pollution is made of excess materials.
If it's energy usage, why don't effectiveness modules decrease it?

I still haven't gotten the answer about exponential pollution. Is it supposed to be that way?
Shouldn't it be named differently, like "pollution exponent +0.2" instead of "pollution +20%"?

[Aarkreinsil]

The boilers produce pollution? Oh alright, I was just wondering because the information tooltip for them doesn't show any pollution value listed. I mean the mining drills say something like "Pollution: 9" but the boilers have no apparent value to them, so forgive my confusion.

As to the dying forests, will we be able to counteract pollution in some other way, if we can't replant the forests? Now that modules can fit into almost anything, how about an "Air Filter" module, that reduces the pollution value of a machine, or something?

[ficolas]

Why do productivity modules increase pollution? They waste less materials, so they should produce less pollution if pollution is made of excess materials.
If it's energy usage, why don't effectiveness modules decrease it?

I still haven't gotten the answer about exponential pollution. Is it supposed to be that way?
Shouldn't it be named differently, like "pollution exponent +0.2" instead of "pollution +20%"?

Well its a game and havimg something with advantages and without any disadvantages may not be so good.

[kovarex]

Why do productivity modules increase pollution? They waste less materials, so they should produce less pollution if pollution is made of excess materials.
If it's energy usage, why don't effectiveness modules decrease it?

I still haven't gotten the answer about exponential pollution. Is it supposed to be that way?
Shouldn't it be named differently, like "pollution exponent +0.2" instead of "pollution +20%"?

The motivation is gameplay balancing.
Effectivness modules actually decrease pollution.
I know nothing about exponential pollution, it doesn't work that way.

[Coolthulhu]

I know nothing about exponential pollution, it doesn't work that way.

Oh wait, my bad - pollution is multiplied by energy used. That's why it looked exponential.
Still, modules increase pollution multiplier, while their description suggests the end result will be +20% pollution of the item without any modules, like it works with all other stats.

Is the "total pollution = pollution multiplier * energy used" thing explained in any tip/changelog/tutorial in the plain sight? I noticed it in demo-mining-drill.lua first.

[kovarex]

Good point, maybe it should say "Pollution per energy usage +20%" or something like that.

[Goddohando]

Good point, maybe it should say "Pollution per energy usage +20%" or something like that.

Why even use such a cryptic system? Why not just +20% in the first place?

[slpwnd]

Hello, we just released 0.7.0.
P.S. Linux release is postponed, because of technical reasons (until tommorow).

Are we tomorrow ?

Not yet=) Sorry about that, but soon.

[slpwnd]

The boilers produce pollution? Oh alright, I was just wondering because the information tooltip for them doesn't show any pollution value listed. I mean the mining drills say something like "Pollution: 9" but the boilers have no apparent value to them, so forgive my confusion.

That is a bug. We will fix it for 0.7.1.

As to the dying forests, will we be able to counteract pollution in some other way, if we can't replant the forests? Now that modules can fit into almost anything, how about an "Air Filter" module, that reduces the pollution value of a machine, or something?

We have in mind a pollution cleaning machine. However the mechanics is not fleshed out yet. One possibility is that the machine would take the water and some "bottles", capture the polluted air into the water and output bottles with polluted water. These would then have to be stored in some permanent storage. This is just to make it more interesting and Factorio like, then just build this machine and it will clear the pollution for you.

The goal here is to be able to co-exist with the aliens without fighting them. So everyone can choose his way - drain the natural resources and deal with the enemies anger or try to be friendly with them and take care for the environment.

[Coolthulhu]

With total pollution precalculated, you'd get smaller pollution increase at huge number of modules.
The formula for pollution at n basic productivity modules (+50% energy, +30% pollution) is 0.15n^2 + 0.8n + 1. At n=6 you get more pollution from the n^2 than from n.
I think that's a good idea, though. The faster-than-linear progression of pollution is confusing and the only really good thing I see coming out of it is stopping heavy beacon abuse (340% productivity assemblies etc.). Anyone who can keep up a 340% assembly running can also support a line of laser turrets.

[Nirahiel]

Yes but what if we are trying to clean the pollution but they still attack us because they are getting polluted ?
We should have a way to make them understand we're cleaning our mess ?
And also, do the pollution slowly go away naturally ? Like, if we give it some time to vanish ?

Could be used to create some sort of area where there is a machine detecting the amount of pollution, and if it's below a certain value, then start opening the bottles, to let the pollution out, wait for it to dissipate, rince and repeat ?
Also it could be used to start and stop production in the main base, to not build too much pollution.
Just throwing ideas...

Or maybe a way to pump polluted air like you pump water, and send it to a machine that slowly cleans it while eating lots of energy.
(And also, it would be HILARIOUS to be able to give fish to the critters so they eat it and leave us alone for a moment xD)

[kovarex]

Hello, we just released 0.7.0.
P.S. Linux release is postponed, because of technical reasons (until tommorow).

Are we tomorrow ?

Sorry about that, our post release inactivity was more intense than we expected, we will take a look at it tommorow with bluecube.

[generalmek]

need gates, and how i can throw grenade? walls too weak. flame-thrower turrets? how i can kill medium enemy with shotgun or flame?

[slpwnd]

And also, do the pollution slowly go away naturally ? Like, if we give it some time to vanish ?

Yes it does. Have a look at data/base/prototypes/map-settings.lua. The variable that influences how fast the pollution disappears is called "ageing". It defines how many Pollution Units disappear every second on every chunk (32 x 32 tiles).

Or maybe a way to pump polluted air like you pump water, and send it to a machine that slowly cleans it while eating lots of energy.

Something like this is planned.

[slpwnd]

need gates, and how i can throw grenade? walls too weak. flame-thrower turrets? how i can kill medium enemy with shotgun or flame?

in the future, put into quickbar and use number shortcuts, build more of them, in the future, combat shotgun + upgrades

[Toma]

The current solution with the blog update and then forum discussions look great Best of luck guys.

[Goddohando]

We have in mind a pollution cleaning machine. However the mechanics is not fleshed out yet. One possibility is that the machine would take the water and some "bottles", capture the polluted air into the water and output bottles with polluted water. These would then have to be stored in some permanent storage. This is just to make it more interesting and Factorio like, then just build this machine and it will clear the pollution for you.

This is awesome idea. I really like it. Kinda like storing radioactive materials in real life. But maybe also some mechanic that after some time water in these bottles changes into something else and you can use it for something?

[generalmek]

very hard to survival on normal, enemy bases appear where they want. them need only destroy energy or energy way. if you atack big enemy you die without best weapon.