Friday Facts #129 - The late game

[kovarex]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-129

[Krayt]

In my opinion the enhancement of late game mining is a good idea. Accompanying those larger endgame mining drills could be washing facilities to wash the dirty ore maybe.

Greetings Krayt

[Originus]

i do like the idea of changing the ore-paddern & adding that advanced mining drill.

for the science: I think its to simple to just allow unlimited upgrade-techs.
Maybe some crazy weapon which allows you to crush the enemy bases like its was in the beginning (like some kind of lasergun or chemical weapon, or A-Bomb? something fun and direct to use, shot by the player). The tech should be so expensive that its easier to build the rocket to win the game. But if you desire to make an even bigger factory or the biters are annoying you just too much -> build a big science-complex, make that weapon and then have lots of fun again (i think in late game atm its kind of annoying to kill enemybases)

[GotLag]

Surely it should be the boilers emitting the black smoke, and not the steam engines

[Kewlhotrod]

I'm in favor both, Resource generation tweaks, Long term mining drills, anything that changes the status quo of the laboring task of setting up mines is a ++.
and also damn, upgraded smoke visuals again eh? haha. whats this the third time now?

[Rwn]

About late game mining, there's actually a simple way to make it less troublesome: have a higher tier mining drill with a large extraction zone around them so you don't have to relocate those that have ore depleted just under them. You put some over the deposit and leave them be, all or most of them will work until the whole deposit is empty. Some mods have implemented this. Not that I wouldn't like in addition the "dirty ore to process" mechanism you've described, of course :p

[psihius]

Steam engines emit steam, not smoke guys
But boilers, on the other had, may benefit from a re-design and emitting actual smoke as they should

[aka13]

YES, YES and again YES!

I love that the development is taking the direction it is taking!

[psihius]

About late game mining, there's actually a simple way to make it less troublesome: have a higher tier mining drill with a large extraction zone around them so you don't have to relocate those that have ore depleted just under them. You put some over the deposit and leave them be, all or most of them will work until the whole deposit is empty. Some mods have implemented this. Not that I wouldn't like in addition the "dirty ore to process" mechanism you've described, of course :p

I believe their intention with dirty ore is to actually make the resource patch give more ore than if you would cover the same patch with regular mining drills. That means that the mining outpost will last quite a bit longer, making it easier to manage resources.

[metsume]

My way for resources - endless-resources mod, make the ore infinite, just like oil - weaker over time. You still have to expand and make new outposts, but there is no need to destroy old ones. I cant play without it anymore coz of depleted mines.

[roy7]

Since I consider RSO an almost mandatory mod even for "vanilla" play, folding in some of that functionality into the game directly would be excellent. The long-term mining drills also seem interesting, a variation on the "endless resources" mod.

[hipscumbag]

A great post! I too had experienced many of these issues, most saliently:

1) Lategame mining requiring too much babysitting: drills can exhaust resources quickly, and building rail to the remote sites is such a chore sometimes that it isn't worth it.
2) Stagnation as all the green tiers unlock at once but one is still struggling to set up an entire oil industry for batteries and plastic.

Issue (1) would be improved by richer remote deposits and the new rail-laying algorithm. (0.13 can't come soon enough!)

I'm less sure what's appropriate for issue (2). Making green research more expensive is one option. I'm not sure if that helps, though. I think I usually have some leftover expensive green research to do like laser turret damage.

As an alternative fix for (2), I wonder if Advanced Oil Processing might not belong to green tier? I always find myself beelining it so that I don't waste petroleum gas, which is always in short supply once I hit blue beakers. Having oil cracking in the earlier tier might help smooth the progression from green to blue. Just brainstorming!

[Tankh]

Yes Yes Yes!! So much yes to everything you wrote here!

[Eurofighter1200]

I would love a combination of both so like every 1000 field from the base away there is 2% more richness in the orefields but much cooler is it when there is plenty of dirty ore and you have to process it maybee you have to build a place where all the waste from this dirty ore have to storaged like in real mines where we have build big hills of rubble (live next to one of this 300 meters high rubbel hills from a coalmine). Also it should pollute the environment much more and a complex facility to get "clean" ore out of it.

[Kewlhotrod]

i'm also curious on when you guys plan on adding the rts aspect or even adding it at all, are you guys afraid it will remove a lot gameplay mechanics and circumvent them? it would certainly help the mine building.

[GeoStyx]

I really love the late-game ideas! I'm so excited for .13. You guys are doing an amazing job with this game!

[Zeblote]

What ever happened to the HD textures?

[Mercury044]

My way for resources - endless-resources mod, make the ore infinite, just like oil - weaker over time. You still have to expand and make new outposts, but there is no need to destroy old ones. I cant play without it anymore coz of depleted mines.

what about combining ideas?

the new mine would produce ore in a richness fashion and the old ones would mine it strait? so late game you would have a lot of dirty ore suddenly come in that you need to process but dont have to move the mines but closer mines would have been used up by older miners (would also encourage rail as long distance transport).

[Arduin]

These are some really nice ideas. I especially like both options for the late game mining. Adding the urge to explore more, further encouraging to use trains and the need for more infrastructure via the expanded ore processing sounds like exactly the right things to do. It sticks to the way factorio is.

The balancing changes and improved smoke visuals are really nice too

Regarding the endless research.. I don't know if it would be the right path to go. Sure it solves the issue quite effectively, but on the other hand it would become boring very quickly. Also having laser turret damage and speed 20 researched would absolutely take away from the biter thread while exploring deep into enemy territory. Sadly I must admit that I don't have a better idea right now, maybe there are slightly better ways that maybe would add to the experience rather just artificially stretching everything out.

[jamiewwer1]

In The post you were talking about more research and increasing the size of the trains cargo. Why not add this to the tree? Having to research bigger cargo sizes. The same as crates