Friday Facts #386 - Vulcanus

[Ludenife]

Is that a NetHack reference?

[Dylan J. McGrann]

Simply phenomenal.

My training and work is in illustration, painting, and photography. I don’t have very much experience in digital arts, but games as visual objects have always been intriguing to me. The very first thing of Factorio that ever caught my attention was a simple short clip of the game in a video montage on YouTube. The video did not even mention Factorio by name, nor give any further explanation. I have long forgotten what that video even was, but the visuals of Factorio arrested my attention so much I have always remembered. I waited 3 years after that before owning a machine that could play the game. The art of Factorio has always had a great adherence to detail and distinct aesthetic which perfectly marries to the core appeals of the game—making little distinct yet interconnected machines do things on their own.

But between the space platforms and now this—just incredible work, both from the artists and programmers here. I feel the art Wube has done has always had an upward trajectory over the various updates through the years, but you guys are really outdoing yourselves now. Such a beautiful combination of art and process.

I’m very excited to see and play the rest of "Space Age"!

[T-A-R]

This indeed opens up the idea of adopting the logistic challenge of routing lava on a single z level for a magma forge factory.
I guess the hinted mystery machine evolves around the hassle of shipping space ice, without melting in your pockets, to Vulcanus vulcans, in order to yield the maximum reachable temperature difference you know of. Just like the not-trees. Tungsten is required to prevent the machine from melting itself.
By the same logic an alternative to importing ice would be exporting tungsten barrels of magma.

[RocketManChronicles]

The planet looks cool, and the terrain brings new challenges. Lava and mountains are rich in resources but challenging to tame, while plains are the best place to build outposts.

I think that this makes a great use of various terrain, and I hope that the challenge will not be trivialized too early by landfill and cliff explosives, or this planet would just be another Nauvis.

(I am still wondering if trees and cliffs can be revived, just like water/lava can be restored by deconstructing landfill)

If you read ALL of the post, you CANNOT landfill lava. Lava is permanent. Which is good.

[RocketManChronicles]

I call shenanigans. High jinks! No one drives a tank that well.

You can when you play deathworld marathon for 6 years....

[Episode922]

The first video transport me in the past with the good old TOTAL ANNIHILATION.
I want to kiss a lava worm ! NOW

[kpreid]

Finding the right spots is also made easier by these resource nodes having yellow smoke (yes, we can have animated resources now). Jerzy has made the acid puddles of this section in a couple of ways, earlier on we had puddles filled with liquid acid, but we moved to dried up puddles to keep the planet feeling drier (also building on shallow liquid acid puddles didn't look right).

It'd be neat if Nauvis crude oil patches got new artwork with these principles and capabilities, so that they looked like liquid oozing out of stone and flowing, instead of blobs of tar lying on top of the ground.

Just an idea. I'm looking forward to Space Age regardless!

[computeraddict]

The first video transport me in the past with the good old TOTAL ANNIHILATION.
I want to kiss a lava worm ! NOW

Nanolathe mod when

[Dimava]

I call shenanigans. High jinks! No one drives a tank that well.

> Earendel
> I mean, I didn't show the 20 attempts per video where I did hit cliffs, rocks, lava, etc. And I used the editor to remove a couple of rocks that I hit almost every time. In the 2nd video I think I still hit a tree or two
> The other thing about the driving is that It wasn't just the route and the obstacles, it was also the timing. I did the camera work first so that it is a smooth path, because it's more about the terrain than anything else. Then I was driving to try and stay in the camera view and if I went too fast then I need to start again.
> yeah that tree hit was on purpose
> well, in the final version it was intentional. The first time was an accident but it looked cool

[mmmPI]

...but who knows what might awaken in the depths of Vulcanus.

If you dig too deeply and greedily, you'll get a Balrog

That's where the reference to the ring of power than you can void into lava come from i suppose

But what does a Balrog look like ?
The original Diablo model in diablo 2 looked like a Balrog from the movie or maybe it was the Balrog from the movie that looked like diablo ? movie are from 2001 Diablo 2 from 2000. The diablo 2 remastered version features a "diablo" that look like more its model from the game, good luck telling them apart when they are running at you ! x)

VulcanusFaunaSpoiler

Vulcanus wildlife tourist guide.png (976.22 KiB) Viewed 4229 times

Still i think those are not "insectoid" enough to feel related to biters that act in swarm. Not saying there couldn't be a "boss". Or some alien presence with less complex structures than nest and biters colony, maybe just some lone predators or guarding moutain such as 1 per biome generated, mini-boss. That would be new. But would fit more the look of such big creature.

If you read ALL of the post, you CANNOT landfill lava. Lava is permanent. Which is good.

Not sure we got the same conclusion :

Over time, the lava has become more of a pivotal part of the gameplay because it provides a lot of new opportunities: It is a new obstacle that you can't landfill (for a long time), a new resource, and a new way to void items.

I read that as you can't landfill it with the same landfill you use for water, probably a much later tech allow you to manipulate the ground around lava but still you could eventually.

[pleegwat]

I call shenanigans. High jinks! No one drives a tank that well.

> Earendel
> I mean, I didn't show the 20 attempts per video where I did hit cliffs, rocks, lava, etc. And I used the editor to remove a couple of rocks that I hit almost every time. In the 2nd video I think I still hit a tree or two
> The other thing about the driving is that It wasn't just the route and the obstacles, it was also the timing. I did the camera work first so that it is a smooth path, because it's more about the terrain than anything else. Then I was driving to try and stay in the camera view and if I went too fast then I need to start again.
> yeah that tree hit was on purpose
> well, in the final version it was intentional. The first time was an accident but it looked cool

And here was me thinking easier control of tanks was an unannounced expansion feature.

[Syriusz]

I love that you made something great out of cliffs. I hope some of this approach will be taken into retouch of Nauvis, because cliffs there are kind of random and just in a way. It would be nice to get some more specific biomes as well (as far as I know only desert has different resource rules? and other biomes just differ in how much vegetation they have). After such great work on new, exciting planets, Nauvis may look out of place. But maybe it would not be that bad, if gameplay will shift more into new planets. And cliffs on Vulcanus look so much better, they feel like there really is a verticality in them.

[Drury]

Oh hell yeah.

I like how it seemingly gets darker when you drive into the lava area, as if entering a cavern. Reminds me of the time I attempted a special kind of modded deathworld where it was always 100% pitch dark, the floor was volcanic and too hot to step on, and the only way to expand was with pavement and remote-controlled drone raids into the biter nests. They often failed as they got flanked and destroyed en-route, the biters taking advantage of the darkness.

The vibe was so dense that it pretty much became a horror game. Difficult to capture in screenshots though.

20210207101435_1.jpg (217.51 KiB) Viewed 4120 times

One of my other favorite playthroughs was on a string of rainy tropical islands connected with cargo ships that I tried to preserve the natural beauty of. Fingers crossed there's a tropical paradise planet that sends extra horrifying mobs when you pollute it.

[Danjen]

Very cool. I suppose we'll probably get a water or ice planet, and one that is dark (far away and poor light / no solars)

Very interested in seeing the terrain generation process as well as how the color grading got done

[FutureSpec]

The planet looks neat, and I'm excited that there are new resources.

but they are difficult to build on until you get cliff explosives

Ugh. Cliffs have got to be one of the most complained about features in the base game, to the point where many people simply turn them off.

I hope the devs will consider iterating on them so they're not so obnoxious. The feature always felt "tacked on" to me, and unsatisfying in its resource requirements, hit boxes, and destruction animations. And let's face it, they've always been "fake" -- it's not a real height map, it's not actual elevation, it's just a dumb barrier that kinda looks like a real cliff because of the artist, not because of the engine. I'm not saying we need real Z-levels, as I'm sure that would be beyond the ability of the engine to ever handle. But cliffs just aren't FUN.

[computeraddict]

The planet looks neat, and I'm excited that there are new resources.

but they are difficult to build on until you get cliff explosives

Ugh. Cliffs have got to be one of the most complained about features in the base game, to the point where many people simply turn them off.

I hope the devs will consider iterating on them so they're not so obnoxious. The feature always felt "tacked on" to me, and unsatisfying in its resource requirements, hit boxes, and destruction animations. And let's face it, they've always been "fake" -- it's not a real height map, it's not actual elevation, it's just a dumb barrier that kinda looks like a real cliff because of the artist, not because of the engine. I'm not saying we need real Z-levels, as I'm sure that would be beyond the ability of the engine to ever handle. But cliffs just aren't FUN.

I think one of the bigger annoyances with current cliffs is there's no density difference depending on where you go. You either have few enough cliffs that they aren't a pain or you bump into them everywhere. Being able to go to a mostly flat area to avoid them should go a long way towards making the areas dense with them more bearable.

[fusionfan]

Looks great, can't wait to play it!

[Pach]

... my eyeballs are popping out!

I'm keen to play this... is there any sort of time-frame yet on when it will be available? Even if it's something like "after January 2025", or "after the factory finishes building it" (although in that case, I'd be asking on what the current throughput on the factory is...)

You have my money already for the expansion... you just have to release it to collect it.

[Qon]

If you read ALL of the post, you CANNOT landfill lava. Lava is permanent. Which is good.

Wrong.

You can't just pave over everything (until ultra late game)

[Qon]

Will electricity be transmitted wirelessly?

Why would you ask that? Power poles, turrets and the tank were the only player made structures shown in the FFF...

Volcanus with power pole.