Friday Facts #120 - Spidertron

[torham]

{snip} ... It began with one thing and ends on total changing the entire graphics. And here is my questtion whether it is now the most important thing ?

Yes, yes sir it did.

Factorio is pretty much constantly evolving...

[kovarex]

Trains are the backbone of my factory. Without trains, my factory would shutdown within minutes.
The car & tank are the more useless stuff.

I have a outpost-train with many items I need to set up an outpost & connect it to my existing network. I used to use the car for that, but the train can be sent back to resupply while I'm building to fetch me more supplies.
And the tank... Usually I have a power armor ready before I research the tank, and it surpasses it in almost every way.

I'm almost finished with something that will indirectly help train transportation, more in some future Friday facts.

[nobodx]

To be honest, that number was false... ._.
I did the math, and with the amount of ore in my train yard storage and on the belts, my factory can run at full speed for ~1,5 hours. Don't know, how long my oil would last, without the oil-trains though.

@Kovarex I hope for something like TTD, where you can tell your trains to wait till they're full / empty.

And something I realized: since I have a lot more trains than un-/loading platforms, trains are really stubborn on selecting a new track. Some on them stay quite a while, waiting till their platform becomes available, although others are free (they all have the same name). Wouldn't it be possible, that trains only block their current and next block, and waiting trains check for a new route every - duno - 10 seconds, when they wait at a signal ?

[kovarex]

@Kovarex I hope for something like TTD, where you can tell your trains to wait till they're full / empty.

Did you miss this friday facts? https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-114

[nobodx]

No, but I forgot it

[Ohz]

Kovarex, Factorio Team,

You are the most amazing guys on this planet. After so many years on developping this game, creating content, debugging everything and finding optimisations tricks again and again, after so hundreds of mods from our super creative community, you still are here and mindblow us in 2016 with this Spidertron. Where do you come from !? Can you imagine that most of artists and technicians do not go that far in their whole life?

Thank you, you deserve to hit the world with your amazing work.

[MalcolmCooks]

The Spidertron looks wicked cool
Will it be weaponised in any way? I immediately thought of the spider mastermind from doom with its underslung superchaingun.

[kovarex]

The Spidertron looks wicked cool
Will it be weaponised in any way? I immediately thought of the spider mastermind from doom with its underslung superchaingun.

Wasn't it plasma?

[MalcolmCooks]

The Spidertron looks wicked cool
Will it be weaponised in any way? I immediately thought of the spider mastermind from doom with its underslung superchaingun.

Wasn't it plasma?

There were smaller versions with plasma guns too yep

[vaderciya]

Why put effort into building more vehicles when we rarely use the ones that already exist?

I use the car, tank and trains all the time.

So you are the one.

I also use the car and tank alot, but as long as you're not playing with the easiest setting you pretty much have to use trains

[Jan11]

https://youtu.be/Mh_xlggzTxk

I think this is a good idea. (It has a good size 1.30 Sec the DJ goes inside) with flamethrower and toxic gas.^^

A big monster to fight "maybe Alien kaijus"

[IsoSchiz]

Just reading back through old FFF's, and saw this: where did the Spidertron go?!?! It looks awesome! Please bring it back.

[saturn7]

The Spidertron Surprise with 8-10 legs went to "maybe" 0.15: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=678

[hitzu]

It seems that Spidertron is thrown away as there is no more mention of it in the Roadmap

[saturn7]

It seems that Spidertron is thrown away as there is no more mention of it in the Roadmap

Oh no It would fit perfectly in the awesome 0.15 gameplay!

[Zemerson]

Spidertron back on the (probably) list for 1.0!

[QGamer]

I'm SUPER excited for the Spidertron! Finally, something that can step over puddles.

What are its combat abilities? Does it have guns on it? Or is it more for moving around your factory megabase?

One thing I'd like to see is an ability to stomp on the small biters & spitters to kill them, and walk on top of the spawners to flatten them. I think it would be cool to be high up above the biters and squash them like bugs with my inserter-like feet. Perhaps even being able to lift them into the air and throw them into water? Even if the Spidertron has no guns, I feel that being able to smash the biters would be enough, just as long as there is some method of defense from the big guys.

[Tekky]

I don't think the concept of a Spider Vehicle (Spidertron) fits well into Factorio. IMHO, Spiders Vehicles with 8 legs only make sense when traversing uneven terrain. Since terrain in Factorio is always flat, the existing Jeeps and Tanks are more appropriate. Therefore, I see no reason to add a Spider Vehicle to the game. I'm afraid that adding it will do more damage than good.

I think that it would be better to focus on improving Jeeps and Tanks, for example by giving them an equipment grid that allow improvements/customizability, as is the case in Bob's Mods.

The planned feature of being able to traverse (small amounts of) water with the Spidertron would be a nice feature. However, I believe that it would make more sense to implement such a feature by allowing the player to build ships or or at least by allowing the player to swim. I see no need for a Spidertron for this.

Here is a list of threads in which it has been suggested that the player should be able to build ships to traverse water:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5419 Cargo ship
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2037 bridges, boats, oceans, depleting water
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5027 The Water!
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3521 Ships
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=14024 Travel over Water: Boats, Ships, Canus / Bridges / Tunnels

[Tekky]

Ok, since Factorio Friday Facts #219 has now introduced cliffs, I guess my previous argument, in which I stated that spiders were not as good as jeeps/tanks due to the flat terrain, is no longer valid. The Spidertron now has a valid reason to be introduced into the game, because it should be able to climb cliffs.

[impetus maximus]

Ok, since Factorio Friday Facts #219 has now introduced cliffs, I guess my previous argument, in which I stated that spiders were not as good as jeeps/tanks due to the flat terrain, is no longer valid. The Spidertron now has a valid reason to be introduced into the game, because it should be able to climb cliffs.

sounds right to me.