Friday Facts #178 - Minimal mode and Mini-tutorials

[aober93]

Good thing you dont need all the thigns to win the game the first time. No trains, no circuit, no logistics, efficient power setups, blueprints, "efficiency"..

[Akiramenai]

Did enjoy the original campaign, even though it was rather short. While story might not be the focus, it's really nice to have a setting with a substance and some nice bits of lore her and there - good campaign can address that just fine.

Also, it could have been really fun to battle against self-replicating factories in a sandbox, for example.
The locals of the planets are okay in some regard, but even with low-resource settings &enemy bases with very [high, big, good] spec, the challenge mostly lies in securing oil before bullets become ineffective and that's somehow lackluster after doing it once.

[jonathanpaulson]

I'm really excited to hear about plans for a new campaign. The current one (and goal/story-oriented content in general) is one of my favorite parts of the game.

[zebediah49]

First off, the mini-tutorials sound nice. I personally had no problems with the content, but most of the other people I've played with did. I did have to do some experimentation to figure parts of it out though.

With regard to mod-loading:

First, would it be reasonable to have an 'interrupt' button somewhere? As of now (I just tried it and broke my game ), if a mod has a mistake (or a "mistake"), it can get stuck loading. My personal test was to throw a `i=1 / while i>0 do / i=i+1 / done` in a data.lua file, which result in the mod never loading.

In such a case, the user would have to use some kind of external method of quitting the game -- under windows that's be a ctl-alt-delete task manager adventure, as well as knowing how to remove or disable a mod directly from the mods directory. That's asking an awful lot from a bad-luck newbie who just got a mod from the built-in downloader. Having a button to force-jump out of loading and let you kill the mod from the management screen would be a godsend for that corner case.

Second, I too am in favor of a "sync with server" scheme. At the moment I only try to play modded multiplayer locally with friends, and we do it by having the primary person stick a zip-file copy of their mods directory on a group-accessible NAS. Everyone else then downloads it and sets their mod-directory content to it, thus ensuring a synchronized configuration. This is kinda a pain.

[AssaultRaven]

Do mods have to be loaded at game start? I've always thought it would be nice if they could be selected and loaded on a per-save basis, so that you don't have to mess with files just to go from one multiplayer server to another.

[NiftyManiac]

Thanks for the community spotlight! This game is a wonderful playground.

Any thoughts from the devs on potentially allowing automated construction/blueprinting in the base game in the distant future?

[noliVe]

as again when "MODS" are in discussion
======================================

PLEASE CHANGE THE LOADING FOR MODS first

-- joining a server with over 50 mods is a HORRORMOVIE!
you have to write down (on paper) all mods you need
download all mods from portals and everywhere....
all done i think - hurray - loading the game - joining the server
- oh i forgot one - reload the game again - oh one mod is outdated on the server hoster have to download an older version
- oh i forgot to stop the game first - reload the game
...OH the serverhoster have changed something inside the MOD.... stupid that i dont know what.... so i cannot join without contacting the admin...
all time wasted.....

go and choose another server with mods
DAMN GO THOUGH all steps again? thats why people stop playing with others.

CANT you see this MAJOR problems? (yes my grammar, and english suxx ;P )

how to fix it!?

- make automatic MOD downloads from the server
or / and
- Autodisable / enable the mods needet to join the host

========================================================
please consider making this easier

[brunzenstein]

Good thing you dont need all the thigns to win the game the first time. No trains, no circuit, no logistics, efficient power setups, blueprints, "efficiency"..

Actually the game is more transcendent "zen" then "to win" - at least I see this so. Thats not the way this "game" is about. Not al all
To perfekt the design is far more invigorating and keeping the payers fixed to then to finish Factorio in short time.
One can learn a lot more (math in my case) in Factorio then with most other games in a sea of rubbish.
Actually "finishing" or winning" Factorio is not very inspiring or sparkling at all - the launch of a rocket and "winning" is actually one of the weakest part of the game.

[AcolyteOfRocket]

Does the fact that you showcased grey goo mean the devs are looking into making automated build and destruct part of the main game ?

Because I for one would love to be able to do this in vanilla.

[Ackos]

Grey Goo, for when the grey matter in my head starts to turn to goo.

[bripi]

A lot of great ideas from the creators! You people are clearly working very hard on behalf of this amazing simulation - and the community! BIG thumbs up!

I would suggest something for the logistics network in terms of the mini-tutorials. It's still confusing even with the help of the Youtube tutorials. And the circuit network...I haven't even bothered yet. I don't really understand it's usefulness when I can get to the end without it. Truly, also, this can be done without the logistic network as well but is a brutal ham-fisted procedure. Just my two cents...

Oh, and when people talk about addiction...they are not lying! Crack is addictive...heroin is addictive...Factorio is SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY!!

[Strategic Sage]

I don't really understand it's usefulness when I can get to the end without it.

You could technically get to the end without assemblers either .... the point is that it makes things easier, allows you to automate tasks, etc.

[zebediah49]

I don't really understand it's usefulness when I can get to the end without it.

You could technically get to the end without assemblers either .... the point is that it makes things easier, allows you to automate tasks, etc.

Strictly speaking, the rocket control units require blue circuits, which can't be hand-crafted. That doesn't particularly take away from the point though.

[stm]

Better (more in depth) tutorials are really a must have. (No I'm not looking for answers here, just stating a few questions one might want to address in those)

• e.g. Trains: Yes it is quite easy to set up an easy transport route, but even controlling the loading of a train is not intuitive. How can the handlers know when a train is there to load? Or how do you controll what to load into the train. And signals as already mentioned (especially chain signals). And also that trains are worth it at all (at first glance they are about as expensive as a belt and require a lot more efford to use)
• Circuit network: Usually one would assume a combinator with two inputs can process between those two inputs, but they are just sort of shorted together before processing. And what can you connect to the network and advanced uses (basic would be production controll which is easy even without combinators, but also how to connect to trains and how to build a bacup power supply switch (many of those you find on the forum are a lot more complicated than they need to be!))
• Modules and when they are worth it (belongs to the oil tutorial I guess).
• Belts: Especially ballancers and why easier setups have their drawbacks
• Blueprints: What they can and can not do (e.g. they do not only safe the buildings, but also the set production, but only if robots build the items...)

I would suggest though, that these scenarios can be played independently, in any order and multiple times (and please make it possible to disable the prompt in a game, because otherwise you will always be interrupted at the most inconvenient time).

Keep up the good work!
We are all eager to play (with) 0.15
Stm

[ili]

can you make it that when you click on multiplayer game
it will auto download the mods, enable/disable them as needed, load them, and join the server?

[bobingabout]

I like that Grey goo thing, I'd want that in a mod, or some sort of blueprint in my library when that's available in 0.15.

I kind of want to start a game with it and just leave it running to see how big it gets.

On that note: would love to do that with a bob's mods setup. I doubt that would happen though.

[garath]

Some tutorials on the Circuit Network would be awesome.

With some 300 hours logged in the game, I still haven't made time to figure out how the circuit network works.

[aklesey1]

Reputable developers tell already at last date of a release of 0.15? I consider that much grateful to you for an amazing game players were already can't wait for update

[Tekore]

I'm looking at the impressive job at Grey Goo, and was wondering if it had a possibility as a "Boss" of sorts? Not necessarily as physically dangerous as biters, but economically dangerous as it actually consumes resources you need, tries to deconstruct your base (if you don't set defenses), etc.

[NiftyManiac]

I like that Grey goo thing, I'd want that in a mod, or some sort of blueprint in my library when that's available in 0.15.
I kind of want to start a game with it and just leave it running to see how big it gets.
On that note: would love to do that with a bob's mods setup. I doubt that would happen though.

If you check the main GreyGoo thread I uploaded a save you can play with. The current record for this factory, I believe, is over 4 square kilometers in area. Not quite as big as the biggest factory on earth (6.5 sq km), but getting there .

I've never played with your mods, but I'd imagine that as long as mining works the same it wouldn't be hard to do. The main base would get a little more complex, and every mine would need a lot more combinators, one for each ore... but otherwise everything should work the same. (Unless of course in Bob's the essential components depend on oil. In that case it'll have to wait until I can handle oil.)