Friday Facts #223 - Reflections on 2017

[leoch]

I agree about the pipes. The exponential relationship between speed and distance is weird.

How about keep the current mechanics for partially-full pipes, but do holistic (whole-pipe) calculations for full pipes, with a maximum fluid speed (depending on viscosity) and friction calculations determining how much work pumps have to do (with maximum pump power and overload indication).

I think that could be more intuitive and avoid having to update each pipe section each game tick.

[vanatteveldt]

I don't much like the fluid changes, but it's also partially because the pipes are so clunky. They seem like they transport fairly low amount of liquid given that they are like 2 meters diameter pipes that block all movement... I agree that barrels were relatively too powerful though.

I read from wiki that if there's a reasonable minimum of 8 pipes (4 underground pipes) between pumps, throughput is 1200/sec which seems like way too little for a very high pressure system... maybe consider upping that so a pressurised pipe can actually move fluids in bulk without taking huge amounts of space on the map? It still takes the space for pumps and poles.

If we assume 10 fluid equals approximately 1 plate, a blue belt transports only 40 items per second, so 1200/sec is still quite a lot of throughput. For a large belt-based plant the iron "bus" is generally at least 4 tiles wide, so why should fluid only be a single tile?

The only place where I normally run into trouble with pipe capacity is powerplants, so maybe it would be good to add some sort of more closed-circuit solution for nuclear power, e.g. make the turbine emit (relatively) cold steam that can go either to a large chimney (where it just disappears) or to a cooling tower (where it is converted back to water). That would allow for more interesting designs that don't just do pump -> exchanger -> turbine.

[kovarex]

1.35 Bugs Resolved Per Day -> 2.4 Bugs Resolved Per Day.

More bugs resolved means more bugs created
But on the other hand, we have a saying in czech, "The one who does nothing, screws nothing."

[ManaUser]

Another way to look at barrels is to consider what you can do with one. One barrel is:

• Enough acid to make 5 blue circuits or 2.5 batteries, or mine 50 uranium ore.
• Enough PG for 5 bars of plastic.
• Enough lube for 3.33 electric engine units.
• Half a batch of crude for the refinery.
• Half a flamer fuel cartridge.
• Still enough heavy oil to kick-start coal liquefaction.

So in other words they're still higher density than most items, in terms of how many crafts you get out of each one.

[Oktokolo]

Barrels finally don't feel like cheating anymore. That is good.
Tankers got nerfed too but became the best option for mass fluid transport regardless. That is good too.
But if you don't plan to revert the removal of the mechanics for separating the three single units of the tanker, you should update the sprite. Make it look like there is only one tank on the tanker to get it consistent with game mechanics.

Someone said, that barrels would be useless now. But barrels are still nice if you need small quantities of liquids together with other stuff at remote locations. Front line supply trains might be a good example.
Barrels got degraded from the best solution to all liquid distribution needs to an option for special cases. But that is, what they should be.

[menschmaschine]

kovarex wrote "Jakub Dvorský, the head of Amanita design, said that projects tend to be more creative in the fist 3 years of the development, while the last 2 years are more about tweaking, polishing and finishing. I feel exactly the same about Factorio. Most of the creative work has been done, and we focus more and more on finishing the game."

Uhm, so that means we won't get other than male playermodels...
That's pretty sad...

[BlackLight]

Thanks for your great work in 2017.

I like the changes to barrels and fluid wagons, too. Once I expand my solar farm with ropoports over depleted oil wells I switch to barreling and robo transport. It usually felt OP to me too. Thanks for changing that.
I usually used one fluid wagon for going to my oil outposts. even then, the trains barely needed to travel and as described needed ages to be emptied. For my current game I switched to 2+4+2 for tanker trains and with the changes it now feels just right. Maybe I even can finally expand it to 3+8+3 trains (like my cargo trains) if it turns out that 2+4+2 are to small.

Thanks!

[jockeril]

Thank you for another wonderful year of Factorio and thank you for the devotion to the game and the community that built around the game.

I've had thousands of hours in the game before and after the steam release, off the steam version so that number is surely more then 100 times more if you combine the hours spent by all the player base you have gathered around the game.

Be proud of your creation for it brought allot of people together and helped some of them with couping with disability and illness - this is a very wonderful and united community from around the world

[Tricorius]

Barrels are now useless >.>

Barrels are fine.

They just have a lower capacity now so you have to scale out a bit and treat them like the other resources. I’ve moved to a belt-based loading / unloading system instead of having bots cart them from the station to the refinery. It’s actuallu kinda interesting to have four belts of barrels coming into the refinery array.

I admit is has made me consider pre-refining at the outposts and just sending around the end products in the ratios needed. The oil version of pre-smelting, as it were.

[Avezo]

You really gotta rethink all recipes before official release. Especially when it comes to copper/iron balance and amound of productivity modules that can be put in entire production chain between raw ores and final science packs. Plus, some recipes just feel weird.

[daydev]

I for one never much liked barrels since the beginning when they were just a crutch to transport crude oil, and used Rail Tanker mod before there was the vanilla fluid wagon. I'm glad to see them finally get a well deserved nerf, and finally the fluid wagon reigns supreme, as it should by all logic.

[ske]

Uhm, so that means we won't get other than male playermodels...

That doesn't require a lot of creativity but is a lot of work for the graphics department. Let them finish the high-res-models for everything else first before they open this can. Also licensing bender from the futurama guys will not be easy.

[Drury]

The fluid wagon changes I'm onboard with, there was very little need for having several in a train even if you accounted for a less regular train service.

Klonan said something about completely redoing the campaign, which there seems to be not much of yet, which kinda makes me less optimistic for a 2018 release. I know freeplay already has most of the game assets present, but... There's always a but, what do I tell you. Got a feeling this might be one of those things that take much longer than it seems at first.

Grats on a productive 2017, and good luck next year!

[Tev]

Thanks for the playtime per commit / LoC / etc. statistic. It nicely highlights how awesome is work of programmer

[stretch611]

Uhm, so that means we won't get other than male playermodels...

That doesn't require a lot of creativity but is a lot of work for the graphics department. Let them finish the high-res-models for everything else first before they open this can. Also licensing bender from the futurama guys will not be easy.

So...

[thecatlover1996]

This FFF would've been perfect for a reminder for the Steam awards, votes are open for Factorio!

[Lubricus]

Uhm, so that means we won't get other than male playermodels...

How do you see it's a male?

[Lubricus]

About the fluid wagons and barrels balance. I think I just do long distance piping, that is simple and works quite well after the 0.15 buff to pipes.

[Oktokolo]

Uhm, so that means we won't get other than male playermodels...

The player model is not male. It is neutral. It has neither sex nor gender.

[IronCartographer]

Uhm, so that means we won't get other than male playermodels...

The player model is not male. It is neutral. It has neither sex nor gender.

On the other hand... There's this:

But maybe women's t-shirts will be released at some point as well.

(I've heard complaints... )