Friday Facts #252 - Sound design & Map editor

[QGamer]

Yes, yes, yes!
More sound = more immersion! I'd especially love to see what types of environments you create with the sound...
As for the map editor, I'm glad you're making it easier to use! I used the map editor to make some custom scenarios but the interaction with items & chests was kinda awkward. I'm excited to try out the new editor-controller!

An idea for the nests...when biters construct the nests, maybe there's an intermediate smaller stage where the nest sends out fewer biters and is easier to kill?

[Engimage]

Btw on the provided screenshot with new spawners (which look nice to me) biters look just too merged with surroundings so I can barely see them at all. They definitely need more color and contrast added to them.

[bobingabout]

I love what you did with the editor.

[Ojelle]

If you want epic gun sound, please take a look at world of tanks. Expecially the larger calibre guns are really nice to hear! At one point they recorded real tanks to use in the game. And not just the gun, also the locking in place combo fits nicer together. Here (imho) it the 'bang' comes a tad to fast after the 'click'.


183mm gun
https://youtu.be/wCyiaKKcyIg?t=2m46s

100mm gun
https://youtu.be/kLEn9-LdvJY?t=1m46s

Note that the 'pulling the trigger' is not always immediatly after the loading sound itself. So I do not mean that the difference in time should be like the second link at 1m46. This is to long for what you intend.

And guys, really, epic work. Sounds really good already. The biters look awesome too!

[RedArcliteTank]

The sound I'm missing the most is a heavy, metallic thud when the rocket silo closes after the rocket started. Something like this, maybe a little more mechanic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyXZf4vG8Fs

[OvermindDL1]

As mainly a late game player i often find myself reloading creative mode mod . Creating a small setup and testing it using items like creative belt loaders and fluid sources.Saving a blueprint, unload the creative mod and then resuming my main game. If the Map editor is to be truely powerfull i would like it to include these creative belt loaders and fluid sources , so the map editor could be used for testing setups.I think this would be a good feature to have in the main game.Even introducing the player to the idear of testing setups as part of the main tutorial.This would also remove the need to reload twice due to using mods.
Keep up the good Work...
3919 Hours and counting.. lol

Sounds cheaty, why not use the Blueprint Lab mod?
It basically gives you everything free in a virtual area/surface to build and then blueprint, things are not transferred between in an out.

[Oktokolo]

I am all hyped for new sounds and not needing creative mode for testing stuff anymore.
More diversity at the biter bases is good too. Starcraft-style creeper is also nice to have.

Please also prevent the red map effect at late game where literally the whole map outside your perimeter is covered with biter bases and you need hours to clear a path to the next ore deposits. At that game phase, you have abombs in the hundreds just lying around and cleaning biter nests is just a chore if there are thousands to deal with. Give each biter nest a maximum size and a perimeter that is kept free of other nests. Having some biter metropolis in each area is fine but there definitely needs to be more nature than just biters inhabiting the world in late game.
Would also be nice to have different species prefering to settle in different climates and generally having less population in desert areas (less water -> less life).
Support for polluted water would also be nice - so we could have modded drain pipes visually poisoning the sea.

[EarPencilMan]

Fancy sounds is going to be awesome - keep up the great work guys! Imo there should be a slightly longer delay between the reload sound and the fire sound on the artillery gun, but nevertheless, I'm sure its final state will be great

[dog80]

nice to see upgrades to sounddesign and more great graphics - the art tower is super good

[Omnifarious]

I don't care how massive the artillery train car is. The entire car shouldn't remain rock steady as it fires. I don't know how hard it would be to add, but there should be some sort of movement animation that shows recoil affecting the train car.

[Alice3173]

I tried to use the map editor a few months ago, found a ton of just little annoyances (try creating a "pool" of nothingness and see what it does to the map) and gave up. It was unintuitive, clunky, and the process of loading in to playtest was a pain for fine-tuning. Glad to see it's getting some attention before release ^_^ often these tools are overlooked.

I've tried messing around with the editor a handful of times but it was way too clunky and unintuitive. I struggled to even figure out how to place a container and drop stuff into it. Hopefully this new editor will make it as easy as placing a chest then left clicking it afterwards. (Or some other simple and straightforward equivalent.)

[Luaan]

I enjoy the map editor very much, and especially the multiplayer capability. Have you guys given 'triggers' or similar functionality or some other scripting any thought? I've spent several years in the wc3 map editor and would love it if factorio got something similar

Factorio is something like 98% written in script (Lua). Pretty much everything you can do in a mod, you can also do in "map script" (that's how the campaign and scenarios work). I'm still a bit surprised that there's so few custom scenarios/campaigns being made, I hope that'll get better after the new official campaign And since the map editor has a Lua tab, I wouldn't be too surprised if it allowed live Lua script editing as well... Of course, this still requires you to write text - it isn't in the form of Blizzard's "Trigger 'on killed 10 marines' -> Action 'change all units in faction Mengsk's Marines to Jim Raynor' ". An editor with that style could be created by the community, though not sure if the in-game map editor could be scriptable in a way to allow adding this in-game too - that would be cool.

Anyway, I love the JIT map editor - great job, guys

[steinio]

I would love to hear the biters roar in the distance to feel the danger.

[Trax.Beaumont]

Regarding the artillery sound:
In my gaming experience I've come across a lot of games with artillery in it. But the one game that nailed it for me the best was in Total Annhilation. It just had that deep and rich firing sound after which you knew you just messed something big up for your opponent. I've recorded some of the sounds directly from the game and attached it here. So please have a listen for yourself.

The new artillery sound for Factorio is already a huge improvement but it still lacks the right "oomph" for me. Maybe the devs will take a look at Total Annihilation for inspiration.

[Unclebod]

@Rsed:
Permissible Permissception. I guess we'll see how it turns out .

Nice. BUT - OPTIMIZE FLUIDS. NOW

Is "make all the connected things behave like a single tank"-type optimization still on the table btw, or was that discarted?

Not discarted but maybe it got flushed down the drain?

/UncleBod - the none and lonley

[ske]

Your editor changes look amazing! Together with the mod portal improvements this gives factorio a huge potential in the long term of running games/mods/maps the developers didn't even think about.

[Optera]

Seamlessly switching from normal game to map editor sounds like a great way to cover up the seams between different map generator versions.
Can the new editor purge a marked area of chunks to force regeneration with a newer generator or just respawn resources?

[Brathahn]

spawners.jpg (233.15 KiB) Viewed 8678 times

[steinio]

spawners.jpg

[Paul17041993]

As someone that's played a lot of various war games, the artillery sound is a warm welcome. I do find it surprising though that you had two sets of methods for player and editor modes, most games go for the null-player route initially (which is also what I'd choose) which is very simple to implement, and any player-specific variables or calls are routable automatically via the null-player (not actually 0x0 NULL, but not a full player that walks around). Entering sandbox/edit mode is as simple as switching the player and brining up extra GUIs for non-player objects, which I can see you've already implemented now, which is awesome!