Friday Facts #275 - 0.17 Science changes

[MzzFuzz]

Pipes in Logistics science packs
I'd say no. The first builds/items you craft already require a lot more iron than copper, that will make it even more skewed towards iron.

--What about making copper pipes? I've never really understood why some modpacks have these, and they don't seem to really have a use except in a recipe or two. This helps balance early game resource use, adds that extra level of complexity devs are looking for. Seems like the best of both worlds?

[kamiza]

Really great FF. Thought there would have been a lot more angry mob, but happy to see this is being received quite well.
Just want to be able to get in experimental and PLAY it!

Wanted to +1 this

Some interesting ideas but several of the science names are problematic.

• Red Science is all about Manufacturing, not Automation. It does not include circuits and combinators.
• Green Science is closer to Transport than Logistics. And of course it doesn't include Logistics research! However it also includes so many new technologies that I'd just call it Engineering.
• Blue Science actually comes after most Chemical technologies. The only chemistry it brings is Advanced Oil Processing. With the current tech tree there is no good name for Blue Science as it is mostly upgrades to earlier technologies. Logistics and Personal Roboport technology should be moved to Blue Science and then you can call it Logistics Science. Requiring Yellow Science for Personal Roboport is INSANE. If you don't like bots don't use them.
• Utility Science needs a different name as it suggests early science or Lo Tech. Hi Tech Science was much better.

• I totally agree with Red Science not being called Automation, especially since you have to MANUALLY make the first batch. Manufacturing is a decent choice, but then clashes with [M]ilitary. So maybe "Assembling" to keep the [A] (and since unlocks assembly machine), or Fabrication to match the F with [F]actorio.
• Green, as others have also said, might confuse others since doesn't unlock Logistics Network. But then also takes transportation to unlock it, not it unlocking transportation. So this is a tougher one.
• Blue, no additional comment
• Utility, I agree with this sounding more like an early science, as like things you use all the time early on, like things that go on a tool belt, like a pickaxe (oh wait)

[ThaPear]

Putting both forms of personal roboport behind yellow science will make railworlds (which I exclusively play) a pain to play. As Filias said, building rail networks by hand is not fun at all.
I found the bad roboports you'd get using blue science a good first step to at least start using blueprints in the expansion towards yellow science.

[Diablo]

Please no, not another change to science recipes...

I like the new names, I like the separation of the sciences, I like the laser beams, I like the reduced military research but please leave the recipes alone.

I know nothing I say will make one bit of difference and I have not even commented in the past because of it, but this time I have to at least say something.

So please, do not chance the science recipes. Everything is working just fine, progression is fine, pacing feels fine and it honestly feels like a change for change sake.

I've been playing since 2015 and have seen many changes and most were a definite improvement, except those made to science.
I'll not make an entire point of this now but, for instance, taking the purple science away from the biters, made those biters, imho, please read that again, imho, totally useless and unnecessary in the game. It's the same reason I turn them of now because now they are just a nuisance during expansion.

Well I've said my piece, please continue to browse in peace and harmony.

[Mimos]

I like:
- Personal laser defense and destroyer capsules getting researchable damage bonuses
- The changes to the military techs in general

I don't like:
- yellow science required for personal roboport as I like using it "early" for building rails and some repairs
- the increase of copper required in the low density structure recipe. With the copper in the recipe I already still imagined the assembler's job:
Oh my, this copper stuff is heavy and soft. So this is a good example of how I should not build the low density structure. *throws the copper away and waits for the delivery of even more copper for the next production*
And now it gets even worse (Yes, I know, there are more unrealistic things in factorio).

Questions:
- Do the damage increase techs still stay infinite research?
- Will the tank also get a researchable hp upgrade? Otherwise it will do a lot of damage but die quickly and even be slower than walking with lots of exoskeletons (pretty much the same as it is now).

[spinba11]

When moaning about rail in purple packs don’t forget you get 2 per craft.

[AlexAegis]

Really like the changes

Physical projectile damage

But please rename this to "Kinetic damage".
Sounds way cooler. And more fitting to the theme.

[H8UL]

Rocket silo
Launching a rocket without payload as a victory condition seems counterintuitive and not usability friendly. I'd suggest having a payload as a requirement before being able to launch the rocket. Having the Rocket Silo always work the same way (put something in the rocket) is easier to understand. It also prevents players from accidentally launching an empty rocket after they've won the game.

This would be a better fix. Fixes should improve intuitiveness rather than sidestep issues.

Same as, correct solution for assembly machine ingredient count is to always show incompatible recipes as red with a tooltip, since there are other ways for a recipe to be incompatible anyway: notably chemistry.

You know your solving a UX problem the right way if it solves more things besides and has no loss of gameplay.

[Lizzy]

I got late for work today because I read the full FFF before leaving, but thankfully nobody minds if you're a little late to the office this particular week of the year.

[Rebmes]

Man, what a read! Been at it on and off all day lol

Yes, please, add pipe(s) to the logisctic science pack recipe!! It makes perfect sense, and there's no getting away from having to make pipes real soon anyway!

[Binkenstein]

I'm not sure that rails are the best option for prod science, partially because it's a large steel cost. Medium or Big Electric Poles could be a good alternative.

I'd also like to see some infinite science options for bot distance per recharge, so that they can travel longer between recharges.

[Serenity]

Someone made a good point about the name of purple science. It should be "Chemistry". All the other packs are nouns. Chemical is an adjective. After the other FFF about consistent naming in all areas this should be obvious

[raidho36]

Removing gun turret upgrades but keeping laser turret upgrades have nerfed gun turrets by proxy. They were already all around inferior to laser turrets (unless you you max out all upgrades and use uranium ammo, but even then it lacks reach and is super wasteful for what it does), there were no need to hinder their performance even further.

At least give laser turrets damage dropoff with distance or something (haze and dust defocuses laser beams) so that they don't have superior damage output until at much closer range than gun turret reach.

There needs to be a balance between these turrets, a use case for both of them all the way through, not this unhealthy "replace all gun turrets with laser turrets 2 hours into the game and forget gun turrets existed" meta. Or if you insist that laser turret is an upgrade over gun turret, then make gun turrets require no physical ammo, only a power grid connection.

[V453000]

I'd love to reply to all of you, hopefully I will find time and energy for it later, but just to clarify one very wrong thing:

The personal roboport in yellow tier you are refering to is Personal roboport mk2. Personal roboport mk1 is on blue science.

[V453000]

Questions:
- Do the damage increase techs still stay infinite research?
- Will the tank also get a researchable hp upgrade? Otherwise it will do a lot of damage but die quickly and even be slower than walking with lots of exoskeletons (pretty much the same as it is now).

- Yes, damage techs stay infinite, level7+ is infinite.
- Probably not. It's already very good and in the mega late game when tank is too weak you can just go nuts with power armor 2 + mk2 shields + destroyer robots and everything just melts, or even the Atomic bomb to just one click mass-murder, or even use artillery to not go into combat at all.

[V453000]

Removing gun turret upgrades but keeping laser turret upgrades have nerfed gun turrets by proxy. They were already all around inferior to laser turrets (unless you you max out all upgrades and use uranium ammo, but even then it lacks reach and is super wasteful for what it does), there were no need to hinder their performance even further.

At least give laser turrets damage dropoff with distance or something (haze and dust defocuses laser beams) so that they don't have superior damage output until at much closer range than gun turret reach.

There needs to be a balance between these turrets, a use case for both of them all the way through, not this unhealthy "replace all gun turrets with laser turrets 2 hours into the game and forget gun turrets existed" meta. Or if you insist that laser turret is an upgrade over gun turret, then make gun turrets require no physical ammo, only a power grid connection.

The gun turret bonus damage is included in the Physical projectile damage researches.

[V453000]

Infinite research is mostly military upgrades, so except for production upgrades they lose their appeal very quickly once bitters reach their evolution cap. V453000's Gridlock map really highlights this as he really didn't take any of the space science upgrades and his outposts are just defended by lazily build line of laser turrets (you have to load his game for see that, since there are no screenshots of the defensive lines, obviously because it wasn't interesting to look at). And that's it, that's just what is needed for keep bitters at bay.
Adding an infinite evolution difficulty level (that continuously increases bitter's stats) would help to give utility to infinite research.

Also I want to echo the concern that some people made that since uranium isn't used in science then there aren't enough sinks for it, although maybe is just that uranium is too abundant with the current map generator.

In any case, I think the changes shown in this FFF are an improvement over the current state.

It's true that past some point it gets trivial. You still do need to do something to address them though, with defenses, probably automated artillery, maybe nukes.

However, IF it was getting progressively harder, you would probably see hundreds of hours long saves suddenly come to a point of being simply impossible / or there would be a certain line of average SPM that you would have to keep up in for example laser turret damage in order to survive in the long term. I don't think that's a great idea.

If biters are making you spend time with defenses - researching and improving them, automating repairs, sending supplies, automating artillery etc, they already did their job.

[V453000]

I like the changes overall, but I'm not a fan of the amount of rails needed for production science (just as I'm not with the copper cables right now for high-tech science).

What the heck are rails doing in the production science pack at all? It seems very much out of character as rails are a logistic-related item. I'd say if it gets a third ingredient at all, it should be three AM2s, one for each pack.

As some people have pointed out, it's not like the item in the recipe - rails - has to be a thing which actually does production.

Overall when you start building rails and connecting your factories/outposts, the scale of the whole game goes from big to completely insane. This occurs in a few places in the game like when you get construction robots and I believe these power spikes are something that really makes Factorio quite different from other building games.

As such I think it makes perfect sense to include rails in the production science pack, because starting to use rails really does result in much higher production numbers, in a roundabout way.

[V453000]

The only thing i disagree with is the Production science pack recipe. Why are you forcing me to make 30 of any item per pack (with a stone requirement as well...)? Do you understand how long it's going to take to load? Also, why are you forcing me to make production modules? At least it's only Production 1, but i personally prefer to lower my energy footprint with Efficiency. Why have 3 types if you're going to enforce one type?

The productivity modules are the most interesting ones in what effect do they have on your factory. Short comparison:

- Speed modules make machines faster so you just need less of them. Does increase power consumption at bunch so it motivates you to build bigger power setup, but that's all it does.

- Efficiency modules make you build less power and less defenses for a price of some circuits. That's great and handy especially for outposts when you want to minimize their pollution, but it's not that much of an effect.

- Productivity modules make the factory slower so you either need to make it much bigger or start teching to beacons, as a result require much more power, motivate to use assembling machines 3 because the productivity bonus stacks in the machine and then multiplies between production steps, and makes you able to build much less mining. Also it's the module that snowballs and lets you build the next-tier modules cheaper, that way it's a great idea to start using them from lvl1.

[MeduSalem]

While I like the intention for the names of the science packs to make them themed around something...

... I think some of the ingredients and their amounts are arbitrary chosings and make no sense in the relation of their name/theme and are just thrown into the mix to satisfy certain excel spreadsheet expectations or to make things more complicated for the sake of it.

I think the only thing that makes entirely sense is the Logistic Science Pack with the Transport Belt and Inserters.

Everything else I feel like that at least one or more ingredients are off.

Like for example the rails in the production science pack. Damn that. There is like a couple of machines to pick from.

I also dislike the straight double-use of Low Density Structures in Utility Science and Space Science... because there is not a single use of Low Density Structures in the entire game for anything besides rocket silo stuff. It should be reserved only for Space Science. In general there shouldn't be a double-use.



But then again I was never really a huge fan with the science ingredients needing any finished products in the first place. I always felt like science should be using intermediate items only... and there are quite a lot of them so there is way more than enough to distribute them reasonably around the available science packs and their themes to match both order of availability in the tech tree as well as the overall total amount of each resource used to equal out resource consumption.