Friday Facts #298 - Demo upgrade for Stable

[Klonan]

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-298

[Gergely]

Well... I hope we still get proper loader graphics.

[AK90]

Im confused. What are you trying to do with loaders? Remove? Integrate? Change?

[Philuminati]

I like the way the lasers changed, but would it be possible to also let them light up their surroundings e.g. the biters they hit and the ground around it? This would make it look even better.

[xng]

I have no idea what you mean with the loaders, are they going to be added, removed, changed, upgraded, limited to certain belts, new graphics, old graphics or something totally different?

[Klonan]

Im confused. What are you trying to do with loaders? Remove? Integrate? Change?

They will be removed from the introduction campaign

[Yenz]

I really don't get the section with the loaders

But I like the beam change for the nights, would be even more awesome if the surroundings are illuminated as well.

[Lonami]

Bright lasers in the night really makes a lot of sense. And it looks beautiful

[BattleFluffy]

Thanks for this awesome round of bug fixes ! :D

The tank buff is a great idea. Tanks were arguably worse than cars before, with this change they become a lot more useful again. :>

The lit lasers look way better!
I second the request to make them a bit glowy :D I wish this glowyness for colorful lights too.. currently they look like kind of like they're painted, because you can't see the light shining on nearby objects. Although, I suppose that would probably cost a lot to render..

Regarding defender robots... I have never really used them much because I always saw them as "worse stats than destroyers". Making them available much earlier in the game, pre-oil, will make them substantially more useful. I will definitely be giving them a try next time I start a new map.

Edit - regarding destroyer capsules.. I've always found the "swing them into the nest" playstyle not particularly satisfying... is there any chance they could orbit the player normally, and move to engage things that enter a "combat area", sort of like with a personal roboport?

[eradicator]

Now that Loaders are gone, we needed a new 1x1 Consumer entity which the player must use inserters to fill.

The thing that i found most irritating about the "loaders" in the NPE was that they vanish after each quest. Like...nothing else just "vanishes" into thin air in factorio. If you're using inserters anyway just use a burner one that conveniently runs out of coal when the quest finishes. Voila, the player gets a free inserter as "quest reward".

Why do you need a seperate 1x1 "consumer". Wouldn't it be more intuitive to insert directly into the broken structure the same one would insert into a working structure?

[MrBuisson]

I like the change to the robots, they were quite underused in every game that I did - for the reason state in the FFF but also because they need to be deployed manually. Factorio is about automation, let eg roboport deploy capsules would really promote their usage, even late game. Deploy if enemy in range, or deploy is unit in range is attacked ... even if only one robot is deployed per trigger it still put more life in a factory. And the early combat robots are still usable late game where players don’t goes face to face agains bitter any longer.

[kirazy]

Im confused. What are you trying to do with loaders? Remove? Integrate? Change?

They will be removed from the introduction campaign

If we're removing loaders from the NPE, does this mean they won't receive official graphics, and so we can do this now?

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=66071

[Shingen]

I fully support removing loaders from the introduction campaign, but a nice loader structure graphics would look sweet for the console-given loaders, like most likely every now and then in following FFFs. You do have a graphic for the infinity chest, which is not used in regular gameplay either, after all - why not the loader too?

Coming back to NPE:
Loaders made absolutely no sense there. As for a replacement, you do not need a "1x1 consumer item" (it will make just as little sense), just have the player gather enough items in his inventory, or insert them with an inserter into a chest.

The buildings magically repairing themselves when you "stick enough iron plates in them" (because that's how the loader usage looked like) make no sense either. Can't you just have a "tutorial assembler" building requiring gathered 20 (or less) iron plates that the player will have to craft manually and place somewhere?

[V453000]

I fully support removing loaders from the introduction campaign, but a nice loader structure graphics would look sweet for the console-given loaders, like most likely every now and then in following FFFs. You do have a graphic for the infinity chest, which is not used in regular gameplay either, after all - why not the loader too?

Coming back to NPE:
Loaders made absolutely no sense there. As for a replacement, you do not need a "1x1 consumer item" (it will make just as little sense), just have the player gather enough items in his inventory, or insert them with an inserter into a chest.

The buildings magically repairing themselves when you "stick enough iron plates in them" (because that's how the loader usage looked like) make no sense either. Can't you just have a "tutorial assembler" building requiring gathered 20 (or less) iron plates that the player will have to craft manually and place somewhere?

In the Introduction, both of these special tasks are what Compilatron would do for you (take items from the special chest and use them for something, like build or repair structures).

P.S. Loader graphics are not for free and we are too busy to make them now. Hopefully we will find time one day.

[abregado]

Wouldn't it be more intuitive to insert directly into the broken structure the same one would insert into a working structure?

Not really. Then you would have the confusion from the one structure that changes its state from "you cant open it" to "you can open it". We want to have a single entity that operates the same way every time (you can use inserters/belts to load it, but not by hand), and I thought that I could repurpose the loaders for that.

The thing that i found most irritating about the "loaders" in the NPE was that they vanish after each quest

It was never intended to stay like that. Have a go with the new Compilatron chest. I think it is pretty neat, and after the quest is over you get a free belt, inserter and iron chest. You are right, it is a nice little reward. I will need to update it before stable so that Compilatron actually looks like it is doing the swapping.

[abregado]

As for a replacement, you do not need a "1x1 consumer item" (it will make just as little sense), just have the player gather enough items in his inventory, or insert them with an inserter into a chest.

That is precisely what seems to happens in the new verson. You load a "locked chest" with items and Compilatron comes and takes the items it needs for the quest.

Of course that isnt actually what happens... the script just takes the items out and it looks like Compilaton takes them. When I write a FFF id prefer to use internal and game design language, rather than explaining something by what it looks like from the outside.

Have a go of the new version and let me know what you think.

[Matthias_Wlkp]

I would think that inserting into an assembler is more "natural" than inserting into a chest. Not sure why does this have to be 1x1 entity... Would it make sense to use an assembler with a very fast process that consumes the product, but gives nothing back? The player is then "rewarded" with an animation of a working assembler, so he understands that it's now working.

I feel that for most of the game you are inserting directly from a belt to an assembler, while chests are a more advanced, intermediary step.

[KubeRoot]

I feel like the new beams look off - specifically the way they light up the pixels underneath them. Particularly visible in this area:

It doesn't make sense for the ground features to be so distinct without the surrounding areas also being illuminated. I feel like the beam needs to either illuminate the surroundings as well, which might be impractical, or it shouldn't light up the ground beneath, instead overblowing the ground and being closer to the color of the beam itself.

[psihius]

One thing I truly hate about Destroyer capsules and despite them being awesome even pre-balance is the fact that by the time you deploy your max follower count of them - you literally have about a minute before they start exploding. Also, constant deployment with big pauses between the deploy take a significant amount of time (30-35%) and interrupt combat a lot. It just breaks the flow horribly.
I can say the same about destroyer deployment, but they seemed to last (at least that's the perception I have) longer. It also is not as much of an issue because they take away biter aggression from you, so you basically run around focusing on their deployment as the primary damage dealer and maybe shoot your gun, but I usually just focus on running and deploying.
The same thing does not work with destroyers - because they follow you, you have to deploy a swarm first and it takes a long time, then you need to focus on their control - where they need to go, especially when you have skeleton equipment stacked high for speed. So you end up constantly every minute or so breaking the flow and re-deploying them. Buy the time you deploy all your 144 or so destroyers, first deployed capsules are about half-way in their life cycle.

I feel one of these need to happen:
1. Lifetime balancing
2. Deployment speedup
3. Introduce togglable auto-deploy equipment (actually I think this would be interesting).

[dee-]

and this:

I feel like the new beams look off - specifically the way they light up the pixels underneath them. Particularly visible in this area:

It doesn't make sense for the ground features to be so distinct without the surrounding areas also being illuminated. I feel like the beam needs to either illuminate the surroundings as well, which might be impractical, or it shouldn't light up the ground beneath, instead overblowing the ground and being closer to the color of the beam itself.