Friday Facts #64 - The plans

[n9103]

"factorioids"

It would seem these robotic AI are sentient, and therefore a unique species.
Obviously this race should be called "Factorians"

[Asero]

Maybe look at multiple possible endings?

[Option 1: Rescue]
* Instead of rocket defense create a communications array to contact passing spaceships
* Build a "docking" platform to service / trade with spaceships
* Trade resources to gather enough favor / credits
* Book passage to hell knows where


[Option 2: Build Own]
* Same as above: Communicate and trade with passing ships
* Trade for necessary technologies / resources to complete ship
* Trade for fuel or make your own (much slower)
* Construct launch platform


[Option 3: Control]
* Create technology / tools to analyze alien DNA
* Create platform to try and control swarms
-> [Option 4: Unity]
* Integrate and alter your own DNA with that of the aliens
* Unite and control all spawns on the planet
-> [Option 5: Divergence]
* Create your own offspring of the aliens to attack the others
* Can fit in with option 1/2 to help escape planet (hard mode)

[Zeblote]

-I don't remember the reason for posting this nonsens so I'll delete it-

[cpy]

Sprites are cool for this game. You don't need 3D for this game. I don't really need to end game, but i love space ships. One more thing, we have cars but no ships and planes?

I want my offshore drilling platforms and oil spills from my tankers everywhere.

[kovarex]

That you're working on high quality renders makes me wonder what the point of using spritesheets is in the first place. As you're clearly not happy with the pixelated stuff (I thought this was the art style of the game - pixelated by design), why aren't you using a 3d engine?

I don't know from what you think the game is pixelated, when you are zoomed at 1, the game is as smooth as it can get. There are always pixels, even in 3d game.

[darksparks]

One more thing, we have cars but no ships and planes?

everyone who ever got flight research was disappointed.. its a picture of a plane.. and there is no plane.. but if they gonna add spaceships mby we can fly those or maybe its just a re-skinned terrain that makes it look like your on a ship.. =P

[imajor]

One more thing, we have cars but no ships and planes?

I want my offshore drilling platforms and oil spills from my tankers everywhere.

Totally agree. At least ships are really missing. Especially when it turns out that your starting location is on an island.

[cpy]

To be honest, selling point of this game for me was that i can mine coal, burn coal and make nasty smoke that ruin day for alien critters. Nothing more.

[Align]

I agree that the game shouldn't end end, but rather you get some cool final ability, like an orbital communication or weapons platform or something. If you've managed to get stuff into space it's probably safe to say the game is essentially over, so the ability to scout wherever you want or attack biter nests without personally being present seems reasonable at that point.
Then you get a message saying "Congratulations! You can now call for help or a ride off the planet whenever you want." and the option to exit to main menu or continue playing, like in Civilization. High score board optional.

[billw]

I thought the premise of Factorio is that you are a scout sent ahead of a colony ship to prepare the planet for its arrival? And the rocket defense is meant to protect the colony ship during landing?
How does making a ship and selling stuff make any sense in this context?
Surely another just as simple and more sensible option would be that the colonists arrive (you build a landing platform), they move into their new quarters (which you built) and you prepare factories to provide them with necessities (water, food, waste disposal, defense, luxuries etc.)
That can pretty much be written now just using new factories and a couple of bespoke animations of ship landing etc.
Then when you want to add dlc/extended content you can create missions, or new challenges. e.g. colonists want to expand into a new area and you have to build transportation and accommodation at the other end. Maybe the new area has new dangers you have to create defense for.

Selling stuff to become rich just makes zero sense to me as an end game.

[Keyalha]

The whole story was just a placeholder as far as i am aware. And honestly if I have the choice between colonists landing and building a modular spaceship with a working factory setup on it i easily take the latter no matter what the original story intent was.

[Rahjital]

Yeah, the combinatorial factory building of the game but on a spaceship where every last tile of space counts? That sounds great! It would directly reward space efficiency and would be an interesting challenge compared to building on ground. What sounds lacking is what you are supposed to do with the ship. "Fly somewhere to win", boring... I would much prefer if it was something like mining asteroids for ore not available on the planet (iridium?), setting up orbital solar platforms or something similar. In other words, not the goal itself, but a part of the necessary path to it.

Then again, the devs did say they are going to reconsider it, so the best thing we can do is wait for their next word.

[imajor]

I think it would be great if the player should keep constant production (for example to supply a colony with goods) instead of collecting resources for a one time only purpose (like building the rocket defense).

[katyal]

I haven't really been able to get my thoughts into words yet but I am definitely with imajor.

Build 1 rocket defense = yawn
Build 1 rocket defense per unit of time (hours, minutes, or seconds) for a sstained amount of time ...now thats a challenge.

I use rocket defense only as a quick way to make a point here I would like to see new stuff in the game.

I know at first it seems like its just repetitive but there are some interesting problems to solve once you get to that scale of production, such as getting enough throughput to keep everything running

[imajor]

Build 1 rocket defense per unit of time (hours, minutes, or seconds) for a sstained amount of time ...now thats a challenge.

Just to increase the challenge even further: do that in a limited space, for example on an island or a fixed spaceship platform.

[Boogieman14]

The supply challenge scenario is an interesting direction. I would love to have something like that that essentially activates at the point where you currently build Rocket Defense.

[CrushedIce]

I think the game should always give the player the choice whether he will end the game or play further.
As we have an (nearly) unlimited world with (nearly) unlimited ressources it would be theoretically possible to upgrade your factory further and further.

Therefore I actually like the colonization idea. To give it a more or less believable background and a sense to colonize the planet, I thought about the following story:

-The first goal for the player is to build a communication station. This could be as expensive as the rocket defense is now. With this station, he tries to contact the earth in order to get rescued, but he receives no answer.

-Then, he tries to build a spaceship on his own (should be really expensive and take some time). With that, he flies to earth. There, he sees that the aliens (not the ones on our planet - the real badass ones) attacked earth and destroyed it almost completely. He lands and takes a few survivors with him.

-With them, he travels back to the planet and builds quarters. Then, the colonization aspect begins. He has to provide food, water, eletronics... and defend them. If he can do that for some time the player has two choices: He can end the game or he can send another spaceship to earth and try to rescue more survivors. If he decides to do so, he must provide more and more ressources. You could do that as often as you want, but the game gets more and more difficult. There could also be the possibility that the spaceship gets destroyed --> extra need of ressources

I think this story would would give the colonization approach a rather believable background and provide a reason to build your factory bigger and bigger.
Feel free to share your thoughts about that idea

[jakobeng1303]

Mac? Dear Developer team,
OS 10.10 was announced at WWDC 2014 and the customers got it in the middle of October, since then (actually since the developer version was released) you had time to fix the Mac problems for 10.10 and release a version capable with the new software. I have no clue about scripting, but 2 months should be enough to adapt factorio to the changes. I know multiplayer is a lot of work, but all the mac customers can't play the game. Apparently thats less important than multiplayer, but I suppose thats just what Mac gamers have to cope with.

[kovarex]

Mac? Dear Developer team,
OS 10.10 was announced at WWDC 2014 and the customers got it in the middle of October, since then (actually since the developer version was released) you had time to fix the Mac problems for 10.10 and release a version capable with the new software. I have no clue about scripting, but 2 months should be enough to adapt factorio to the changes. I know multiplayer is a lot of work, but all the mac customers can't play the game. Apparently thats less important than multiplayer, but I suppose thats just what Mac gamers have to cope with.

Hello, did you try the experimental 0.11.6 ? It works with yosemite.
And yes, we could have done it sooner, but we didn't know about the problem sooner, and then we had a hundrerts of other problems to be fixed, so sorry for the trouble, but we are trying to solve all the problems.

As I'v said somewhere else, once we get 2-3 more programmers I hope everything will go smoother

[jakobeng1303]

Hello, did you try the experimental 0.11.6 ? It works with yosemite.
And yes, we could have done it sooner, but we didn't know about the problem sooner, and then we had a hundrerts of other problems to be fixed, so sorry for the trouble, but we are trying to solve all the problems.

As I'v said somewhere else, once we get 2-3 more programmers I hope everything will go smoother [/quote]

I'm very sorry, I didn't see that version and tried the 10.12 which didn't work! My favourite game now work again ))))