Friday Facts #417 - Space Age development

[IG2]

"Notice, that each of the outputs is 8 stacked "

So do stacks now go up to 8?
FF393 was talking about being maxed at 4.

[spinba11]

I think it means 8 stacked belts (each stack is 4 high)

[frayien]

We finished the first iteration of the Gleba enemy (to be shown later).

New enemy ? HYPE !!!

[Koub]

We finished the first iteration of the Gleba enemy (to be shown later).

New enemy ? HYPE !!!

NEW TREES §§§
jk I'm curious to see the new enemies we're going to have to deal with.

[Necronium]

remember that this FFF shown us trees that we could farm then but now never will

[adam_bise]

We finished the first iteration of the Gleba enemy (to be shown later).

New enemy ? HYPE !!!

Hmm "the" Gleba enemy? Sounds large and terrifying =D

[Anima117]

Very interesting look behind the scene. And I love the pictures, can't wait for the release date to be confirmed.

However, the other thing I can't wait for, is to learn a bit more about the mysterious new "military targets". The bitters are nice, but they are a bit predictable after a while, so I am curious to see what the others could do.

[GregoriusT]

The biters are nice, but they are a bit predictable after a while, so I am curious to see what the others could do.

It is actually a good thing that Biters are predictable, that way you can actually implement strategies and outposts in ways that Biters either wont attack or attack at very specific locations, so you dont need to build a full blown perimeter covering the everything (which is boring as heck), like you would have to with the Rampant AI Mod or so.

That said, obviously those new Enemies should behave differently from Biters, so that you need to use different Strategies to keep those at bay, without needing to brute force wall up the everything.

[Anima117]

The biters are nice, but they are a bit predictable after a while, so I am curious to see what the others could do.

It is actually a good thing that Biters are predictable, that way you can actually implement strategies and outposts in ways that Biters either wont attack or attack at very specific locations, so you dont need to build a full blown perimeter covering the everything (which is boring as heck), like you would have to with the Rampant AI Mod or so.

That said, obviously those new Enemies should behave differently from Biters, so that you need to use different Strategies to keep those at bay, without needing to brute force wall up the everything.

Oh I'm not saying that it is a bad thing. But rather, you always end up with roughly the same defense design. Usually, double walls, flamethrowers every few meters, and either machine guns, or lasers depending on whether or not you want to invest in more power output or more ammo production. It isn't bad or anything, but having to make something different for a change would be nice, just as you said, different strategies would be nice.

For example, if an enemy went over walls, that'd force you to imagine your defenses in an entirely different way, where firepower would be way more important than stoping the enemy wave and repairing the damage with a robot swarm waiting for that.

It would of course end up in the same boat as each planet would get the "I always do this design because it works", but if the point of each planet is to force you to make new designs, I want the defenses to also get that, idealy.

Of course you can already make wacky stuff, such as a train wall that goes super fast... But that's the type of designs that is more "I don't know what to do with my ressources" rather than just "this is efficient and works fine, and I feel good about leaving this unatended while I work on something else". It's a bit of an overkill.

[Sliverious]

I don't know if I would use "vertical slice" in the same way as you did in the blogpost, but interesting to read about the process. I also like that you shared some development assets, not a lot of people outside of development ever see the bare bones you have to work with before release.

[mcdjfp]

This one just made me sad. It basically made it official that the add-on was never headed in a direction that I would have liked. Factorio isn't the only game in its genre, but I kept on coming back to it for three reasons.

1. Random Maps. The moment I heard that Satisfactory had a fixed map it lost all my interest. While the individual maps may still be random, hearing about the deliberate choice to bind the progression and several fixed planets together was disappointing and confirmed what was bugging me about the structure of the add-on. Not a deal breaker in and of itself, but it was tempering my excitement quite a bit.
2. Fluids, or more specifically the interplay between the different kinds of logistics. Trains, belts, pipes, bots, electric grid were all different. Now, fluids are too much like the electric grid, just like how in another game I tried, the fluids were essentially items on a special belt. Tell me why I should play Factorio if it is removing what I felt made it better and different than its competition? The fluid system definitely could have used some work, but not what functionally amounts to removal (Too much similarity with another existing feature (Now we have Trains, belts, bots, grids (electric/fluid), 4 vs 5).
3. A fail state. I liked the biters as a fail state for my factory. It gave me something to deal with, and while there were optimal solutions, it was also possible to use other solutions, and tweak them. I did have a persistent issue following 1.0 where the biters would be closer to the starting resource patches than the spawn point. This would end up with a 50+ biter attack wave on standard settings about the time I finished the 2nd research. At least area this seems to be untouched.

Well, there was a 4th reason as well. I really enjoyed the Friday Facts, and the explanations/details in them. It is just, I get a joy out of solving a complex recipe chain, not stamping down 20 copies of the same thing. There was a strong theme in this Friday Facts centering on UPS and SPM. Chasing SPM has never been one of the things that interested or entertained me (though some of the builds did impress me). I also don't mind a long game. Yes, the quality and spoilage sounded interesting, but the trade-off simply isn't worth it to me. Honestly, I would be stupid to buy the add-on when it would only encourage further moves in what I feel is the wrong direction. Maybe by the time a second add-on and a 3.0 update comes with it, the development will have switched directions again into something I can get behind.

The worst thing is, many of the downgrades are being bundled into a patch for the base game, while many improvements (and the ones that seem to be forcing the downgrades to enable) are a part of the paid add-on. So not only is this a case of don't buy the add-on if you don't like it. It is a case of stop updating the game if you don't like the add on.

I will still watch, hoping that the direction will change again. Or maybe a mod will come out that either fixes the downgrades (probably at the expense of more performance than if it was in the game itself) or is so impressive that it makes post 2.0 Factorio worth it.

Unless, of course, with a lower standard to beat, another game pulls me away before that happens.

[GregoriusT]

3. A fail state. I liked the biters as a fail state for my factory. It gave me something to deal with, and while there were optimal solutions, it was also possible to use other solutions, and tweak them. I did have a persistent issue following 1.0 where the biters would be closer to the starting resource patches than the spawn point. This would end up with a 50+ biter attack wave on standard settings about the time I finished the 2nd research. At least area this seems to be untouched.

It seems untouched because the Devs deliberately hide the new Enemies from their Screenshots. They are sometimes visible on their Minimap though. All of those Planets have plenty of Enemies on them.

I would be stupid to buy the add-on when it would only encourage further moves in what I feel is the wrong direction.

What really is the "wrong direction"?

Have you never noticed how repetitive the Nauvis Map is in 1.0? The new Nauvis Worldgen alone is a great improvement to randomness.

Did you ever have to actually deal with the way Fluids Flow inside of the Pipes, and not just the way the Pipe Connections are arranged, which is something you can already stamp down a la copypasta in 1.0? I know I didnt have to deal with how Fluids are in Pipes until it reached the point where i needed to run multiple pipes in parallel with pump spam.

Have you ever thought that maybe those new Enemies will charge to attack you from further away, and that the Deathworld Preset is a thing? Those new Planets have the added benefit of being able to be dangerous instantly, since you got preptime!

Or how Spoilage is something you only really have to deal with for one specific Science Pack and some local Material procurement? It might actually become a neat puzzle and challenge to deal with.

Ever thought about how performance is not an Issue that can be solved with "buy a better computer" on the mere fact that singlethreaded performance has practically not increased in a decade or so? Sure it got cheaper, smaller, produces less heat and speculative processing is a thing, but the clock speed is still at the same limit. A better GPU and more Threads wont do shit against lag caused by things like Biter Pathfinding and the old Fluid System.

Also telling people who may not have the money, to just buy a better gaming rig, would be a horrendous thing to do, so improving performance is the best way to go about it, and the Gigabases with huge SPM are a side effect of better performance.

[Panzerknacker]

I would be stupid to buy the add-on when it would only encourage further moves in what I feel is the wrong direction.

TEXT

I think the man is just here giving his opinion and does not need you trying to change it. He has very valid points and I think what you say about it is not really true. I also am sceptic about somes changes, which I consider the 'wrong direction' as well. But we will see when the game comes out, we can try 2.0.

You have your opinion, we have ours.

[dog80]

30 people is impressive

[Kyralessa]

This one just made me sad. It basically made it official that the add-on was never headed in a direction that I would have liked. Factorio isn't the only game in its genre, but I kept on coming back to it for three reasons.

Well, there's no pleasing everyone.

...It is just, I get a joy out of solving a complex recipe chain, not stamping down 20 copies of the same thing. There was a strong theme in this Friday Facts centering on UPS and SPM. Chasing SPM has never been one of the things that interested or entertained me (though some of the builds did impress me). I also don't mind a long game. Yes, the quality and spoilage sounded interesting, but the trade-off simply isn't worth it to me. Honestly, I would be stupid to buy the add-on when it would only encourage further moves in what I feel is the wrong direction. Maybe by the time a second add-on and a 3.0 update comes with it, the development will have switched directions again into something I can get behind.

Have you played the Space Exploration mod?

It's quite complex, but it also has many levels of speed, productivity, and efficiency modules, meaning you can potentially juice up a production chain without having to build ten or twenty or a hundred copies of it. This might be more to your liking.

[Tertius]

It is just, I get a joy out of solving a complex recipe chain, not stamping down 20 copies of the same thing. There was a strong theme in this Friday Facts centering on UPS and SPM.

This is closely tied, and it's actually supporting your play style. Improving speed and SPM for single machines mean you don't need to stamp down 20 copies of the same thing but just one, because one thing is already fast enough. You can fully concentrate on solving complex challenges and don't need to stamp down the same thing 20 times to get acceptable speed and throughput.

[Anima117]

Well, there was a 4th reason as well. I really enjoyed the Friday Facts, and the explanations/details in them. It is just, I get a joy out of solving a complex recipe chain, not stamping down 20 copies of the same thing. There was a strong theme in this Friday Facts centering on UPS and SPM. Chasing SPM has never been one of the things that interested or entertained me (though some of the builds did impress me). I also don't mind a long game. Yes, the quality and spoilage sounded interesting, but the trade-off simply isn't worth it to me. Honestly, I would be stupid to buy the add-on when it would only encourage further moves in what I feel is the wrong direction. Maybe by the time a second add-on and a 3.0 update comes with it, the development will have switched directions again into something I can get behind.

The worst thing is, many of the downgrades are being bundled into a patch for the base game, while many improvements (and the ones that seem to be forcing the downgrades to enable) are a part of the paid add-on. So not only is this a case of don't buy the add-on if you don't like it. It is a case of stop updating the game if you don't like the add on.

I think you focus too much on the fact that other people may want to play differently from how you play and enjoy the game...
The reason they make the addon "beatable quickly" is because, not everybody has 300 hours to spend on a single save. Most people have a job, maybe even a family. I'll take myself as an example, I currently work 9 to 5, with a 1 to 1h30 car trip to get to work. When I get home, I have roughly 5h of free time before I enter the "I should really go to bed or I wont be doing good tomorrow" time, and I got plenty of games to play, stuff to watch etc, not just factorio. And that's without counting cooking, house chores etc which might require immediate attention. That and also I take care of my stepfather which also takes time sometimes.

While I also don't mind playing 300 hours on a save, it will be a very irregular save for me. I usually play factorio on my weekends due to it being lenghty. But playing fast isn't a requirement of the addon. It is just here to say "You don't HAVE to spend 300 hours on this. But you can". It is just here to allow more people to enjoy it.

As for the whole SPM thing, it's pretty easy. There are people who like to overdo their save. I mentioned in previous FFF threads that I personally look forward to sending items from planet to planet once you reach the capacity to do so. This is probably something you wont have to do too much on the regular gameplay, but you could for example use Fulgora as a theorically infinite source of oil, and Vulcanus as a theorically infinite source of copper, iron and stone, ready to be processed and shipped to planets that have less stuff on them. But it probably isn't going to be a requirement.

Basically, when you play regular factorio currently, you get to your rocket launch. Once you launched the rocket, you won. Anything you do on that save after that is on you, and whatever you want to do. There are no goals post rocket launching, except the ones your set for yourself. Making a huge base that can spew out a million science per minute is maybe something some people want to do... Just like quality, it is here for you, IF and only IF you wish to engage with it. Which you will want to do that IF you want to micro-optimise your factory to run as efficiently as possible, both via quality and via scale. But it isn't the "goal" of the game itself. Again, it is an option they add to the game, nothing more, nothing less.

[hecktarzuli]

The last photo doesn't make sense. With beacon overload having that many beacons around silos should disable all of them (or something)

[Loewchen]

The last photo doesn't make sense. With beacon overload having that many beacons around silos should disable all of them (or something)

It's almost as if beacon overload does not exist without mods...

[GregoriusT]

The last photo doesn't make sense. With beacon overload having that many beacons around silos should disable all of them (or something)

It's almost as if beacon overload does not exist without mods...

I think the diminishing returns from a previous FFF were what this is referring to, which indeed would not shut it off entirely, but it does fix the Issue of huge buildings being way too beaconable.