Friday Facts #362 - Menu simulation, Spidertron, Ghost building, Confirm button

[IronCartographer]

detecting and following progress in-game might feel more restrictive.

Can you not just look at the techs researched for the most recent save?

It was not a question of how, but why: Why should it be limited when the whole point is to highlight things to come, maintaining player interest and motivation to try those things for themselves?

[Brambor]

Amazing!

I wonder just about the poles.
If a pole has a reach of X, then networks X apart are connected.
If networks are 2X+1 apart, you can place a pole in the middle to connect those networks (which is done automagically now while holding down the button).
What about networks between X+1 and 2X apart? Will holding down the button for placement place a pole and connect those networks automagically?

[kovarex]

Can I finally blueprint this in 1.1?

factorio_2020-10-30_22-25-17.png

Sure, that is the point.

Wube, you are great as always! Actually, I'm waiting for 1.1 even more than it was with 1.0, 'cause these QoL improvements look really game-changing.
But I have one question related to the new wire connections behavior. How it will affect the existing blueprints? I mean, if they don't remember wire connections as of now, will they be constructed without any connections at all after the patch? Or will they behave as if costructed by hand and try to connect automatically?
And speaking of new wires behavior, will you add the checkbox for this in the blueprint UI, or will it be applied to all blueprints just by default?

Luckily, we store map version info in the blueprints and also in the blueprint strings, so there is a specific migration when importing/loading older blueprints. The migrations adds all the missing connections manually.

Can I use mods/scripts to add my own scenes to the menu? I think many global mods would really like to do this. Either I, as the creator of modpacks, would like to display in the menu what my modpack contains.

Sure, that would be welcome actually. We are slowly building the "deck" of the simulations, and it feels kind of cozy to just sit and watch them come and go, my son spent quite some time looking at it, but obviously, the more there are, the better.

detecting and following progress in-game might feel more restrictive.

Can you not just look at the techs researched for the most recent save?

It was not a question of how, but why: Why should it be limited when the whole point is to highlight things to come, maintaining player interest and motivation to try those things for themselves?

This was considered, but as you suggest, we finally decided to allow everything, to give the player a small peak/motivation of what the game can offer.

[Octoshape]

I‘m not sure, but isn‘t there a graphical glitch in the GIF where the spidertron moves its legs to not step onto rail tracks?



It looks like the spidertron‘s leg on the very right side is in front of the train even though it‘s standing behind the track.

Or am I just seeing things?

[IronCartographer]

It looks like the spidertron‘s leg on the very right side is in front of the train even though it‘s standing behind the track.

Or am I just seeing things?

Sprite layer limitations. The legs are rendered in front of the train regardless of position, which works for the bottom two but causes the "glitch" with the furthest right one (and left, too--anything where it is not far enough "behind" to also be "above"). Solving every single potential issue with sprite layering on the fly would be a nightmare.

At a certain point the logic would become comparable to that of a full 3D render, which sounds like Factorio 2.0 (multi-threaded and speed-of-light delayed-message-passing from the start?) to me.

[cz_zlobr]

That Video makes me laugh!! Exactly, exactly this was, what I was doing many times Thank you a LOT, LOT LOT for this! and replacing ghosts belts with another direction belt is super too! I love you


super práce

[tempstuff]

The electric poles not matching was heating up my OCD... so thanks for the fix

[Xynariz]

FFF #362 indicates that there will be a Factorio logo that will be "buildable in the map editor without the use of mods". I have a few questions about this, being as pedantic and curious as I am.

1) Will the Factorio and/or Wube logos be buildable/placable in vanilla freeplay? If not, and pardon my ignorance here, would it be possible to make a mod that does make them buildable in-game?
2) Will various sizes of the logo be buildable? The "FactorioLogo" mod from V453000 has a large (84-tile wide) logo, while the one in the FFF appears to be 11 tiles wide. I would love to be able to build different sizes of logos in different places (though I can see that it might be a bit much in the crafting menu).
3) If this logo can be built in-game, and especially if it can be built in-game with larger sizes, can those larger sizes cost more to build? I'd love to see a behemoth logo that's visually 2m tall that cost hundreds of steel to build. But... maybe I will finally stop being lazy and learn to write a mod myself eventually.

[kovarex]

FFF #362 indicates that there will be a Factorio logo that will be "buildable in the map editor without the use of mods". I have a few questions about this, being as pedantic and curious as I am.

1) Will the Factorio and/or Wube logos be buildable/placable in vanilla freeplay? If not, and pardon my ignorance here, would it be possible to make a mod that does make them buildable in-game?
2) Will various sizes of the logo be buildable? The "FactorioLogo" mod from V453000 has a large (84-tile wide) logo, while the one in the FFF appears to be 11 tiles wide. I would love to be able to build different sizes of logos in different places (though I can see that it might be a bit much in the crafting menu).
3) If this logo can be built in-game, and especially if it can be built in-game with larger sizes, can those larger sizes cost more to build? I'd love to see a behemoth logo that's visually 2m tall that cost hundreds of steel to build. But... maybe I will finally stop being lazy and learn to write a mod myself eventually.

The logo is for editor/script only, the sizes are 11/16/22 tiles.

[Tesse11ation]

I think one touch that would really hit home for people like me who used to play RCT1/2 and Chris Sawyer's Locomotion would be having a track unique to the title screen. Something to play along with the simulation that doesn't appear anywhere else in the game.

My suggestion for the title screen music.

(Side note: I'm not endorsing uploading copyrighted OST's to YouTube. Don't do what this guy did. Also he has a Patreon link in the description, that could get him in some legal trouble if he makes money from other people's music.)

[Illiou]

I think one touch that would really hit home for people like me who used to play RCT1/2 and Chris Sawyer's Locomotion would be having a track unique to the title screen. Something to play along with the simulation that doesn't appear anywhere else in the game.

My suggestion for the title screen music.

I like that idea. When I first started Factorio with Krastorio 2 installed the mod's great music together with the fresh artwork in the background just blew me away. And this song would certainly achieve similar.

[factoriouzr]

Can we please have at least the change for train station soft limits before the weekend?

[BattleFluffy]

Awesome changes, I love the fast replace for the ghosts and the preservation of wire connections in blueprints - that really helps to make Power Switch worthwhile. Spidertron changes are great too - it really needs the logistics requests as there's no way to insert items into it with an inserter, unlike with car/tank/wagon. It looks so cool as well, the way it precisely steps over stuff - just amazing code.
+1 on the idea mentioned by several others of blurring the opening screen a little bit, to give the menus a sensation of distance from the actual game.

[Guenni7]

"E to confirm" will really make me happy, no idea how many thousand times I forgot to confirm with enter and exited without doing anything

[McGuten]

Spidertron logistic requests

One of the main uses for spidertron is to let them build using the personal roboports, but the lack of an automated resupply method made the process less flawless than intended. This applies also to using them for combat, as restocking ammunition, repair packs and such, had to be done manually.

Does that mean all vehicles, including cargo wagons, could be made to use logistics?
Or is it just a hardcoded special case for spidertron?

Just for spidey, but it wasn't so hard, so in the future we might consider adding it to vehicles, but generally only if we plan to use it in the base game

Would it be possible to add this option for modders even if it is not used in the base game giving the possibility for mods to modify it?
I think this would give many gameplay options and make the vehicles more helpful.

[factoriouzr]

Spidertron logistic requests

One of the main uses for spidertron is to let them build using the personal roboports, but the lack of an automated resupply method made the process less flawless than intended. This applies also to using them for combat, as restocking ammunition, repair packs and such, had to be done manually.

Does that mean all vehicles, including cargo wagons, could be made to use logistics?
Or is it just a hardcoded special case for spidertron?

Just for spidey, but it wasn't so hard, so in the future we might consider adding it to vehicles, but generally only if we plan to use it in the base game

Would it be possible to add this option for modders even if it is not used in the base game giving the possibility for mods to modify it?
I think this would give many gameplay options and make the vehicles more helpful.

I agree. It would be great to have this moddable for all vehicles, trains, train cargo wagons etc.

Thanks

[Tesse11ation]

Spidertron logistic requests

One of the main uses for spidertron is to let them build using the personal roboports, but the lack of an automated resupply method made the process less flawless than intended. This applies also to using them for combat, as restocking ammunition, repair packs and such, had to be done manually.

Does that mean all vehicles, including cargo wagons, could be made to use logistics?
Or is it just a hardcoded special case for spidertron?

Just for spidey, but it wasn't so hard, so in the future we might consider adding it to vehicles, but generally only if we plan to use it in the base game

Would it be possible to add this option for modders even if it is not used in the base game giving the possibility for mods to modify it?
I think this would give many gameplay options and make the vehicles more helpful.

I agree. It would be great to have this moddable for all vehicles, trains, train cargo wagons etc.

Thanks

Yes. I second this notion.

[midknightwraith]

I just wanted to stop in and say thank you! I've played for years, and I just recently started my first true mega base project and I'm pretty far along with it, but I was becoming increasingly frustrated by one thing in particular; confirmation button. I had never before realized exactly how tedious having to click that button was (because when you stop at rocket launch you never really get to the point where that matters) . I found myself pressing the e key multiple times only to be like "dang it!" and having to do it all again. That one change is so huge. I mean the spidertron stuff is cool and all, and the opening background being a simulation is super sexy, BUT not having to actually click with the mouse but being able to hit a key, huge QOL cudos to the developers on that one...

Secondarily, the underground belt/pipe ghosting and not having to turn them around manually (so good!), and the power pole build drag connections thing are both a very close second...

Lots to love when this update hits, I can't wait!

[Tesse11ation]

I think one touch that would really hit home for people like me who used to play RCT1/2 and Chris Sawyer's Locomotion would be having a track unique to the title screen. Something to play along with the simulation that doesn't appear anywhere else in the game.

My suggestion for the title screen music.

(Side note: I'm not endorsing uploading copyrighted OST's to YouTube. Don't do what this guy did. Also he has a Patreon link in the description, that could get him in some legal trouble if he makes money from other people's music.)

NO WAY... You guys actually implemented this! I love you, Wube! <3

[kovarex]

I think one touch that would really hit home for people like me who used to play RCT1/2 and Chris Sawyer's Locomotion would be having a track unique to the title screen. Something to play along with the simulation that doesn't appear anywhere else in the game.

My suggestion for the title screen music.

(Side note: I'm not endorsing uploading copyrighted OST's to YouTube. Don't do what this guy did. Also he has a Patreon link in the description, that could get him in some legal trouble if he makes money from other people's music.)

NO WAY... You guys actually implemented this! I love you, Wube! <3

Yes, I think that the suggestion was where the idea came from