Friday Facts #111 - Long term plans

[Koub]

This, to my opinion, is extremely utopic. For the last centuries (millenia ?), there have been two major expansion engines :
- War - or at least conflict - until no more resistance is met.
- Short to middle-term economic profit.

Then again, never the world was so peaceful than in XXth century.

*cough*

Then again, look how space conquest has progressed during the sixties (cold war), and look how it has regressed from early seventies to today.

[Paranoimia]

Obligatory post; documentation was mentioned.

It's looking like you guys will have real documentation now. Ondra is my hero

[ssilk]

This, to my opinion, is extremely utopic. For the last centuries (millenia ?), there have been two major expansion engines :
- War - or at least conflict - until no more resistance is met.
- Short to middle-term economic profit.

Yes, it is utopic, but on the other side realistic, because a single person has no advantage to go into space: It takes centuries to come to another planet. (There is no "teleport", cause if there is something like a hyperspace, the "others" would have already been here.)

Only the "mankind" - or what you may call it - as whole has an interest to this direction?

Proove me wrong: Who wants to go to another solar system? The travel takes 300 years, you will be long dead before the ship reaches the target. Hands up now!

Really nobody?

All right, most individual people do have higher standards when it comes to what draws them forward; but efforts put into something are a LOT bigger when it's for war or profit.

Of course. But that needs to change, cause there is just no profit or war, when you enter such a ship. You will have nothing else than a good hope, that your child of your childs of your childs will have chance for that. Nobody thinks like so.

Ergo: There will be no ship, cause it makes no sense to built one, when you look it with the view of profit or war.

Ergo: If there should be a ship mankind must change in a way, that it sees more sense into this task.

Ergo: If there is a little planet where a little human has crashlanded, then NOT because of profit/war. Or - second possibility - it WAS like so, but , but now the mankind in this system behaves again like so. I think that is the most interesting scenario.

Now, it can be decided that Factorio takes place in a world where mankind has gotten rid of it's worst sides and learned not to be what it has been from most of its history. This would be a lot more sci-fi than space travelling, and all that stuff.

That and all other points you mention assume, that there is some "hyperspace travel". But as already said; Other visitors would have been already here if something like that exists.

Assuming, that there is this limit in speed, that we have the light-speed as upper limit result in completly different Science Fiction stories. In stories, where it makes no sense to have profit/war.

[JMBarbarossa]

I don't see why there has to be an end date for development. Prison Architect just got to 1.0 and is still going to have regular updates. The same has always been true of Dwarf Fortress. As long as people donate money to Toady, he will make the game. Expansion packs work better as smaller things like with Paradox's updates these days. But many many games are updating over time with more content. I guess it has to do with the vision the devs want to create. Why should this game be "finished" in a year? Is it because your vision would be complete or do you want to be done with the project? Is it a milestone for basic feature completion? Are you running out of money? I want to see Factorio supported for a long time. It is already one of my favorite games of all time. I am very grateful to the tireless devs for their Friday facts blogs that I eagerly check every Friday and their good rate of updates. What do you, the devs, want to see as the features in Factorio and what are the problems with continuing development?

[Peter34]

I do think that at some point the devs ought to ditch the current game engine and replace it with a new one, a better one, one that is more sophisticated and that supports a broader scope of simulation, and has a better thought-out interface and if possible also a better multiplayer functionality.

Same with Crusader Kings 2, actually. Interface-wise, in particular, there is room for improvement of the starting-over-from-scratch kind.

The big question is whether those engines should be released for the current version of the game (Factorio 1 and CK2 respectively) and if so for free or as purchaseable expansions (which still support all existing mods and in the case of CK2 all existing DLC), or if they should be released for sale (in the case of Factorio possibly as Early Access or even as another Kickstarter project) as new stand-alone games (Factorio 2 and CK3 respectively).

Time frame-wise, the Crusader Kings 2 game engine is aging. Paradox could announce CK3 next year and get away with it. Factorio 1 is still new, though, and Wube announcing that they're done with it and want to start working on a sequel, any time soon, would create a juistifed uproar. A sequel announcement would be appropriate in 2018 pr perhaps 2017.

[Phillip_Lynx]

Some SciFi ahead

This, to my opinion, is extremely utopic. For the last centuries (millenia ?), there have been two major expansion engines :
- War - or at least conflict - until no more resistance is met.
- Short to middle-term economic profit.

Yes, it is utopic, but on the other side realistic, because a single person has no advantage to go into space: It takes centuries to come to another planet. (There is no "teleport", cause if there is something like a hyperspace, the "others" would have already been here.)

Only because we do not now their presence it does not mean they are not here

Only the "mankind" - or what you may call it - as whole has an interest to this direction?

Proove me wrong: Who wants to go to another solar system? The travel takes 300 years, you will be long dead before the ship reaches the target. Hands up now!

You forgot the time dilation
german wiki post

google translation

Another example would be the movement of a spaceship that starts from Earth, a distant planet drives and comes back. A spaceship takes off from the earth and flies with the initial acceleration of g = 9 {,} 81 \, \ frac {\ mathrm {m}} {\ mathrm {s} ^ 2} to a 28 light-years distant star. The acceleration of 1g was chosen, since this earthly gravity conditions can be simulated aboard a spaceship. Halfway the spaceship changes the sign of the acceleration and delay as much. After completing a six-month stay the spacecraft returns to Earth in the same way. The last times arise for the traveler to 13 years, 9 months and 16 days (measurement with on-board clock). On Earth, 60 years, 3 months and 5 hours during the return of the spaceship on the other hand passed.

Much larger differences are obtained in a flight to the Andromeda Galaxy, which is about 2 million light years away (with the same acceleration and deceleration phases). For the earth pass away, about 4 million years, whereas only about 56 years have passed for the traveler.

The spaceship will never exceed the speed of light. The longer it accelerates, the closer it comes indeed approached the speed of light, it is this but never reach. From Earth view the acceleration thus decreases despite the same engine power. In spaceship the time corresponding to the time dilation is running slower. Since the spacecraft are both observers and measuring instruments of time dilation, the self-timer is running normally in their view, however, is shortened due to the length contraction of the distance between Earth and destination. (From the surface in sight, he will stay constant for simplicity in this example). If one is in the spaceship and its speed is determined relative to the earth, taking into account the length contraction, then we arrive at the same result as when determining from Earth, the speed of the spaceship. The big problem in this example is that currently is not feasible drive, which reaches over such a long time such a high acceleration.

Really nobody?

I would .

...

[omgbear]

I'm glad you are dropping the space platform to focus more on core gameplay feature and polish.

This thread, along with any other that mentions end-game plans, has tons of great ideas for end-games that focus on adding more resource sinks on the planet, which sounds like a great way to force expansion and provide end-game. Maybe they could even be done as mods eventually.

It really depends on whether the game has an ending, like Rimworld, or not, like Dwarf Fortress. Prison Architect sort of splits the difference by letting you sell your prison.

[Ohlmann]

*cough*

Then again, look how space conquest has progressed during the sixties (cold war), and look how it has regressed from early seventies to today.

The world is still less at war now than any time before.

And the space conquest did not regress. It just stagnated, mostly. Even if some of the recent advance in space conquest are truly amazing.

[Phillip_Lynx]

The world is still less at war now than any time before.

In the wiki I count 46 ongoing Wars. In this Year!

And since you mentioned the 20th century I go back to the 19th century (1800 to 1899). There I count a decade (10 Years) with only 44 wars.

So I doubt your assumption, that we have less wars then any time before.

[ssilk]

Yes, it is utopic, but on the other side realistic, because a single person has no advantage to go into space: It takes centuries to come to another planet. (There is no "teleport", cause if there is something like a hyperspace, the "others" would have already been here.)

Only because we do not now their presence it does not mean they are not here

Ok, let's turn it around: Assumed we are the aliens and we live invisible "anywhere" here above.

- Either we are those "money/war-aliens", that would not wait thousands of years. We had already occupied the whole earth.
- Or we are not. We are a peaceful and friendly type of alien. Why should we live then hidden?

Proove me wrong: Who wants to go to another solar system? The travel takes 300 years, you will be long dead before the ship reaches the target. Hands up now!

You forgot the time dilation

Nope. You can assume that such a travel in a colony-ship with 100,000 people on board is much too dangerous with more than 1/10 of light-speed (one simple particle can otherwise destroy a 20 meter shield of any material). And you can also assume, that the next systems like Alpha Centauri is not usable for a colonization. I think within a radius of 500 ligh-years or so we will find suitable planets, but 500 light-years mean somewhere between 1000 (with 1/2 light speed, which is only possible, if we find a source of "endless energy") and 20000 years travel time. The time of 300 years was for the very best case, that we find a system within 50 light-years or so.

In other words: The thinking of most people about the distances and the needed time for traveling to other solar systems for colonization is in my eyes just naive: There will be no hyperspace, and there will be also no endless energy. That is both more or less very sure,,, at least it is more safe not to calculate with something different unless it's really invented.

Which brings us back to the game side: Yes of course, in a game it could all exist like so, but then there will be no good reason for the current scenario.

Really nobody?

I would .

With these preconditions? Come on!
The things change only, if there is also a technology like "cryostase", cooling people down to absolute zero. Then ... maybe.

[Phillip_Lynx]

Yes, it is utopic, but on the other side realistic, because a single person has no advantage to go into space: It takes centuries to come to another planet. (There is no "teleport", cause if there is something like a hyperspace, the "others" would have already been here.)

Only because we do not now their presence it does not mean they are not here

Ok, let's turn it around: Assumed we are the aliens and we live invisible "anywhere" here above.

- Either we are those "money/war-aliens", that would not wait thousands of years. We had already occupied the whole earth.
- Or we are not. We are a peaceful and friendly type of alien. Why should we live then hidden?

Proove me wrong: Who wants to go to another solar system? The travel takes 300 years, you will be long dead before the ship reaches the target. Hands up now!

You forgot the time dilation

Nope. You can assume that such a travel in a colony-ship with 100,000 people on board is much too dangerous with more than 1/10 of light-speed (one simple particle can otherwise destroy a 20 meter shield of any material). And you can also assume, that the next systems like Alpha Centauri is not usable for a colonization. I think within a radius of 500 ligh-years or so we will find suitable planets, but 500 light-years mean somewhere between 1000 (with 1/2 light speed, which is only possible, if we find a source of "endless energy") and 20000 years travel time. The time of 300 years was for the very best case, that we find a system within 50 light-years or so.

In other words: The thinking of most people about the distances and the needed time for traveling to other solar systems for colonization is in my eyes just naive: There will be no hyperspace, and there will be also no endless energy. That is both more or less very sure,,, at least it is more safe not to calculate with something different unless it's really invented.

Which brings us back to the game side: Yes of course, in a game it could all exist like so, but then there will be no good reason for the current scenario.

Really nobody?

I would .

With these preconditions? Come on!
The things change only, if there is also a technology like "cryostase", cooling people down to absolute zero. Then ... maybe.

To the things Aliens an spacetravel, you are right in terms that there are some inventions to be done before it is managable, But as always, people wich lived 100 years ago would not hink, that many common to us things could possibly exist .

For damage and energy problem on spacetravel, I think of an energyshield, wich coverts all debris in our way to energy. So you can get to higher speeds, wich makes the andromeda galaxy reachable in ca. 56 years (for aprox 2 million lightyears).

ANd with such inventions I would be the first to do the trip (althoug I am to old to reach andromeda until some life prolonging inventions are made )

BTW, my opinions mentioned here have nothing to do with the fantastic game of factorio

[vaderciya]

Does anyone know anything about what new mini campaigns we'll be getting for the 'furnace attendant' and above class? I like the little campaigns and they say they plan on adding more (:

[vaderciya]

Alright, so if no space platform, then what is the end game? Will it be the rocket silo shoot a rocket and just win? Or shall it be some other, possibly more interesting and cool end game? Maybe your scanners pick up reports of a ridiculous biter mutation.

The behemoth biter as it was growing in its egg alongside its brothers in its hatchery had a unique mutation, its skull and brain became enlarged and many times larger than its brothers. After it hatched and began to roam it learned at a much faster rate than the others and quickly began to overtake even the oldest biters and ancient spitters. It got larger and became smarter and stronger, its will dominating the other biters. Soon it could control and manipulate them to do what it wanted. And so it grew an empire, thousands of hatcheries and new alien structure/organisms were created and used while countless numbers of biters,. Spitters, and new alien creatures built up the ranks of their overlords forces.
All the while planning on attacking you, the disgusting player that ravages the planets natural beauty and abuses its natural resources. It's been planning this since it learned of you.
And now it wants to get you.

What do you all think?

[Nebulorum]

I have to say 0.12.x is the first version I've completed. Since I've seen people complaining about content and challenges I'd like to give my input. I've been on and off Factorio for several year. The addition of the tank on the release prior kind of made fighting aliens a bit easier. And after restarting on 0.12.x I watched a bunch of let's plays that kind of made me rethink the strategy. But the addition of the explosive shells made me cross threshold for attacking bitter. This allowed me to finish the game once normally (31 hours of play) and with the No Crafting mod (41 hours of play).

I honestly think the game is really good as is. There are more things I want to try and this long term plan list looks good. I would like to comment some things here on my experiences:

1) Fighting aliens has always been something I've hated. It became ok with the tank, and now that I know how to use destroyers, and the other capsules it actually ok. I don't particularly enjoy the principle of killing all the native fauna to satisfy my need.

2) Peaceful mode is really boring since you don't have anything to bother you. And the "peaceful mod" kind of goes a bit further on the boring side. I once thought it could be nice to have some way of getting alien artifacts in a way that is high maintenance (like earthquake or vulcano areas, where you have to keep an eye on the collection or it all falls apart). Thing that require your effort but not killing everything. On the other hand once you are in the automated base mode it's really good not to have to be looking at bits of the base all the time.

3) Understanding alien expansion chunk and victory poling made me rethink point 1 and 2. With adequate weaponry, patience and a plan you can keep bitter under control. Still would like to have some alternative to them, but I made my peace with blowing them to pieces. This seems to be an important part of the game, and it's not easy to pick up. It would be nice to have some visual queues (and/or radar queues) that chunks are being attacked/probed for expansion. Turning on the chunks in debug is like cheating, but on the other hand guessing make it hard.

4) To play effectively and get to the end of the game, you need to manage quite a lot of things. Native fauna management, good expansion into other areas, train networks, maximizing oil are all big challenges. Doing it wrong may result in a very high upkeep factory and takes away the enjoyment. I haven't played the tutorials, but for newcomers this may be daunting.

5) Understanding all the layers above made me appreciate the cleaver design of all these interlocking elements. Kudos for the development team for creating such an interesting problem to solve.

Hope this is helpful.