Friday Facts #444 - 2.1 Experimental release

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-444

[jamezhall]

"Friday Facts Furlough"..

Legit feeling sad. These were the highlight of my week. But oh so grateful for all that you (Wube) has given us over the years. Much respect. And looking forward to the future with you!

[Kyralessa]

Hoping for Friday New-Wube-Game Facts soon...

[alefu]

Hoping for Friday New-Wube-Game Facts soon...

Yes, please make sure that your new game starts with F as well - anything else just won't work.

Thank you for all the love and effort you have poured into Factorio. It is truly a masterpiece.

[BraveCaperCat]

Why wasn't the character limit on the forums mentioned? You obviously seemed to have a problem with posting the changelog here, as you wouldn't have had to split it into one long post and an even longer post otherwise.

On that note... why was the first post shorter than the second?

[Sanqui]

Why wasn't the character limit on the forums mentioned? You obviously seemed to have a problem with posting the changelog here, as you wouldn't have had to split it into one long post and an even longer post otherwise.

The forums are linear, so there's no problem with splitting the post since you're going to read them in order anyway. On Reddit there's no straightforward way to achieve that since it's a threaded discussion (to be fair I don't use Reddit much, maybe a moderator can pin a reply or something?)

On that note... why was the first post shorter than the second?

I simply scrolled halfway in my text editor and split the changelog along an arbitrary header.

[biber]

06-26-2026, 14-19-55.png (444.21 KiB) Viewed 2104 times

Looks like a new achievement is on its way... maybe there will be some surprises at the launch of the stable release?
Thanks for the outstanding work Wube! You made a legendary piece of pastime.

[quineotio]

If there's one big thing I'd like re: communication, its for Wube to explain what the intention for Factorio is, and explain design decisions, and do a post mortem about the design. Because you're asking for feedback, but from what I see you don't care at all about feedback and are just doing what you want. There's no consistency or justification, just you telling us what's been done.

A big topic would be quality. A lot of people don't like various things about it. What's your response? Why are you asking for feedback when you've already received a lot of feedback and done nothing with it? At the very least make the statement "we have no intention of changing anything", because otherwise it's disrespectful to ask for feedback - you're just wasting people's time.

As it stands, I'm basically done with not only Factorio, but Wube as a company. I'm in disbelief at the way SA has been handled. I don't feel anything anything but negativity toward you, which is a shame because the base game is amazing and I was really looking forward to SA - which could be easily twice as good with some different choices.

[32583279]

If there's one big thing I'd like re: communication, its for Wube to explain what the intention for Factorio is, and explain design decisions, and do a post mortem about the design. Because you're asking for feedback, but from what I see you don't care at all about feedback and are just doing what you want. There's no consistency or justification, just you telling us what's been done.

A big topic would be quality. A lot of people don't like various things about it. What's your response? Why are you asking for feedback when you've already received a lot of feedback and done nothing with it? At the very least make the statement "we have no intention of changing anything", because otherwise it's disrespectful to ask for feedback - you're just wasting people's time.

As it stands, I'm basically done with not only Factorio, but Wube as a company. I'm in disbelief at the way SA has been handled. I don't feel anything anything but negativity toward you, which is a shame because the base game is amazing and I was really looking forward to SA - which could be easily twice as good with some different choices.

Regrettably, I have to agree with this view

[GregoriusT]

As a part of the update of our graphics and audio systems, we have raised the minimum operating system requirement on Linux. The minimum version of the system's GLIBC is now 2.36 (released in 2022). If Factorio doesn't launch on your system, you may need to update. Headless and Steam versions are not affected.

Waaait a second 2.1.7 did NOT launch for me on Steam, did that get fixed in 2.1.8 or why does this say steam versions not affected?

[Kyralessa]

If there's one big thing I'd like re: communication, its for Wube to explain what the intention for Factorio is, and explain design decisions, and do a post mortem about the design. Because you're asking for feedback, but from what I see you don't care at all about feedback and are just doing what you want. There's no consistency or justification, just you telling us what's been done.

A big topic would be quality. A lot of people don't like various things about it. What's your response? Why are you asking for feedback when you've already received a lot of feedback and done nothing with it? At the very least make the statement "we have no intention of changing anything", because otherwise it's disrespectful to ask for feedback - you're just wasting people's time.

As it stands, I'm basically done with not only Factorio, but Wube as a company. I'm in disbelief at the way SA has been handled. I don't feel anything anything but negativity toward you, which is a shame because the base game is amazing and I was really looking forward to SA - which could be easily twice as good with some different choices.

There is none so entitled as the guy who's paid a whole fifty-five bucks for a game.

Once you've forked over that kind of money, you're practically a part-owner of the company, and should be consulted on every decision.

[mmmPI]

No technical reveal ? meh

[thriem]

If there's one big thing I'd like re: communication, its for Wube to explain what the intention for Factorio is, and explain design decisions, and do a post mortem about the design. Because you're asking for feedback, but from what I see you don't care at all about feedback and are just doing what you want. There's no consistency or justification, just you telling us what's been done.

A big topic would be quality. A lot of people don't like various things about it. What's your response? Why are you asking for feedback when you've already received a lot of feedback and done nothing with it? At the very least make the statement "we have no intention of changing anything", because otherwise it's disrespectful to ask for feedback - you're just wasting people's time.

As it stands, I'm basically done with not only Factorio, but Wube as a company. I'm in disbelief at the way SA has been handled. I don't feel anything anything but negativity toward you, which is a shame because the base game is amazing and I was really looking forward to SA - which could be easily twice as good with some different choices.

There is none so entitled as the guy who's paid a whole fifty-five bucks for a game.

Once you've forked over that kind of money, you're practically a part-owner of the company, and should be consulted on every decision.

Not sure what it has to do with entitlement - it is expressed frustration and a perceived mixed communication. It would be entitlement that they need their concerns addressed, but they explicitly stated that dismissive would be good enough as well. Or are we just overly eager to point the finger?

[Sanqui]

As a part of the update of our graphics and audio systems, we have raised the minimum operating system requirement on Linux. The minimum version of the system's GLIBC is now 2.36 (released in 2022). If Factorio doesn't launch on your system, you may need to update. Headless and Steam versions are not affected.

Waaait a second 2.1.7 did NOT launch for me on Steam, did that get fixed in 2.1.8 or why does this say steam versions not affected?

We were able to flip a switch to make these releases use Steam Runtime 4.0. Steam now runs the game in a special container which comes with a recent enough glibc if your system doesn't have it.

[GregoriusT]

As a part of the update of our graphics and audio systems, we have raised the minimum operating system requirement on Linux. The minimum version of the system's GLIBC is now 2.36 (released in 2022). If Factorio doesn't launch on your system, you may need to update. Headless and Steam versions are not affected.

Waaait a second 2.1.7 did NOT launch for me on Steam, did that get fixed in 2.1.8 or why does this say steam versions not affected?

We were able to flip a switch to make these releases use Steam Runtime 4.0. Steam now runs the game in a special container which comes with a recent enough glibc if your system doesn't have it.

Already in the process of downloading 2.1.8 to see if that works! Glad you found a solution that should work at least for Steam Users!

Edit: IT WORKS!!! Also I see what you did to the Biter Expansion Chunks Overlay. Now it is far less obstructive to use it!

[wsb9]

What's your response? Why are you asking for feedback when you've already received a lot of feedback and done nothing with it? At the very least make the statement "we have no intention of changing anything", because otherwise it's disrespectful to ask for feedback - you're just wasting people's time.

They are asking for feedback, not for instructions, mate.
Even if someone doesn't like how feature works, this might still look ok from developer's side. Especially when we're granted ability to mod almost anything in the game.

[waterBear]

If there's one big thing I'd like re: communication, its for Wube to explain what the intention for Factorio is, and explain design decisions, and do a post mortem about the design. Because you're asking for feedback, but from what I see you don't care at all about feedback and are just doing what you want. There's no consistency or justification, just you telling us what's been done.

A big topic would be quality. A lot of people don't like various things about it. What's your response? Why are you asking for feedback when you've already received a lot of feedback and done nothing with it? At the very least make the statement "we have no intention of changing anything", because otherwise it's disrespectful to ask for feedback - you're just wasting people's time.

As it stands, I'm basically done with not only Factorio, but Wube as a company. I'm in disbelief at the way SA has been handled. I don't feel anything anything but negativity toward you, which is a shame because the base game is amazing and I was really looking forward to SA - which could be easily twice as good with some different choices.

There is none so entitled as the guy who's paid a whole fifty-five bucks for a game.

Once you've forked over that kind of money, you're practically a part-owner of the company, and should be consulted on every decision.

That's not true...I used to do volunteer work for free about 20 hours per week to build and maintain a public park.

Users of free public land are easily more entitled than even people who post on web forums about games

[Hurkyl]

If there's one big thing I'd like re: communication, its for Wube to explain what the intention for Factorio is, and explain design decisions, and do a post mortem about the design. Because you're asking for feedback, but from what I see you don't care at all about feedback and are just doing what you want. There's no consistency or justification, just you telling us what's been done.

A big topic would be quality. A lot of people don't like various things about it. What's your response? Why are you asking for feedback when you've already received a lot of feedback and done nothing with it? At the very least make the statement "we have no intention of changing anything", because otherwise it's disrespectful to ask for feedback - you're just wasting people's time.

As it stands, I'm basically done with not only Factorio, but Wube as a company. I'm in disbelief at the way SA has been handled. I don't feel anything anything but negativity toward you, which is a shame because the base game is amazing and I was really looking forward to SA - which could be easily twice as good with some different choices.

There is none so entitled as the guy who's paid a whole fifty-five bucks for a game.

Once you've forked over that kind of money, you're practically a part-owner of the company, and should be consulted on every decision.

Not sure what it has to do with entitlement - it is expressed frustration and a perceived mixed communication. It would be entitlement that they need their concerns addressed, but they explicitly stated that dismissive would be good enough as well. Or are we just overly eager to point the finger?

FWIW, I'm fairly content with Space Age and Wube, but also find the opaqueness regarding balance changes to be frustrating. And for reference, I lean in favor of the casino/concrete nerfs and while I am surprised that fluid-to-solid quality loops didn't get nerfed (and to a much lesser extent 300% productivity loops) and frustrated that they don't really make any comment on those, I suspect I would find the rationale satisfactory... if they ever gave one.

[hobarrera]

Have you considered statically linking musl, instead of dynamically linking glibc?

This would allow the same builds to run regardless of the system glibc version, and would also run on musl-based distributions natively.

[Sanqui]

Have you considered statically linking musl, instead of dynamically linking glibc?

This would allow the same builds to run regardless of the system glibc version, and would also run on musl-based distributions natively.

We have considered it, it's just a little low priority, and we are using some functions which are known to be incompatible with musl libc. It is on our radar!