Friday facts #151 - The plans for 0.14

[kovarex]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-151

[Colossus]

Nuclear-powered Spidertron?

[steinio]

Uranium Power has a fun and realistic production chain for nuclear power.
Also it needs two instead of only one ressource.

0.15 will be 1.0?
After a marathon the sprint to the finish begins

GUI-reskin sounds good.
Hopefully with floating and pinable windows.

You forgot to mention your plan for a logistic network info screen

Greetings steinio

[Elwin]

I'm very excited about the nuclear power. I hope you will succeed in making it an interesting alternative with its own unique mechanics.

Some ideas that I can instantly think of:

• one should be careful with nuclear energy - if we overload steam/solar, everything works slower or doesn't work at all but that's it. Stressing nuclear generators could overload them so player would have to pay attention to have some 'reserves'. Or solve this via circuit network through backup sources.
• once a reactor runs, it should keep running. Running out of fuel or suddenly cutting power should be a problem.
• radiation as a special type of pollution with much more dangerous ramifications than normal pollution - alien colonies could mutate to produce super bugs or some other unexpected results. It would be released from damaged nuclear reactor - damaged through standard means like aliens, weapons etc or if overloaded.
• some 'disposal of radioactive waste' mechanics

[Zeblote]

GUI-reskin sounds good.
Hopefully with floating and pinable windows.

And resizeable!

So far 0.14 seems to be the best update yet

[scipion99]

Being a nuclear engineer I couldn't be more excited about the introduction of nuclear power!

I agree with the suggestions above: if mishandled, the plant should release radioactivity (toxic for the player) in a large zone. Mutation of the aliens in contact with radioactivity is a great idea. Handling waste should also be a logistic challenge. Otherwise, nuclear would be too OP (large amount of electricity produced in a small space).

To produce the fuel should also be a challenge, especially the enrichment part! I can already picture the thousands of centrifuges...

Devs, if you have "technical" questions about the operation of a nuclear power plant or the development of an accident sequence, I would be honored to contribute !

[Speadge]

very nice facts- cant decide which part i like most

[steinio]

Being a nuclear engineer I couldn't be more excited about the introduction of nuclear power!

I agree with the suggestions above: if mishandled, the plant should release radioactivity (toxic for the player) in a large zone. Mutation of the aliens in contact with radioactivity is a great idea. Handling waste should also be a logistic challenge. Otherwise, nuclear would be too OP (large amount of electricity produced in a small space).

To produce the fuel should also be a challenge, especially the enrichment part! I can already picture the thousands of centrifuges...

Devs, if you have "technical" questions about the operation of a nuclear power plant or the development of an accident sequence, I would be honored to contribute !

But don't forget that it's a game not nuclear power plant science class. A healthy mix between realism and toy is mandatory.

Greetings steinio

[BigD145]

Nuclear power is mostly just boiling water. It's also storage of physically hot rods on-site for years on end before they can be moved. Is there a way to have a resource that you can't just move by belt? Something that would kill a player in 30 seconds or so that would simulate not being able to move a hot spent rod all that far? You'd need a shielded barrel to contain it until a timer ran out. That way you'd have to think about where to put your reactor and where the waste would go until it cooled off. Have a cooling tower as part of the reactor that required multiple water inputs on 1-2 full sides or else it'd meltdown and spew out massive pollution. Nuclear power is not a panacea so it should have some danger to it.

[wasstraat65]

I agree with Elwin that nuclear power should include some way of managing nuclear waste. I think this would be an excellent oppertunity to launch our nuclear waste into space with our rockets. Simply produce some kind of 'nuclear waste rocket pod', insert it into the slot where satellites usually go, and hit that launch button!

This would be an excellent solution to the late game power delivery. Nuclear power may however be problematic during the early- and midgame, where rocket launching is not yet available. Other ways of getting rid of nuclear waste have to be used here.

[brunzenstein]

In the selectable list I miss
floating and pinnable windows - should be no. 1

[steinio]

Chris Sawyers [insert item] tycoon series raised the level for gui elements really high.

Maybe the developers get inspired by them.

[Xterminator]

Always good to see future plans layed out for the community. The GUI improvements and nuclear power are definitely most exciting to me!

In the overall scheme of things, a year until potential full release is great news! Plus the idea of a possible expansion sometime after full release is fantastic!
I reckon I'll still be playing then as well. Lol

[MrGrim]

We expect this update to take less time compared to 0.13, so November might be a realistic estimate.

Come November I think you might be kicking yourself for that quote. I'm already excited for 0.14, all of this stuff is going to add so much polish to an already exceptional game!

[TheUnknown007]

Please make proper barrels for gas and don't just take the oil barrel graphics, that'd be ridiculous.
*crosses fingers*

For ideas on improving the windows (which seems to be a much requested feature), try openTDD, the windows there are truly amazing.

[Murdersquish]

Heck, forget launching it into space. My words are backed by NUCLEAR WEAPONS! Dirty bomb those stinking aliens.

Exploded nuclear weapons and waste should push the evolution factor. To that end, I think in the "conventional" game, the evolution factor can only go to 100%, and weaponizing nuclear or nuclear contamination speeds the evolution factor AND can send it above 100% where we see some new, mutant biter(s).

I don't think safe handling of nuclear power should cause increased evolution or the >100% scenario I suggested.

[Gergely]

Please no! Not the multithreading!

[British_Petroleum]

My initial opinions/ideas on Nuclear:

1. very expensive tech
2. very rare ore, very slow to process
3. Huge amounts of power for very little fuel
4. Nuclear waste causes alien mutations! (new super powerful aliens)

[gvblake22]

I like all of the ideas posted so far regarding nuclear power. As an additional idea, maybe instead of adding an additional resource to the map, the existing minable resources can have an element of radioactivity (in patches). So mining copper/iron/coal works like normal but you have the option of running it through a different processes instead of smelting that would isolate the radioactive material that you can then use for the nuclear power process; kind of like cracking oil. And maybe there could be a waste product of the original material that isn't radioactive that could be put back into the smelting line.

You can make radioactivity part of the research tree to make it visible on the map and unlocks the ability to process it.

[LucidMoses]

Food for though on the Nuclear option. Maybe something where you have to supply the required items at the rate the power is used. Too little shuts it down (no power) and too much melts down the plant.

It does seem like a good opportunity to implement a new mechanic.