Friday Facts #336 - Offshore pump redesign

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-336

[havvy]

The new pump looks beautiful! <3

[Teraka]

Looks fantastic! However, I'm a bit concerned that it might be confusing, especially for new players, when the offshore pump and regular pump look almost identical but one requires electricity and the other doesn't.

[MarvinCZ]

It's always great that you are adding more and more high-res graphics for game entities.
But it would be also great to fix this bug which makes all new graphics looks fuzzy in map view while zooming.

[leadraven]

Great, but...
Wouldn't it be better to allow regular Pump to pump large amount of water from water tiles, and keep offshore pump as early-game weak version of it?

[5thHorseman]

Looks fantastic! However, I'm a bit concerned that it might be confusing, especially for new players, when the offshore pump and regular pump look almost identical but one requires electricity and the other doesn't.

A perfect opportunity to implement a power mode to the offshore pump and a powerless mode to the regular pump.

Offshore powered will function like it does now. Unpowered will pull just enough water to get a boiler going.

Regular powered will be like now, Unpowered will let fluid flow one way but not pump anything.

[Koub]

The offshore pump looks gorgeous indeed. And now, its similarity with the regular pump is so obvious : it looks like a regular pump with an additional thingy than goes downwards to get water.

The offshore pump looks like an upgrade of the regular pump, however it's a no-tech, while the regular pump needs fluid handling. Also I'd expect the offshore pump to need a regular pump in its recipe, which isn't the case (for obvious gameplay reasons).

I think the tech and recipes should be tweaked to account for what the looks tell the player.

[leadraven]

The offshore pump looks like an upgrade of the regular pump, however it's a no-tech, while the regular pump needs fluid handling. Also I'd expect the offshore pump to need a regular pump in its recipe, which isn't the case (for obvious gameplay reasons).

Since regular Pump can connect to trains without any upgrade, it could also plunge into water for free. We don't need too many similar entities.

[darkfrei]

The offshore pump is much faster than normal pump and needs bigger cylinders or/and higher amount of them.
If you see that the offshore pump is big enough, you can understand why it needs free space between them.

[Oktokolo]

Great, but...
Wouldn't it be better to allow regular Pump to pump large amount of water from water tiles, and keep offshore pump as early-game weak version of it?

+1: Remove the offshore pump, make the normal pump available from the start and work unpowered (just like belts, and splitters).
Alternative to making the pump work without power: Add a burner version.

[TreefrogGreaken]

Looks cool.

I take it, its just a redisgned on the graphics, the entity hasn't been changed?

Looking at the redisign, i also take it that the offshore pump, will report that its been built on a land tile not a water tile? Or will it still show that its been built on water when checking?

Can the colour in the tubes be changed at all, my mod allows for oil lakes, and thus they'd be a need for the colour to change.

I have other issues with the offshore pumps, lack of pumping speed in the api, no active status or flowrate dropping to 0 when its pumping into a full pipe, but i guess those are more requests for interface changes.

Still, looks cool.

[leadraven]

The offshore pump is much faster than normal pump and needs bigger cylinders or/and higher amount of them.
If you see that the offshore pump is big enough, you can understand why it needs free space between them.

Sorry, but isn't normal Pump 10 times faster than Offshore Pump?

[darkfrei]

The offshore pump is much faster than normal pump and needs bigger cylinders or/and higher amount of them.
If you see that the offshore pump is big enough, you can understand why it needs free space between them.

Sorry, but isn't normal Pump 10 times faster than Offshore Pump?

Sorry, forgot about it. But the pump needs energy for this throughput.

[ratchetfreak]

one little nitpick about the new design, when it has been landfilled over the lags just vanish into the ground, it would look cleaner to have little feet on them IMO

[SkerrittT]

Pleased that the "new placement rules only applies to newly built pumps. Offshore pumps on existing maps will keep functioning, they’ll just be shifted out from the shore" so thanks for that !
The new pump looks great.

[trad_emark]

Add some variance to smoke. It looks really unnatural, especially in the video.

[scooter010]

The pump really looks great. I think, the pump should be powered by coal as a burner pump.
With fluid handling, you'll get the electric version.
All pumps shall be useable for everything, incl. offshore. The burner one just needs fuel and shall be less effective and less pump power.
The electric one shall be like the one now, but with offshore capability.
So, the electric pump could be used for directly filling a train from water.

[conn11]

Nice redesign, that fits homogeneously with the default pump. Not breaking existing setups is certainly greatly appreciated.

This should leave only the power switch and beacon (of wich the general design is already quite good) as yet to enhance pixilated entities.

[WizardNekross]

Guys. This is the first time I speak out under FFF. I am overwhelmed with the desire to share my emotions and don't see any point in to wait more:

1] Procedural animations are increasingly filling our favorite game with variety. This is evidenced by Your experience with crafting_machine_tint and chemical plants! Bravo, but we want more! The mod that was introduced under water pumps is only part of what Factorio can become. I mean-absolutely different variations of animations for each of the modules with different sprites of smoke and, perhaps, a light halo around. Just imagine a factory block where each of the machines works in its own way and we can see it and admire it without going inside;

2] Have you ever thought about different types of water that happened to be near the player through random spawn? Let's say it's swamp water and there can't be another one nearby. The player takes steps to clear it in order to further use it for their own purposes (?).

3] Or, for example, the player does not have the ability to accumulate liquid in containers for various reasons. The only way now is to simply remove one of the filled barrels and start accumulating it again. How about making the liquid drain as a pipe-out and counting the number of liters in the cell. When it reaches a certain value, the liquid is poured into other neighboring ones. Depending on the type of surface around, you can vary the maximum values [stone tile = 5000 liters, dirt = 1000]. As a payment for environmental damage, you can add impurities to the liquid being pumped back. For example = contaminated liquid fuel [cleaning required].

And a couple words about procedural animations... I am convinced that you are on the right track. Because these animations are the least harmful to performance, due to the lack of use of a large number of sprites. However, as I said, the multi-faceted variability of their display is the key to what was voiced in FFF ... the game will never seem boring to you... to all of us!

With a lot of love, ForgottenReal!

[edited]: i have one more idea, but it's enough for you... today :]

[Dev-iL]

On the topic of offshore pumps, can something be done about this bug report related to putting pumps on the edge of deep/shallow water?