Factorio Forums

There have been a few reports of this, but all of them were about small islands.

I just discovered that my latest game started on an island. I did not discover this until 2-3 hours in. This is very very frustrating, and now I have to start over.

I think this happened because ssilk talked about importance of non-determinism and statistics.

If this forum had badges / achievements, you would definitely deserve the "largest island so far" one

What size of the starting area did you use.
I had started on island map several times till now and I noticed that the size of such island is proportional to the size of starting area.
Actually I suspect that the whole island is just starting area (a different algorithm is used for creating it) placed somewhere in ocean biome.

SilverWarior wrote:What size of the starting area did you use.
I had started on island map several times till now and I noticed that the size of such island is proportional to the size of starting area.
Actually I suspect that the whole island is just starting area (a different algorithm is used for creating it) placed somewhere in ocean biome.

This is actually pretty good guess
It is not different algorithms, but starting area has some modificators which can make island in big sea.
This is something that might be worth solving (generate starting place in a way that it is not a in a sea area)

kovarex wrote:This is something that might be worth solving (generate starting place in a way that it is not a in a sea area)

Nooo! Solve this by giving us boats instead!

muzzy wrote:

kovarex wrote:This is something that might be worth solving (generate starting place in a way that it is not a in a sea area)

Nooo! Solve this by giving us boats instead!

Or that

SilverWarior wrote:What size of the starting area did you use.
I had started on island map several times till now and I noticed that the size of such island is proportional to the size of starting area.
Actually I suspect that the whole island is just starting area (a different algorithm is used for creating it) placed somewhere in ocean biome.

I believe that I used the largest size starting area, so you could be correct.

A solution would be to ensure that the starting area is connected to a significantly larger chunk of land. Or at least to tell the player up front that they are playing on an island.

Or, of course, to provide bridges or boats and make this a non-issue

Don't forget that chunks are generated mostly on-demand.
It would thus probably suffice to know that there is no starting-area-in-ocean issue
and that the player can reach the edge of the currently generated world.

@ my comment abou statistic:
In a non-deterministic game it would probably be desirable that this happen to one player per month or so.
after all, it's all just a probability that you crash-landed on mainland....

I think the right game direction would be to be able to survive in any start area, no matter if it is only one piece of island with a tree in a gigantic lake, or if you are surrounded by 10000 biter nests.

In nature, we have the same problem: we can settle only at points, which have some conditions. Instead of making the world so, that it guarantees these points, we enable the player to change the world, or move as long as it is right for him.

In all seriousness, I really want an airplane and a boat. I don't mind having some sea monsters and instant death if the boat sinks, or some long range alien anti-air, but I'd really love some more options for transportation and exploration. Even a super slow wooden raft to move across water would be great.

I hope in the future these "bad starting area" bug reports will be more like "wtf my starting area is a huge swamp with poison gas that kills me in a minute and there's no time to get out of here!" instead of something as casual as an island.

mmmh.... I like the ability to make a small raft to slowly paddle around on lakes
That's also probably what would a person stranded on an island do anyway

MF- wrote:mmmh.... I like the ability to make a small raft to slowly paddle around on lakes
That's also probably what would a person stranded on an island do anyway

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =32&t=2770
Shameless plug I experimented with making boats in factorio, with a proper sprite sheet and some balancing it might work.
Continue in the linked thread

OnTopic:
I think water is being generated a little too heavily right now. My current factory has a huge lake next to it.

Moved to known issues.
It will be solved eventually when the player gets a boat.

kovarex wrote:Moved to known issues.
It will be solved eventually when the player gets a boat.

Nice!!!!

Image in my head:

kovarex wrote:Moved to known issues.
It will be solved eventually when the player gets a boat.

for those who spawn on land too small for any entities maybe update the initial inventory to include enough wood for a single raft which moves painfully slowly

Is this now "resolved" with both the new map generation as well as landfill?

Yes, large islands were resolved by addition of landfill to vanilla.