Is there a way to trigger an arbitrary event or user input? Basically I want to run a save of a game, but instead of playing with mouse and keyboard I would like it to follow a script with predefined commands. I think I have read about the devs doing something similar when they were filming the intr...

Did you know, there is a mod that gives the cars the self driving ability. It works with hotkeys to switch on/off and you can even set speed limits. You need to build roads with any type of paving though. Its quite cool and works well when having good roads. Then there is the AAI programmable vehic...

Whoa. I believe "auto routing" and "requester/providers" are part of the problem. You dont need to plan a route to ensure goods go from A to B, the system takes care of it. You dont need to balance the distribution of goods, the system takes care of it. I feel it would fall back...

There is a mod like this I've found which uses biter ai for movement and pathfinding Cool! Could you share a link please? Since I wrote my previous post I gave it a little thought and found a promising solution. It is a path-finding algorithm which is (a) CPU efficient (b) easy for a player to unde...

Ok, so I have researched it a bit, and turns out forking threads is NOT a way to go . The problem is that for an actively mutating application (such as Factorio), system forking is equivalent to practically stopping the application and clonning all of its memory. This is exactly what you have experi...

How about self-driving grounded construction bots? They could be fueled by coal, and thus not require plastics and advanced circuits (or even electricity!) Their functions would be very similar to flying construction bots, with minor differences because roboports are not needed. Here is a topic with...

For me the main motivation would be using blue-prints in early game Earlier access to personal construction bots IMO ground construction bots should operate just like normal construction bots, but: - be slower - run on burning fuel - park randomly near their last completed target - not have an effec...

This is almost exactly what I was thinking after reading the FFFs! The fact that the logistic bots are grounded, and thus require space to drive, will prevent their overuse instead of belts! Any base which adds too many ground logistic bots will stop functioning because of traffic jams, just like a ...

I think cliffs are awesome, despite their early design corks. What they need is love - e.i. special mechanics around them. For example a player should be able to slowly climb them with some special animation. Same goes for tanks, but not for cars or trains. Belt and tube animations should change to ...

Wow, just found this thread after the Bots vs Belts FFF. Actually this is pretty good! Small self-driving cars could deliver goods instead of flying logistic robots. The benefit is that ground space is limited, thus ground logistic bots would loose their efficiency with numbers, and would not be abl...

FYI: if you find this idea interesting, here is a detailed description of how it could function from the other side of the forum
Re: Ropeway conveyor above the factory... by MeduSalem » Mon Jul 27, 2015 9:38 pm

The part you're forgetting about is the player delivery. One of the main big features of bots is that they can resupply the player with whatever one needs quickly and on demand. Have to agree on that. It is not just delivery, it is removal of items from the player as well. Construction bots could f...

I dont believe this kind of system would solve the bot issue. The issue is bots are op, and no one is going to be happy when their favorite/only strat gets nerfed/straight up replaced. That being said, if ropways were implimented, it would be a nice way to deliver goods throughout the mega factory,...

With bots, there is no reason to think about other types of transport (Cable cars or automated vehicles for example) Well I think we should do just that! With small modifications logistic bots can be transformed into Cable Cars, saving their good parts while fixing the game balance. I wrote it up h...

Thank you Twinsen, V453000 and kovarex for the last 2 FFF! Those posts and reactions to them motivated this little write up of my perspective. IMPORTANT: everything in this post relates ONLY to logistic bots! For convenience I will call logistic bots just "bots", but that should not be gen...

I totally agree with DustFireSky and others that we have this problem with the game. Factorio's aliens are unbalanced as they are now. They literally disappear from the equation of the late game when proper factory defences are built and fixing bots are in place. I would suggest looking into 2 thing...

Cool! Gotta try it on Linux then.

it's such an intense process

Is there a way to slow the parallel simulation down? Since it is non-blocking, it could run at 1/10 speed and still get the job done, if I understood how it works.

I am glad to hear that the team is working on this. I don't think this solution would be feasible - either your map is small and is saved within a second, or it is big and can't be simulated at fast speed - in lot of cases not even real-time speed. Since the saving is async, it does not matter how l...

Sometimes when I play Factorio the auto save dialog appears and all action freezes for several seconds - I understand that this is the designed behavior - I am still greatly irritated by it - I think that it is possible to avoid stopping-the-world when autosaving He's how concurrent autosave could b...

Hm, can't it be done in 2D? I would thought that having buildings drawn from north to south would do the trick. E.i. example 2 the inserter is north of the electric pole, so it should be drawn first and pole should be drawn second. I haven't looked into corner cases for this method, but it feels tha...