[0.9] Feedback/Balancing/Suggestions

[ray4ever]

Having played Factorio for the last 1 1/2 days extensively I just wanted to give some Feedback regarding overall gameplay and balance. Naturally this leads to some suggestions how to "solve" the "problems" I noticed. Of course some "problems" might be worthwhile design decisions and my proposed solutions are meant to further clarify for what type of game/playstyle I'm looking for.
First of all I would like to thank the devs for the oil industry. Generally I find that it is adding a lot to the game, especially enhancing the "puzzle" aspect of the game. But I think that some tweaking is still needed.

Oil industry:
- Put oil gathering and oil processing in one tech. Personally I don't see a reason why it should be split up but only see the confusion on the players faces when they first try to set up the oil industry.
- Get rid of light oil: I haven't found a good use for light oil. That means that it isn't adding anything to the game and only makes it unnecessary hard.
Proposal: Let the oil refinery produce a lot of heavy oil and only a small amount of gas. The heavy oil can than be cracked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracking_(chemistry)] (as a recipe) in the chemical plant into [light oil and in a second plant into] gas. This would allow the player to decide what to use their oil for and would't lead to storage tanks full of oil you don't need.
- The chemical industry shouldn't only need electricity but also fuel as for all the processing steps huge amounts of heat are required. I think that this would also increase the puzzling aspect of the game while still being logical.
- Plastic bars shouldn't need coal: When I first tried to fabricate plastic I thought "Are they kidding me?!? Do I really have to run a belt from the other side of my factory to the oil industry? And is it really only used for this one recipe?!?" If you would add fuel (coal) as a source for heat for all chemical plants it would make much more sense.
- What is the use of the small pump? It is not very clear why you need to use one so you might want to work on the description.
- Steel barrels: Steel is already used very much in all recipes and it is quite expensive to make. I would propose to change it to iron plates used to make the barrels (and also please increase their stack size).
- Oil should not only be found in small patches of crude oil but also in big oil fields where it is worthwhile to put a lot of oil pumps. (Similar to how the ore deposits are looking like)

General:
- Move "Logistic system" research from tier 3 (needing blue science packs) to tier 2: You are able to build construction robots on tier 2 but they have no place to store deconstructed items.
- Construction robots should be able to repair inside their construction radius. This would make it easier for the player for what the different colours at the roboport stand for (orange = logistic bots; green = construction bots)
- Construction bots should reammo gun turrets (c'mon they can rebuild them so they should take care that they are not destroyed so easily)
-- Change the stack size of ammo in gun turrets from 10 to 5 so that you are not running out of ammo in the beginning to fast
- better pollution visualisation: Currently you only have these red squares on the mini map (took me quite some time to figure this out) which isn't a very good indication. Maybe let factories / mining drills produce "garbage" which you have to collect and dump into some sort of disposal site thus giving direct feedback to the player how much he already destroyed the nature.
- When picking up produced resources from an assembler, the inserter feeding directly into another assembler should be preferred. Than it would be more easily possible to also attach an inserter connected to a chest to the same factory to catch the overflow (and thus getting construction materials for the construction robots)
- Chests: There are 7 types of different chest in the game. I would streamline it to: Wooden chests, smart chest (costs slightly increased) and the three logistic chests.
- The assembly machine 1 should be able to handle 3 inputs to allow the construction of regular inserters making it a little bit easier to plan your initial science pack 2 assembly line.
- Inventory space: With all the possible stuff to make I am quickly running out of inventory space. Maybe by adding the "backpack" research option?
- Inventory space 2: Allow us to "destroy" stuff to get rid of "burner mining drill" and so on. Maybe adding a recycling plant? Everything put into it is giving you 50% of the initial copper and iron cost out?
- Rails are quite expensive when compared to belts. To encourage their use I would change the steel cost to a pure iron plate cost.
- Overall it seems that quite a bit of iron is used, but not so much copper? Maybe tweak the recipes here and there for a later release.

[liq3]

Oil industry:
- Put oil gathering and oil processing in one tech. Personally I don't see a reason why it should be split up but only see the confusion on the players faces when they first try to set up the oil industry.

While I agree it could be confusing to new players, I doubt it'll actually confuse anyone. I imagine most people would figure it out after 5-10 minutes if they don't right away.

- Get rid of light oil: I haven't found a good use for light oil. That means that it isn't adding anything to the game and only makes it unnecessary hard.

Like oil is used for flamethrower fuel, and also can be used as a secondary fuel to coal, by converting it to solid fuel. I don't think they should get rid of it at all. It's adding quite a bit imo. :]

Proposal: Let the oil refinery produce a lot of heavy oil and only a small amount of gas. The heavy oil can than be cracked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracking_(chemistry)] (as a recipe) in the chemical plant into [light oil and in a second plant into] gas. This would allow the player to decide what to use their oil for and would't lead to storage tanks full of oil you don't need.

I think the fact you get fixed amounts of oil/gas out of crude oil is all part of the fun.

- The chemical industry shouldn't only need electricity but also fuel as for all the processing steps huge amounts of heat are required. I think that this would also increase the puzzling aspect of the game while still being logical.

I'd rather not have coal belts running to every oil plant thank you.

- Plastic bars shouldn't need coal: When I first tried to fabricate plastic I thought "Are they kidding me?!? Do I really have to run a belt from the other side of my factory to the oil industry? And is it really only used for this one recipe?!?" If you would add fuel (coal) as a source for heat for all chemical plants it would make much more sense.

Or you could just find a nearby coal pile and put a single miner on this. Provided more then enough for me.

- What is the use of the small pump? It is not very clear why you need to use one so you might want to work on the description.

You can use it to force fluids to flow in a direction (e.g. from one tank to another), to make one-way pipes. I hear it's also useful for long distance use. It's a pump, use your imagination. o.o

- Steel barrels: Steel is already used very much in all recipes and it is quite expensive to make. I would propose to change it to iron plates used to make the barrels (and also please increase their stack size).

I do agree it's rather odd how crazy expensive the barrels are. They don't ever get used though (do they?) so I'm not sure about this.

- Oil should not only be found in small patches of crude oil but also in big oil fields where it is worthwhile to put a lot of oil pumps. (Similar to how the ore deposits are looking like)

I've got a group of 4 oil fields right next to each other. It looks rather nice. So I basically agree.

General:
- Move "Logistic system" research from tier 3 (needing blue science packs) to tier 2: You are able to build construction robots on tier 2 but they have no place to store deconstructed items.

Dunno about this. I found it pretty odd too that it's tier 3, but then I've always considered it a late game tech, so I'm not sure.

- Construction bots should reammo gun turrets (c'mon they can rebuild them so they should take care that they are not destroyed so easily)

Do logistics bots do this? If they do, I'd rather just leave it to logistics bots.

-- Change the stack size of ammo in gun turrets from 10 to 5 so that you are not running out of ammo in the beginning to fast

eh? I was manually putting in stacks of 25 or 50 ammo I made from a single assembler. Kept me going until lasers. xD

- better pollution visualisation: Currently you only have these red squares on the mini map (took me quite some time to figure this out) which isn't a very good indication. Maybe let factories / mining drills produce "garbage" which you have to collect and dump into some sort of disposal site thus giving direct feedback to the player how much he already destroyed the nature.

It'd be kinda nice if pollution was more obvious, but I'd rather it didn't actually make anything physical I have to deal with.

- When picking up produced resources from an assembler, the inserter feeding directly into another assembler should be preferred. Than it would be more easily possible to also attach an inserter connected to a chest to the same factory to catch the overflow (and thus getting construction materials for the construction robots)

There's already ways to do this, I don't think it needs to be any easier. ;p

- Chests: There are 7 types of different chest in the game. I would streamline it to: Wooden chests, smart chest (costs slightly increased) and the three logistic chests.

No, don't take away my chests!

- The assembly machine 1 should be able to handle 3 inputs to allow the construction of regular inserters making it a little bit easier to plan your initial science pack 2 assembly line.

Nah. Stop trying to make the game easier D:

- Inventory space: With all the possible stuff to make I am quickly running out of inventory space. Maybe by adding the "backpack" research option?

That's part of the challenge!

- Inventory space 2: Allow us to "destroy" stuff to get rid of "burner mining drill" and so on. Maybe adding a recycling plant? Everything put into it is giving you 50% of the initial copper and iron cost out?

Oh god yes I want a delete button. I still have my pistol from the start of the game even though it's useless.

- Rails are quite expensive when compared to belts. To encourage their use I would change the steel cost to a pure iron plate cost.

I swear I did some math on this or something, but basically trains are worth their cost. They can transport insane amounts of material really fast compared to belts. Seriously, _insane_ amounts.

- Overall it seems that quite a bit of iron is used, but not so much copper? Maybe tweak the recipes here and there for a later release.

Hahahahahhahaahhahahahahahahahahahahahah. You haven't reached late game yet have you? It completely flips when you do. You'll never have enough copper. PS: Then again they changed the adv circuit recipe, so maybe it's not such a drain anymore?

[Balthazar]

Just wanted to chip in that the problem here seems to be getting all three types at roughly the same rate but nothing to do with two of them outside of fueling, and i can't even burn the fuel fast enough yet. I guess the problem will go away much later into the game when you're mass producing logistics drones, but you need plastics very very early and in extreme quantities for electronics and science packs.

- Overall it seems that quite a bit of iron is used, but not so much copper? Maybe tweak the recipes here and there for a later release.

Hahahahahhahaahhahahahahahahahahahahahah. You haven't reached late game yet have you? It completely flips when you do. You'll never have enough copper. PS: Then again they changed the adv circuit recipe, so maybe it's not such a drain anymore?

"You haven't reached late game yet have you?" Once you get your tier 3 modules made, you start mass producing logistics chests, drones, drone hives, train tracks and train wagons. The more you expand the more logistics items you require and they're ALL either iron dominant or exclusive. Sure you need copper for modules but you also need iron, and theres a ton of other systems that require A LOT more iron than you'll ever spend copper on modules. More importantly, there are plenty of useful items in the game you can make exclusively from iron (chests, belts, bullets etc) but NOTHING made exclusively from copper. Iron is the bottleneck, copper is not.

- Inventory space: With all the possible stuff to make I am quickly running out of inventory space. Maybe by adding the "backpack" research option?

Two problems with this. In these kinds of games your inventory use will always expand to its capacity; the more space you have, the more junk you'll haul.
Second, and more importantly, giving the player too much hauling capacity would make it too easy to just carry ores from remote mines and back to your base. The one thing i would like here is for blueprints and other utility stuff that isn't really items to be carried in some separate infinite space inventory.

[ssilk]

- Get rid of light oil: I haven't found a good use for light oil. That means that it isn't adding anything to the game and only makes it unnecessary hard.
Proposal: Let the oil refinery produce a lot of heavy oil and only a small amount of gas. The heavy oil can than be cracked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracking_(chemistry)] (as a recipe) in the chemical plant into [light oil and in a second plant into] gas. This would allow the player to decide what to use their oil for and would't lead to storage tanks full of oil you don't need.

I bet the devs thought to use the oil anywhere, but currently it's just confusing. And very unbalanced.

- Plastic bars shouldn't need coal: When I first tried to fabricate plastic I thought "Are they kidding me?!? Do I really have to run a belt from the other side of my factory to the oil industry? And is it really only used for this one recipe?!?" If you would add fuel (coal) as a source for heat for all chemical plants it would make much more sense.

My first thought too.