Friday Facts #222 - Christmas avalanche

[Klonan]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-222

[vedrit]

Oh boy!! Bug fixes!
While I'm glad that sideloading belts for compression will remain in the game, I am a bit disappointed to see that fluid carts will be downsized. I hope it's not much, but perhaps there can be other changes made to balance them? Make them heavier, perhaps?

[Vandroiy]

Yay @sideloading and inserter compression! My personal favorite had miners compress too, for consistency, since they appear to be sideloading. But I'm not gonna storm the barricades about that, sideloading and stack inserters were the big ones. If this works out, belts should be all beautiful again.

Reducing fluid wagon capacity was on my mind ever since the fluid compartment separation was removed; I think this is a good balancing decision if you don't overdo it. A little less capacity would make it not as strangely easy to transport fluids. (Edit: okay, maybe watch out to balance it with barrels, so things don't get weird.)

Good to hear that trains keep getting upgrades. Can't judge how much effect it has since I'm not train limited yet. Looks all great to me, trains seem to be getting really good and well balanced. The only further big wish I can think of would be a train crossing via bridge or tunnel some time in the future. But that's going off topic, I guess.

Thanks for listening! Looking forward to seeing the perfected belts in action.

[Sigma1]

The fluid wagon capacity change is very welcome. I was starting to think you stole the TARDIS and put a liquid tank in it

[agmike]

I don't understand. Fluid wagon's mass is 2 times higher than normal wagon, and it already transports less fluid than wagon with barrells. Why reduce it's capactiy?

[Meddleman]

It arrived! Been refreshing the homepage every hour since 5pm ^^

The FFF at barely 20 minutes to midnight and my Tshirt today! All the work, shirt packing/posting and frantic bugfixing to not only release 0.16 but patches as well have earned you and the team a much deserved christmas break!

Factorio definitely deserves the Steam Award, although there are quite a few good contenders out there, so it will be an exciting decision to await.

The little shirt-tag was a nice touch, I know what I'll be cosplaying as at the next con.

Edit: And thankyou for reconsidering belt compression mechanics. Its been an extremely hot topic and people have been very vocal about it in one way or another, but usually agreeing that at least sideloading & inserters should compress.

[Tigre Demon]

WE won't let the "the giants of the industry" win this award !

[Jap2.0]

I'm really excited about all this. I'm going home tonight, so I'll probably be able to play again tomorrow, so I was really hopping that sideloading would be fixed again before I got home, but unfortunately it looks like I'll have to wait a few days. I'm happy to hear that it will be fixed, though. Also, as to the fluid wagon thing:

• If you reduce the capacity, then barrells will be so much better. Really, you'd think that a fluid wagon would be the best way to transport fluids...
• All of us would be perfectly happy of you simply had an option to switch between 1 and 3 tanks, or even if you had seperate train cars for them.
• You said you didn't think through adding them well enough. Everyone loved this addition, and it was an extremely popular mod. Even now, it's the 24th most downloaded mod ever, with over 122k downloads, only behind RSO, Bob's, FARL, Bottleneck, Angel's, upgrade builder and planner, autofill, and long reach - all of which have no in-game alternative and are updated for 0.16 (except long reach, which is no longer maintained).
• Now the art makes very little sense.
• The point of development is generally to add functionality, not remove it.

Still, I'll (probably) respect your decision. I still consider you a pretty awesome dev team.

[Klonan]

I don't understand. Fluid wagon's mass is 2 times higher than normal wagon, and it already transports less fluid than wagon with barrells. Why reduce it's capactiy?

It is 3x heavier than the cargo wagon, so we would definitely reduce the weight to compensate for reduced capacity

[Zavian]

I don't understand. Fluid wagon's mass is 2 times higher than normal wagon, and it already transports less fluid than wagon with barrels. Why reduce it?

Personally I think barrels hold too much fluid. A bot carrying 4 barrels is carrying 1000 fluid which is roughly equivalent to a stack of about 100 plates. If they reduce the fluid wagon's capacity, hope they reduce the fluid wagons mass, and reduce barrel capacity. (If they hold less fluid Barrels could be made cheaper by changing the recipe to eg 1 steel = 2 barrels).

Edit: fixed typo in barrel capacity .

[Avezo]

I would like other issues with fluid wagon to be put in line aswell:
-Cargo wagon with barrels still transports more fluid
-Fluid wagon requires 3 fluid tanks to make, yet is smaller than they all combined (plus has the same capacity, but you are reducing it) and it generally looks weird, how are you turning huge fluid tanks into small tanks on wagon?
-Fluid wagon is heavier than cargo, it's not intuitive

Can't wait to see belt compression changes.

[irbork]

Great job. Love you guys. It's time for you to enjoy Christmas.
Haven't Klonan solved the belt compression problem? It just needs better sprite. But inserters and side loading will work as well.
I am sure you will remind us next week not to miss Steam voting. The only competition worthy of Factorio in this category is Civ6. And though I love both games I will vote for Factorio.

P.S.
I thought that you will miss today's FFF. Silly me

[TheRaph]

This fff was posted 20 minutes before midnight in Praha ... this was kind of close.

[Mylon]

A filter for the storage chests. Buffer chests somewhat help to sort the storage, it doesn't really replace the need of storage chests to have a single filter for the whole storage chest. This would allow it to be reserved just for something specific, which would solve a lot of different problems

Just what does this mean? How does a reserved storage chest differ from a buffer chest requesting 20k of an item?

[Colin969]

I'm just not seeing those are arguments, honestly. Going through in order.

1) "Just because they got used to it"
You could say the same about basically anything added feature in the game, of course people are going to get used to a feature of the game, just as they've gotten used to features like nuclear power.

2) "Making the wagon fluid capacity smaller (we didn't do it yet) and removing the separation, is similar to making the whole fluid wagon as big as one section."
You could've just made the sections a third of the size. I don't see how removing the separation makes it "as big as one section" when by default there isn't a separation anyway, which is functionally the same.

3) "It was solving a problem that has quite a trivial solution (use two separate wagons). We try to add mechanics mainly for things that don't have a solution otherwise, or the solution is weird."
The concept of the fluid wagon itself is guilty of is, given the fact we already had barrels that could transport liquids via train.

4) "We won't have to keep the code alive, we won't have to update the UI of it"
The only argument with legs.

[Mathwayb]

I'm glad side loading is being well considered for compressing a belt, otherwise lane balancing or loading 2 different items onto 1 belt for making things would be impossible. Also what about miners compressing a belt? Will they be able to so you can have miners only 1 space apart? Or will you always have to have 2 spaces in order for the splitters to compress the belt to fit?

As for the fluid wagons, I think if the carrying capacity is lowered then the weight of the wagon should be changed as well, since they already weigh twice as much as a cargo wagon, and a cargo wagon carrying fluid in barrels can carry MUCH more fluid total.

[Asanda_Nima]

I also feel, that we should add 2 things to the logistic system in 0.16:

• A checkbox in the requester chest that would allow the player to specify whether it should or shouldn't take from buffer chests, as even with the priorities, it might be annoying if robots took all the stuff from buffer stations to the requesters just because the supply train is going to arrive 10 seconds late, so the buffer chests would be supplied again soon. I would even say that the option might be to not take things from buffer chests by default.

• A filter for the storage chests. Buffer chests somewhat help to sort the storage, it doesn't really replace the need of storage chests to have a single filter for the whole storage chest. This would allow it to be reserved just for something specific, which would solve a lot of different problems

Does this mean, if I have a filtered storage chest in my system, e.g. "iron plate". The bots will prioritize this filtered section when placing iron plate? Independently where the storage chest is placed in my system?

Hell yeah, please do it!
I can wait for buffer chests if you make this possible. I long wait for an option to control my material flow in my bot based factories

I don't understand. Fluid wagon's mass is 2 times higher than normal wagon, and it already transports less fluid than wagon with barrels. Why reduce it?

Personally I think barrels hold too much fluid. A bot carrying 4 barrels is carrying 1000 fluid which is roughly equivalent to a stack of about 100 plates. If they reduce the fluid wagon's capacity, hope they reduce the fluid wagons mass, and reduce barrel capacity. (If they hold less fluid Barrels could be made cheaper by changing the recipe to eg 1 steel = 2 barrels).

Edit: fixed typo in barrel capacity .

I think so too. A specialized fluid wagon holds less then a normal wagon full of barrels! That does not make much sense, especially when the visual size of both wagon is approximately the same. It should be downsized to like ~100 fluid per barrel. That would make a wagon full of barrels ~40.000 fluid, while a fluid wagen can hold 75.000 fluid.
Barrels can not be packed so tight like fluid, that would make it a little bit more realistic.

[tk0421]

I guess its back to barrels.

dont think i'll ever build another fluid wagon.

I'm anti-mods when it comes to games that disable achievements, but if someone restores the old 3 tank wagons via mod...

[vedrit]

I don't understand. Fluid wagon's mass is 2 times higher than normal wagon, and it already transports less fluid than wagon with barrels. Why reduce it?

Personally I think barrels hold too much fluid. A bot carrying 4 barrels is carrying 1000 fluid which is roughly equivalent to a stack of about 100 plates. If they reduce the fluid wagon's capacity, hope they reduce the fluid wagons mass, and reduce barrel capacity. (If they hold less fluid Barrels could be made cheaper by changing the recipe to eg 1 steel = 2 barrels).

Edit: fixed typo in barrel capacity .

I agree with this. In fact, I try and avoid using barrels because they're just so dang OP.

[doppelEben]

merry christmas and a happy new year @devs. Hope you guys can enjoy the next following days off and stay with your loved ones. Take your time. What you guys have accomplished with factorio. or even just the last few weeks or months.... chapeau. Its awesome and stunning in equal parts