Friday Facts #226 - New mod portal & other news

[DarkyPupu]

How do you sort the mod portal by versions of factorio For example show only mods for version 0.15.* or 0.16.*?

I second that suggestion, either a filter on demand like other filters, either being able to specify which version we use on profile and display only those, would be nice

P.S. anyone have mod suggestions for an experienced player, but a mod newbie? (I hear Angels and Bob’s are excellent.)

They are, albeit a bit complex (i like them anyway), i like to play with them + Earendel mods (AAI). Good alternatives are Xander or 5Dim so far. Depends on your playstyle.
Just don't mix them :p

[Zeblote]

The way you continually talking about it as the "new mod portal" somehow didn't make me expect "the current one, except not slow"... am I the only one who's a bit confused?

[Gergely]

The way you continually talking about it as the "new mod portal" somehow didn't make me expect "the current one, except not slow"... am I the only one who's a bit confused?

Probably yes. They never mentioned anything "new" in it. I did suspect that it is nothing but an upgrade to the internals.

[DarkyPupu]

It's already awesome, as the previous one was just nearly not working anymore, had to reload it several times before having a result sometimes... I can understand that some GUI update was expected with the teasers but it's not the most important.

[Pascali]

I hopted to hear, that bots are history...

[hyspeed]

Hi,

As for conventions, there is a series here in the US called PAX.

I think you should attend some of those.


jon

[Zavian]

I'm pretty sure Twinsen spilled out about mod portal already in 'interview' stream with Xtreminator and co. He also spilled out that this FFF was supposed to be third part of belts vs. bots. Yet it's not.

Someone is lying or at least manipulating.

Or as they said in this FFF, they may have decided that they need more time to consider what they are going to do, and so have postponed making any permanent decisions.

[Farzag]

I wonder what would happen if bots took up space. A key reason why they are so much more efficient than belts is that the game ignores the fact that they take up space - maybe a small base amount plus more for large loads?

If the bots had to make way for each other and might occasionally close, it would both feel more realistic and add an interesting element to the game: you now need to really think about where to put the roboports and chests...

I'm glad the devs are taking time to think about this!

[vampiricdust]

I hopted to hear, that bots are history...

It's called a mod... go make one. Bots will not be removed, but they may yet be nerfed into uselessness, which then I'll make a mod. Mods let you mod the game the way you want.... which why they're called mods, because mods are the way to mod things you dont like.

[Oktokolo]

Last I read on Splitters from FFF #225 is that they will be coming with the next version of 16.x. It's been more than a week now since a minor version release, I would have thought they are a big enough item to warrant a fairly quick release. Is the new Splitter delayed now?

There will be no splitter upgrade. Therefore there will not be any 16.x release either. 17.0 will get released when it is ready - without any change to splitters or belt compression.

[Bauer]

I still believe that bots being OP (or not) is NOT the real issue. The "problem" is that they "trivialize" late-game base building, as Twinsen put it.

The solution to this is not in balanceing bot mechanics, but within other elements of the game, i.e. beacons. I strongly hope the devs are also thinking along those lines. They have gained my trust to move this in the right direction by not simply nerfing/buffing bots/belts. Thanks for that.

[scrangos]

Hopefully the splitter thing still happens...if not officially at least like the loaders in a way we can switch on with a mod

[Philip017]

i personally think the bots work just fine as is, if you need a lot of throughput, bots are the way to go. they are also incredibly convenient. you have improved them very well and so they are really the best for end game.

but the belts definitely need some tweaking, would suggest making them slightly cheaper to make and add a 4th tier for even faster belts.

with even faster belts inserters will need buffing as well, yellow inserters cant grab from blue belts unless it is full, red inserters also have trouble with blue belts unless they are full, if you add even faster belts, red inserters may have further issues, a fast long handed inserter and/or long stack inserter would fix this.

i know you probably wont change the functionality of how the belts work, but the magic belts have always had the question of, they dont use power? how do they move then.
the addition of some kind of belt that would act as a motor could be used to make the existing belts faster, instead of different tier belts we could have motors that use speed modules. lack of any motors results in the slowest belts, belts get slower with low power. with steam power in the beginning this could promote separate power networks to make sure the steam is always running at full speed.

[BHakluyt]

Uhm...so since the office is almost empty with the others gone, don't one of the remaining devs want to work up the courage and sneakily release v 16.17 please? We wont tell the others and keep bugs to ourselves until they are back. Come on man, please do it... Don't be scared, they won't fire you...

[xng]

I was really hoping for the splitters to come this week as I think it will lead to really interesting new balancers and sorters designs, but now I understand the convention will take up a few weeks of braintime instead.

The fix for belts also feels urgent, right when the belts started showing their item/s speeds in the tooltips the actual items/s is about 70-90% of that and you need to compensate for that random loss in the whole factory. The missing items error on belts also escalates, for each step in the process that error is the only constant that follows downstream and adds up to really bad belt throughput.

[Lubricus]

with even faster belts inserters will need buffing as well, yellow inserters cant grab from blue belts unless it is full, red inserters also have trouble with blue belts unless they are full, if you add even faster belts, red inserters may have further issues, a fast long handed inserter and/or long stack inserter would fix this.

I see that as an interesting feature -a problem for you as a player to solve not a problem with game design that the developers have to solve. Please Wube don't go the same way as many other game designers and dumb down the game in the name of polish and accessibility then the game just gets bland and boring. Don't buff the belts to the same level of simplicity as bots make the bot's equally quirky and have as much subtle mechanics as the belt - inserter interactions.

[neoc]

Regarding belt compression, which is still an issue: If you use a belt of the next tier at the insertion point (or maybe even after it), this will compress the belt again. So it should be possible to work around the issue in all cases.

[Koub]

Last I read on Splitters from FFF #225 is that they will be coming with the next version of 16.x. It's been more than a week now since a minor version release, I would have thought they are a big enough item to warrant a fairly quick release. Is the new Splitter delayed now?

There will be no splitter upgrade. Therefore there will not be any 16.x release either. 17.0 will get released when it is ready - without any change to splitters or belt compression.

When you announce such unbelievable things, a source would be welcome. Making outrageous (ly false) announcements is pretty lame imho.

[GodricSeer]

Last I read on Splitters from FFF #225 is that they will be coming with the next version of 16.x. It's been more than a week now since a minor version release, I would have thought they are a big enough item to warrant a fairly quick release. Is the new Splitter delayed now?

There will be no splitter upgrade. Therefore there will not be any 16.x release either. 17.0 will get released when it is ready - without any change to splitters or belt compression.

When you announce such unbelievable things, a source would be welcome. Making outrageous (ly false) announcements is pretty lame imho.

His post was pretty obviously a sarcastic joke (hence the outrageousness of it). No need to insult the post.

[neoc]

His post was pretty obviously a sarcastic joke (hence the outrageousness of it). No need to insult the post.

No, that isn't obvious at all.