Friday Facts #257 - NPE/Campaign update

[Ojelle]

Credits: Have you toughd about them? Even just a short list of who has worked on the project? Perfect after the escape-pod launch.

[ef_ex]

I think these changes are really good.
I still don't understand one thing tho.
In one of the friday facts it was mentioned that the player can go either production science or high tech science since you still need both to finish the game i still don't get this statement.
There is not one way or the other, you still need everything to go on.

[pleegwat]

It's good to have nuclear fuel more accessible, but I don't think Kovarex needs the love. Nuclear fuel reprocessing does. It's too easy to skip reprocessing because it's expensive and simply doesn't give any U235. What good is a tech that gives you more U238 when the stockpiles are already overflowing with it? Make reprocessing better somehow.

Realistically, reprocessing should yield plutonium and other radioactive elements. Along with, indeed, U238. Plutonium is used in RTG fuel.

[daveralph1234]

I would love to see shallows in free play.
It would be an interesting challenging to play on a swamp world with lots of water, shallows, and trees.
For both aesthetic and defensive reasons it would be nice to have little islands and pockets of deep water scattered throughout larger areas of shallows.
One of the issues with playing on worlds with lots of water currently is that aliens can't really get to you; it would also add an interesting dynamic if aliens could build on the shallows (but not the player), requiring you to use artillery for defence.
For an added challenge, maybe vehicles either shouldn't be able to cross shallows or should move much slower through them.

[Unknow0059]

Why the need for terrain where the player can't build stuff?

[WeirdConstructor]

In one of the friday facts it was mentioned that the player can go either production science or high tech science since you still need both to finish the game i still don't get this statement.
There is not one way or the other, you still need everything to go on.

When I first played it, it presented to me as two different routes somehow. At least I got
the implicit impression, that the choice is up to me. But when focusing on making the rocket,
there was no choice anymore. There are some choices in the tech tree, which depend heavily on
the map. Sometimes I don't need laser turrets, sometimes no railroad. Sometimes not even
blue belts. My last rocket I launched by using only yellow belts (took 24h however).

I would love a choice, like going a more green route or a more pollution route.
Also reflected in the tech tree.

[Amarula]

Ooh lots more to love coming in 0.17! I really like the changes to the tech research tree. The shallow water sounds interesting, but it really should be called "swamp."

[Pure Ownage]

I like the changes . One possible use of the shallow water is a bridge between two lands that are separated by very thin water, ~3 blocks. As it is annoying to have to walk around the water body but I don't like filling in water especially if I am not in a green biome

[Aardwolf]

I like these balance changes because it means with every new version I can enjoy the game from scratch and it'll be a new experience!

[Paul17041993]

I'm definitely liking these changes, it makes much more sense for the rocket materials to be split out and put to use in various other places, among the general separation of nuclear etc. Of which in essence means you could get uranium processing, kovarex and ammo to use uranium in more classic methods (including nuclear fuel in boilers) before doing the whole nuclear power setup, this would help with tutorials as well.

The shallow water however should definitely be added to the 'freeplay' generator, very often you come across places that have spots of land with only a step gap of water that blocks you, where shallow water can simply be generated around the edges of land as it were beaches etc, which would solve this problem rather nicely. Pumps should treat the shallow water as it were normal water, for simplicity, unless you were to allow pipes to be placed over shallow water, or create a new plastic pipe even for this specific task.

[Krazykrl]

Pumps should treat the shallow water as it were normal water, for simplicity, unless you were to allow pipes to be placed over shallow water, or create a new plastic pipe even for this specific task.

Yea, this is similar to a question I'm having. I'm assuming that the shallow water tile (as a subset of the water tile) is pumpable, pathable, but not buildable. This would be a fantastic solution to needing inland water, you could blast the ground with some explosives... and this would only cause the land to become shallow water. There still wouldn't be a way to make impassable moats, but you could still get some of those inland pumps without the problem of accidentally and irreversibly filling(or poisoning) your watering hole.

Ooo, if you're reworking rocket fuel, could you make the recipe more complex and done in a chemical plant? I always thought it was weird that the recipe for rocket fuel was so simple. Solid fuel of course makes a good base, but I can't think of an oxidizer it should be mixed with among vanilla items.

This should utilize one of the cooler mechanics... steam and boilers. Assemblers have fluid connections, and can accept fluids. Steam makes perfect sense in this case, as you're "refining" solid fuel into rocket fuel (and injecting energy) similar to coal liquifaction in the factorio universe. If you add some other ingredient into the recipe (other than maybe other refining fluids); you would be unable to turn a coal deposit into a rocket fuel deposit directly. Bonus points if the steam is part of a fluid-catalyzed reaction, and is output in a smaller quantity, so you would end up with SolidFuel+Steam->RocketFuel+LessSteam.

[BadwolfBlaze]

One thing to suggest.
Maybe you could have the rocket in the silo show different designs depending whats in it. For the satellite, it could be the payload fairing. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_fairing)
And for the Escape Pod, it could show the rocket cockpit or command module.

[Engimage]

I love the new science changes. It is nice to see streamlined production of rocket components required by other stuff. It can kinda give a glimpse at those before you opt into rocket launch.
I would really enjoy seeing low density structures being a component for mass production of high end military stuff, and RCU being a kind of new color chip (tier4) for that as well.

Awesome stuff with shallow water as well. It would be awesome to see it in free play as well. And a shovel that if you use it on a dirt right near water you would transform it into shallow water to create channels for say power plants or chemical production. This would not be OP as water fill is able to create water in a random spot and also would not be able to create impassable walls for biters

Overall great job guys and thank you as always!

[HurkWurk]

shallow water should definitely be in free play, and used specifically to allow new map types "connected islands" etc.

an island hopping campaign could be an awesome addon to the game, where its not practical without mods to otherwise landfill between the masses, instead you have shallow water courses.

it also means you can force the issue of a player making a entrance without the benefit of plopping down a bunch of fixed defenses.

[Brambor]

I heard prises to you thanks to the importance of parts in this game which has more depth now with all the 0.16 rocket ingredients to have a reasonable usage outside of rocket silo.

Very well done, cannot wait for 0.17 and yet another 50h playthrougth

[Brambor]

Shalow water could be in free play.
It could be filled in by 1 landfill and current deep water could turn into shalow water or just require more landfill to fill up. Aditionaly, for balance reasons, cost of landfil would be adjusted to make filling cost the same.

Maybe I will make this into suggestion.

[TheRaph]

Awesome stuff with shallow water as well. It would be awesome to see it in free play as well. And a shovel that if you use it on a dirt right near water you would transform it into shallow water to create channels for say power plants or chemical production. This would not be OP as water fill is able to create water in a random spot and also would not be able to create impassable walls for biters.

Nice idea. I like to have it the same.

[boksiora]

great balance changes, thank you

[pleegwat]

If nowhere else, I'm sure shallow water could be used in custom campaigns (made in the improved map editor).

[Tongs]

Regarding some of the comments about shallow water:

What this means is there is an area that the player - and biters - can move through but neither static defenses nor logistics can be built.

Shallow water is one way to create a zone that biters can attack through a chokepoint, but that chokepoint cannot be easily defended. Defenses must be built on either side, which may add a challenge depending on how the map is laid out.

Logistics such as rails cannot be built there. In a campaign that has no landfill, this means there may be two sub-factories that cannot be easily linked.

I don't see shallow water as anything of a benefit for freeplay. It combines the worst parts of both water and land - biters can walk across it like land, but we cannot build on it as with water. This could be a great way to help guide the player toward an objective in a campaign or tutorial, but I don't see this making freeplay any better.