Friday Facts #275 - 0.17 Science changes

[Rythe]

This update suggests that the devs think a lot of players are using automated science production as a source of materials for further expansion, and expansion of their main factory to fuel science production. My play style definitely doesn't include this, nor does that of most of the people I've watched. When I build my first refinery, I am hand crafting all the pipes, and just working on something else while that process finishes. Automating red ammo for defense vs for science are two completely different concerns for me, one often coming long before or after the other depending on the game settings I'm playing. Using solid fuel from my main refineries to produce science is... not going to happen.

Am I wrong here? Are many people driving science production from intermediate products produced in your main factory?

As others have mentioned, new players do. Or if you don't have a lot of labs (either new player or dragging out the research times while you set up the basics) so the production line of the item has a lot of idle time and can easily feed normal player needs outside of research.

But yeah, totally falls apart with rails in production packs between the throughput demand and that it's easy to need rails before you need them in production packs. So the player will quickly learn to set up rail production separate from research far before they need them for research, which means the rail feed for research will likely be a separate bit of factory than general use, so doesn't do much toward the stated goal of prompting a player to automate them.

As opposed to how it's much more common for the other items in research packs to need a production line for research purposes before the player feels the need to create a production line for general use. Like with belts and inserters, it's so easy and habit forming to just craft them as you go early on that setting up production lines for them for logistic science packs is actually a bit novel.

I generally call this 'trying too hard', that is, overvaluing the idea that it's neat and useful to use science as an automation prompter for certain items that you take it past the point of silliness.

[Rythe]

I gonna miss the deviation of different types of assemblers. I always liked choosing "the right" machine for the specific job, it was another layer in improving production by upgrading them.

I just do not understand how the game is getting better by these choices.

I made a thread a while back re:assemblers to go over the reason for the change and then what could help inject the interesting choice part back into the thing.

It's a one step forward, two steps back sort of thing with their change as is.

[poma]

Why not roll Damage and Shooting speed into the same research for respective weapons? Like for example when you upgrade projectiles you can get shooting speed buff every few levels. If shooting speed needs to be capped the later upgrades can just stop giving speed and buff only the damage. This can significantly reduce weapon research clutter.

I always wondered why do we have a separate damage and speed research for each weapon type instead of single weapon type upgrade.

[FasterJump]

This form of a theme is nice to have and yes it does happen in many cases which is good as it does “make sense” or invoke this kind od immersion you speak about. But by no means it is a hard rule or a design goal we have set to obey, and it does not always happen. Green science is far from just logistics, engines in blue are only for a tank and solid fuel is barely built upon by advanced oil processing. I guess you could find more weak connections, but I’d say that rails going to train braking force or logistics 3 is similarly weak. In final non-intermediate products this is obviously a step worse, but there is not an infinite amount or intermediates we would have and would fit in this context.

Both because this theming is not the only priority and because I don’t think this is breaking much the weak consistency in this regard, and there seems to be a substantial number of people who feel ok with this, I believe it fine.

WhileI still think rails are not the right ingredients, I thank you for this quality answer that brings much to the discussion.

In my opinion, the reason rails "breaks the theme" more than other ingredients is also because:
-Rails are a logistic item, not a production item
-Rails are a finished product, not like engines, solid fuel or wires, that are intermediate products.
-30 of them. It's 60 meters long. Feels dumb to me.

I understand your point, but could you adopt the point of view of a beginner, that face this high ingredients demand for the first time? "What, it needs 30 RAILS? this inert finished product? is it a bug?"

It appears in this thread that rails are very unpopular both because of theme breaking and high number recquired. I hope you'll review this change with others devs before you take your final decision, whatever it is.

This update suggests that the devs think a lot of players are using automated science production as a source of materials for further expansion, and expansion of their main factory to fuel science production. My play style definitely doesn't include this, nor does that of most of the people I've watched. When I build my first refinery, I am hand crafting all the pipes, and just working on something else while that process finishes. Automating red ammo for defense vs for science are two completely different concerns for me, one often coming long before or after the other depending on the game settings I'm playing. Using solid fuel from my main refineries to produce science is... not going to happen.

Am I wrong here? Are many people driving science production from intermediate products produced in your main factory?

Me too. I don't always automate things like pipes, miner drills, assembling machines. Because the crafting time is faster than the number of entities I have to lay down. I always have few stacks of iron plates, copper plates, gear wheels, steel on my inventory, as well as very used items like yellow and blue inserts, poles, pipes and underground pipes, etc. So when I deplete a stack of, let's say, UG pipes, I still have enough pipes and iron plates to craft what I need. I only need massive amounts in endgame, and I pick what I need in "malls", not in the science assembly line. That's why I don't feel concerned when devs push us to automate useful things in science lines.

By the way, I agree that portable solar panels are under-powered.

Thank you for your hard work and happy new year!

[Zavian]

Casual players not caring what the truly dedicated think is par for the course and generally assumed anyway. I wish they wouldn't keep jumping in with what reduces to an explicit "We don't love you, please be quiet" like this all the time. It adds nothing to the conversation and just raises blood pressures.

I have over 2000 hours in Factorio, and I'm in favour of the pickaxe removal.

Does that make me a casual player?

I have over 500 hours in various Bob's + Angel's or Seablock bases . (In case you weren't aware Seablock includes Bob's mods + Angel's mods). In my personal opinion, the removal of hardness is a minor feature. I hardly even noticed it was there (admittedly adding Angel's changes ores, so maybe I missed all of Bob's work on that part). But my understanding is that it changes the choice between which miner is best for a certain ore. If so, it doesn't seem to be a critical part of Bob's mods.

As for the pickaxe itself, after the burner stage I never actually hand mine any ore. Period. At all. I mine lots of buildings as I'm building my base, and the odd log, tree or rock that is in the way. But clearing of large areas is generally left to bots. The only time I build a pickaxe after the very start of the game is when my existing one wears out. So I view this streamlining as a welcome improvement to the game. I my opinion even for mods like Bobs that are affected, the change is on the whole minor. The main exceptions I can see are mods that extend the pre-burner/burner phase, where players are expected to do lots of hand mining. They can just implement hand mining and wear of tools in Lua. (The performance costs for using Lua should be tolerable, since at that stage of the game the factory should be small with very little automation happening, and the player is only swinging his axe for a part of the time).

Someone upthread accused you of over-reacting. I wish to agree with him. These are relatively minor features. You are reacting like the devs had proposed removing the half Lua api, and not replacing it.

Now please stop claiming you are speaking for the 'core players', or alternatively provide a link to a public post where they nominated you their speaker.

Please stop complaining about this change in unrelated topics. The proper place to post about this is viewtopic.php?f=38&t=63125 or one of the existing related threads.

Please stop accusing the devs of ignoring you/"the core players". I recall Posila trying to engage with you. If I recall correctly, you just dismissed or ignored everything he said, and continued to spout the same emotional argument at him. You seem to expect that if you make enough fuss, the devs will cave to you. (That might work if a large enough proportion of the playerbase were upset. But I only recall seeing only a few players expressing disappointment with the decision, and exactly one person making a fuss).

If you actually want the devs to change their minds on this, then you need to provide a logical argument that explains "why keeping the pickaxe makes Factorio a better game". That might sway the devs. I stressed the word logical deliberately. I have even asked you to for this earlier. If I recall correctly, Posila asked you this. (You don't need to convince me, you need to convince at least one of the devs). Your continued failure to provide an argument based on logic and not emotion leads me to the conclusion that you don't have one. (In which case it is past time to stop throwing an internet tantrum over losing your precious axe).

[Zavian]

The trick to using PSPs is batteries.

That's the other issue. Early modular suits suffer because they don't work at night. This isn't a big deal for most items, except it renders the night vision goggles completely inoperable as a stand alone research. In Factorio items are generally just supposed to work yet NV goggles are one of the few things that doesn't. Even the personal roboport has enough internal energy to work some tasks without suit batteries and that's in blue research. Give it enough internal energy to survive one night and then players can have an item that just works.

Agreed night vision goggles should have enough internal battery to survive at least one night.

[featherwinglove]

I have over 2000 hours in Factorio, and I'm in favour of the pickaxe removal.

How is that relevant? How does that give you the right to deprive every other player who has over 2000 hours in the game of a feature you don't like?

Please stop complaining about this change in unrelated topics. The proper place to post about this is viewtopic.php?f=38&t=63125 or one of the existing related threads.

You are the one posting the wall of text here, bud.

If you actually want the devs to change their minds on this, then you need to provide a logical argument that explains "why keeping the pickaxe makes Factorio a better game".

You know where to find it. You linked the main thread. There is another thread exclusive to the topic started by Rythe a full week before I dove in.

You, Zavian, are the one flying off the handle and going off topic at this point. I wouldn't mind a moderator deleting both of these posts, thanks in advance.

[Mike5000]

If you actually want the devs to change their minds on this, then you need to provide a logical argument that explains "why keeping the pickaxe makes Factorio a better game".

That has been done many times. What has not been done is to explain why removing the pickaxe makes Factorio better.

The best solution is to keep the pickaxe but make it not wear out in vanilla.

One of the least best solutions is to remove the inoffensive popular bugfree pickaxe and then code up a whole new mechanism to replace it and then dump the whole mess on the unfortunate modders.

This is 0.17 - quite unlike any prior release - so guess which plan the way-overdue-for-a-good-vacation devs chose.

[featherwinglove]

One of the least best solutions is to remove the inoffensive popular bugfree pickaxe and then code up a whole new mechanism to replace it and then dump the whole mess on the unfortunate modders.

FTFY with the link to the thread they started approximately fitting that description. It's not as bad as I expected.

This is 0.17 - quite unlike any prior release - so guess which plan the way-overdue-for-a-good-vacation devs chose.

The best choice would have been to take the way overdue good vacation first, let us enjoy 0.16 without a handful of FFFs, come back and even if they made the exact same decisions as they really did, at least they wouldn't be defending them like, well... THIS:

Problem not solved: I research titanium axe and *poof* instant mining speed upgrade. I haven't made a single titanium plate, which is not a trivial thing in Bob's, and maybe I haven't even mined a single piece of rutile ore.

Make the research need titanium, ez

That's an instant circular dependency and therefore I seriously thought he was joking.

[Egdod]

I think the science changes are great, the fluid dynamics are sorely needed, and all the new hi-res stuff is awesome. I appreciate the devs trying to keep the game fresh and interesting. Sometimes we react to change negatively just because it’s change, but once we give it a try it turns out to be a good thing. Looking forward to 0.17 in the new year.

[featherwinglove]

Okay, so somebody noticed that the Tank has been nerfed so it's a Smash 4 jigglypuff. Discussion thread.

[abregado]

This is 0.17 - quite unlike any prior release - so guess which plan the way-overdue-for-a-good-vacation devs chose.

Some of the team who posted here in response WERE on holiday. They still chose to respond to you and engage in the game they love.

One of the least best solutions is to remove the inoffensive popular bugfree pickaxe and then code up a whole new mechanism to replace it and then dump the whole mess on the unfortunate modders.

The team works undeniably hard to support modders, and nobody ever said that we were going to stop supporting them with regarding pickaxe related issues (give link if you find one).

[featherwinglove]

This is 0.17 - quite unlike any prior release - so guess which plan the way-overdue-for-a-good-vacation devs chose.

Some of the team who posted here in response WERE on holiday. They still chose to respond to you and engage in the game they love.

One of the least best solutions is to remove the inoffensive popular bugfree pickaxe and then code up a whole new mechanism to replace it and then dump the whole mess on the unfortunate modders.

The team works undeniably hard to support modders, and nobody ever said that we were going to stop supporting them with regarding pickaxe related issues (give link if you find one).

Here, it seems like you're just trying to toot your horn and pretend to care when you actually don't. I now have had two PM conversations, both of which have served to exacerbate this concern rather than alleviate it. And I shall conclude with the "give link if you find one" with several quotes, you can click on the little arrows to go to them:

But that's not the case here. Wube deliberately broke a lot of great mods and diminished the vanilla experience (AM1) for no good reason.

Assembling machine limit is still modable, but in vanilla, they are unlimited (which really means limited to 255 ingredient slots)

Another thing that might help is to have a clear list of what is and is not still moddable, and perhaps a justification (whether it's accepted or not) for removing what you did from the engine. Then people wouldn't need to speculate and extrapolate.

I don't know reasoning beyond what was in FFF

• Pickaxe - tool slot and mining-tool prototype removed from engine (there is dummy mining-tool for purpose of migration of old saves)

(emphasis added to "removed from engine")

Decision to remove pickaxe was done before new game view GUI was designed, and new game view GUI design doesn't have pickaxe slot. So that's why we can't just hide it - we would have to put it somewhere first, and then hide it.

I am listening (actually I am spending on this much more time than I should), but all I hear are emotions and very little reason.

This was on page 25 of the thread; this forum has twenty posts per page, making it between 480 and 500 posts on that thread, and there were 31 on Rythe's general discussion thread at that point.

Problem not solved: I research titanium axe and *poof* instant mining speed upgrade. I haven't made a single titanium plate, which is not a trivial thing in Bob's, and maybe I haven't even mined a single piece of rutile ore.

Make the research need titanium, ez

The proposal forms a direct circular dependency that makes any further progress impossible. He must be joking!

"Hey, uh, just was wondering, is this, uh, an out-of-season April Fool's joke?"

I just provided a solution for your problem: You say that you want the axe to take titanium, I tell you how to make it take titanium. If having a solution for your problem is a joke to you, I must sincerely wonder why you keep asking for one.

Oh, I guess not.

So, um... ...what are we supposed to make of all this?

[Zavian]

If you actually want the devs to change their minds on this, then you need to provide a logical argument that explains "why keeping the pickaxe makes Factorio a better game".

That has been done many times. What has not been done is to explain why removing the pickaxe makes Factorio better.

Quoting from the original FFF

Fast forward to these days and play-testing some of the tutorial tweaks. We noticed that players, when they start with Factorio, they often try to mine by taking the pickaxe into the cursor and doing the mining (as they might be used to doing from Minecraft or other similar games).

So we were thinking how to improve the tutorial to avoid this mistake, but the next natural question was: "Why would we even need to have pickaxe in the game?". We realized that it is the item that you just craft in the beginning, and upgrade once in the middle for a steel pick, and that is it. The cost of it is zero compared to the factory output. It is just bloat. So the change for 0.17 is that we completely removed mining tools from the game. The mining speed at the game start is the same as with iron pickaxe, and the research that unlocked steel pickaxe just increases player mining speed accordingly and that is it.

I can't speak for the devs, but I can give you my personal opinion on the issue. In general streamlining games by removing mechanics that aren't really used (eg the pickaxe, mining hardness) often results in a better and more polished gameplay experience. To me both the pickaxe and mining hardness fall into this category. In addition to the problem pointed out above, the pickaxe has almost no gameplay value. It is just an occasional resource sink whenever you last pickaxe wears out. I my opinion it has no reason to exist as an item in vanilla. I expect that also applies to 99% of mods. As I already stated I expect the main exception to be mods that extend the pre-burner/burtner stage, when the mod expects you to do a lot of hand mining. For most players I expect that they will barely even notice it's removal.

Once the devs have decided that they are going remove the pickaxe and mining hardness from vanilla, then tidying up the code (eg removing mining hardness from the engine) potentially makes sense. (Also, depending on the implementation, it is possible that in the old code mining drills might have needed to fetch extra data every time the drill mined something, so removing that might be a tiny performance optimisation. Even if it doesn't affect performance, keeping the code tidy by completely removing the out of date mining hardness code can be good practice).

As for the pickaxe slot, don't forget that we are getting a new GUI. So it's potentially not a matter of removing the pickaxe from the new GUI, but of not bothering to add it. (Adding a hidden pickaxe slot that mods could make visible is just doesn't make sense. Even if someone makes a compelling argument about how having a visible pickaxe improves the game, mods can already add custom GUIs, so I expect that they can add a custom button that shows a pickaxe, its wear, and allows you to change it, assuming anyone really wants that). But in general cleaning up the UI by removing anything unnecessary is good practice).

The best solution is to keep the pickaxe but make it not wear out in vanilla.

That does nothing to address the problem pointed out in the FFF. Even if you solved that problem in another way, in my opinion Factorio will be a better game because they are cleaning up the UI by removing unnecessary items.

One of the least best solutions is to remove the inoffensive popular bugfree pickaxe and then code up a whole new mechanism to replace it and then dump the whole mess on the unfortunate modders.

And I do not understand why some people want to keep it. From my point of view it adds almost nothing to the gameplay. It's an occasional resource sink, potentially at an inconvenient moment. Is that planning ahead for so you don't run out of axes at an inconvenient moment attractive to players?

Most of the arguments I've seen have been along one of three lines. (I'll freely admit I've started skimming the relevant topics. most of them just seem to be repeating the same gush of emotion, without having any solid logical arguments).
1. "It been in the game since the very beginning, so they shouldn't remove it". To me that just not logical. If the devs decide that keeping it serves no logical purpose, then they should remove it, even though it has been there for years.
2. "Having the axe in the UI increases immersion". Ok I can get that, but surely that is a minor effect. I think that can only be evaluated after playing for a while without it. (Obviously this is an area where different people will have different opinions. Personally I don't expect it to matter at all).
3. Some sort of emotional attachment to the pickaxe being what enabled you to start down the road to automation, and to build your factory, and hence being desperate not to loss that connection to the past. Pure emotional argument, but makes no logical argument about why keeping the axe makes Factorio better.

If you have a link to a post where someone express a different argument that you think is compelling (and based on logic, not just emotional attachment), then I'd be interested to read it. (I'll admit I've become jaded on the topic, and tend to just skim many of the posts. They all seem to be going around in circles, with everyone just rehashing the same ground).

Again as stated above, for vanilla and 99% of mods I expect the pickaxe is such a minor feature that they either ignore it entirely, or just add a new technology to unlock an upgraded axe when appropriate. Don't forget that the devs job is to make the best game they can. That means making the best possible vanilla experience. Having a vibrant, successful and diverse set of mods and a decent mod api is a bonus. Sometimes that focus on making the best possible vanilla game means making decisions that disappoint/annoy/upset some players. (Indeed I expect most decisions the devs make will annoy/disappoint at least a few players. I know they have made some decisions I've been disappointed in. But I've said my piece, accepted the result, and moved on).

[Zavian]

Problem not solved: I research titanium axe and *poof* instant mining speed upgrade. I haven't made a single titanium plate, which is not a trivial thing in Bob's, and maybe I haven't even mined a single piece of rutile ore.

Make the research need titanium, ez

The proposal forms a direct circular dependency that makes any further progress impossible. He must be joking!

"Hey, uh, just was wondering, is this, uh, an out-of-season April Fool's joke?"

I just provided a solution for your problem: You say that you want the axe to take titanium, I tell you how to make it take titanium. If having a solution for your problem is a joke to you, I must sincerely wonder why you keep asking for one.

Oh, I guess not.

So, um... ...what are we supposed to make of all this?

So you unlock titanium. You make some. Then you research your mining axe upgrade, using a science flask (or other item that a lab can accept eg possibly a custom item that looks like a titanium axe and has a recipe like making a titanium axe) that is made (at least partially) from titanium. (You could even make the research take 10 titanium 'axes' with a completion time of 1 second. So you automate or hand-craft your 10 axes, stuff them in a lab, select the research and viola, a few seconds later you get your shiny upgraded virtual axe. By the time those 10 axes 'wearout' hopefully you have moved on to something better. Or the mod could even remove the tech, and mining bonus after 600 mins, forcing you to make another 10 axes and research the tech again).

This is such a simple and obvious solution that it occured to me when reading the original FFF, before I even looked at the discussion.

[abregado]

And I shall conclude with the "give link if you find one" with several quotes, you can click on the little arrows to go to them:

Problem not solved: I research ...

Common man, play fair. You cant just quote yourself saying problem not solved, concerns not addressed. Otherwise I can quote someone saying "problem solved there are no problems". Then we get nowhere.

So, um... ...what are we supposed to make of all this?

To be exact:

• Pickaxe slot is being removed from the engine.
• We are spending development time on adding to the modding api (a change which does more than just replace the pickaxe functionality) viewtopic.php?t=63291
• If a modder wants advice and support with changing/updating their mod which has suffered in any way from the 0.17 update they can ask in the Modding Help forum and they will receive the exact same support as they got before this announcement. viewforum.php?f=25

[Oktokolo]

Problem not solved: I research titanium axe and *poof* instant mining speed upgrade. I haven't made a single titanium plate, which is not a trivial thing in Bob's, and maybe I haven't even mined a single piece of rutile ore.

Make the research need titanium, ez

That's an instant circular dependency and therefore I seriously thought he was joking.

It is non-circular:
Research new ore processing, mine new ore, make new science pack out of new processed ore, research new speed upgrade using new science pack.
I am pretty sure, that is, what Bilka actually meant.

[abregado]

I think the science changes are great, the fluid dynamics are sorely needed, and all the new hi-res stuff is awesome. I appreciate the devs trying to keep the game fresh and interesting. Sometimes we react to change negatively just because it’s change, but once we give it a try it turns out to be a good thing. Looking forward to 0.17 in the new year.

Thanks a lot and if you do try it and you find it unfulfilling I look forward to meeting you again on page 15

[Zavian]

I think the science changes are great, the fluid dynamics are sorely needed, and all the new hi-res stuff is awesome. I appreciate the devs trying to keep the game fresh and interesting. Sometimes we react to change negatively just because it’s change, but once we give it a try it turns out to be a good thing. Looking forward to 0.17 in the new year.

Thanks a lot and if you do try it and you find it unfulfilling I look forward to meeting you again on page 15

Whilst I think the new science packs sound like a nice improvement for vanilla from a pacing and game balance/design perspective, I've always felt that late game science and rocket parts were too simple. Currently they don't feel satisfying. (Comment obviously based on 0.15/0.16, but I don't see the new recipes in 0.17 changing that much, although the addition of rails and flying robot frames will help). I'd prefer more complex recipe chains for those late game parts. (Of course this is something mods can change, so no big deal).

[Nemoricus]

This update suggests that the devs think a lot of players are using automated science production as a source of materials for further expansion, and expansion of their main factory to fuel science production. My play style definitely doesn't include this, nor does that of most of the people I've watched. When I build my first refinery, I am hand crafting all the pipes, and just working on something else while that process finishes. Automating red ammo for defense vs for science are two completely different concerns for me, one often coming long before or after the other depending on the game settings I'm playing. Using solid fuel from my main refineries to produce science is... not going to happen.

Am I wrong here? Are many people driving science production from intermediate products produced in your main factory?

I have to agree with this post. I generally set up one area of my base for science production and then don't touch anything that goes into it. If I need materials for base expansion, I set up production elsewhere.