Friday Facts #309 - Controversial opinions

[meganothing]

Oh man pipes as a electric network would be so easy to made.

Production = Sum(producers)
Consumption = Sum(consumer)

If consumption > production -> reduceSpeed(consumers)

Throughput is limited to the smallest pipe in the whole network.
As vanilla has only one type of pipe, it can be coded in hard and the moddable pipe volume can be removed.

This means if a pipe (10000u) can handle 8 offshore pumps (á 1200u) and 12 are connected, only 8 * 1200u can be consumed.

No rocket since.

With or without network analysis whenever you change the topology? I.e. do you check if your 12 offshore pumps are connected over parallel pipes to the consumers or do you just assume that every network can only every transmit 10000u no matter the number of parallel pipe lines?

[steinio]

Oh man pipes as a electric network would be so easy to made.

Production = Sum(producers)
Consumption = Sum(consumer)

If consumption > production -> reduceSpeed(consumers)

Throughput is limited to the smallest pipe in the whole network.
As vanilla has only one type of pipe, it can be coded in hard and the moddable pipe volume can be removed.

This means if a pipe (10000u) can handle 8 offshore pumps (á 1200u) and 12 are connected, only 8 * 1200u can be consumed.

No rocket since.

With or without network analysis whenever you change the topology? I.e. do you check if your 12 offshore pumps are connected over parallel pipes to the consumers or do you just assume that every network can only every transmit 10000u no matter the number of parallel pipe lines?

For the sake of simplicity parallel pipes shouldn't be considered.

[brunzenstein]

Any iOS can handle BT mouse and BT keyboard quite well.
Thats not an argument.

And how many iOS users have a mouse and keyboard or would use one with their phone?

Sure, Factorio fanatics would buy them (and use them) extra for this game, but you practically shrunk that big potential market to insignificance

A lot of iPhone/iPad owners use Mouse and external keyboards as I can assure you (I do myself) Many use a Apple Magic Mouse and keyboard as especially the iPad utilized as text editor, in banking, drawing, accounting in the education, university as well as in many other professional areas where a keyboard is simply more handy.

Addendum: I use a Apple Magic Mouse (compatible with iPad & iPhone) even on my MacBook Pro with Trackpad as simplyfies moving things around.

[Pi-C]

But then how would you destroy the useless burner miners, burner inserters, and pistols that you don't want if you can't shoot your wooden boxes?

I would probably wait for a certain Kryzeth to come up with a clever mod ...

[NelsonSKA]

My humble opinion

Inserters should not chase items: Disagree
I'm fan to the littles variations on my production line. It feel a bit more alive.

Blueprint import/export should be a modded feature: Disagree but
I thing it should be in the vanilla but it should disable or enable only before create a new map. (similar to the actual tech queue)
(I hardly ever use the BP function.)

Weapons shouldn't lock on (wheybags): Agree
I like that bullet effects on that mod. I will try it!

Adventure: Agree
I'd really love some exploration concepts in the game. But I think It will take a lot of work to implement this before the 1.0.
So maybe needs to be a separate type of escenary.

-Items should have volume and mass: Agree
Not necesary a "mass" indicator, but why not have items that take more than 1x1 slots on inventary? (rocket silos, nucelar power gen, refineries, other buldings even stackeables like electric mining drills).
I saw this mechanics on several games and fit well for my if you want to implement a "mass" mechanic but whitout have to add a new complex change.

[MicFac]

You need to retire the we can not change it now, people are already used to it argument, if you genuinely believe a change makes the game better, not changing it is wrong.

I totally agree.

[MicFac]

I have another "controversial opinion": Belt balancing is too hard and should somehow be made simpler.
I think the main reason why I don't enjoy building large belt-based factories is that belt balancing is so hard. balancers for 2^x belts aren't too hard, though making them compact can be a long process of trial and error. With any other number of belts I find it extremely hard to find a consistent way to design them. I think somehow making it more straight forward to balance belts would make them much more usable and make bots less "overpowered" compared to belts.
On the other hand, finally finishing a complex build like a belt balancer feels super satisfying and I think this feeling is a big part of what makes factorio fun. Maybe I'm just too focused on perfectly balancing belts and I don't even need to make so many balancers.

[GottZ]

removing blueprint import / export will result in people sharing feature complete blueprint-storage.dat files.

it also removes some other power user usecases.

secondly:
if you really want miners to only output with inserters, you should add inserter management so you can grab from the top and put stuff to the right.

[RinDiddy]

I don't even know if I could imagine some of the debates over there. You guys are very involved in this (this is a good thing!). As always, I do have some thoughts on some of the items listed:

Inserters should not chase items......

I love math and it is nice to be able to calculate things. At the same time I do like a sort of random element to the game. I find that when I math the hell out of a game I usually end of getting rid of half the game's challenge. I do feel as though the inserters can be buggy at times. The only scenario is when an inserter constantly tries to reach for items that it cannot grab ( belt is too fast or it cannot reach far enough ). IMO, it shouldn't attempt to grab it if it can't reach it.

Boilers shouldn't have output.....

I have screwed up the pipe connections on many occasions. What helped me was setting a key to toggle info icons. That way I could see which one was water and which one was steam.

Combat/Biter......

Yes! I'm going to state it as blunt as possible. Combat is extremely easy with the auto lock. The only time I feel challenged in combat is if I walked into battle without being prepared. The auto lock is very handy though when facing multiple units but still, I can think of games like Terraria where you get mobbed all the time but you are required to aim to stay alive.

I'm not sure what the answer is but combat could be improved in the sense of requiring more thought/skill from the player. Granted, given the game's mechanics and focus I'd say this is more an area of opportunity than a need.

Underground/Mountains/Explorations....

Yes! Although I'm the wrong person to comment. Factorio does have a need for exploration but just in different ways. For example military wise. For a player who avoids combat first it's best to know where there's nests so as to avoid building any pollutants nearby. Or in the case of oil. I hate running out of oil so I always make sure to have alternative fields in mind when my oil resources get low. Resource piles do run out as well. But as far as exploring like Columbus, I do agree that there are no real incentives at this time.

Mountains - I always liked strategy games where you use the natural terrain to assist with defense. In Empire Earth this was almost a way of life. There are craigs in the game but I really struggled to find areas where I could build my base around them due to the number of openings. I found that it just created weak points where biters would attack ( the gaps inbetween the craigs ).

Underground - This has huge potential. Underground, mining, pickaxe, drills.... I don't even need to say much more. Plus the graphics for worms shows that they come from the ground so this could be a whole new element to the game. Biters would primarily be on the surface while underground you would have to deal with threats from worms. Certainly could help out as a resource for stone or maybe other minerals. There's lots of places to go with this so I think it's a great idea to look into.

[vedrit]

Inserters should not chase items

I never understood why inserters had a wait-for-item position that was not immediately ready to pick up an item. Why not have their wait position be on the ground/belt/machine? Then you don't have to worry about inserters chasing items or taking X frames to grab something, and I don't think it would look bad, either.

blueprint library should be a nodded feature

I disagree. Sure they can be OP, but I think most use-cases are to remove the drudgery of re-creating a specialized array, be it making a certain product in balanced ratios, or quick-placing belt balances. These are things that, once you make, you're probably going to re-create in any following game because they work and work efficiently, and you're not likely to make any changes even without blueprints. Why force players to do this manually every time they start a new map?
For myself, I primarily use them for railways and anything that uses logic circuits so I don't have to fiddle with configuration. And also for things that I use often, like military outposts beyond my walls

[Unclebod]

You need to retire the we can not change it now, people are already used to it argument, if you genuinely believe a change makes the game better, not changing it is wrong.

Even though I agree with this, it seems that we saw a couple of weeks ago what might happen if the devs follow this...

[Mylon]

Actually, I'm in the minority who thinks that bots don't deserve a nerf, but a buff. I don't like the fact that as you research bot speed upgrades, your roboport infrastructure becomes more and more insufficient.

I think logistic bots are fine, but construction bots need a "nerf". There's little reason to build more than a couple hundred of them. I've asked before for construction times to make construction bots more interesting.

[jodokus31]

Actually, I'm in the minority who thinks that bots don't deserve a nerf, but a buff. I don't like the fact that as you research bot speed upgrades, your roboport infrastructure becomes more and more insufficient.

I think logistic bots are fine, but construction bots need a "nerf". There's little reason to build more than a couple hundred of them. I've asked before for construction times to make construction bots more interesting.

I definitely see the use case for more of con-bots, when building large solar arrays, tiles etc. So, why should there be a limit to them?
Construction and mining times could be interesting, i'm just wondering, if it not just tedious.
I don't really care about turret creeping with bots. Its similar fast to place turrets manually. Actually, I prefer the car and tank for midgame and rarely played with laser turrets so far.

[Blaster]

Let me put a few pennies into the ideas here...

Inserters

Instead of having inserters chase items, have the inserter arm "ambush" items. It sits between the two lanes, and "catches" the item as it comes along. This keeps inserters from chasing items, and allows even burners to grab items on a blue belt, at the cost of missing a lot of items that breeze past.

Import/Export

This meta may seem lazy but part of the fun is optimising / sharing blueprints. Leave it I say.

Lock on

Leave it. This removes a huge frustration with weapons the way the game is laid out. If anything, have the shotgun lock on as well, or make it aim with the mouse instead of the player facing.

Biter Battling

Yes, this is a must have! I always expect biters to probe defenses in vanilla, but they just keep attacking the exact same way each time. You want to add an organic feel? Make biters smarter. Players who just want to build can turn off biter aggression or turn biters off entirely.

Biter expansion

This is already a game option when creating a map. It works quite well, but it also turns the map into Starship Troopers no matter the difficulty. If anything, bases need more space between them.

Inserters for miners

No. Miners output directly because miners. This is how miners work, and using an inserter would feel backwards. Instead, have belt outputs on assemblers and electric furnaces, and perhaps belt inputs on electric furnaces, which makes more sense factory wise. What is needed more is some kind of "this spits out to a belt here" graphic on the machines.

No passthru boilers

This is a design language problem. Its not clear that the steam outputs to the side. Thing is, it saves UPS to have the passthru boilers. If you remove the passthru option, then consider

Electric fluid

While I would support this for UPS reasons (and also to make nuclear viable for megabase), I would also recommend simplifying fluid physics, so only junctions have to calculate flow, as is industry standard.

Adventure Mode

YES

Robot collisions and nerfs

Collisions, no, because UPS. Time, yes, because build time / deconstruct time should balance the use of robots.

Inventory volume

It would be an interesting take on gameplay to have a VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) where you have to build trains, cars, tanks, etc. It would add complication, but also promote good practice with trains and things, like managing a rail line out of the factory and also making a use for the connect rolling stock key. Also it would remove the rotate/pickup/place train on the fly nonsense that happens now.

Power Keys

Fine with me

Items return when decon

It should. Fix the productivity bug please.

[keldor]

For poweruser hotkeys, the simple solution seems to be to have them, but leave them unbound by default. This way no one will be hitting them by accident, but they will still be available. Note that since in general it isn't at all clear whether a poweruser hotkey to do xxx even exists, much less guess which button on the keyboard does it, powerusers are going to have to go into the keybinding menu to discover them anyway.

[m44v]

I feel like biters are too aggressive early game and too annoying late game. Early game you can't explore around at all because you can't walk two steps without a biter nest attacking you on sight. The aggro range is also too binary, the player doesn't have any feedback about how close you can trail before biters go berserk on you. Let biters be peaceful unless the player attacks, and let only the worms smack the player whenever he gets too close. With that the player gets feedback about biter's attitude and also helps with TOGoS's point about factorio sucking at exploration. Later with the increase of pollution you can make biters more aggressive towards the player (though I think biters should be aggressive towards the factory only, not the player character unless provoked).

Late game they are no challenge, so lemming and dumb that they get annoying. Take biter-train interactions for example, biters can settle near rails and will always ignore trains passing by (which is fine be me!), but if the player is in a train then they instantly go berserk, why? why now every bloody bug along the rails feels compelled to chase a train that before they never cared about and have no hope of catching? they lag behind and become stuck over the rails because the game optimized every neuron out of their tiny brains so they are lost and can no longer go home, they stay stuck there forever until the next train runs over them, meaning eventually a train will hit a behemoth, meaning that train will get wrecked, meaning the player will have to go there and fix things up, all because biters are dumber than a bag of bricks. They also can't path around power poles in open terrain, so despite power poles and trains not really targeted by biters these are the two things I need to replace the most because of them, most the time it has to be done manually and that makes it annoying. The only thing you can do is artillery every damn nest as far as you can so the annoying things go away.

Don't misunderstand, I don't want to disable them, I played without them and the game becomes super bland. I want biters to be less annoying and somewhat a threat that could get me if I neglect my defences without reaching deathworld levels. As is it now building walls with gun turrets and elaborate ammo supply chain just feels like a waste of time, artillery and laser turrets placed around without any thought is all you need, most of the combat tech tree is never put to use. And I know that coding an AI that doesn't use much CPU is hard, but I also know that the reason biters can't find two neurons to rub together is because somebody needs to launch one rocket every 30 seconds at 60 UPS, while most factorio players never build anything near megabase levels.

[cgar]

Fixed that canceling production in assembling machine did return the products in progress.

AKA:
Fixed that Factorio did take a reasonable and pragmatic approach. Everyone shall now loose all their U235 for simple things like layout changes or errant placement.
Factorio is transitioning into Masochistio. Everything reasonable will eventually be removed and players will be encouraged to hourly self-flagellate.

[Mylon]

Actually, I'm in the minority who thinks that bots don't deserve a nerf, but a buff. I don't like the fact that as you research bot speed upgrades, your roboport infrastructure becomes more and more insufficient.

I think logistic bots are fine, but construction bots need a "nerf". There's little reason to build more than a couple hundred of them. I've asked before for construction times to make construction bots more interesting.

I definitely see the use case for more of con-bots, when building large solar arrays, tiles etc. So, why should there be a limit to them?
Construction and mining times could be interesting, i'm just wondering, if it not just tedious.
I don't really care about turret creeping with bots. Its similar fast to place turrets manually. Actually, I prefer the car and tank for midgame and rarely played with laser turrets so far.

There's rarely any rush for large construction orders. When it comes to solar arrays for example, usually the chokepoint is the stockpile of materials. Even still they can generally get the job done before any other big construction orders come through.

[Mylon]

Re recipe ingredients return: If bonus products were only granted when the normal recipe finishes this problem could be resolved simply and elegantly. Allow stockpiling of >1 bonus progress and awarding potentially 2 bonus recipes (or more!) at once when normal progress finishes. This would close the small loophole for >1 productivity.

[CmdrKeen]

Here's my take on things:

Inserters should not chase items

Please do this for any and all performance updates possible. The inserters would be maybe the first of things I would touch on for performance.

The second would be precalculating the power network in such a way to allow the game to calculate multiple ticks for an object in one pass. (assemblers would be the easy target, but inserter rotation also seems possible.)
Another idea- instead of sliding power levels, limit it to three: 100% 33% 0%.
Think of it as machines jumping off 3-phase to single phase for a craft cycle/inserter rotation to simulate handling power demand. provides another method for simplifying power calculations for performance. (closer to how satisfactory handles things).

Blueprint import/export should be a modded feature

It's an expected feature by now. Allow servers toggles to disable importing blueprints into the library and prevent people from seeing other's blueprints selectively.

Weapons shouldn't lock on

Agreed. But friendly fire need's to be handled better.

Miners shouldn't output directly to belts

https://youtu.be/HKVvrQTwWPU?t=122
distinguish belts and ore conveyors (1-transport lane), with graphics for ore/dust. Miners can only output to conveyors. Conveyors are limited in what they output to.

Boilers shouldn't have a water output

Tutorial it better.

Pipes should work like electricity

pipes should have flow limitations, but teleportation is fine and dandy for performance sake.

Adventure mode

Implement after decreasing save filesize somehow. I'm sometimes seeing 30x savegame size reductions with a basic 20 line script that deletes chunks without player structures or modified tiles.

This probably will require solidifying mapgen and implementing GPU accelerated mapgen beforehand.

Robots should take up space and time

Limit number of roboports per logistic network (researchable limit?). Add charging only stations.