Friday Facts #339 - Beacon HR + Redesign process

[ManaUser]

This is definitely a big change. I'm not sure that to think.

But the one part I'm pretty sure I don't like is having it painted red. This just seems like a weird choice. For most entities bright colors are used rather sparingly. And I just can't think of any reason it should be used here. Unless you're planning to add tiered beacons. It doesn't make it make it fit the rest of the factory, it doesn't make it look modern. If anything, as another post said, it looks kind of sinister. I'd definitely stick with neutral colors on this one.

[Nefrums]

I think it looks good.
Have you considered having the center spire rotating?

[Shoooter13]

Its new laser cannon?

[AsmPrgmC3]

I have to say that I don't like the new design. My reasons:

Reasons I like the old design:
- It's bulky. I actually like it's bulkiness because it makes it look like it's really hard to transmit the effects of modules to other machines requiring a lot of hi-tech stuff to even make it somehow work. (The fact that it's hard to transmit the effects also explains the short range.)
- The radar dish. I think the "radar dish" actually explains quite well that it's transmitting something. It's probably not perfect, but better than the new design.

Reasons I don't like the new design:
- It's silm. Nothing else in the game (except for power poles) is that slim. Everything is quite bulky, so it kinda doesn't fit.
- The hole. The hole with the round pipes reminds me a lot of the rocket silo and I don't think a beacon (which you have hundreds of) should be so similar to a rocket silo (which you only have one or a few of)
- The tower/rod. To me the tower doesn't explain what the thing does (transmit effects), it could be pretty much anything (a lightning rod, a electric shocking tower, ...). If anything, a really high rod reminds me of a radio mast which sends low enery waves over long distances which is pretty much the opposite of what a beacon does. In general I would assume that a rod would transmit things more than twice the length of the rod, which the beacon doesn't.

[Locane]

It needs an animation of little radio waves at the top to communicate that it is transmitting something.

The electricity LOOKS COOL, but it doesn't say "sharing with others" it says more "power plant" or "rail gun".

[airfrog]

I feel pretty similar to many others in this thread, that I'm excited about the concepts here but I think the execution isn't there yet.

A few things/ideas I had that others haven't mentioned yet:

• I like the radio tower concept, but I think the actual "spire/sword" part is distracting. Since it's a beacon, maybe it could have more of a lighthouse-ish vibe?

• Since it's a support structure that is everywhere (late game), I wonder if it could share some design concepts with power poles, which are also everywhere and supporting structures (esp. thinking of color scheme/materials here)

• I actually really like the circular electric arc animation (end of the article, on the right). Having that but making it much more subtle would be really cool.

Also, many others have said this, but I think the red color makes it really clash with the general Factorio style. This seems like it's not too hard to fix, though.

I think there's a lot of cool stuff going on here, and I really like the artistic direction idea that is going on here, even if the first draft missed the mark. Also, I love how much y'all are willing to share your intermediate process and get and incorporate feedback from the community, it's I think a big part of why I am still into this game after so long. Based on how other redesigns have gone I'm sure this is going to land in a great place too!

[CLion]

My thoughts about the hole the tower sits in: why not make it a trench for arrays, not connecting the towers, but only the holes they are sitting in.

[IronCartographer]

New beacon looks nice but I don't think it fit. It have too organic looks, some kind of tech-organic hybrid.

I don't see it as being particularly organic. It should fit nicely around the rocket silo.



The furnaces in the FFF example, and likely many other entities, are a different matter.

[conn11]

definetly a radical departure from the old design, but promising. I wonder, how it will actually compare in game (e.g. in vertical set-ups).
The hight might be a problem, overtowering other entities in tightly fitted arrays. I'm esspecially interested how it will harmonize with the yet to be implemented assembler redesign.

[EstebanLB]

The building desing variation serves well and demands less resources in buildings like the Laboratory, the Rocket Silo and the Nuclear Reactor since the player builds a smaller a mmount of those

[Kars-T]

To me it looks like a desin for doom. The red looks so evil and it looks more organic then a maschine. I don't like this design.

[Hiladdar]

I'm neutral on the design, being used to the existing beacon, while liking the splash of red in there.

Hiladdar

[coppercoil]

I glad beacons will be redesigned; they were really ugly. I especially like that devs introduced it before everything is done, so we can have a hope that our words will be listened.

• Hi tech devices must not look fresh and clean. Look at StarWars gadgets, they are rusty, dusty, almost broken, but still hi-tech.
• Electric arcs look cool, but too distracting. How it feels to work in the field with 500 lightnings?
• Massive yellow directed torch light looks illogical for a beacon that is multidirectional. Though, there can be some smaller lights.
• I think spike is redundant; it does not look involved into emitting (lightning != emitting), and does not add feel of height because it’s too thin.

[whitecold]

I think the fundamental issue is that 'beacon' does not map well to 'long lines' ever. I think the best way to make beacons look better is preventing their effects from infinitely stacking, and ensuring that the beacons are outnumbered by the assemblers/furnaces/refineries.

The picture with the furnaces and the beacons... it doesn't look nice, the beacons are way too numerous, the yellow eyes are drawing way too much attention from what this factory actually is.
If the 18 smelters had 4 beacons affecting them, with more smelters instead, the visibility could work for them. Then they would be actually an interesting point (a beacon) instead of an eyesore all over the place.

[otobot1]

Please, for the love of God, don't put in random variations of a sprite. I would probably stop playing until someone made a mod to force a particular orientation. Many Factorio players are really OCD about making everything straight and orderly, and this steps all over that. Maybe having different secondary orientations implemented optionally using the rotation button could be nice for variety, but it should NOT be random.
As for the entity itself, I really don't like it. It's a cool looking entity, and I can see that a lot of work went into it, but I really don't think it works. Firstly, it's way too busy and interesting compared to most of the other buildings. As others have said, the beacon is a support building that is almost always spammed like crazy, so it should be simpler and blend into the background a little so that the eye is naturally drawn to the more important production buildings. Tying into that, the red colour chosen is also not a good choice, because it sticks out and draws the eye. The colour scheme in this thread with the more washed out colours would be more appropriate I think.
I'm also not convinced that the recessed tower design clearly communicates the beacon's role either. It honestly doesn't look that much like a tower to me when it's actually in the game next to the furnaces. The legs cover up the pit so I don't even notice the main spire in the middle. And the huge spike on the top really doesn't look like a transmitter to me. It kind of gets filtered out by my brain and lost in the background. Some sort of transmitter dish like on the current beacon would work better I think. And I am not a huge fan of the recessed tower design itself. Even in the designs posted in this thread where the legs are removed, I think the design would stick out too much because of how different it is from the aesthetic of the other buildings.
I sort of like the idea of a light though - it would be really cool if the light changed colour to indicate the modules inside. But the light draws attention to the beacons even more, and that's a bad thing.

[AartBluestoke]

The single most used large entity in the factory must be the least eye catching, otherwise the end game factory aesthetic is sea of beacons with the occasional assembler.

Given beacons are used in mature (probably very big) factories it needs to look good in large arrays at max player zoom out, as that is the main scale it will ever be looked at. This means less detail is better.

It should have no significant colour unless it means something.
Perhaps it could emit light in the radius it amplifies?

Why does it have to have a tower? It basically only modifies buildings it touches?

[Rhyder]

Sorry, don't like it. not very aligned to the current art style in my opinion

[Optera]

Currently beacons hide anything behind them, so any change there is an improvement.

Some things really annoy me about this new beacon design:

• overall design clashes hard with assemblers and furnaces
  Something more chunky with fat pips would work better than this sword missile
• even if the body where to stay, the sword/antenna should be removed
  beacons should remain stubby
• over use of color
  ThaPear made a much nicer looking mock up viewtopic.php?p=485660#p485660
• variations
  The only variation I want on machines are from manual rotation, so I can have my row of machines neat and tidy

Overall I like where you wanted to go with new beacons, but dislike where it ended.
The look of thick pipes running up a tower to a transmitter dish works really well, just make the tower slimmer without making it a skeletal frame.

[BattleFluffy]

I think it looks quite good. I really like the move to embed them in the ground, that makes them look more substantial without increasing occlusion too much.
The overall style, with lightning bolts and stuff, seems a bit "magical" and a little far from the existing "gears n cogs" of the existing art style.
I do not like the beacon variations.. I would prefer them to always be uniform.

[FunMaker]

I am okay with the look of it (it's not great, but okay). But the main issue: Why did you not take the opportunity to visualize the included modules in the beacon?