Friday Facts #351 - Beacon re-redesign & Simplified fluid mixing

[Matjey]

I'm going to add my own two bits of opinion:

• I also think that the beacon tower is too spikey. the GSM-tower-like design sounds like a cool idea
• the modules shown on the beacon are fantastic, but there definitely should be a toggle in settings to enable or disable the Alt-mode overlay. you say it's easy with mods, but what about multiplayer - some players want it, some don't

[MeduSalem]

Liked the reddish design a lot more to be honest even if it would have drawn more visual attention. (maybe another tint would have been enough to draw less attention)

I'm uncomfortable with the new beacons, all I'm seeing is messy caltrops:- a spike to skewer you and then wires to tangle you up.

Exactly my feeling about the new alternative design as well.


Also going to miss the alt-mode view for modules. Should have been an option instead of just removed. So pretty sure I am going to use a mod to re-enable that.

[GrumpyJoe]

The mixing is still prevented in the most common cases,
It just the cases like a mod defined fluidbox connection force placed with a rotated blueprint of a upgradeable entity of another force during a full moon will not longer mix and force a crash.

Instead if there is some really weird case where its not easy to prevent the mixing, it will mix and you can just fix it as the player.
No more edge cases to detect and prevent, no more blocked underground connections, no more overly complex solution to something that is only ever an extremely rare case.

this is ecactly what i asked for when the prevention was introduced

to me it was too much "idiot proof" (sorry, it happened to myself alot) and felt like it took something away from the player: problem solving

thank you!

[Krazykrl]

Flushing a given liquid from the pipe seems maybe a little too easy, given the remainder of the factorio experience. I would expect something like a filter pump, which can, over time, drain the undesirable liquid from the pipe (and either destroy it, or send it into another pipe system.

IMO the fluid purging system should be tied to the function of the pump, and not on arbitrary piping. Bonus points if you can purge pipes with circuit conditions. The pump just makes complete sense for this feature (and only costs a bit of iron/maybe a solar panel if you're in the middle of nowhere and need a purge.)

[Shingen]

okay, this looks much better. they look like a part of the background now, so the important buildings are more noticeable etc.
but i have one issue: with this flat design of a mess of cables, they look like destroyed remnants of some building, instead of an active working one, at least on a static image when zoomed out.

As a side-effect, the Beacon starts looking very top-down without combating our perspective, though that would probably be possible to address by changing the design significantly.

yeah, like... make it a not-square lol.

The thought process behind redesigning beacons is being hamstrung by calling them "beacons". That implies they're attracting attention to themselves and that they're the important entity rather than broadcasting some sort of information or radiating some kind of power. It's probably way too late to consider a name change but beacon always did strike me as a silly name for what it does.

I agree and I've been saying this for years, a Beacon is a really wtf name. But indeed, it's too late to change that now.

the name has never struck me as inappropriate until now. i don't think it's a huge deal, and i have no suggestions as of what could it be changed to in the first place, but i disagree that it's "too late".
if it was brought up years ago, it probably should've been addressed back then, but as people say "better late than never". people will get used to the new name, don't worry about that.
the game is still in EA, so it's still time for such changes.
my only 'problem' is that it will stop me from calling them 'bacons'.

[DOSorDIE]

Someone played Satisfactory ... the have the flush too.
The new beacons look nice but the ALT icons i need or i miss something.

When we are by moduls ... How i get moduls in a becon when there is no in it?
By hand ... maybe i play the wrong game.
Look at MOD ModuleInserter ... that is really needed by default.

[bNarFProfCrazy]

Flushing a given liquid from the pipe seems maybe a little too easy, given the remainder of the factorio experience. I would expect something like a filter pump, which can, over time, drain the undesirable liquid from the pipe (and either destroy it, or send it into another pipe system.

IMO the fluid purging system should be tied to the function of the pump, and not on arbitrary piping. Bonus points if you can purge pipes with circuit conditions. The pump just makes complete sense for this feature (and only costs a bit of iron/maybe a solar panel if you're in the middle of nowhere and need a purge.)

While that would certainly be more life-like, it would be too complex for new players, that are usually the ones running into these kind of troubles and don't know how to fix them. I currently either re-place the pipes or use a pump to pump it into a storage tank and then destroy the tank.

IMO the fluid mixing prevention is a good feature, not because I couldn't fix the problem, but because I didn't intend to mix them in the first place.
Fluid mixing has been one of the most frustrating problems for new players.

Players like challenges, not problems.

[fur_and_whiskers]

Great work on the beacon redesign!

Thank you for adding flush pipe option!

[someone1337]

The new lightning tower is still nice!

[Ranakastrasz]

I still think making beacons not stack, and having a larger radius would be better. I dont particularly like how much theytend to dominate late game designs.


Still, the new design is subtle enough it doesnt take all thr attention.

[DaemosDaen]

I agree and I've been saying this for years, a Beacon is a really wtf name. But indeed, it's too late to change that now.

No it's not. The game has not even been released. If you can't tell I find it stupid and would welcome the change.

Love the pipe update
I love the new design, but something in the write up actually makes me sad.

This is conceptually questionable, as we definitely don’t want to start a precedent of adding visible module slots to every single entity,

I say, why not? For the dual slot items you have them laid out somewhat like they are for the 'beacon'. For Quad-slot machines (see Assembler 3) they could just be simply colored vertical slots. Could even have the current recipe item in the center and mostly remove the need for alt mode.
Just sayin.

[V453000]

Someone played Satisfactory ... the have the flush too.
The new beacons look nice but the ALT icons i need or i miss something.

When we are by moduls ... How i get moduls in a becon when there is no in it?
By hand ... maybe i play the wrong game.
Look at MOD ModuleInserter ... that is really needed by default.

Just build beacons with modules by blueprints? I personally just use a single-beacon blueprint for this. For upgrading you can easily use the upgrade planner, too.

[Oscar]

I'm going to add my own two bits of opinion:

• I also think that the beacon tower is too spikey. the GSM-tower-like design sounds like a cool idea
• the modules shown on the beacon are fantastic, but there definitely should be a toggle in settings to enable or disable the Alt-mode overlay. you say it's easy with mods, but what about multiplayer - some players want it, some don't

First off beacon looks better than the previous one for sure. However, agree with above regarding the tower; it looks too thin and too flimsy. Better to have a sort of more solid 5G mast.

Also I think the reason why some continue to think the new design feels bit off is because of the underground presentation, which you don't find anywhere else in the game except for the rocket silo. But the thing with the rocket silo is that an underground design is more or less expected, which is much less so for the beacon. Therefore I think this design will be better served by coming maybe just a little bit higher off the ground.

[Llama]

The (old) beacon to me is an extremely powerful machine, like a giant transformer or server farm (or both). It reminded me of the ending of The Chaos Engine, with a mass of pipes and wires and heavy duty components. The new beacon design does a great job of capturing the presence of electrical and computing power used to optimise nearby buildings, I like it!

[mrudat]

Given that it's supposed to connect to nearby entities underground, I would have thought to animate tinted pulses going from the module out along the cables/ducts... presuming you pick the same tint as the socketed modules it should look pretty good, I'd think.

[Shingen]

oh, regarding the fluid flushing:
i really don't understand how is that related to fluid mixing prevention.
it's a greatly convenient* solution to clearing the wrong fluid from a pipe, but it really has nothing to do with solving the cause of the problem when fluid mixing happens in the rarest of cases that the engine doesn't protect us from yet.
i. e. it's nice for situations like the one on the supplied animation in FFF where we want to use already-existing pipes for a different fluid, sure, but it's the already existing system that's preventing us from mixing before flushing, not the flushing mechanism. and when some accidental fluid mixing ends up happening, then even if you flush, you still have 2 competing fluid sources trying to fill the same system, and clearing it will just make it empty until the next game update/tick, and then you probably will end up with one or the other fluid randomly.

*although maybe too simplistic and immersion-breaking? a pump and a tank seems like a good enough in-game solution to me tbh.

[scooter010]

Can this emptying pipes be automated, e.g. by circuit / mod? Even if that don't apply to fluid tanks, you can even empty a long pipe next to the tank several times.

Advanced oil processing...
Basic oil processing produces just alkangsas...
At this point it should be allowed to ask, why the unused outputs cannot just stay "open", let them produce some pollution?

[mergele]

I really do like the new beacon, good job on that one.

[MEOWMI]

I love the modules being visible on the beacon. It's a nice detail and also adds so much to the visuals of the factory with the different colors.

One downside is you can no longer make out the detail in very zoomed out screenshots, but that's a minor problem I would think.

[estgamer]

The beacon is a bit too spiky and sharp. I suggest using something more round like the rotating top of the old design.

Maybe something like these round antennas would be nice.