Friday Facts #359 - Crash site: The beginning

[Unknow0059]

I'm very happy with the new drill design. Glad you guys adjusted it!

[irbork]

Nice. The crash site addition to free-play will make all the speedruns results obsolete with 1.0 release. It will be fun watching who will be the first to get all the records.

[irbork]

the new graphics look really nice.
However, I noticed that on the technology icon of the logistic 1 research, the underground-belt on the top right faces the wrong way. On the logistics 2,3 icon, it is correct.

This must be intentional Easter Egg. It signifies that when you research logistic 1, you do not know how to use underground belts and make many mistakes.

[netmand]

append "boom!" meme at the end of this FFF.
wow

[Therax]

Really, really like the re-revised mining drill graphics. One thing that I immediately noticed was the chute that feeds the ore from the rails to the output roller. I thought "that's a lovely detail." Only then did I realize that it was there in the previous design, because it was so obscured by the high structure as to be nearly invisible to me. So in short: making the structure flatter to the ground not only improves the recognizability and the practicality by revealing more of the surrounding tiles, it also makes the detail of the internal structure of the sprite more readable, and so to my eyes more beautiful. Kudos to the artists once again!

[Therax]

I'm looking forward to the new emergency break features. Complete with sparks and high-pitched squeaking.
No. You can not un-announce it now :p. Also the hover-shoes research looks interesting too.

The emergency brakes is actually concealed rocket boosters that are automatically activated when a player is on the tracks in front of a train.

[Dev-iL]

the new graphics look really nice.
However, I noticed that on the technology icon of the logistic 1 research, the underground-belt on the top right faces the wrong way. On the logistics 2,3 icon, it is correct.

This must be intentional Easter Egg. It signifies that when you research logistic 1, you do not know how to use underground belts and make many mistakes.

One way to find out - submit a bug report and see what happens with it

[Rebmes]

I liked the old drills. I don't know what's happened :p

In fact, they weren't really drills at all. They seemed like surface sweepers of some kind, and that made sense - this doesn't really, somehow.

but everything else looks great

[MeduSalem]

The drills are much better now. Look a lot less convoluted.

[MEOWMI]

Finally a worthy mining drill redesign!

Very excited about all the new graphics.

[bolok]

Im nitpicking, ignore me.
Should all tech icons face same direction (be shot from same angle)? Looks random, disorderly, not database like, not fitting engineer. Not sure if thats the proper way of distinguishing one from another. What would work better for new players? Veterans dont have to learn or decipher them. Im speaking about first contact impression.

[kirazy]

Also - is that the new assembly machine graphic I see?!

It's the old tech icon but with different lighting and a slightly different angle. Not the new assembling machine, alas.

[Ringkeeper]

serious.... every other game after such long time of development "we polished the font in the main menu oh and micro transactions"... and here we get 7 days before the release new awesome stuff. Like the crash site.

Factorio is one of the few games where i would gladly scream for a DLC if it funds further development

[quinor]

I'd really like to have the NPE machines (lab, generator, special assembling machines...) as an accelerated start option. It'd be very organic and fit well into the game IMO.

[Qon]

@mods: is there still a reason for game version field in the info.json?
Cant it all be solved by a "base>=..."-dependency?

As in: why not remove that field and allow for smooth transitions going forward?
There were enought mod breaking changes that required the use of the base-style-dependency anyway and on the other hand: most mods dont break (except for the fix to the game veraion string) just because the game gets a new "major" release.

So if you made the it mandatory to use the versioned base dependency and made the game + mod portal read + use that info instead of the game version field, i think it would be overall better. (More like real software engineering where you only live by versioned dependencies)

The factorio_version is for Factorio version. Dependency on base if for dependency on base mod. Different things. Factorio can be played without base mod, provided you install some other mod.

[KatherineOfSky]

Woohoo! The mining drill change makes the ore on the belts so much more visible! Thank you for that change!

Love the crash site. Glad it's getting added to Freeplay -- gives a visual context to the story. Really excited to see the cutscene!

[_CJ_]

Awesome! Just awesome

[porcupine]

What happens if you blueprint the crash site?

[eradicator]

What happens if you blueprint the crash site? :D

You get an empty blueprint :P.

[Aonova]

I hope #360 isn't going to be the last FF. It's become a defining part of my Fridays ;(