Friday Facts #365 - Future plans

[DaveMcW]

Imho this would all be fixed if only the artillery train could fire while riding, rather than having to stop to fire

Be careful what you wish for. A horde of angry biters will attack your undefended rails when they can't find the artillery.

[wosthisdo]

Hi Guys,
I've been slow coming to this debate because I love Factorio but wanted to think about what I enjoy least in playing, or which bores me, and how I'd like Factorio2 to be different.

Tl;dr Exploration & Evaluation - The greener offspring of Factorio meets Subnautica / No Mans' Sky.

This is very much personal opinion of what I'd like to see, drawing on the ideas of others if they felt good to me. I'm assuming this is developed from the current Factorio engine, visual and house styles. Procedurally generated worlds with a wider pallet of biome, climates, etc to draw from. I envisage three gameplay phases (see below), the first released for play while the second is worked up in detail. Phase 3 is a placeholder for whatever large-scale ideas the modding community comes subsequently up with.

Backstory
This is set many years after the Nauvis adventure. The descendents of humanity have colonised the stellar systems in their immediate vicinity and are now looking to longer-term expansion into the local spiral arm. To do this efficiently a fleet of explorer probes drawing heavily on general machine intelligence (GMI), nano-technology and Von Neumann machines, has been dispatched towards likely candidate systems.

The mother probe, crewed by a level-5 GMI, captures into a new system, unpacks and begins to mine planetary rings, comets and asteriods in order to refuel and, if necessary, provide construction resources for phase 2. In the meantime it selects suitable planets, launches small constellations of observation satellites and deposits small but high-tech level-2 GMI probes on the surface. This is where you come in...

Phase 1
Your objective is to explore, survey and research the planet (or your share in multiplayer) surface, sub-surface, oceans and lifeforms (where applicable). To this end you can use satellite information and build research facilities and production plant as well as your own drones with a 'pick & mix' set of capabilities. Science 'packs' come from this activity. Timescale is not a big issue. Most physical resources will have to come from the planet. But, this is much lighter touch than Factorio1 - economy of resources and efficiency in generating the required survey will be one of the evaluation criteria. Environmental or other damage must be justified.

The end of phase 1 is the evaluation stage:
a. the planet and its potential are evaluated: are there abundent, valuable minerals or energy sources; are there organisms of value for pharmaceuticals or nano-tech (I'm assuming life is rare and mainly microbial / plants, but you can have biters if you must); is the planet suitable for terraforming / colonisation: are there mysteries?
b. your L2 probe's work is evaluated: were the exploration strategy and implementation efficient and well aligned with ethics and policy? Are the plans and designs developed worthy of cloning (blueprints)? Is the probe's GMI worthy of running phase 2 and/or being cloned for further planets?

Phase 2
The L5 GMI decides the planet's desired contribution to the cause. These could include, for example:
a. Low interest/value - cross off the list and move on.
b. Likely to evolve usefully - set up long-term monitoring and reporting. Move on.
c. Valuable for farming or pharmaceuticals - develop cultivation/farming, processing and deliver to orbit (mass-driver, skyhook, rockets etc. as appropriate).
d. Valuable for special minerals, organic products etc. - develop extraction, processing and deliver to orbit (mass-driver, skyhook, rockets etc. as appropriate).
e. Useful low-harm site for processing materials from other bodies in-system (e.g from c&d) - set up and commission.
f. Of great scientific interest - massively expand R&D facilities.
g. Other

The LG5 provides extra technology, blueprints and, possibly, resource streams. Also targets and ethics / policy updates if required. Over to you again...
Phase 2 may be open-ended or finite, but should include an evaluation stage.

Thank you

[Coxy-Cricketer91]

I'm really new to the game after being pointed in your direction by a friend! I've currently only played the demo but with every intention of purchasing very soon.

My question on the future is this (and it has probably been asked many many times before so I apologise): Is there any intention or any possibility that it could come to consoles? I'm not sure if the tech could handle it, but in particular it would be insane on the Switch, playing wherever you go! Like, I said, I'm not sure if the tech could handle it, and only playing the demo so far, I don't know if the controls get more and more complicated the further you go on. I'd just love to hear what has been said before if it has been raised.

Thanks in advance

[NotRexButCaesar]

I'm really new to the game after being pointed in your direction by a friend! I've currently only played the demo but with every intention of purchasing very soon.

My question on the future is this (and it has probably been asked many many times before so I apologise): Is there any intention or any possibility that it could come to consoles? I'm not sure if the tech could handle it, but in particular it would be insane on the Switch, playing wherever you go! Like, I said, I'm not sure if the tech could handle it, and only playing the demo so far, I don't know if the controls get more and more complicated the further you go on. I'd just love to hear what has been said before if it has been raised.

Thanks in advance

If you mean tech as in processing power, it really isn't a big deal. Factorio can run on basically anything by now. What I think has more of a problem is the controls.

Separately, I don't think it will ever come to console because Kovarex doesn't want to make a console game.

[ptx0]

If you mean tech as in processing power, it really isn't a big deal. Factorio can run on basically anything by now. What I think has more of a problem is the controls.

Separately, I don't think it will ever come to console because Kovarex doesn't want to make a console game.

yeah other than kovarex not wanting to and the difficulties mapping the experience to a game pad, the reality of console development is a pit of shifting shit sands that leave one spending a lot of time trying to make a reasonably performant and reliable console port. you can make any piece of crap run on the console, but making it work as well as other CPU architectures on other OS with other libraries that aren't portable to PS/Xbox/Whatever.. that's a nightmare.

[rldml]

Hmmm... nearly 3 months of time has passed since the first announcement.

It's about time for a new fff with first suggestions i think. @Factorio-Dev-Team: give us an insight of your think process please

Greetings, Ronny

[ssilk]

Don’t hurry. Factorio 1.0 took 8 years, what do you await?

[Hornwitser]

I am eagerly awaiting Factorio 2.0 in 2029... not. But really though, game development is slow and you should all know what rushed game development results in by now.

[dennisw100]

I wonder if there are any plans to bring Factorio to other Platforms

[Twisted_Code]

okay I know this FFF is a few months old, but I've been taking a hiatus from the game so bear with me (besides, it's not as though there is another FFF thread that will get bumped if I reply here while the blog itself is on hold)
and furthermore, someone literally replied while I was composing this. Blame for the bump averted!

The Future
Hmm... no "Factorio 2: the factory has grown" then?
jokes aside, I get where you're coming from. You've got to cut the "main game" scope off somewhere
Looking for humans
I briefly considered your C++ opening, but I think I will wait on looking for a job until I'm done college. Besides, C++ isn't really my wheelhouse.
Final numbers
I love the comparisons here. Just the first one in group 3 (comparing the data of the other two groups to each other) is awesome from an economic perspective. If you have less than one line of code per player and simultaneously have an overwhelmingly positive steam rating, that's some pretty hefty Economies of Size gains!
Final words
Farewell, FFF. I totally understand (as well as an inexperienced IT/software dev student can) not wanting to share half-baked ideas with us. Let those cookies stay warm in the oven so our appetites are ready for them when you're done
(besides, it's not like you're completely disconnecting from the community. You just have nothing worth saying yet.)

[pointa2b]

It would be awesome if there was some kind of update over the summer, regardless of what step the expansion is in. I don't care how half baked some ideas are, things being subject to change, or how much is in pre-alpha. I love Factorio and want to learn more about whats up and coming, its that simple.

[Eternal]

is been a year

[ptx0]

is been a year

???

[Koub]

The 1.0 release was almost 1 year ago.

[AenAllAin]

Kovarex you need to do what most devs hate doing: manage your time and work-life balance (instead of being drawn into your development so completely). I think you need a personal/dev assistant; someone to tie up loose-ends when you get pulled away on something else, to track the tasks/things that are important to you and make sure you have all the updates and latest status even if you don't go to a meeting. Someone to have a torrid office affair with and cause lots of gossip and team drama about.

Overall there are parts of the source that follow the system/solution you designed, that work well, and you are happy with, and there are other areas that stand out as not well written, concise, systematic, efficient, etc. which you are not that happy about. You should identified both of these types in separate lists (just leave the parts that do not stand out off of those lists). Then you can delegate just about everything to the team and make sure they know to respect the lists. The areas on the "like"-list generally should not be changed, will require a higher level of approval from you to update, and any changes should (try to) adhere to the original method as much as possible. The parts on the "dislike"-list should be given a higher priority for change and also require less permission or explanation to change. Of course this assumes that the team is already using a system managed by a priority, that manages user feedback, bug reports, new features, and new content.

You are not giving anything up, just giving yourself the option to take a break, go on vacations, work on something else without the whole project coming to a halt or going off the rails.

[Eternal]

Clearly abandoned

[kirazy]

Clearly abandoned

Naw, they're just working on the expansion and have mentioned they won't be doing Friday Facts on a regular basis anymore. They're still quite active, patching bugs, adding mod interfaces, talking on forums, discord, etc.

[mrvn]

Is there any chance the factory source will ever become public?

There are a bunch of feature requests that could only be added by extending the game engine, e.g. rail connection between surfaces for e.g. tunnels. With the source being public the community could code extensions to factorio to implement them.

[Impatient]

Jez-us! You are asking for true C++ extendability? I would love to see that. This game would go down the same road as Minecraft then. Unstoppable forever!

[Khazul]

I welcome this news and I agree that a big expansion is the right way to go for the reasons given.

Re mod vs devs implementing in core game: For me, the #'1 advantage of being implemented in the core game is ongoing support and ubiquity. Like many of us, I use alot of the many excellent and well supported mods which is really great until the day it isnt as the author has moved on to other things / life got in the way etc (understandable - it happens). There are definitely some excellent mods that these days I kind of regard as almost core game.

As for what I think would be a cool direction: a factory spread across multiple surfaces (world / regions / space stations, whatever) with transport systems between then - portals, space elevators, spaceships, surface to orbit drones, inter-region trains / ships / mass slings, vac tubes (high speed bulk belts) or whatever.

Maybe add an intelligent biter overlord race present in space and directing the biters to be more annoying (and rampant mod like) say when an overlord is nearby One of the great appeals of factorio vs other factory games is the number of ways we can play it - go for peaceful pure factory building, or all out endless war and mayhem with something like rampant and a bunch of weapons mods etc or whatever in between.

Maybe add some exotic resources only found on some surfaces and giving us a reason to go there and transport the stuff.

I do not see new biomes/tilesets being a useful thing in itself (they dont currently hugely change what you do - maybe a little polution more or less etc), however, I do think they would go well with multiple surfaces that represent alien surfaces, constructed (space station) surfaces etc and especially if certain resources were tied to certain biomes which maybe are tied to certain surfaces.