Friday Facts #365 - Future plans

[Durr]

I'd rather see an isometric view than hexagonal tiles. Imagine the possibilities if you had the ability to edit the terrain and build underground like you can in Rollercoaster Tycoon.

[mrvn]

I'd rather see an isometric view than hexagonal tiles. Imagine the possibilities if you had the ability to edit the terrain and build underground like you can in Rollercoaster Tycoon.

Factorio supports multiple surfaces. And you can portal the player and vehicles between surfaces with LUA. What's missing is support for rails to connect to another surface. It's one of my open suggestions. Imagine you could build a tunnel into a cliff to get underground and come back out on the other side of the hill.

[ssilk]

I go with Durr: an isometric view - even only from one direction - would make things so much easier. Everting would look much better, so much new gameplay possibilities, even with only a flat land as yet.


But with real 3D landscape (hills, rivers, build underground) it would be not longer Factorio as we know it. It would be Factorioer.

[eradicator]

I'd rather see an isometric view than hexagonal tiles. Imagine the possibilities if you had the ability to edit the terrain and build underground like you can in Rollercoaster Tycoon.

Imagine the possibilities of having to actually manage several different levels of underground belts and pipes that can't magically cross "underground". . I am very happy knowing that this will never happen. Ever factory game so far that had manual management of multiple heigh levels (Factory Town, DSP, ...) I found more annoying than factorio magic weaving.

But wait... hexagonal? I don't remember any game in the RT series being hexagonal. RT isn't even square-onlyas it uses triangle for the corners. And I've never seen a hexagonal game that allowed terrain editing. Do you have any examples for that? My intuition says hexagonals would have to use even more triangles to get "smooth" terrain height.

an isometric view - even only from one direction - would make things so much easier. Everting would look much better,

It would look different, if that's "better" is a matter of taste imho. But I'm more interested in how that would make anything easier? I've never encountered a situation where I thought the perspective was making gameplay difficult. On the opposite I already know that trying to draw a straight diagonal line with the cursor is something I just can't do .

[mrvn]

But wait... hexagonal? I don't remember any game in the RT series being hexagonal. RT isn't even square-onlyas it uses triangle for the corners. And I've never seen a hexagonal game that allowed terrain editing. Do you have any examples for that? My intuition says hexagonals would have to use even more triangles to get "smooth" terrain height.

I think it would be even simpler with hexagonal tiles. You actually use triangles for rendering terrain there. You see when you have hex tiles there are always 3 hex tiles that meat. and you form a triangle through the mid points. That triangle is what you render. You can fade between the 3 terrain types weighted by the distance to the corners of the triangle / distances from the center of the 3 tiles. Each tile splits into 6 triangles instead of splitting square times into 8 triangles. So overall it's fewer triangles and they are shaped better (all sides the same length, all angles 60°).

And if you are dealing with different heights there is no question about how to triangulate. With squares you have to decide weather you use / or \ to split the square into triangles depending on the height differences of the 4 points. Hexagons are always split into the same 6 triangles no matter what.

Overall the hexagonal shape has better distances. No need to decide to use max(x, y), x + y or sqrt(x^2 + y^2) for distances. I guess that makes it more important for turn based games because a movement speed of 1 tile/turn just works badly on squares. I myself can't think of a RT game with hexagonal tiles, never played one before. So it would be something different.

[ssilk]

an isometric view - even only from one direction - would make things so much easier. Everting would look much better,

It would look different, if that's "better" is a matter of taste imho. But I'm more interested in how that would make anything easier? I've never encountered a situation where I thought the perspective was making gameplay difficult. On the opposite I already know that trying to draw a straight diagonal line with the cursor is something I just can't do .

It would look better, because the graphics needs not to be so “ducked” to avoid hiding things behind it. And would avoid this pseudo-shrinking in the y-axis. See for example the trains, how they shrink and grow turning from x to y direction.

An artist would have generally much more possibilities to choose. (That’s not from me, that’s a statement I remember Albert has said to Kovarex.) high buildings are a no-go, but Factorio would profit much from higher buildings.

Easier: yes, it is really hard as player to estimate where a 45 degree rail really directs to. I always misestimate, because of this pseudo-realistic view. I know from other games like roller coaster tycoon this was not the case there. And There are surely more examples, where a more realistic graphics would help with the gameplay. Not that the current is really bad, a lot of issues have been fixed, but with a different view some of them never would appeared and some cannot be fixed at all.

[Peter34]

I go with Durr: an isometric view - even only from one direction - would make things so much easier. Everting would look much better, so much new gameplay possibilities, even with only a flat land as yet.


But with real 3D landscape (hills, rivers, build underground) it would be not longer Factorio as we know it. It would be Factorioer.

I disagree strongly. Isometric view without being able to rotate in 90 degree increments would be a huge step down in usability.

Obviously pixel art isometric animations are going to impose more demands on video card memory, but people are getting better and better video cards these days. Even with the chip shortage, it seems to me as if it's fairly easy to purchase cards from the previous genreation if you want 4, 6 or 8 GB cards.

[ssilk]

I disagree strongly. Isometric view without being able to rotate in 90 degree increments would be a huge step down in usability.

Why? It’s as needed as yet. I remember playing some isometric games, where it wasn’t possible to rotate view. I didn’t miss it. It depends strongly about how the graphics is done.

[gorbag]

Factorio supports multiple surfaces. And you can portal the player and vehicles between surfaces with LUA. What's missing is support for rails to connect to another surface. It's one of my open suggestions. Imagine you could build a tunnel into a cliff to get underground and come back out on the other side of the hill.

I'd love the ability to create overpasses and underpasses.

[mrvn]

Factorio supports multiple surfaces. And you can portal the player and vehicles between surfaces with LUA. What's missing is support for rails to connect to another surface. It's one of my open suggestions. Imagine you could build a tunnel into a cliff to get underground and come back out on the other side of the hill.

I'd love the ability to create overpasses and underpasses.

Overpass is kind of tricky because graphics wise you would expect to see the top of the overpass and watch the train drive over it. But the top would be a different surface so the ramp would have to go up into the clouds and disappear. And then come back out of the clouds some time later.

[ladderff]

Not to be blunt — but I am not sure I consider the game finished without liquid-fueled boilers.

[valneq]

Not to be blunt — but I am not sure I consider the game finished without liquid-fueled boilers.

Bob's Power mod adds liquid-burning boilers
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/bobpower

[mrvn]

How about making an AI for the game to compete against? E.g. compilatron lands on the planet with you but is damaged and turns evil. So you have to outproduce him and build a rocket first.

[Raffish]

Better multithreading for nix headless servers.
10/10 would pay again.

[GG67]

My 5 cents would be:

• Factorio 2 makes only sense if there would be a completely different graphic engine and/or incompatible new game mechanics
• When it comes to one big or small DLCs I would suggest a combination of both in a season pass as I believe it would be best for gamers and developers (see below)

Regarding the DLC concept I understand and agree the points of the developers. Small DLCs however represent also some non-deniable advantages:

• for the gamers it means that the game remains interesting over time, instead of possibly leaving the game and then need to come back when the big DLC finally arrives
• the above also includes that players may move off to other games before the big DLC arrives and possibly not come back because the time-off probably requires some "learning" again. I don't say this will be the majority of players but could still be a sensible quantity
• for the developers, small DLCV make bug fixing and possibly balancing (especially between new content and basic content) easier and smoother

So my suggestion would be season pass with defined content and released the content in small DLCs over time.

[Episode922]

Hi all. i try to read some part of this large subject. Everybody seems happy and full of hopes.
I play factorio for years now and still have a lot to learn. Actually i m stuck in a Space Exploration map... (tx to you Aerendel).
i think often of the future of Factorio. And i try to figure out what they will propose us to continue the adventure.
I have my dreams that i can try to resume as more scifi adventure. Leaving this not so hostile planet; after all, local life try just to keep a good living. So i don t like the idea to make more combat ( i play lot of battlefield for that !). So for me the best is to come back at the beginning :
A crash vessel. where is coming from and what cause the crash ? A space war, pirate ?. We have no clue about this. Maybe the dev will enlarge the story on this side. Nauvis has vast oceans and we know absolutly NOTHING about what could be in the deep. New raw ressources to exploit, new lifeform ?
And i have to send a satellite in space and what ?. What can happen to this satellite ? Sometimes sending a signal saying "hi all i m here" may be a very bad idea, so you have to runaway...far away. Maybe the sat will be partially destroy and only the core will "survive" as a little AI lost in space. At this point, one of my favorite writter Iain M BANKS (RIP) create good story about some drone awakening in space and wondering what could be happen in the near past and try to survive while drifting in space with so few capacities from what he used to be. (Try to read the CULTURE. Great books and very funny).
So i have so time to finish my world before we can have news about the future.
Factorio is for me a very good game with a nice communauty of players and modders. Tx to all of you.

[Impatient]

• for the developers, small DLCV make bug fixing and possibly balancing (especially between new content and basic content) easier and smoother

Quite the contrary is true.

[*] the above also includes that players may move off to other games before the big DLC arrives and possibly not come back because the time-off probably requires some "learning" again.
[/list]

What is so bad with that? What is bad with learning, what is bad with some time off? By what you write, it seems, that when you come back you get the feeling you are playing a new game. And that seems to be great. Why does user engagement have to be kept high all the time? For people who naturally would have a different engagement pattern, it would be exhausting. For people who naturally have a high engagement pattern, they engage with factorio anyways. IMO it is only impatience and stimulus addiction, well fed and deliberately induced by many business models in todays entertainment industry, which require constant small dlcs and - because you want to "save money" and pay, even when you don't know what you are going to get - season passes ... of course.
Our opinions on this topic, could not differ more, i guess. Like with LEGO people who cherrish a set of basic blocks and imagine and create their own stuff ( https://www.google.com/search?q=lego+creations&tbm=isch ) vs LEGO people who constantly are longing for new sets ( https://www.google.com/search?q=lego+new+sets&tbm=isch ).
I personally play factorio for so long and I don't have the time to try out all the stuff I imagine myself and on top of that, all the interesting stuff I read about, that others did. I play another game - a shooter - where small DLCs make more sense, as the basic game mechanic, namely shooting up stuff, is not very complex and can get boring in itself pretty soon. Unless the players engagement is fueled by other things eg good teamwork, tactical gameplay or beating the game on high difficulties, etc. ... they really move away and might not come back. Other games, after all, offer other things to shoot up. But that reason is not present at ALL in the case of factorio, because it offers a basic set of tools, the option to combine them in infinite ways and to infinite levels of complexity (until you hit the hardware limit) and thus per se aims at people who imagine stuff themselfs. I personally am not very hyped about a factorio DLC, unless it widens the possibilities of what can be done with factorio ... like non-square shaped chests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKPwKFigF8U

[Jan11]

I really looking forward for a big expansion and I'm really happy there will be one.
But at the same moment I feel a little bit disappointed. Because I had high hopes for Factrorio 2.

Factorio looks nice and beautiful and I played it 800h but I don't know if a addon gets me back to playing Factorio again. I played it with mods without mods and there is a time when you have seen everything.
I played a lot of Satisfactory too (and still playing it) and now playing Riftbreaker and I really wish we would get a Factorio 2 with 3D top down view like in Riftbreaker or 1st person view in Satisfactory. (so absolutely beautiful Factorio is, the landscape and environment isn't beautiful )

[ShyLion]

The most "feature" i love in Factorio is that it does not need 3D hardware. And has Linux binary.
Just look at 3D hardware prices! They are absolutely insane. So i wish next game will remain 2D and have Linux binary too.

[ShyLion]

Satisfactory

It puts my laptop on its knees.