Friday Facts #370 - The journey to Nintendo Switch

[BattleFluffy]

1. Scripts still work, so scenarios and "soft-modded" games will work, this includes soft modded servers. But I have some bad news about servers; because of some requirements from Nintendo, you won't find dedicated servers in the server list, only games hosted from the game client(direct IP connect should still work regardless). The main reasons for why modding isn't there is we would have to be much more strict in policing offensive mods. Also performance and crashes: many, many mods would cause the game to randomly run out of memory or have poor performance. And finally user experience: most mods will be designed without controller in mind and will have very clunky broken or missing interactions. For a typical console player all these are pretty big issues.

woohoo!!!!! This is awesome news for me personally. And it's big news for the modding scene because now "soft mods" like my scenario have a reason to exist.
Thankyou for confirming this. I'm so stoked now!

I also want to say, the cross platform thing is going to mean a HUGE new influx of players, breathing new life into the multiplayer scene. This is going to be a very exciting time for anyone playing multiplayer, irrespective of platform.

[Jon8RFC]

When I play Minecraft with friends we don't usually have someone host the game to lan or wpn through the client, we instead run a dedicated server on a separate computer. (We play with the Java edition.) This is so that anyone can quit the game early and the others would not be affected, since the host is not also a player.

Would the same thing be possible for Factorio on the Nintendo Switch, (using the headless server) if some players are on desktop?

It will be possible but you will need to connect using Direct IP on Nintendo Switch.

That's good to hear.

If I'm understanding correctly, only Switch client and PC client hosts will be visible in the multiplayer server list, and no dedicated servers.

Hopefully someone will make a fake client server whose entire purpose is to function as a work-around server list description. It has a dynamically-changing server description that adds server names and IP addresses, so people can read the server description and see dedicated server IPs and host names, and know which one they want to connect to.

[eradicator]

I'm aware of the issue and it's something I know all too well, as I play on multiple consoles.

Good to know. I know it's a complicated issue and difficult to please everyone.

For the PC and Steam Deck, the plan is to use the Xbox layout, as this is what appears to be standard

Eh, it's only "standard" because MS forces hardware makers to use it. I am personally not amused :p.

possibly using the Japanese standard when Joy-Con controllers or Nintendo Switch Pro Controller are used.

As far as I know JoyCon has no official drivers, Sony DualSense is supposed have official support I heared? And then there's cheap third party controllers with 1,2,3,4 button labels. And people like me who use old PlayStation controllers with adapters *cough*. Not being able to use a physically intact controller because of lacking software support is really quite frustrating.

For the rest of edge the cases e.g. someone using Xbox controller but wanting Japanese layout, swapping the buttons in the controls, while not ideal, is not that hard(just replace all A with B and B with A). No buttons are hard-coded.

Like stated above, I use my in-brain-layout (Japanese) which doesn't care about whatever is printed on the controller. So even if I were to manually remap "confirm" to "right button", on an xbox-layouted controller that would result in the game showing me "B to confirm" on-screen which is equally confusing because when told "press B" I instinctively press the bottom button. The only solution is being able to tell the game the physical location of each button. (Steam controller config even has a swap option for Nintendo - indicating that there are more people using in-brain-layout that don't care about printed labels.)

Auto-detection of controller type is imho even worse. If you can only support a fixed subset of layouts then at least make it a manual selection, so that everyone can chose their favourite in-game-overlay. I grew up with Playstation, after a few years of Switch usage I kinda got used to ABXY labels, but I still have better reaction times with △〇✕☐ button prompts.

[DanGio]

Of course this is not the same, but still the it was not 360 FFF saying "we're not ready", so yeah, that part makes no sense at all.

The first FFF were great because we were playtesting the game along. Can you imagine all those FFF without any release before 1.0 ?

[RedDragonGecko]

" The key takeaway was that the game was too long"
....

I'm currently mid way through a heavily modded game which is sitting at about 15 days playtime.

[ptx0]

seems like it should be pretty low-effort from my point of view. Architectural difference issues have been fixed now for switch and server doesn't have any of graphics and sound stuff to worry about.

so easy and low-effort when you're not the one paying others to implement it, lol

[Tokk]

A whole other year without an update is very sad news.

Factorio got as big and well known as it is due to the early-access model, perhaps it would be a good idea to rethink the stop of this idea?

Okay I think you are not understanding something here. Imagine them releasing the DLC but it has 100% nothing and empty shell and it's going be like that for 1 year before it has anything playable but they took your money. The first comment your going to say is where is the game you paid for...

They need to first add the meat and potatoes and then make it into a "playable" state then they will probably do a EA...

Your missing sadly the first part where factory was not even released to the public for years to start with.

Factorio was released in a very early state in early access back in the days of the crowdfounding. I am fully aware of the progress you are describing here, but as you can read it is in a playable state, as there where at least two finished runs. Surely it should not be published as a finished game because of the people you are mentioning but there is a big crowd of folks who liked to see the game growing and see the changes (remember the biter artifacts for example).

Also of course I'm absolutely hyped about any extension and I'm willing to pay full price without any complains given what I payed per played hour of this magnificent game

[Philip017]

my hope is once the Beta is in a playable condition, you will release it as a experimental DLC and allow those willing to buy and play test it, will be able to do so before the final polish is complete.

either way even if having to wait till next christmas to play, i guess that is what i'll have to do. and i look forward to being able to play it.

[Ludwig234]

I miss FFFs.
It doesn't have to be about the expansion or even be every Friday or anything, I just want occasional Friday facts.

Maybe they could be about interesting mods you developed/found or an interesting bug you fixed Or whatever you feel like really.

Occasional Friday Factorio Blog. OFFB

[Kadet123]

• The main reasons for why modding isn't there is we would have to be much more strict in policing offensive mods. Also performance and crashes: many, many mods would cause the game to randomly run out of memory or have poor performance.

First off, good job on the port! As one dev to another, I'm sure it had its challenges.

About memory issues alluded to above.. Are there any entity count restrictions or Nauvis size differences in the Switch version?

In the videos, it looks like maybe the menus navigation is using an invisible on-screen cursor controlled by with analog sticks. Does the D-pad also allow iteration through the menu items? In a lot of games, using the D-Pads on menus is faster than "mouse" cursor navigation.

But again, good job! Looking forward to Oct 28th!

[pantner]

Has there been mention of a demo for the switch?

I'm interested but want to test out the controls before purchasing.

[mmmPI]

Very interesting journey !

Thank you for taking the time to share such details, it can gives clues to understand why things are seemingly taking so long. It's because there are many many things to do well before a release !

The specific of the console realease vs PC hopefully will act as a learning experience for the expansion, where the attempt is to launch an initial polished version compared to how the original factorio was developped over many years with feedback thanks to the early access model, which is an extra challenge, making it right from day 1 is difficult !

I wish you best of success for the release, may it bring the joy of playing factorio to many players

[xeneonic]

Does the expansion have a working version on the Nintendo Switch? Just curious.

If you read the FFF, you read that Switch can barely maintain 60 UPS to launch the rocket. If you read the FFF, you read that it takes a team of 12 (most of which are veterans, of course) 5 days to finish the expansion. Some parts were too long and some were too short.

You can answer your own question with the information that was provided in the FFF.

[irbork]

Oh, great! I guess I can safely be paying Factorio for the next 6 months, maybe even until June'23

[chexo4]

Oh cool! Well, I'm glad y'all have figured out how to run Factorio on non-x86 systems. Does this mean we might get a generic ARM build for platforms other than the Switch? And also, does this mean we'll be able to use the controller controls with other controllers on our PCs at some point?

This is really exciting, especially since it means y'all have a process for porting to new architectures now. I imagine this might make a native M1 macOS port easier too! That and ppc64le. Maybe you can reach out to Raptor Computing Systems about a development machine for ppc64le, they make ppc64le workstations and would have a good idea where to find resources to help.

[ptx0]

Does this mean we might get a generic ARM build for platforms other than the Switch?[...]a native M1 macOS port[..]a development machine for ppc64le[...]

this is exactly what they said they don't plan to do, for the reasons you've implied here - there's nowhere that "new platform support" will end if they keep adding, and each needs a dedicated staffer to manage

[MEOWMI]

Very cool to hear the expansion progressing. It's nice to hear, and I'm glad you're able to share something about what the development is like even though you obviously can't reveal much about it yet.

Also good job on the Switch release!

[ezekiel]

1. There's no plans for more releases on ARM as I don't think there's that much demand, but it's something that is now more likely to come in the future as it becomes more popular. Just because the game compiles on one ARM platform, it doesn't mean it will just work on all of them. Adding a new platform comes with a lot of work, such as creating a possibly complex build script, setting up a build server, setting up a test server, setting up distribution(website, steam, more?) and dealing with maintaining everything for the whole time(e.g. updating the build script when we change to a newer C++ standard, fixing any compilation issues that arise because of different compilers). On top of that, is we are talking about Mac, add the whole notarization, signing and whatever else they need and change all the time. There needs to be someone dedicated to making it happen and maintaining it.

Regarding Mac support, you mention notarization and signing. Mac is already supported, so these things have already been solved for. These are typically some of the more difficult parts of Mac support, adding ARM support on Mac should be no more difficult than on any other platform.

[ptx0]

Regarding Mac support ... Mac is already supported

FFF-285 >3 years ago discussed the issues with MacOS support, and that they were looking for someone to maintain this. I don't think they ever found one. it doesn't support the Metal API etc.

[Danjen]

Update or no, I'm glad to see the game continuing to get updates years later. Factorio is probably one of the most robust and polished games I've ever played. I don't think I've ever really run into a bug unless it was mod related. Everything is open and transparent