Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

[XT-248]

The names are the easiest thing to change. Maybe I don't take myself and the game too seriously and found it amusing, but if we had a very good counter-proposal which feels good and is clear when it comes to tiers, we can still change it.

Others have already made such proposals in the previous FFF thread; some were much better theme-wise in conveying what quality is supposed to be.


If I may be so bold as to make a feature suggestion?

Add an at-game-start list of names to use instead of fantasy-legendary. IE: Factorio-masterwork, Warhammer-40k-pristine, etc...

I want to make a few callouts to some great suggestions, including but not limited to: q-0 > q-4, q-1 > q-5, grade E > grade A, crude > exceptional, and normal > perfect.


A secondary list at-game-start for item icons representing quality-level.

That way, it is up to the player to choose the name/item quality theme they want to use.



Onward to research and technologies.

Perhaps I have been spoilt by Seablock Modpack (the first few techs are like this already) a bit too much. I think it is good that conditional-based unlocking technology is being added.

Research Queue set to always on? Oh my goodness, I can not wait for this to be a permanent feature.

Productivity Infinite Research? I am curious as to what this means for productivity modules in the grand scheme of Factorio + Space Age. However, I do welcome having extra sources of productivity without the productivity module being slotted.

[Ranakastrasz]

Ah, nullius type rech unlocks. Very nice. That actually helped keep that game's massive number of tech tiers under control.

However, I still don't feel quality is right, and you still should have alternate recipes instead. But more of a substituting ingredients thing, using a red circuit instead of a green one, or steel instead of iron, but it is still the same recipe object.

But I am confident it will all work out pretty well, regardless, even if the transition period will suck.

[IForgotMyName]

A Recycler will appear in the DLC, which can disassemble items using 25% of their original materials. The productivity limit has also been set to 300% so that items cannot be "multiplied". But doesn't this conflict with the infinite research into recipe productivity? And if a Recycler doesn't accept such items, wouldn't that significantly increase the cost and difficulty of producing quality items (since we will not be able to recycle this low-quality items) that are already expensive and difficult to produce?

[pointa2b]

I also wonder how the dependency technologies work with this trigger system : what happens if I try to mine uranium before researching concrete ?

I assume there will be prerequisite research/triggers before others activate. Really not much different than the current system of prerequisites in research.

...Unless you're referring to triggers that have already been activated before they are 'valid' to unlock whatever they are supposed to achieve. In that case, the game can behind the scenes keep track of boolean values like "has_mined_uranium," and once the prerequisites have been achieved, the code will automatically check what triggers have already been fulfilled (if any) and then 'cascade' from there unlocking items. So if you can theoretically perform 5+ triggers and they are still hanging on some other prerequisite, they will all "fire" once that you've gotten that prerequisite. I hope I was clear in explaining that.

[mochito]

I don’t think I’ve seen this as feedback yet, but the alt-mode icons for quality filters on splitters are incredibly difficult to make out. Especially the “base quality” icon which is a gray dot (over a gray mechanical sprite). I hadn’t noticed this in the original Quality FFF because the images were more zoomed in, but it was difficult for me to pick out what was going on with the assembler build in this FFF.

I think these icons would be much more visible if they were centered, scaled up to the size of item icons, and maybe given a little background or outline to distinguish against similarly colored sprites.

I made a forums account just for this. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[Cerberus]

I am really excited about this expansion pack, as I was when it was first announced. One year is still a long time, so to solve that I started playing the Space Exploration mod because it was referenced in one of the previous FFs. Apparently the average time to finish it is 500 hours,so now one year looks VERY close, like a sword of Damocles, because 2.0 is sure going to break this mod

It is going to be tough to stop looking at the FF updates from now on, because I do not really want to see the new planets yet and also not what new tech can be gained there. Sounds fun to experience it myself. However, I also want to know what other changes the base game will get. Knowing about the new more intelligent robots and the new research system etc is very interesting.

Quality

I am one of the people that is looking forward to the upgrade about qualities. One thing I am REALLY hoping for is that the GUI is going to say for all items beforehand what properties are increased by quality tiers and how much. So I don't have to go through the trouble of crafting a quality item, only to discover the change does not interest me (and it is not fun having to look up that stuff on the internet, I prefer to stick in the game).

I do not share the criticism that it is weird recyclers can produce higher quality outputs than inputs. Like somebody already suggested in this topic, you can look at recyclers as special assemblers: they are not merely getting components out of something, they are re-creating the component from the leftovers. Just a perspective change. Because when you you want to craft an assembler 3 like in that animation in the FF by combining assembler 2 with speed modules, you do not put an "assembler 2 in an assembler 3" to create the assembler 3, you are using its components to craft something new. So also using components of that speed module to create it. So when you recycle it, the machine has to recreate the speed module again from the different parts, it does not simply "get out the speed module". So it does make sense recyclers can produce higher quality outputs.

The animation in the latest FF looks cool but one thing I do not understand:
How are the assemblers at the bottom creating assembler 3's? It is only taking speed modules but not assembler 2's. Am I missing something?

Also, when looking at the splitters above the different assembler quality mall, you see they all filter for quality, however the GUI does not show the filter for standard quality assemblers. I am hoping this is temporary, until a good symbol for quality tier 1 filters gets made, because I can see it getting confusing as it just looks like a regular splitter right now splitting everything 50-50.

Research triggers

Research triggers sounds very exciting! It is definitely going to feel much more rewarding than how it currently is for me: being way more ahead in the research than I can automate everything. It raises a few questions though:
- Apparently the base game is going to get this change as well. How does this work for people who started a playthrough in 1.0 right before 2.0 gets released? Doesn't this kind of break their research queue? Seems to very overhauled in the screenshots in the FF.
- Are the triggers retroactive when they become available? What if you already mined uranium before your research tree gets far enough to get to centrifuges?

[Cerberus]

I don’t think I’ve seen this as feedback yet, but the alt-mode icons for quality filters on splitters are incredibly difficult to make out. Especially the “base quality” icon which is a gray dot (over a gray mechanical sprite). I hadn’t noticed this in the original Quality FFF because the images were more zoomed in, but it was difficult for me to pick out what was going on with the assembler build in this FFF.

I think these icons would be much more visible if they were centered, scaled up to the size of item icons, and maybe given a little background or outline to distinguish against similarly colored sprites.

I made a forums account just for this. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Just as I was writing my post, you posted yours, and now I see that indeed it does have an icon! It was so invisible to me indeed! that is already one of my questions answered.

[Anachrony]

- Are the triggers retroactive when they become available? What if you already mined uranium before your research tree gets far enough to get to centrifuges?

The game already tracks production statistics for everything. So the most natural implementation would be to just look at those, rather than tracking it twice, once just for the trigger. The Nullius system for trigger techs is mostly based on production statistics (production, consumption, or building), so if a new trigger tech is added there it would automatically be satisfied by your production before the tech existed just by nature of how it works, since the production statistics were already tracking it anyway.

[Cerberus]

- Are the triggers retroactive when they become available? What if you already mined uranium before your research tree gets far enough to get to centrifuges?

The game already tracks production statistics for everything. So the most natural implementation would be to just look at those, rather than tracking it twice, once just for the trigger. The Nullius system for trigger techs is mostly based on production statistics (production, consumption, or building), so if a new trigger tech is added there it would automatically be satisfied by your production before the tech existed just by nature of how it works, since the production statistics were already tracking it anyway.

That is a good point, I hope you are right.
The alternative would be that each time a resource is mined or crafted, it would check if it has to advance a certain research with one point. But that seems bad for UPS.

[Drury]

Will you add an aerial / air / flying transport or will you touch that topic in some of the next FFF? You could write in the FFF "No, we will not add that, and that's why—"

Here is one of the ideas on the air cargo transportation in the real world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjBgEkbnX2I
In short, the video discovers the usage of airships for a large amount of cargo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship
Also, an airship need to grab a counterweight to unload the cargo, because it can't deflate its gas chambers very fast. It could be water or another payload, so, speaking of Factorio, it would never stop transferring goods and you would need to balance the payload presence on each of the loading points.

And it would be cool to see airports and jets (at least the passenger jets) in Factorio.

Hate to be that guy, but there is a mod for that.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Dirigible

One time I enabled them as haulers in AAI Programmable Vehicles and it was pretty fun as a novelty. Not sure if there's a practical reason to use them over bots though.

[Nukedpenguin]

I love end-game.
As I wrote in one comment to the previous FFF, the 20,000 hour limit is too short, so please increase the number of digits more. Make it at least longer than the human lifespan.

By the way, the problem with the current vanilla end-game is that the resource depletion is fast, even if infinite research is proceeded and mining efficiency is improved. I believe that the ideal would be to eventually make (almost) no maintenance of mining stations necessary.
In that aspect, Bob and SE have done well.

It's news to me that there is a time cap on a single map, this is really quite limited! I realistically might never play a save that long but in my mind I always felt like I could keep going for as long as I wanted to, even passing the map on for generations, now my bubble is burst. The size of the map is way too big and resources too rich for the amount of limited hours a map has on a standard map, a lifetime of resources that must be mined within 2 years is kind of outrageous. I understand the limit is 2^32 ticks, if they were to increase this limit to 2^64 that number of years limit goes up astronomically high to just under 10 billion years, so I don't know if they can just do a happy medium, of 2^37 (72 years) to be a human lifetime average, or if to nudge it up means they have to go to 64 bits.

[Zaflis]

Just some idea how to show the quality differently. You can use different or same color all slices, not make it rounded but sharp pentagon shape (maybe just a little rounded but not completely sharp?), fade alpha inwards etc... It could be drawn around the entire object it is for, not small in the corner. That is also why it should be displayed thinner than this below:

circle_slices.jpg (6.03 KiB) Viewed 3710 times

Edit: Actually shouldn't it have only 4 slices, if the first quality needs is basic that needs no special overlay.

Edit edit! Behold my Paint art:

iron_icons.png (3.02 KiB) Viewed 3666 times

iron_icons2.png (4.1 KiB) Viewed 3639 times

[mcdjfp]

Please don't overuse the research triggers. They could easily become too restrictive and lock players into a single progression path (at which point there is no need for a tech tree). Blocking steel axe research until steel is actually produced, great. The same goes for limiting research that requires currently unavailable materials. I personally would block the advanced oil processing over basic oil processing (though I admit that does lock players into a progression path and result in stupid temp builds to unlock the tech which are then immediately torn down)

What I fear is locking turrets behind having killed a biter. I am sick and still sick of having to start over because the first attack is a wave of 50+ biters. And I don't want to have to provoke the biters and then race to get the research done before they destroy everything.

I don't like the idea of you can't research/craft item x, until you make n of some random ingredient. If the number is low, it won't have any effect as it will be met automatically. If it is high, it is a further complication and only really serves to force a playstyle. It could also mess up mods. Any mods which modify base recipes or progression will have to watch out for now incompatible/illogical tech lockouts.

[Anachrony]

I don't like the idea of you can't research/craft item x, until you make n of some random ingredient. If the number is low, it won't have any effect as it will be met automatically.

If the number is low it can still have a huge impact. If you can't research something that requires blue circuits until you have crafted 1 blue circuit, then that requires you to actually start building some of the things you've researched to progress rather than just researching every single tech using a particular research pack and then figuring out what it actually does later.

[Vulkandrache]

You can also see for example Steel axe technology now requires you to craft actual steel plates, so you can't just get the steel axe upgrade without having made steel, which has always been weird since steel axe is no longer a real item.

Nullius does this with its milestones and i hate it with a passion.

Im not interested in making some intermediate item just for the sake of making it, with nothing in sight to use it on.

This kind of design belongs into the tutorial.
The real game needs to be made for experienced players first.
The idea that i cant make oil refinerys before driving to and putting down a pumpjack is absurd.

[Pirate_Rance]

@kovarex

Regarding quality and mod making,
Can a Recipe be made to require a specific Quality part, Example Mod Science Pack requires Gear uncommon of higher to make?

[eflernicolas]

Hi! First time commenting ever, as always trusted your judgment and factorio is easily the best game ever created for many, many reasons.
But i wanted to input my opinions among the rest of this beautiful community given that you guys always like to hear from us and actually respond to some comments.

That being said:

1) Are you going to bring back the ability to change Train destinations to already existing complex condition stations? Or add the well-known Shift Right Click, Left click to the gui of trains to do so.

2) Please add trains to the new Quality mechanics (which by the way, are absolutely awesome and grindy in a good way)

3) Electric trains? I just love trains.

4) Ability to customize even more the worlds we create, for eg disable spitters only.

5) Are you going to add the Vehicle Snap mechanic instead of adding it by mods?

6) How about something similar to Mining patch planner?

This and many more seem to be great Quality of Life integrations, i would really love to see a QOL dedicated post for general and minor things that just make the game even more enjoyable.



Thank you

[Balthazar]

The problem with quality effects is the same as dyson sphere programs proliferator mechanic; it forces seperation between machines, which leads to every setup being basically the same one-step-at-a-time production. More complex mechanics but simple, uniform solution. It destroys every non-standard factory layout that tries to combine steps or avoid conveyers and busses.

Like the simplest thing:


You COULD just stick the wires on a conveyer belt but skipping that step to make circuits with less inserters and belts is one of the first optimizations you figure out. How will this setup fare with quality? Can machines accept any quality as input and produce gradually higher quality outputs? If not, you're forcing a sorting step between each process which completely destroys all the variety and freedom that makes factorio the best factory game.

Can different quality items stack? No? Forces sorting before each train is loaded on direct insertion setups, effectively destroying them.

I really like this mechanic just please dont apply it to everything Maybe a new item class for components used in buildable machines, usable items and equipment?

[Pirate_Rance]

The problem with quality effects is the same as dyson sphere programs proliferator mechanic; it forces seperation between machines, which leads to every setup being basically the same one-step-at-a-time production. More complex mechanics but simple, uniform solution. It destroys every non-standard factory layout that tries to combine steps or avoid conveyers and busses.

Like the simplest thing:


You COULD just stick the wires on a conveyer belt but skipping that step to make circuits with less inserters and belts is one of the first optimizations you figure out. How will this setup fare with quality? Can machines accept any quality as input and produce gradually higher quality outputs? If not, you're forcing a sorting step between each process which completely destroys all the variety and freedom that makes factorio the best factory game.

Can different quality items stack? No? Forces sorting before each train is loaded on direct insertion setups, effectively destroying them.

I really like this mechanic just please dont apply it to everything Maybe a new item class for components used in buildable machines, usable items and equipment?

To get a quality item you REQUIRE a QUALITY MODULE, thus no module no quality item.
Thus unless you are mix inputting an uncommon+ copper plate with normal plates that circuit design will not jam.

EDIT:
Exception would be putting quality modules in the Wire machines.
You can easily fix this via a single loop belt and additional inserters with a recycler.
I now see your point of belted Wire tho as the throughput of quality wire if using it would need to be insane.

[spiral_power]

I love end-game.
As I wrote in one comment to the previous FFF, the 20,000 hour limit is too short, so please increase the number of digits more. Make it at least longer than the human lifespan.

By the way, the problem with the current vanilla end-game is that the resource depletion is fast, even if infinite research is proceeded and mining efficiency is improved. I believe that the ideal would be to eventually make (almost) no maintenance of mining stations necessary.
In that aspect, Bob and SE have done well.

It's news to me that there is a time cap on a single map, this is really quite limited! I realistically might never play a save that long but in my mind I always felt like I could keep going for as long as I wanted to, even passing the map on for generations, now my bubble is burst. The size of the map is way too big and resources too rich for the amount of limited hours a map has on a standard map, a lifetime of resources that must be mined within 2 years is kind of outrageous. I understand the limit is 2^32 ticks, if they were to increase this limit to 2^64 that number of years limit goes up astronomically high to just under 10 billion years, so I don't know if they can just do a happy medium, of 2^37 (72 years) to be a human lifetime average, or if to nudge it up means they have to go to 64 bits.

These are my threads related to the 20,000 hour limit.
Play beyond 2^32 game.ticks is not guaranteed. Another person's experience was that the game was impossible to progress under certain circumstances.
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