Friday Facts #381 - Space Platforms

[<NO_NAME>]

A lot of folks is asking how the items stick to the space-belts. Isn't it obvious? Glue, duh!
We will have to catch some new animal, turn its hoofs into glue and use it to builds belts on the platforms.

Yeah, there should have been a new type of belt for space. All new assemblers too.

I don't know about assembles but belts for sure.
I mean, it pretty much an established lore at this point that belts run on hamsters (since they don't need power). It would be blatantly illogical to have the same thing in space, with vacuum, radiation and all that stuff. How could they survive?

[computeraddict]

A lot of folks is asking how the items stick to the space-belts. Isn't it obvious? Glue, duh!
We will have to catch some new animal, turn its hoofs into glue and use it to builds belts on the platforms.

Yeah, there should have been a new type of belt for space. All new assemblers too.

I don't know about assembles but belts for sure.
I mean, it pretty much an established lore at this point that belts run on hamsters (since they don't need power). It would be blatantly illogical to have the same thing in space, with vacuum, radiation and all that stuff. How could they survive?

Belts in space run on the Peltier generator built into the hull of the platform

[blazespinnaker]

I feel what you mean with quality, it certainly feels like a candy crush mechanic,

Nooooooo, quality is the opposite. quality is the biggest factorio like thing so far. Very excited about quality. I've been trying to simulate it via creative mod.

It's all opinions here for sure, without a doubt. But what else are we supposed to talk about? The weather?

[Mooninaut]

I love the cel-shaded look of the concept art hub, I'd pay $10 for an official cel-shaded skin for Factorio.

[BicycleEater]

I love the cel-shaded look of the concept art hub, I'd pay $10 for an official cel-shaded skin for Factorio.

Yeah, actually that would be really fun

[Altainia]

It's all opinions here for sure, without a doubt. But what else are we supposed to talk about? The weather?

The previous FFF had a screenshot showing planet-specific pressures and magnetic fields. No temperature, but it seems close to something weather related.

[Tertius]

Sounds like they twisted themselves in knots to avoid combinators. I get it, combinators are not just complex, they're also 'weird'. The latter could have been fixed, the former probably not. For people who want complexity the answer is obvious - SE.

It's perfectly fine to design the game around the requirement that it has to be playable without combinators. If the game requires combinators at some point, you exclude (and piss off) a significant part of the player base.

Combinators are a terrific tool for me, but I know people whose mind isn't made to understand combinator logic. They could build until launching a rocket but they would not be able to even perform "1+1=2" with a combinator. It's not because they are dumb, it's because it's not in their mind to think the way combinators require it. These people are used to do much more stuff manually. Set some setting manually, then revisit and reset it to something better, if it doesn't work out. Not optimized and much automated, but it's viable play style.

[Vulkandrache]

I love the cel-shaded look of the concept art hub, I'd pay $10 for an official cel-shaded skin for Factorio.

The graphical aspect is one of the things in which factorio has taken a major step back over the years.
Especialy once they started adding the buttugly "3d" rework to the buildings.
If i wanted to put it into simple terms:
These graphics have way too much detail. Far more than the game needs.

[blazespinnaker]

Sounds like they twisted themselves in knots to avoid combinators. I get it, combinators are not just complex, they're also 'weird'. The latter could have been fixed, the former probably not. For people who want complexity the answer is obvious - SE.

It's perfectly fine to design the game around the requirement that it has to be playable without combinators. If the game requires combinators at some point, you exclude (and piss off) a significant part of the player base.

Combinators are a terrific tool for me, but I know people whose mind isn't made to understand combinator logic. They could build until launching a rocket but they would not be able to even perform "1+1=2" with a combinator. It's not because they are dumb, it's because it's not in their mind to think the way combinators require it. These people are used to do much more stuff manually. Set some setting manually, then revisit and reset it to something better, if it doesn't work out. Not optimized and much automated, but it's viable play style.

Yeah, for sure. but it's space and space is complex and I think the 'simple is fun' pressure lead to some difficult decisions and not sure they have always made the correct one.

[aka13]

I love the cel-shaded look of the concept art hub, I'd pay $10 for an official cel-shaded skin for Factorio.

The graphical aspect is one of the things in which factorio has taken a major step back over the years.
Especialy once they started adding the buttugly "3d" rework to the buildings.
If i wanted to put it into simple terms:
These graphics have way too much detail. Far more than the game needs.

Which one do you have in mind, that have regressed? I feel the opposite, that older parts like the assemblers, while no doubt iconic (I like them more than the initial standing-on-4-corner-legs-assemblers of the power ranger era) significantly loose in terms of aesthetics to the chemplants.

[mmmPI]

Sounds like they twisted themselves in knots to avoid combinators. I get it, combinators are not just complex, they're also 'weird'. The latter could have been fixed, the former probably not. For people who want complexity the answer is obvious - SE.

It's perfectly fine to design the game around the requirement that it has to be playable without combinators. If the game requires combinators at some point, you exclude (and piss off) a significant part of the player base.

Combinators are a terrific tool for me, but I know people whose mind isn't made to understand combinator logic. They could build until launching a rocket but they would not be able to even perform "1+1=2" with a combinator. It's not because they are dumb, it's because it's not in their mind to think the way combinators require it. These people are used to do much more stuff manually. Set some setting manually, then revisit and reset it to something better, if it doesn't work out. Not optimized and much automated, but it's viable play style.

Yeah, for sure. but it's space and space is complex and I think the 'simple is fun' pressure lead to some difficult decisions and not sure they have always made the correct one.

This is highly speculative at this point since maybe the complexity is related to what the player does in the other planets and nothing was reavealed about them so far

Also when the expansion is released, more players can start giving feedback about the game which Wube may find helpful to further change the game in case some things were missed by their test players ! But i do trust Wube for the general direction of the expansion, it's only been a few FFF that we players got to see recently, if you think we have incomplete vision so far maybe it can help you waiting for the expansion without negative emotion about the apparent incompletedness of what's just been pleasantly revealed

Do you have any suggestion to fix the "weirdness" of combinators ? Maybe in a future FFF you find your precise recommandations have been implemented, that happened to me with train bridges

To me it seem you complain they are too complex, but also you like complexity in SE , so i don't understand what you find "weird" in them

To be fair i like combinators so they do not feel complex anymore for me , what i feel complex is the challenge to overcome with them as tool, and in SE apart from late game which i won't spoil, the obvious challenge is the logistic of silo and interplanetery which is a challenge that is not "super complex" for what combinators can do imo, compared to using AAI programmable vehicle, or recursive blueprint, which i find requiring me spending much more time trying to define what i wanted to achieve with combinators and also build it, that couldn't be achieved in any other way, so "more complex" mods by my standards.

I found SE added many quality of life over time that made it "easier" but "longer" and more "content-rich" less like Dark Soul , more like Skyrim. Which to me made sense because as time passes more and more players became more knowledgeable in factorio, and needed more and more difficult challenge so started playing with mods , and it made the playerbase of SE evolve from edgy nerd playing mods with less than 1000 download ( like me ) to a broader audience. But then modders started to make SE compatible with other overhaul mods to multiply 'complexity', and some players liked it x), where is the limit ?

That's also where i trust Wube, because i can always decide to use mod for the expansion, when time comes if i want to add more complexity or combinators related stuff, but players that need the game "less complex" because they don't want to use combinators are usually not the players that will mod their game i feel ( and rarely those expressing on forums or discords is my expectation ).

[varundevan]

Looks interesting. If we are talking about realism, the space platform shouldn't stop when the engines stop firing, it should continue moving... you'd need to decelerate to arrive... anyway. But a big plus for not having burners or robots in space! And i love the idea of space salvage and the tradeoffs on size. I always loved small compact builds but was never really good at it. Extra motivation I see.

i Agree ,

the engines need not continuously fire to maintain velocity , may be the engines can be used for course correction. Design and add terminologies in such way that embraces realism. one of the things that makes Factorio a good teacher is that how close the game is to the real world scenarios.

[Vulkandrache]

the engines need not continuously fire to maintain velocity , may be the engines can be used for course correction. Design and add terminologies in such way that embraces realism. one of the things that makes Factorio a good teacher is that how close the game is to the real world scenarios.

If we go with that kind of realism we are also talking about having to start decelerating about halfway into the journey, among other things.
There is a reason most spacegames treat space more like water rather than vacuum,
especialy if flying the ship is only a small part of the experience.

[Sutoraika]

if we can dump things in space, would we be able to also dump things into water for them to disappear in the same fashion?

[Brambor]

if we can dump things in space, would we be able to also dump things into water for them to disappear in the same fashion?

A similar fashion sounds like cool mechanics. Since Factorio is a game about polluting the world, throwing stuff into the water should release pollution, maybe with the exception of wood and fish.

[Koub]

if we can dump things in space, would we be able to also dump things into water for them to disappear in the same fashion?

There is more empty space within a solar system to dump trash into than there is water space in a water pond/lake/sea on a given planet for the same purpose.

[DecoratedStar]

The thrusters looks great, but if we follow the actual physics during a space flight, the space craft should accelerate at the starting point, make adjustments to our attitude or orbit in the middle and then decelerate near our destination. Apart from these situations, the space craft or the platform should rely on inertial gliding. It feels like using thrusters when the platform should be gliding is not consistent with physics.

[computeraddict]

one of the things that makes Factorio a good teacher is that how close the game is to the real world scenarios.

Eh?

https://alt-f4.blog/ALTF4-35/

[FasterJump]

I'm with team "inertia physics for thrusters".

It should't be very difficult to make the acceleration proportional to the thruster power. But of course, that bring the problem of deceleration: how do you ensure that you stop platform at the right place? Maybe make the engines "stock up" fuel so that it can decelerate automatically.

Also, a quick animation can be used at mid-distance, when the ship rotates 180° to start breaking. Visually, just the background needs to rotate. Meteors/asteroids still appears on the "front" of the ship.

Also, magnetic shields could be consider to deal with particules that are much much faster than the ship, only allowing slow particules to appears on-screan and pass the shield.

No need to consider 3D trajectories, just an acceleration plase that automatically transition to the deceleration phase (1D). You might think of a no-acceleration phase mid-flight, but why bother saving fuel, if it can be produced for free from the environment? Just make it acceleration (variable thruster power) then deceleration (automatic 100% thruster power)

[coppercoil]

I'm with team "inertia physics for thrusters".

It should't be very difficult to make the acceleration proportional to the thruster power. But of course, that bring the problem of deceleration: how do you ensure that you stop platform at the right place? Maybe make the engines "stock up" fuel so that it can decelerate automatically.

I'm ok with non-Newtonian physics. I understand that engineers are to smart to swallow it (like five locomotives in a pocket, yeah? (I know you are already bored with this example)), but following inertia laws gives many problems and none of benefits except the feeling of right physics.
1. The most important problem is, that you can travel unlimited distances without spending the fuel, this eliminates resource related issues that are the key point in Factorio.
2. If we involve unnatural need for continuous engine power for accelerating and decelerating, then players will under/overshoot all targets because problems of any kind is never ending story in Factorio, and this is why we love this game.
3. If there will be plenty of fuel in the space, this will break the main rule that all resources are limited, and obtaining them is a goal in the game.
4. Another problem is, Factorio gameplay do not divide space travels to 2-3 phases, that IMO is a smart simplification. All travels are just a distance to get over, not the phases to do correctly, this is a common mechanic in the game. Of course, there can be new movement mechanics, but first introduce them as smooth concept in the whole gameplay, not just a separate law of physics.
5. Rotating the ship will confuse players if they build them during the flight. If they not, then likely, nobody is watching how ship rotates because engineer is working elsewhere.
Likely I might write more reasons, but let's solve these first

Now, the very important point for developers. They MUST write a dedicated FFF explaining why they chose such physic, which is one of the most unnatural things in the game. I can bet, hundreds of players will address this issue in the future, and we need a single URL to answer them all.