Friday Facts #66 - Merry christmas

[matheod]

Have you tried to use 7z format instead of zip ?

[imajor]

I'm wondering if it was better if the terrain type would have more influence on the factory we build. Currently it doesn't matter at all if we build on desert or grassland or the brown area, and this means that if I start a new game on a new map, I don't see much difference. Sure water and enemies are at different location, but other terrain types won't make it more interesting. There could be something like you could only build solar panels on deserts or something.

The problem lies in the large amount of signaling cables between poles and their targets resulting is total mess of red and green wires making it visually challenging to decipher.

I agree, this would be important.

[Zeeth_Kyrah]

I'm wondering if it was better if the terrain type would have more influence on the factory we build. Currently it doesn't matter at all if we build on desert or grassland or the brown area, and this means that if I start a new game on a new map, I don't see much difference. Sure water and enemies are at different location, but other terrain types won't make it more interesting. There could be something like you could only build solar panels on deserts or something.

The problem lies in the large amount of signaling cables between poles and their targets resulting is total mess of red and green wires making it visually challenging to decipher.

I agree, this would be important.

What I would do for terrain is let certain things move at specific speeds: players would slow down on sand and wetland, speed up on hard terrain. Biters would have a speed advantage on hard and soft terrain (many legs distribute weight), but slow down in grassland. Spitters would prefer grass and sand but not hard ground. For the vehicles, a car would bog down in sand and grass, a tank would have trouble in wetlands. Trains don't care because rails, making them a better vehicle for consistent speed (but not independence, they only go where the rails lead).

[imajor]

What I would do for terrain is let certain things move at specific speeds: players would slow down on sand and wetland, speed up on hard terrain. Biters would have a speed advantage on hard and soft terrain (many legs distribute weight), but slow down in grassland. Spitters would prefer grass and sand but not hard ground. For the vehicles, a car would bog down in sand and grass, a tank would have trouble in wetlands. Trains don't care because rails, making them a better vehicle for consistent speed (but not independence, they only go where the rails lead).

Good idea, but the reason why I want the terrain to have more influence is that right now when I just start a new game on a new map, I see many similarities with the previous one. Factorio is brilliant on the first game, but as you start it over again and again, there are certain things you do the same way, so the followup games are not that interesting. But if the terrain had more influence, you could not build the same factory layout again, so you need to come up with a new layout. In board games they pay a lot of attention to avoid repetitive gameplay, and I know some board games where even after 100 games you don't feel that any of those would be the same.

[Kanddak]

To piggyback off this, it would be really cool if maps generated better and rarer resources the further away from spawn you go. And perhaps the mk1 rocket you first make can't actually leave the planet, but lets you fast-travel say several km in a cardinal direction to set up outposts in exotically populated areas that only begin generating at great distances (and which are totally infested with aliens of course) - including precious metals to be used in creating useless trinkets whose only purpose is to be sold for ridiculous profit ;P

the reason why I want the terrain to have more influence is that right now when I just start a new game on a new map, I see many similarities with the previous one. Factorio is brilliant on the first game, but as you start it over again and again, there are certain things you do the same way, so the followup games are not that interesting.

These two ideas could sort of combine if there were a large family of rare minerals with extremely specialized uses, and they generated in such a way that you probably only find one or two of them anywhere near your starting area.
So perhaps in one game, the map generation gives you a mineral that lets you make special solar panels that produce more power than standard solar panels and are cheaper to produce (except for the special mineral). In this game you would like to take advantage of this by using lots of solar energy early on.
Perhaps in the next game you get a mineral that lets you cheaply add catalytic converters to your boilers so that they don't pollute very much. This time it would be better to take advantage of your ability to build lots of coal power without attracting biter attacks.

Those particular ideas probably aren't very good; really someone should think of something that affects inserter and belt mechanics to allow variation in how you design factories.

[Degats]

We are using palette when saving minimap data (1 byte instead of 3 byte rgb) and we are also specifying the count of repeated pixels of the same color.

Have you tested simply using an existing image compression algorithm like png? You may well find that the optimisations you've been trying (and more) have already been done for you.

Have you tried to use 7z format instead of zip ?

I've found that some zip compatible algorithms can be fairly similar to the likes of 7z/rar if you crank up the compression mode (7zip does a very good job of compressing to .zip at Ultra). It does vary quite a bit depending on the data though.

[LordFedora]

Wait, why is the minimap being saved? Can't it be regenerated?

[ssilk]

Good idea, but the reason why I want the terrain to have more influence is that right now when I just start a new game on a new map, I see many similarities with the previous one. Factorio is brilliant on the first game, but as you start it over again and again, there are certain things you do the same way, so the followup games are not that interesting. But if the terrain had more influence, you could not build the same factory layout again, so you need to come up with a new layout. In board games they pay a lot of attention to avoid repetitive gameplay, and I know some board games where even after 100 games you don't feel that any of those would be the same.

I'm 100% for this. Every map should be quite different.

- different temperatures: the water has not always 15 degrees. It can be different, in cold places you need much more coal, when you need to heat from 0, warm places need less (up to 30?)
- depending on temp we have different creatures
- the pollution behaves differently (when warm it is more spreading, in wet areas we have rain, which cleans the air a lot, but it is then in the lakes)
- different seasons? Different day/night cycle? Different temps? Different energy by solar? And lots more.
- dry areas, you will suck of your lakes, if you use it for simple steam engines. We need turbines and closed water cycles.
- the aliens are in different areas more/less aggressive.
- ice? Temps under zero.
- the need to eat and drink, which can be fulfilled quite different in the temp zones

Around two dozen more ideas...

But with my experience the players would begin to cry:
- uh, can we have it always like so, that would be much cooler.
- I like to play without seasons, how can I stop the year from seasoning?
- help, I sucked all my water off.
- I depleted all of my coal due to this stupid new temperatures.
- wtf. My character starved cause he has nothing to eat, I placed some greenhouse like every time and nothing grows.

We need first something like this: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=4692
In other words: I can choose, which type of game I want to play.

I think here to the great Rollercoaster tycoon, which of course was stupid in world generation, somehow, but you have the scenarios, which where exactly as described. The current free world generator is then just one scenario.

[kovarex]

Wait, why is the minimap being saved? Can't it be regenerated?

Ofcourse not, because it would show you the current state of the map, and not the state as you saw it last time you explored it.

[LordFedora]

Ahh, didn't think of that...

And that's why i'm not one of the devs, just some asshole on the internet

Good work, and keep it up (^_^)