Friday Facts #414 - Spoils of Agriculture

[bobucles]

Spoilage without refrigeration? Curious. Haven't the devs heard of salt, or one of the countless chemical preservatives/anti oxidants/inert gases/raw radiation that serve to stifle bacteria and organic decay?

The lettuce analogy is a strange one. The organic food we are familiar with tends to decay in a non uniform manner. When making a salad with subpar lettuce, one does not toss the entire bag into the salad. The bad leaves get picked out, thrown away, and a smaller amount of decent leaves remain. There are many similar agricultural devices for sorting nuts, berries, grains and the like, which separate good food from spoilage and help maintain the food supply. In terms of game mechanics, the quality would effectively control yield. A slow and inefficient factory would have a lower item quality that represents more rot, more waste products, and less total good stuff. But the good stuff would still have a decent quality, because the rot got separated out.

The size and scaling of organic factories could be worrisome. How will players manage train networks with so many short lived products? The train network adds a non trivial amount of buffering and delay to production chains. If storage doesn't have any methods of preserving products, then long haul trains would lose a lot of value.

Item decay seems like something that would play well with the pollution system. A less polluted environment might help prevent rot, while a polluted environment could make products "sicky" and prone to decay. There's a lot going on with the living parts of the planet, so pollution seems like it has a major role to play.

It's great that the devs are not shy about creating new factory challenges. Guess we'll have to wait and see how it'll work out.

[bnrom]

Mechanics Feedback:
1. I love the spoilage mechanic. It feels unique, and will likely lead to interesting logistical challenges! V.cool!
2. I really like the harvest and replant dynamic
3. However, with the whole tree being harvested, only obtaining the fruit feels quite strange... why not add some type of important wood product as a secondary output? E.g. it seems like carbon fiber should be made from the wood (e.g., alien-plant trunk material) and not the fruits. I'd expect the fruits to be a very low component of the biomass, and mainly used for making biologically active components, e.g., the research packs, and not something structural like carbon fiber.
4. One interesting idea would be to have an incentive for crop rotation, possibly linked to soil degradation. Farming on earth massively benefits from crop rotation, and I think the logistical challenge of occasionally switching between the two different plants could be cool!
5. You could possibly push the biological aspect further, and make the biochambers proper bioreactors, especially for some of the high-end recipes. E.g., a constant flow bioreactor requires a carefully controlled flow of input and output to ensure that the biologically active components of the bioreactor (e.g., Gleba alien micro-organisms!) stay alive and functional. Other types of bioreactor run in large batches, with a seed biologically active component being provided to start each batch, e.g., beer fermentation. These types of mechanics could lead to cool gameplay, and make Gleba feel even more unique and thematic!


Current graphics feedback: (I'm sure you guys have all these improvements planned anyway...!)
1. At the moment, the tree harvest animation is, to me, immersion breaking as the tree just disappears.
2. The movement of the Agricultural tower arm is awkward looking. One detail is that the arm tip extension looks like it graphically stretches the arm (rather than telescoping).
3. Something about the fruits stacking looks strange to me.

Graphics Suggestions: (mirroring previous user posts)
1. Add more complex harvest animation, e.g. the tree being ripped out of the ground, or it being sawn at the base.
2. Make the arm movement more rigid and crane like. One could even have it be a digger that rips up the surrounding soil.

[Loewchen]

Spoilage without refrigeration? Curious. Haven't the devs heard of salt, or one of the countless chemical preservatives/anti oxidants/inert gases/raw radiation that serve to stifle bacteria and organic decay?

That would mean spoilage is just a problem with a straight forward solution, having item travel time as a new logistic challenge to optimize sounds way more fun.

[bnrom]

Spoilage without refrigeration? Curious. Haven't the devs heard of salt, or one of the countless chemical preservatives/anti oxidants/inert gases/raw radiation that serve to stifle bacteria and organic decay?

That would mean spoilage is just a problem with a straight forward solution, having item travel time as a new logistic challenge to optimize sounds way more fun.

+1, the new logistic challenge seems super fun!

Thematically, it could also be that we want the bacteria! Who knows what the science packs require? Maybe a big part of it is making alien micro-organism cultures? Irradiating/sterilizing the material might render it useless.

[Redrune75]

Spoilage seems like a very interesting mechanic. I can imagine optimizing and designing some JIT manufacturing setup to leave materials in their most resilient form until otherwise needed, and I think that's a lot more engaging than simply having a spoilage mechanic only to nullify it by adding freezer capability that pauses the timer.

I don't think ripping up the trees entirely is all that weird, for one reason. They've used the words "tree", "fruit", and "seed" (and I'm sure the tree entity prototype under the hood), but this is a fungal planet. I have to imagine these are much more like mushrooms, where the entire above-ground thing is the fruiting body (so called), and you wouldn't be able to simply pick fruits off and have more grow later. The above-ground part would be as useful at creating more "fruit" as an apple stem would be at creating a new apple. Of course, for most mushrooms I think there is a "root" system, the mycelium, that would remain alive underground and produce more fruiting bodies eventually, but if we nitpick every single mechanic in the game against its real-world counterpart we'd be here all day, and ultimately find that the game is very inaccurate indeed

And having to replant the "trees" seems more engaging than simply planting the seeds once and re-harvesting forever, in the same way that feeding iron plates into an assembler to make gears seems more engaging than spending 200 iron plates to craft a "gear generator" that slowly spits out gears forever with no further input.

I feel like shaders to make items turn from green -> yellowish -> brown would work nicely

As someone who is red-green color blind, and for whom a green/brown gradient would be absolute hell: please give me the white bars.

[bnrom]

Tiny feedback: the icon for the planet in the friday facts is missing the science pack, unlike the friday facts on the Vulcanus and Fulgora mechanics.

images

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[bobucles]

Spoilage without refrigeration? Curious. Haven't the devs heard of salt, or one of the countless chemical preservatives/anti oxidants/inert gases/raw radiation that serve to stifle bacteria and organic decay?

That would mean spoilage is just a problem with a straight forward solution, having item travel time as a new logistic challenge to optimize sounds way more fun.

Maybe? It seems like a system that won't play well with trains, or massive scaling in general. Larger factories have more travel time, more buffering, and a greater potential delay from start to finish. That won't work well when the product is a race from start to finish. Or at least, a race to reach its slowest decaying form.

Smaller, more agile factories may be the play here. Dunno.

[CyberCider]

Maybe? It seems like a system that won't play well with trains, or massive scaling in general. Larger factories have more travel time, more buffering, and a greater potential delay from start to finish. That won't work well when the product is a race from start to finish. Or at least, a race to reach its slowest decaying form.

Smaller, more agile factories may be the play here. Dunno.

Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Players have a chance and incentive to build in new ways and experiment. You build huge factories on all the other planets, Gleba is where you can try something different.

[kitters]

Will there be fauna on other planets?

[CyberCider]

Will there be fauna on other planets?

“Most of” the new planets will “have different military targets”
That’s what the original expansion announcement said. I interpret that as a yes.

[X3KJ]

i have a big hope, that there will be deadly fungi spores or some other bio toxin thing on this planet to ... hamper your progress.
... which can then be utilized to extend the weapon arsenal Think in the poison capsule direction. Maybe more more versatile or potent, different deployment methods (missile, artillery, gas sprayer/liquid thrower) for use on nauvis? Maybe alternative use? Making biters docile temporarily? Anything in that direction, that goes beyond just more explosives saturation would be a neat addition to the fun arsenal.

Alternative fun secondary use direction: some kind of liquid biomass, that you put into a "flame thrower", which sprays the landscape automatically to achieve some kind of terraforming/altering effect^^

[bobucles]

Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Players have a chance and incentive to build in new ways and experiment. You build huge factories on all the other planets, Gleba is where you can try something different.

Hmm, that's the thing. Any player can build small, I mean, every factorio player in the world has started with small factories. That's the trivial solution, the "you don't" answer to factory building. The hard question becomes, how do you build big? It doesn't seem like players have the tools for that.

I think having a singular doom clock from start to finish is a mistake. The rush is fine, yes, but it sets the impression that the decay mechanic "doesn't matter" until the very end products. The health bar starts full, so it's pretty fair to say that your first few steps shouldn't experience rotting. If they did, it would be a major blunder. If you don't blunder, you then there's no need to prepare for rot. And if you don't prepare for rot, then 10 hours down the line something completely unrelated is going to stall, and your entire organic production line turns into compost.

An action game player might describe it as a "don't get hit" sort of dilemma. You don't need to engage with the mechanic, because the only way to engage with it is to first make a mistake. Your factory isn't supposed to have mistakes in it, right? By the time you do engage with it, it's too late. This is going to start some forum fires, guaranteed.

I wonder if the first step should be so uniform. If a tree is sits there with big juicy fruit, it's eventually going to rot, right? Instead of getting fresh perfect fruit off the vine every time, start with a mix of over ripe, under ripe, and nearly decayed fruit. The trees have been sitting there for a while, so rot management becomes part of the factory design from the very start. As players build bigger and faster they get rewarded, by cycling through their tree farms faster. Fresh trees end up with healthier and higher quality fruit, but the factory was already hardened against the worst.

I don't think anything was covered on how decay mechanics will interact with quality mechanics. Quality boosting loops will necessarily cost time, which is at odds with product time limits. Eh, that can wait for the next FFF.

[mmmPI]

do things inside the Input Slots of Assemblers, Labs and Inserters EVER spoil?

I am asking this because if an Inserter especially a Bulk/Stack Inserter picks up a bunch of things and then those things rot inside it, it might not be able to ever put those rotten things into the Assembler or other Target and get stuck forever until manual intervention or until you get the idea to put a filter inserter next to the regular inserter to steal the held spoilage from it.

That's been puzzling me, if the freshness is not the exact same, would the ingredient stack in the inserters ?

I think it could make sense that the ingredients do not spoil inside lab and assembler, considering those are building that may prevent it, and only on belts, exposed to the outside, things would spoil. But from a gameplay point of view it would reduce the impact of the mechanic to allow player to store things indefinitly, i don't think it will be this way. Having things rot on chests & belts but not on assembly and labs is a mid point. That seem an incentive for players to keep machines from outputing their product and keeping buffer in them, maybe using circuits to control inserter ? Such complexity seem on par with the oil processing for me.

[GregoriusT]

That's been puzzling me, if the freshness is not the exact same, would the ingredient stack in the inserters ?

Different durability Repair Packs get stacked too, same for Science Packs, so that is a nonissue with Factorio at least. Though the durabilities get merged, so you might end up losing an item if you combine two low durability things.

I think it could make sense that the ingredients do not spoil inside lab and assembler, considering those are building that may prevent it, and only on belts, exposed to the outside, things would spoil. But from a gameplay point of view it would reduce the impact of the mechanic to allow player to store things indefinitly, i don't think it will be this way. Having things rot on chests & belts but not on assembly and labs is a mid point. That seem an incentive for players to keep machines from outputing their product and keeping buffer in them, maybe using circuits to control inserter ? Such complexity seem on par with the oil processing for me.

Yeah the reason I am worried about this particular one is because it would be an unjust logistics challenge to have to extract spoiled items from assemblers and labs, unless they have a proper dedicated slot for taking it out again, which will force you to put a spoilage belt next to the Assemblers and Labs.

[CyberCider]

Yeah the reason I am worried about this particular one is because it would be an unjust logistics challenge to have to extract spoiled items from assemblers and labs, unless they have a proper dedicated slot for taking it out again, which will force you to put a spoilage belt next to the Assemblers and Labs.

Assemblers will posess a “dump inventory” that they already use when their recipe is changed by circuits, to get rid of the ingredients of the previous recipe. Maybe this functionality could be reused here?

[Mooncat]

Oh no. I can already see a mod that makes everything spoilable.

[Phnx]

I'm so hyped with this update !! I already see myself angrily alt+f4 the game because I couldn't figure the correct ratios to avoid spoils then get back at the game 5 minutes after because i'm already addicted

Oh no. I can already see a mod that makes everything spoilable.

Introducing Factorio Nightmare Mod

[mmmPI]

Different durability Repair Packs get stacked too, same for Science Packs, so that is a nonissue with Factorio at least. Though the durabilities get merged, so you might end up losing an item if you combine two low durability things.

I get it for durability as a coding thing it is possible to do, it exist.
But for gameplay and immersion the implication could be to remove the need for the freezer, and allow to take 2 eggs that are half-rotten, to make a single egg, all fresh Maybe for fruits it makes more sense, you'd only take the piece that is not rotten, but it would still lead to a loophole, or at least that's what puzzling me x).

Yeah the reason I am worried about this particular one is because it would be an unjust logistics challenge to have to extract spoiled items from assemblers and labs, unless they have a proper dedicated slot for taking it out again, which will force you to put a spoilage belt next to the Assemblers and Labs.

Maybe there are ways to avoid risking such situations that need to be identified, similar to lacking coal early game for power is a trap player learn to avoid ? and/or as mentionned ways to deal with the situation in unfortunate case it happens. somewhat automated.

I could also imagine a situation where if you do not really take into account the rotting problem and have all belts back up similar to other planet, the consequence will be that every item exposed will be wasted, but that in the grand scheme of things it would only cause players "inefficient" use of "infinite" ressources.

One would be extracting rotten or non rotten things similarly, and it would be filtered afterward with a splitter. In case of heavy stop- and - go production, there would be a lot of waste, but not in case of steady flow, without too much need for manual intervention if the system is set up to be "self-unlocking".

[Losash]

I don't like the new mechanic because all the products, including science packs themself, spoil and inherit spoilage, and that affecting final science level. Also, spoilage of packs will be inconsistent if any slack and invariants are present in the production chain, basically all this means that total science value of packs is going to be hardly calculatable, denoting the idea of "SPM" for any research requiring this.

This mechanic is also very UPS-unfriendly, and if that pack is used along other science packs, that inconsistency will be inherited by other non-spoilable science too, through the labs, meaning you can't perfectly predict required size for ANY of your production chains on ANY planet. This is not terrible for gameplay itself, but the cumulative effect on UPS will be significant.

I'm currently not sure anymore that Space Age will be able to provide fold-times more SPM than the base 1.1. Considering all the new surfaces, space platforms, UPS-unfriendly stuff like recycling and spoilage, I guess developers added new inserter/belt/machine buffs mainly to compensate for much higher computational cost of planet-specific science. I bet last planet science will get even more crazy, because that planet is not visitable before the first 3.

Last thing I'd like to note is that Space Age seems to be delayed looking at the rate of content reveals and amount of "this is subject to change" sentences. I don't expect they are 3 month away from release, I'd bet for more like november-december. Which is also frustrating for many players waiting for this over the last 3-4 years, but whatever, what has to be done, has to be done.

[Loewchen]

Spoilage without refrigeration? Curious. Haven't the devs heard of salt, or one of the countless chemical preservatives/anti oxidants/inert gases/raw radiation that serve to stifle bacteria and organic decay?

That would mean spoilage is just a problem with a straight forward solution, having item travel time as a new logistic challenge to optimize sounds way more fun.

Maybe? It seems like a system that won't play well with trains...

I could imagine the exact opposite: A factory that produces exactly enough for one single wagon train in a burst and then halts production until the next train arrives. Bots will still be faster for short distances, but for any span bots can't do without recharge trains will be very attractive.