Friday Facts #425 - Behind the legs

[magalhao]

New legs are awesome! It still looks robotish, but has more fluent movement. People that don't liek spiders can always install mod.

I`m sure most people like this change, but they just don`t waste time commenting.

[Chrisdasdasd]

Ye, ngl. I dislike new spidertron movement. Rest is ok.

[jamaicancastle]

Electric or electromagnetic pollution was thrown around on some other forums but I think if the planet is already a constant storm nothing would care about your activity in that area.

I was thinking it would be attractive to enemies, like on Gleba. If there's something out there that survives by drawing power from the storms, your accumulators would be like a buffet to it.

It's an enemy type that's uniquely suited to the terrain, too. Normally electricity-eating enemies would have the issue that logically they would want to eat long chains of power poles, which would be a nuisance, but the terrain on Fulgora doesn't allow you to build long chains of power poles in the first place - at least not until the lategame when you presumably can handle the enemy presence.

[Whar]

As a person with aracnophobia, you did a great job. Please, introduce an "aracnophobia" toggle in the menu or I won't be able to use an spidertron or play in Gleba

Edit: some people say we could use mods, but we should be able to get achievements too! I would be ok fighting against a pink square, lmao. Hogwarts Legacy had an "aracnophobia" mode and the alternative was almost more terrifying

[Ranakastrasz]

While I don't have Arachnophobia, I do agree that we absolutely need a toggle setting to turn legs off, or replace them with simple line segments or something.

[bobucles]

Ye, ngl. I dislike new spidertron movement. Rest is ok.

The new spider movement is much more organic and triggers those primal creep instincts. The old one definitely had a synthetic and robotic feel to it. They are definitely different moods.

[princediver]

what about research? may be implement separated research for labs?

[Fagarester]

Algorithm as a living thing .But the old algorithm is like a mechanical one.It would be nice to at least control the old spidertron on the old algorithm, and everything else on the new algorithm.

[Clockwork_Mind]

Almost every issue I was planning to mention about the new (bugged) spidertron movement was resolved in the bugfixed version. (Like I didn't see anyone mention how the animations weren't just jerky, the literal movement speed was choppy, especially when moving horizontally!)
Well done on the spidertron (and all the leg animations, really)! To me, the old version has always looked like just 2D sprites stretching around (still passable), while the newest version leaves me almost disbelieving that this is all being done with just 2D sprites. (Especially the Stompers, their spritework and animation is a work of genius!) I am truly inspired by the Factorio Devs and their commitment to quality and perpetual improvement!

[Clockwork_Mind]

Arachnophobia has been mentioned several times, but I wanted to give more specific feedback on the spidertron and leggy enemies, and what I'd hope an "arachnophobia mode" would look like. Yes there's the Arachnophobia mod, but its solutions are pretty brute-force and rely on straight-up removing graphics, and would be extra jank to try to apply to the Pentapods. I also don't love the idea of being beholden to a community mod for this accessibility feature, trusting that it will never be abandoned or broken and making parts of the game potentially unplayable to some like me. I know that making a new game option with different leg movement is extra work for the devs, and would actually alter the way Spidertron and leggy enemies physically move, but I and so many other players would massively appreciate it.

Every arachnophobe has their own unique triggers, so I can't give universal advice, but I will say that Stance and Silhouette are both huge. Bugfixed spidertron does a great job of mimicking the Current tall stance when at rest. Having its legs very tall, bent, and not spread-out does a lot to separate it from a real spider's "threatening-looking" wide stance. But when it gets moving, the way the Bugfixed legs un-bend to reach out does a lot to widen its stance, and starts to set off alarm bells. This is true of the Current legs too, but to a lesser extent. As for sillhouette, the way the updated legs more realistically rotate around the body at the shoulder makes it move much more like a real spider, which is really harshly pronounced when moving around obstacles.
An arachnophobia mode might want to keep the knees stiffer and very bent, and the legs looking tall, relying more on sprite-stretching than joint-bending to reach out. Or as an even more dramatic solution for the most severe phobias: perfectly straight legs that extend from the shoulders like a Minecraft spider, and only ever rotate and stretch. Yes it might look more derpy, but that's the point for arachnophobes.

[EnerJi]

I like the look behind the curtain, but the choice of topic also makes me wonder a bit: There are only 8 more FFFs to come until release, assuming the release date stays as it is, and there is still a lot of ground to cover:

• Enemies on Vulcanus (as hinted in the last paragraph if this FFF)

• Fulgora might not actually have enemies, as it's a dead world after all, at max there might be some old robots or something

• Uses of the buildings unlocked on Gleba on other planets are still open

• An entire planet is still missing

• Maybe there is also something more to do in space, than cargo-platforms and the one in Nauvis Orbit producing Space-Science

• New equipment was hinted at in previous FFFs

I am starting to get the feeling we will not have a full picture of everything on release and I am a bit divided on what to think about that

I'm quite curious about this as well. Maybe Wube know the release date is going to slip but haven't announced it yet. Maybe they plan to release without the final planet information so that it's a surprise for the first players who purchase day 1 and race to the endgame. Then they'll fill in the remaining blanks in FFF that occur post-release for everyone else. Will be interesting to see.

[sd50]

Hi, can You just add option in menu to "legs in group spidetron"?

Thanks to this I will be able to choose how many legs I want to group, 8 as usual, and if my UPS drops I will add it back to 2 -> it will be scarier but more efficient

[Retne]

Love that last week's blog had a warning for spoilers. Then I click next and my avoiding those spoilers seemed kinda pointless (I did stop reading but not quickly enough)

[cybersteve547]

I think I agree that the old Spidertron movement looks better. Works great for the Pentapods, doesn't look nearly as good on a robot. It's kind of twitchy and jerky. It's lost some of what made mechanical and cool.

So regarding the twitching/jerking: that's my bad. The video I uploaded to FFF actually contained a bug that was later fixed, but I had forgotten this fact at time of writing. If you're curious what the Spidertron movement looks like now, I uploaded it here: https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blo ... smooth.mp4

THANK YOU STRANGEPAN
also could we get this video in the next fff wich i am assuming is about vulcanus enimies?

Anyway, I think I've seen enough of these creepy-crawlies to last a lifetime. I'll leave Gleba to the Pentapods for now. They can have it! Besides, it's about time I check on my Vulcanus factory. I've been getting a bunch of alerts from there, so I sure hope nothing is disrupting my foundries...

[BattleFluffy]

The new spidertron legs animation looks really creepy!! It's surprising what a big difference it is from the original walk.

Does leg groups mean we can now have spidertrons (or other legged creatures) that subscribe to the ministry of funny walks? Such as having 7 legs in the first group, and one leg in the second group. :>

[Grillmax]

I also love the Behind-The-Scenes aspects of the FFF. (I used to be a game developer in an earlier life.)
I frequently email them to a friend who I play Factorio with online, and we look forward to a LOT of the new features.

I find myself NOT looking forward to the new enemies that much. (I don't mind them, but, hear me out...)

I look at my friend and I for two different styles of play:
He LOVES attacking enemy bases. (and gets killed a lot)
I DISLIKE attacking enemy bases. (because I dislike getting killed a lot)

So as long as I can still turret-creep. Or deploy artillery and related defenses. Then I'll be happy.

Play-style, I effectively NEVER use grenades and the tank. Why? Because those things involve getting close to enemies. If I have to engage, I like missiles. Oh, and in SE I like the Bloat Burst ammo. I organize my inventory for building efficiently, not for fighting. As a result I'm not great at the fighting.

Ironically, I prefer playing WITH biters. I've tried turning them off, and that's less fun.

Bad at fighting? Try Defender Capsules!
Bad at killing Nests? Try Distractor Capsules!
Bad at killing Worms? Try Poison Capsules!
Bad at killing Trees? Try Grenades!
Bad at getting to places? Drive a Tank through all the Trees and Rocks with Cliff Explosives in hand, and there wont be any obstacle in your way!


As for the attack patterns of the new Gleba Enemies, I guess they just straight up ignore your entire Factory and walk directly to the Biochambers and Farms that cause their Allergies to flare up, so you will only need to defend those specific Machines.

honestly the grenades beg for a grenade launcher because hand thrown range is not enough

[Terrahertz]

I think I agree that the old Spidertron movement looks better. Works great for the Pentapods, doesn't look nearly as good on a robot. It's kind of twitchy and jerky. It's lost some of what made mechanical and cool.

So regarding the twitching/jerking: that's my bad. The video I uploaded to FFF actually contained a bug that was later fixed, but I had forgotten this fact at time of writing. If you're curious what the Spidertron movement looks like now, I uploaded it here: https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blo ... smooth.mp4

Alright, this looks way less derpy now, thanks

[kiroma]

Reading the behind the curtain section I started wondering, what if we had a replay system in the game that allowed for stable playback of a recording? That way you could go back in time and inspect stuff that happened off-screen to understand what happened exactly, or make higher quality recordings that encompass more than just the high level overview? It seems that the code is too unstable right now but since the whole game is using fixed ticks... maybe it's feasible?

[Jap2.0]

Reading the behind the curtain section I started wondering, what if we had a replay system in the game that allowed for stable playback of a recording? That way you could go back in time and inspect stuff that happened off-screen to understand what happened exactly, or make higher quality recordings that encompass more than just the high level overview? It seems that the code is too unstable right now but since the whole game is using fixed ticks... maybe it's feasible?

The game has a replay system. (That underlies how multiplayer works: only players' inputs are sent between computers and the game is simulated identically by all players.) However, the issue is that if you play through again in even a slightly different manner (which is what happened trying to make this video), that may affect random number generation—which can lead to cascading changes.