Friday Facts #431 - Gleba & Captivity

[CyberCider]

I'm not quite sure why bacteria have to replace copper and iron recipes, do they really have to? The organic recipes would make sense for replacing oil recipes. Biology always has new strange chemistry to exploit, and living things can be used to produce fuel in an exploitable way. Terrestrial plants might be less than 1% efficient in the sun, but that's no excuse for alien worlds to slack around. There's also nanotubes, a carbon based product that can be justified as an organic product. It's a high tech material suitable for high tech recipes, and might even skip a few lesser steps.

There is no oil or coal on Gleba, every oil product can be crafted from processed fruits and spoilage in the biochamber. Replacing oil processing with agriculture was the original most basic design of the planet, in the very earliest stages of development the trees just grew finished oil products on their branches. And Gleba's special material is indeed carbon fiber. It's used for stack inserters, spidertrons, and who knows what else. So, you pretty much nailed every feature that was already present before the playtesting feedback changes.

[luckymike11]

During the holidays I was with my family in Liberec. Greetings from Poland.

[EustaceCS]

7 Factorio 1.0 science packs. + 4 planet-specific from new planets.
But biolab showcase features 12 types of science packs.
Or I'm getting colorblind due to old age...

[MEOWMI]

The work-in-progress lab graphics already look good. It feels like its in good hands and I already feel confident it will look great!

Also I have to say I really like how all your improvements and ideas are coming together at the end.

[CyberCider]

7 Factorio 1.0 science packs. + 4 planet-specific from new planets.
But biolab showcase features 12 types of science packs.
Or I'm getting colorblind due to old age...

There is one “endgame” science pack that’s unlocked after all the planets

[doktorstick]

My completely-out-of-thin-air guess: Efficiency modules stay on Nauvis because Nauvis is the only planet where pollution agitates the natives, and efficiency modules are the quickest way to deal with pollution.

Not an unreasonable guess. They also would help bootstrap new, power-starved settlements (possibly space platform?).

[doktorstick]

I don't think you've accomplished the goal here. You've certainly moved the needle, I just don't think enough. Thing is, the super-lab isn't useful in the early-mid game when you're hitting the first 3 planets. Most bases in those early stages are what? 60 SPM? 100 SPM? Super lab vs regular lab in those scales is pointless, you're talking less than 20 labs, regular or otherwise.

That 60/100 becomes 120/200 without an increase in materials. I think many engineers would take a 100% efficiency gain. But, it depends on if most players can use that gain. If you are a fast builder, you probably can. If you are plodding like myself, excess speed doesn't matter until I have all the stuff for the final factory. They could "encourage" it by significantly increasing research costs... either build big to research in a reasonable time, or build normal and grab Gleba.

[doktorstick]

There is no oil or coal on Gleba, every oil product can be crafted from processed fruits and spoilage in the biochamber.

Is kinda weird, though, given where coal comes from. And probably oil too since Gleba has marine-like life in the goo and muck (algae and such). Maybe the planet is waaaay too young, around the 40-50 million year age for either to form.

[CyberCider]

There is no oil or coal on Gleba, every oil product can be crafted from processed fruits and spoilage in the biochamber.

Is kinda weird, though, given where coal comes from. And probably oil too since Gleba has marine-like life in the goo and muck (algae and such). Maybe the planet is waaaay too young, around the 40-50 million year age for either to form.

Personally, I imagine that the “living” layer of Gleba is simply so deep that anything buried gets digested or something before it can get carbonized

[WaterBeeSea]

When I saw the bitter captivator, I thought we would breed friendly biters to fight for us not gonna lie Hahaha! I can't wait to get back into Factorio after years. It was my first game ever that I bought, and I had to work for it for a year ( just doing well at school - but still had to work my ass off for it) since I was a kid at the time and my parents were not supporting me with video games... THE FACTORY MUST GROW <3 Lots of love

[Ironmonk]

Dear Devs, it would be really NICE if you guys made available all unused assets (or at least some or most?) inside the factorio folders (or released as an asset mod?), so all modders with less artistic capabilities can make use of it in graphic poor mods.

Thank you very much

[Hanse00]

I love that the new biter mechanic feels like a nod to the early days of the game. In the beginning we had to destroy the biter nests to collect the orbs (Forgot their name…), and now we’re back to harvesting the biters, but in a much more sophisticated way.

Looking forward as always!

[xrayspyder]

Do captured nests still consume pollution? Is it a viable strategy to convert all the surrounding nests to reduce the pollution expansion? [...]

Hopefully they do adsorb pollution! You could create a wall of them around your base to limit attacks and slow biter evolution on Nauvis. That would be a nice fringe benefit. Mining outposts likely would not be as practical to protect using such a mechanic but who knows?

If you could spawn and control friendly biters with some end game tech you would be on the verge of turning it into an RTS game - especially in multi-player.

Unrelated to this particular FFF- I'm impressed with the ambition and execution of the whole development team at Wube - keep crushing it!

[kitters]

Getting factory-grade amounts of minerals from plants felt just too unbelievable.

Sorry to spoil fun, but bacteria in biochamber can't just make iron and copper elements out of thin air and nutrients. Unless it's capable of nuclear syntesis LOL
It sounds as stupid as

factory-grade amounts of minerals from plants

[morse]

Is kinda weird, though, given where coal comes from. And probably oil too since Gleba has marine-like life in the goo and muck (algae and such). Maybe the planet is waaaay too young, around the 40-50 million year age for either to form.

It's not a question of the planet age. Earth has a lot of fossil fuels not because it's old, but because for a long time there was no bacteria capable of digesting the dead plant tissue. The dead plants didn't compost and carbonized. The evolution on Gleba could have very well went in different direction.

[Eric_NL]

Loving these new Gleba mechanics! I especially hope that producing things on Gleba makes heavy use of bacteria and biochambers.

One thing I’m worried about is the new lab being restricted to Nauvis. Does Gleba science still have spoilage? Will it survive a long trip through space? I was really hoping to set my permanent science production on Gleba proper…

[…]I love it!

The bacteria bit in this FFF ignited an spark of imagination in my head which led to the idea of a new gleba-specific production loop which could hugely beenfit gleba in my opinion and tightly integrate it with the rest of the planets. That idea being... drum roll please...

Growing bacteria strains![…]

[…]different strains of bacteria produce different amounts of substances.[…]

That would be cool, especially if the the vast majority of Gleba’s production chain is bacteria-based. Like, imagine harvesting an organism, processing it into sulphuric acid, and then using bacteria to convert that acid into sulfur!

[GregoriusT]

7 Factorio 1.0 science packs. + 4 planet-specific from new planets.
But biolab showcase features 12 types of science packs.
Or I'm getting colorblind due to old age...

The 12th Type MIGHT be the spoiled bioscience pack

[morse]

bacteria in biochamber can't just make iron and copper elements out of thin air and nutrients

Depends on the nutrients. If it contains the trace amounts of the element the bacteria can filter it out. Iron bacteria is a real thing, by the way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron-oxidizing_bacteria it can be used to extract iron, but nowhere near the industrial amounts.

[kitters]

bacteria in biochamber can't just make iron and copper elements out of thin air and nutrients

Depends on the nutrients. If it contains the trace amounts of the element the bacteria can filter it out. Iron bacteria is a real thing, by the way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron-oxidizing_bacteria it can be used to extract iron, but nowhere near the industrial amounts.

As I said. As stupid as from plants.
There is a tree that suck tremendous (for a plant) amount of Nickel from soil.
But not bacteria, not plants don't extract more than there is. And there are niglectable amount of those in SOIL. Like, a ton of bacteria multiplyed and refined, consuming two tons of dead organics from soil to collect one kilo of copper.

[CyberCider]

Loving these new Gleba mechanics! I especially hope that producing things on Gleba makes heavy use of bacteria and biochambers.

One thing I’m worried about is the new lab being restricted to Nauvis. Does Gleba science still have spoilage? Will it survive a long trip through space? I was really hoping to set my permanent science production on Gleba proper…

[…]I love it!

The bacteria bit in this FFF ignited an spark of imagination in my head which led to the idea of a new gleba-specific production loop which could hugely beenfit gleba in my opinion and tightly integrate it with the rest of the planets. That idea being... drum roll please...

Growing bacteria strains![…]

[…]different strains of bacteria produce different amounts of substances.[…]

That would be cool, especially if the the vast majority of Gleba’s production chain is bacteria-based. Like, imagine harvesting an organism, processing it into sulphuric acid, and then using bacteria to convert that acid into sulfur!

Keep in mind Gleba’s theme is agriculture, not biochemistry. These new iron and copper bacteria are the only microbial type item. Everything else is processed fruits.

Also, personally I’m glad they’re “forcing” people to design lime science delivery logistics. To me, putting labs on Gleba always seemed almost like cheese. But I’m even more glad they found a natural and elegant way to implement the restriction.