Friday Facts #86 - Trees

[Alekthefirst]

It's not so optimistic.
Uranium would be used only for the nuclear reactors and maybe uranium coated shells. A-bombs would be very bad idea.

A-bombs is a natural addition if uranium ever gets added, it represents the apex of currently known weapons tech, and can be used for both biter and base obliteration. Not that destroying your base would be good for anything... but i still want to rush in and place the nuke in the middle of a dense field of enemies and then rush out while some one-minute timer sets of the bomb (and marks the end of your UPS for the next 10 minutes)

[Cordylus]

It's not so optimistic.
Uranium would be used only for the nuclear reactors and maybe uranium coated shells. A-bombs would be very bad idea.

A-bombs is a natural addition if uranium ever gets added, it represents the apex of currently known weapons tech, and can be used for both biter and base obliteration. Not that destroying your base would be good for anything... but i still want to rush in and place the nuke in the middle of a dense field of enemies and then rush out while some one-minute timer sets of the bomb (and marks the end of your UPS for the next 10 minutes)

I don't like this. A-bombs would be too overpowered for this game.
Maybe vacuum bombs, but not atomic bombs.

I also don't like the whole idea with uranium. Expensive fusion reactors made from the alien artifacts would be enough for the making electricity in the late game.

[Metonymia]

Realistically, destroying spawners with atomic bombs shouldn't result in usable Alien Artifacts. There has to be a downside in using such a polluting (and highly powerful) weapon. And I'm not even talking about what the radiation should do with the afflicted area...

[Peter34]

I would vote :
- Sand for early (glass), mid (concrete, ...), and end game(silicium, ...),
- Aluminium for mid and end game (Aluminium is one of the most used metals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium), it's light, has natural anti-corrosion features, and is really abundant, though mostly in bauxite and other oxydes form.
- Uranium for end-game (energy production, high density metal, ...)

I like that idea. It's nice and self-contained, with 3 more materials to deal with and nothing more beyond that. I dislike the profileration of obscure metals and minerals in some of the more advanced total-game-make-over mods, but these 3, if it's only them and no more, could be a very good thing.

One important thing is that it needs to be possible to mine or somehow gather Sand in any biome, even if perhaps gathering is 5 or 10 times slower if the miner unit isn't on yellow Desert tiles. The reason for this is that biome-dependence sucks totally, in games like this (notice the big problems with getting Sand in the alpha 11 version of "7 Days to Die"?).

Oh, and another thing: I disagree that all 3 by necessity should be added at once. I think it'd make perfect sense to add them one at a time, basic and intermediate Sand in alpha 13, then Aluminium and advanced Sand in alpha 14, and Uranium in alpha 15.

Or perhaps add the various resources as gatherable (and as something that appears in map generation) one version before that, but not make them actually useful. This Sand gets added in alpha 12 and becomes useful in alpha 13 (advanced Sand possibly delayed to 14), Aluminium and Uranium both gets added in alpha 13, but Aluminium becomes useful in alpha 14, and Uranium not until alpha 15.

[Metonymia]

I like that idea. It's nice and self-contained, with 3 more materials to deal with and nothing more beyond that. I dislike the profileration of obscure metals and minerals in some of the more advanced total-game-make-over mods, but these 3, if it's only them and no more, could be a very good thing.

Yes, I strongly agree, as long as Aluminum is processed like it should i.e. with electrolysis, like in MineCraft's GregTech, not like in Tinker's Construct, where it can just be mined as 'Aluminum Ore' and then smelted into 'Raw Aluminum'.

One important thing is that it needs to be possible to mine or somehow gather Sand in any biome, even if perhaps gathering is 5 or 10 times slower if the miner unit isn't on yellow Desert tiles. The reason for this is that biome-dependence sucks totally, in games like this

I agree with this as well! Maybe this should be done in a manner similar to Oil, but depending on the type of ground. I.e. Forest ground has a low yield (few sand/minute) and coarse dirt has more, while Desert/Beach ground has a high yield. This way Sand will be always available, but the amount of Sandpits one has to build depends on the biome one lives in. Between brackets, if Sandpits are a thing, they could also yield Clay, of which the yield (speed) could also depend on the biome. Dunno exactly what Clay could be used for, apart from walls or certain other buildings, but w/e. Perhaps the chemical structure of Clay contains a useful material?

[Cordylus]

Perhaps the chemical structure of Clay contains a useful material?

Clay contains aluminium, but bauxite would be much better source of this metal.

I strongly reccoment implementation of the sand and aluminium. The idea about the ground-type-depending sand mining is very good. Also I like the idea of aluminium electrolysis.

[anstow]

I would vote :
- Sand for early (glass), mid (concrete, ...), and end game(silicium, ...),
- Aluminium for mid and end game (Aluminium is one of the most used metals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium), it's light, has natural anti-corrosion features, and is really abundant, though mostly in bauxite and other oxydes form.
- Uranium for end-game (energy production, high density metal, ...)

I may be the only one voting against adding aluminium. It feels to me that anything that could be made out of aluminium could also be made out of iron (admittedly in at inferior way). So adding aluminium to the game doesn't really add anything new.

I do like the idea of sand. Perhaps, instead of adding a new ore, sand could be crushed stone? I know it isn't technically correct but this is a game and doesn't have to completely respect real life (maybe we could pretend that all stone deposits are actually sand stone).

Sticking with the idea of processing stone. Lime (to make concrete) could replace bricks as smelted stone (which in my opinion feels more accurate, if stone is actually lime stone (it's a game, stone can be both sand stone and line stone!)). Walls and furnaces could just be made out of the new concrete.

I don't have strong views for or against uranium.

[Metonymia]

...furnaces could just be made out of the new concrete.

This. Electric Furnaces should be built with concrete, in my opinion. This way, there is more difference in complexity of ingredients between a Steel Furnace and an Electric Furnace.

[quinor]

You already need massive upgrade of electricity production when starting to use electric furnaces. I rarely use them before solars...

[Metonymia]

You already need massive upgrade of electricity production when starting to use electric furnaces. I rarely use them before solars...

True, but even when using Solar Panels, the required amount of more complex ingredients is relatively low. Solar Panels don't require complex ingredients. Substations do, but those aren't strictly necessary to use Solar Panels. In my experience, upgrading electricity production is a question of quantity, not of quality. Besides, the difference in complexity between Stone Bricks and Concrete is probably one step, just like Stone Bricks is one step up from raw Stone.

[MeduSalem]

Yes, I strongly agree, as long as Aluminum is processed like it should i.e. with electrolysis...

Yeah, it should be done with a machine performing electrolysis. There are quite a few applications where that machine for electrolysis could be used as well then, like for example creating the Hydrogen fuel for the rockets in the upcoming endgame. Quite funny because have a look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen#Metal-acid

Aluminium and water used to create Hydrogen.

I think that would be a nice application, you need Aluminium to gain a lot of Hydrogen. Would be more interesting than just a cheap filtering of Hydrogen gas out of pure Water. But then again looking into the list there are various ways to get Hydrogen Gas at various efficiency. It may be at least be one of the methods, besides others.

One important thing is that it needs to be possible to mine or somehow gather Sand in any biome, even if perhaps gathering is 5 or 10 times slower if the miner unit isn't on yellow Desert tiles. The reason for this is that biome-dependence sucks totally, in games like this

I agree with this as well! Maybe this should be done in a manner similar to Oil, but depending on the type of ground. I.e. Forest ground has a low yield (few sand/minute) and coarse dirt has more, while Desert/Beach ground has a high yield. This way Sand will be always available, but the amount of Sandpits one has to build depends on the biome one lives in. Between brackets, if Sandpits are a thing, they could also yield Clay, of which the yield (speed) could also depend on the biome. Dunno exactly what Clay could be used for, apart from walls or certain other buildings, but w/e. Perhaps the chemical structure of Clay contains a useful material?

I also agree with that. Resources should have different yield (resources/second) in different biomes:

- Sand in Desert/Beaches
- Coal/Oil in swamps
- etc.

While all resources would be available elsewhere too they may only give lower yields so it would take much longer to mine/gather them when outside their natural biome so you are encouraged to explore and find each resource in their main biomes.

[lancar]

I love all these suggestions. Sand, Aluminum and Uranium all have viable applications for both the current and future game.
Uranium is an obvious choice for the underground drilling concept, and sand is readily available from any desert or beach (it would probably be good if the game intentionally generated some beach areas on new maps for this).

I'm not sure about aluminum's availability, though. Have it be ore fields like iron, or be hidden underground?

[Metonymia]

I'm not sure about aluminum's availability, though. Have it be ore fields like iron, or be hidden underground?

I vote for hidden underground. It should be detected with a scanner that measures radioactivity. Maybe an upgrade or mode for the Radar machine? By the way, this means Uranium as a resource deposit should be invisible on the minimap as well, until it has been scanned.

[DerivePi]

OK, let's reel this back in. Concrete will be made using ingredients from existing resources - stone, water and Iron(?). No sand, no titanium, and no aluminum

Aluminium stops oxidizing due to the effect of passivation by creating a patina.

- didn't think I'd see that word in the forum )

Still expecting Uranium as the "hidden" resource.

Let's explore concrete:
Crushed Stone = Stone in crusher (or assembler - can't think of anything else that should be crushed)
Cement = Crushed Stone in Furnace
Concrete = Cement + Stone + Water (oh and don't forget - super P, corrosion inhibitor and ... no) in chemical plant

Now lets think up some useful items that should require concrete:
- 4 Concrete + 5 Iron Stick = Reinforced Concrete (R/C) Wall - Create at the Precast Plant
- 1 Concrete + 1 railroad = Fast Railroad - Create at the Precast Plant
- 2 Concrete + 2 Iron Stick + 1 Stone = Roadway Unit - Create at the Precast Plant
- 8 Concrete + 8 Iron Stick + Steel = Blastwall (to ring Launchpad?) - Create at the Precast Plant
- 18 R/C Wall + 24 Roadway + 4 doors = drydock (I know - pie in the sky) - Create at building site
- 36 Roadways + 24 R/C Walls = Launchpad foundation- create at building site
- 2 roadways + 2 R/C Walls = concrete waterway (can be attacked and destroyed) - create in assembler?

What other items should concrete be an ingredient for?

[MeduSalem]

OK, let's reel this back in. Concrete will be made using ingredients from existing resources...

Of course it will be the existing resources... There won't be any new resources beyond Uranium and even Uranium will be questionable at the point where it might get relevant because of how we are used to do everything without already. Even I would like to see at least Sand/Aluminium being the last ones I'm pretty sure that the boring existing resources will be misused once again for simplification purposes like is the case with half of the other intermediates or finished goods, but at least one can dream.

Point is the devs are on the trend of "could be done with a mod" ever since about a year now, which is a perfectly understandable excuse for them to take off some workload and getting the game into a finished state but I won't be using mods with Factorio up until to the point where the Devs officially say "yeah we are done, we move on to another project beyond Factorio and won't be updating the game anymore besides eventual bugfixes. Have fun with it.". After that point I will probably start using mods like I do with SimCity 4 too. For me it's the bitter taste of mods during development stage... Most of the mods will be abandoned before the main game will even reach a finishing touch and that's why avoid using them because there's already a truckload of abandoned mods that will never be updated to the newest Build.

Aluminium stops oxidizing due to the effect of passivation by creating a patina.

- didn't think I'd see that word in the forum

Which of the words and why?

[DerivePi]

passivation - not a layman's term. I usually only see the term used in technical periodicals. Adding copper to steel will get you Corten (passivation layer is rust), but rust is not a factor in the game (yet?).

[MeduSalem]

passivation - not a layman's term. I usually only see the term used in technical periodicals. Adding copper to steel will get you Corten (passivation layer is rust), but rust is not a factor in the game (yet?).

Well I've been into Construction Engineering for the past 12 years. If I wouldn't know the materials I have to work with I'd be doing something wrong in my job.

I guess rust - altough it may sound interesting - will never be a serious factor in the game. People wouldn't like it if they had to periodically renew their entire base, or at least everything made out of Iron/Steel, also wouldn't make much sense because of Construction Robots repairing everything anyways. Would be just an unavoidable background resource wasting system. So it would only be a hypothetical value of Aluminium... one that would seem logical in some applications. We could basically also say the Iron/Steel we use in the game doesn't have any weight properties nor does it succumb to rust, which is the case anyways due to simplification.

[quinor]

Maybye extreme pollution should also cause damage dealt to buildings so you'd have to repair them either manually or with robots - I mean that highly acid enviroment can't be good for all these machines, and we're using lots of aggressive chemicals in different parts of the factory...

[Cordylus]

Aluminium would be very good for the whole "space" game elements.
Aluminium is a construction material for the rockets, space shuttles, and other flying vehicles. It's also an ingredient of the rocket solid fuel.
It would be good also for the all flying robots, advanced armour, express conveyor belts - all the stuff that should be light and fast. Making concrete is also very good idea.

[Gouada]

So far, I agree with most of the ideas in this thread! I do think that aluminum and sand could be important additions to the game, and uranium if it has more uses than just power generation/biter extermination. Maybe we could make nuclear power useful as a rocket propellant?

Btw, is there a way to upvote or like specific comments on this forum? Thx!