Friday Facts #414 - Spoils of Agriculture

[ombus]

Those who dislike or think they will dislike the spoilage aspect... give it a day and put a mod that removes the time and play ?..

I love the expansion more and more guys.. cant wait to have it.

[adam_bise]

In case anyone was still curious about the quality thing

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I find this interesting. There at first seems little point to recycling perishables in an attempt to improve their quality, since they will keep decaying anyway. But now I wonder what stack-merge-split trickery could be used in a quality improvement loop for this purpose.

[RoastCabose]

In case anyone was still curious about the quality thing

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I find this interesting. There at first seems little point to recycling perishables in an attempt to improve their quality, since they will keep decaying anyway. But now I wonder what stack-merge-split trickery could be used in a quality improvement loop for this purpose.

I'm wondering if seeds have quality, and if so do fruit created from high quality seeds creates high quality fruit. With the knowledge that quality increases freshness, I think that makes the whole process even more interesting.

[Ranakastrasz]

In case anyone was still curious about the quality thing

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I find this interesting. There at first seems little point to recycling perishables in an attempt to improve their quality, since they will keep decaying anyway. But now I wonder what stack-merge-split trickery could be used in a quality improvement loop for this purpose.

I'm wondering if seeds have quality, and if so do fruit created from high quality seeds creates high quality fruit. With the knowledge that quality increases freshness, I think that makes the whole process even more interesting.

No no no, the interesting question is if the spoilage has quality, or if you can put biologicals into a recycler. Because that just sounds weird.

[bobucles]

I wonder how devs will hit that "easy to learn, hard to master" gameplay for spoilage. If the time limits are simple and accessible, then they'll become trivial at the high tier. If the limits are challenging, they'll become too oppressive and crush newbies. The skill tiers are spread so far apart that I doubt a single clock will make everyone happy.

Item quality has a great potential to address the difficulty curve. Low item qualities are low reward, and thus it's not a big deal if players need help with them. High quality items are high reward, so limiting the player's options will add layers of challenge. The quality system is why I think the ability to refresh item timers (either through upkeep recipes, or from natural processing steps giving bonus time, modules, etc.) is okay. It keeps the low bar at the low end, players who need extra time can get it. They pay a penalty of losing out on item quality. It adds a high bar to achieve. Players who want legendary fruit won't be able to refresh their timers, and have tighter deadlines to overcome.

[GregoriusT]

I think you meant to quote someone else. I already know this. It's also not the only method, as that only goes back so many posts, but it is the easiest for simple multiquoting.

I did mean to quote YOU, but for the purpose of ELABORATING/EXPLAINING your point to anyone reading it who does not yet know how to Multiquote.

[gnutrino]

I find this interesting. There at first seems little point to recycling perishables in an attempt to improve their quality, since they will keep decaying anyway. But now I wonder what stack-merge-split trickery could be used in a quality improvement loop for this purpose.

I think it's going to largely depend on which stage of the processing you do it and how long lived each intermediary is. Assuming that the quality adds a percentage to the time to live, there would be little point in a quality improvement loop for a 2min base ttl product for example as it will likely lose freshness in the loop faster than it can gain it through increased quality (although there's nothing to say you can't stick quality modules in at an early stage anyway and just filter off the higher quality stuff to use in more time sensitive production and/or to improvement loops for later, longer lived, intermediaries) but a 2hr base ttl product can probably go through an improvement loop quite a few times and still come out with a longer ttl due to the quality boost. It also seems it may end up inverting the normal quality usage in the Gleba factory in that you'd probably want the highest quality intermediaries to be used in the science packs to give them the highest freshness you can while redirecting "low quality" products to non-spoilable production (e.g. plastic) where the end freshness doesn't matter (so long as it's above 0).

I think it's a positive sign that you can't immediately see the most optimal way to play with the combination of the new features though tbh, it keeps things interesting.

[CyberCider]

I'm wondering if seeds have quality, and if so do fruit created from high quality seeds creates high quality fruit. With the knowledge that quality increases freshness, I think that makes the whole process even more interesting.

Well, without some changes, that would be a little busted. If a legendary tree dropped legendary fruit, then it would be processed into legendary seeds, which would grow more legendary trees, and the cycle would continue.

[Saphira123456]

This is already possible. I mean, how do you think I've been doing it (in the very post even you site, iirc)?

In order to multiquote, scroll down in the editor until you see the list of previous messages, from there you can click the quotation mark button on each post to copypaste its content to the editor wherever your cursor is, like this.

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In case anyone was still curious about the quality thing

Ooooh thanks ^^

Thank you sir, this should honestly be a pinned topic in the main forum.

Also, as someone clearly mentioned in a previous post (moderated I believe) that apparently multiple posts in a row, to different people, is trolling; I have attempted to condense things this time. I believe it was @FuryoftheStars who accused me of this.

You were accused of spamming, not trolling, but not by me. Your responded to that accusation, to which I then responded saying the multiple posts in a row was spamming.

Someone else accused me of trolling via spamming.

[Tricorius]

In case anyone was still curious about the quality thing

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Of course it does. These mechanisms go hand in hand. And I expect the subsystems evolved together. There’s a reason quality came very early in the FFF chain for the new expansion.

I'm wondering if seeds have quality, and if so do fruit created from high quality seeds creates high quality fruit. With the knowledge that quality increases freshness, I think that makes the whole process even more interesting.

Well, without some changes, that would be a little busted. If a legendary tree dropped legendary fruit, then it would be processed into legendary seeds, which would grow more legendary trees, and the cycle would continue.

If I recall correctly, higher quality tiers have a normalized probability to drop items of the same tier or slightly better. So you’ll still need to filter off small quantities of lower items and incredibly small quantities of really high tier, but you’ll essentially steadily travel upward in tiers.

So with these processes on here, I would expect a “loop” for each quality tier. You’ll eventually have as many loops as are tiers and be feeding all of your legendary seeds to your legendary soil / seed farm. And you’ll probably only want to be sending science out from your highest tier loop.

Also, we have no idea what biological science will go into. They really haven’t said much about science. But I expect it’s a secondary or tertiary science. Just like current military science isn’t required for every single research project.

Also, for those of you who are newbies; really old Factorio had a similar mechanism (without spoilage though) with biter science. It wasn’t renewable, and had a few flaws. This mechanic gives a similar effect to what they were trying with biter science and addresses the drawbacks (primarily that you had to go hunt biters and collect goo from them…which meant you either had too little or far too much).

[Goodman599]

I think the spoilage mechanic will be very interesting to play with! It makes you have to design with the intention of using everything you produce, as well as minimizing travel distances, likely reducing the viability of the main bus which honestly has been used to death.

To those who want a refrigeration mechanic: why?
I trust the devs enough to balance the spoilage times appropriately. I can understand not wanting to lose your items, but it seems like everything that can spoil is renewable, so at most you’re just losing out on some power. It will limit your ability to transport resources large distances, but as another user has pointed out, you can probably plant the trees anywhere. The devs even mention the landfill being cheap, so it’s probably intended.

If any of you have played satisfactory, I would compare the early game of that to gleba. Satisfactory’s belts are generally too slow for a main bus design, so until you unlock better transportation options you’re kind of forced to build near the ore patches, reducing transport times greatly. And, if you keep the correct ratios in mind, items on belts basically never stop moving, so transport times within factories are low too.

And while satisfactory is a wildly different game from factorio, gleba, and spoilage, I think this comparison shows a valid way to structure your base: Localized factories surrounding resource patches (trees). In fact I think spoilage has been made to specifically encourage this.

Raw materials will very likely have a much shorter shelf life than finished products, so you are forced to build factories near trees, but are then free to transport the finished products ie. science packs with much less restriction.

With this kind of factory, refrigeration won’t even be needed, since all of the items that quickly spoil processed quickly, while others can and are probably designed to travel around.

Note: I am a game designer so my way of thinking might differ from normal people. This is just my assumption of the devs’ intention by adding spoilage, but I think this would make a lot of sense from a game design perspective.

Lastly, realism should always come after gameplay. The best selling games in the world is Minecraft, and last I checked trees don’t float in the air.

[FuryoftheStars]

Lastly, realism should always come after gameplay. The best selling games in the world is Minecraft, and last I checked trees don’t float in the air.

Not that I necessarily want refrigeration (although I do believe it'd be neat to have), but this ending comment does make want to say that it's those same things about Minecraft that make me not want to play it. . (Mind you, not those reasons exclusively, but they do contribute.)

[Goodman599]

Lastly, realism should always come after gameplay. The best selling games in the world is Minecraft, and last I checked trees don’t float in the air.

Not that I necessarily want refrigeration (although I do believe it'd be neat to have), but this ending comment does make want to say that it's those same things about Minecraft that make me not want to play it. . (Mind you, not those reasons exclusively, but they do contribute.)

That's totally fair. And now that I think of it the target audience of both games are vastly different, but the point I want to make is that for the vast majority of audiences, a game doesn't have to be realistic to be fun

[mmmPI]

Considering realism, not every plant needs to be refrigerated to be preserved, sometimes it's enough to make it dry, to preserve the flavor, but prevent the moistures or mushroom to potentially damage the harvest.

Considering a plant that has industrial use, like hemp, the quality of the seed is important, to have the best fibers but also the fastest and cheapest growth that require less water and fertilizer. And interestingly it's not the only use of hemp, as you can make cooking oil , or edible too, which are perishable transformed good that do not need refrigeration. Mushroom can be de-hydrated for preservation, at least the edible ones, but i don't think the engineer "eat" any of the fruits, the product in which they are transformed i can picture it like natural rubber from tree. If you don't process it fast enough it hardens, and is wasted, for its purpose but if it's not "transformed" enough it's still organic, so it doesn't need "recycling", instead it decay naturally.

Part of it is symbolic and alien, but refrigeration is mostly used for food irl no ?

[SirSmuggler]

For those who are concerned about spoilage being to hard on new players, remeber that we all start on Nauvis and has to go through the process of building a rocket and probobly a space platform befor we can even get to Gleba. So by the time a new player get to set fot on Gleba they will have a good amount of experience allready.

[GregoriusT]

Random consequence of having those Refrigerated Chests that are so very "demanded":

People will just build a Chest Inserter Chain to transport their Spoilers from Machine to Machine, which is NOT what the Devs want at all whatsoever. Belts are what is supposed to be used in the Game, not Chest Chains.

[FuryoftheStars]

Random consequence of having those Refrigerated Chests that are so very "demanded":

People will just build a Chest Inserter Chain to transport their Spoilers from Machine to Machine, which is NOT what the Devs want at all whatsoever. Belts are what is supposed to be used in the Game, not Chest Chains.

Not that I really think they're needed, but what if an insertion delay was added to this to further drive home the point that they are not regular chests?

Alternatively, what if the refrigeration was restricted to a special railcar? 1/2 or 1/4 the storage capacity, and does not "operate" unless attached to a train that is actively moving (as when stopped it is open to allow inserters to operate)?

[Tertius]

Note: I am a game designer so my way of thinking might differ from normal people. This is just my assumption of the devs’ intention by adding spoilage, but I think this would make a lot of sense from a game design perspective.

If it comes to design, I hate games where you see through the gameplay and see the design. It's often with games that establish exactly one proper way to beat some challenge and punish other ways. The moment I see the design, for example in some combat situation, the combat against a powerful menacing enemy suddenly becomes a purely mechanical keypress+mousemove task to reduce the life bar of that texture blob over there to 0.

Factorio doesn't have such kind of design to force the player into some action workflow. Instead, its design is to create a simulation. It created a simulation, a simulated world with its own physics and nature laws. What the player is doing with the effects that result from the simulated items that is totally up to him, and he has every freedom whatsoever. This is what makes Factorio so pleasant to play. No min-max workflow. There are better working and not so good working approaches in Factorio, but that's not the point or the goal of the game. If efficiency is the goal for you, it's just you. The game doesn't enforce it.

The spoilage mechanics is just another of that simulated nature laws. It's just there. It's adding complexity and variety to the game, but I don't see anything forced upon the player. If you feel forced by spoiling items, you can also feel forced by things falling to the ground due to gravity. Or to be unable to build an iron wheel due to lack of iron.

It might feel forced if implemented not good enough, but that is something I can only judge when I see it first hand by playing the game myself with that mechanic.

[GregoriusT]

Random consequence of having those Refrigerated Chests that are so very "demanded":

People will just build a Chest Inserter Chain to transport their Spoilers from Machine to Machine, which is NOT what the Devs want at all whatsoever. Belts are what is supposed to be used in the Game, not Chest Chains.

Not that I really think they're needed, but what if an insertion delay was added to this to further drive home the point that they are not regular chests?

Alternatively, what if the refrigeration was restricted to a special railcar? 1/2 or 1/4 the storage capacity, and does not "operate" unless attached to a train that is actively moving (as when stopped it is open to allow inserters to operate)?

Hrrrm, this looks a little convoluted to need the car to be moving. It is a bit too complicated to be considered by the Devs I think, since this would be too inconsistent, and lead to ridiculous situations like "Spinny Train of Circlejerking around Spoilers".

If a Freezer Car exists WITHOUT your suggested movement requirement, people would use the Wagon as a long Chest like some do in current Factorio already.

[Goodman599]

Note: I am a game designer so my way of thinking might differ from normal people. This is just my assumption of the devs’ intention by adding spoilage, but I think this would make a lot of sense from a game design perspective.

If it comes to design, I hate games where you see through the gameplay and see the design. It's often with games that establish exactly one proper way to beat some challenge and punish other ways. The moment I see the design, for example in some combat situation, the combat against a powerful menacing enemy suddenly becomes a purely mechanical keypress+mousemove task to reduce the life bar of that texture blob over there to 0.

Factorio doesn't have such kind of design to force the player into some action workflow. Instead, its design is to create a simulation. It created a simulation, a simulated world with its own physics and nature laws. What the player is doing with the effects that result from the simulated items that is totally up to him, and he has every freedom whatsoever. This is what makes Factorio so pleasant to play. No min-max workflow. There are better working and not so good working approaches in Factorio, but that's not the point or the goal of the game. If efficiency is the goal for you, it's just you. The game doesn't enforce it.

The spoilage mechanics is just another of that simulated nature laws. It's just there. It's adding complexity and variety to the game, but I don't see anything forced upon the player. If you feel forced by spoiling items, you can also feel forced by things falling to the ground due to gravity. Or to be unable to build an iron wheel due to lack of iron.

It might feel forced if implemented not good enough, but that is something I can only judge when I see it first hand by playing the game myself with that mechanic.

Yeah, I was talking more about encouragement that forcing, but I see your point, and now I can definitely understand why people would want refrigeration. Especially for things with much shorter time limits, you are somewhat forced to build smaller designs, otherwise your products just spoil. Spoilage does feel more punishing for people who don’t want to build localized factories, though, since being inefficient with perishable products demands more from the player (processing spoilage).

Maybe the player will get practice building small designs on the space platforms? Though this doesn’t make the game any less force-y. Players are encouraged to build compact to maximize the speed of the platform, but aren’t really punished by losing your items, just speed (and fuel). Just a thought.

EDIT: Now that think reduce it, every planet forces the player to play a different way, since it’s the devs’ goal to shake things up each time and remove repetition. Especially because in some earlier FF they mentioned not wanting each planet to just be a mining outpost. If you really wanted to play the exact same way on all planets, that would probably get old quick and space exploration might be better suited to your tastes.