Friday Facts #86 - Trees

[MeduSalem]

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

Currently not, which is a pity because sometimes it would quite help to know which ideas/directions would have the strongest community support.

Often the discussions are driven by well known Veterans and while they often have the best ideas, arguments and solutions, because they know the game better than anyone else due to the huge amount of time they spent on the game as well as on discussions in the forum, they are also often guilty of having a very specific perspective on how things should be and thereby lose their objectivity when trying to defend their view. At least I consider myself guilty of that.

Upvotes would be fine, downvotes not... I've seen what cyberbullying can do in too many other forums already.

[Pod]

The flow chart shows update_backers.

Should we be getting emails every time there's a new update? I don't get any, but I'd like to if that's an option.

[FrozenOne]

That means to update list of backers in the game, put new backer names inside. For update notifications use RSS.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

My two cents:

Cement/Concrete is probably a good idea and easily implementable without any new resources. We already have 'stone'. It hasn't been identified what kind of 'stone' it is, just that it is stone. So, let's use Stone as the base for your mix.

Next we need to heat it up to extreme temperatures... again, this is already in the game as written, zero code changes here. However, instead of concrete, this produces the agregate.

So then we have raw stone + the agregate = concrete mix. Again, we're fudging and hand-waving that now it's a different type of stone than the one you would use to make the agregate, but this is a simple game and we're wanting to implement with a minimum amount of work.

Now we come to the tricky part... if all we want to make is concrete slabs, then the mix + water = the slab. However, these days in most construction you end up with ferroconcrete, which is basically iron (NOT steel) rebar in concrete, because their expansion and contraction rates are identical. So, mix + water + iron ingot (or iron rebar if you want, but that's an extra item that can just be handwaved) = feroconcrete. Which has uses in paved roads, walls, and higher-tiered buildings.

[HulkingUnicorn]

I don't like the idea of adding new things (ores, ...) for everything. It can be simplified if that means not having to deal with over 40 kinds or ores. That's one thing I don't like about minecraft mod packs.

Exactly, adding lot of different ores with specific usage is something I also don't like. But adding 1 more could still be fine. Although .. I prefer to save that one for the uranium.

So adding ores without a specific usage is fine? I think adding another metal needed for advanced components that would spawn some distance outside the starting area, could encourage expansion and the use of trains. For example, it could be required for blue circuits, power armor, space/orbital stuff, etc.

[TroZ]

Now we come to the tricky part... if all we want to make is concrete slabs, then the mix + water = the slab. However, these days in most construction you end up with ferroconcrete, which is basically iron (NOT steel) rebar in concrete, because their expansion and contraction rates are identical. So, mix + water + iron ingot (or iron rebar if you want, but that's an extra item that can just be handwaved) = feroconcrete. Which has uses in paved roads, walls, and higher-tiered buildings.

We already have Iron Sticks that could be used as rebar. https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... Iron_stick

Personally, I like the idea of adding sand. It can be used for glass and advanced electronics as well as concrete/cement. The recipe for concrete/cement it a bit trickier though. Realistically (from info from previous posts), it should be something like cooked stone + sand. However, cooked stone already gives stone bricks. Either we will have to have something else, like a stone crusher, and then cook the crushed stone, or otherwise have a new recipe for bricks, perhaps involving clay (which would then be another new resource, which perhaps could also be an ingredient for cement). Once you have cement, adding stone and water would make concrete / concrete bricks, which could then be used. Cement, stone, water, and iron sticks could make reinforced concrete which could be used for stronger / more advanced structures.

I also like the idea of aluminum being added, as a metal that would be used near end game. Especially if it is more complex to process than iron or copper. It definitely makes sense that many of the rocket parts would use aluminum as well as the advanced armors / shields, and even perhaps a higher levels of weapons and gun turrets / ammo.

Uranium also sounds interesting, however, if it's only use would be power plants, then it might not be worth it. If you could also make low level nukes and perhaps advanced cannon shells from the uranium, then it might be worth it, but definitely the more uses the better.

I also like the idea that different biomes would give different amounts / rates of some of these new resources (and oil). That matches the real world to some extent, and would give you reasons for building rail lines to different biomes.

So that's what I think, but no one has to follow what I think, I'm the guy that made a mod that added 5 new types of science packs to make existing researches more complex / consuming to perform

[genericname1]

To produce concrete without adding more items stone+coal+water makes logical sense. It would be interesting if concrete could take time to 'set/dry' although I've no idea if there's any sane way to implement this.

Real lift aluminium production involves large quantities of electricity. We could just use the existing electric furnace and a slow rate of production to simulate this.