Friday Facts #438 - Space Age wrap up

[Makka77]

The unit test video made me feel a bit funny...

[CPU_BlackHeart]

Going to miss looking forward to FFF's but all good things come to an end. One thing that is consistently on my mind is Aquilo and its presence in a Death World. In earlier FFF's, it was mentioned that Aquilo originally had enemies but they were removed because they messed with the flow of Aquilo too much. Normally this isn't much of an issue in a normal game, but for those of us who play Death World, we're in the majority that enjoy an experience of having to juggle defense on logistics, so maybe in 2.1 Aquilo's enemies could be added back to the game as a Death World exclusive setting? I can understand not putting enemies on Fulgora, but I believe that on the Death World setting, each planet should have its additional threats.

Nauvis has extra biters and faster evolution, but outside of Nauvis, there's nothing extensive about playing on the Death World setting carried over to the new content, so a couple of ideas.
Space, Space is already enough of a challenge doesn't need changes regardless of Death World setting or not, Space isn't a world/planet, it's the inbetween.
Gleba. Gleba is pretty obvious, same as Nauvis, extra enemies.
Fulgora, this one is a bit of a tricky one given that the elements seem to be your major obstacle, but after you get lightning towers up, the weather stops being a concern which eliminates the threat of the planet completely. It'd be nice if Fulgora had additional weather elements you had to look out for like maybe thick sand storms every now and again, additional things that impede you that can be nullified with other buildings, like forcefield generators to keep the sand out of your factory. (Essentially if in range of the building, the sand storm effect is alpha'd out.)
Vulcanus is Vulcanus, thankfully there's the Explosive Biters mod which can add additional elements to the planet, but with no way to really control pollution, Explosive Biters get out of control. Maybe for Death Worlds there can 2 Demolishers inside a zone instead of one?
Aquilo... well, Aquilo is obvious, enemies were prepared and then later removed due to them making the planet harder than needed, so essentially that means they're near a finished state? At least that's what I get from the interpretation from the one FFF. If anything I would think adding back the Aquilo enemies for 2.1, mainly for Death World players, could be the .1 feature a certain niche of us are looking for.

[BlueTemplar]

The game I'm thinking about is related to WoW in a similar way as to how Factorio is related to Minecraft.

If Factorio = Minecraft - dimension + automation
then RPGtorio = WoW - dimension + automation

...isometric rpg where you automate leveling. Sounds like clicker heroes

Yeah, we know that Kovarex is a fan of Baldur's Gate 1-2.
And guess which game is a top down isometric party RPG with tons of automation for its auto-pause system and party member actions ? Yeah, still BG1-2 (and also the Icewind Dales I guess).

[Rebmes]

Well, I can't end this day without commenting on your last Facts for awhile. I've read them all for a long time, and the recent set of all 50ish have been great to follow. I've also had the chance to play the expansion quite a bit, and although I haven't completed it yet (Aquilo etc, I wasn't so great at the game to begin with!) I feel like you've made the best game that there is today. Make sure you celebrate and pat yourselves on the back for this! Sorry there's so much bug fixing to do, and I hope you have great holidays, and the best of luck with whatever you choose to do next year and on!

Thanks to all of you guys and the people who helped along the way <3

[IsaacOscar]

Just wanted to say thank you for everything you've done so far, I've been playing space age since release, and I've only encountered a few minor bugs, so you've definitely done an excellent job on release quality.

Also I know everyone here seems to want you guys to keep making factorio, it's your businesses/life so I think you should do whatever you want and be proud of the excellent game that you've already made and the bugs you've squashed.

[Crowd_Kraut]

Thanks for all your work Wube for this game.
I think it is a bit of an understatemant to say: "Our realse was ok"
The game did not crash once. I had no serious bugs 170 hours in and you never promised anything that you couldn't hold.
In other words you are better then 90% of developers in the modern gaming era.
Have fun in WoW and see you with your next game.

[Molay]

The discord invite seems to be invalid. If that is intended, could you please give details as to what server and faction it is? Is it the PvP one? Alliance or Horde? I was intending to give WoW another whirl myself, might as well do it on that one and see where it takes me.

Thanks!

[FasterJump]

Congrats! I think of all the knowledge you gained while developing the game, and all the knowledge you shared in the FFFs. Good luck in your new project(s), and I hope there will still be some ongoing work on Factorio in the background!

[Hamez_Boi]

Factorio 3.0 - Rustacean Age

Discover the depths of Nauvis's and Glebas Oceans in this new and rewritten in Rust Version of Factorio! Fight off giant Crabs as you venture deeper and deeper into a World optimized to its very Core!

Deal with the all new Oxidization Mechanic, which will deteriorate all Iron Objects underwater! Build Sacrificial Anodes to stop rust from spreading!

lol i said this a few posts before this

[Hamez_Boi]

shame we're only getting one factorio expansion.
i could've forseen an expansion including caves and oceans levels under the surface of the planets, as well as different kinds of planets like a barren moon/murcury planet and maybe a gas giant. not sure how the gameplay would've worked for the gas giant though and if it'd be too similar to underwater

Lets see what the modders bring us.

there's a difference between modding and dlc, a very big one

[mmmPI]

The unit test video made me feel a bit funny...

Dear -insert-AI-name-, i'm going to show you a tutorial video demonstrating what moves are allowed in the videogame factorio, i want you to watch carefully, and infer the rules of the game to then devise a strategy.

[picklock]

So, that's the last FFF for now. But V2.0 has been released and everything has actually been said. Nevertheless, I will miss the in-depth descriptions of the development. But maybe we can still enjoy some interesting FFFs before the release of V2.1.

The end of Factorio development is in sight. That's a pity on the one hand, but understandable on the other. You developers want to do something new. I'm still curious to see what V2.1 will bring. But I hope that the impact on existing mods will not be too great.

I wish you all the best for your new projects, but hope that Factorio will be maintained for a long time to come.

[KeithFromCanada]

How difficult would it be to spin off the procedural music generator as its own app which uses an existing game/soundtrack install to provide users with a constantly shifting soundtrack for their day without needing to leave Factorio running? Bonus points if there was also a (purchased) mobile app version.

[levas_007]

Factorio 3.0: Interstellar

[TheoMarque]

Maybe Wube Follow Relogic developing Terraria. Every time they said "last update" and do some small updates. Now, they focused into merch and Terraria spin-off's.
I would like see special mods smaller than Space Age but designed on current 2.0 engine created by Wube team. For example:

Extend Fulgora "Deadly End of Technology" - discovering history about this planet and what caused end of Fulgorian Civilization - maybe AI or something?
Extend Vulcanus "Sunfire" - preventing planet destroy by sun and demolishers (or demolishers are not that bad as wee saw)
Extend Gleba "General Genes" - Biological horror and genes manipulating given us way to empower classical machines with biological things (like biolabs!)
Extend Aquilo "Climate change"- global warming impact
Extend Nauvis "Sky is not Limit" - make good place to support whole engineers civilization - like OTTD or other tycon/citybuilder games.

These ideas can move from factory/automation game into more narrative/interactive and impactful game that lacks currently. I would pay por them separately for example 1/3 prace of last DLC.

Other Way is expand to other solarsystems with different planet and map settings (same technologies), but with strage generation. Like No Man's Sky.
Or, Create large project - like Dyson Sphere Program
Of course, any of this can be made by modders but i prefer maintaining and developing way that Wube do

[bman212121]

Thank you everyone from Wube for making such an awesome game! I certainly don't see the announcements of FFF ending as "the end". The game just came out and it vanilla alone will be worthy of years of play to come. But what really makes Factorio is that all of the mods that are going to come out with all of the new abilities of the expansion. The game is going to stay fresh for another 5 years and for people who still have corners of the game left explored hopefully someone will mod that in and they can enjoy it.

After this expansion I do kind of feel like this genre could be left alone for a while and when the time is right there could be a reboot of the game with new elements or concepts re-imagined. This game has been on going for more than a decade at this point, and I'm not really sure where else you can go with it in a way that won't alienate part of the fan base. It's already pushing the too niche category with just how long it takes to complete a single campaign. Adding more elements without removing things won't increase the player base, but removing things also won't increase the player base. My thought is you'd have to overhaul the core game play, which means re-inventing the game from scratch. That itself would also alienate players who don't like the "new" style (Read most RTS game fans) so it's probably best to just give it some time.

The game I'm thinking about is related to WoW in a similar way as to how Factorio is related to Minecraft.

This is quite a teaser. I'm sure there are a lot of Factorio players who are also WoW players, or have played some type of MMO in the past. If there is a game which crosses WoW and Factorio I'm already praying for the people who are in the intersection of those two titles!

My one comment as someone who liked Japanese MMOs but never got into WoW. The main blessing and curse of something like WoW is that it's controlled by a single entity, and that entity has final say in how the game is ran. I do see the appeal of centralized MMOs, but I'd imagine a lot of the Factorio base isn't lining up for monthly paid subscriptions to an online service. What makes Factorio the game it is, is the Factorio community. Every server you play on is unique and everyone has their own idea and niche around how the game should work. It's up to the server admins to foster great communities and game play. This was the case in a lot of the FPS titles prior to WoW coming out. Where I think Factorio shines the most is that it still allows the community to add the final layer of polish to the game and do something no centralized game can ever accomplish. That's a long way of saying whatever you decide to do, I really hope it allows dedicated servers and mods because those two things are the backbone of best games and gaming communities. (3rd Person MMO like game where admins use something like Clusterio to run a multi-instance server that is fully customizable and supports smaller communities of a couple hundred players per server cluster? That would be the dream for me!)

(PS. There is already a game kind of like that, Wurm unlimited. But because it's directly competing against Wurm Online with older code and less support a lot of the player base just plays the official server and the host your own never really took off)

[noper]

The game I'm thinking about is related to WoW in a similar way as to how Factorio is related to Minecraft.

First post in the forums to speculate how that would be done without ending up with an ARPG like Path of Exile. I've always speculated the logical conclusion of MMORPG mechanics is the ARPG.

[BHakluyt]

Sjoh! Wow! Only 2 months left...

I better get my opinions over to you asap.

It seems Prometheum asteroid spawn rate is tied to your speed. This makes it very hard for my noob ship travelling at 0-5km/s. Seems below 10km/s they don't really spawn. Traveling 40 000 km at 0-5km/s yields maybe 150 ore, yet going the same distance at 20km/s yields thousands of ore. This is unintuitive and just doesn't make sense. Kindly please look into it?

Also please we need a GUI where we can peruse all circuit network signals when they are just too many to see on the right side when hovering over a power pole. Please give us a way to look at all the signals on a wire...? (Without using a Combinator to sort out the specific signal for you...)

Honestly space age almost killed the game for me. Still having heaps of fun though, the Prometheum just makes it tough for a noob ship to get. I would really also love for all the different planets to be rather on one single surface as large biomes. Would that be possible to mod?

Edit - also the music breakdown seems funny. 201 for Aquillo, I hardly ever spend time on there or looking there... Space only an hour or so of music...I think we spend the most time in space, would be nice if we can get 3h33min of space music...

[BlueTemplar]

The game I'm thinking about is related to WoW in a similar way as to how Factorio is related to Minecraft.

First post in the forums to speculate how that would be done without ending up with an ARPG like Path of Exile. I've always speculated the logical conclusion of MMORPG mechanics is the ARPG.

Well, maybe it's just because I played Factorio a lot and I'm biased, but I'm suspecting that the latest (and biggest/greatest so far ?) season of PoE1 wouldn't have dared to go as deep into automation (especially late-game) if some of the designers hadn't played Factorio ?

Otherwise, I'm not sure why you think that : after all Diablo2-like dungeon walkers / runners
(ARPG is a bad term, there's hardly any RPG left, it's all about killing monsters, loot, and character builds)
have a very high focus on fast reaction speed combat, with intense focus from the player on their sole character
(ok, maybe not for summon builds, but those are the exception)

From what I've heard WoW is barely an RPG (are there many RP servers still going on ?), but then also is much more about party synergy (at least for bosses / dungeons ?) with some scripting automation thrown in for your own character ?
(Ok, PoE1 does have some of this too — a recently introduced materia gem is even called Automation ! — but it's kind of exceptional as dungeon runners go.)

Aside from Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale, now I'm thinking also of the Might and Magic series (which is 1rst-ish person), where you control a whole party with a quite unique way to not have to deal with moving multiple characters separately with all the (notably pathfinding) issues this causes ?

[J-H]

Anything similar to Baldur's Gate II sounds really cool!

But probably not what Wube is doing. The jump to something heavy on dialogue and characterization is a pretty big one.

Maybe we'll end up with something more like a Torchlight or Age of Empires mash-up? I like RPG/class mechanics but procgen games tend to be kind of soulless.