Friday Facts #111 - Long term plans

[ssilk]

Now when I have time to read all in this thread I think I need also to say something.

No Space-Plattform: Fine. I liked the idea, really. But for me it felt always something like an extension (since summer last year, when I heard the first time about it). Lately I begun to think about it as a mod.

Suddenly, you're having to build houses, roads, cities (or at least provide the materials for such). You could even have humans are "Items" where your space platform (where the ships that bring them from earth to the planet dock) has to be able to handle the capacity of people moving through the station.

That is also a nice idea.

BUT (!) it cannot happen on this planet. There are many ethical reasons against it.

...

I think I need to explain this point very clearly:

A mankind, being able to travel to the stars, cannot just kill a planets whole life. There is one exception: when the reason is to safe it from a total holocaust.
...

I think I need to explain this point in more detail:

We don't know why the character has crashed on the planet. We know he want to flee from there, but why didn't he just build a big antenna, send a signal to safe him and wait? Why does he need to expand, why does he need to build a satellite? Why the need to build a space plattform? Why to build a spaceship? (now obsolete, but the plans had been on desk)

There could be only one answer: Because he (the character) wants to change the system he was living in before. A political system, suppressing, unfair, doesn't make any progress (in science and sociological). In short: Something, which gives him the morally right to do, what he does: Exploiting this planet, in order to safe it!
Because if he doesn't have luck with his plan, if he cannot change the current system, the current system will do it and kill all the live on this planet in order to exploit it, which leads to a holocaust.

Or from another direction: He has crash landed there, either because he found out, what the system really does. Or he has crash landed and then found it out (through the old factory relicts, I like that idea more). Now he wants to change it and had the luck to find out, how to use the resources of the native life. He will find old factories from the first try to exploit this planet and that helps to have a faster progress.

And what he tries is then to build an army of bots, rockets etc. to help changing the political establishment, to fight against suppression. To take over the power in order bring back the "right" direction, which is - among others - to safe the planet.

...

Short break: Why should we as mankind not just exploit the whole planet?

Now we need to go back to our current time and the Earth we are living on.

This is old (current) thinking: Exploiting it for my own advantage. But to go for the stars we need a different thinking!
In my opinion it's possible to send a mission to Mars within the next 30 years. It's maybe possible to build a colony on moon. But then?
Inventing a "star-drive"? Building a space arch, where thousands of people can live in for centuries to travel to other stars? Why not? It's a matter of how much worth it is. For whom? For the mankind.
Who should pay this drive and who will be allowed to use it then? Good question. And here my answer: As long as we have the current system with all this inequity there is no chance to do this. The resistance against such plans will be so big, that we can never be sure that these plans will be sabotaged by terrorists.

The logical conclusion is: A mankind that travels to the stars needs to have a very high level of morality.
So the answer to the question of inventing a star-drive is: When mankind has a political/sociological system, which enables it.

And that means in consequence: A mankind, that is able to kill the life of a whole planet only for it's own advantage is not able to go to space. Cause the afford to build spaceships of that size is so huge, that it cannot be realized otherwise.

Or from another perspective: There are so many suns, so many planets out there, that it really makes no sense to make a holocaust on a planets native life. It makes much more sense to safe them for the future.
And the only morally reason to do it either is - for example - if you need to kill "a bit" native live now to safe it for the future.

Which brings me to the beginning: I would like to build a colony. I would like to go to other planets etc. But with planets, that doesn't have life on it.

[roman566]

The only real reason against colonizing such planet like in Factorio is not moral but practical on - by excavating resources from an empty rock you save money on security. Same with colonization.

EDIT
Got the quote I was looking for

If the air, water, or biota are hostile, and you can't find a solution that doesn't involve covering your people with inch-thick environment suits, leave.

And the great mystery of 'why player has to leave the planet' has been uncovered.

[ssilk]

The only real reason against colonizing such planet like in Factorio is not moral but practical on - by excavating resources from an empty rock you save money on security. Same with colonization.

If the reason for exploring the universe is only money, it is morally wrong and will fail. I really think in the future money is only one part of many to have a happy life.

If the air, water, or biota are hostile, and you can't find a solution that doesn't involve covering your people with inch-thick environment suits, leave.

And the great mystery of 'why player has to leave the planet' has been uncovered.

Just for completeness: With the technology you already have in the game you can easily change this situation. What I want to say is: With the extracts of technology that are already demonstrated in the game you can colonize even a rock.

[roman566]

Colonize? Yes. Leave it? No.

To launch the rocket you need oil. Oil is created from organic compounds. Same with coal.

[Mendel]

is there a plan to make a non tutorial campaign with missions that have goals and a bit of a story?

[jorgenRe]

time split between surfaces.

Wohooooooooo il now jump of joy !
*jumps a little in the boat terminal*

[Airat9000]

and when the space and production in orbit and the planet?

[Drury]

I like the idea that you build a space shuttle, enter it, blast off to space, then the screen goes dark and the credits roll. Optionally with a short cutscene.

There is a certain poetry to it. The character never speaks, and even though you control him, you don't know why you do what you do. You can't be sure what are his motivations. You are in control, yet you're really just a spectator. You watch this guy silently, relentlessly chop down trees, kill bugs, and build factories. In the end his efforts cumulate in the spacecraft that he built. He boards it and blasts off, leaving his factory behind to get reclaimed by nature. Where does he go? Yet another planet to build another factory only for the circle to repeat? Maybe his rockets only go so far and he's doomed to build factories on alien worlds for the rest of his life, trying to reach his mysterious goal in the dark depths of space? Does he really have a plan? Does it matter? (Will we find out in Factorio 2: Electric Bug-galoo?)

It's not so much a story as it is a lack of one, but then again, Factorio is kind of self-descriptive and it lacks something that is required for every good story - characters. You can make a piece of art without characters, sure, but you can't have a story without them. Hence I'd opt for no story.

Also, it's cheaper. We could literally have this in the next update.

[imajor]

I am glad that the space platforms are out of the plan. What were people expecting from them?

I tell you what I was expecting. I was expecting that the platform would be limited, and the shape would change from time to time, so I was expecting a situation where I cannot use my regular blueprints for producing stuff. Where I have to be smart and creative by squeezing a small factory into a compact space with as much productivity as possible.

Moving the goal 5 hours back doesn't really add something.

I disagree. As others said, some of the end game content is now wasted because you reach the current end goal too soon. Like chain signals? What for? If you just go for the current end game, you won't even build one. So 5 more hours would definitely matter I think.

[Drury]

Space platforms were and still are very controversial, but I believe it's for the most part because people just make weird assumptions pn their workings.

For instance, I'm pretty sure the plan was not to have you leave your factory at any point. You'd be down there, building on the platform by either riding a supply shuttle up to it and doing stuff in your spacesuit then going right back or by directing construction remotely from the ground by the use of construction robots on the platform.

Why am I so sure that would be the case? Because you'd have to send the platform off to space to be destroyed. It was said that from every failed attempt, you'd get special tech points to help on the next until you get it right. There is just no way you'd be on the platform when it explodes and then somehow build another one due to some weird spacetime anomaly allowing you to survive and go back to your planet or whatever.

Another thing that a lot of people dislike - space restrictions (hahaha no space in space brb killing myself). Anyway - you'd most likely be able to expand the platform by supplying it with platform pieces assembled on the ground. It would just take forever, hence it would be smarter to just cram everything together as tight as possible. If this is not the case, there would still be enough room to fit everything that needs be. Most likely you wouldn't be required to build tanks up there to shoot down martians on their own tanks they make on their platforms or whatever.

[torham]

Its been a long time since I posted, but I think I will add to the feedback.

Platforms - Really not that surprised. From the get to it seemed to me like a massive, massive undertaking. You would basically have to create a whole new tile set, new buildings, and new logistics, and most importantly new game mechanics. And I still don't know how would you be squaring all of that with multiplayer, where you could have multiple people running multiple platforms, all in real time, on top of the planet surface simulation.

I am with ssilk on this one. If we are going to industrialize this planet, and kill native species on sight, we will need to have a damn good reason to do so. Global war seems reasonable, where the rule "kill or be killed" applies. There is actually a few good sci - fi novels, which take this exact same approach: A total conflict spans the human empire. Because space is really big, humanity is stretched really thin. A single technician is send to a planet to establish a fully automatic defense / attack fortress. I think I have read at least 3 different novels with this same premise.

You just have to think a little about how will the end game "wrap up" our efforts. Will we just shoot automated missiles into the sky for score points, or will we just shoot one and the game ends, or so on. If I may, I can offer one alternative:
We fire off 1 rocket and than our base receives a counter attack with drop pods landing near, and in the base spewing advanced mechanized robots that try to destroy everything. If we survive, we can launch another rocket, and face a stronger/more advanced retaliation. Rince and repeat.

As far as the game content, I really appreciate the tech tree, it really needs a bit of polish, so that newer players can read it a bit more intuitively.

And as the last point - more oil infrastructure. Oil furnaces, oil boilers, asphalt. Give us more options to use it up.
EDIT: Flame thrower towers would add nicely to this. They could use raw oil, piped directly from oil tanks ( raw oil is already very flammable), or use processed napalm, as a second tier/advanced fuel...


keep it up guys, you are doing a really good job.

[roman566]

The counter attack thing sounds interesting. It would work nicely with the new turrets that we will (hopefully) get. It might even make solar panels more balanced as defending a large solar farm against serious counterattack would take lots of resources and loosing it would be catastrophic for players not using steam as back up power.

[Drury]

There's an issue with that plan - what's the incentive for you to build a missile?

I mean, the game can start with a transmission from your superiors telling you basically "build a missile and blast these guys to bits" and then nothing for 100+ hours, then you launch the missile and another transmission comes up like "oh crap they decided fight back for some reason lol glhf" and then you fight back and then... What?

I mean you can have an ending where you beat all the bad guys and stuff, but is there really any reason for that kind of history to be shoved in the player's face? What I mean to say is that it's not a very good one, even on paper. There is nobody for you to symphatize with, nobody you can understand from a human perspective, see why they do what they do and support/shun them. And in the case of Factorio, I don't think even that would fit well. It is a game of solitude with cold machinery at it's core. And, as I said before, every good story is about people. There aren't good stories without good characters, there are just not. How many characters are there currently in Factorio? One who doesn't have much to say. If we want more, we need to add them in, and then somehow give them the ability to interact with the player character. And since it's a videogame, there should be choices to be made with a real impact on the game. Basically - taking the game in a whole new direction. I think even space platforms would be less of a commitment.

If we want to have a story, it should be a good one, which is not very applicable looking at the current state of the game, or not one at all. A lot of games, and I mean a lot, just make a story up for the sake of having it and then you just look at the screen shaking your head. At that point it's better to just leave the fine details up to interpretation.

EDIT: One thing that Factorio does well though, is nonverbal communication. It is what inspires everyone to make up stories about what could be going on. There are these insanely cool factories with laser turrets, this guy in a cool suit, this hostile planet with space bugs, and obviously there is a fight going on between the two. It gets people's imagination going at full revs. There's always room for expansion on that front, you can put in beautiful, bright white elegant alien spaceships coming to break your toys without anyone saying a word, and you'd instantly know who they are and why they came, for a random example.

[Koub]

I think I need to explain this point very clearly:

A mankind, being able to travel to the stars, cannot just kill a planets whole life. There is one exception: when the reason is to safe it from a total holocaust.

This, to my opinion, is extremely utopic. For the last centuries (millenia ?), there have been two major expansion engines :
- War - or at least conflict - until no more resistance is met.
- Short to middle-term economic profit.

All right, most individual people do have higher standards when it comes to what draws them forward; but efforts put into something are a LOT bigger when it's for war or profit.

Now, it can be decided that Factorio takes place in a world where mankind has gotten rid of it's worst sides and learned not to be what it has been from most of its history. This would be a lot more sci-fi than space travelling, and all that stuff.

As we talk, the most likely would be :
- There is war on Earth / in the terran territory, and the side that will control Factorio planet's ressources will have a temendous advantage over the other side
or
- A great quantity of rare and expensive/new natural ressource (refined alien artifacts maybe ?) has been discovered on Factorio's planet, and the first group/country/corporation to take hold of it will get a huge advantage against its competitors.

[Edit] : To fuel my flame even further : Factorio's planet and even natives are just "the planet" and "biters". If we really cared about the planet and its natives, we would have shown more sensibility, we'd have named them (or named them better). For the current Factorio character,exploit the natural ressources - and natives - is the onlu goal to achieve so far.

[DaveKap]

So here's my input..

The only thing making me look forward to the space platform was the fact it would be a bunch of gameplay I haven't experienced in Factorio yet. Another thing making me look forward to it was that there would be some kind of end-game/post-game progression that wouldn't just be "build one last thing."

So without the space platform, I now assume that what we've played is essentially the game as it will be when release hits, sans some buildings, vehicles, enemies, and weapons that are yet to be added. However, the reason the space platform was ever announced was because you explained what you thought the end game would be and decided, based on feedback, that your endgame wasn't good enough. So dropping the space station begs the question: Is there a new end-game or not?

[dee-]

The counter attack thing sounds interesting. It would work nicely with the new turrets that we will (hopefully) get. It might even make solar panels more balanced as defending a large solar farm against serious counterattack would take lots of resources and loosing it would be catastrophic for players not using steam as back up power.

This had a small idea spring up in my mind.

Imagine multiplayer. Just like the multiplayer we have today: all the players are on one planet. These players are a team, because they roam the same planet.
Now imagine more players, which form another team, on a different planet.
So you have one team per planet and several planets.
The players of a team build their shared base from the ground and up to the rocket-war-aera.
The rockets and their warheads are the resource sinks on the planets, so if you want to produce more rockets you might mave to expand/relocate your base(s).

When a team possesses a rocket it can be put into a silo, fueled up and then shot from their planet to a different team's planet.
The launching players can build structures like long-range-radars to find other habitated planets, surface-scanners to get a rough glimpse on the other team's planet surface and to make out the position of their base, all in different upgrades.
One special building is the fire control which can be GUI-interacted with and sets the coordinates where the fired rockets should go down. Upgrades about accuracy are possible here, too.
Countermeasures might be facilities for clouding the radar, decoys or anti-missile-batteries are possible for the defenders.

img

What you get is a multi-multiplayer game with a race-to-arms-mechanic, aggression/defense-decisionmaking, redundand baseplanning to handle the situation when a vital part gets hit, resouce-sinks that make somewhat sense and other (for me) interesting stuff. And who says there can only be two planets at a time that trade blows?

If one prefers singleplayer games either an AI could take over the opposing planet(s) (but then how would their base look like?) or the enemy's base is replaced with some kind of scoreboard. Also you could skip this like you could skip the current or any other endgame and just build your base.

This would also open up the game for later stuff like player-invasions (enemy players on your planet) or landing mech battleships, etc.

[Sparkerish]

Wow ... I love this game.

I agree with dropping the space platform. (I didn't think it really "fit" not to mention being really time consuming.)
Planetary battleship? interesting idea, I have a few as well...

Please give us tank cars (or at least the ability to put all fluids/gases in barrels) either way I really would like to be able to ship any in game liquid/gas.

As far as new endgame goes, good points everyone. So on this planet our goal is to 1) survive 2) ? escape ? colonize ? (I like both or either)

Bitters, yes save them (they create artifacts) perhaps the biters could evolve "thinker" bug that realizes X bitters and Y Spitters didn't penetrate the wall so send more next wave. Bitters could plant/harvest trees, that would be cool. Incentive to both keep them and incinerate them.

Oooh, how about when first rocket is launched it is "shot down" by mammoth worm? (would explain transition from tutorials to free-play, plane crashed, why fly when you could die? perhaps the labs as launch calculators could help -I do like that idea, gives labs a purpose post research)
Nuke silo anyone? aha! Rail mounted artillery (parallel tracks X distance apart there's the "better rail building")

I agree with Drury about the 'story line' keep it sketchy, let players 'fill in' their own version... this works great with the possibility of different ways to "end" the game. does factorio have a button to "continue play" after the game is "won," I like that option. (I launched one rocket and promptly loaded my most recent save and built 4 more rockets to go with it)

Sorry for the rambling disjointed post, I tried to keep it 'on topic'
This game still has so many possibilities, please don't get hung up on "finished in a year" take some time and really add to this awesome creation that is FACTORIO! although I suppose it must be called "finished" at some point... then you can start on FACTORIO 2!

keep up the great work

[Ohlmann]

This, to my opinion, is extremely utopic. For the last centuries (millenia ?), there have been two major expansion engines :
- War - or at least conflict - until no more resistance is met.
- Short to middle-term economic profit.

Then again, never the world was so peaceful than in XXth century.

[torham]

There's an issue with that plan - what's the incentive for you to build a missile?

I mean, the game can start with a transmission from your superiors telling you basically "build a missile and blast these guys to bits" and then nothing for 100+ hours, then you launch the missile and another transmission comes up like "oh crap they decided fight back for some reason lol glhf" and then you fight back and then... What?

Even with one missile fired, this is a massive positive outcome for the war effort. You send one guy in drop pod to a planet, and in less than a week he launches fully functional IPBM ( interplanetary ballistic missile). Even months, or a year of game time would be perfectly acceptable time frame. Because of the distances, any stellar or interplanetary conflict would be counted in decades and centuries. Retaliation would be pretty much fully automated. The enemy would detect a missile on course for one their planets, calculate trajectory and point of origin and dispatch a missile of their own. It would be hardly surprising to see them retaliate.

And I can already see the forum threads on Who manages to survive more counterattacks, and effective strategies for long term survival. I would say that is pretty fun end game.

[Drury]

Not saying they wouldn't retaliate, just that it's a very thin plot.