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Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:07 pm
by RocketManChronicles
bobingabout wrote:Personally, although I agree with removing Uranium from the starting area, I disagree with removing oil.
However, this is looking at it from the point of view of my mod, looking at it from the point of view of vanilla, it does make sense to remove oil from the starting area, to give you an incentive to go out and explore to find materials.
My mods actually have the same intensive with the next tier up (need to go find gold and other materials to make processing units)
It's probably something I'll change in my mod, make oil appear in the starting area.
For Bob's Mods, yes, oil in the starting area is a necessity. You should have this as an option for game startup. I do like it being very minimal though; just enough to get started in some way.

But for vanilla Factorio, the oil absolutely should NOT be in the starting area. There is enough technology to push out and secure oil deposits long before the need for oil in the blue Science Pack 3. In Factorio, the first two science packs unlock a tremendous amount of the game already and oil in the starting area makes the game go super easy-mode. My 2 cents...

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 2:14 pm
by HurkWurk
please please please fix the map generator, so that when i say "desert none" there is actually NO desert on the map!

sometimes im playing a game where im designing the map for pollution problems and control, and want nothing but large swaths of grass with sparse areas of dirt/scrub. but with the current maping tool, it just ignores the terrains you set to none and places them anyway.

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 3:32 pm
by Tricorius
RocketManChronicles wrote:There is enough technology to push out and secure oil deposits long before the need for oil in the blue Science Pack 3.
I’m not opposed to a checkbox for those that want it. (Who knows, when I’m in the mood for an easy run, I might even turn it on.)

But I agree that there is a lot of ignored tech that is very useful. Even on a death world, generally if you build out military to piercing ammo, and as many bullet and turret upgrades as you can get, you are generally in a pretty good place to go out and push to an oil patch. (The buggy boost to ammo power is very handy.)

I guess the main problem is if you are a “no turret offense” purist, you’ll probably get spanked. I quickly relented on that stance when I loaded up a Death World. ;)

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 5:49 pm
by BlueTemplar
Tomik wrote:Personally, there should be a tick option to set Uranium or/and Oil to be in the starting area. Not in large quantities but e.g. enough to make some initial red circuits for required blue science tech like Advanced Oil Processing. I always run for that one as the very first thing.
Heh, you must not be playing with a lot of biters if that's the first thing you do with oil / the first blue science tech that you get ! ;)
RocketManChronicles wrote: For Bob's Mods, yes, oil in the starting area is a necessity. You should have this as an option for game startup. I do like it being very minimal though; just enough to get started in some way.
Why? In Bob's, you have even more early game tools that make oil even less necessary !
Tricorius wrote: But I agree that there is a lot of ignored tech that is very useful. Even on a death world, generally if you build out military to piercing ammo, and as many bullet and turret upgrades as you can get, you are generally in a pretty good place to go out and push to an oil patch. (The buggy boost to ammo power is very handy.)
How is the boost to ammo buggy?

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 5:50 pm
by BlueTemplar
HurkWurk wrote:please please please fix the map generator, so that when i say "desert none" there is actually NO desert on the map!

sometimes im playing a game where im designing the map for pollution problems and control, and want nothing but large swaths of grass with sparse areas of dirt/scrub. but with the current maping tool, it just ignores the terrains you set to none and places them anyway.
You might be confusing (red) desert with sand (dunes) ?

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 8:57 pm
by linearj
Yeah... I have had to hit the regenerate button myself many times. Looking forward to the new generator.
While you are tweaking that, might I ask that you make the resource patches on the preview screen more visually distinctive? I have a really hard time seeing where the resources are; unless I happen to catch them being drawn during that second phase of the preview, I often cannot see them.

Something like a mouseover indicating "this is coal/iron/stone/etc" would be great. You could use the same highlighting feature used in the in-game map view (though I'd understand if it just identified the resource and didn't specify the amount, though that would be nice, too...)

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 1:56 am
by foodfactorio
hi i think having the basics in the starting area, will be good for new players but having options to enable specials like oil etc, will be good to have. this way, people of any preference can tweak things to how they like.

(btw all the talk of biters, and seeing bluetemplar's avatar often, reminds me of starcraft lol) :)

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 2:28 am
by T-A-R
Relate it to gametype: Railword: oil far, Deathworld: oil near, Advanced: set all the parameters yourself. Etc.

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 5:53 am
by Tricorius
BlueTemplar wrote:
Tricorius wrote: But I agree that there is a lot of ignored tech that is very useful. Even on a death world, generally if you build out military to piercing ammo, and as many bullet and turret upgrades as you can get, you are generally in a pretty good place to go out and push to an oil patch. (The buggy boost to ammo power is very handy.)
How is the boost to ammo buggy?
It took me a moment to figure this out. Heh.

I meant “dune buggy” (maybe an Americanism?). The car vehicle gives a boost to ammo power which is useful early on in biter-heavy games. I didn’t mean there were software bugs involved. (I guess, technically it is a rate of fire boost...regardless it is useful for killing biters.)

:D

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 7:26 am
by BlueTemplar
foodfactorio wrote:(btw all the talk of biters, and seeing bluetemplar's avatar often, reminds me of starcraft lol) :)
"I want to know who the HELL called SIEGE TANKS onto MY battlefield !!?" ;)

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 12:01 pm
by RocketManChronicles
BlueTemplar wrote:
RocketManChronicles wrote: For Bob's Mods, yes, oil in the starting area is a necessity. You should have this as an option for game startup. I do like it being very minimal though; just enough to get started in some way.
Why? In Bob's, you have even more early game tools that make oil even less necessary !
In a way, yes, it may be even less necessary. But you need oil for his Basic Electronics Boards (white) and more importantly, his ammunition (Light oil -> Glycerol and Heavy oil -> Petroleum Jelly). This ammo gives you enough firepower to push out to secure a better source of oil and pretty much all other resources.

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 4:53 pm
by BlueTemplar
I'm using ShinyBobGFX, so my (Tier2) Basic Electronic Boards are blue on wood. And they don't require Oil.

Also, his Mk1 Sniper Turrets (Iron/Copper, 25 RedGreenMil Science) already "give[] you enough firepower to push out to secure a better source of oil and pretty much all other resources.", and so with regular ammo - you don't even need the copper/steel APmags !

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 5:05 pm
by RocketManChronicles
BlueTemplar wrote:I'm using ShinyBobGFX, so my (Tier2) Basic Electronic Boards are blue on wood. And they don't require Oil.

Also, his Mk1 Sniper Turrets (Iron/Copper, 25 RedGreenMil Science) already "give[] you enough firepower to push out to secure a better source of oil and pretty much all other resources.", and so with regular ammo - you don't even need the copper/steel APmags !
Now that I think about it, you are right, there is no need for oil on the Basic Electronic Boards; I was thinking of the Logic Boards that require fiberglass. So oil early in base is not needed.

Anyway, the sniper turrets aren't really what you need to push out, just hop in a car and do hit and run, kite the biters chasing you. Rather fun.

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 5:15 pm
by BlueTemplar
Oh yeah, it's fun of course - but a car is much harder to research,
and will have a much harder time working against armored enemies like :
red+ biters, medium+ worms and spawners, especially bob's new ones !
Also, its a lot less safe against small to big worms, as mk1 snipers outrange them...

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 6:10 pm
by Llohe
Life has kept me away for the last 6 months so I decided to catch on on FFF before diving back in. This post leaves me wanting to hold off until I can enjoy this new generator...

But my old factory needs me...

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:59 pm
by Light
I find the complaints about having to fight biters to get resources kind of cute; As in, why even turn them on if that's going to be your complaint?

Having to use the machine gun to shoot your way toward a few oil patches isn't exactly an impossible feat, nor is setting up a few turrets to protect the patch from small waves time to time. Blue science isn't required to achieve this goal even in very difficult death worlds with mods to make biters even harder than vanilla. I swore I saw a guy post that he needed flamethrowers to deal with biters, but the flamethrower completely trivializes having biters in the first place given it's their great weakness (alongside lasers), so again, why even turn them on?

I truly can't understand that logic.

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2018 9:29 pm
by TheRaph
Please set an option for large forest. I've got the feeling that there are less trees on map as in the old times (pre 0.16)

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 7:49 am
by bobingabout
Light wrote:I find the complaints about having to fight biters to get resources kind of cute; As in, why even turn them on if that's going to be your complaint?

Having to use the machine gun to shoot your way toward a few oil patches isn't exactly an impossible feat, nor is setting up a few turrets to protect the patch from small waves time to time. Blue science isn't required to achieve this goal even in very difficult death worlds with mods to make biters even harder than vanilla. I swore I saw a guy post that he needed flamethrowers to deal with biters, but the flamethrower completely trivializes having biters in the first place given it's their great weakness (alongside lasers), so again, why even turn them on?

I truly can't understand that logic.
Some people just like to complain. I like a good moan from time to time.

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2018 1:48 am
by foodfactorio
bobingabout wrote:Some people just like to complain. I like a good moan from time to time.
so does the missus :D
BUT, on a more serious note, i just would like to say that i "Do" like the way that vanilla ore generation seems to work very well in terms of terminology - so please keep this in future versions.

for example, the wording and visual effect based on size and frequency seems to work in the way that i understand, meaning that Higher Frequency, and Smaller Size / Smaller Richness, "does" work the way i expect...

... unlike RSO, which does not work in the same expected way (and as Orzelek kindly pointed out to me in another thread, that in order to achieve the objective i had, of more frequent ore patches, of smaller size and richness, i had to modify some mod-settings within rso).

Re: Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2018 10:40 pm
by zOldBulldog
Dupl3xxx wrote:
Fri Aug 31, 2018 9:40 am
I have but one wish; guarantee one oil-spot within X tiles from spawn. I love me a world where there's much more ocean than land, but that also means it might be several thousand tiles from spawn to the nearest oil.
I agree, and Uranium too.

This is why:

- I find repetitive manual tasks very boring.
- To avoid repetitive manual tasks you need to advance through the various sciences fairly quickly, develop oil and setup nuclear power. It is just how the game is setup. It might not matter if you started subsequent games with what you achieved in the previous one, but that is not how factorio replays work... every time you start from zero.
- So... to get where you need to be to avoid boring repetition... you need ingenious blueprints and reasonably easy to reach oil and Uranium. It doesn't need to be right next to you, but it has to be reachable before hitting biters (at least when you have biter expansion off).

I don't say the above lightly. Without ability to use ingenuity and good design to quickly get out of the "repetitive manual task" stage, I fear that I would quickly get bored and move on to another game.

What really disturbed me from the original Friday Facts is this bit:
Oil and uranium were never intended to be in the starting area <snip> So what we did is: <snip> Uranium and oil are explicitly excluded from the starting area.
The key question might be what is the definition of "starting area" as used in this sentence. If it is just your "immediate vicinity" when you start... no problem. If it is the full area free of biters, then... "OMG, are you nuts!!!" It would be game breaking for many of us.