Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Regular reports on Factorio development.
Albert
Factorio Staff
Factorio Staff
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2013 5:35 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by Albert »

hitzu wrote: ↑
Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:26 am
BlueTemplar wrote: ↑
Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:10 am
IMHO it's the latin text in 0.17 that is too small :
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=67528 (already fixed ?)
viewtopic.php?p=402429#p402429
(And I'm not even using a laptop !)
Devs just use different fonts. They could've used just one from the Unicode library after the UI revamp and have no problems while dealing with one font instead of two. After this FFF I fear they'll just throw the Russian support out too.

This is how Cyrillic looks now in comparison with Latin characters.
Screenshot_465.jpg
Screenshot_466.jpg
Screenshot_467.jpg
We are not planning to throw Russian away. Consider this issue a bug, we will take care of it, soon.

User avatar
Unknow0059
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2017 7:37 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by Unknow0059 »

The weirder and more difficult a bug is to track down the more I enjoy working on it and finally seeing it resolved. Naturally as I've spent so much time working on bug fixes (in the same code base - and always going for the difficult ones) I've gotten quite good at it.
The idea of becoming a proficient difficult-bug hunter is appealing.

Image I think the rightmost pole looks the best. The others are too busy, and invade other tiles.

User avatar
Mylon
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 513
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2016 11:42 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by Mylon »

JaJe wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 29, 2019 3:47 pm
Very interesting FFF about remnants.
However you need to do something about it while not having unlocked bots yet. I once had an attack by bitters which destroyed lots of my stuff and at the end I couldn't see the damage because of the bitters bodies and of course WHAT building they destroyed since It was not ghosted.
What if building remnant ghosts were a toggle-able at-start feature like the research queue? It doesn't make sense for new players, but veterans may find it useful.

User avatar
BlueTemplar
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 2420
Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 2:16 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by BlueTemplar »

This !
(Or enabled like the Alt-bar is, for all games, once you research bots...)
BobDiggity (mod-scenario-pack)

Quarnozian
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue May 01, 2018 7:24 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by Quarnozian »

Remnant Collision: What if instead of it being a hard stop like running into a wall, it was instead a slow-down effect? Like carefully crawling over a bunch of destroyed objects.

I would also love the same effect being used for going over pipes, and squeezing between tight trees.

Adael
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat May 21, 2016 9:47 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by Adael »

Desjani wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 29, 2019 3:40 pm
You could apply some logic to it. It would require all remant set to have at least one that ONLY stays in its own tiles:

When (entitiy destroyed) Select (random remnant from avaliable list)
IF (remnant is on top layer of overlap stack)
DO nothing ELSE
Select (random remnant not tested from avaliable list)
Repeat

This will ensure randomization of remnants, but will check to see if you have overlapping problems and rectify before creating the visual remnant.

You could have another check in when things are placed around remnants:

IF (placed object) causes remnant to not be on top layer
Delete remnant
Simple, brilliant and elegant solution

Lilly
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 49
Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2016 6:42 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by Lilly »

One neat solution that would completely bypass all the rendering order issues, is to also export depth information when rendering the images. These can then be used during rendering to fill the depth buffer (or z-buffer) for occlusion. Another benefit of that is that you only need 1 image+depth info for rail tracks instead of multiple layers.

One game that uses this trick is the Sims 1. Here's an example, notice how the couches intersect at the arrow, even though those are 2d images:
sims-depth.png
sims-depth.png (191.06 KiB) Viewed 6739 times

User avatar
BlueTemplar
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 2420
Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 2:16 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by BlueTemplar »

quyxkh wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 29, 2019 6:43 pm
We realised how simple things can become complicated in no time with Factorio.
. . .
Have they played Factorio? :lol:
BobDiggity (mod-scenario-pack)

RobertTerwilliger
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 196
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:12 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by RobertTerwilliger »

I don't see remnants are of any usefullness except for scenario aesthetics.
Just set an option "place ghost when any building is destroyed" (not deconstructed) enabled-by-default, and it solves any further issues.
Move all remnants (except for few general 1x1 ruin tiles) to map editor as decorative elements of some kind.
Holding formation further and further,
Millions of lamb stay in embrace of Judas.
They just need some bread and faith in themselves,
BUT
THE TSAR IS GIVEN TO THEM IN EXCHANGE!
Original: 5diez - "Π˜Ρ‰Ρƒ, тСряя" (rus, 2013)

User avatar
hitzu
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 530
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2014 5:55 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by hitzu »

Albert wrote: ↑
Sat Mar 30, 2019 11:25 am
hitzu wrote: ↑
Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:26 am
BlueTemplar wrote: ↑
Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:10 am
IMHO it's the latin text in 0.17 that is too small :
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=67528 (already fixed ?)
viewtopic.php?p=402429#p402429
(And I'm not even using a laptop !)
Devs just use different fonts. They could've used just one from the Unicode library after the UI revamp and have no problems while dealing with one font instead of two. After this FFF I fear they'll just throw the Russian support out too.

This is how Cyrillic looks now in comparison with Latin characters.
Screenshot_465.jpg
Screenshot_466.jpg
Screenshot_467.jpg
We are not planning to throw Russian away. Consider this issue a bug, we will take care of it, soon.
Really glad to hear that. Thanks :)

Ringkeeper
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 141
Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:16 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by Ringkeeper »

shouldn't be the QA and bug reproduction be happening but a different department and you get only the final reproduction steps? :D or don't you have a QA department yet?

As someone that works in the gaming industry i know the pain with QA (my wife is QA for our games) and the RTL /non-latin languages.... sometimes it's not worth it to implement RTL correct, tooo much effort for not enough gain, even if it would be really nice and make some players happy.
Cyrilic on the other hand is a total different story, same with polisch/all baltik languages.... sooo many special characters that can mess up sooo much :D

Worse if you have to translate from korean/japanese to english....
1: please give more space for the text
2: why ? isn't it enough
1: yeah, no, you have 3 symbols there but in english thats a whole fu... book
2: oh....



and a fun QA story:
dev: please test website
wife: its broken
dev: what did you do?
wife: i clicked here, then there, back button, clicked there, then here and now its broken
dev: thats not how you sighn up, why did you do that?
wife: because i can
dev: but thats not how you do it
wife: BUT I CAN, now fix it

User avatar
BlueTemplar
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 2420
Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 2:16 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by BlueTemplar »

Well, if you expect your software to work internationally (if it connects to the Internet for instance), it seems like going with Unicode (UTF-8) should solve a lot of these issues ?
Of course, a problem comes with many programming languages and software tools still being stuck in the 16-bit era : Lua has no Unicode support, and Windows and C++ use obsolete versions of Unicode...
BobDiggity (mod-scenario-pack)

User avatar
5thHorseman
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1193
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:21 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by 5thHorseman »

Ringkeeper wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:58 am
and a fun QA story:
dev: please test website
wife: its broken
dev: what did you do?
wife: i clicked here, then there, back button, clicked there, then here and now its broken
dev: thats not how you sighn up, why did you do that?
wife: because i can
dev: but thats not how you do it
wife: BUT I CAN, now fix it
QA Engineer walks into a bar early morning opening day, and orders a beer. Orders 500 beers. Orders -1 beers. Orders "'); drop table employees;" beers. Orders 1.8 beers. Orders asdklfj beers. Leaves happy.
The first actual customer walks in, asks where the bathroom is. The bar explodes.

Sean Mirrsen
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2016 6:30 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by Sean Mirrsen »

In terms of "remnants", I was always fond of the way Total Annihilation handled the unit/building wrecks.

If something is merely "destroyed", it leaves a recognizable wreck that blocks movement like the original unit/building. If it's dealt enough damage on top of that, the wreck is reduced to generic fragments that can be walked/driven over. And the wreck at any point can be either reclaimed for some resources, or fully rebuilt into its original form with a specialized unit (that only one side had access to, but that's beside the point).

In Factorio, I think it could be an interesting development if "destroyed" structures that were merely "rendered inoperable" would leave actual building-type 'wreckage' that resembles the building and continues blocking the way. Biters would seek to only wreck your facilities, not actually demolish them (unless they're physically blocking their only path), thus in the aftermath of an attack you could choose to repair the wrecks (if you have the necessary tool or bot type) rather than replace the original structure.

There's some choice to be made on what would happen if you were to just replace the structure over the repairable wreck. Probably having you lose out on the resource savings would be fine (i.e. if you're doing that you probably have enough resources as-is), and it preserves the original gameplay style. But giving the option to salvage the structure before rebuilding (a job for a new salvage bot type!) would also add an interesting layer to any potential resource-starved challenges.

meganothing
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 238
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2016 3:04 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by meganothing »

First of all, yes, remnants are a very minor problem, but I guess the art guy(s) need something to do. (May I suggest more animations for the spidertron ;) )

Whether a remnant should collide with the player: Since remnants could be used as indestructible walls if remnants collided with enemies like aliens and enemy players remnants can't collide at all (except if the footprint of the collider is smaller than the original building and/or the building is exessively expensive or the remnant can be destroyed too)

GrumpyJoe
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 443
Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2018 7:10 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by GrumpyJoe »

As a (not-computer-)hardware bugfixer
skinner-thumbs-up.gif
skinner-thumbs-up.gif (313.8 KiB) Viewed 6448 times
Bugfixing is fun!

pleegwat
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 255
Joined: Fri May 19, 2017 7:31 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by pleegwat »

Ringkeeper wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:58 am
Worse if you have to translate from korean/japanese to english....
1: please give more space for the text
2: why ? isn't it enough
1: yeah, no, you have 3 symbols there but in english thats a whole fu... book
2: oh....
Similarly English to German.

1: It's 7 short words and there's plenty of vertical space.
2: No, it's one long word in German.

User avatar
bobingabout
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 7351
Joined: Fri May 09, 2014 1:01 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by bobingabout »

pleegwat wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:07 pm
Ringkeeper wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:58 am
Worse if you have to translate from korean/japanese to english....
1: please give more space for the text
2: why ? isn't it enough
1: yeah, no, you have 3 symbols there but in english thats a whole fu... book
2: oh....
Similarly English to German.

1: It's 7 short words and there's plenty of vertical space.
2: No, it's one long word in German.
I remember talking with Duggy, he married a german. Yes, germans like long conjoined words.
Creator of Bob's mods. Expanding your gameplay since version 0.9.8.
I also have a Patreon.

booter
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:49 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by booter »

bobingabout wrote: ↑
Tue Apr 02, 2019 8:20 am
pleegwat wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:07 pm
Ringkeeper wrote: ↑
Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:58 am
Worse if you have to translate from korean/japanese to english....
1: please give more space for the text
2: why ? isn't it enough
1: yeah, no, you have 3 symbols there but in english thats a whole fu... book
2: oh....
Similarly English to German.

1: It's 7 short words and there's plenty of vertical space.
2: No, it's one long word in German.
I remember talking with Duggy, he married a german. Yes, germans like long conjoined words.
But you can use "Silbentrennung/Worttrennung" to use the vertical space ;)

Dry Hairy Tree
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2016 10:51 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #288 - New remnants, More bugs

Post by Dry Hairy Tree »

BlueTemplar wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:30 pm
Sigh,
Wheybags wrote:the proportion of our player base which uses these languages (less than 0.1%)
less than 0.1% of about 2M = about 1‰ of 2 000 000 = about 2 000

In any case, it's indeed about the ratio than the total number...
Everyone is correct - except the person who should be doing their homework not playing games... :mrgreen:

I did get the initial figure wrong (I said 1% not 0.1%) - so my final figure was wrong. Thanks Blue Templar for clarifying the actual issue.

The math is fine.

It's a simple hack to remove/add zeros or shift the decimal point. 1% is 2 zeros less than 100%. 1% of any number is two zeros less than that number (move decimal two places)

e.g. 1% of 237.8 = 2.378. You can then use multiplication (of 1%) to get any percentage of any number. Of course, everyone's got a cellphone now so mental mathematics is largely historical. This is a shame as it is good for us. Factorio encourages a lot of mental arithmetic. So there's that!

Plenty of math geeks here would leave me for dead in that field. But my basics are a'ight. :lol:

Post Reply

Return to β€œNews”