Friday Facts #67 - Happy new year

[kovarex]

Happy new year: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-67

[Animar]

Well always nice to hear about upcomming performance improvements

[Gemoron]

Wow, you are maintining a complicated simulation of thousands of objects, and you just manage to make it even more efficient. I wish i could dive into this code and bath in it's performance tweaks.

Is it possible to make a sneak peek into the engine you've build?

From all I've heared, 0.12 will be awesome. advanced logics and space trave. I am not exited about the floor mod, but maybe you can use it for stuff like a tiny increase in speed or cost, maybe pollution reduction if assemblers are build on certain floors.

I could also imagine special floors where trees might regrow (similar to treefarm farms) or floor declarations where items are picked up if they are dropped in that area.

[Grimshad]

Love the performance improvements being made.

Really want you to add floors/paths/roads!
Can't wait for the HD mode.

Thanks for all the hard work work.

[cyanit]

Wow. I didn't expect that this issue would be adressed that quickly!

Thank you very much I am really looking forward for this!

[odin_spain]

Regarding floors for 0.12, we did it in our mod improving the last floor mod (https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=7733) , we have a decoration module because we think is important part of the game to feel confortable in your own base, is the place where you live

[Drury]

So you're going for burrowing biters you mentioned the other day? Dune-style, with floors?

[Garm]

So you're going for burrowing biters you mentioned the other day? Dune-style, with floors?

And on the sands we shall walk without rhythm.

[deef0000dragon1]

I must ask, would it be possible to have floors that can keep the robots always charged, or connected to the logistics network? Like a floor that would allow you to have a small dedicated network for robots (if chargers are ever included) or a floor that would allow the robots to be powered wherever they went?

Also wondering if it would be possible to have, once rockets are reached, a Geo-sync rocket that would be able to expand the logistics network. like, a launch station, followed by a small control panel that would act as the center point for the logistics network. It would allow for quick movement of logistics network by relocating a 1x1 or 2x1 etc over a 4x4 whenever it needs to be moved.

Third thing, why are multi-level miners not a thing yet? you have multi-level inserters and builders.

personally, if I could, I would have it sop that miners, inserters, builders, ect are all modular in that they all have different aspects that can be customized when the item is built.
-miners would be able to select mining speed vs area covered in x or in y directions
-inserters would have speed, logic, reach, what side they put an item on the belt on
-builders are already multi level, but I think that they could do something similar to the miners, auto spitting out the item when built. Would be fun to build around really.


Some of this could be made with mods, but I don't have the skill, And a large portion is core dependent, or would be messy to say the least.

The work you have done so far is amazing. Factorio is one of the few games that can keep my attention.

[Nova]

It was already mentioned somewhere else, but: Stable floors could give a small boost to the health of a building.

What... the nuclear hell? That animation... What? Bob, are you it? (Whoever did that: Wow.)

Could you explain this sentence: "The fascinating aesthetics of typical PM inspired us to change the graphics direction entirely." - I don't really understand it.

[Yvandrath]

Great Job on optimizing this thing. I'm playing Factorio for almost a year now, and you guys never cease to amaze me (in positive way of course )
But on this topic I would like to ask if it's possible (in near future, lets say during 0.12 releases) to beter optimize logistic bots. I've got rather fast machine, as I tested this save game from cyanit and didn't really see much slowdowns (playing on 0.11.6), but in my last game, logistic and construction robots was slowing game down the most. I've got almost 3K inserters in total and whole production line moved into logistic system and everything run smoothly, even with constant biter attacks. But as peak production started, when I needed like 2-3K modules (for advanced body armor MK2 from "Advanced equipment" by darius456) and all of 1,5 logistic robots took into the air frame rate really dropped
Sorry I could not provide save game file, but later on I really messed up something with mods and it became unplayable

[Nic]

I hope you haven't forgotten about the power lines which are not connecting properly when you delete one in between of two others which normally should connect but don't do.


EDIT:

kovarex already replied to me - I have overlooked it somehow.

[Adil]

Should they? You can rebuild one of the poles in question so that they reconnect.
And this feature allows creation of independent power networks without diving into console.

p.s. Yay! Optimisations!

[immibis]

I hope you haven't forgotten about the power lines which are not connecting properly when you delete one in between of two others which normally should connect but don't do.

That's not even a bug... the only time power lines connect automatically is when you place them.

It's definitely not intended for all power lines nearby to try and stay connected. You can have different power networks, and it would be annoying if the game kept trying to be helpful by automatically reconnecting them for you.

You can also shift-click a power pole to disconnect it from everything, and you can manually connect two poles using copper cable.


About the inserter optimization, don't I remember hearing about something like that a long time ago?

[Nondre]

This is really good news. My 110 hour map has triple inserters(fast, long, fast) on the heavy traffic areas, and will bring my fps back up from ~8. Once the belts get reworked, the only thing that will be lagging the map is the sheer size.

[FishSandwich]

Happy new year to you too devs!


Now I really want to ride a spitter like that.

[ssilk]

I must ask, would it be possible to have floors that can keep the robots always charged, or connected to the logistics network? Like a floor that would allow you to have a small dedicated network for robots (if chargers are ever included) or a floor that would allow the robots to be powered wherever they went? .

I swear, this thought was also the reason for having superconductive plates: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=7750

Cause the bots would need much less power, which is gameplay-wise the same. Plus having a realistic reason to have bots also in space.

And when we speak from optimizations: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=7&t=7547
This includes a link to a really big map. The problem here are I think the bots. I think I've currently about 10000 running, in different networks. Me should upload an update, which shows the extremes.

My opinion about that is: that makes no more sense. This is wuseling all around, you don't see anything. Even if you have something like a layer to turn off the robots.

My current opinion to this is, that we need a) a limitation of bots per network b) containers, like the boxing mod (https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =14&t=7481), but for more items. c) the items boxed in the containers can be feed directly into the incoming/from the outgoing stacks of an assembly.
Those optimization will reduce the robot traffic in the best case by factor 30 and more. You need maybe 10 times less robots. (We speak here from a special research, which is available in the current endgame and somehow expensive, cause you need to built all these containers and move them around.)

But this is my current opinion. I play this big map, even if it is normally not longer playable, to see, if that all (will switch to boxing) makes sense.

[Milkysubstance]

I really, really like the idea of moving into space after finishing the ground section of the game. Its a really good natural progression and then once you're in space, progression past that point can kind of really go anywhere. Personally I kind of like the idea of the galaxy market too, but not as an endgame idea, but another tier in the progression. So it would kind of be like:

Initial ground stage: Factorio as it is now. Building a factory, collecting the initial resources you need. Building up your defences and armour so you can fight biters and collect their artefacts, ultimately resulting in you building a rocket defence on the ground to protect your rockets you send into orbit from asteroids and meteors and whatnot. That way you can keep the current game as it is but just build on top of it.

Then you would move into the space and market stage: Where you go into orbit, build your spaceship and load it with supplies and travel to the local galaxy market. There you would trade the things you have gathered on your journey for money and alien technology from the other at the market. So you would acquire more advanced technology from the market, take it home and research it then travel throughout the galaxy gathering new new resources you would need to build it.
Also if you had built the necessary equipment onto your ship you could travel to another planet that has different things like gold and diamonds that could be traded for better technology at the market.
So once you had bought these new technologies from the market, you would return home and research them in you labs. Once that was done the way you would need to get the resources to build the new things you have researched by fighting alien ships or lucking out and finding the rare materials on another planet. It would open the game up with a bit more exploration, while keep the factory aspect in the game alongside the other aspects like fighting and defences and whatnot.

[MF-]

I wonder how much does this optimization cost
in the unrealistic scenario of no devices to be disabled

[Rahjital]

We would like to do something like the floors mod. It shouldn't be so hard to do, and it adds a lot to the variability and personification of the factories. In the start, the floors will have mainly aesthetic effect, and they will affect the running/driving speed.

Darn, and I just spent so much time debugging my implementation in Roadworks...

It would be great to have different types of floors with different functions, like a stone path that gives a small speed boost to cars and big boost to characters, an asphalt road that gives bigger boost to cars and smaller to characters, and a concrete pavement that gives only a small speed boost but also improves damage resistance and/or lowers power use by some small amount?

After that, all we will need will be bridges