Debug data and download size of Alpha Builds

[Jilocasin]

Hello Factorio Team

First of all, keep up the great work! I really like the way Factorio is heading right now, especially the multiplayer stability.

Currently I am living in a small town in Germany and unfortunately our internet connection here is beyond horrible. I really enjoy watching Factorio grow and develop, but downloading the 163 MB zip package (MS Windows, 64 Bit) every release to see new content and improved stability always ends up in being kind of a mayor task.

Of course all game graphics and sounds have to go somewhere, but I still wondered what's actually responsible for that size. So today I dug around in the game files and discovered two things that actually surprised me quite much:

• First of all there is a Factorio.pdb file (85 MB) in the bin folder. AFAIK this one only contains data for debugging purposes and nothing really "worth of value" for most players or alpha testers.
• You also deliver your internal tests folder (23 MB) containing your integration and unit tests. I love the fact you created yourself an advanced standard test system, but this one also is not really important to most players (except for modders maybe), is it?

Even though they are "just" alpha releases, I wondered if you could condense the actual game download to a minimum size and provide debugging/test equipment in a seperate SDK download. Not to mention these two things would cut the game download size to about half and reduce server traffic. Everybody with a volume capped internet would love you, I suppose.

[Twinsen]

The Factorio.pdb debug data is quite important since it's used to generate the stack trace in the log in case of a crash. That means log files uploaded to the forums contain useful information for us.
Tests are also useful in some situations for bug reports.

When updating, you can download a package which is smaller(10-12 MB) using the in-game updater.

[Jilocasin]

Oh i see Alright, then i'll try to stick to the in-game updater from now on.

[kovarex]

First of all, keep up the great work! I really like the way Factorio is heading right now, especially the multiplayer stability.

Thanks! we are doing the best we can.

As it was said, it is important for us to be able to get relevant data from reports.

And also it wouldn't cut it to half, as the pdb file and the test file is compressed quite well, so the overall addition is more like 15 %.