Late stage feedback/balancing/issues

[BigTrains]

I've played for a few hundred hours, and think the game is incredible.

Still, there are some tasks that seem unnecessarily cumbersome later in the game (and, yes, I know some of these can be addressed via mods):

• Long-distance character movement. Riding trains huge distances is tedious. A faster character transport system (teleportation? rockets?) would improve late-stage gameplay, even if it's relatively expensive.

• Summoning trains. The UI for directing a train to the player is awkward. Currently, this typically involves adding a temporary station, adding it to the train schedule, then entering wait parameter (e.g. 10M seconds or 'until empty'). Could this be a single click?

• Larger zoom out. Blueprints that exceed the screen size are tricky to line up, since they can't be fully seen. Ground irregularities are hard to locate even when they're on the screen, and impossible when off screen.

• Setting constant combinators from map view. Currently the game allows map-view changes to constant combinator settings, but it's cumbersome (i.e. make the desired combinator by the player, make a blueprint, and apply it from map view). This should work like map view control of power switches.

• Combined deconstruction+construction. Editing a large factory is tedious, since it typically requires deconstructing parts then rebuilding with another blueprint. It'd be much cleaner if there was a way to have one a blueprint and which would automatically deconstruct+build wherever there were differences, but leave the rest unchanged. It'd be even better if there was a blueprint option for "clean land", where the robots would apply landfill & cliff explosives as needed, just like they do now for trees. (Robot support for cliff explosives and landfill would bypass a lot of pointlessly tedious work.)

• Train routing. I wish train stations had an option to specify that only one train should be en route/parked at once. Frustrations with train routing were partly why I switched to crazy-long trains (see next)...

• Train oddities [minor]. My base is built by scaling train length instead of the number of trains. (I'm currently running 720 cars trains. viewtopic.php?f=204&t=63020) These seem to coast really far in manual mode, implying greater efficiency, yet they burn fuel at the same pace as short trains while running at speed. UPS for long trains is also not optimized in the game; when just 4 of my long trains are moving, ~11ms (out of 115ms) of my update time (when I press F5) is consumed by trains (vs. negligible when they're stopped). A particularly crazy option would be to have the a max speed increase with train length (= reflecting reduced wind resistance?)... and this would lead to some fun ways to move the player around.

• Integrate map view better into the story, e.g. radioactive regions that harm/kill the player. A scenario that requires accomplishing a task remotely would also be fun.

• More achievements would be nice - none have been added in ages and ages.

• Minor UI nit: it'd be nice to have fewer keystrokes to memorize (e.g. add clickable icons for various keyboard tasks?)

• Minor UI nit: the middle-click action for setting car train filters is weird, and isn't available on all mice.

• Minor UI nit: there isn't a good visual cue to distinguish when factories are stuck due to excessive output (rather than lack of inputs)

• Minor UI nit: chemical plant activity status is hard to see (unlike assemblers)

• Minor UI nit: manual mode train steering in reverse is confusing, and it's unclear which side of a train the character will exit when pressing enter.

[Darinth]

Summoning trains and other long-distance transport between satelite bases is one of those things that I've struggled with making work in a way that I like. Unfortunately, the best method that I've got at the moment involves laying down an extra station at all of my bases and keeping a locomotive w/fuel on me. I just drop the locomotive on the track and tell it to go to my extra station.

An alternative is to blueprint a station and leave a locomotive set to drive between your home base and another base so you can summon it whenever, but where I use the system of naming all of my iron mining facilities the same and then only enabling them when there's enough iron for a full trip, I've got no method of directing a train to a specific location without leaving a secondary station there... so back to the same problem. If I didn't want to keep a locomotive on me, I'd probably have to build 2 extra stations at each facility. One of which stays active so I can always direct a train there, and the other is circuit controlled so I can turn it on to summon my personal train there at any time.

I wish there was a way to create a temporary train stop that a train would go to. Would be useful for summoning trains and (if the vehicle grid features ever get used in vanilla, especially with trains) it'd be nice to be able to tell a train with roboports to follow and construct a set of ghost-tracks and ultimately reach the base at the end and construct it.

Everything here seems like a cool idea. Not certain that I'm worried about the UPS effects of 720 car trains. That seems... excessive. Also, if roboports (maybe in combination with another structure/vehicle) become capable of doing everything needed in an area without player presense, I think having some areas that the player cannot go in person would be really cool. Like having uranium patches be hazardous and requiring all of the work to be done remotely would be interesting. But the tools for remote base manipulation would need to be improved first. They're so close.

[Zavian]

I wish there was a way to create a temporary train stop that a train would go to. Would be useful for summoning trains

See https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-212 .

In the meantime, once you have a passenger (or a construction train), just add a new temporary train stop anywhere convenient. Rename the station to something convenient to type. (I often use ###). Add the new station to the trains route. Now you can remove the temporary station.

Now whenever you want to summon that train, add a new temporary station anywhere(*) convenient. Rename the station to whatever you decided was convenient to type (eg ###). Click on the station and summon the train. Once the train arrives you can board and remove the station.


(*) Well anywhere convenient that an automatic train can path to. But that is just a matter of how you design your rail network.

[Darinth]

See https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-212 .

*enormous squees*

In the meantime, once you have a passenger (or a construction train), just add a new temporary train stop anywhere convenient. Rename the station to something convenient to type. (I often use ###). Add the new station to the trains route. Now you can remove the temporary station.

Now whenever you want to summon that train, add a new temporary station anywhere(*) convenient. Rename the station to whatever you decided was convenient to type (eg ###). Click on the station and summon the train. Once the train arrives you can board and remove the station.


(*) Well anywhere convenient that an automatic train can path to. But that is just a matter of how you design your rail network.

I can carry a station with me, place it down, rename it, wait for the train, and then deconstruct the station. Or... I can just carry, build, and deconstruct the train itself. I think I'd rather just carry the train atm. Those new changes are likely to change my point of view once implemented however.

[Sad_Brother]

I think I'd rather just carry the train atm.

If you need the train, not the train content. Building materials for example.

[Darinth]

I think I'd rather just carry the train atm.

If you need the train, not the train content. Building materials for example.

I have to acknowledge (somewhat embarrassingly) that for some reason it hadn't occurred to me to keep a train loaded with building materials just to call to a new outpost if I run out of materials or to reduce the amount of materials I generally carry with me. Keep a train loaded at main base with building materials. Make sure I've got tracks and a station on me. I could reduce the amount of materials I personally had to carry to setup a new mining outpost down a bunch. Once the train arrives with materials, I could just pull what I needed as I needed it. If I run out of materials, send it back to base and it'll come right back out once reloaded.

[voddan]

+1 to all the points in the topic.

[zOldBulldog]

Good points.

But...

- There are mods available for many of these points.
- The best way to get things into the vanilla game is to use the mods. Devs seem to look at mod usage more than anything else when they have to decide what features to add. I seem to remember even seeing a dev say so in a thread.

And yes, I know, using mods disables achievements. Horrible design choice, but understandable up to a point as some mods are just too powerful (just like multiplayer is) when it comes to doing achievements. You just have to grind your teeth and endure the lack of good things in Vanilla until you are done with the achievements you care to do.

[Darinth]

Unfortunately, mods have to disable achievements. If they didn't, there would be a mod out there that when you turn it on and start a new world just automatically terraforms everything, creates unlimited ore, smelts them in to plates at an obscured rate, etc... and the mod would just automatically complete all of the achievements in 2 hours with zero player input.

Also, yes, I believe one of the FFFs mentioned that the devs look to popular mods to see the features players are looking for.

[mudcrabempire]

For faster long-distance character movement (if at all), how about planes? Instead of rockets/teleporters?

For better personal train control: Maybe add an option (e.g. via a key) to remotely order a train set to manual to move to a certain point?
For example: press [key] -> click on rails next to you -> a train without schedule will come for you.
The click can also be anywhere on the map to make the train go to the rails closest to the point you clicked (you might want to get inside first).
Having several trains set to manual would make a mess of this, but then, why do you have several trains set to manual?

[Darinth]

For better personal train control: Maybe add an option (e.g. via a key) to remotely order a train set to manual to move to a certain point?
For example: press [key] -> click on rails next to you -> a train without schedule will come for you.
The click can also be anywhere on the map to make the train go to the rails closest to the point you clicked (you might want to get inside first).
Having several trains set to manual would make a mess of this, but then, why do you have several trains set to manual?

Since I missed it when I was reading through the backlog of FFFs and was just shown it, check out https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-212 .

[mudcrabempire]

Since I missed it when I was reading through the backlog of FFFs and was just shown it, check out https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-212 .

Whenever you think you have a good idea, 5 minutes later you will realize, someone already had it.

Well, luckily not always..

[zOldBulldog]

Unfortunately, mods have to disable achievements. If they didn't, there would be a mod out there that when you turn it on and start a new world just automatically terraforms everything, creates unlimited ore, smelts them in to plates at an obscured rate, etc... and the mod would just automatically complete all of the achievements in 2 hours with zero player input.

Also, yes, I believe one of the FFFs mentioned that the devs look to popular mods to see the features players are looking for.

Mods don't "have to" disable achievement, it is a developer's choice.

- First of all, it is a choice to decide whether the achievements are something used for comparisons and bragging rights, or whether they are a tool to motivate players to stick with the game by giving them interesting things to do. They are very different goals and the development team chose to go for the bragging rights route - at least on non-modded games.

- Second, even if you are using it as a bragging/comparison tool, it would not be hard to create a vetting system that evaluates and flags mods as "quality of life" or "unreasonable advantage". It wouldn't even have to be run by staff. It could be done the same way as in a forum moderating team where you have trusted community members doing the assessments and choosing whether to turn on the flag or not. Not doing such a thing is also a choice.

- Third, it might not even matter. I don't know when, but at some point they created a separate set of achievements for modded games. This needs to be communicated better, as I believe most players would choose to forfeit the "Steam Bragging" category and choose to install a simple QOL mod like a screenshot camera or infinite zoom on day one to make *all* of their achievements get recorded in the modded set and be ignore the Steam ones. I would have, if I knew to do it, instead I ended up completing all the achievements in vanilla before I discovered there were achievements for modded games.

In my opinion the ideal handling of achievements would be:

- When you start the game for the first time you get a popup that lets you choose between "personal/private achievements" and "hardcore/community achievements".

- If you choose community achievements, things behave like the current Steam achievements. If you use mods or commands, you lose achievements for that game save.

- If you choose personal/private achievements, nothing you do disables the achievements. You can use any mods and commands as you wish without worries about disabling/breaking achievements. Because if you cheat, you only cheat yourself.

[Darinth]

Bragging rights is almost always a part of achievement systems. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy my bragging rights as well. Within that framework of achievements as bragging rights, the simplest decision is to disable achievements when there are mods present. No, nobody is holding a gun to the developer's heads and forcing them to disable achievements when mods are installed, but it's the most effective choice that doesn't require constant maintenance.

I don't think a vetting system is a good solution. I wouldn't want to leave it in the hands of the community, I believe that the official steam achievements should be left exclusively in the hands of the devs, and I'd consider it an unreasonable burden to require the devs to evaluate mods to determine which ones work do and don't change the vanilla experience.

I was not aware that the game still does achievement tracking in modded games, but just doesn't integrate with steam achievements. That's really cool.

Sounds like possibly a better choice might be to allow a more flexible system of 'goals' to be implemented that didn't integrate with the steam achievements at all, but could easily be manipulated by mods and ideally manually setup by players and scenarios. Ideally, goals could be serialized similar to blueprints so they could be shared. Would be really interesting for everybody from speedrunners (setting goals for certain milestones) to people who're just interesting in seeing if they can hit certain benchmarks.

[zOldBulldog]

I was not aware that the game still does achievement tracking in modded games, but just doesn't integrate with steam achievements. That's really cool.

Sounds like possibly a better choice might be to allow a more flexible system of 'goals' to be implemented that didn't integrate with the steam achievements at all, but could easily be manipulated by mods and ideally manually setup by players and scenarios. Ideally, goals could be serialized similar to blueprints so they could be shared. Would be really interesting for everybody from speedrunners (setting goals for certain milestones) to people who're just interesting in seeing if they can hit certain benchmarks.

Indeed, the modded game achievements are extremely cool as they give an alternative, but they need to be communicated better.

I personally don't care about the "bragging rights" bit. Achieving them *for myself* is what I go for. And yes, I could have full bragging rights as I did them *all* in vanilla... but still, I could have cared less about doing them in vanilla, especially when it kept me for 1000 hours away from some very valuable mods.

Clear communication and an option to choose what route to take would be worth its weight in gold, and lead to far fewer frustrated players.

[AngledLuffa]

Minor UI nit: there isn't a good visual cue to distinguish when factories are stuck due to excessive output (rather than lack of inputs)

Minor UI nit: chemical plant activity status is hard to see (unlike assemblers)

For both of these, check out the bottleneck mod.

Considering how popular and how useful that mod is, it would be great if it got picked up for the core game. I'm sure it would be more efficient if it were native and only updated exactly the machines on screen at the time.