Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

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GG Cannon
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Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by GG Cannon »

As much as I like the current wall sprite and would, I can't help but feel that it should have some way to make improvements on it with the technologies available to our character.

As such, I was thinking of next tier walls, possible recipes for them

Tier 2: Steel Reinforced Wall
Recipe: 5 Wall + 2 Steel Plate + 10 Refined Concrete
Requires tech: Stone Wall + Gate + Concrete + Steel Processing + Steel Reinforced Wall (Self)
Health: 700

Tier 2 Gate: Steel Reinforced Gate
Recipe: 1 Steel Reinforced Wall + 10 Steel Plate + 2 Engine unit
Requires tech: Stone Wall + Gate + Concrete + Steel Processing + Steel Reinforced Wall (Self)
Health: 700

Tier 3: Energy Shielded Walls
Recipe: 20 Steel Reinforced Wall + 10 Energy shield + Polymer Blend (Liquid)
Requires tech: Steel Reinforced Wall + Coal Liquefaction + Energy Shield + Energy Shielded Walls
Health 1500 (Unpowered) + 500 Shield hitpoints when powered by an energy source
Energy consumption: 1 MW when active
Drain: 24 kW
Recharges 12 shield HP per second
Only activates and consumes energy when enemies are nearby (similar to the turrets activating by themselves)

Tier 3 Gate: Energy Shielded Gates
Recipe: 1 Energy Shielded Walls + 2 Processing unit + 4 Electric engine unit
Requires tech: Steel Reinforced Wall + Coal Liquefaction + Energy Shield + Energy Shielded Walls
Health 1500 (Unpowered) + 500 Shield hitpoints when powered by an energy source
Energy consumption: 1 MW when active
Drain: 20 kW
Recharges 12 shield HP per second
Only activates and consumes energy when enemies are nearby (similar to the turrets activating by themselves)

Image
(Image from: "Sci Fi Wall" on UE Market Place, by Vexejer, just to illustrate)

Liquid: Polymer Blend
Made at: Chemical plant
Requires tech: Coal Liquefaction
Recipe: 20 Crude Oil + 40 Coal + 10 Plastic Bar

Values can definitely be tweaked and recipes can be changed or balanced, but I really think the game would benefit from having better, but more resource expensive walls against late game strong bitter hordes that can simply obliterate the early game walls.
The Polymer Blend could also be used for other future recipes, such as "nanotubes" or other space age technology and the technology suggested is definitely within the scope of the games' scenario and the energy consumptions and health of the walls was based off of the items used in the recipe, currently existing walls, laser turret energy consumption, late game enemies, vehicles and the damage of late game weapons and enemies.
Last edited by GG Cannon on Tue Dec 05, 2023 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Illiander42 »

Make the mod.

There's a few that do similar stuff to this so you shouldn't have too hard a time.

Personally, I wish Stormwalls would get fixed to crash less.

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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by FuryoftheStars »

As our current walls are made from stone, I kind of feel like the advanced walls could be made with concrete and refined concrete (refined, iirc, has iron ore in it, which I think is supposed to be representative of iron rebar).

While the energy wall idea feels cool and all, I think it wouldn't work well with this game. Think about the individual power costs, UPS costs, and memory costs for this added feature to the wall segments, then multiply this by the thousands, if not tens of thousands of wall segments you likely have out there (and I may be under estimating).
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Qon »

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 03, 2023 2:31 pm
While the energy wall idea feels cool and all, I think it wouldn't work well with this game. Think about the individual power costs, UPS costs, and memory costs for this added feature to the wall segments, then multiply this by the thousands, if not tens of thousands of wall segments you likely have out there (and I may be under estimating).
Accumulators are UPS-free. Energy walls (the obstruction) are just accumulators with 0W outflow, that lose energy when they lose hp (on event) and gain hp when their charge increases (could be on a monitored on_tick list temporarily while damaged and then removed). After that you also need some Wall spawning tile or something that spawns and respawns the wall after it has charged up (with a hidden non-colliding non-obstructing accumulator as timer and energy drainer) which is emptied when the obstructing accumulator "wall" is destroyed.

That's an energy wall mod which has 0 UPS impact for full health energy walls. Ask ChatGPT to write the mod from my description or something :lol:
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Illiander42 »

Qon wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 03, 2023 3:38 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 03, 2023 2:31 pm
While the energy wall idea feels cool and all, I think it wouldn't work well with this game. Think about the individual power costs, UPS costs, and memory costs for this added feature to the wall segments, then multiply this by the thousands, if not tens of thousands of wall segments you likely have out there (and I may be under estimating).
Accumulators are UPS-free. Energy walls (the obstruction) are just accumulators with 0W outflow, that lose energy when they lose hp (on event) and gain hp when their charge increases (could be on a monitored on_tick list temporarily while damaged and then removed). After that you also need some Wall spawning tile or something that spawns and respawns the wall after it has charged up (with a hidden non-colliding non-obstructing accumulator as timer and energy drainer) which is emptied when the obstructing accumulator "wall" is destroyed.

That's an energy wall mod which has 0 UPS impact for full health energy walls. Ask ChatGPT to write the mod from my description or something :lol:
You almost just described Stormwalls (an already-existing mod)

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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by FuryoftheStars »

Qon wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 03, 2023 3:38 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 03, 2023 2:31 pm
While the energy wall idea feels cool and all, I think it wouldn't work well with this game. Think about the individual power costs, UPS costs, and memory costs for this added feature to the wall segments, then multiply this by the thousands, if not tens of thousands of wall segments you likely have out there (and I may be under estimating).
Accumulators are UPS-free. Energy walls (the obstruction) are just accumulators with 0W outflow, that lose energy when they lose hp (on event) and gain hp when their charge increases (could be on a monitored on_tick list temporarily while damaged and then removed). After that you also need some Wall spawning tile or something that spawns and respawns the wall after it has charged up (with a hidden non-colliding non-obstructing accumulator as timer and energy drainer) which is emptied when the obstructing accumulator "wall" is destroyed.

That's an energy wall mod which has 0 UPS impact for full health energy walls. Ask ChatGPT to write the mod from my description or something :lol:
Well, putting aside the fact that accumulators are not UPS free (just having multiple in a contiguous network potentially do not cost any extra UPS, provided they are all of the same charge level), I do not believe that would actually be the case here with energy walls. While it would probably be best for general use and power drain if they all operated the same as accumulators (and thus allowed for you to hook a power pole to one end of the line and they all get powered), to be fair and balanced when under attack, they would need to 1) only damage the shield from their individual wall segment (or only from it and the immediately adjacent ones) vs all connected wall segments, and 2) wait and only recharge X seconds after the last damage received. This would, to me, break the concept of them being a contiguous network and thus benefiting from the full optimizations accumulators have undergone.
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Qon »

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
I do not believe that would actually be the case here with energy walls. While it would probably be best for general use and power drain if they all operated the same as accumulators (and thus allowed for you to hook a power pole to one end of the line and they all get powered),
That's not how accumulators work so I haven't claimed that is how they should work. Maybe? I imagined them to be individual entities.
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
to be fair and balanced when under attack, they would need to 1) only damage the shield from their individual wall segment (or only from it and the immediately adjacent ones) vs all connected wall segments,
Yes, I didn't suggest different.
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
and 2) wait and only recharge X seconds after the last damage received.
I don't think so. Other things don't wait. Simpler to just let the game regenerate the entities like any other thing, when there's energy available.
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
This would, to me, break the concept of them being a contiguous network and thus benefiting from the full optimizations accumulators have undergone.
Yeah, you are correct. They would basically only be synced when at full charge. But only small segments of the wall take damage at any point in time, You can easily have several massive attacks all the time and 95%-99% or more wall segments at full HP and charge anyways.
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Illiander42 »

Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
I do not believe that would actually be the case here with energy walls. While it would probably be best for general use and power drain if they all operated the same as accumulators (and thus allowed for you to hook a power pole to one end of the line and they all get powered),
That's not how accumulators work so I haven't claimed that is how they should work. Maybe? I imagined them to be individual entities.
All accumulators in a single power network get merged when they reach the same chage as another accumulator in the network.

This works due to all of them being charged and depleted at the same time.
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
and 2) wait and only recharge X seconds after the last damage received.
I don't think so. Other things don't wait. Simpler to just let the game regenerate the entities like any other thing, when there's energy available.
Biter force stuff doesn't wait.

Player health does.

All other player entities need a repair pack.

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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Qon »

Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 5:57 pm
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
I do not believe that would actually be the case here with energy walls. While it would probably be best for general use and power drain if they all operated the same as accumulators (and thus allowed for you to hook a power pole to one end of the line and they all get powered),
That's not how accumulators work so I haven't claimed that is how they should work. Maybe? I imagined them to be individual entities.
All accumulators in a single power network get merged when they reach the same chage as another accumulator in the network.

This works due to all of them being charged and depleted at the same time.
I know how accumulators work. I was talking with Fury about how the energy walls could be implemented and should work in a suggested mod. I suggested draining charge from individual accumulators-as-walls via mod API. So they would not all be depleted at the same time.
Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 5:57 pm
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
and 2) wait and only recharge X seconds after the last damage received.
I don't think so. Other things don't wait. Simpler to just let the game regenerate the entities like any other thing, when there's energy available.
Biter force stuff doesn't wait.

Player health does.

All other player entities need a repair pack.
Wrong. I'm not talking about vanilla accumulators. I'm talking about modded accumulators with wall graphics or modded walls with hidden accumulator. Vanilla behavior isn't relevant. The question isn't which force the entity is on, entities with health can have biter type healing if modded.
https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/pro ... g_per_tick
An example vanilla entity that isn't a biter and isn't in biter force: https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/pro ... g_per_tick
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by FuryoftheStars »

Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
That's not how accumulators work so I haven't claimed that is how they should work. Maybe? I imagined them to be individual entities.
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:17 pm
I was talking with Fury about how the energy walls could be implemented and should work in a suggested mod.
Sorry, I was not talking in reference to a mod. I was talking in reference to its being implemented in game. On the one hand, it could be setup where each wall segment needs a power pole covering it and each have their own drain (like inserters; and yes, I'm aware that you could potentially put hidden power poles with a 1 tile wire reach with each one), but I realized while typing that it might be more UPS efficient (and frankly, based on the entity looks, more intuitive) if all adjacent walls connected and "merged" into one entity in terms of power usage.
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
and 2) wait and only recharge X seconds after the last damage received.
I don't think so. Other things don't wait. Simpler to just let the game regenerate the entities like any other thing, when there's energy available.
To be fair and balanced. If you don't, then you effectively make walls that are immune to any damage below X/s so long as your power holds up, or you need to give them super slow regen.
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Qon »

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 7:12 pm
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
That's not how accumulators work so I haven't claimed that is how they should work. Maybe? I imagined them to be individual entities.
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:17 pm
I was talking with Fury about how the energy walls could be implemented and should work in a suggested mod.
Sorry, I was not talking in reference to a mod. I was talking in reference to its being implemented in game. On the one hand, it could be setup where each wall segment needs a power pole covering it and each have their own drain (like inserters; and yes, I'm aware that you could potentially put hidden power poles with a 1 tile wire reach with each one), but I realized while typing that it might be more UPS efficient (and frankly, based on the entity looks, more intuitive) if all adjacent walls connected and "merged" into one entity in terms of power usage.
I wouldn't make that kind of statement without tests to back it up. Have you done performance tests with merged walls into 1 big entity?
Drain and power poles etc are static fixtures that only need calculations when building (or modifying with adding power poles and stuff), after that a lot of things can just be a count and a power usage multiplier even if they are separate entities. Basically accumulators and power networks are already kind of merging everything together, actually making it into a single entity might not have benefits, could be worse when damaged piecewise or modified, or might just not be worth it.
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 7:12 pm
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
and 2) wait and only recharge X seconds after the last damage received.
I don't think so. Other things don't wait. Simpler to just let the game regenerate the entities like any other thing, when there's energy available.
To be fair and balanced. If you don't, then you effectively make walls that are immune to any damage below X/s so long as your power holds up, or you need to give them super slow regen.
Walls being immune to damage less than X/s isn't really a problem. Small biters can't deal damage to a wall of laser/gun turrets, you aren't complaining about that. The issue is if the X is more than a big swarm of behemoth biters can deal and the energy drain is also very low at the same time. But if we are talking end game energy walls then if the wall is basically all you need, never needs repairs and never breaks down, that seems like something that you should be able to achieve at some point against vanilla Behemoths. 6 layers of laser turrets/uranium rounds turrets with damage upgrades from hundreds or thousands of rocket launches for infinite research can also do that.

And it isn't only X/s healing and energy use that matters. The health of each piece, if individual, is also a point of balance. You could have high HPS (healing per second) with low max HP, so it lasts very short but can only break when attacked with high burst damage from multiple behemoths and nothing else can ever dent it. Or you can have more max HP and less HPS. And having both HPS and max HP with high energy cost could work as well. Or if infinite research was used to bring all the stats to "overpowered" that would be "balanced" as well, it's ok to reach a "win" against the biters at some point.
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by FuryoftheStars »

Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 8:44 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 7:12 pm
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
That's not how accumulators work so I haven't claimed that is how they should work. Maybe? I imagined them to be individual entities.
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:17 pm
I was talking with Fury about how the energy walls could be implemented and should work in a suggested mod.
Sorry, I was not talking in reference to a mod. I was talking in reference to its being implemented in game. On the one hand, it could be setup where each wall segment needs a power pole covering it and each have their own drain (like inserters; and yes, I'm aware that you could potentially put hidden power poles with a 1 tile wire reach with each one), but I realized while typing that it might be more UPS efficient (and frankly, based on the entity looks, more intuitive) if all adjacent walls connected and "merged" into one entity in terms of power usage.
I wouldn't make that kind of statement without tests to back it up. Have you done performance tests with merged walls into 1 big entity?
Drain and power poles etc are static fixtures that only need calculations when building (or modifying with adding power poles and stuff), after that a lot of things can just be a count and a power usage multiplier even if they are separate entities. Basically accumulators and power networks are already kind of merging everything together, actually making it into a single entity might not have benefits, could be worse when damaged piecewise or modified, or might just not be worth it.
I only mentioned the power poles as a possible way of achieving the same goal. I'm unconcerned with them re:UPS and everything else.
And no, I haven't performance tested it because I don't have access to the source code? I can't create a merged entity of this type with the code as it is.

I think we're missing each other, here. I have no interest in actually knuckling in and trying all of this. I am working from theory and was primarily mentioning it as concern points. If merging would cause other issues, then fine. If all entities of the same type (engine side) are able to do all of their drain checks together similar to accumulators, then that's great. That just wasn't my understanding.
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 8:44 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 7:12 pm
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
and 2) wait and only recharge X seconds after the last damage received.
I don't think so. Other things don't wait. Simpler to just let the game regenerate the entities like any other thing, when there's energy available.
To be fair and balanced. If you don't, then you effectively make walls that are immune to any damage below X/s so long as your power holds up, or you need to give them super slow regen.
Walls being immune to damage less than X/s isn't really a problem. Small biters can't deal damage to a wall of laser/gun turrets, you aren't complaining about that. The issue is if the X is more than a big swarm of behemoth biters can deal and the energy drain is also very low at the same time. But if we are talking end game energy walls then if the wall is basically all you need, never needs repairs and never breaks down, that seems like something that you should be able to achieve at some point against vanilla Behemoths. 6 layers of laser turrets/uranium rounds turrets with damage upgrades from hundreds or thousands of rocket launches for infinite research can also do that.

And it isn't only X/s healing and energy use that matters. The health of each piece, if individual, is also a point of balance. You could have high HPS (healing per second) with low max HP, so it lasts very short but can only break when attacked with high burst damage from multiple behemoths and nothing else can ever dent it. Or you can have more max HP and less HPS. And having both HPS and max HP with high energy cost could work as well. Or if infinite research was used to bring all the stats to "overpowered" that would be "balanced" as well, it's ok to reach a "win" against the biters at some point.
The point I'm trying to get at is that a self-healing wall (the shield itself) that is able to maintain a high X/s while being damaged and thus negating some attacks would, in some cases, then be able to hold back a tide with only a couple of gun emplacements. I've played plenty of games with these types of mechanics and, in my opinion, they provide uninteresting gameplay as they essentially completely negate certain types of attacks. It's more interesting, to me, if that one small thing that you didn't notice that is attacking in an area that you didn't think to put guns can actually break through and cause trouble for you....
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Illiander42 »

Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:17 pm
Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 5:57 pm
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:56 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 3:16 pm
and 2) wait and only recharge X seconds after the last damage received.
I don't think so. Other things don't wait. Simpler to just let the game regenerate the entities like any other thing, when there's energy available.
Biter force stuff doesn't wait.

Player health does.

All other player entities need a repair pack.
Wrong.
Please tell me which vanilla factorio player-faction entity (other than an engineer) heals itself without a repair pack. I want to know so I can start using them for walls.

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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Qon »

Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 9:31 am
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:17 pm
Wrong.
Please tell me which vanilla factorio entity (other than an engineer) heals itself without a repair pack. I want to know so I can start using them for walls.
I told you already, trees.
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Illiander42 »

Qon wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 10:18 am
Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 9:31 am
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:17 pm
Wrong.
Please tell me which vanilla factorio entity (other than an engineer) heals itself without a repair pack. I want to know so I can start using them for walls.
I told you already, trees.
Trees are player-faction? I can blueprint and place them?

Not in vanilla you can't.

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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Qon »

Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 1:07 pm
Qon wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 10:18 am
Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 9:31 am
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:17 pm
Wrong.
Please tell me which vanilla factorio entity (other than an engineer) heals itself without a repair pack. I want to know so I can start using them for walls.
I told you already, trees.
Trees are player-faction I can blueprint and place them

in vanilla you can.
Wrong.
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by GG Cannon »

I'll be honest, I really didn't expect this to blow up in the way it did and your discussion with each other is interesting.
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 9:19 pm
On the one hand, it could be setup where each wall segment needs a power pole covering it and each have their own drain (like inserters; and yes, I'm aware that you could potentially put hidden power poles with a 1 tile wire reach with each one), but I realized while typing that it might be more UPS efficient (and frankly, based on the entity looks, more intuitive) if all adjacent walls connected and "merged" into one entity in terms of power usage.
The idea is just that, "codewise", that wall that has an energy shield would be basically a 1x1 laser turret with 500 extra health that instead of firing receives 10 Energy shield (MK1) in an equipment grid, like Spidertron, and keeps it until the shield fully charges and there are no enemies nearby, then it loses it.

I don't know much about that UPS efficiency, but aren't the turrets already in the game UPS efficient?

It would, yes, need to be powered by power poles powering each wall individually and each one of them would have a drain of at least 24kW and 1MW of consumption when active.
I even added that to my original post. You can check. The energy shielded walls I suggested have drain and consumption values.

It would only have that shield while there are enemies nearby.
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 9:19 pm
The point I'm trying to get at is that a self-healing wall (the shield itself) that is able to maintain a high X/s while being damaged and thus negating some attacks would, in some cases, then be able to hold back a tide with only a couple of gun emplacements. I've played plenty of games with these types of mechanics and, in my opinion, they provide uninteresting gameplay as they essentially completely negate certain types of attacks. It's more interesting, to me, if that one small thing that you didn't notice that is attacking in an area that you didn't think to put guns can actually break through and cause trouble for you....
Considering the extra drain and power consumption, this wall would add almost as much trouble to the player in exchange of that extra protection.

For a game with massive numbers of enemies with accelerated growth, a wall like this would almost be mandatory just for your guns to have enough time to kill all the enemies after they get within range, because they would break the common walls too fast for the turrets to kill them.
Imagine you'd need to have, like, 20 layers of walls to make a difference and still it maybe could not be enough.
Instead of having 20 layers of common walls, you could have 4 layers of this for the same amount of health, but with an extra 6,6 walls worth in shields for the cost of high energy consumption when under attack.
I think that would be a really interesting gameplay wise thing that the existence of these walls makes a possibility.
Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 9:31 am
Please tell me which vanilla factorio player-faction entity (other than an engineer) heals itself without a repair pack. I want to know so I can start using them for walls.
The Spidertron with an Energy shield? If you make a Spidertron with 1 Portable fusion reactor, 2 Personal battery MK2 and 10 Energy shield MK2, it will have 3000 Health + 1500 Energy Shield. As long as you don't add any missiles to it, it would be the same, yet a stronger version of the wall I suggested. You can't blueprint it, but it is indeed a "player-faction entity other than an engineer heals itself without a repair pack" since we are talking about shields and not health. The wall isn't supposed to self-heal its health.

Also I'm not suggesting it for a mod. (though if someone makes it, I would find really freaking cool.)
I don't play with mods nor do I create mods, don't know how to make them and already have too much in my life to even consider learning how to make them right now.

I suggested it because, in the very remote and tiny chance that Wube Software LTD. reads it, likes it and decides to add it to their game, I would have it in my Vanilla experience, and I am 2000% sure that they are more than capable to create and code it into their game in a way that won't take too much processing, won't bloat your save, won't corrupt anything and all that, considering what they have already created and coded into their game (which even if I'm kinda bad, I love very much).

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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by FuryoftheStars »

GG Cannon wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 3:09 pm
I'll be honest, I really didn't expect this to blow up in the way it did and your discussion with each other is interesting.
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 9:19 pm
On the one hand, it could be setup where each wall segment needs a power pole covering it and each have their own drain (like inserters; and yes, I'm aware that you could potentially put hidden power poles with a 1 tile wire reach with each one), but I realized while typing that it might be more UPS efficient (and frankly, based on the entity looks, more intuitive) if all adjacent walls connected and "merged" into one entity in terms of power usage.
The idea is just that, "codewise", that wall that has an energy shield would be basically a 1x1 laser turret with 500 extra health that instead of firing receives 10 Energy shield (MK1) in an equipment grid, like Spidertron, and keeps it until the shield fully charges and there are no enemies nearby, then it loses it.

I don't know much about that UPS efficiency, but aren't the turrets already in the game UPS efficient?

It would, yes, need to be powered by power poles powering each wall individually and each one of them would have a drain of at least 24kW and 1MW of consumption when active.
I even added that to my original post. You can check. The energy shielded walls I suggested have drain and consumption values.

It would only have that shield while there are enemies nearby.
I'm not sure if the laser turret could be repurposed in that way. The accumulators may be the best bet as Qon was mentioning, but that's if someone were to mod it. From the dev's perspective to put it in vanilla, I imagine they'd just create a new entity type for it. But removing and re-adding the shield on the presence (or lack thereof) of enemies I think would cost more UPS than just leaving it?
GG Cannon wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 3:09 pm
FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 9:19 pm
The point I'm trying to get at is that a self-healing wall (the shield itself) that is able to maintain a high X/s while being damaged and thus negating some attacks would, in some cases, then be able to hold back a tide with only a couple of gun emplacements. I've played plenty of games with these types of mechanics and, in my opinion, they provide uninteresting gameplay as they essentially completely negate certain types of attacks. It's more interesting, to me, if that one small thing that you didn't notice that is attacking in an area that you didn't think to put guns can actually break through and cause trouble for you....
Considering the extra drain and power consumption, this wall would add almost as much trouble to the player in exchange of that extra protection.
Yeah, I don't know. I have reservations on that, too, but my primary thoughts on that are still the same.
GG Cannon wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 3:09 pm
For a game with massive numbers of enemies with accelerated growth, a wall like this would almost be mandatory just for your guns to have enough time to kill all the enemies after they get within range, because they would break the common walls too fast for the turrets to kill them.
Imagine you'd need to have, like, 20 layers of walls to make a difference and still it maybe could not be enough.
Instead of having 20 layers of common walls, you could have 4 layers of this for the same amount of health, but with an extra 6,6 walls worth in shields for the cost of high energy consumption when under attack.
I think that would be a really interesting gameplay wise thing that the existence of these walls makes a possibility.
I've had no problems with walls 3 layers deep? I use a mix of flamethrowers, lasers, and gun turrets, with a heavier concentration on the guns, two layers deep. But you also have to keep up on the researches that increase their DPS (damage and rate of fire).

Still, stronger walls would be nice, I just think I would favor concrete over steel and shield, but I guess that's me. But maybe it depends on what we're getting thrown at us for new enemies in 2.0? If there's a nice, UPS efficient way for it to happen, then I'm fine with that, but for me, personally, I'd like to see balance in the sense of the shields won't recharge until after X secs of not taking any damage, then they'll hog electricity like a laser turret to rapidly (depending on the hp value, 5-10 secs?) recharge. I also think it'd make a bit more sense for the hp values to be kind of flipped from your suggestion: the shield itself being stronger than the wall. Reason being the wall would likely have its structural integrity compromised a bit (compared to the non-shielded solid wall) by the various cables, generators, emitters, etc that have to run through and poke out of it. It could be interesting, too, if these walls were double thick, representing the shield being emitted a bit away from the wall, causing a similar look to if you placed your wall layers every other tile, or just use them on the outer most layer of the wall.
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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Illiander42 »

Qon wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 2:38 pm
Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 1:07 pm
Qon wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 10:18 am
Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 9:31 am
Qon wrote: ↑
Mon Dec 04, 2023 6:17 pm
Wrong.
Please tell me which vanilla factorio entity (other than an engineer) heals itself without a repair pack. I want to know so I can start using them for walls.
I told you already, trees.
Trees are player-faction? I can blueprint and place them?

Not in vanilla you can't.
Wrong.
Are you seriously saying that in vanilla factorio you can build, blueprint and place trees?

Also, nice edit in where you quote me to completely flip what I was saying, that's not dishonest at all.
GG Cannon wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 3:09 pm
I'll be honest, I really didn't expect this to blow up in the way it did and your discussion with each other is interesting.

Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 9:31 am
Please tell me which vanilla factorio player-faction entity (other than an engineer) heals itself without a repair pack. I want to know so I can start using them for walls.
The Spidertron with an Energy shield? If you make a Spidertron with 1 Portable fusion reactor, 2 Personal battery MK2 and 10 Energy shield MK2, it will have 3000 Health + 1500 Energy Shield. As long as you don't add any missiles to it, it would be the same, yet a stronger version of the wall I suggested. You can't blueprint it, but it is indeed a "player-faction entity other than an engineer heals itself without a repair pack" since we are talking about shields and not health. The wall isn't supposed to self-heal its health.
I'll admit, I think of spidertrons as engineers.

Though this raises an interesting idea: What if buildings could have equipment grids?

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Re: Tier 2 and 3 walls + new liquid

Post by Qon »

Illiander42 wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 05, 2023 7:32 pm
Are you seriously saying that in vanilla factorio you can build, blueprint and place trees?

Also, nice edit in where you quote me to completely flip what I was saying, that's not dishonest at all.
No, I edited your message so it said the opposite and then said it was wrong. So I said that the statement that trees can be blueprinted and place in vanilla was wrong. Is that really that hard to understand? I've never said that you can place and blueprint trees in vanilla.

You started with the dishonest quoting, so it's fair game for me to respond with your tricks.

Let's end the discussion on trees here, it's getting off topic. I don't want to say a hundred times that trees can't be blueprinted in vanilla. I brought trees up to show that healing wasn't a faction mechanic in the engine, but a property that can be modded in on any entity. It was in context of me discussing things to keep in me on how to implement the topic as a mod, in an UPS-efficient way.
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