Factorio Forums

Background:
0.15 has massively increased the usefulness of the radar, with the new zoom function it has become almost essential to the new play style. I believe it should be re-balanced with at least a significant increase in price. In 0.14 the radar was 'generally' non-essential on vanilla maps as its only/main purpose for a player was scanning unexplored areas (and refreshing existing squares).

It is a primitive technology that takes you all the way to end-game which is very uncommon for Factorio. In a game which is about constantly upgrading/advancing, I think giving the player this item from the beginning and cheaply is a bit too much. You spend a lot of resources on roboports which now go hand in hand with radars, yet their prices are miles apart.

I have seen many suggestions stating this technology should be locked to requiring a satellite to be launched, Which I disagree with. At that stage in the game, the player has skipped a significant chunk of the game where that technology would have been useful. I believe the satellite could support additional radar like functions, but that is not the point of this thread.

Suggestions: (Any one or combination of the following)

• Increase the recipe price of the radar.
  Current: 5x Electronic Circuit, 5x Iron Gear Wheel, 10x Iron Plate | Suggested: 20x Electronic Circuit, 15x Iron Gear Wheel, 25x Iron Plate
  This is a key machine for any factory/map and with its current price, I am often able to craft many of them simply with the basic items in my inventory. For other machines you typically find yourself needing to find or craft many additional products.
• Increase the power usage of the radar.
  Current: 300kW | Suggested: ~1MW
  Force the player to need a substantial power supply to power them. For comparison, an electric furnace requires 180kW. For the job of a radar compared to a single electric furnace, I think the radar should require a lot more power. I know they have a significant pollution effect, however I don't think this is enough of a cost.
• Add radar as a research unlock
  I've seen this suggested on here before and staff say "I don't really see any gameplay benefit". I think it is more about logic. Having this technology available from the start (with electricity) seems a bit out of place. From a period of burner miners and inserters and using basic steam power, I don't think large active radar installations fit with this technological age. All other electric machines (apart from the miner) require research. I don't think it is necessary for a player to build in the early game anyway, with all resource collecting being done very close to spawn including in rail world. I would suggest at least a basic red research requirement.
• Add a new radar tier/upgrade
  Similar to other machines, add multiple tiers to be researched. "Basic Radar" and "Advanced Radar" for example.
  Basic Radar - Shows a small persistent square (maybe slightly more fuzzy) and scans a smaller radius of the sector (50% of current).
  Advanced Radar - Acts the same as the current radar in terms of sizes and function.
  You could also add a research tree for the radar, to increase its speed and active range (persistent square).

Summary:
Generally, It feels a bit cheap to carry this primitive technology to 'end game' where I need to space them out with my expensive roboports. Radars are the only technology that the player uses the same at the start as they do at the end of the game, with others things like miners able to be given modules and research upgrades. If you feel they should be available early game, at least increase their recipe price or power requirement to at least make it difficult to justify building in the beginning. With the increased reliance on radars in 0.15, I feel they need to be revisited.

+1 on more materials since radars are more useful now.

-1 on more energy consumption as I think it is fair as is for the time being.

+1 on possible upgrade to radar to MK2 (requires 5 regular radars, twice the range, e.g.)


Also radar range research could be upgraded just as other things. Maybe suggest that you need to upgrade 3 tiers of range (out of 5?) in order to unlock MK2 Radar..

Dreams:

Having optics and radar fully upgraded would let you build teleportation portals (although I know this is sci-fi and probably not apt for vanilla)

I think all that is needed if you want to make it harder to be able to see the radar covered parts of the map is to make a technology which you have to research before you can get better resolutions on the map screen.

+1 on materials.

-1 on power consumption. A radar using more power than an electric furnace makes it difficult to maintain suspension of disbelief.

Vegemeister wrote:-1 on power consumption. A radar using more power than an electric furnace makes it difficult to maintain suspension of disbelief.

I think a large primary radar installation should be very energy hungry and I know that in most cases we sacrifice the realistic values for the sake of the game.

Of course, a massive industrial reactor like you linked would draw significant power, but that is not really an equivalent to Factorio. In Factorio it is common to have 20+ electric furnaces in a given 'row', which then add up to large power requirements. The one you linked is on a much larger scale. Point being that in a given area, you would use lots of electric furnaces and only 1 radar. The job of 1 furnace on its own is relatively low and the jump of 1 radar is significantly more.

I think since the radar now does more for a player, it makes sense that its energy draw is significantly increased. I have 50 radars on my current save and they only consume around 15MW, which isn't really significant.

Espacially in the beginning its nice to have 4 radars in order to reveal the map, so I am against it as a technology. However, I d like to see a much a significantly better, researchable Mk 2 version (Mk1 worse and Mk 2 better than the old radar)