Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Make the default palette more vibrant, so is more pleasant to play/stream/view the gameplay

What ?

The default palette of factorio is very dull. Yeah, it's match with the plot of the game (you crash in a planet and has to make your way out) and the theme (factories are grey due pollution), but the colours can be more vibrant, and so, more pleasant to the eye.
I don't want to make factorio a 'cartoonish' game, only a bit more 'vibrant' to the eye.

In this example below, i slightly touch the gamma curve of RGB channels individually. This can be implemented in a graphics shader or in the set-up of the allegro display. The default factorio palette is at up-left and the 'vibrant' one is at down-right. Between the two thick red lines, the difference can be viewed.

Why ?

A more 'vibrant' palette can make the game more enjoyable to stream to others to watch, widthening the potential public of factorio.

Maybe you should use an up to date screenshot instead of a 3 year + old one to show your before and after. Makes it more useful.

Two internet ages ago some guy made a "Happy Factorio" mod (reddit).
I'd certainly like the option to chose some custom shader that makes everything a bit more saturated.

I actually like the more toned down palette. The vibrant one hurts my eyes a bit.

I can appreciate a nice vibrant artstyle, but Factorio's gloomy one definitely suits it as well. The game's artstyle very much evokes isometric classics of the 90s such as Starcraft, Fallout, Diablo or Baldur's Gate and the colors are a big part of it.

However I do concede having the palette change according to weather effects or the current biome with the use of shaders would be a nice compromise. Currently the game only gets darker at night, or loses some color saturation if you put on night vision goggles. More extensive use of shaders to e.g. get an overall more vibrant look in grassy biomes would be welcome. That way each player could set their factory in different biomes depending on their color preference.

Tooth and Tail does this well. At the time that video was recorded, there was only one tileset available for online matches, yet if you skip through the video you can see how different weather effects and times of day completely change the character of the same environment pretty much solely with the use of shaders.

Thank you very much for all the feedback.

i will search about that 'happy factorio' mod and the 'reshade' tool.