New Game: Small changes with big impact.
Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 10:35 am
Getting close to 2000 hours and starting a New Game always annoyed me. Not the burner and manual stuff stage, the choosing of settings before start.
Thinking of what would improve the experience I came up with this small list:
1) Import settings button:
In the first New Game tab, it let's you import the settings from one of your game saves so that you can tweak them.
2) Spawn deposits size as specified amount, separate from map settings for ore generation :
The 0.17 map generation is much improved. But different people like to start the game in different ways. Some like to start small, some big and very orderly, which requires more resources. Being able to specify the desired size of the closest deposit to spawn (I. E: 50k, 250k, 1M, 2M... Just type the number) would let players start in whatever way we prefer. Of course do this for the 4 deposits at spawn (coal, iron, copper and stone) as well as the single closest oil and uranium deposits in the biter infested area.
3) Preview spawn marker : A simple indicator of where you will spawn. So obvious that I am surprised it is not already there.
4) Preview ore sizes : Just like in game, if you hover the mouse on a deposit... show its size.
Can we play without these? Of course yes. But these pretty simple changes would make Factorio far more enjoyable than it already ease. Being a developer myself I'd bet that 1, 3 and 4 combined would take less than a day to do and be a big improvement. 2 is a bit longer but not much, maybe a day or two?
Thinking of what would improve the experience I came up with this small list:
1) Import settings button:
In the first New Game tab, it let's you import the settings from one of your game saves so that you can tweak them.
2) Spawn deposits size as specified amount, separate from map settings for ore generation :
The 0.17 map generation is much improved. But different people like to start the game in different ways. Some like to start small, some big and very orderly, which requires more resources. Being able to specify the desired size of the closest deposit to spawn (I. E: 50k, 250k, 1M, 2M... Just type the number) would let players start in whatever way we prefer. Of course do this for the 4 deposits at spawn (coal, iron, copper and stone) as well as the single closest oil and uranium deposits in the biter infested area.
3) Preview spawn marker : A simple indicator of where you will spawn. So obvious that I am surprised it is not already there.
4) Preview ore sizes : Just like in game, if you hover the mouse on a deposit... show its size.
Can we play without these? Of course yes. But these pretty simple changes would make Factorio far more enjoyable than it already ease. Being a developer myself I'd bet that 1, 3 and 4 combined would take less than a day to do and be a big improvement. 2 is a bit longer but not much, maybe a day or two?