Factorio Forums

1) The picture of a steel plate is actually a beam 2) Right now steel plate does not require carbon, which is the main component that distinguishes steel from iron

It's almost like it's a game and not a simulator.

It feels nice when the description, recipe and picture make physical sense. Loved your Industrial revolution for these kind of small details

But that's the freedom that modders have.

Icons are iconic, hence the name. They are not supposed to be realistic: photographs suck as icons. Their purpose is to represent things as abstractions, to be identifiable, distinctive.

There is no pure carbon in vanilla Factorio, no blast furnaces, no compressed air or any gas except for steam. Steel is just compressed iron. That's the game as its designers want it to be. Your opinions on it are just opinions.

I mean, I'm pretty sure stone bricks aren't made in a furnace out of rocks in real life either. Does that make Factorio an objectively worse game than it could be? No, of course not, that's a completely subjective opinion.

Modding exists if players want to explore other possibilities. Factorio has better modding support than the vast majority of games. You could change the icon and the name of steel plates to whatever you like with about 5 lines of code if you wanted. You could make the recipe require coal if you can accept coal as a substitute for carbon (although this would stop the recipe working in vanilla furnaces because furnace recipes can only have one solid ingredient).

I got people sending me messages saying that my bearings were really ball bearings and not bearings and the game was unplayable, that an engine icon looked too much like the wrong kind of engine. What a waste of their time.

I don't have a problem with "steel" vs "iron". Although steel could require coal (as a representation of carbon), I don't care much.

It is though obvious that the object on the picture is not a plate, but a beam. It looks like a rail, and is used in rails. Also, why would 5 iron plates turn into 1 steel plate?

Anyway, I am not for changing recipes here, but rather changing names to more appropriate. I initially posted this beam vs plate mismatch into bugs section, but was sent here. It is clearly a mistake, so I am just suggesting a way to fix it.

I don't get: will something break if devs will change item name to match its icon?

coppercoil wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 22, 2020 12:29 am

I don't get: will something break if devs will change item name to match its icon?

If the internal name were changed, it could be migrated in existing saves, but every mod that references "steel-plate" would have to update.

Then (or instead) you'd have to change the localised name in the many tens of languages that Factorio supports.

Either way, a massive faff for something essentially trivial.

Okay, lets better get the game out with an item named "plate" and picture of a beam... How did no one even noticed it before?

As a solution: Is it possible to leave "steel-plate" for modders, make it "beam" for other people?

prdfndr wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 22, 2020 12:52 am

How did no one even noticed it before?

I expect people noticed. I think they just don't care and/or don't think it's important.

prdfndr wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 22, 2020 12:52 am

As a solution: Is it possible to leave "steel-plate" for modders, make it "beam" for other people?

No.

It would be easier by far to just change the icon. For all we know, the overhauled 64x64 icon that's coming as part of the general icons overhaul looks less like a beam and more like a plate. I expect people will complain if it does change, just like they complain about every other change.

prdfndr wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 22, 2020 12:52 am

Okay, lets better get the game out with an item named "plate" and picture of a beam... How did no one even noticed it before?

As a solution: Is it possible to leave "steel-plate" for modders, make it "beam" for other people?

I noticed it the very first time I saw it, but I knew that the devs are not native English speakers and that it is not finished yet. Add to these facts that these devs have created the most compelling, interesting, original game I’ve ever played and I decided to ignore such trivial details. Instead I focused my first 80 hours playing the game on trying to launch an empty rocket. Yes without a satellite, no achievement for me. But did I complain? Nope, I built a second rocket and a satellite. Then a third and loaded it with fish. Why? Because it’s a game. It’s fun to play a game that is the product of someone’s imagination especially when that game also captures my imagination.

Why would anyone complain about such unimportant nothing?

Why would anyone complain about such unimportant nothing?

"See something - say something". I just reported an obvious mistake and suggested a solution (which was not approved by deadlock due to the problems it creates for mods). It is kind of a favor, I could just do nothing.

In my opinion steel should be kept in the name of the steel_plates to have a better differ to the iron plates. So I would prefer "steel beam" as the name instead of "steel plate".

And if only the en locale and not the name of the item itself would be changed then mods referring to the name of the item will not be broken. And yes, the other locale names will have to be checked then also, but for example for the german locale the name of steel_plates already suits the icon as it is called "Stahlträger" ( = steel beam) .

We're not renaming things at this point

To explain a bit more you need to see it from the history. In the beginning the steel item was a plate - just a different color. Already mentioned above.

That changed first with the big redesign of the items 3 or 4 years ago. But the internal item-name couldn’t be changed, too many mods based on that name. Also mentioned.

Of course they could change the translated name. I think that’s what you want. But it has lead always to irritations if the both names didn’t match together in the past. More suggestions about such, than about icon doesn’t match to item-name.

I think we can live with this ambivalence...

I stumbled around this also but in the end :

Steel-palte/beam is a raw item and raw item from ores are plates .....

TL;DR

The item currently known as "steel plate" is depicted as a beam, not a plate, and the name should reflect that.

What ?

"Steel plate" -> "Steel beam"

Alternatively, the steel plate graphics should be updated to depict a plate.

Why ?

Try a google image search for steel plate. The result looks like what's called an "iron plate" in Factorio https://www.google.com/search?q=steel+plate&
tbm=isch

Try a google image search for steel beam. The result looks like what's called an "steel plate" in Factorio https://www.google.com/search?q=steel+beam&tbm=isch

As a long term player, I still get into misunderstandings with other players talking about steel plates vs iron plates. It's like when you're trying to read the word "blue" written in green letters. It's just constant mental friction; even if it's small.

It would be nice if the graphics and words matched up.

I've been impressed with the small long standing issues that has been fixed in 0.18. This tells me that it might not be to late for this change.

They already said they won't do this. Changing the names will make the display name mismatch the internal name and changing the graphic will cause iron and steel plates to look too similar. I don't really get the first reason but I'm not a programmer or modder so I'm not who that is for. I 100% agree with the 2nd reason because I already have trouble discerning steel from plastic and plastic from iron just looking at belts. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally run steel to a plastic destination or plastic to a steel one.

I personally just call them "steel" and "iron" and drop the "plate."

Changing the internal name shouldn't be a huge deal, seeing as I still clearly remember when "Basic" got snipped off of a ton of things, since there wasnt exactly advanced versions to compare them to. Broke lots of mods, but migration meant saved games still worked.

I was near to moving this to won’t implement... it will not happen...

[Koub] Merged into older topic with same suggestion.
TLDR : won't happen.