Factorio Forums

MF- wrote:

metzyn wrote: Which specific balancing are you referring to? I know you made a comment on my mod that was influenced by IC2, but I attempted to take careful caution to truly balance it out... and a dev seemed to agree. Lava is so abundant and the geothermal generators of IC2 are so cheap -- that is unbalanced.

I admit I haven't checked your mod. I already have enough regular panels and caps to cover my energy consumption.
I guess I don't like the technological concept of "Add 'HV' in front of something and repaint it to improve the production".
I prefer machines to stay plausible and feel realistic, criterion most of the MC or factorio mods don't fulfill.

PS: I am pretty sure something wrong happened to quotes in your post. I haven't said what is in my box.

You are correct in that just adding HV and "repainting" doesn't dynamic content, but I am not good at design or graphics. I'm a coder at heart and saw a need for higher-output solar panels and made what I could. I do take suggestions so I'm all ears.

I keep generating maps one after another and so far out of 30 I got 7 maps with water near spawn and the rest were more than 4 screens from spawn and over half of those had mob spawners.
It is really hard to get energy right now since it is impossible to make a steam plant without water.

Please could we get inefficient coal/wood burning power plants. <3

wsensor wrote:I keep generating maps one after another and so far out of 30 I got 7 maps with water near spawn and the rest were more than 4 screens from spawn and over half of those had mob spawners.
It is really hard to get energy right now since it is impossible to make a steam plant without water.

Please could we get inefficient coal/wood burning power plants. <3

Aye we definitely need more options in the early and middle game. Burner power plants would be a sensible quick fix option for the start. I'm hoping that there will be a decent scaling of energy technology as Factorio progresses more.

I see accumulators were added to the game already. Can we add option to improve those? I hate huge accumulator planes and solar plant planes.

Can we add some more energy-based weapons? I see unlimited creep waves coming, I want unlimited ammo... I see zerg, I have all needed for zerg, I want zerg of my own.

Besides, that it is a bit off topic, last post was from July:

They plan to put blueprints into the game. Maybe next version. This would make building lots of stuff very easy.

Energy based weapons: dunno exactly what you mean. The laser turrets are currently in discussion, because thought as defense weapon, but used for offense.
Something like small offensive robots, which attacks the biters (=Zerg) are currently not in discussion, but I think it could be a good idea, if there are something like this.

Ardagan wrote:I see accumulators were added to the game already. Can we add option to improve those? I hate huge accumulator planes and solar plant planes.

Can we add some more energy-based weapons? I see unlimited creep waves coming, I want unlimited ammo... I see zerg, I have all needed for zerg, I want zerg of my own.

We work in circles, first we try to make basic version of everything, to have some simple, but working game. Then we go around the circle and imrpove everything a bit, second circle etc.

It is quite obvious, that the circle gets bigger and bigger, so making another layer takes more and more time

... more like a spiral...

Working in circles work is great. Just keep writing down those ideas for next circle.

Does Anyone remember these Electric coil fences from Starshiptroopers



Something like that could justify nuclear plants

If you do decide to add nuclear power just keep in mind the immense resources required to process nuclear fuel. Each of the cylinders used to process nuclear material during the cold war was 40m tall and they were arranged in a concentrator set up, where uranium hexafluoride would cascade from one to the next to the next, eventually reaching a purity that could be considered fissile. Since only 0.72% of natural uranium is uranium 235 most of it would be completely unfit for use in anything but munitions.

quadrapod wrote:If you do decide to add nuclear power just keep in mind the immense resources required to process nuclear fuel. Each of the cylinders used to process nuclear material during the cold war was 40m tall and they were arranged in a concentrator set up, where uranium hexafluoride would cascade from one to the next to the next, eventually reaching a purity that could be considered fissile. Since only 0.72% of natural uranium is uranium 235 most of it would be completely unfit for use in anything but munitions.

Gas centrifuges

I just want to remind you (And anyone else) that this is a game. People keep bringing up reality as if anything added to the game should mirror reality. I think people forget sometimes that this is a game not a simulation. If you wanna 'simulate' nuclear fusion or fission engineering then this probably isn't really the place.

I'm all for realism to a degree, but the fact is while your statements have merit the game cannot get that complicated without detracting from the fact that it is a game. It's an amazing game, but sometimes you have to take a step back from reality to strike a balance between realism and fun/entertainment. This game is one where it cannot please everyone. Because many will want it to be nothing short of a full featured simulation of realistic mechanics and engineering. But for many that is not fun at all. If it were, they'd go into mechanical engineering and they can play with it for real.

Forgive me if I sound harsh as I'm not trying to be. I'm not even putting down what you've said, it just isn't really practical to get that complex in this game or really any other. People play games for fun, not to work. Ultimately this whole thing should be fun. For everyone who it interests. Not just the hardcore realism buffs.

I tend to treat this game as crazy Rube Goldberg machine simulator so for me the more the merrier *shrug*

TGS wrote:

quadrapod wrote:If you do decide to add nuclear power just keep in mind the immense resources required to process nuclear fuel. Each of the cylinders used to process nuclear material during the cold war was 40m tall and they were arranged in a concentrator set up, where uranium hexafluoride would cascade from one to the next to the next, eventually reaching a purity that could be considered fissile. Since only 0.72% of natural uranium is uranium 235 most of it would be completely unfit for use in anything but munitions.

Gas centrifuges

I just want to remind you (And anyone else) that this is a game. People keep bringing up reality as if anything added to the game should mirror reality. I think people forget sometimes that this is a game not a simulation. If you wanna 'simulate' nuclear fusion or fission engineering then this probably isn't really the place.

I'm all for realism to a degree, but the fact is while your statements have merit the game cannot get that complicated without detracting from the fact that it is a game. It's an amazing game, but sometimes you have to take a step back from reality to strike a balance between realism and fun/entertainment. This game is one where it cannot please everyone. Because many will want it to be nothing short of a full featured simulation of realistic mechanics and engineering. But for many that is not fun at all. If it were, they'd go into mechanical engineering and they can play with it for real.

Forgive me if I sound harsh as I'm not trying to be. I'm not even putting down what you've said, it just isn't really practical to get that complex in this game or really any other. People play games for fun, not to work. Ultimately this whole thing should be fun. For everyone who it interests. Not just the hardcore realism buffs.

Gameplay should of course go above everything else, realism should never get in the way of good gameplay, but I brought this up specifically because I think it fits well with the game, and in someways builds off of pre established mechanics, primarily those dealing with steam. With boilers water goes from one to the next increasing it's temperature as it goes. In this case you could have uranium hexaflouride go from centrifuge to centrifuge gradually increasing in purity, but losing volume. Then, as steam engines don't function if the water is below a certain temperature, nuclear fuel that falls under a certain purity wouldn't be fissile. The mechanics are simple, but easily expandable and give you a clear path to defining the basic infrastructure for nuclear energy.

TGS wrote:

quadrapod wrote:If you do decide to add nuclear power just keep in mind the immense resources required to process nuclear fuel. Each of the cylinders used to process nuclear material during the cold war was 40m tall and they were arranged in a concentrator set up, where uranium hexafluoride would cascade from one to the next to the next, eventually reaching a purity that could be considered fissile. Since only 0.72% of natural uranium is uranium 235 most of it would be completely unfit for use in anything but munitions.

Gas centrifuges

I just want to remind you (And anyone else) that this is a game. People keep bringing up reality as if anything added to the game should mirror reality. I think people forget sometimes that this is a game not a simulation. If you wanna 'simulate' nuclear fusion or fission engineering then this probably isn't really the place.

I'm all for realism to a degree, but the fact is while your statements have merit the game cannot get that complicated without detracting from the fact that it is a game. It's an amazing game, but sometimes you have to take a step back from reality to strike a balance between realism and fun/entertainment. This game is one where it cannot please everyone. Because many will want it to be nothing short of a full featured simulation of realistic mechanics and engineering. But for many that is not fun at all. If it were, they'd go into mechanical engineering and they can play with it for real.

Forgive me if I sound harsh as I'm not trying to be. I'm not even putting down what you've said, it just isn't really practical to get that complex in this game or really any other. People play games for fun, not to work. Ultimately this whole thing should be fun. For everyone who it interests. Not just the hardcore realism buffs.

If you are using heavy water you can use raw uranium in a nuclear reaction for heat, Canada has a few nuclear plants powered by raw unprocessed uranium and it works just fine. Most of todays modern power plants can run on 3-5% enriched uranium using purified tap water with the rest being non-235, some can go lower. For nuclear bombs you need 75% as a minimum to cause it to explode but most nuclear bombs in active use have 90%+ enrichment. If you want a hydrogen bomb you put hydrogen in the middle of a Uranium/plutonium bomb and the force from the nuclear bomb going off causes the hydrogen to Fuse and create a secondary explosion.

We don't need many centrifuges for power but if we want THE BOMB we will need entire arrays. You can also reprocess used uranium and get 95% of it back with only 5% waste (Mostly lesser elements that resulted from the fission).

Accumulators sound wonderful, just wonderful.

Nuclear energy is great thing.
As we need electric fences, high-energy weapons and powering high-tech industry. Yea, and Nuclear weapons to clear overgrown alien bases.
High energy-consuming plasma weaponry will be good too. And yea. uranium slugs and radioactive waste is cool!

Wind energy would be good as a sourse of pollutionless night-time energy.

(but that`s for hippies, true technofascists prefer nuclear power Muhaha )


Ah, yea. we need capacitors for beam lasers, or burst fire ones. (and beam\burst laser weapons too)

About nuclear reactors: it would be both realistic and more in-tune with the rest of the game if those weren't just "put uranium acquire energy" devices.
IRL nuclear reactors use fission to heat up water which then moves turbines. Reactor as an advanced boiler would be an interesting feature and fit in the game very well. Could also create "demand" for more advanced pumps, engines, pipes and the like.

Whatever is planned for nuclear reactors, please don't add spontaneous meltdown, nuclear bomb explosion during meltdown or significant passive radiation around a properly functioning reactor. Many games add those features, despite their anti-fun properties (random cataclysms = "I can't balance this thing"), lack of addition to game depth and lack of realism, just because uranium reactors are scary and evil.
Worst offender I can think of right now is Simcity, which (at least in Simcity 4) has all 3 in some form or another, not one of which adds anything good to the game.

Well, realistically, the chance for the meltdown is very low,, but if, the game would be over, because you need to rebuild anything about 10-20000 tiles away.

Hm... Thinking about it: this is possible. Not yet, because it lasts too long, but it's a real way to deconstruct anything and rebuilt it anywhere else.

Coolthulhu wrote:Whatever is planned for nuclear reactors, please don't add spontaneous meltdown, nuclear bomb explosion during meltdown or significant passive radiation around a properly functioning reactor.

Spontaneous meltdown not possible IRL. If all goes well, it won`t blow up.

Explosion, when reactor is damaged and radiation is perfectly ok. More reasons to defend it heavily.

Passive radiation around workin reactor is ok too. just equip rad suit;)

I would love to have nuclear energy in the game. As said above, I only want it to heat water. I don't want it to magicaly create energy. What would be really neat is the addition of mk-II steam engines. My thought is the nuclearplant and the mk-II steam engines would be pressurised, as to let the water reach temperatures above 100 degrees celcius. The image I got in my head is one of those huge cooling towers that nuclear plants have in real life as the mk-II steam engine.