Friday Facts #125 - Achievements

[Theace98]

The tech tree for factorio was going to be a mess, for example some technologies are dependencies for at least 5 other technologies (oil processing) and all those technologies are dependant on others as well so lines are going to be snaking all over the place. I'd recommend moving the upgrade tech options (gun damage, fire rate, research rate, logistic slots) out to one side instead of inside the tree (probably already done though) and have a clear break between pre oil tech and post oil tech. And maybe break the tree into branches such as military, manufacturing, logistics and energy. That way a player could make the tree so that the line of tech they were most interested in stood out the most. You could also do a similar thing when a player selects a technology, make its dependencies and the technologies dependant on that technology stand out so a player knows what they need to research and what they can then research?

[Kitefr]

This fire reminds me of Total Annihilation

[cbrx]

The problem with organizing the tech tree mainly is it being still mod-compatible. I mean, Factorio's tech tree is messy enough as it is, but when you add mods, the dependencies would be a wild mess.
I think to solve this problem, we would have to look at what we use a tech tree for. I for one, want a tech tree to see what I have to do in order to get a certain technology and what I can make out of it. This works perfectly fine, if I get that information for just the technology I actually want. So my suggestion would be to split the tech tree view into a filterable list on the left side and a detailed tree of the selected tech on the right side.

See the horribly pasted-together mockup below.
(The techs don't match, but you get the point... )

[HolyDogelord]

Fire! Ooh...
I have a suggestion!
Wind system!
Fire would spread more in the direction the wind is blowing, and alot less in other directions.
Also, maybe add windmillds. The windmills generate energy when wind is blowing in the opposite of the directon that the windmill is facing, and more wind power, more energy!
Also, the wind could be based on the weather.
Sunny: There can be wind, but its more rarely powerful.
Cloudy: Wind is more frequent, and its more powerful frequently.
Rainy: Wind is alot more frequent and powerful, BUT it shuts down fires.
Windy:Like sunny, but with rain power and frequency from rainy. Good for power, but BAD if you have a fire. This weather happens more frequently if you have pollution. Early-game (no pollution or almost no pollution, it happens almost never. But as you progress, it happens more and more...)

[ssilk]

@ HolyDogelord : Factorio already has a wind system. There is also a mod, that introduce windmills.



I think one key of a solution for the display of the tech-tree is, that a player nearly never needs to see the whole tree.

That is also what cbrx tries to explain.

I mean, he is there at a current level of technology, and just wants to look maybe one step "down" (from where did I come?) to one or maybe two steps up (what can I do next).

The rest of the tree can be in the fog or darkness. Only when the player clicks on the end of a branch, that part expands, but not all at once, step by step the rest of that branch is revealed and with it other branches, that come from other techs and so on until the whole tree is revealed and becomes really ugly. Players can learn to handle that kind of slow growing complexity.

[Brambor]

Technology tree
(...)So we decided to just make a small sub-tree of technologies related to the one currently selected. The results look promising, and we will present what it looks like in a future Friday facts.

Wow, I made a program in Python to generate crafting tree and My thoughts were exactly the same. I made it, it looks horrible so I wanted to do only a selected item (what it is made of and what it is used in)

[Guest_4544]

Fight - The only ones we have so far is using tank to destroy trees and biter nests. Some other fight achievements could be added, but it shouldn't be too much, so the game doesn't feel like a fighting game, which it isn't.

A fighting game is a complete different league, Factorio genre can be described as a isometric real time strategy game in form of third-person view.

[gacek]

***WARNING: ACHIVEMENT WHORE MODE ENGAGED!***

[Cazadore]

in the regards of a tech tree :

this is how "sword of the stars" from Kerberos Productions managed their tech tree.

it works, looks nice and you see everything you need to see at a glance, especially because it never shows ALL techs because of the sado-randomizer where you might not get the next missile tech or the tech for advanced colonizers and such

SOTS Techtree ! LARGE UGLY PICTURE !
the small numbers in the picture show the "possibility" chance to get the research, completly unrelated small funfact

they did one thing to make it work, they broke the techs up into "categories" and if a dependency is in another tech category you see a line going to the other tech.
this way you were able to get the possibility to research another tech, in another category, by pure luck of the dice roll of the randomizer

of course this might only work if the research screen becomes a full screen. in sots its a complety different screen, which scrolls and zooms to all directions via mouse movement

PS: if we get a flamer turret, i hope it looks like the sovjet flamer turret of RED ALERT 2 ...
PPS : will we get other turrets as well ? i hope to see a tesla coil ... or a rocket turret ...

[Drury]

Would it be possible to have one basic type of fuel that is transported via pipes and is used both for flamethrower turrets and generally everywhere that solid fuel is applicable (trains, boilers etc.)?

Where for personal flamethrower, you have to put it in a canister, similar to oil barrels.

[radu]

Just out of curiosity,
will the speedrun achievement be @standard settings or max resources/peacefull is also ok?
6 hours sounds like generous for peaceful, but on normal I think quite difficult.
(tried it once in .11 and only got it in slightly under 9 hours)

Also will there be a permadeath iron-man mode/achievement (save&exit, flag save on reload)?

Feature request for speedrun: built-in timer since mods are not allowed.

[Alastor]

I'm happy you reviewed your opinion about the connector. It bould definitely have been a pain and a hinder to creativity of the players in my opinion.

As for the fire, I think setting things on fire should create a massive amount of pollution. Biters are fine with anihilating a tree once in a while when it's in their way, but they shouldn't be fine with you burning the entire forest !

[kaleb_boren]

But, how can I get that achievement if we don't have dolphins in the game?

its when you launch the rocket i assume by the picture

[kaleb_boren]

What about making flamed biters randomly run around and set trees on fire? ^^

That is part of the plan

would the burning of trees cause polution?

[Koub]

SOTS Techtree ! LARGE UGLY PICTURE !

This looks like the subway map of some kind of insane town

[tetryon]

What about making flamed biters randomly run around and set trees on fire? ^^

That is part of the plan

Love that idea... but definitely feel like we have to have a way to grow them back.

[Drury]

I like that environment damage is permanent. Really puts some weight on the actions that you take.

[Alastor]

I like that environment damage is permanent. Really puts some weight on the actions that you take.

I agree that your actions should have some weight, but I also think that it should be not be permanent.
Trees should regrow very slowly over time.
Same thing with pollution. If at first you use a pollution heavy setup and later in the game you decide that you want to switch to all solar and efficiency modules, then the conditions of the environment should slowly improve.

I guess trees shouldn't grow back on deserted areas, so it would be different depending on the biome, but it shoul definitely come back overall.
Especially if they make it easier to have things destroy entire forests.

[_aD]

This fire reminds me of Total Annihilation :D

D-Gun time!

[vaderciya]

I think there should be variants of certain achievements, for example, speed running.

Something like :
if you start with resource preset A, you get X amount of time to launch the rocket to get the chiev.
If you start with resource preset B, you get Y amount of time to launch the rocket to get the chiev.
If you have customized settings, you get Z amount of time to launch the rocket to get the chiev.

This makes it so people can still enjoy playing factorio the way they want to play it, while also having a bit more challenge.
I'm also in favor of a "no crafting" chiev, where you start with a basic assembler, 2 boilers, 2 inserters, 1 steam engine, 1 burner drill, 1 stone furnace, and an iron pickax(and you can't craft anything in your pocket). Having two variants.
1: Unlimited time to launch the rocket(possible another objective).
2: You have a time limit and must launch the rocket into space before it expires.
As always, I think the devs should listen to the community as they always do to see what works best and what the majority of the fanbase would like

Honestly, the technology screen(as of right now) though it looks like a lot, really isn't very large, or very confusing. Each tech already shows you what you need to research it, what it leads to, and what it lets you make. I haven't actually seen a case of anyone saying that the tech screen was actually confusing, but I understand the want and need to make it look sexy and appealing.

I really hated the idea that every object connected to the network would need an additional entity next to it. It's so unjustly unnecessary and bulky, it isn't so much something to work around and plan for, as much as a large annoyance and waste of resources, especially time. I'll miss having smart inserters that are green, but oh well.

Also, could we please please please please please get fast long handed inserters? It makes a lot of sense to have them in the game, it would make a lot of difference and everyone would appreciate it. <3

I love the fire animation and the fire spread that's finally going to be added, it's been needed for a while.
Also, SUPER excited for new turrets and changes to combat!
It kind of feels like combat has been shoehorned into the game because it needed some kind of threat or enemy, along with the need of the purple sciences from alien artifacts.
Buts it's definitely lacking right now.

I made a very good, thoughtful, and detailed comment on both possible and probable changes that could be made to biters, spitters, bases, and just the enemies in general.
I think particularly, the combat needs to be changed and polished the most.

As always, Factorio is my absolute favorite game, and I will love it until the end of time. Thank you for making such a wonderful masterpiece <3