Friday Facts #129 - The late game

[Align]

I'm all for vanillafied RSO, but I don't see how the dirty ore mechanic would really help with the issue of moving drills being too fiddly; I'd sooner expect to see something like Mining bots.

I mean dirty ore sounds like it might be an interesting and fun logistics challenge, but it's not in itself solving the problem, as we've still got all these drills to move around, even if they now get an innate productivity bonus.

[pib]

I love the dirty ore concept!

I want to throw in my vote to make the ore patches work more like oil patches. I created a thread about it two days ago in the suggestions forum, so I think it is pretty cool to see this FFF and that people in this thread are pushing for that. I feel that if I know the output will run out at all, the problem is not really "solved".

[Zeblote]

Maybe have dirty ore miners be infinite and need extra processing plants?

That way it'll take effort to get it started, but after you can finally forget about mining and focus on something else until you really need more material per minute.

[Lallante]

Cargo Trains

DONT EXPAND THE CARGO TRAIN SIZE.

The cargo train is currently incredibly overpowered for its cost, research-tree level and balancing purposes against other solutions. It has "smart" functionality (lockable slots, filters) despite no electronic components. It is so useful the best players even use it, stationary, in their factory designs. Dont make it bigger, instead make it easier to load/unload trains (the new belt loader helps with this) so we can use longer trains more effectively.

The reason trains "arent viable" is threefold, the main being because of the way map generation works in Vanilla. If resource patches were scarcer, more rich and more spread out in clusters (looking at your, Resource Spawner Overhaul mod), then train travel becomes essential to get between outposts. The secondary reason is lack of train features - specifically fluid transport (which I understand will be addressed with a new car), electric trains and remote scheduling (mods can do this). Its also really fiddly setting up signals and stations to work properly unless you play RRT.

Dirty Ore

This also touches on my response to the "dirty ore" idea - its a bit of a hack. A better solution is the overhaul of map creation you proposed - see again RSO which massively improves the usefulness of far-flung resource outposts. The map gen should put less-frequent clusters of larger amounts of richer ores, not the current "random, numerous spread". Also give us a vanilla version of the Bob's mod "wide area drills" which dont need to be moved as often because they can mine a larger patch.

Endgame content

For endgame content in keeping with the rest of the game, why not move away from research and instead have: even higher tiers of biter further from the base that only attack the base once attacked by you. Make them too tough for a player even in a tank and power armor (give them slowing ranged attacks, splash and other cool effects). Instead allow us to repurpose the use of research flasks to automate building of wheeled/tracked combat-robots in a new factory which creates different kinds of robot with a defined "mission waypoint" and on completion of each robot the robot immediately "attack moves" (think RTS order) to that waypoint then back (at which point they attack move to whatever the waypoint of the factory is now set to), a robots waypoint cant be changed directly (i.e. the robot is only indirectly controllable). You would need to build and automate enough factories for these waves of robots to overcome the mass of biters, without having direct control over the robots themselves. Killing these higher tier biters could give a new resource used for even higher tiers of buildings.

[Vin]

All of the ideas in this FF are great, and would make me highly interested in picking up Factorio again. It's been a while, and knowing endgame has been improved would be amazing, especially with respect to changes to resource gathering/generation.

The concern I have with using research for an endgame resource sink is creating a satisfying scenario for players. The two outcomes I see for infinite research are

A) You have a scenario where infinite research makes part of the game irrelevant. In the case of infinite turret research, the player will eventually reach a point where the entire combat part of the game is easy and meaningless, removing that type of play as an option in megabases.

B) You have a scenario where infinite research has very little/no effect. In this case the player might as well just stockpile resources (or destroy them periodically) because the feeling of outcome will be the same.

Ideally, the endgame would have something (like space platforms) that consumes but not creates massive amounts of resources, something the player can build and feel proud of. Right now number of rockets launched serves this purpose as a sort of score card (as infinite research without benefit would), but there's nothing tangible the player can build and admire within the world.

[Arch666Angel]

That there is a need/desire for changes or variation to the generation, mining and processing of the ores is not the question I think, cause there are enough mods out there which implement such things. Also I wouldn't be working on such a mod if it would suffice what I have in mind, but they should come up with another mechanic than what there is already available from mods, something that cant be done so easily by modding. Like have another surface layer with deeper ores, that are under the regular patches and you have to discover with some tech or detector.

[Ohz]

Approx 1000h gameplay here, this is my thoughts:

Ressources: I vote for 2 types of miners, 1 is the vanilla, the second is the endless-ressource mod with your dirty ore idea that need an outpost factory at each of your mines. This 2nd type could be in tiers 3. But back 1/s, not 0.1/s like oil and endless-ressource, or with "range module" or "0.1/s module" that you could updgrade to let's say "0.5/s module" and more

Generation: Personnally I never uninstall RSO since 2 years, it's like I cannot play the game without anymore. If it switches to vanilla, I'm up to. With a GUI to tweak it.

I recommend a Marathon point of view that pushes the tiers 1, 2 and 3 a bit later, and make a use of all the steam stuff, and make the gun turrets impossible to be skipped. I loved the mini steam-assembler mod, very roleplay. Again, I almost play all my games in Marathon, just because like you I love mega factories.


You are making the best game I ever played in my life. Thanks to the whole team.

[tamat]

My suggestions:
- Generate some ore garbage when smelting, this is a subproduct (like with oil) that you must handle (maybe you have to store or you can dump in the ground creating pollution), later in the game you could start smelting that garbage ore (like with plutonium).
- Create a deep mining well, like the oil well, scattered around the map, where you can put the deep mining drill that has bigger numbers.

[Fl4sh]

Hi Factorio Devs,

Since you're considering making a train wagon designed for fluids, it would make as much sense to also allow any fluid to be put inside a baril. There may not be a real "need" for it, but since any liquid can be put in pipes and storage tanks, they should also get the chance to be put in barils.

Finally I think the loading in barils or unloading from barils should be done in a chemical plant rather than assembly machine.

Thank you for this awesome game I've enjoyed playing for years and congratz on your obvious Steam Launch Sucess!

[DasMonzta]

All you think about is tweaking here, and building new machines there and adjust parts of the automation.
For me a Factory is only a helper to achieve something.
All your ideas don't solve the problem that all you do is to build a machine to build a bigger machine.

I really hope to see a lot of new challenges regarding the world. Would like to see more and different enemies. Final Boss. Artifacts or dangerous ruins.

[pib]

A) You have a scenario where infinite research makes part of the game irrelevant. In the case of infinite turret research, the player will eventually reach a point where the entire combat part of the game is easy and meaningless, removing that type of play as an option in megabases..

To show why this isn't true if the cost increases exponentially, let me work out the solution: Eventually you will get to research numbers that are basically impossible to get to - the formula will make it so a certain level would take more atoms than the universe. Suppose we decide this ridiculously impossible target research level will be level 100. There is nothing saying someone can't get to 100 or even 101, but it will not happen because we are mortal.

Now take a laser turret. Say it does 100 base damage and at level 100 it would do 200 base damage. Each level only adds 1. Now, if you hit level 100, the turret is only twice as good as before. But you won't. The exponential equation can be adjusted so the steep part of the slope occurs where you want it. Maybe it is not so hard to get to level 30, maybe 40, maybe even 70. But after that, it would get really difficult to get 1 more level... but hey - it's only a "bit" more than before. And you don't just have laser turrets in front of you, there are maybe 20 different choices of infinite research to pursue. You can make the math work so you will basically always have something available that feel like it is within reach and provides an upgrade, but also make it so no person can get it all.

A good twist would also be to make infinite lines of research take a unique component for the research, so a custom factory module would be needed to switch from one infinite research to the next.

[Klonan]

Hi Factorio Devs,

Since you're considering making a train wagon designed for fluids, it would make as much sense to also allow any fluid to be put inside a baril. There may not be a real "need" for it, but since any liquid can be put in pipes and storage tanks, they should also get the chance to be put in barrels.

Actually i think the opposite is true, with the fluid tanker we could remove the barrels from the game

[Align]

My suggestions:
- Generate some ore garbage when smelting, this is a subproduct (like with oil) that you must handle (maybe you have to store or you can dump in the ground creating pollution), later in the game you could start smelting that garbage ore (like with plutonium).
- Create a deep mining well, like the oil well, scattered around the map, where you can put the deep mining drill that has bigger numbers.

What problem do these suggestions solve?

[ratchetfreak]

As for the mines, as others have mentioned, I too think it should work more like oil patches. Resource density decrease over time, making the miners produce less over time. Never really run out, but rather become so inefficient that you'd rather find a new spot. This could be combined with more rich patches further away from the starting location. If that's not a strong enough incentive to find new patches, it could even be an idea to make the miners require more energy as the resource density drops.

I disagree. IRL oil does refill overtime don't they? [1] So having it drip a little makes since ingame.
But iron being an infinite resource makes zero sense to me. This games isn't about realism obviously, but making them infinite seems really boring to me. I prefer the ideas in the post.

[1] http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-Gener ... elves.html

Oil wells don't "refill" instead the guys just underestimated how much oil was in the well

[Marconos]

Some great ideas here are my variations on them based on my current megabase (produces 1 rocket / minute)

My settings stone default, all others lowest frequency, max size and richness. My current "cleared" map size is about 5k x 5k. Biters set to max for the challenge.

The resource patches that spawn are massive and rich in size. To reduce the total number of trains I'm running 2 engine, 6 car trains (none of that double headed crap, hate it). To be able to fill one of these trains I need a patch with about 300 miners to fill one train / minute. To get to those levels you need a quite large patch. Even with this size I'm having to redo the mining patches quite frequently. To get the amount of iron / copper I need / minute to come in I'm having to run 4 - 8 patches at a time. Essentially even with resources cranked all the way up I'm STILL having to replace patches all the time.

The problem that this causes for UPS.
1. I have a few thousand miners out there all running (UPS cycles), large patch coverage can help with this.
2. Balancing stations leading to the train cars for loading can be pretty complex. Lots of belts / splitters etc. Loader should help with this with hopefully less balancing needed.,
3. Resource patches, even at max richness, run out fairly quickly (10 - 20 hours of game play). With the number of resource fields I need this results in continuous updates of them (at low framerates).
4. Even with resource fields set to low frequency there are a ton of them. This is nice because they burn out fast but doesn't push you to do massive rail lines (I know I am talking about a 5k x 5k cleared chunk, that I consider "small".
5. With the size of my base, when I have it in full operation I am running low 20's in FPS/UPS. Even with the base basically turned off I still drop to sub 20's in FPS/UPS when engaging biters. In my model the other problems are not nearing as limiting as the FPS/UPS issue.

So essentially, for a true megabase that runs 30 - 40k iron and 25 - 30 k copper / minute the richness of the resource fields would have to go up dramatically to keep them lasting longer. It's really a balance of how much material you can process to the resource fields. My dream is processing 100k iron / minute base that has rockets firing constantly. With the current model of the game it's not possible (FPS/UPS wise and resource mining wise).

So ... I love the direction that you are going but when you talk about megabases and their issues it really is more than just mining patches as the FPS/UPS is more of a limiting factor in the game.

[MeduSalem]

Hi Factorio Devs,

Since you're considering making a train wagon designed for fluids, it would make as much sense to also allow any fluid to be put inside a baril. There may not be a real "need" for it, but since any liquid can be put in pipes and storage tanks, they should also get the chance to be put in barrels.

Actually i think the opposite is true, with the fluid tanker we could remove the barrels from the game

I would hate to see 7 or even more types of filled barrels. Urgh. So YAY, remove the barrels! I am all for a more general solution using tankers. But that said... the train length problem should be resolved when considering new sprites for the wagons. It's just frustrating that they don't align with the grid.

The Barreling/Unbarreling mechanic can be used for something else in the future, like renewing deteriorated batteries or even using hydrogen-oxygen Fuel Cells and whatnot.

[Zeblote]

Hi Factorio Devs,

Since you're considering making a train wagon designed for fluids, it would make as much sense to also allow any fluid to be put inside a baril. There may not be a real "need" for it, but since any liquid can be put in pipes and storage tanks, they should also get the chance to be put in barrels.

Actually i think the opposite is true, with the fluid tanker we could remove the barrels from the game

Yes

As long as connecting a fluid pipe to a tanker looks nice graphically, unlike that one mod... eh

[Cerus]

- Create a deep mining well, like the oil well, scattered around the map, where you can put the deep mining drill that has bigger numbers.

I think that's my favorite. So you'd basically have your regular patches that produce regular ore, then you'd have the deep sites produce dirty ore indefinitely with a special mining structure, trickling down like an oil well does over time. You could even make it more interesting by having it "consume" some kind of component to continue drilling deeper, which makes supply trains even more useful.

[Splitframe]

I'd love to see a little recap from the devs about the loader discussion.

From the top of my head I remember suggestions for loaders to consume electricity, to split them into two separate chests,
increase their size or handicap them in some other way.

Just some of the more popular ideas listed with some of what the devs think about
these suggested solutions.

[tecxx]

very nice FFF. good that you notice the endgame issues and turn your attention to them

my comment on the long term mining drills: don't! it just adds more micro-managing to something you have already done a thousand times.
instead of those i would opt for a "large ass mining drill". a single unit that you place over an entire resource patch^ so you would still construct rails and a rail station to a remote mining site, but only one single mining entity, and you're done^ no belts, no multiple drills, no electricity poles, etc^

this way the player can focus on large scale expansion and less on micromanaging the drill sites^

and with that done, factorio could develop more into that direction:

Late game:

Thematically, once your base is at a certain point, where you can control the aliens and launch a rocket, is that not a good time for your fellow humans to begin to land and colonise the planet?

Your role then would be to build the cities they require, supply the goods they need, and keep the aliens at bay.

Plenty of late game material there!

Keep up the great work.

total +1 to that comment.