Friday Facts #150 - New Terrain Experiments

[hitzu]

New_Dune_biome

That one's nice, especially considering we already have hostile giant worms : D

I bet when we get this red biome someone will make a mod adding this new blue resource

[Avezo]

After playing almost 500 hours, I must say that terrain changes seem to be the only thing still making me interested in this game (aside from heavily modded scenarios). Infinite map was one of the first things that made me so impressed, manufacturing part is something I've enountered more or less already in so many different games. Just that they always had limits (but not here). I wish to see next big update being focused more on 'exploration' part, rather than 'manufacturing'. I never really played any kind of survival games, but I've always loved exploration whatever I played, wish there was more to explore here - for example mentioned some time ago underground areas. Or hills/mountains. Or whatever.

[Mooncat]

hm... new biomes... I am thinking about adding something unique to each biome. Like unique enemies, unique terrain, e.g. quicksand in desert which will make your movement speed to be hell slow.
Please make sure there will be modding API for accessing the biome on each chunk.

[hitzu]

hm... new biomes... I am thinking about adding something unique to each biome. Like unique enemies, unique terrain, e.g. quicksand in desert which will make your movement speed to be hell slow.
Please make sure there will be modding API for accessing the biome on each chunk.

Why the hell everyone wants to add only bad features and penalties? Why haven't anyone proposed any advantages for each biome?

[Mooncat]

hm... new biomes... I am thinking about adding something unique to each biome. Like unique enemies, unique terrain, e.g. quicksand in desert which will make your movement speed to be hell slow.
Please make sure there will be modding API for accessing the biome on each chunk.

Why the hell everyone wants to add only bad features and penalties? Why haven't anyone proposed any advantages for each biome?

Unique enemies = unique resources
TBH, without cropping system, I can hardly think of any advantages for different biomes. With cropping system, the different temperatures/humidities of biomes will be helpful on different crops. But right now, we are working with lifeless machines... Maybe geothermal energy can differ?

Edit: don't forget that you already have an advantage for being on desert: no annoying tree walls.

Edit2: maybe add different kinds of stone and wood like Minecraft? They can be used for making pathways of different colors or... wood... what is wood used for?...... oh, yes, we don't need wood.

[hitzu]

Edit: don't forget that you already have an advantage for being on desert: no annoying tree walls.

If you play with a lot of biters this is a BIG disadvantage!

[henke37]

I feel that the patches should be upgraded to actual alternative tiles. Have some tiles that are dark red.

[Mythoss]

I'd really like the different biomes to effect gameplay a bit and encourage players to explore and get out of the base. This could be unqiue resources for each biome or something else entirely. Maybe snow could slow your vehicles but also the aliens and be more oil rich. Deserts could have a higher chance of spawning larger copper fields, and have higher wind speeds if we evef get windmills, ect.

Lastly, please tell your art team to not be afraid to "go alien" with some of the assets. Look at Total Anhilation for some inspiration. It had crystalline world's and acid oceans with gas pods. Grey Goo also has a lot of cool alien biome, flora and fona. We don't need every biome to look like Earth's.

[steinio]

Lastly, please tell your art team to not be afraid to "go alien" with some of the assets. Look at Total Anhilation for some inspiration. It had crystalline world's and acid oceans with gas pods. Grey Goo also has a lot of cool alien biome, flora and fona. We don't need every biome to look like Earth's.

YES.

[Mengmoshu]

It's kinda subtle, but the different terrain tiles already affect movement speed for vehicles and the player.

Personally I'm a bit leery of resources that can only be found in specific biomes. Unless the resources are late-game, or somehow optional they have a good chance of making a game unfinishable. I'd lean towards those sort of resources being either part of alternative (and more efficient) processes/recipes, or some sort of loot.

By loot I mean items/buildings you can't craft, things like special modules, better guns, slightly improved assemblers/refineries/chemical plants, portable sensor units, better radars, etc. The loot could be explained as alien ruins or wrecked spaceships from other attempts to colonize by other species. The non-craftable buildings might even be stuck where they are, so players would need to set up outposts around them to properly use them.

Another benefit a more detailed biome system could provide is steam power efficiency, right now the water temperature rules are a bit odd. If there was an ambient temperature separate from starting water temperature (and the base water temp mechanics were changed a bit) then a fairly realistic but still simple model of heat engine efficiency in cooler/warmer climates could exist. The effect would pretty much be that steam engines would have more available performance in cooler biomes and less in warmer ones. Though that might be at odds with Wube's design decision that power shouldn't be too hard/complicated.

[Drury]

Lastly, please tell your art team to not be afraid to "go alien" with some of the assets. Look at Total Anhilation for some inspiration. It had crystalline world's and acid oceans with gas pods. Grey Goo also has a lot of cool alien biome, flora and fona. We don't need every biome to look like Earth's.

But have you ever entertained the notion that it might actually be Earth?

dumdumdum

[malecord]

Lastly, please tell your art team to not be afraid to "go alien" with some of the assets. Look at Total Anhilation for some inspiration. It had crystalline world's and acid oceans with gas pods. Grey Goo also has a lot of cool alien biome, flora and fona. We don't need every biome to look like Earth's.

But have you ever entertained the notion that it might actually be Earth?

dumdumdum

Cool.

Then we are the aliens.

And the bugs are none other than the Greenpeace people of the future who have evolved into the final form of pollution fighting beasts.

[Drury]

Lastly, please tell your art team to not be afraid to "go alien" with some of the assets. Look at Total Anhilation for some inspiration. It had crystalline world's and acid oceans with gas pods. Grey Goo also has a lot of cool alien biome, flora and fona. We don't need every biome to look like Earth's.

But have you ever entertained the notion that it might actually be Earth?

dumdumdum

Cool.

Then we are the aliens.

And the bugs are none other than the Greenpeace people of the future who have evolved into the final form of pollution fighting beasts.

Well we are actually the aliens regardless of what the planet actually is, aren't we? I mean we sure as hell ain't the natives.

Unless there's a Planet of the Apes thing going on, which is also cool.

[vanatteveldt]

Maybe it's really a post-apocalyptic setting, we are a surviving commando, and the biters are the surviving cockroaches...

[Supercheese]

Maybe it's really a post-apocalyptic setting, we are a surviving commando, and the biters are the surviving cockroaches...

Whoah there, don't go all Stellaris on us, now!

[TroZ]

I'm late to this thread, but I like the idea of multi biomes / cold/snowy biomes, and have different advantages to different biomes.

The desert already has less trees / more space to build your factory. A cold / snowy biome could make all your assemblers work 5-10% faster (less cooling needed), but maybe cause boilers / furnaces to take the same percentage more energy to heat the water / smelt (and the water could start off frozen, and can be walked on, but you would need to build something (use a flamethrower / build a boiler / furnace) to melt a hole to place a offshore pump).
Swamps could also be interesting, with a bunch of small islands to build your factory across, with shallow crossable water that slows you down (and biters) between them. Maybe they could contain peat which could be harvested for fuel (more energy than wood but less than coal), and perhaps would slowly grow back.

Making new biomes that look different does make the game look nicer. But giving them all unique features makes the game more interesting as you have to deal with the features of the biome that you start in, or decide at some point to more your factory to another biome with different features.

[MrGrim]

that would mean talking about barriers, thread conditions, vsyncs, and many boring small problems

Awe... that stuff is probably the _most_ interesting things to discuss!

it leaves possibility to free the FPS and UPS, so we can have for example 144 FPS/60 UPS.

I love you guys!! One of my biggest desires is to take advantage of motion blur reduction tech on many of these monitors with Factorio (especially with panning/moving), and you listened! Thank you!

[y.petremann]

Late but still interesting, some biomes could modify the chance of having bitters, if they don't like too cold or too hot biomes, they could not naturely spawn in them.

If we get wind turbines, they could be more efficient in cold terrain.

Sulfuric terrain could be desertic with less resources and could allow us to gather sulfur directly instead of doing all the petroleum process.