Friday facts #157 - We are able to eat paper, but we don't do it

[Mooncat]

hm... I see that pump is for inserting fluid. How about the pump for pumping out fluid?

[Rseding91]

decorations:
as long as they have no actual impact on the gameplay (or do they?), why store them at all?
they can be regenerated every time a player can see the chunk, or when (or preferably after) the game loads a map.
i can see only a limited number of special cases, eg, when the player changes land to water (or vice versa), right?
and they can be completely ignored on server, too.

For the same reason we don't regenerate chunks: it takes a lot of CPU time to generate terrain/chunks/entities. Regenerating them just isn't feasible.

[zebez]

Love that you guys still think about optimizations! This game already feels like one of the most optimized games I've played. And yes if you can optimize something that helps with singleplayer megabases it would be so welcome!

[Suitcase08]

Love the animation coming along on the pump to rail tanker, looks fantastic!

I may be alone in this, but is it necessary to remove the small pump to be replaced by this 2x1 upgrade? It certainly is a visual improvement, and perhaps you all have a different way of balancing the trade-off for taking the extra tile (30 units/s going up to 60 units/ perhaps) but the logistical fluid puzzle aspect in the game may benefit from having both available in the game. I'm really impressed with the change from 0.12 to now concerning the multiplayer aspect after all the futzing me and my friends did to play the game through hamachi. Such a stark improvement, good show, devs!

[SirLANsalot]

I think you should optimize, but in the right areas. If more than say 50 people were playing a game it would go by really fast. The factory would get so massive it would lag and it wouldn't be a fun experience IMO. So i think that 300+ people in Factorio is just stupid and maybe a fun experiment. Focus on other areas of the game. I think you did a good job at MP optimization and are making a great game overall. Keep up the good work.

Blazku

Your just thinking of 300 people on one team working together. Not 300 people working as like 150 different teams in different areas of the map, all doing there own bases and tech. As each team has there own tree to tech up, it could make for some very interesting gameplay when two teams run into one another or see one another bases.

That is why massive MP could be something very fun to see happen, coming into a game where 2 or 3 different teams have already "completed" the game and have launched there rocket like 3 or 4 times already, especially with the Beyond mod allowing for a new ore to be mined via the rocket (thus encouraging a mega base to build multiple parts for multiple rockets ect). Could be interesting to see some mega MP servers pop up.

[SHiRKiT]

It's 2 years later, but EVERY friday, even if it's been weeks without playing Factorio, I come back at the blog to read the FFF

[chris13524]

It's 2 years later, but EVERY friday, even if it's been weeks without playing Factorio, I come back at the blog to read the FFF

The FFF are literally the highlight of my week!

[The Phoenixian]

Agreed: The FFF are a wonderful insight into games development and make a pretty excellent balance of of explaining things for the layman while still giving a great understanding of what the devs are going through.

[aubergine18]

Another thought in relation to planned map decoration changes... Will it be possible for mods to add decorations in any way (maybe via new API method), or will they have to resort to defining entities?

And like others have mentioned above, I also want to say FFF are a joy to read.

[Xterminator]

For Multiplayer:
I think your decision to stop at a point were 200 people is stable is a good choice. As was mentioned, you could pretty much always try to beat your previous goals and it could on forever, when really 200 is still a ton of people for a game like Factorio.
Even now it's impressive how well things went in that 350+ player game!

Oh man that pump animation is so awesome!! Totally worth the extra work to make it fill the liquid tankers like that.

For the decorations, I think it's a fair plan. I would rather have better performance and be short a few shrubberies than the other way around. Lol Also look forward dto further belt optimizations and multitheading.

[Jeffman12]

Oh, hey, while we're on the subject of decoratives...
Have you considered adding cliff faces and ledges ala C&C 95/ RA1?

They did a great job of making the terrain feel 3D while not shifting the fundamentally flat nature of the terrain.

[aubergine18]

Oh, hey, while we're on the subject of decoratives...
Have you considered adding cliff faces and ledges ala C&C 95/ RA1?

They did a great job of making the terrain feel 3D while not shifting the fundamentally flat nature of the terrain.

Cliffs would be AWESOME if they could implement it:

* viewtopic.php?p=200930#p200930
* viewtopic.php?p=202481#p202481

The chunk generator already provides an "elevation" per tile, so with some tweaking the algorithm could potentially generate elevation ridges and put the cliffs along those. Would be super-special if we could use them as tunnel entrances to underground surfaces (although I imagine thats something that will have to wait until after 1.0 release).

[bNarFProfCrazy]

More multi player performance -> More single player performance -> Bigger Factorios -> Same performance needs.

CPU Upgrade: +50% Performance
Game-Optimizations: +50% Performance

=> +125% Total Performance Gain
=> Factory can be more than twice as big.

I know in reality it isn't that much, but *must have*

For the decorations:
Is concrete a decoration/entity as well?
If not then I will just pave the entire map.
Infinite*Infinite blocks to pave => Infinite² time needed to achieve the goal => Never ever have nothing to do.

[SirLANsalot]

More multi player performance -> More single player performance -> Bigger Factorios -> Same performance needs.

CPU Upgrade: +50% Performance
Game-Optimizations: +50% Performance

=> +125% Total Performance Gain
=> Factory can be more than twice as big.

I know in reality it isn't that much, but *must have*

For the decorations:
Is concrete a decoration/entity as well?
If not then I will just pave the entire map.
Infinite*Infinite blocks to pave => Infinite² time needed to achieve the goal => Never ever have nothing to do.

Paving tiles removes the pollution resistance from the tile, yes even blank grass has a pollution absorption rate (sand doesn't). So if you have pollution absorbing mods, or a forest in the middle of your base, the biters are going to love you, and by that I mean OM NOM NOM NOM your base. (On a side note, we need the air filter mod or something of that extent in vanilla).

Also pavement is a tile/block, not an entity (stated like a few pages ago).

[aubergine18]

Is concrete a decoration/entity as well?

viewtopic.php?p=209358#p209358

[Firestronk]

That pump animation was so well done imo

[Zeblote]

When the pump is connected to a train, shouldn't this part be removed?

[ili]

Your just thinking of 300 people on one team working together. Not 300 people working as like 150 different teams in different areas of the map, all doing there own bases and tech. As each team has there own tree to tech up, it could make for some very interesting gameplay when two teams run into one another or see one another bases.

That is why massive MP could be something very fun to see happen, coming into a game where 2 or 3 different teams have already "completed" the game and have launched there rocket like 3 or 4 times already, especially with the Beyond mod allowing for a new ore to be mined via the rocket (thus encouraging a mega base to build multiple parts for multiple rockets ect). Could be interesting to see some mega MP servers pop up.

That will be so much fun
Think of all the game modes possibilities they will be able to add in the future!

Go for 300

[Mooncat]

When the pump is connected to a train, shouldn't this part be removed?

I think that part is for pumping out fluid?

[Zeblote]

When the pump is connected to a train, shouldn't this part be removed?

I think that part is for pumping out fluid?

No, I'm pretty sure it's for connecting another pipe on the other side of the pump.