Friday Facts #159 - Research revolution

[AntiElitz]

Nice!
The science rework is something I am really looking forward to! I feelt like the gab between level 2 and level 3 science is too big since I was a beginner. However I think the reason for this is different. The complexity of blue science is only a little bit too high. Mainly the filter inserters are a pain for the science pack 3, because they take a HUGE amount of ressources already and require the player to expand on ressource production heavily in addition to the complexity of the oil production.

So let us think about what the basic idea of the science pack 3 is. This is easy: Force the player to get into oil. And this is already hard enougth! No need to force him to increase heavily on ore production as well. That would be 2 steps at once. So to me it seems to be a smart idea to focus on oil only for this pack and keep the production cost a little lower instead.
http://imgur.com/PIHMXDU

The last one shows a possible reciept that focusses on oil completely, and reduced complexity slightly.
In general i think the science should less focus on very high ore cost's, but increased complexity.

http://imgur.com/SfKKs6F

Pumpjack is too easy to accomplish but very ressource intensive, also it's vintage tech at this point. How about the stack inserter instead? It adds a nice production chain and therefor complexity without ending up with astronimic ore cost's

http://imgur.com/CEVJYxk

Copper wires and batteries dont really fit into "hightech". Maybe an Accumulator instead? 3 Processing Units are really taking a long time. Personally i think 1 should be fine already, but 2 seem reasonable as well.

However in general i really like the idea overall! Good job there!
Still, I Hope I could explain my points reasonable and hope my feedback get heared in some way !

[Andrzejef]

EDIT: Hmm, let's focus on one point (or rather picture) at a time, shall we?
1 - I don't think en-masse production relies on such "heavy" use of oil - first few pumps you place give - or were giving - a lot of oil, and you barely knew what to do with it. Sure, they degrade to certain minimum over time, but - unmodest "me" example - by that time I had 7 new fields operating. Get enough of that minimum yield fields, and you can forget you ever had problems with oil. Can't say about engines, but I need 20 of them for each loco I put on tracks, so this thing I have covered, and pretty much each railwayman here has. Tho I agree with assembly plant - tho it's kinda iconic, have assembly plant to craft assembly plants - they do seem kinda out place in there.'' I'd most gladly see it replaced with some batteries, yes, and steel (plating)'

2 - I agree completely, so no need to further discuss it for me

3 - Looks good too, with only one exception - I'd rather replace copper wire with logical circuits (don't remember how it's named exactly, the thing you connect combinators with), as it's kinda midgame/late-midgame, and if you aim at high-endgame, you'll use them a lot, so it's as you called it - forcing the use, and earlier production, of a key item.

[Drury]

Now about pvp:
1) I think that actually less than 4 players/teams/etc takes away the possibility for "tactical depth" - no way of temporary alliances, finishing off "common" enemy and stuff of this kind.

People aren't going to respect that, especially when there are more people per team. I've played RTS FFAs, they're a clusterfuck and in the end the winner is generally the one person that everyone forgot about and had the luxury of having nobody attack them. That's barely fair.

[Andrzejef]

Some would say life is not fair too, but I see your point
But there is actually barely a way to prevent such situations, maybe constant on-screen display of team points/statistics, as it's done in Age of Empires series.
EDIT: Depending also on map size, but we all agree here I think, 4 and more players cannot fit on a tiny map.

[Drury]

Some would say life is not fair too, but I see your point

Yep, videogames aren't life.

A pvp with strict win condition in factorio? Really, just use that devtime on new mechanics or something. Games with >3 hours of base building aren't really fit for skirmishes.

This is why they want more players per team.

The sweet spot for competitive games is 30 minutes, but I'm not sure if that's even possible without like 200 players per team. With some adjustments to the game, I can see them getting close with like 5-10 people per team.

[Xterminator]

The news about the new science packs and recipes for older ones is really great! Definitely been needing some changes for quite a while I think. I like what someone else had mentioned earlier in this thread about namng the other 3 packs as well sense the two new ones have actual names.

The PvP ideas some super fun as well! I can see how it might need a fair amount of tweaking to get right, but there seems to be a lot of good ideas posted already!

The real liquid Tanker looks brilliant, and the pump that goes with it that was shown a couple's ago just pulls the whole thing together perfectly. can't wait for 0.15!

[Brambor]

Wow! So much changes!
I just LOVE the science change as it is the biggest part of the factory, basicly, the whole factory is just about the three science packs and very little in the way of making transport belts and such things. I look forward to doing Let's play on that as I got stuck and I guess I will play Factorio much more now .
The 30 Cu wires seems awesome 'cause it will bring some technical issues, so far 2 yellow belts with 4 different items on them were enough, it will be awesome .
And the liquid wagon? Well, temporary solution before you add these would be possibility to make more than just crude oil barrel but since you didn't and you did implement flamethrower turret I guess that it pushed you to make liquid wagons, the look and pumping seems great and 'organic' [as you wanted ] and I think it will improove the gameplay in the way of possibility to split your factory from oil without the need of underground pipes which I heard you need tons of motors if they are too long [as long as my comment is ]. I look forward to see more town-ish factories connected by rail network rather than one big factory with tons of logistic robots which I'm NOT fan of...
Keep up the good work and bring us more of FFF's like that! [I actually got the acces to the secret side for 'funders' ]

[ChurchOrganist]

All awesome stuff, and I am looking forward to the new changes.

But please will you do something about the parlous state of the logistic netwark contents display in 0.15.x

If you are playing in standard 1920 x 1080 resolution then it is all hidden behind the weapons toolbar!

Surely it would be simple enough to program to have it come up in its own window like the Production statistics - and yes I do have some programming experience, so know what I'm asking!

The "L" key is currently unused, so it could easily be assigned to bring up the display.

The contents of the logistic network is vital information for balancing your factory in mid to late game. Please let us have better access to it.

Ok there is a mod that does it - but if you are playing multiplayer on a vanilla server that is no help at all!

[Ormek]

So let us think about what the basic idea of the science pack 3 is. This is easy: Force the player to get into oil. And this is already hard enougth! No need to force him to increase heavily on ore production as well. That would be 2 steps at once. [...] However in general i really like the idea overall! Good job there!
Still, I Hope I could explain my points reasonable and hope my feedback get heared in some way !

Well said AntiElite!

I also like the rework of science development: For red and green developing my factory seems to go with the same pace as the research. From time to time, I had to wait for the science to finish, so that I could extend the factory in the way I want. That was fun and urged me to shift my focus a little.
Later on, research took the lead and because my factory develops much slower, research does not matter anymore. Whatever I like to build, is already researched. When I have to choose what to research, it does not matter, because I am not using that kind of technology, yet: The needs of my factory are fullfilled with yellow belts, when I research blue ones.

I do not know, how to successfully link factory development and research results, but to have that linkage would increase my fun. Therefore, I really appreciate the rethinking on the research front. I am confident that AnitElite's suggestions go in that direction as well.

I would appreciate even a simple linkage between research and factory development like: Make the size of the factory depend on some research level in that field and allow research for the next only, if the last step has been actually reached. For example: You can only start researching "Control a rail road with 1000-5000 tracks", if you already control a railroad with at least 500 tracks.

[Artman40]

To be honest, I'd like for science packs to use items that are not used elsewhere, at least in large amounts.

Also, does the endgame require to produce all science packs?

[trad_emark]

alien artifacts -> pink sciences -> make laboratories produce alien plates out of them (with all the previous sciences as well) -> use alien plates in some end-game recipes that needs to be regularly crafted (ammo, blue belts, robots, upgrades, ...)
this is better end-game use of laboratories than infinite science.

[Andrzejef]

alien artifacts -> pink sciences -> make laboratories produce alien plates out of them (with all the previous sciences as well) -> use alien plates in some end-game recipes that needs to be regularly crafted (ammo, blue belts, robots, upgrades, ...)
this is better end-game use of laboratories than infinite science.

My thought exactly

[Artman40]

What about making every item in the game aside from the rawest products so that it could be used as science packs? However, every type of item could only be used to produce a certain science pack.

Then, a of system could be made that encourages you to produce as many different kinds of items as possible to make each of the science pack. Some sort of science pack potency or something that depends on how many items you added to create the desired science pack.

I think I didn't make myself very clear.

[Jeffman12]

One idea for multi-team spawns is that you may wish to have biome specific land regions with guaranteed quantities of given resources or tiles within the allocated region.

Take a look at tiberian sun's random map gen?

Also, I really like Anti-Elite's post.

[Uxi]

Hi guys
I don't know how you build your science setups, but I usually build it so I craft two science packs per second.
This requires 10 assemblers for red science, 12 for green science and 24! for blue science.
This is manageable because all the required ingredients are built quickly and for the most part require few resources. So the number of assembling machines needed to produce the materials for the 46 science assemblers is not low but OK.

If the new science costs are the same, i.e. "require" 2 packs per second of each science pack I would have build, 10, 12, 24 and 10 + 30! + 30! science assemblers. Which is a lot. But the worst part is the 20 second ingredients in the new recipes. It is gonna take a massive setup to support this. For electric engines, 40 assemblers for engines and another 40 for electric engines... And then add another 40 for the pump jacks.
3 processing Units?!? I can't imagine building 90 assemblers for processing units just to feed science? That would require just about infinity electric circuits per second... at least that is what my head/gut tells me.

Shake up science = fine. But man did it just become expensive/expansive = not so great.

/Uxi

[DaveMcW]

I can't imagine building 90 assemblers for processing units just to feed science? That would require just about infinity electric circuits per second... at least that is what my head/gut tells me./Uxi

I'm sorry you can't count to 3-digit numbers. Have you considered crafting 1 science pack per second instead?

[Uxi]

I'm sorry you can't count to 3-digit numbers. Have you considered crafting 1 science pack per second instead?

If they implement science as suggested in the FFF, then I will have to consider less than 1 per second.
Can't remember the max number of assemblers I have ever had producing Processing Units in a factory but it is probably around 24 or something like that.

[RubyRhod]

Nice!

I think you pretty much nailed it: some packs just.. try too hard. It shouldn't be expensive ressource-wise, but it should be complex and hard to achive a good setup - it must be cheap to maintain the science pack production (because that's only boring... doing.. work.. gathering ore..). The fun in factorio is setting up your factory and seeing your builts function properly.

So please: lvl 3 science packs use petroleum gas at the moment - so you will have heavy and light oil, but won't necessarily use it. change that! Always I have to built hugh storages until researching advanced oil processing. why?

also: why so many >1s items within the recepies? engine? pump jacks? that's madness! easy items (gears and pipes, iron/steel; there you go) but ages to craft. where is the fun in that? do some more complex items for crafting the packs! also: i.e. science pack 3: needs engine, craft takes 12 seconds. plus 20 seconds for the engine this will take forever. production science : same problem, but with all 3 items. high tech science packs: why use processing units AND speed modules? speed modules need processing units making it somehow redundant. there should be steel involved in it.

[kovarex]

Thanks for the feedback, the science pack recipes are subject to change indeed.
Don't forget, that we can change other recipes as well, and we will do so. Some of the (intermediate) recipes are too slow, some of them might be too expensive, we might also make the X2 to X4 counts of the science pack to balance the need of an expensive item.

[Antaios]

Now about pvp:
1) I think that actually less than 4 players/teams/etc takes away the possibility for "tactical depth" - no way of temporary alliances, finishing off "common" enemy and stuff of this kind.

People aren't going to respect that, especially when there are more people per team. I've played RTS FFAs, they're a clusterfuck and in the end the winner is generally the one person that everyone forgot about and had the luxury of having nobody attack them. That's barely fair.

So?

Chaos is fun, fair is oftentimes repetitive and boring.

Mix it up a little. You should care a little less about who wins, and a little more about how much fun the game was.