Friday Facts #159 - Research revolution

[Loewchen]

Also, since you were mentioning some time earlier incorporating nuclear power into the game, how about we assume bitters dig out radioactive stuff from the ground and then they drop it when they die and it's actually a power source? Or something like that in place of current alien artifacts.

That sounds quite interesting imo.

[theBeave]

I'd just be happy if there was a way to make sure the GM's team doesn't pick "Forest Green" and then force your team to use "Hot Pink" and promptly get your team blown out when you can't see them in the forests.

Couple ideas on that front that I haven't seen mentioned:

a) Standard Friend or Foe color rules - everyone sees enemies as red in their games, and blue for friendlies.

b-1) Teams can 'recolor' their view of any other team to desired color, so allies can be be arbitrarily set to desired color (not the best, as then everyone would set other teams to hot pink/white).
b-2) Or, maybe that control in the hands of the teams themselves, and 'reveal' themselves to other teams by certain color, and thus make themselves/buildings visible in the mini map as well (only really one directional).
b-3) Or, a simple blend of both is to type into the console: 'ally with team 2'. Then, mutually you and they are visible on the map to each other, and their colors automatically go brown/neutral (a give-take relationship. perhaps they would have to confirm? cooldown to prevent spamming? can no longer auto-target? )

Option b is more of a rudimentary diplomacy scheme, that teams can allow or revoke visibility to/from other teams.

[Extended]

For people lazy to read the complete message, you can read the conclusion behind. For developers at least, I think it will be interesting for you to read it entirely.

I think that in order to improve the research, things should be looked in a more general point of view of the game. By doing that, we can see that it's becoming too much repetitive: for each new item, what we basically have to do is just to put belts for the ingredients, then the assembler and finally get the result, as usual, which I don’t really find funny once I have done it many times. Instead, let’s have a look at the (unordered) steps of the game which really enable it to have diversity:

1) Collecting matter with a pickaxe and making more advanced products thanks to furnaces
2) Automatizing mines
3) Energy
4) Automatizing production with assemblers, belts…
5) Research
6) Military
7) Adding diversity to the points 2, 3 and 4 thanks to fluids
8) Transportation
9) Robots
10) Logical circuits
11) Collaborative multiplayer

But my feeling is that the point 4 is becoming way too big, and the point 5 as well because it increases the point 4, making the game repetitive at some point. Yet the research needs to be restructured because there is not enough time to test the new elements before making further researches, it is not a big fun to repeat exactly the same methods every time just to produce new items or to produce more.

- I think that efforts should rather be spent to improve:

6) The military because the guns are not enough effective at all and the only way is to cheat using turrets
7) The pipes going through a long distance, and annoying players every x tiles
8) The trains because it is impossible to track every single train and to reschedule everything each time a base is removed or a new one is created: a research could make trains autonomous so that they go from providing station to a requiring one by themselves
9) Robots should be revised (I don’t want to get the trash of somebody else just because I have a personal roboport)

- And to add:

12) PvP, which is what you already are doing
13) Nuclear power, as introduced in a previous FF (https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-151), which would not expand the point 4 but could use new methods. The FF itself describes it very well: « we wanted to do it properly. Some kind of "mine uranium -> put it into boiler" wouldn't be a proper use of the potential at all ». There are many interesting ideas in the comments (like using the logical circuits).
14) Controllable and semi-autonomous robots, so that the user can make actions in a larger scale: letting them build the rails drawn in a map, or sending special ones to fight (which could especially be useful for the PvP)
15) Communicating by voice with other players. At start, it be only be possible to hear other players’ voice when they are close, but later, thanks to technologies, it could become possible to hear them everywhere. Useful for the points 11 and 14.
16) Using the possibilities of water (different transportation, matters to collect…)
17) Going to other planets
18) Many other ideas proposed by the community or implemented in mods

Conclusion

My point it that rather than just increasing the overused “ingredients → assembler/refinery → outcome” system, for example by adding too many intermediate products or science recipes, the game should better be added completely new features (and fixed the ones which don’t work very well like the military), to make increase the diversity and not the repetitivness.

EDIT: Something that I haven't seen in this thread but that should probably checked for the PvP mode is how to deal with rails intersections between different teams.

[AndaleTheGreat]

Very happy to see a change coming to the science packs. I like the division of function being shown. I still don't care much for the research method tho. Hang on, let me get it all out there first.

I feel like using 'science packs' adds an extra level you don't need to have only to make researching easier to automate, which I appreciate, but I feel like the automation should become harder and require more work as you go. I tend to go for the merry-go-round of science with a dozen or more research stations, getting up to about 3 dozen by the 10 hour mark. It is very simple to expand and set up. I usually have a 4 station setup done before I get to the blue packs. Simply put; too easy.

I would prefer to add a bit more challenge to researching. Instead of science packs you take a look at the research tree for your requirements. Send items you can currently create to Labs where they are 'studied' and used to design the next upgrade. Sending specific items to the research station would mean having to change automation fairly drastically depending on research.

Confused?

Examples:

To get Automation it would cost several Inserters
Automation 2 is Assembling Machines and Long Handed Inserters
Logistics needs Transport Belts
Logistics 2 needs UnderGround Belts and Splitters (BTW: Why are Fast Inserters a logistics item and not automation?)
Steel Processing needs Iron Ore and Coal
Electronics a pile Electronic Circuits
Stone Walls a mass amount of Stone
Battery is unlocked using Sulfer and Copper Plates
The Turrets research needs Pistols and Ammo

Each weapon tier could be unlocked by researching the previous gun along with some item. Rifle + Heavy Oil = Flamethrower.
Rather than burning science packs for increased damage you could run Belts full of ammo into a Lab.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I think this would make it so you could research multiple lines at once because the 'recipes' for the research would be different items rather than just the science packs.

Simple for research purposes. Automate a line, get building the newest item you've learned, then feed it into Labs until you have completed studying it. The swap the lab out for a small chest and keep a few stacks of that item for you own use.

I thought about this before but it seemed like the creators were set on the science packs. Now that a change has been mentioned I wanted to bring it up. Also, if this gets any attention I'll be shocked but also willing to do a much more detailed write-up because I'm writing this while nodding off at my keyboard.

Goodnight.

EDIT: Went back thru and noticed at least 1 other comment fairly in-line with this idea.

[Andrzejef]

EDIT: Something that I haven't seen in this thread but that should probably checked for the PvP mode is how to deal with rails intersections between different teams.

It's something I am not really concerned about. Stealing and exploiting another's infrastructure could be a fine addition. And rails themselves have no allegiance, if groups wants to own them exclusively, they ought to place turrets beside. Now imagine hijacking the train.
Ahh good times of wild wild west

EDIT: Also, forgot to add - same goes with conveyor belts, electricity networks and pumps. All of them may have the same "problem". And I say leave it as it is (i.e. let it merge regardless of who places it) - it's pure industrial sabotage at its best

I'd even go as far, as to propose - as an optional mapgen setting - to put some "abandoned" infrastructure on map, such as rail sections (leading mostly nowhere) or concrete walls formations, or "derelict" (like some entities in tutorial, that player can't interact with them in any way aside from destroying them) assemblies, or "malfunctioning" turrets (i.e. targeting everything that goes near). I think it would add to Factory PvP drama

EDIT: Even though it kinda conflicts with the me-versus-the-nature and pristine-planet themes Factorio already has.

EDIT2: Forgot to add:

Also, since you were mentioning some time earlier incorporating nuclear power into the game, how about we assume bitters dig out radioactive stuff from the ground and then they drop it when they die and it's actually a power source? Or something like that in place of current alien artifacts.

That sounds quite interesting imo.

Biters digging anything gives me another - terrible as it is - idea. Namely, The Biter Tunnelers.
Yes, exactly what you think. Terrible, isn't it?

EDIT3: My memory is like a leopard - sharp, but short-distance only. Anyways, here's what I forgot - yet again.

I feel like using 'science packs' adds an extra level you don't need to have only to make researching easier to automate, which I appreciate, but I feel like the automation should become harder and require more work as you go. I tend to go for the merry-go-round of science with a dozen or more research stations, getting up to about 3 dozen by the 10 hour mark. It is very simple to expand and set up. I usually have a 4 station setup done before I get to the blue packs. Simply put; too easy.

I would prefer to add a bit more challenge to researching. Instead of science packs you take a look at the research tree for your requirements. Send items you can currently create to Labs where they are 'studied' and used to design the next upgrade. Sending specific items to the research station would mean having to change automation fairly drastically depending on research.

(...)

Each weapon tier could be unlocked by researching the previous gun along with some item. Rifle + Heavy Oil = Flamethrower.
Rather than burning science packs for increased damage you could run Belts full of ammo into a Lab.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I think this would make it so you could research multiple lines at once because the 'recipes' for the research would be different items rather than just the science packs.

Simple for research purposes. Automate a line, get building the newest item you've learned, then feed it into Labs until you have completed studying it. The swap the lab out for a small chest and keep a few stacks of that item for you own use.

This - I dig the idea.
However - only nitpicking - I'd say that gun turret research should rather be done using wall and smg, rather than pistol and ammo.

[Miglecz]

Copying the starting area is not a bad idea even if it looks horrible.
A few things are what relevand there really, so copying pixel by pixel is not necessary.

Necessary things are:
Distances of starting coordinates, resource areas and resource amounts. Water access and some amount of wood.

Other not so necessary things:
Terrain pattern. Water shapes that determine defendable areas.

[mrvn]

Finally something to do with all the gun turrets when switching to laser turrets.

[bobingabout]

Science packs, fun.

I'll probably have to go and redesign my entire research tree as a result of this, and possibly even modify the new base game science pack recipes too.

Nobody is saying this is a bad thing though!

Nice tanker wagon too.

[Ninjadude501]

Looks really good! The main thing that has prevented me from really getting into Factorio has been the research packets, so hopefully this will help that.

[Andrzejef]

While we discuss possible PvP aspects of the game, I wonder about some more classical pvp-matches form and their possible implementation. Like, how would factorio version of "King of the Hill" mode look like...
And stuff like this.
Factorio Carts Racing, another one...

[Masterfox]

King of the hill? Like, who is in a tank on the top of the hill? This could make nice strategies, sure.

[Dev-iL]

Speaking of which, if you want base-destruction, you'll need new construction/destruction mechanics. When you lose a building in an RTS, you're screwed for quite some time and it can even be game-changing. In Factorio, you just plop down another one, which is annoying to both the defender (gosh, more wannabe base-destroyers) and attacker (wow I did absolutely nothing). Even then, generally you have several buildings of the same type to accelerate production, so losing a few isn't a big deal. To help this, I'd suggest having the resulting piles of scrap and rubble stay there for a certain amount of time before decaying, and make it impossible to build on rubble. That way, when attackers destroy something, it will stay destroyed for some time and actually give them an edge.

That, or force everything that isn't raw-material extraction (and trains etc.) to be buildable only inside Factorissimo-like structures... This way, if one of them gets destroyed it could REALLY cripple somebody's economy (perhaps even too much)....

[bbgun06]

just to put belts for the ingredients, then the assembler and finally get the result

You just have to be more imaginative when designing your factories:
[img]http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =752000311[/img]
[img]http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =665740356[/img]

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.

I feel like Factorio emphasizes circuits too much. Most of a late game factory is focused on making green, red, and blue circuits. So when you balance the recipes, try to include more things like pipes and gears. Also I'd like to see more variety in timings of recipes, so most things aren't .5 seconds. Thanks for the constant improvements!

[Engimage]

As to copper/iron balance.

Iron is heavily used in different forms - Plates, Iron gears, Steel.
And the main consumer for Copper is electronics. But sadly for the most basic component - a green circuit board - you require 1 iron and 1.5 copper plate. This particular recipe is ruining the balance.
All other recipes requiring copper are not required in bulk quantities thats why you will generally need at least twice as much iron than copper.

[AcolyteOfRocket]

I realise I am late to the party but I am NOT in favour of a radical change to blue science, the "big jump" was OK in my book and provided a nice mid-game challenge. Don't the Devs know how to listen to the people who aren't complaining ?

Having said that there were some issues that needed addressing imo.

1. Lots of red/green advances you couldn't use until you got to blue science, like the much of the bot chain.

2. The dire need to research advanced oil processing right after oil processing to prevent your oil tanks choking, although this is less of a problem with the new flamethrower.

3. How about you address the monotony of combat instead - what this gane needs is an artilliery emplacement that allows me to destroy biter bases from inside my own compound - let it use cannon shells, it's not like we are going to want to put them in the tank is it ?

4. Speaking of the tank, can we have a "research multiplier" we can change to vastly increase research times, by, say a factor of 2, or 10, or 50 or more ?? This will allow us to build, use, and maybe even enjoy some of the intermediate weapon systems before the my million research labs make them obsolete.

Finally I realise its an alpha game, but you now have higher end achievements in the Steam system and making the game harder to complete in 8 hours might frustrate the efforts of players who might be able to win under the old system, but are unable to do it in the new system - game balance is more important now that you have those achievements in the system.

[Andrzejef]

King of the hill? Like, who is in a tank on the top of the hill? This could make nice strategies, sure.

Not sure if it's sarcasm or not. For the sake of my ego I'll hope it's not.
And you know what they say, whose mother hope is...

[Andrzejef]

what this gane needs is an artilliery emplacement

Yeah, totally. Good to finally find some twin soul And you know what else do we need? A rail cannon!

THIS rail cannon <3

[ssilk]

BTW:
There are a lot of ideas about armoured trains:
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=17734 New types of vehicles (train, tank, car, plane, ship...)

[starholme]

what this gane needs is an artilliery emplacement

Yeah, totally. Good to finally find some twin soul And you know what else do we need? A rail cannon!

THIS rail cannon - Gustav <3

Ingredients:
5000 steel plates
1000 gears
5 locomotives

Ammo:
1 car (Shells the size of a volkswagen you say?)
1 rocket fuel

[Andrzejef]

what this gane needs is an artilliery emplacement

Yeah, totally. Good to finally find some twin soul And you know what else do we need? A rail cannon!
(...)
THIS rail cannon - Gustav <3

Ingredients:
5000 steel plates
1000 gears
5 locomotives

Ammo:
1 car (Shells the size of a volkswagen you say?)
1 rocket fuel

You bought me with that, really - yet I am afraid 5 locos might not be enough - 8 looks more like it
EDIT: And then get to set up infrastructure and -- MASSPRODUCE!!!