Friday Facts #160 - Playtesting

[SupremeBashar]

Hi Guys,

Keep up the good work.
About the tutorial: you might want to check out what the devs form Rimworld did. The had a sort of adaptive learning tutorial system. I really liked it, cause I hate real tut's and still want to play .

Greets!

[Balinor]

One suggestion I might make in regards to content would be some way to automate biter base killing. The mod Robot Army (viewtopic.php?t=23543) is a good example but I think the idea would really benefit from an official implementation because of the complexity of things like pathing.

Thanks for posting more excellent Friday Facts

Indeed, if the intent is to nerf turret creeping then it would be helpful if something could be done to help alleviate the tedium of mid/late game land clearing. It would be difficult to do this while also maintaining the pressure that biter expansion and pollution mechanics provide which I personally think are quite enjoyable. I just wish there was an option when it comes time to seize more territory beyond the very manual and repetitive process there is now. The first 100 biter bases burned to the ground are fun.. the next 100 less so..

I forgot to mention that. This will be solved by the artillery train!

Automated warfare would be a huge boon for me. I've consistently been playing the turret creep method to date. Will we learn more about the artillery train soon?

[Ohz]

If I may, I would like to repost my opinion on something quite important to me, and would allow tons of replayability in vanilla !
TL;DR: adding more settings right at the starting menu.

I am playing Factorio since 2 years always with Marathon, and sometimes RSO mods. Those make the game very interesting, factory gigantics, well thought rail network essential, the coal/stone age more important and gun turrets impossible to be skipped. Each tier of the game you created, programmed, balanced and unbugged are hard to reach and make them very tasty. We already talked a lot about balancing ect, many topics about. I simply want to say:

TL;DR: Please make add more settings for starting new game:
- Ores: Normal/Rare/Very Rare Ores (= RSO-kind of rare)
- Balancing: Normal/Slow/Marathon gameplay.
- Difficulty: Normal/Hardcore/Nightmare Aliens.
- Challenges: Normal/No solar/No laser/No train (like impossible to craft or research, totally disapperead of the research tree and craft inventory)
- Ect...

Yes all of that Gameplay modifications can be made/added by mods, but from the vanilla, this sounds simply a gigantic lifespan of the game. I'm not talking about adding new content.

Thanks a lot. Have a nice day, and still thank you so so much for the stable 0.13, Factorio is to me one of the best game I ever played in my whole life.
Ohz.

[Peppe]

On the talk of mark II versions of a few vanilla items. I hope the actually upgraded item implemented is creative and is more than just a color tinted version of the same item with the stats cranked up.

[Xeteth]

I see that you want to address turret creep and I think this is a great idea. It can be super overpowered in the early game before you have combat bots and a turret 'start-up' time would be the perfect fix.

I do however have to mention that I think something is missing with regards to the player claiming land in Factorio. Many of us long time players will know that pre-0.13 the best defense was to use 'victory chests' to claim land from the biters, as this would stop them spawning in an area. It was super overpowered and I am glad to see the spawning mechanics have changed such that biters are now a threat again.

However, this change has brought on a few negative effects on the game-play. Walls and turrets are now a must around large bases, which is a great thing and it gives them way more purpose than pre-0.13. The issue is building remote outposts (such as mining outposts), this has become an immense task. To keep biters off my outposts I must wall and turret the entire perimeter of the outpost otherwise the huge biter waves are simply too much and I lose the outpost. I'm actually OK with this - to get your reward of the resources you must invest in defense and this makes a lot of sense. The issue is the space in-between the outpost and the main base; most players will connect outposts via train networks with a powerline running along this train track. Unfortunately biters can be prone to taking out such power lines if they path over the rail line and in doing so can knock-out entire sections of the map due to loss of power. Furthermore if these power lines carry red/green wires any signals also get knocked out.

In order to defend against this the player is left with one choice: turret the entire mainline. I cannot stress enough how much this task detracts from the enjoyment of playing Factorio. It is an extremely laborious task even in the late game with blueprints and helper mods such as FARL. Not only do you have to wall and turret the mainline but you also need to setup roboport networks with repair trains being sent to restock repair packs, walls and turrets. This becomes an even greater task when you consider that you must have separate roboport networks if you want to change rail directions as to avoid bots pathing over biter nests.

As someone who has spent literally thousands of hours in the game I have always enjoyed building 'megabase' sized worlds, however as of 0.13 I find the issue of claiming land and connecting bases to be simply too much of a task and one that feels extremely lame and it has become the reason that I just can't seem to find enjoyment out of building such worlds anymore.

I don't want to be misunderstood here though - I really like the spawning change as it was needed to make biters more of a threat. My issue is that the player was not given any further tools to deal with this gameplay change. As mentioned in the FFF "part of the fun comes from organizing logistics of huge quantities" and I completely agree. I do believe that a middle-ground needs to be found here though - I have spent literally hundreds of hours in my latest playthrough turreting enormous sections of the world to ensure the safety of my buildings and am finding little satisfaction in doing so.

I don't think the artillery train is enough to solve this issue unfortunately, as it would be by 'chance' that the train is passing as a biter wave pathed over a rail/power line.

Please have a look into this, as a long time player and lover of Factorio I really think that this needs to be addressed as development moves towards a 1.0.0 release. Keep up the great work as always, the Factorio development methodology is one of the reasons this game is as brilliant as it is. I look forward to seeing the game move towards a 1.0.0 release and the prospect of an expansion is incredibly exciting!

[KrzysD]

can we see your base kovarex?

[DOSorDIE]

I like the changes that will come ... but dont forget its a game about Automation.
So lets automate the WAR!!!
Where are the Artillery?

[Zentay]

I think the game should be adjusted to make trains highly desirable, if not mandatory. That means medium low yield resource patches near the starting location, and much larger high yield patches further out, greater pollution distribution but fewer alien bases, and a new mechanic to explore the map (flying scout drones?). Reducing forest density could also be helpful. It's a bit of a pain to play on maps with a lot of forest. At the moment the game feels like it was designed for transport belts as means of transportation.

[BHakluyt]

I am a bit dissapointed to hear that you plan to release Factorio more or less like it is, content wise. I was in the hope of playing this game forever. You know, once you implement Robot Army (please) and automate war, then automate space station construction and later automate colonisation of the planets... Have different planets with even more content and gameplay. Like the very first Factorio FF: a

"game that he would like to play but that is not available out there".

The game of all games.

Okay thats a tall order. So finish up this one and use the money for Factorio 2 - 3D virtual reality capable super game where you start off with nothing but basic knowledge and a pick axe to work yourself up to be the ruler of a galaxy of automated factories. Thanks to swallowing a pill with nano robots that your high tech factory produced, the neurons in your brain are linked up with all the satellite systems and you will be truly the Illuminated one. From there I have not much guesses to the direction for the game, but the possibilities between start and finish will be endless. Factorio already touches aspects of huge games like GTA, Fallouts, Elder Scrolls, Deus Exes, Transport Tycoons. The list is almost endless.

Kovarex, I do not think that having too much content is a bad thing. Especially not with Factorio because everything gets unlocked as you progress and a human being can learn millions of things as they go along. Having a game that takes about 80 hours to complete, 46 for a developer, is a measure that this game is not a quick or brief experience. Most Factorians probably have multiple saves of 200 to 500+ hours. Its never going to appeal to some people, but I don't think you will loose much of us here by adding more. And those that do not know the game yet would probably not object. Yes some things are a bit complicated sometimes, but your tutorial implementation idea is gold.

Referring to the quote from the first FF, I would love to play a game much like this, on max zoom level endgame I can see a lot of different solar systems. Zooming in I see planets, some colonised with big factories seen through thick smoke clouds, other planets have huge skyscrapers sticking out above the clouds, inhabited by millions of people interconnected with super fast meglev trains. The nature and landscape untouched and pristine, free from sprawling cities and factories, but teeming with life inside and outside eco friendly mega skyscrapers. As you continue to zoom the space stations and automated space trading, colonising and military ships give way to reveal the player - perched on a high ridge on some far off planet, on the front lines of colonising the universe, you see yourself with a sniper rifle. As you zoom in past the third person, you lock into the view of the telescope peering at monstrosities in the distance. The whole battlefield, captured in real time by drones, are displayed in your periphery. With a single thought (or mouseclick) huge robotic machines activate and execute advanced military manoeuvres. Or perhaps you have a choice and you use the millions of people living in those mega sky cities and sacrifice them on new land in the name of...colonisation?

Also there is the matter that you can only sell Factorio 1 for so long to make a living. That is why the big companies have regular DLCs and stuff to keep the cash flowing... I guess. If I had a vote I would say make the game $40 or even the same as big blockbuster games these days, but include a space platform and rudimentary space exploration. Please.

As always, thanks for the great game. Its already worth 500+ hours for me and I would never even have known the game was in alpha stage had I not googled it. (I got the game from someone who got it from someone who... gave it a try and its the best.) Please flesh out the game even more that most of the snags are done when this game goes 3D.

[Mion]

Kovarex, please give us your final save! I think it will be very useful and helpful for growing our factorio-skill for many of us.

[aubergine18]

Look forward to the MK2 artworks.

Finding 3 - the most needed changes

Please add one:
- better map gen so it guarantees every map is playable.

I know this has been discussed many many times, but this should really be fixed. I have seen people from different forums asking "how to play on this map?", showing pictures of their characters isolated by water.
This is not ideal. This has to be fixed before v1.0 is released.
Possible solution: besides changing the algorithm for map gen, we can also give the player a slow personal lifeboat to start with. When the character moves to water, the lifeboat is used. (Like the engineers in Red Alert 3 )

Simply prevent water spawning in the starting chunk of the map. Problem solved. IIRC the autoplace controls already facilitate this sort of thing?

[Danacus]

Kovarex, please give us your final save! I think it will be very useful and helpful for growing our factorio-skill for many of us.

His base is made in 0.15, so we can't open it in 0.14.
Edit: But some pictures would be nice

[deef0000dragon1]

I just remembered something that actually 100% needs to be added.

if you chose to play the game without spawning biters, (such a myself or Arumba) The final tier of science and items NEED to be craft able.

As it stands right now, it is possible to set up a single option on the start panel such that you can not complete the game. This probably needs to be changed before V1.0.

EDIT: I am derp. Alien resources removed from science. Would still like if it was changed so you could get the items without biter bits though.

[mattj256]

Merging items with different health:
Please do not. Could you instead add a mechanic to allow pocket repairs? Maybe it's a module in the armor, maybe it's a research that just enables the capability, but rather than potentially losing items because of picking them up unfixed, allow them to be fixed while an item.

+1

It's fine to make this an option (and maybe even the default), but please don't force this change on me.
It takes a LOT more resources to create a new laser turret than to repair an existing one. In early and mid game I'm usually short on laser turrets as it is.

Factorio tutorials should be scenarios that are accessible from the main menu. If you want to "unlock" them (which I don't think is necessary), they should be opened by technology research rather than arbitrary player actions.

[Proxy]

this is gonna be amazing.
hopefully "Realistic" Fission reactors and more Balanced/Smooth Progress... yus

[ssilk]

This changes feel just right and most of them are also already suggested.

I list those, where I remember alternative solutions:
- Enhancement to the belt building mechanics, so building by dragging makes continuous belt.
--> I also wanted for pipes.
- Limit turret creep
--> A lot of ideas: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=32867 Ideas to Avoid Turret Creeping
- Merging items with different health
--> Another idea is to auto-repair the items, when you have repair-packs and/or a special module in your suite.

[Nova]

Turret creep was always overpowered. I only use normal weapons because I think turret creep is lame.

[quote=Friday Facts #160]Merging items with different health. - We didn't do the item merging, as we didn't want the player lose his precious items as two 49% items would merge into one, which would prevent the player from repairing both for just a few repair. In reality, I feel that the annoyance of having 8 different stacks of laser turrets/walls in my inventory is not worth the rare possibility of losing an item or two.[/quote]
Nope, please don't do that. Better some kind of auto repair. Can you repair things inside your inventory? If not, you could try to make that possible.

[ensano]

I like the changes that will come ... but dont forget its a game about Automation.
So lets automate the WAR!!!
Where are the Artillery?

ion cannon mod is pretty nice. good resource sink and a great reason to fire out multiple rockets

[fpe]

You build 10 requester chests → Tutorial that copy paste from assembler to requester chest does exactly what you need.

Woooot!!?!
I have > 200 hours on the clock and I didn't know this!

[Syriusz]

I think that merging is good idea, but do not merge them with possibility of loosing items, like now with ammo, but instead make them average health.
So health of merged items should be: HP=SUM(HP of items)/(number of items).
It will require as many repair packs (more or less, depends on rounding) as before and there would not be possible to loose items. You could only make it that damaged items don't mix with items with full health, so you don't place damaged ones when you don't want.

As for small improvements I would add:
Power pole locking, so randomly placed pole would not mess your sophisticated wiring, and so you could not mine locked pole for same reason. It could work like that: when pole is clicked you can check box for wire locking for that pole and maybe second box for deconstruction locking? but maybe it could be in one. Not sure how to fix deconstruction with that poles, maye pop-up that give choose to ignore poles or deconstruct them too? or only deconstruction with ctrl would work for them?
Pipes highlighting so every pipe connected with one under cursor would glow a little so you can see system better. It could also be used for belts, but it should only highlight belts before splitter, so it would not highlight whole factory .