Friday Facts #161 - Infinite Research and Blueprint Library

[slpwnd]

The newest news: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-161

[HammerPiano]

Awesome as usual!
When is 0.15 scheduled to be released?

[mtocrat]

Resource sinks are great for end-game but I am wondering whether they add enough incentive for people who need that. I believe something simple such as a dedicated research that goes towards specific achievements would do psychological wonders for people like me who can't make up their own goals and stopped playing after launching a rocket.

[Piroko]

Am I the only one who thinks that research is such a minor resource sink anyways that I just want to get done with it in a finite time and do something else? Even with endless research I'd test this out for one game and then probably never bother again (or, for the completionist in me, search for a mod that replaces the infinite research lines with their previous iteration...).

My real fun comes from creating my own playthrough scenarios similar to how Zisteau sets up his LPs.

[RobEVO]

I'm SUPER excited about infinate research. I want more combat robots and faster bot speed no matter what it costs! For me personally it will be a much better goal than just launching MORE rockets. I'm actually going in the middle of designing a dedicated rocket launch facility. That is now going to be a massive research facility. I want to break the robot speed.

[Xterminator]

Interesting as always! The infinite research seems interesting and would certainly add some more ways to use your resources, however, I feel that at some point people would just not have a need or interest in continuing the research, especially depending how small the returns end up being. Certainly not a bad addition to the game, but just some thoughts.

Hearing about optimizations are always great! Crazy that you could eek out like 7% extra performance just from the small pollution and chunk change. Can't wait for the further belt improvements and multithreading stuff!

This will probably be covered at some point, but I'm curious to know if anything will be changed or added to give some use for Alien Artifacts? If they are taken out of the research process with the science overhaul, then there are very few uses for them and it seems like they would be perfect for use in some expensive late game items or something.

[Artman40]

But what to do for those who want to complete every research that can be obtained?

Also, can you add an achievement for producing every produceable item in the game?

[Jan11]

I like the new infinite research.

[IronCartographer]

Awesome as usual!
When is 0.15 scheduled to be released?

They're still looking to hire more help for development (UI design). A release date is not really something to expect at this point.

[ili]

Is Nuclear power going as planed for 0.15?
I just "finished" my second vanilla full playthrough and my map looks like a huge solar farm with a little base on the side
I need !!!MORE POWER!!!
So I decided to continue on this map only when nuclear power will be available...
Thank you

[aober93]

Yea i like the blueprint library. But why have 3 different places for them? Global / Local Game / Inventory.
What actually would be intuitive was a single library, but instead multiple (self defined) categories.

I like to put my blueprints into categories like train only, mining only etcetc. And the only bad about this design is that i have to categorize via books and you have weigh the space limit of the books vs space limit of your inventory. It just doesnt feel right in your inventory. While you progress and gain more books you hurt yourself with less available space. So yea for a change.

But from what i understand, with 0.15 you gain a new library outside of your inventory, and if you want to use it you need to create an actual blueprint and put it in a blueprint book thereby creating another library.

Instead i would like a single library, something like the train browser even maybe. Global (across saves) available blueprints should have a tag, and not stored in a different library where the libraries may become redundant. And then be able to browse via category or search by name something like that. But preserve that you can scroll thru a single book via mousewheel. Thats all.

[rolfl]

Awesome as usual!
When is 0.15 scheduled to be released?

They're still looking to hire more help for development (UI design). A release date is not really something to expect at this point.

^^ well, that UI position would surely be a contributor for a 1.0.0 release, and not the 0.15.x release? No?

Regardless, as for the infinite research and blueprint libraries, I think it's great, the performance is always good, and so on.

I can see really large factorios producing level 100 robots, needing huge resources, and thus needing all the possible performance advantages out there.

[Neemys]

Infinite research seem a good idea for resources sink. Don't forget that there is an achievement for researching everything. New people need to unlock it at some point

Blueprint library is great, but I expect a way to restrict which blueprint is viewable in multiplayer to avoid sending lots of useless blueprint for that particular game.

Did blueprint remember what mod they need (for entity inside them) ? So we can filter them depending of what mod the actual game has ? Or better, the game don't show me blueprint that can't be imported because of mod missing.

In same manner, if blueprint have mod part in it, if we import the blueprint in a new game with the mod updated (an entity have been changed via json migration), did the blueprint become unusable or migration can be applied to blueprint ? Either at import time or migration is applied to the whole library at update time.

[aober93]

How about something like this? Local and global in one spot, so they dont become redundant. And remove the classic blueprint from the game. Just go off the library.

fff-161-blueprint-library-2edit.jpg (149.46 KiB) Viewed 21768 times

[Recon777]

I'd love for blueprints to be useful even at the start of a game. To be able to lay them down long before you have construction bots capable of building them for you... that would be very useful.

[aubergine18]

Really hoping you do blueprint library UI as a mod (part of __base__ or __core__ ?) so that we can customise it. Would ideally like to see entire UI done via mod in 0.15, so that modders can override it and replace with custom UIs. This would mean need for "minimap" element, and ability to open the other UIs such as achievements, power graphs, etc.

Ability to have virtual inventories would also be very useful for modding stuff like blueprint books or other custom inventories that a player, force or anyone in game might be given access to.

And +1 for @aober93's image preview above.

EDIT: As for UX designer, just get us the better GUI stuff for 0.15 and let modders take a shot at it, then choose the best interface. This would still ensure that the UX could still be modded.

[Ghoulish]

Cool stuff, I do enjoy reading these Any chance we could get an update on what the current plans are combat wise?

[aober93]

Come to think of it, like my preview this is how i would like the train manager to be. Train lines drop down, and multiple trains per line.

[Rseding91]

Really hoping you do blueprint library UI as a mod (part of __base__ or __core__ ?) so that we can customise it. Would ideally like to see entire UI done via mod in 0.15, so that modders can override it and replace with custom UIs. This would mean need for "minimap" element, and ability to open the other UIs such as achievements, power graphs, etc.

Ability to have virtual inventories would also be very useful for modding stuff like blueprint books or other custom inventories that a player, force or anyone in game might be given access to.

And +1 for @aober93's image preview above.

EDIT: As for UX designer, just get us the better GUI stuff for 0.15 and let modders take a shot at it, then choose the best interface. This would still ensure that the UX could still be modded.

The GUIs used by the core game have far more complex requirements and use cross-GUI logic that would simply not work if done as a mod. Making something like the blueprint library GUI, or the trains GUI a mod is not likely to ever happen.

Because we control the GUI and when it's created, interacted with, and removed we can also make performance optimizations and skip extra checks because we can guarantee the state of the GUI compared to in mods *everything* has to be sanity checked and that slows it down by incredible amounts.

[ThermicKestrel]

My internet is acting weird, does anyone have screenshots?