Friday Facts #162 - Theme Art Again

[Eurofighter1200]

I liked the alien artefacts and will miss them! Instead to remove them it would be better to give us some new cool ways to use them or maybee to automate the production of them.

I feel powerful in the lategame when i know on the beginning it was realy hard to get these 100 alien artefacts to build or do science and now i have thousends of them in my chest you cant remove that feelings from the game also then its just killing biters for only land or ressources thats not enough!

[Mooncat]

Item entities account for very little of the save file size. Trees and decorative entities make up far more of what needs to be saved. Making them time out just sounds like a huge pain. I've dealt with item-death in Minecraft and haven't met one person that likes it.

It's not really about save size, it's more about decluttering the map. Currently the loot lasts forever, so if player doesn't pick it up you end up with loot strewn all over the map.

For example, there are some tree mods that drop seeds when trees destroyed - a single forest fire can create hundreds of loots. If player runs across that area their inventory is now filled with all that loot... there's often no way to get rid of unwanted loot (or any unwanted items for that matter) other than to just store it somewhere which can become annoying for player (much like alien artefacts in late game, same issue applies to any loot).

IMO a TTL for item-on-ground (or whatever loot is) would be very beneficial to players and modders. I think there's lots of potential for modded entities to drop loot, but not until the loot can be given a TTL. Loot TTL would ensure that player inventories / containers don't get swamped with unwanted loot. If player wants loot they can grab it quick while it lasts, otherwise it will disappear after its TTL expires.

Given that loot acts differently with normal item entities, as loot will automatically get picked up while items that were dropped by player or inserters won't, is it possible to create another subtype of item entity for the loot so they will have TTL?

[RobertTerwilliger]

I like the fact we don't have to offend any more, but still offence should be somewhat rewarding. E.g. give some unique consumables, or have rare chance of giving rare ingridient for upgrading, say, modules to mk4, or personal equipment to kind of infinite mk's with same diminishing as infinite research.

[Bi0nicM4n]

I wouldn't just take artifacts out of the game, let alone biters (who would want to play in an absolutely safe world anyway? That's boring). Alien artifacts could be used to make stationary fusion reactors, the cost could be 100 artifacts per 1 MW of stable power output, day and night. Also using artifacts to make even stronger ammo, boost turret range or something (until the turret is replaced). With Mk2 personal roboport to make an appearance picking up the artifacts is barely a problem, considering that having two sets of power armor is a common practice.

Also this:

... personal equipment to kind of infinite mk's with same diminishing returns as infinite research.

[mdqp]

Is there a mod out there which allows us to "tame" biters and have our biter farms? I think that would be a nice way to use the alien artifact, you know, create "pheromones" or whateve to tame some of them, and maybe create our own spawners to use against other biters. That might be a little silly, but I would love to have my own army to throw back at them.

[equitime77]

Kovarex's playthrough of the current 0.15 has been continued in good form early this week, with him making the transition from a main bus to a station/outpost based factory

Sounds good, does this mean that we will get better train stop signalling? Ie being able to turn a station off on certain conditions? Maybe not right away but soon hopefully

[Mendel]

With bob´s mods set it is already possible to automate artifacts farming. In that mod all the biter enemies drop small artifacts and 25 small artifacts can be crafted/manufactured into regular artifacts. The mod also adds different colored artifacts.

Method of automation:

1) Surround a nest (or two) with laser turrets.
2) Add belts between the turrets and the nest so that the bugs that spawn will always die on top of belts and drop the loot on those belts.
3) Lead the belts into your factory where you automate small artifact into artifact and artifact into science bottle manufacturing.

-> Fully automated alien artifact farming.

This is a method I prefer a lot rather than disabling artifacts altogether.

For vanilla, I suppose it would work to make the enemies drop small artifacts like in bobs mods. This already enables automation with belts. Maybe not necessary to have different colors of artifacts for vanilla.

[SomeDuder]

I'm not reading 5 pages worth of terrible signatures, wacky avatars and usage of the English language that would make the Queen activate Her bionics and usher in the Second Empire in order to teach the world how to correctly spell in the only relevant language.

Anyway. What I was getting at - while I'm sure someone already suggested this, why not remove artifacts completely then? Unless it's for mod support (But in that case, just let the modders create their own drops, problem solved), artifacts have no use. Fine. Be that way. What's next? Remove the natives? eSports?

If it were up to me though, I'd have taken the opposite route - multiply the artifact requirement of modules and science 4 flasks by (at least) 10, so that the 5400+ artifacts currently in my storage warehouse could actually be used for something.

[factoriouzr]

Item entities account for very little of the save file size. Trees and decorative entities make up far more of what needs to be saved. Making them time out just sounds like a huge pain. I've dealt with item-death in Minecraft and haven't met one person that likes it.

What if you go on a killing spree and kill hundreds and hundreds of bases and don't pick up any of the artifacts except the ones you randomly run across?

Also keep in mind that many players play with mods like myself. Look at Bob's mods for example, he has like 7 small and 7 large alien artifacts (14 total). He also makes biters drop them like crazy. My base used to be surrounded by screens full of artifacts, where the entire floor 2 - 3 screens solid on almost all sides is covered with them. This must increase the save size dramatically. I think it's a great feature to have. If you set it to like 10 minutes (same as what destroyed blueprints time out at, and what all blueprints used to time out at) then it would give you enough time to collect them and if you didn't by then, likely you don't care so they should be removed. You are literally trying to remove them permanently from the game anyway. Remember, the game is moddable.

Besides this is fully consistent with destroyed entity blueprints timing out.

This game is open ended and you can play it as long as you like, some play for hundreds and hundreds of hours in one base. Look at some youtube videos as an example. Optimizations like this would go a long way to improving the way the game behaves and reducing save file size for long games and it's so easy to implement. It would also be great to make it moddable.

[factoriouzr]

Item entities account for very little of the save file size. Trees and decorative entities make up far more of what needs to be saved. Making them time out just sounds like a huge pain. I've dealt with item-death in Minecraft and haven't met one person that likes it.

Why do you save decorative entities (I assume you mean doodads)? They can't be destroyed can they? If so you can just re-generate them when the player goes to that chunk again.

[factoriouzr]

Item entities account for very little of the save file size. Trees and decorative entities make up far more of what needs to be saved. Making them time out just sounds like a huge pain. I've dealt with item-death in Minecraft and haven't met one person that likes it.

It's not really about save size, it's more about decluttering the map. Currently the loot lasts forever, so if player doesn't pick it up you end up with loot strewn all over the map.

For example, there are some tree mods that drop seeds when trees destroyed - a single forest fire can create hundreds of loots. If player runs across that area their inventory is now filled with all that loot... there's often no way to get rid of unwanted loot (or any unwanted items for that matter) other than to just store it somewhere which can become annoying for player (much like alien artefacts in late game, same issue applies to any loot).

IMO a TTL for item-on-ground (or whatever loot is) would be very beneficial to players and modders. I think there's lots of potential for modded entities to drop loot, but not until the loot can be given a TTL. Loot TTL would ensure that player inventories / containers don't get swamped with unwanted loot. If player wants loot they can grab it quick while it lasts, otherwise it will disappear after its TTL expires.

Yeah this too. I FULLY AGREE!!! Please see my other post where I give an example of having screens full of alien artifacts due to Bob's mods. It looks like a rainbow on the ground wherever I walk, and just stepping out of my base and walking a small amount in a straight line and my inventory is full.

Also there should be a way to destroy items in the base game. There is a mod for this that I always use but this should be part of the base game. When you put an item into this garbage disposal or whatever you call it, it is immediately destroyed. This would automate waste disposal (which is part of all factories in real life. They generate waste that they have to get rid of by shipping somewhere else or dealing with it some other way, like recycling, reusing etc). Right now, in the base game, the only way to get rid of items is to put them in a chest and shoot them with a weapon or drive over the chest. This is not automation lol.

Also along these lines, garbage or excessive goods of certain types, as well as random 1-10 items here and there keep getting put in my storage chests by robots. For example, when I deconstruct some walls or turrets they get taken to storage chests, then when I put out more turrets and walls, they are taken from the passive provider chests and the ones in storage basically sit there forever. I think we need a "passive storage chest" added to the game that functions exactly like a regular "storage chest" in that robots deposit items in them when deconstructing, but they are given priority when logistics and construction robots need that good. ie. when an item is needed, the "passive storage chests" are emptied first and then the "passive provider chests". This would really help reduce clutter in chests and keep the factory nicer. I often find that I go to pick up some goods in my factory that I need, only to find that I have say 10 of them in the passive provider chests where they are manufactured and the factories aren't working making more, to reach my say 1000 limit all because the additional 990 are in a storage chest elsewhere in my factory.

For new players, the chest can even have a description indicating that it's for "advanced control and fine tuning of your factory" or something like that to indicate to new players that it's optional, kind of like the circuit network stuff. It's there in the game for advanced players but you don't have to use it.

[Andrzejef]

Holy -- I know you've heard that many times, but that pic is amazing. Give my best regards to Marco
I only miss a swarm of drones from previous (or rather current) logo, maybe a rail or two. And I think it should be darker (the industrial pollution filter and such )
Still, it's only my thoughts, and I'm not really artistic mind, so...

Also very excited for the upcoming fluid change

[factoriouzr]

I don't like the idea of removing alien artifacts, as it is used for some of the high end gear, which creates a bit of a bottleneck which is fun to work through. Personally, I don't go out of my way to collect alien artifacts, and I don't mind coming back to my central factory with three stacks of them, as I just cleaned out my inventory building an outpost anyway.

One other reason that I think they should be left in is modding. I'm guessing that there will end up being a few mods with alien artifacts, and some will be complimentary, and they will each introduce their own artifacts, and then the game will crash. In this case, they would both be using the game defined artifacts. I guess what I'm saying is it's sorta like a built in CALIBR/eXcalibur ammo library from the Fallout 3 days.

It would also make an interesting addition (keep-in?) to the new research tree. If it is becoming infinite anyway, then eventually people will burn through their artifacts. If they don't burn through them fast enough, then you could make a separate alien artifact processing chain which makes little production boosts. Make a recipe that processes artifacts into power units or something, then combine them with a bunch of other stuff like circuit boards and engines to make somewhat expensive and minor (5% ish) boosts, and then have either logistic robots or a new (expensive) dedicated robots deliver them to assembly machines with higher levels prioritized. If this has been discussed ad nauseum earlier, I apologize, I only read the first page and a half and liked the idea.

It would also be great if you could pick a research and all it's prerequisites would also be researched in order of least types of science packs to most (ie. all red, then all red and green etc).

In addition to this, because research is being made infinite, add an option to research forever into the future. Ie. when the current research is done, pick the first research that is enabled and in the chain from this one and research it. This would allow for researching the infinite upgrades without having to pick a new one every few seconds or minutes (depending on how fast you are researching and producing science packs). This is an annoyance right now in late game, where there are technology paths I didn't research from the start till late game, but I want to research everything and it takes literally 3 seconds or so for many of the researches I do and I have to keep clicking and picking new researches.

It would also be nice if there was a research all option which would be implemented almost identically as the researching prerequisites I mentioned above. The only difference would be that instead of ordering research by least type of science packs just from the ones required by the technology you want to get to, it would look at all research you haven't done yet. This would be amazingly useful for the infinite research as well if the research is picked by least number and types of science packs as this would allow you to get to level 5 say of all the infinite researches before it tackles level 6 for any of them. It would be a great automated resource sink late game where you aren't distracted with picking researches to keep your factory going, it just keeps going.

[factoriouzr]

I would like to see the Alien Artifacts come to use in some consumable items like powerful grenades or smth:
--> kill Aliens
--> get Alien Artifacts
--> build more powerful ammo/grenades

I like this idea. Make the alien artefacts really rare and enable some ridiculously overpowered weapons by using them occaisonally. This would enable having a whole range of different rare alien artefacts which can be used as kind of ammo for those fun weapons.

This hits on a strong point. Artifacts are currently a problem because you need them for normal stuff such as science packs and power armour, so if you disable biters your game becomes crippled. If instead the artifacts were used for weapons/ammunition it wouldn't matter, you wouldn't have anything to shoot at anyway!

Except for shooting chests so you can destroy items as there is no other way in game (aside from driving over them I guess)

[Andrzejef]

I rather keep turtling inside my factory, with several areas (sections) defended by turrets, walls, and railways (yup ), and IF I go out, it's mostly to design another station for my factory (I don't even build anymore, I have drones for that) transit or another industrial sector (as I got them modular anyway). Never used alien artifacts, and probably I never will. It's just a certain mind set I got

But, I think they could be used to a) "discover" and/or create alien themed items; b) reducing research/production times per item/stack supplied to facility; c) as a substitute to conventional research packs (say one at a time) (while research is infinite anyway)

Also, I agree with TTL on items on ground idea.

[Zaflis]

You have my support too for removing alien artifacts from game, at least as they are now. I keep finding hundreds of them laying on ground as garbage everywhere recently. It drops in so large quantities that you cannot possibly collect all of it, or it would be very tedious task. At the very least they would have required longer collection radius. Then maybe let us convert alien artifacts into oil.. don't know.

One thing i would also propose is slowing down biter evolution alot. I'm playing with a mod which disables time and pollution based evolution completely, but after 1 or 2 runs of hive clearing with flamethrower i already see behemoth at 0.9 evo. Before combat it was 0.0. I mean i didn't even had any laser turrets made yet, base would be so screwed over quickly. My only option was to continue and clear them so much that it takes them many generations of expansions to approach me. I still have defences in some places like 2 regular turrets with some first tier ammo. It just escalated too fast.

[vanatteveldt]

I would propose to tie artifacts to nuclear power. In RP terms, the whole landscape is slightly radioactive, and the biters have a way to removing the radioactive elements and isolating them to prevent damage, much like an oyster isolates sand in a pearl. Or just call it alien power or whatever

- Add a nuclear power option that consumes artifacts to produce electricity, preferably something compact but complicated to properly automate like the nucular mod. Artifacts could play the role of uranium ore in that mod. This is consumed at a very low level with full reprocessing, and at a slightly higher level without reprocessing.
- Make the portable fusion plant (in power armor) consume artifacts at a slow but noticeable level, so players that want to make the most of exoskeletons/roboports need to keep a stream of artifacts going. Of course, portable solar + batteries remains an option, but it less compact so the power armor has lower effective capacity. Optionally, allow using a 'refined fuel' that is more compact than artifacts.

This gives (1) an alternative power path without introducing another mineable resource; and (2) gives a clear use for alien 'loot' and a need to keep clearing bases for players who choose to depend on nuclear/aliean power; while (3) allowing players to stick to a peaceful path and use coal/solar power.

I would also be in favour of using artifacts as an anti-biter mechanism, e.g.:
- Create artifact based ammo (like the alien evolution mod) and/or alien/nuclear explosives (like plutonium warheads in the nucular mod)
- Re-introduce alien science, but strictly on an optional (aggressive) path, e.g. for combat upgrades or for specific anti-biter techs. RP reason: you need to study biters to learn their weak spots and fight them more effectively

[factoriouzr]

You have my support too for removing alien artifacts from game, at least as they are now. I keep finding hundreds of them laying on ground as garbage everywhere recently. It drops in so large quantities that you cannot possibly collect all of it, or it would be very tedious task. At the very least they would have required longer collection radius. Then maybe let us convert alien artifacts into oil.. don't know.

One thing i would also propose is slowing down biter evolution alot. I'm playing with a mod which disables time and pollution based evolution completely, but after 1 or 2 runs of hive clearing with flamethrower i already see behemoth at 0.9 evo. Before combat it was 0.0. I mean i didn't even had any laser turrets made yet, base would be so screwed over quickly. My only option was to continue and clear them so much that it takes them many generations of expansions to approach me. I still have defences in some places like 2 regular turrets with some first tier ammo. It just escalated too fast.

I find them too easy in the base game. What about having options on map creation to adjust the initial difficulty and the difficulty ramp up along with adding more types and interesting behaviours to biters.

[factoriouzr]

I would propose to tie artifacts to nuclear power. In RP terms, the whole landscape is slightly radioactive, and the biters have a way to removing the radioactive elements and isolating them to prevent damage, much like an oyster isolates sand in a pearl. Or just call it alien power or whatever

- Add a nuclear power option that consumes artifacts to produce electricity, preferably something compact but complicated to properly automate like the nucular mod. Artifacts could play the role of uranium ore in that mod. This is consumed at a very low level with full reprocessing, and at a slightly higher level without reprocessing.
- Make the portable fusion plant (in power armor) consume artifacts at a slow but noticeable level, so players that want to make the most of exoskeletons/roboports need to keep a stream of artifacts going. Of course, portable solar + batteries remains an option, but it less compact so the power armor has lower effective capacity. Optionally, allow using a 'refined fuel' that is more compact than artifacts.

This gives (1) an alternative power path without introducing another mineable resource; and (2) gives a clear use for alien 'loot' and a need to keep clearing bases for players who choose to depend on nuclear/aliean power; while (3) allowing players to stick to a peaceful path and use coal/solar power.

I would also be in favour of using artifacts as an anti-biter mechanism, e.g.:
- Create artifact based ammo (like the alien evolution mod) and/or alien/nuclear explosives (like plutonium warheads in the nucular mod)
- Re-introduce alien science, but strictly on an optional (aggressive) path, e.g. for combat upgrades or for specific anti-biter techs. RP reason: you need to study biters to learn their weak spots and fight them more effectively

Interesting ideas. Personally I wouldn't like it if I needed fuel for my suit functions. That would get annoying. Perhaps other ways to use alien artifacts like giving boosts to research or converting into oil or coal, or other ways to supplement your existing resources, but not as an outright requirement to run fusion reactors in your power armor. If things are changed as you suggest that would basically make fusion reactors useless because you are going from solar panels to a less advanced form of power, where you now require fuel. Advancing on the tech tree should allow for infinite power as it does now.

What you suggest might make sense for early-mid game power source for power armor as an alternative without changing the existing sources of power.

[apriori]

I've always found it a bit odd that primitive insect droppings suddenly allow tech breakthroughs for portable fusion etc.

Ok then, isn't it odd that primitive insect droppings suddenly allow tech breakthroughs for weaponry (silk for vests) and medicine (poison for curing and drugs, beeswax for cosmetology and gynecology) IRL? Humanity has found these ways throughout its progress, Factorio guy (what's his name, btw? Steve, Gordon, Duke?.. ) has found his ways by researching Alien Technology. =)

I also think that biters should stay as some challenge anyway, but they should be improved to be more challenging (Scary Nights, Armageddon, flying/poisonous/EMP biters etc). But player's possibilities should be improved too (Robot Army for example). And AA (alien artifacts) for surface purification or decreasing pollution - to avoid those powerfull biters attacks.

And as far as you let us play Peace Mode, we'd like to get all the possibilities, so there's no necessity in using AA for crafting - just change recipes by replacing AA with smth, IMHO. Btw, as for me, I use AA in my mods as an ingredient for cool stuff (Plasma Shotgun Shells, Plasma Furnace, teleportation stuff etc).

But using it for boosting the production and in weaponry is SUPA-idea!