Friday Facts #165 - Death by a thousand cuts

[dinodod]

When are we going to fix griefers / base destroyers ? MP is dying because of these clowns. And no chatter on any solutions.

I love the game very much but I wish to have some protection from griefers. I saw a admin mod called spacebook which seems to offer some help but we need an official fix to this.

Please push this as a #1 issue over optimizations at this time.

Looking forward to seeing what else you do.

Thanks!

[Rseding91]

When are we going to fix griefers / base destroyers ? MP is dying because of these clowns. And no chatter on any solutions.

I love the game very much but I wish to have some protection from griefers. I saw a admin mod called spacebook which seems to offer some help but we need an official fix to this.

Please push this as a #1 issue over optimizations at this time.

Looking forward to seeing what else you do.

Thanks!

You just /ban the person and it's fixed.

[dinodod]

You just /ban the person and it's fixed.

Oh yea I didn't know that! But the base is destroyed now. How do you prevent that, Oh Smartone?

[Faen]

Oh yea I didn't know that! But the base is destroyed now. How do you prevent that, Oh Smartone?

backup file?

On the other hand, nice to hear about that massive optimization.

[Plop and run]

The picture is cute, but the specular spots look odd and too bright for a dusty dirty train.

[Mooncat]

Oh yea I didn't know that! But the base is destroyed now. How do you prevent that, Oh Smartone?

Please participate on here: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=29937

Meanwhile, yes, I would like to see the opinions from the devs about this topic too, even though I haven't been a server admin, I don't like to see griefers destroying this amazing game.
Here is a discussion in July: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=29422, where Klonan said they will carry out actions if needed, but didn't say further. It is still worth to read as they have made some good points (except one particular person who obviously didn't like that topic).

[Grimakar]

You just /ban the person and it's fixed.

Oh yea I didn't know that! But the base is destroyed now. How do you prevent that, Oh Smartone?

Well, I am doing a savegame, before I quit my server. And when it is destroyed, I upload it again. If not, fine.

[bobingabout]

Can we not load what's needed for the menu, and then background-load the rest while people are in the menu and configuring/loading their game.

Part of the issue of why this happens like this is because ALL assets (but not scripts) are loaded into RAM during game load, before the main menu.
This includes loading, and parsing all data.lua, data-updates.lua and data-final-fixes.lua files to make sure every works together, and that's just to 20%, the rest of it is loading all graphics, and making sure they're valid.

To be honest... Why do all sprite sheets need to load into RAM, and remain there for the entire existence of the game's life? Can't they just be loaded as and when they're needed, saving game load time, then possibly even unloaded afterwards to make room in RAM for other things when not currently being used?

[Optera]

0.15 is giving me hope my megabase crawling at a 20UPS might become playable again.


I always imagined trains to have proportions similar to steam engines and boxcars. Seeing them this flattened feels a bit weird.

[Andrzejef]

Now that you mention it, this render really seems too flat... Oh well, I'm going to stretch it then

[Anson]

Seeing them this flattened feels a bit weird.

looked weird to me too for a moment ...
but then i thought it might be a high gravitation planet where everything is wider and less tall :-)

although nice graphics are nice, the game contents is much more important to me,
and that gets better and better in factorio with every update and every mod.

lots of "newer" movies, games, etc live only from their good looks and effects, but many people will watch/play them only once and then wait for even better looks and effects. but when the story of a movie or the challenge in some game is excellent, i don't care much for those looks and effects, and eg on a movie with good plot sometimes have difficulty to remember later whether it was an old 4:3 b/w or a widescreen color movie. similarly, i still enjoy the old tycoon games, AOE and PA with relatively simple graphics and mostly don't care much whether graphics are HD or whether rails are drawn at 45 degrees or topdown. sometimes i play factorio even without a computer (and thus without any graphics), when trying to think of clever unloading stations or train networks while going by train in RL :-)

[Optera]

Seeing them this flattened feels a bit weird.

looked weird to me too for a moment ...
but then i thought it might be a high gravitation planet where everything is wider and less tall

although nice graphics are nice, the game contents is much more important to me,
and that gets better and better in factorio with every update and every mod.

lots of "newer" movies, games, etc live only from their good looks and effects, but many people will watch/play them only once and then wait for even better looks and effects. but when the story of a movie or the challenge in some game is excellent, i don't care much for those looks and effects, and eg on a movie with good plot sometimes have difficulty to remember later whether it was an old 4:3 b/w or a widescreen color movie. similarly, i still enjoy the old tycoon games, AOE and PA with relatively simple graphics and mostly don't care much whether graphics are HD or whether rails are drawn at 45 degrees or topdown. sometimes i play factorio even without a computer (and thus without any graphics), when trying to think of clever unloading stations or train networks while going by train in RL

Great visuals can only catch attention for a short time. I stopped watching Hollywood movies a long time ago, with only very few exceptions they became visual spectacles without any meat to the story.
Most triple A games keep going the same route. If graphics is all they have games loose their appeal really fast. RTS, TBS, or simulations just need good enough graphics, their pull is in the gameplay, that famous "one more turn" effect. In OTTD the 16bit graphics make the world seem more realistic and charming to me than any later version. Those mostly look like bizarre alien worlds or model railroad simulations.
Beside my Laptop would not be able to handle a transport network spawning the entire north American continent with several hundred trains rendered with realistic graphics.

[aeros1]

Good to hear that you stopped doing strange not really helping ideas(which in fact could even slow down game(at least in case of circuit networks, I liked idea with pipes and belts), and decided to relook and optimized code. I hope for some multithreaded support(with sychoronization) or at least it emulated for some parts, like circuit networks( theier structure just calls for this approach). Power networks are strange: Why you need to keep updating them all the time if you need just to see if items powered unpowered when power network object removed added, and maybe store items in power network class and have list of references on PowerNetwork classes on power network capable item in which this item is in. This would make adding item to power network quick, only when required, and removing as quick. And checking if item is powered unpowered could be done with

Code: Select all

class TEntity
{
...
propererty bool m_IsPowered
  get()
  {
    if (m_PowerNetworkPoweredCount>0) 
      return true;
    else
      return false;
  }
...
}

m_PowerNetworkPoweredCount is changed when switch connected to power network cuts it from power sources, or entity removed from power network via more permanent basis (mined or destroyed).
Maybe I am wrong how power network works but I've seen some big performance losses on streams due to too much of electric poles without any extensive circuit networks.

Also my friend found bug, it is not really important as in usual game unlikely to cause problems, but in new version of 0.15 where circuit networks for good nuclear power plant layouts are seem to be planned as requirment, it may become a situation where isolated power network with combinators and solar batteries with accumulators are the thing to keep network automatically restartable.

The bug.
When happens: After loading saved game with isolated power network.
How to reproduce: in game with steam power network add simple isolated network:

P S A ->
Where P is sollar panel, S is substation, A is accumulator, -> is combinator. After reloading safe accumulator would discharge even during day, and sollar panels wouldn't be connected to network so accumulator wouldn't charge up.
Possible other behaviors:

S A S (Substations not connected with wire) May stop to transition power through accumulator charge making this setup of limiting power flow useless)

Possible place: Something in code preventing correct analisis of isolated power networks, or combinators are not trearted by game like power consuming item and don't querry for possible power plants before accumulators,combinators treat accumulators either as secondary or primary power source, accumulators not treated as power draining structure when isolated power network present so they not updated inside it.

[MaexxDesign]

I hope it's possible to produce my 11.000 red circuits per minute with 60 FPS in 0.15.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjYAqp4YBPM

Awesome work, awesome game ! ! !

[EvilMushroom]

Now that we are getting closer to release, I thought I would share my wishlist of little things that aren't really necessary, but I think would be really cool to have.

Filter deconstruction planner. I would hope I could specify filters just like the filter inserter. This would have many uses, such as only clearing trees and rocks from an area while leaving my base intact. Or uprooting all of a certain grade of belt from an area so I don't forget to upgrade anything to the faster belt.

Make pollution an production indicators separate. Right now I want the production indicator on most of the time, but the pollution indicator on only some of the time. Since they are both bound by the alt key, I get both or neither. I would prefer either two separate keys, or have it cycle between all 4 combinations of pollution/production indicators on/off.

Don't let rogue construction robots interfere with my building. Sometimes a construction robot gets caught far away from me, yet still receives my command to build something. This prevents any of my other construction robots in my personal roboport from accepting the task. I suspect this happens after I speed along on an train past something that needs repair. When a construction robot gets too far separated from me, I would rather it forget its command so a local construction robot can take over, or simply have it explode.

It would be nice to have a water well (or simply opposite of landfill) in addition to the landfill. I would expect this to be a late game thing. Having the ability to get water from anywhere in the late game would make me less afraid of landfilling the whole area to make room for my base, as I could be sure I could undo any mistake by adding a water well. I imagine the world of factorio is a planet with a water core that land floats on.

[tk0421]

TBH the only mod i want to hear about is a mod that unlocks steam achievements when using other mods.

[Deadly-Bagel]

That will never happen, think about it, you could mod in the game that a rocket requires 1 iron plate and is available right at the start, or have an assembly machine making 1,000x electronic circuits per recipe, heck I'm sure someone would create a mod "Get Dem Achievements" that you load up, launch the game and within a few seconds you've unlocked every achievement. It makes them pointless so therefore with mods they're disabled.

[zebediah49]

That will never happen, think about it, you could mod in the game that a rocket requires 1 iron plate and is available right at the start, or have an assembly machine making 1,000x electronic circuits per recipe, heck I'm sure someone would create a mod "Get Dem Achievements" that you load up, launch the game and within a few seconds you've unlocked every achievement. It makes them pointless so therefore with mods they're disabled.

Oh god the lag, even just from lighting the nearest 10,000 trees on fire...

This is why mods switch your achievements to a separate track. I do support a 2nd tier of mods that don't invalidate achievements though: they would only be allowed to do GUI stuff; no write access to any of the game prototypes or other relevant stuff. So a clock mod, or an achievement progress mod, would be fine, but game content changes would not.

[Optera]

A mod enabling achievements wouldn't hurt at this point. If you want to cheat to get achievements there are countless ways to do so.
For example, build a base with creative mode, remove it, reap all achievements.

[ratchetfreak]

That will never happen, think about it, you could mod in the game that a rocket requires 1 iron plate and is available right at the start, or have an assembly machine making 1,000x electronic circuits per recipe, heck I'm sure someone would create a mod "Get Dem Achievements" that you load up, launch the game and within a few seconds you've unlocked every achievement. It makes them pointless so therefore with mods they're disabled.

Oh god the lag, even just from lighting the nearest 10,000 trees on fire...

This is why mods switch your achievements to a separate track. I do support a 2nd tier of mods that don't invalidate achievements though: they would only be allowed to do GUI stuff; no write access to any of the game prototypes or other relevant stuff. So a clock mod, or an achievement progress mod, would be fine, but game content changes would not.

unfortunately the current mod system doesn't really allow that to happen.