Friday Facts #177 - Difficulty settings

[Rseding91]

Overall options or even just using radio buttons would be awesome. I play with a Steam controller which makes changing a big list of drop-downs somewhat painful. Sliders would be OK if there aren't a ton of options -- otherwise dialing in a precise value still kinda sucks. Sometimes that's still the best solution, but when there's only a couple choices and a lot of options to set radio buttons would be great.

The game is designed around mouse and keyboard so any issues you have because you're not using a mouse and keyboard are not real issues that we want to spend any time on.

[Loewchen]

Having advanced enemy base spawning settings is amazing, I really don't like how fast and close they spawn in .14.

[katyal]

Wube communicate very well with all of us here, very transparent developer. Unfortunately that does mean you get to here the bad news along with the good. I hate hate waiting as much as the next person but I'd rather know that 0.15 will be late. The alternative is that february come and goes and every time someone asks the answer is "It will come when its ready".

[katyal]

The game is designed around mouse and keyboard so any issues you have because you're not using a mouse and keyboard are not real issues that we want to spend any time on.

While I do understand about the game being designed around mouse and keyboard and I agree in principal, I think you should consider sliders instead of drop downs if it wouldn't cost too much time. I believe sliders would be less cumbersome than a bunch of drop downs, especially when you are changing most of them. Allow us to save presets would also be a nice "quality of life" improvement but not absolutely essential.

[Jan11]

Very nice. But I have 1 advice. Please a function which saves the last game settings and one button for random settings.

[Rseding91]

Very nice. But I have 1 advice. Please a function which saves the last game settings and one button for random settings.

That already exists: it's the map-exchange string.

[daniel34]

Very nice. But I have 1 advice. Please a function which saves the last game settings and one button for random settings.

That already exists: it's the map-exchange string.

The map exchange string currently only covers the 'Basic settings' in your new map generator settings dialog, will there be a new revamped exchange string for the 'Advanced settings' ?

The answer is probably no as the basic settings can't be changed after starting a new game, but the advanced settings can, using console commands / mods. I'd like your input on that.

Another interesting feature is that after starting a new game (in the current 0.14.x) the basic settings are saved and going to New Game again will preseed the values of that game, will it be the same with the Advanced settings?
If yes, then please add a 'Reset' button on the Advanced settings tab that will move all values on that tab to the default values (probably also applicable to the Basic settings tab).

[factoriouzr]

I like the new changes to give players more options when configuring the experience they want to have.

Please also implement the following ideas and suggestions as well. These are related to the new game configuration and also related to things touched for 0.15.

add a way to save and restore new game settings (this will allow the user to create profiles of different settings they like, then save them and then with a single click or so select the same profile for new games. For eg. one could have a hard mode version, a short game version, a lots of resources or a low reasources version just as examples).
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35681

Can you please also fix the window size not being remembered between restarts please for 0.15. This has existed for a long time and across many many majour versions.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=35416

Since work is being done on blueprinting and blueprint sharing, it would be great to allow the user to do the following:
+add support for configuring and copy/pasting ghost entities
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37804
+copy and paste between factories and inserters
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35510&p=219987#p219987
+set a recipe on factories before research is done
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28954
+add ability to blueprint trains and vehicles


Also I have a question. With the recent speaker added to 0.15, is there going to be a way to blueprint items on belts, as creating complex music with different items on the same belt will result in a nightmare of circuit conditions and chests to be able to load up the belts correctly and at the correct rate as the belts move. This is based on the video in a previous Friday facts

Thanks

[y.petremann]

To sum up some idea for this gui :

• min/max range sliders would be preferable over two sliders, it avoid duplicate lines, save some space and is intuitive
• range map settings would be preferable, but I think it should get a dropdown button just after the range to choose common values like itnis now
• map related mod settings would be really apreciable
• Having the possibility to enable or disable mods on a per map, base,wouldnge interesting, basically when new mods are detected, it would ask if we want to add them or not, if mods are deleted or updated, it would ask if we keep that way or try to get it back, finally in load map gui, we should be able to modify which mod are enabled
• I think that a small preset manager would be appreciable too, I think it should simply keep a collection of map exchange strings with a name and maybe a short description, maybe we could add which mods are needed in the,map exchange string, which would tell factorio,to,download or enable them and maybe restart the game
• I also really would like to have the possibility to add global timing modifier to crafting, technology and mining, which would not modify overall ressource and power usage (you would need the same amount of energy for the same research, the same amount of fuel to smelt ...)

[Rseding91]

Very nice. But I have 1 advice. Please a function which saves the last game settings and one button for random settings.

That already exists: it's the map-exchange string.

The map exchange string currently only covers the 'Basic settings' in your new map generator settings dialog, will there be a new revamped exchange string for the 'Advanced settings' ?

The exchange string covers both tabs in 0.15.

[Rseding91]

I like the new changes to give players more options when configuring the experience they want to have.

Please also implement the following ideas and suggestions as well. These are related to the new game configuration and also related to things touched for 0.15.

add a way to save and restore new game settings (this will allow the user to create profiles of different settings they like, then save them and then with a single click or so select the same profile for new games. For eg. one could have a hard mode version, a short game version, a lots of resources or a low reasources version just as examples).
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35681

This already exists: it's the map exchange string.

Since work is being done on blueprinting and blueprint sharing, it would be great to allow the user to do the following:
+add support for configuring and copy/pasting ghost entities
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37804
+copy and paste between factories and inserters
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35510&p=219987#p219987
+set a recipe on factories before research is done
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28954
+add ability to blueprint trains and vehicles


Also I have a question. With the recent speaker added to 0.15, is there going to be a way to blueprint items on belts, as creating complex music with different items on the same belt will result in a nightmare of circuit conditions and chests to be able to load up the belts correctly and at the correct rate as the belts move. This is based on the video in a previous Friday facts

Thanks

No.

[Nemoricus]

Very nice. But I have 1 advice. Please a function which saves the last game settings and one button for random settings.

That already exists: it's the map-exchange string.

Doesn't that also include the map seed? And even if it doesn't, a way to name and manage those strings in-game would be very helpful.

I like having all of these settings, and think that they'll add to the game's replayability. That said, would you mind adding the option to enter values via a text box? If there are many positions for the slider, adjusting it to the precise value you want can be difficult.

[Jarin]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I absolutely love your continuing dedication to game performance. It's fun to hear about these odd little bits in the code that you're cleaning up, too.

[Neemys]

Nice improvement, but I'm afraid slider will not allow fine tune especially for evolution part, maybe a way to edit them directly ?

[Ohz]

A gigantic THANK YOU to bring into vanilla some part of Marathon and RSO inspirations !

[justarandomgeek]

Very nice. But I have 1 advice. Please a function which saves the last game settings and one button for random settings.

That already exists: it's the map-exchange string.

Doesn't that also include the map seed? And even if it doesn't, a way to name and manage those strings in-game would be very helpful.

I like having all of these settings, and think that they'll add to the game's replayability. That said, would you mind adding the option to enter values via a text box? If there are many positions for the slider, adjusting it to the precise value you want can be difficult.

You can load an exchange string and then blank out the seed, and it'll generate a random map of the same settings.

[_alphaBeta_]

Another interesting feature is that after starting a new game (in the current 0.14.x) the basic settings are saved and going to New Game again will preseed the values of that game, will it be the same with the Advanced settings?
If yes, then please add a 'Reset' button on the Advanced settings tab that will move all values on that tab to the default values (probably also applicable to the Basic settings tab).

I'd recommend this as well.


Will it be possible to zero out some of the evolution factors (turning them off) without disabling the entire system?

[justarandomgeek]

Will it be possible to zero out some of the evolution factors (turning them off) without disabling the entire system?

Most (all?) of these options are things you can do by console commands now, and I believe you can zero those factors that way, so I would assume the new options will allow it also.

[aober93]

Maybe this is a Marathon mod built in. But only this one will more likely support other mods thru its always built in nature. And having played the marathon, it creates entirely new production setups which is interesting.

[Uristqwerty]

For bulk configuration, how about a "default" row, and a "use default" column of checkboxes?