Friday Facts #177 - Difficulty settings

[RoddyVR]

Alien artifacts being removed? Yet they just got a new icon! I think that there might've been a communication error there.

I think they got their new icon BECAUSE they're being removed. Otherwise the icon would have been wasted entirely. Looks more like scales than artifacts, though.

Why do people keep thinking they're getting removed. I got the impression that they were being removed from the tech beaker costs, but left for stuff like mk2 armor and modules and so on.

[y.petremann]

Alien artifacts being removed? Yet they just got a new icon! I think that there might've been a communication error there.

I think they got their new icon BECAUSE they're being removed. Otherwise the icon would have been wasted entirely. Looks more like scales than artifacts, though.

Why do people keep thinking they're getting removed. I got the impression that they were being removed from the tech beaker costs, but left for stuff like mk2 armor and modules and so on.

I think the same, It was clearly stated that alien artifacts were not needed to finish the game, mainly to permit alien-less world.

[HanziQ]

Alien artifacts being removed? Yet they just got a new icon! I think that there might've been a communication error there.

I think they got their new icon BECAUSE they're being removed. Otherwise the icon would have been wasted entirely. Looks more like scales than artifacts, though.

Why do people keep thinking they're getting removed. I got the impression that they were being removed from the tech beaker costs, but left for stuff like mk2 armor and modules and so on.

I think the same, It was clearly stated that alien artifacts were not needed to finish the game, mainly to permit alien-less world.

They are being removed from the game, as stated in FFF 162.

[bobingabout]

Wait, they got a new icon?

[daniel34]

Wait, they got a new icon?

Yes, in 0.14.22.

Old icon:
New icon:

[Deadly-Bagel]

Goodbye little blue girl, find peace. We will never know you or why you were there in the first place.

[Ghoulish]

Nice changes, should allow us to fine tune our games

Is the layout an example of the new staff members work? Just curious

Also wanted to ask what the plans were for the resource spawning screen, the whole frequency not equalling frequency (in the way you'd think) Always seems most unintuitive.

[bdean20]

Will it be possible for mod developers to introduce their own difficulty types other than "recipe" and "technology"?

For example: If/when Angel's refining and petrochem support difficulty levels, I'd like to be able to select that I want to play refining on complex but petrochem on simple.

[Rseding91]

Will it be possible for mod developers to introduce their own difficulty types other than "recipe" and "technology"?

For example: If/when Angel's refining and petrochem support difficulty levels, I'd like to be able to select that I want to play refining on complex but petrochem on simple.

No.

[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

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.

No what? No you won't implement the features we want? No you won't be able to blueprint items on belts?

I didn't say this on the Friday facts where you guys talked about adding support for the speaker, but personally I think the speaker should not have been developed at this time. The time should have been spent on the many many more important bugs and feature requests that have been outstanding for many majour versions. Some of them off the top of my head include improving robots and roboport behaviours, better gui with modern features, combined logistics request and trash slots, improving the blueprint feature in many ways, including blueprinting trains and vehicles, improved train GUI that displays actual names of trains, improved train stop management and ability to combine multiple train stops in a logical way, make the windows bigger (especially the train stop selection GUI's, I mean come on, on 1080p and above monitors, having an archaic GUI that shows about 5-10 stops is ridiculous), allow windows to be resized and have window positions be remembered, and fix the window size on startup so if you aren't playing full screen, it remembers it's size and position, etc. I didn't say anything at the time because even though the speaker is a feature I really think is extremely low priority compared to the other things I listed and I don't even want it personally, I think it's good sometimes to let developers work on fun features they are interested in. However, there are no updates on most outstanding issues that I have been keeping an eye on, many of which many people have reported and want resolved. When I directly ask for an update on such issues, such as in the previous post, all I get is a "No", or a no reply. I like you guys, I think you have been great in general and I love factorio, but I don't appreciate such vague replies that brush off the issues.

[Rseding91]

No what? No you won't implement the features we want? No you won't be able to blueprint items on belts?

"The features we want" is incredibly broad. Virtually all of the feature requests in ideas and suggestions would make the game worse for the vast majority of the players while making a select few happy in specific scenarios.

If we added every little feature someone comes up with we'd have a giant kludge of a game with no coherency. Thought has to be put into every feature that's added to make sure It mixes well with the overall goal of the game.

• One person wants biters to be super difficult and have advanced AI. The next person wants them removed from the game.
• One person wants circuit networks to be a vital part of factory design with the ability to control things at the granule level. The next person wants them removed from the game.
• One person wants super complex recipes with 10s of different ores spread all over the world. The next person wants everything to be simple and wants oil removed from the game because it's too complex for them.
• One person wants hand crafting to have upgrades to increase the speed. The next person wants hand crafting to be super slow to encourage factory automation.

We can't please everyone: trying to do so means making a custom tailored game for every possible player type with the end result being a garbage game for all.

[Mooncat]

I think the update of alien artifect image is because the devs want to get rid of sprites from other games before v1.0 is done.
More info: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32457

So I am looking forward to the update of module images.

Also

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/328903579007521880/
https://www.google.com.hk/imgres?imgurl ... 434&w=1024
http://orbitalvector.com/Power/Fusion/FUSION.htm
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/526710118905923075/ (Capsules)

[bobingabout]

I like the pink blob actually.

[factoriouzr]

No what? No you won't implement the features we want? No you won't be able to blueprint items on belts?

"The features we want" is incredibly broad. Virtually all of the feature requests in ideas and suggestions would make the game worse for the vast majority of the players while making a select few happy in specific scenarios.

If we added every little feature someone comes up with we'd have a giant kludge of a game with no coherency. Thought has to be put into every feature that's added to make sure It mixes well with the overall goal of the game.

• One person wants biters to be super difficult and have advanced AI. The next person wants them removed from the game.
• One person wants circuit networks to be a vital part of factory design with the ability to control things at the granule level. The next person wants them removed from the game.
• One person wants super complex recipes with 10s of different ores spread all over the world. The next person wants everything to be simple and wants oil removed from the game because it's too complex for them.
• One person wants hand crafting to have upgrades to increase the speed. The next person wants hand crafting to be super slow to encourage factory automation.

We can't please everyone: trying to do so means making a custom tailored game for every possible player type with the end result being a garbage game for all.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm more talking about weaknesses in the game, such as the ones I listed in my post. How is an improved train GUI for eg. something not all players would want? It's already in the game and it clearly has weaknesses, such as not listing train names.

How is improving the GUI in general not something everyone wants? The GUI for factorio is functional but it's hardly anywhere near modern standards. How is fixing this not a good thing for all players? How is drag and drop of GUI components not good, how is making the windows bigger (eg. train stop selection).

How is combining logistics request and logistics trash sliders on the same screen for the same item not a good idea? All this is in game already, but it could be improved.

How is remembering the window size and position not a good thing when not in full screen?

There are many more examples, but in general, anything already in the game, where there are areas of weakness or there are suggestions on how to enhance it, should be given a higher priority.

I agree that you can't implement all features and make all people happy, but if the feature is optional to use, then it's a win/win. Also the guideline should be "If it's easily doable with mods, especially if a mod already exists to do that, it should be lower priority in general (aside from special cases), and if it's something modders can't do, then it should in general have a higher priority to implement." This should also take into consideration how many players want it etc.

Also another great guideline is to make things configurable as much as possible. You gave the example of some player want harder biters, some don't want them at all. Well that's easy to solve, just add difficulty settings on game creation.

I appreciate all the effort you are all putting in to this great game, but please don't neglect the long outstanding enhancement requests.

[Kevin Ar18]

Would you be willing to reconsider adding these 3 sliders?

settings.png (39.45 KiB) Viewed 8835 times

In case you are wondering, I am the person that originally posted the suggestion to add "difficulty" sliders to the game.

I have tested these settings in the game and found that by increasing the number of beakers used and the lab power usage, you can make a game last much longer. However, you generally want to make red science easy to get so you can actually automate.
The key reason why you want this is:
* To make games last weeks or months
* To make multiplayer last longer (some servers have so many players you get all key techs in a few hours).

Maybe mapgen is not the right place for such settings? It would be nice if you could change an existing save at any time.

Other notes:
* The sliders should have a range of at least 0.1 to 10000 to allow for shorter games as well as epically long multiplayer games.

[Rseding91]

In case you are wondering, I am the person that originally posted the suggestion to add "difficulty" sliders to the game.

You suggested something before creating your forums account back in 2014?

You're not the first person to suggest difficulty sliders. Like most things we do - it has been done in a multitude of other games in some way and or we've had it on our internal to-do for years and only now decided it was worth spending time on.

Anyway, that aside: you can change the settings runtime but "weird" things happen because of how unlocked research/recipes work. It's not advised.

[Xeteth]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm more talking about weaknesses in the game, such as the ones I listed in my post. How is an improved train GUI for eg. something not all players would want? It's already in the game and it clearly has weaknesses, such as not listing train names.

How is improving the GUI in general not something everyone wants? The GUI for factorio is functional but it's hardly anywhere near modern standards. How is fixing this not a good thing for all players? How is drag and drop of GUI components not good, how is making the windows bigger (eg. train stop selection).

How is combining logistics request and logistics trash sliders on the same screen for the same item not a good idea? All this is in game already, but it could be improved.

How is remembering the window size and position not a good thing when not in full screen?

There are many more examples, but in general, anything already in the game, where there are areas of weakness or there are suggestions on how to enhance it, should be given a higher priority.

I agree that you can't implement all features and make all people happy, but if the feature is optional to use, then it's a win/win. Also the guideline should be "If it's easily doable with mods, especially if a mod already exists to do that, it should be lower priority in general (aside from special cases), and if it's something modders can't do, then it should in general have a higher priority to implement." This should also take into consideration how many players want it etc.

Also another great guideline is to make things configurable as much as possible. You gave the example of some player want harder biters, some don't want them at all. Well that's easy to solve, just add difficulty settings on game creation.

I appreciate all the effort you are all putting in to this great game, but please don't neglect the long outstanding enhancement requests.

If you read previous FFF the gui is getting an overhaul. In-fact they recently had someone start who is specifically assigned to improving the UI in Factorio (See this FFF: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-170).

Furthermore you seem to be going about this the wrong way, perhaps it's just the language you are using coming across in a negative fashion.

This, for example;

I didn't say this on the Friday facts where you guys talked about adding support for the speaker, but personally I think the speaker should not have been developed at this time. The time should have been spent on the many many more important bugs and feature requests that have been outstanding for many majour versions. Some of them off the top of my head include improving robots and roboport behaviours, better gui with modern features, combined logistics request and trash slots, improving the blueprint feature in many ways, including blueprinting trains and vehicles, improved train GUI that displays actual names of trains, improved train stop management and ability to combine multiple train stops in a logical way, make the windows bigger (especially the train stop selection GUI's, I mean come on, on 1080p and above monitors, having an archaic GUI that shows about 5-10 stops is ridiculous), allow windows to be resized and have window positions be remembered, and fix the window size on startup so if you aren't playing full screen, it remembers it's size and position, etc. I didn't say anything at the time because even though the speaker is a feature I really think is extremely low priority compared to the other things I listed and I don't even want it personally, I think it's good sometimes to let developers work on fun features they are interested in.

You don't love the speaker - that's fine. But I do. I love it and have wanted something along these lines for a long time now. Secondly, you have an assumption that all the developers can work on anything anytime and unfortunately this isn't quite the case. Seeing Twinsen (the developer who made/works on the circuit network) work on other areas of the game that he may not be totally familiar may not be the best decision for the game or for development. Again, we can only guess on which developers are in charge of what and software development doesn't go anywhere just by throwing everyone on the same thing.

Finally, it is important to remember that there are many features people want added to the game. Me personally? I'd love to be able to direct trains to various stations with circuit network control - but is this a good idea for the game? Maybe not when you consider that this would be a complex system that might confuse new players, take valuable development time and possibly only be used by a minority of players. Hence, I look to mods to do what I want - in this case Smart Trains.

At the end of the day Factorio always has been an extremely well thought out and executed product and (although we all have issues we'd like to see addressed) I believe that won't change. This development team is one of only two that I'd be happy to throw my money and support behind (the other being Ludeon Studios - makers of Rimworld).

[factoriouzr]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm more talking about weaknesses in the game, such as the ones I listed in my post. How is an improved train GUI for eg. something not all players would want? It's already in the game and it clearly has weaknesses, such as not listing train names.

How is improving the GUI in general not something everyone wants? The GUI for factorio is functional but it's hardly anywhere near modern standards. How is fixing this not a good thing for all players? How is drag and drop of GUI components not good, how is making the windows bigger (eg. train stop selection).

How is combining logistics request and logistics trash sliders on the same screen for the same item not a good idea? All this is in game already, but it could be improved.

How is remembering the window size and position not a good thing when not in full screen?

There are many more examples, but in general, anything already in the game, where there are areas of weakness or there are suggestions on how to enhance it, should be given a higher priority.

I agree that you can't implement all features and make all people happy, but if the feature is optional to use, then it's a win/win. Also the guideline should be "If it's easily doable with mods, especially if a mod already exists to do that, it should be lower priority in general (aside from special cases), and if it's something modders can't do, then it should in general have a higher priority to implement." This should also take into consideration how many players want it etc.

Also another great guideline is to make things configurable as much as possible. You gave the example of some player want harder biters, some don't want them at all. Well that's easy to solve, just add difficulty settings on game creation.

I appreciate all the effort you are all putting in to this great game, but please don't neglect the long outstanding enhancement requests.

If you read previous FFF the gui is getting an overhaul. In-fact they recently had someone start who is specifically assigned to improving the UI in Factorio (See this FFF: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-170).

Furthermore you seem to be going about this the wrong way, perhaps it's just the language you are using coming across in a negative fashion.

This, for example;

I didn't say this on the Friday facts where you guys talked about adding support for the speaker, but personally I think the speaker should not have been developed at this time. The time should have been spent on the many many more important bugs and feature requests that have been outstanding for many majour versions. Some of them off the top of my head include improving robots and roboport behaviours, better gui with modern features, combined logistics request and trash slots, improving the blueprint feature in many ways, including blueprinting trains and vehicles, improved train GUI that displays actual names of trains, improved train stop management and ability to combine multiple train stops in a logical way, make the windows bigger (especially the train stop selection GUI's, I mean come on, on 1080p and above monitors, having an archaic GUI that shows about 5-10 stops is ridiculous), allow windows to be resized and have window positions be remembered, and fix the window size on startup so if you aren't playing full screen, it remembers it's size and position, etc. I didn't say anything at the time because even though the speaker is a feature I really think is extremely low priority compared to the other things I listed and I don't even want it personally, I think it's good sometimes to let developers work on fun features they are interested in.

You don't love the speaker - that's fine. But I do. I love it and have wanted something along these lines for a long time now. Secondly, you have an assumption that all the developers can work on anything anytime and unfortunately this isn't quite the case. Seeing Twinsen (the developer who made/works on the circuit network) work on other areas of the game that he may not be totally familiar may not be the best decision for the game or for development. Again, we can only guess on which developers are in charge of what and software development doesn't go anywhere just by throwing everyone on the same thing.

Finally, it is important to remember that there are many features people want added to the game. Me personally? I'd love to be able to direct trains to various stations with circuit network control - but is this a good idea for the game? Maybe not when you consider that this would be a complex system that might confuse new players, take valuable development time and possibly only be used by a minority of players. Hence, I look to mods to do what I want - in this case Smart Trains.

At the end of the day Factorio always has been an extremely well thought out and executed product and (although we all have issues we'd like to see addressed) I believe that won't change. This development team is one of only two that I'd be happy to throw my money and support behind (the other being Ludeon Studios - makers of Rimworld).

Please see the post I made before you made your post. I think a lot of the things you talk about I already addressed there.

As for the speaker, did you want it to make music, or did you just want something to notify you of events via a beep, or text message or something like that? I was only expressing that I personally think that the music is cool, but I haven't seen anybody ask for something that fancy. From what I saw, some people wanted a simple notification system of text or a beep and I didn't see this requested by many people. I did however see many features requested by a ton of people that are really good ideas in my opinion and many I suggested myself that others also want implemented. My point about the speaker is that the long outstanding issues that get suggested over and over again, are not given priority, there is no reply from the devs on some of the issues at all, or the devs reject good ideas outright, yet a feature that I didn't see being requested at all (the ability to make music) is implemented. As I stated, I'm fine with the devs making cool things nobody asked for (and again I'm talking about the ability to make music, not the ability to send notifications) as long as the long requested features also get implemented. You mention that not everybody can work on every task at the company, however this doesn't apply to my example of the speaker. A developer had to program the speaker, same as a developer has to implement or fix the functionality in the bugs I listed. As such it's the same resource that does both tasks and by making music with the speaker, time was taken away from developing something much more useful (more useful in the sense that it would benefit more people because more people have continually been requesting it).

This is just something to think about. As I mentioned, I love factorio and in general the developers are pretty good. I just want to make the game better.

[Kevin Ar18]

In case you are wondering, I am the person that originally posted the suggestion to add "difficulty" sliders to the game.

... we've had it on our internal to-do for years and only now decided it was worth spending time on.

No, no... Sorry for the misunderstanding. Of course, I did not suggest it first. However, I noticed that after I posted a suggestion for difficulty sliders, kovarex talked about the plan to add different research types... and he almost quoted me exactly while explaining the new settings. So, I kinda guessed, he must have read my post. I just assumed kovarex (or someone else) would be reading this thread too, so I worded it that way. Sorry for the confusion.

[StoneLegion]

Not sure if anyone stated this but it does not look like you can allow biters to expand on player owned areas? I think this might been nerfed / fixed over time anyways some what but I had always enabled this for more of a challenge.