Friday Facts #187 - Space science & 0.15 graphics

[fishycat]

um... i have some concerns about the sience symbols in the tech tree...
for the early techs it is a nice info gain. but later one, with techs that need 5 and more different techs it might get confusing.
they simply get to squeezed in the tech button to show them all.

A little bit of abstraction in the UI design would help a lot, and not only here (new inventory icons are also rather busy and would benefit IMO from getting reduced to a more basic form):


(compare with the image in this FFF)

looks nice, more tidy, good idea!

[MC_Koot]

Big fan of the game and the new update looks great,
the only thing that is really upsetting me is the GUI reskin, it looks so old now, real retro if you get what I mean.
the rest of the update is super!
looking forward to it!!!

[jona5]

i literally yelled "awesome!" at every single item in this list:

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... orward_to/

[Karamel]

Wow I am so excited for .15. You guys have done an amazing job with everything. It looks fantastic, thank you so much.

I have a question though I hope I can get answered. The mining drill shown in the nuclear power pic, the one with fluid input, is that a new mining drill just for mining uranium? Is it the new model for the old mining drill? Is it a mid game upgrade to the normal mining drill? Is it something I can't even begin to imagine?

Gotta make sure I get my weekly errands done by Tuesday now...

There is still just one electric mining drill, these graphics only show up when you build it over uranium ore.

But since the graphics now exist, maybe the mining of regular stuff could be made more efficient if the miners are supplied with lubricant?

That would make Heavy Oil more useful in general, and give those new liquid wagons something besides oil to haul around.

[lord_joshi]

As you already know from earlier, we have also changed the boiler to be 2x3 tiles instead of 1x1 which required new graphics.

What will happen to them in exitsting maps?

[DaemosDaen]

No belt optimizations? Please add this as a 0.15.xx update. it has been sorely needed for a long time.

[Loewchen]

As you already know from earlier, we have also changed the boiler to be 2x3 tiles instead of 1x1 which required new graphics.

What will happen to them in exitsting maps?

The old ones will simply be missing, there might be new ones in the area to compensate, but you will have to rebuild the setup anyway as it works significantly different now. This will not be the only migration issue, so it is advisable to start a new game with .15.

[Omarflyjoemacky]

Man, many of you are total dorks. This is easily the best gaming news of the year for myself. I was smiling and laughing while reading this FFF. Quit complaining about colors, textures, future updates... get out of your mothers basement and go buy a coca cola. I suppose it could be said you are driving the developers forward with more incredible ideas - but these guys need a vacation already why not?!

To all the others who share positive enthusiasm - we truly are a band of brothers. No one understands until they start to play this game.

To the developers - you guys are just soooooooooo doing things right. Proper testing, incredible free content, a truly encompassing game... Even the Steam negative reviews are positive to throw off the haters. You guys are amazing, and i'd pay $100 for this game. Since I can't do that I have to find 5 friends to give it to.

Dev's, I say it again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. T.h.a.n.k. Y.o.u.

P.S. Wife hates you guys.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Me yesterday morning: Eeeeee I can't wait for 0.15 =D Gonna have so much fun, maybe a standard run first or do I want to go straight for the logistics run ahhh I can't decide but it's gonna be greeaaat =D

Me today (after reading FF): Omg this is so soon I don't think I'm ready for this what if I want to get that last achievement for circuits first in case it's harder in 0.15 maybe I won't update straight away...

[mophydeen]

There are more logistic slots per line...?

[joon]

There are more logistic slots per line...?

yup, from 5 to 6

[Tricorius]

Coal Liquefaction, radioactive ammunition, fluid trains, universal barreling...

I was reading through this at a break in work... I was so happy that a coworker asked me something (his name is Adrian). I answered him, but called him "Alien". ... ...

So...that happened.

At this point I can hardly wait to load radiation-infused ordinance to my outer walls. I'd also like to request missile turrets.

And please make those long-range missile turrets so I don't obliterate part of my wall.

[aober93]

what is this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbc5NgdHwTk&t=524

[mcwaffles2003]

No belt optimizations? Please add this as a 0.15.xx update. it has been sorely needed for a long time.

may i refer you to https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-176

[Zeblote]

No belt optimizations? Please add this as a 0.15.xx update. it has been sorely needed for a long time.

may i refer you to https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-176

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... o/dglrsyc/

[mcwaffles2003]

No belt optimizations? Please add this as a 0.15.xx update. it has been sorely needed for a long time.

may i refer you to https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-176

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... o/dglrsyc/

well at least theres this, it something:

Best FFF evA! Props to the development team. You guys are awesome.
How long would it usually take for popular mods to get updated for new versions??? Factorio without Long Reach, Rail Layer and ... is kind of painful for me.

As far as I know, the modding (scripting) interface didn't change much, it was mainly just expanded, so updating the mods shouldn't be a big problem.

In FFF 157 you guys mentioned

"The problem with decoratives

One of the 0.13 changes was change of the map generation. As part of it, it happened that the game is suddenly generating a lot of more of the decorative entities. It often looks like this:


It looks nicer, but the problem is that there could be tens of millions of these on big maps, which can multiply the size of the save and ram required to hold it.There is even a mod that removes them completely to solve the issue. We were discussing solutions of this, and we will probably just change decoratives so they are not regular entities anymore. They would be a special type of an object that is not saved in the map, but generated on the fly when the player walks around. They would be saved per chunk in a very compressed format so it only takes 3 bytes of memory per decorative instead of approximately 300 bytes when it exists as an entity. This will also improve performance, as when some code is checking entities in some perimeter, it wouldn't have to iterate through tons of these decoratives uselessly. As these changes are too big to be added into the 0.14, we will probably just reduce decorative generation in 0.14 and do this change for 0.15."

is this change still planned on being implemented?

Yes, the decoratives problem was solved for 0.15 and we used that in our testing. The saves are much smaller and the memory usage is smaller too. There should be no real need to use the decorative removal mod anymore.

[Loewchen]

well at least theres this, it something: (...)

This will have no affect on performance, but the other improvements (without new belt logic) should still be quite noticeable.

[kel]

The new update looks great.

There is just one thing that sprins to mind when i see the reactor though,
reactors actually glow blue when they are active. (which is very cool)

On the other hand, it probably would be look strange that green glowing ore makes a reactor glow blue.

[Jan11]

The new update looks great.

There is just one thing that sprins to mind when i see the reactor though,
reactors actually glow blue when they are active. (which is very cool)

On the other hand, it probably would be look strange that green glowing ore makes a reactor glow blue.

You can transport a tank or a satellite in your pocket.^^ Let it glowing green.^^

[Mendel]

I sincerely hope you guys actually have the release pretty much good to go already and instead of more weekend testing you have time to have a nice 0.15 release party. Have a drink or two

Tuesday seems like a very good choice for a release day. This way you have the whole monday to sober up and prepare for the release. And starting on tuesday there is great chance to react quickly for any and all bug reports.