Version 0.15.7

[neoc]

(I can't read)

For science pack 3, switching from assembling machine 1 to pumpjack is not a good idea: Pumpjacks are a lot harder to make because of 5 steel / piece you need. That means for a 0.75 pack per second factory (with assembling machines 2, crafting speed 0.75) you will need:

5 red science ass-2
6 green science ass-2
12 science pack 3 ass-2
=> 5 pumpjack ass-2 (10 seconds -> 5 seconds)
=> 5 steel * 0.75 seconds = 3.75 steel per second
=> 3.75/(2/17.5) = 32.82 e-/steel-furnaces for steel and the same amount for iron = 65.63
+ 26.25 iron plates per second = 45.94 e-/steel-furnaces
+ 5.625 copper plates per second = 9.85 e-/steel-furnaces

That's a lot for just science pack 3. Before you needed:

=> 0.5 assembler-1 ass-2
=> 8.25 iron plates per second = 14.44 e-/steel-furnaces
=> 1.69 copper plates per second = 2.96 e-/steel-furnaces

That's an increase for the number of furnaces of ((65.63+45.94+9.85)/(14.44+2.96) = 6.98) = 598%. I don't think that science pack 3 should be that expensive considering what it unlocks. Science costs should only vastly increase after science pack 3.

The underground-belt length increase was overdue, but as others pointed out, they are cheaper than using the red/blue belts now. For anyone who wants to have more fun with underground belts, use Longer Underground Belt (Aligned). It also adjusts costs so unlike 0.15.7 costs are actually balanced with belt length.

[Rahbek]

First of: yay more fixes and changes!

However I'd like to give my +1 to two mentiones here.
First of while the new belt changes are really nice they have practically little benefit over the previous length for me. As mentioned by robyoublind the main usage of them where max length is relevant would be snaking underneath your mainbus - increasing the distance to 11 to fit common mainbus designs would be great! Feel free to balance that with higher material costs

[*]Increased the underground belt length (basic, fast, express) from 5,5,5 to 5,7,9.

That's a great step in a more logical direction, and should help with performance too. One question though: while you're at it, why not make it 5,8,11 so that a blue belt can go under two blocks of 4 belts with 2 tile gaps between them, as this seems to be the most common layout for the main bus? Like Longer Underground Belt (Aligned) does, only less OP (that popular mod uses 5,11,17)?

Like so:

Also this sounds like a great idea! would allow for some more symmetrical designs as well which has often bothered me about their current lenght.

Well if you considered balancing the Underground Belt length (which is aweseome)... then..

Please make the Underground Pipe length/gap from 9 to 10 as well... so one can bridge 2 reactors:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=46133

Lastly sound insight in the reasoning of the science balances would be great! (friday facts?)

[oLaudix]

For science pack 3, switching from assembling machine 1 to pumpjack is not a good idea.

That is probably why devs changed it to electric minig drill instead.

[Sherman]

Very pleased with the increase in the length of underground transport belts! Many thanks!

I have another suggestion based on constant observation from the version to the version of the absurd game action ...

Situation:
1) To create an electric pillar, you need wood and copper wire. The wood is necessary for the pillar itself and copper wire for the wire itself. Everything is clear!
2) For the installation of digital lines of logical signals, red and green wires are needed. Here, too, everything is clear!

And now about the problem, in my opinion:
When you try to remove an electrical cable from a pillar or to remove a digital cable from a combinator, they do not return to inventory, but disappear! Why? I spent resources to create them. And it would be logical for them to return to the inventory when they are removed. And now they just disappear! Where do they disappear? Where is the logic?
It seems to me the wrong game action ...
One more thing ...
I understand that in the game, for convenience, automatic connection of electric pillar is provided to each other. And there is such a situation (When a lot of pillars nearby) that one pillar stretches 3-4 wires to neighboring pillars at once (although at the creation of this pillar one unit of copper wire was spent). In the early stages of the game, this causes some discomfort. Since this network of wires frankly confuses your eyes. It must be removed and manually, neatly stretch the wire yourself and where necessary.

Sentence:
1) When removing electrical and logical wires, they return to inventory, and not just disappear.
2) Each, a new, electric pillar was connected to only one, the nearest pillar and only one wire (if the connection does not suit, it can be manually overridden), so as not to create confusing connections.
Well, or a very cruel option - it's to put pillar without cables, and hang cables manually. But this is an extreme measure. I'm sure that you can do without this if you carefully think about it.

Dear developers, I suggest you think about this ...)

[AcolyteOfRocket]

I'm not sure I'm a fan of science pack requirement changes. Could these changes make the game a bit...easy?

I agree, I thought the casuals had a separate easy recipe list they could play with, why change this across the whole game ? The Steel requirement was making it difficult, but I was looking forward to conquering it

[Nova]

The Steel requirement was making it difficult, but I was looking forward to conquering it

The amount of steel needed was lowered from 16 to 11. That's still quite a bit.

[Serenity]

I like the changes science recipes. Assembly machine 1s can be recycled when not needed. Pump jacks can't. And you need a lot more miners than pump jacks, so extra production is more easily used.

[oLaudix]

I like the changes science recipes. Assembly machine 1s can be recycled when not needed. Pump jacks can't. And you need a lot more miners than pump jacks, so extra production is more easily used.

The problem is that blue science pack needed a lot of space. For me most of all of them i think? Now itll need even more because AM1 crafting time was 0.5s and electric minig drill is 2s. That forces me to start new game because i have no room in my setup to put it unless i build it on the ramparts of my base.

[CorBlimey]

what does all this manual train penalty thing mean? What train penalty?

Does it refer to a distance penalty added for other trains routing? I.e. they will go around manual trains through other routes if possible? If so, cool

[Nexela]

what does all this manual train penalty thing mean? What train penalty?

Does it refer to a distance penalty added for other trains routing? I.e. they will go around manual trains through other routes if possible? If so, cool

Sort of, it means they will "try" to go around

[safan]

That forces me to start new game because i have no room in my setup to put it unless i build it on the ramparts of my base.

for me the fun in factorio is finding a solution for this.

[Jürgen Erhard]

I like the changes science recipes. Assembly machine 1s can be recycled when not needed. Pump jacks can't. And you need a lot more miners than pump jacks, so extra production is more easily used.

The problem is that blue science pack needed a lot of space. For me most of all of them i think? Now itll need even more because AM1 crafting time was 0.5s and electric minig drill is 2s. That forces me to start new game because i have no room in my setup to put it unless i build it on the ramparts of my base.

Forces? Tear down and rebuild! That's the bread and butter in this game!

[Jackalope_Gaming]

My reactions to the notes:

Balancing:

Production Science Pack change: Why was the pumpjack changed to assembling machine 1? The pumpjack was actually the middle one in terms of needed resources so changing it to be the least resource intensive seems a bit odd. Changing the electric engine down to the assembling machine seems more in line with the production, though I've always wondered why it wanted an electric engine (an intermediate product) in the first place instead of a finished product that are part of the production line like assemblers or miners.

Science pack 3: I do like the change from assembling machine 1 to electric mining drill, mostly because it's a pain to feed all the needed resources into the assembling machine assembler to have it run full speed. It only takes 1 assembling machine assembler to supply enough assemblers for 24 science 3 assemblers but I ended up having to use all four sides of the assembler assembler to keep it running at full speed unless I used stack inserters.

Are the electric engines in production science there just to have a constant use for lubricant? Seems a bit odd to me.

Crafting times on oil refinery, pumpjack, chem plant, lab, and roboport reduced: Looks good to me!

Storage tank and reactor mining time changes: Yeah, pulling up the storage tanks was definitely annoying whereas being able to pull the reactor up so quickly feels quite odd.

Increased underground belt length: Oh hell yes! Though I'm wondering if the costs might need to be adjusted with them as well. Edit: Ah, the costs were adjusted, though it seems like overkill to me... Make it 25 and 50 perhaps? Or 30 and 60 seems nicer. I'll definitely try to play with my old balancer designs to see if I can improve on space and such.


Changes:

Trains in manual mode now have twice the penalty... Penalty to what? Braking force? Distance of exploding debris when killed?


Modding changes:

The icon size issues were a pain, ayup. Glad to see that get fixed.

[Durentis]

The underground belt lengthening is awesome! Thank you.

I do agree with others that 5/8/11 makes more sense given how many people design buses currently, but I don't think it's a big deal.

[hanli427]

About the change in science pack recipes, I feel that the change from assembler 1 to electric miner for science pack 3 is fine. On normal recipe cost they are the same, on expensive the miner is more expensive, which seems like a good move to me. However, switching from pumpjack to assembler 1 for production science pack I feel makes it too cheap, also, assembler 1 feels too low tech. If it was up to me I would have gone with assembler 2, still cheaper than pumpjack, especially on normal recipe complexity, but not as simple as assembler 1. Also, the cost of assembler 2 depends on recipe complexity, which I would approve of as well. Even so, it falls way short of the high-tech science pack in terms of cost. I got the impression they were supposed to be about equal.

[Engimage]

• Changed science pack 3 to require electric mining drill instead of assembling machine 1.

This increased resource cost two times! Donno if it is worth to push it that far...

[Codemaster]

Apparently I am the only one that doesn't like the increased length of UG belts.

I think speed and reach/length should be separate.
Because now I will end up having yellow belt mixed with red or even blue UG belts.

To those of you wanting even more reach for the main bus design:
I really don't get it. You plan the bus at the very beginning. At that time you don't have red and blue UG anyway.
Nobody forces you later on to use the full extended length, so nothing has to be redone.

[babieswithrabies]

Haha you have no idea how long it took me to figure out you changes blue science to use the drill.. I looked at the belt and was like it's full wtf is going on...

Although I do agree with the changes, it helps recycle into the sytem a bit better but I still used the assembly plants too to be honest

[js1]

However, switching from pumpjack to assembler 1 for production science pack I feel makes it too cheap, also, assembler 1 feels too low tech. If it was up to me I would have gone with assembler 2, still cheaper than pumpjack, especially on normal recipe complexity, but not as simple as assembler 1. Also, the cost of assembler 2 depends on recipe complexity, which I would approve of as well. Even so, it falls way short of the high-tech science pack in terms of cost. I got the impression they were supposed to be about equal.

I agree, I think Prod. Sci. Pack should take Assembler 2 as well. Especially since you get two for the price.

[Mehve]

• Changed science pack 3 to require electric mining drill instead of assembling machine 1.

This increased resource cost two times! Donno if it is worth to push it that far...

Agreed. I'm presently laying down a setup for expensive Science 3, and I just keep adding iron belts... seriously, the iron requirements go from 9.5 iron for a science 2, to 92 iron for a science 3. Basically a tenfold increase? Science 3's cost more iron than any other science pack now! I can't think that's good balance.