Friday Facts #205 - Teaching the things that everybody knows

[Wubinator]

When can we expect the new FFF? I keep refreshing the main page hoping to see #206

[orzelek]

I 2nd this.
World might end or something without FFF on friday

[torham]

Its the asteroid. The devs have run their numbers and know that the world will in fact end tonight. so no FFF

[steinio]

0.16 is compiling, please be patient.

[BHakluyt]

Something that has weird behavior with movement and blueprints. Example moving and dragging a blue print of a conveyor belt. Even from radar view. Sometimes it works to drag a line and sometimes not... Maybe it has to do with my keyboard sticky keys settings or something.

[mrvn]

And underground belt upgrades aren't bidirectional either.

I'm pretty sure that depends on what you mean by bidirectional. If you have a red underground belt, you can downgrade it to yellow, even if that breaks the belt because of length. (Done that one more than a few times!)

That's what he mend: it breaks. Just like replacing a power pole with a wooden one might leave some things without power.

I say: So what? Don't do that. and if you do then undo it or add more power poles.

Not being able to upgrade power poles is worse than a few rare accidental downgrades. It's costly in both time and resources. Really annoying when you have strung signal wires.

[nljr]

I say: So what? Don't do that. and if you do then undo it or add more power poles.

Not being able to upgrade power poles is worse than a few rare accidental downgrades. It's costly in both time and resources. Really annoying when you have strung signal wires.

I absolutely agree.

That's what he mend: it breaks. Just like replacing a power pole with a wooden one might leave some things without power.

I thought I was pretty clear exactly how I was using the word "bidirectional". Take a look:

A fact of life right now is that in Factorio's engine, in-place swaps are always bidirectional. If you can replace A with B, then you can always replace B with A.

There's the word followed by what it meant in this context.

But honestly, I think everyone here is in agreement except the devs. They've got an engine that links upgrades and downgrades so you can't have one without the other. It would be absolutely reasonable to change that engine.

Or just go ahead and make small and medium poles in-place swappable, buyer beware.

[Jap2.0]

Suggestion for another mini-tutorial: blueprints. I saw this post and thought that it would be perfect for a mini-tutorial.

[Ormek]

How to log in.

I just noticed that when I asked Factorio to update my mods, I had to log in. The only information I got was "User Login / Name / Password". It took me some time and the forums to figure out, where/what I had to log into. I still could not name, what I did log into.

At least add an indicator to the website that contains more information about "How to create a account", "What you are creating an account for", "How to change the password", "What you gain by being logged in."

[Ormek]

You might like too look through the "Not a bug" forum. Most things user report that are eventually not a bug to you are based on missing explanations.

My personal example is: [0.13.8] Circular Belt gets stuck when getting filled. (Actually: Circular belts stop when full). Which, of course, you will never be able to explain to me

[TheRaph]

I enjoy to figure out how things work, therfore I love Factorio.

So informations like "how to use a steam engine" is fine. But how much steam engines I can feed with one boiler should be in the hands of the player to figure out. Likewise other informations.

I know that some player don't like to figure out complicated things like wire network, if they do not REALY need it. So there should be a scenario wich explains the basic and then give a goal to finish the scenario which generates the need of knowing that stuff (e.g.sort things onto belts in a specific order). The the needs to be a goody for players who have finished that ... maybe achievement or unique item.