Friday Facts #219 - Cliffs

[chris13524]

I'm really excited about these cliffs. When you say they're basically like walls, does this mean that turrets can still shoot over them, even though logically, the projectiles should be hitting the ground?

If we're going to be getting some spiders and water monsters (late game with lots of pollution), I'd say it would be awesome if we could get a way to artificially dig water trenches and build cliffs. This would require lots of science of course in order to ensure at that time in the game you're also producing enough pollution to spawn swimming and spider monsters. Not sure what it would require to dig a trench or build a cliff that would make "some" sense.

I'm imagining late game where bases are built on top of high mountains made out of cliffs and surrounded by moats

[Tekky]

I really like the introduction of cliffs in the game and the fact that they can be removed, if desired, by building explosives.

Will the Spidertron be able to climb cliffs?

[ricky3350]

Maybe rather than destroying the cliffs outright, have ramps and some sort of truss that machines can be built on.

Also, will underground belts be able to come out of the side of a cliff?

[fishycat]

Fantastic job guys! The gfx look awesome, can't wait to play around with them.

[Proxy]

WAIT SO IS THIS NOW LIKE A LINK TO THE PAST!?

where ir is basically 2D, but has 2 Y layers?

imagine this being modable... imagine mining resources would mine the ground... imagine multiple Y Layers. and Ladders of course.

Factorio with Cliffs. actualyl this reminds me of how Pokemon has it's terrain.

coal excavations could look like this... and the Bagger 288 would be possible in Factorio.

[Matthias_Wlkp]

CLIFFFSSSSSSSSYYYEYESSSSSSSS!!!

[bluerock]

Very exciting development! Maybe keep open the possibility for future building of train tunnels or bridges? Or make it possible for mods to be written to do it?

[Gergely]

Nice terrain there!

Could you explain why do you make cliffs entities instead of 2x2 titles?

[Matthias_Wlkp]

As others pointed out, I think I like the idea of ramps more than "blowing up cliffs". We can already build underground belts and pipes to pass the cliffs. I didn't play that far to use a lot of blueprints, so I don't really understand, how big of a challenge that can be. I think there should be areas on the map that simply won't allow for you to build on (we can already dig up the lakes...) - as long as you still have large areas of the map, where you don't have hills it should be fine.

I guess it's good to have options, so destroying hills is one, but probably heavy blueprint users would rather turn them off completely in the map generation options.

BTW, now you should rename uranium to tiberium, add harvesters and mammoth tanks

[bobucles]

Cliffs sound like a fun new challenge to work with. I enjoy the idea of "cliffness" being its own layer so that biomes can be super flat or covered in a huge number of obstacles. It also means that map settings can allow for more or less cliffy terrain. I imagine a lot of cliff obstacles can be overcome by using underground belts and pipes to cross the threshold. Blowing up cliffs might work (nukes always make things FLAT) but we also have landfill to build a ramp on the cliff as well.

Can we build elevated train bridges to cross a valley? Train networks may have a lot of trouble trying to cross too harsh a terrain.

[MeduSalem]

The cliffs look really good...

in Factorio nothing should stand in the way of automation, so if you don't like cliffs, you can always blow them up

I don't know how to feel about that. It just doesn't feel right. This is just like landfill. Very useful in certain situations but given enough resources it makes the whole map flat and void of features. Good for a sandbox where you copy-paste blueprints but it takes away from the challenge. I'd rather have landfill and cliff-explosives as a mod that needs to be enabled.

I think it is actually justified to be able to blow them up eventually. Otherwise one would really start to face the impossible problem of placing large scale structures which are unavoidable in the "endgame". Expanding your factory would become a total nightmare depending on the frequency the cliffs appear.

But I think it shouldn't be just as easy as placing some explosives there and blowing the stuff up, just as landfills shouldn't be as easy as they are currently. Maybe it would be worth its own topic.

Because I think it probably should be done Factorio-Style... you have to mine the cliffs away... in a slow, but not too tedious, process which gives you stone in return of a flat surface. And landfills in water should work exactly the opposite way... slowly filled up bit by bit.

Actually it would be pretty cool if mining ALWAYS happens at cliffs... naturally resulting in the various ore types and to make the cliffs finally disappear you get stone at the end, but first you'd have to mine them out completely.

Just some random thoughts/ideas thrown in.

[Neemys]

Nice those cliff, I expect to be able to pass ressources accross cliff with underground belt.

Seeing how the terrain evolved since the beginning was awesome.

For those that say destroying cliff seem to remove the challenge, just don't do it

Nice terrain there!

Could you explain why do you make cliffs entities instead of 2x2 titles?

Because they need some logic like correcting near cliff if one is destroyed.

[Tankh]

Bridges? Ramps? Tunnels? Leap of faith (and fall damage)?

upd: New enemy type - spiders that can climb up walls and cliffs?
Nest inside cliffs? Caves? omg i have too many ideas to ask

Ssshhh! This is the type of comment that scares devs to death to add new features

Really though, all those things would of course be super cool and awesome.

All in all: FUCK YEAH, CLIFFS LOOK AMAZING!

[Jarin]

It's a shame you couldn't properly link the cliffs to elevation, but we can't have everything I guess. Still, that looks like it'll do wonders for making the terrain more interesting.

[Avezo]

Let us build artificial cliffs with bricks and concrete too!

[Kobrakai]

There better be a way to turn this off, it's bad enough with trees and lakes. I just want to build a factory not play landscaping simulator. How am I meant to build large symmetrical factories now??? This honestly seems like a terrible idea.

[Metalface7]

I was literally just thinking about how awesom it would be to have cliffs about 2 days ago.
and this:

Let us build artificial cliffs with bricks and concrete too!

sounds like a great idea.

[DanGio]

Cliffs : I hope something will be done about turret on top vs spitter in bottom, because IMO if cliffs provide only advantage vs melee biters, it won't be enough incentive to shape your defenses following cliffs.

[Dev-iL]

The cliffs look really nice! Reminds me of good old C&C:


On a different subject, I really started to notice the arbitrariness of shadow direction (see yellow lines in the image below), and it makes me somewhat uneasy. Can something be done about this?


@Everybody - please spare me the "several suns" argument, because then it'd look like this:


Keep up the good work!

[Dezaro]

Heck yes!!!

Need to allow platforms to be made so turrets can be on a platforms that can form an additional wall.