Friday Facts #220 - The best Friday Facts ever

[lffs]

Mavor.jpg (32.39 KiB) Viewed 7415 times

Dat cannon reminds old days

Anyway, I think gun traverse arc needs to be limited to +-30 degrees. It dosn't make sense that train can absorb recoil of huge gun firing broadside

[QGamer]

While I enjoy this new train cannon (super cool!), I was under the impression that the point of an artillery train would be to defend train tracks against biters. This way we wouldn't have to surround tracks with walls or the such. With this, it would require a player to drive the train around and stop the train to shoot stuff. And once that happens, the train would be overrun by biters...

Maybe I'm just being naive as I haven't actually played with it yet, but two suggestions:
- Add a short range turret (perhaps nuclear powered laser turret) car to defend the train from the incoming waves. This would be great when expanding into enemy territory as you can just let the cannon fire away while the turrets defend and you can build track effortlessly. On the other hand, perhaps the combat robots would do? But they don't have too much range and may require you to exit the train to get the backend.
- Make a config thing (in the cannon turret) that would stop the train when it comes in range of bases. This way the train can automatically destroy bases without requiring the player to stop it. (and the player can be in his base while the military train(s) defend)

But again, maybe these things would just flesh out with a different playing style and strategy. We'll see!

The artillery wagon was designed to be used in manual mode. So that means that you'll be in the train, and hopefully by then you'll have with you a "short range turret" for defense.
Step 1: Get power armor mk2 with personal laser defense and/or defender/destroyer robots
Step 2: Buy a train ticket, ride the train
Step 3 (Optional): grenades

Not to mention that I love the new graphics! They're amazing! And the artillery train is cool!

I'm also excited for 0.16!

[Xterminator]

THIS IS AWESOME! I'm super hyped and very glad you guys decided to release before the end of the year so we can all waste our lives away over the holidays. Who needs family anyway, right?

The Artillary wagon looks and sounds epic. I can definitely see myself just attaching one to every outpost train to keep the biters pushed back. Will be great to play around with for sure! The new terrain and transitions also epic.

T-Shirts, woo! You guys are gonna have your hands full trying to do all the packing and shipping yourselves. Maybe more than you bargained for. lol I do anticipate the initial 2,000 selling out within hours or less.

Best of luck though, and I will be eagerly awaiting release! Don't kill yourselves doing too much bugfixing before the holidays though.

[Digital-Storm]

Is there any way they could provide shirts > 2xl? I might still buy one, but I really prefer oversized shirts rather than snug shirts.

[macross]

Thanks so much for letting us play 0.16 over the holidays!

[Introprospector]

working overtime to fix bugs and pack t-shirts

Hire some temps to pack shirts. Hell do you guys have an errand runner?

[Veylon]

Since they explore the area before exploding, you can zoom in and watch the impact.

Who says there is no fanservice in this game?

[Wakaba-chan]

I'm looking forward to new stuff in Store! Would like to have a tank figure!

[deer_buster]

Can't wait to start a new megabase

[stretch611]

Anyway, I think gun traverse arc needs to be limited to +-30 degrees. It dosn't make sense that train can absorb recoil of huge gun firing broadside

It can always have to be forced to be deployed outrigger extensions from the chassis and possibly counterweights. With the proper amount of stabilization, any angle would be possible.

Many other games with artillery units have them deployed (and later retract stabilization) before they can fire. This can either be done manually or automatically when a train stops. Personally if this is considered as an idea, I would prefer automatic to avoid adding extra steps in the GUI. There is no reason why it can't take more time to start the train moving while waiting for the artillery unit to retract the outriggers, making it harder to shoot a biter base and run.

[commandoby]

Most epicest FFF ever

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-187
P.S. Why not add tutorials to micro updates?

[keldor]

A few comments about the art for the rail gun, and some inspirational footage and recordings!

First off, the barrel is too short - generally you want the barrel to be as long as is manageable, since longer barrels mean faster projectiles and longer range. There's still room to stretch the barrel out without hanging over the front of the car. Some artillery, such as howitzers, have shorter barrels, but in this case it's more orientated to mountainous terrain, where you need to tip the gun to higher angles to make certain shots. A shorter barrel means it can be raised and lowered faster, since it's lighter, so you get a better fire rate since you have to level it to reload.

Minor quibble aside, I like the model very much! Don't forget to make the train have to haul a few cars full of shells, though! I don't see room in there to carry more than 5 or so. They shouldn't stack - makes it so you might want to have more than one car full when you take the thing out on a sunday drive.

Now for the awesome part - graphics and sounds! Big guns make a truly impressive fireball when they shoot - don't skimp on it!



When the shell impacts, there's only a small fireball, but there is a very characteristic blast of dust and debris, followed by your target being completely obscured in a thick dust cloud that takes a moment to clear out.



Soundwise, artillery in person doesn't sound much like the recordings. The problem is that the bang is so loud that the audio simply clips, resulting in the crunchy sound you hear in recordings. In person, it's a sharp, but smooth, THMP or THOOM or maybe just BANG. You can feel it in your chest and bones. It's not too different from the sound those super loud banger fireworks than they have on national holidays. I've personally only heard some small 3 inch or so field pieces, which they haul out on 4th of July and fire them with the 1812 Overture. They're incredibly loud, even from 100+ feet away. I can't even imagine what the really big guns sound like, or how their crew operate them without serious ear damage the first time they fire. Anyway, a second sound you hear with the huge guns is a whooshing sound as the shell flies through the air after being fired. It sounds a little bit like a jet airplane. You can probably hear it go most of the way to the target, where you hear a distant BOOM.

Here's some footage of the Gustav gun! Not the best sound, but you can hear some of it. There are better sound recordings from some of the coastal guns.

https://youtu.be/zISYZA1x620

[keldor]

A couple more comments about the railway gun:

Slow the fire rate way down. Like one shot every few seconds. This should make taking out a whole critter base all the more epic as the player will have to hold off a few waves of biters and spitters while the cannon steadily levels their base. It also gives the animator a chance to do a semi-realistic reload cycle, where the barrel is lowered, then the chamber is opened, with a small stream of gas coming out the barrel. The shell is shoved in the breach, followed by a big ol' powder charge, the breach is closed and locked shut (these things are seriously heavy duty, of course), and the barrel is raised again to fire. Helps remind you that you're firing awesome 1 ton projectiles here!

Then later on when you get nuclear shells, it's still an awesome upgrade that lets you take out an entire critter base in one shot, including all the critters milling around. Of course, this would piss off all the biters in the entire region! Hope your base can survive a combined attack from 20 critter bases!

Have another video showing loading, firing, and chamber outgassing of battleship guns!

https://youtu.be/uvZS63Osons

[Jan11]

Thanks. I don`t know what I should write. Thanks

[Basilio]

Has anyone got the same errors loading the fff page?

[doppelEben]

Has anyone got the same errors loading the fff page?

nope, its all fine on my side

[Andrzejef]

Yeah, you could lower the firing rate a bit, and then introduce Shrapnel round

And I agree, it's already epic, but shell trace and big dust cloud upon impact would make those even more epic

Here's some footage of the Gustav gun! Not the best sound, but you can hear some of it. There are better sound recordings from some of the coastal guns.

https://youtu.be/zISYZA1x620

Awwww, not available in my country.....

[Proxy]

well, now we need a way to put Normal Turrets on Trains too.

speaking of trains, are there gonna be more powerful trains? ones that can have more wagons before becoming slow?

and can the turrets and maybe train itself grab items from it's own wagons when needed? so that i could just fill a wagon with coal as Power supply for the Train itself... or a wagon filled with ammo for Turret wagons.

[DDR]

Ok, where do I put my money for the shirt? I gave you $80 for the game originally, back when, I'll happily give you another $40 for the shirt now. It's been a good three-ish years.

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[Keeper]

That train wagon looks EPIC! I read a point, if we need to load that thing with rockets, then we're gonna need another wagon. The "inserter wagon" to take from a storage wagon behind into the railgun wagon in front. Logistics, on logistics. This really might be epic!!
I'm not going to bother opting in, but thanks for the efforts! I will no doubt be spending half of this holiday building factorio. Enjoy your holidays.
LOVELY terrain features around the water, very nice.
TSHIRT I WANT ONE WHERE 86% FCK YEAAA