Friday Facts #220 - The best Friday Facts ever

[aRatNamedSammy]

whao!! NICE TRAIN!!
i want t-shirts too, i bet you will sale all t-shirt before end of week!

[thecatlover1996]

i want t-shirts too, i bet you will sale all t-shirt before end of week!

My guess will be before the end of the day that they will put the store online

What I'm wondering: in the image on tile transitions in the FFF, the path tiles were laying adjacent to the water. Does that mean it will finally be possible to construct a path directly next to water?

Image from the FFF

[sutech]

nice job, cant wait next week

[The Eriksonn]

Damn, this means i need to start playing again to have my factory ready with all the things i need for this awesomeness.

It is a railworld aswell.

[MarvinCZ]

It looks like it fires only when the train stops.
Would't it be cool if there was an animation of retracting a supporting legs?
It would make perfect sense for such a gun.

[PunkSkeleton]

Indeed, best FF ever!

I know it will be playable, I believe in you guys. And most importantly if it is not then you'll fix it in a few days or even hours .

[commandoby]

What kind of artillery shells?

[Sonik-HSC]

Hello that is great news The Rseding will be a slave for the bug... lol Well an experimental release for the alpha release just sound estrange... The artilary wagen is very nice... But the " CONCRETE FLOR" is extremely ugly Im expecting waste resorces if we walk in that concrete and damage our veicles just by step in the concrete flor... the concrect of the version 0.15 is better. But the game with more than 150 bugs solved it will be more than playable.... For version 0.17 it will be expected feature like " new water design " Keep the nice work and Happy Christmas and very good new year to every one....

[promaty]

How will this be balanced? What is preventing a player from carrying artillery wagon in their own inventory and just placing it wherever with 3 rail segments?

Perhaps this could be balanced by not allowing carrying of artillery shells in your inventory such that you always have to drive the train from your shell assemblers.

[hoho]

Awesome news, as usually.

I agree with people who said the artillery should have much slower firing rate.
I also hope that the "agro range" of the train is big. Perhaps even bigger than the shooting range of the train. With that, the train wouldn't be quite the "i win" option some seem to think. Having alien bases from, say 700 tile radius send *all* their biters at you isn't really that easy to deal with.

How will this be balanced? What is preventing a player from carrying artillery wagon in their own inventory and just placing it wherever with 3 rail segments?

What would the player do after getting the shots off and having half the map chase after them?

[sxuz]

;D THANK YOU SO MUCH ... MY XMAS Holiday Social Life is over

[LittleMikey]

As a lover of trains and artillery I am so happy to see the railway gun! I just hope it's very slow firing, because something like that would not be capable of rapid fire. I foresee a situation where you drive your train out to the firing location, build a bunch of turrets to protect your train, and then sit back and watch as the artillery slowly obliterates everything and draws biters from miles around.

[meganothing]

...
I also hope that the "agro range" of the train is big. Perhaps even bigger than the shooting range of the train. With that, the train wouldn't be quite the "i win" option some seem to think. Having alien bases from, say 700 tile radius send *all* their biters at you isn't really that easy to deal with.
...
What would the player do after getting the shots off and having half the map chase after them?

Well, not build the train at all, obviously. Remember the artillery train should feel like an upgrade not an expensive mistake

[mathturtle]

Artillery train with range of 500+ tiles! 0.16 next week! Thank you devs! I can't wait to see what else you've included in 0.16. Keep up the good work!

[promaty]

How will this be balanced? What is preventing a player from carrying artillery wagon in their own inventory and just placing it wherever with 3 rail segments?

What would the player do after getting the shots off and having half the map chase after them?

1) Drive a car into enemy territory
2) Place an artillery and kill some nests
3) Pack the train and drive away
4) Repeat

This will also be very problematic in PVP mode I imagine. If a player is forced to actually ride the train and the biters destroy the rail in the last firing location this would be much more interesting.

Another way to balance would be very long time required to take the artillery wagon off the ground.

[irbork]

You are the best devs ever. Holidays with Factorio sounds great.
It's daring to release experimental so close to Christmas. Can only say one thing, RESPECT!

If anyone can launch experimental update and make it playable for fans in a jiffy it's you guys.

[torham]

Sooo... ... How about tactical nuke rounds for the beast?

https://youtu.be/XT5jo7aZzTw?t=32s

[Hazard]

Well now, this looks interesting. I've a few questions and suggestions though.

First, as others have noted, the firing speed for the artillery wagon is ridiculously fast. It makes the train without a doubt the best option to clearing new expansion areas if you can afford it, especially with the massive range that's available.
Second, IRL big guns like this don't have a shell mated to the propellant charge the way modern day tank cannons and bullets are. This makes it possible to vary cost in part by distance of the shot by making propellant bag requirements depend on how many chunks or tiles are traveled by the shell.
Third, how do you call down an artillery strike? Is it just point and click, or is there an item you need to hold to make it happen?
Fourth, how long does the call for artillery last? Can I just have a single artillery train roam around the defense lines of a massive base and expect it to attend every call as it moves around? Or does it lapse eventually?
Fifth, what's the logistics profile like? I'd prefer if the artillery wagon itself has very limited storage space and you need to move shells and propellant from trailing wagons with either robots or belts. Inconvenient to set up, but with blueprints it'd be easy to copy and paste artillery positions anyway.

[promaty]

It will also interesting to see what is the price of making the shells. Will this make nuclear weapons obsolete?

[basementjack]

Truly is the best friday facts ever!

I'm traveling next week when t-shirts go on sale, will you order more if these sell out?