Friday Facts #223 - Reflections on 2017

[ske]

Another possibility, is to use the Factorio engine for completely different game or for fast prototyping of crazy ideas.

As much as it may be controversial, a shop system for paid mods or a paid monthly subscription might be a next step to finance the graphics departments of the modders.

I for one will not buy any "paid mods" for the devs or the content creators. I also will not pay for a monthly sub for this game in any way.

This is OK. Most people will probably not use any mods and stay with the base game. They should also not need a subscription.

The subscription would be to support continuous generation of value such as expansion packs and intensive online gaming.

The paid mods system would be for mods that are of quality levels comparable to the base game. Most mods right now are not on that level and more community oriented. Those mods should stay free.

In any case those payment models are not intended to milk the player but to provide a sustainable platform for content creators.

[OBXandos]

This is OK. Most people will probably not use any mods and stay with the base game. They should also not need a subscription.

The subscription would be to support continuous generation of value such as expansion packs and intensive online gaming.

The paid mods system would be for mods that are of quality levels comparable to the base game. Most mods right now are not on that level and more community oriented. Those mods should stay free.

In any case those payment models are not intended to milk the player but to provide a sustainable platform for content creators.

The problem with paid mods in any game is longevity. The devs are under an obligation to make sure that when they release an expansion or DLC that modifies stuff in the base game that everything still works. The mod creator is not. What if Wube keeps making expansions/dlc for Factorio for 10 years? Do you think the the modder that made a paid mod for version 1.0 is going to stick around and keep updating their mod to make sure it works? What about people that don't buy all of the DLC, but a paid mod is updated to require the newest stuff? Now the player is forced to choose, do I buy the newest DLC and get to use my paid for mod, or do I use the older game version but without my paid for mod?

Paying multiple parties for a single end product is usually not a good thing, especially if some of the parties are not held to the same standard of quality control.

As for the subscription thing. Game companies for years have been able to continue to produce games and expansions without a subscription fee. The price of the expansion should cover the cost of its development and whatever profit margin the company desires. If Factorio ever turns into some server/client based MMO hosted by Wube then I would accept some sort of monthly subscription cost.

[Alice3173]

I for one will not buy any "paid mods" for the devs or the content creators. I also will not pay for a monthly sub for this game in any way. 0.15 had a few changes I didn't like but overall it was a good update. 0.16 has even more changes I don't like to the point I'm not even playing that version anymore. At this rate I probably won't even want to play 0.17 at all.

I'm completely 100% agreed on the monthly subscription idea, that's an awful idea for anything but an mmo. Paid mods could theoretically work but it'd probably be a lot more work than it's worth to accomplish. Tiny mods should be free no matter what and there would need to be quality standards as well as the mod author not getting to choose the price point themselves. But that'd require much more work on Wube's side so it's likely it's totally not worth it. That said, I wouldn't personally mind paying a couple dollars for something like Bob's Mods. I've gotten more hours out of that than the base game. Though this can be solved by allowing donations to mod authors as well.

[Durabys]

WTF?!

Why have you not just changed the cargo wagon stack size for ANY and ALL barrel types!?

Why change the fucking internal volume of barrels?!

Again..

WTF?!

[ukezi]

WTF?!

Why have you not just changed the cargo wagon stack size for ANY and ALL barrel types!?

Why change the fucking internal volume of barrels?!

Again..

WTF?!

Because with size 250 barrels, you get 250*40/s=10k fluids/s over a singel blue belt. 3.3k/s over yellow, 6.6k/s over red. In comparison it is hard to transport more then ~1k/s by pipe. Also a bot all 12.5s could keep a refinery running. now a blue belt transports 2k/s. That is a lot closer to a pipe. I think the pipes are nowhere good enough for there optical size. With a pipeline of ~2m diameter in real life you supply hole regions with petrol.

[Engimage]

Snip

This is a great example of tunnel vision.
You expect the game to be something else from what it is.
And it is a reason you place a negative feedback for a game which is one of the most awesome around.
It was clearly stated that the game is all about automation abd combat is not the focus of the game. If you do not like this you might not play it but criticizing the game for what it is not is pretty bad idea.

You blame the game for not having "endgame". It is true and many will agree. That is why people do develope mods that do introduce different kinds of endgame. There is also a bunch of mods that introduce automated combat, AI controlled vehicles etc. Artillery has been added to the base game to add to automated combat. Space platforms, orbital nukes... While not being a part of a base game (which is still in development FYI) this would not be possible without possibilities opened up by Factorio devs. I am positively sure some kind of endgame will be introduced at some point even in base game but that differs me with a positive mentality and your negative one. Even if not I always know I can look into mods which has quite a few awesome developers who make awesome additions to the game.

I just can't think of blaming Wube as they continue to impress us with awesome improvements even where we do not expect those.

Your post is like blaming Starcraft for being a bad First Person Shooter. "It has combat but I can't aim into Mutalisk's wing for it to fall realistically" - that is what your post is about.

Factorio's community is full of constructive people who help game development by introducing their suggestions and developing mods to TEST IDEAS and really many successful ideas implemented in mods which became popular have been introduced into base game. But you don't care.

I am ggreatly impressed how many unconstructive people have come up with 0.16 release. Yes it has its rough edges. Even I am not playing it yet waiting for sideloading fix. But having great time and experience with Wube I am just patiently waiting for things to settle while pointing out my opinion on things in a constructive manner. Even if sideloading will never be reintroduced I will not say the game became bad and deserves negative feedback on steam. There is a reason people play it for THOUSANDS of hours.

[shrimposh]

(...)18.2 minutes for each pixel

I loved the different kinds of comparisons.

[Avezo]

Lets pretend we live in an alternative universe...

Barrels' capacity was increased to match fluid tanks and is now 25000. Stack sizes were increased to 100.

...Do you think this would make game better?

[Tricorius]

You can't tell me that the 0.16.X release was one that was overwhelmingly positively received. Factorio is still an amazing game. It is well worth the $10 or $20 dollars people have spent on it. I am worried that if they keep making these type of changes the game will not be worth the $30 or $40 dollars they will want to charge when it gets officially released.

Another shining example of the selection bias occurring in the forums. Eight pages of comments are a *miniscule* percentage of the 1.2 million purchasers of the game. If I were a betting man, I’d place my wager on 99.5% of those people not basing whether to play Factorio based on the amount of the fluid that pipes or barrels carry. Or whether belts compress via side loading.

It is a *very* self-selecting set of people who actually care about any of this stuff. And I’m willing to bet quite a large portion of that group is on these forums.

[Alice3173]

Lets pretend we live in an alternative universe...

Barrels' capacity was increased to match fluid tanks and is now 25000. Stack sizes were increased to 100.

...Do you think this would make game better?

Considering that mods which increase stack sizes quite massively as well as increasing pipe capacity and storage tank capacity exist I'd hazard a guess that people actually would. Though your argument is clearly taking it to absurd lengths. This change is an 80% reduction. So if we flip that around we'd get a 500% increase which would be a whopping 1,250, not 25,000. (Coincidentally only 20% of your example actually.) Either way nobody seems to actually be arguing for the capacity to be increased to begin with. They're arguing for it to not be nerfed by such a ridiculous amount.

[OBXandos]

You can't tell me that the 0.16.X release was one that was overwhelmingly positively received. Factorio is still an amazing game. It is well worth the $10 or $20 dollars people have spent on it. I am worried that if they keep making these type of changes the game will not be worth the $30 or $40 dollars they will want to charge when it gets officially released.

Another shining example of the selection bias occurring in the forums. Eight pages of comments are a *miniscule* percentage of the 1.2 million purchasers of the game. If I were a betting man, I’d place my wager on 99.5% of those people not basing whether to play Factorio based on the amount of the fluid that pipes or barrels carry. Or whether belts compress via side loading.

It is a *very* self-selecting set of people who actually care about any of this stuff. And I’m willing to bet quite a large portion of that group is on these forums.

I know the forums are a very small vocal minority. Does that mean we are any less important? When one of us has something to say, should it not at least be listened to? There is a group of forum members that are voicing their distaste of a decision made about the game they enjoy. I can only base my findings on what I see, and that is the forums.

As for the amount of people that have purchased the game and are playing it, my opinion is just as valid as theirs. If they want to voice their opinion then they have every opportunity to do so, just like I do.

[Koub]

People just LOVE OP things. Give em barrels with 10k contenance, and stacks of 50, 90% will bless you, and then yell at you that pipes are SO underpowered and need a buff, and all other items need a buff too, because you can't convey 1k plates as a single item.
I can remember of only one thing that was consistently asked for a debuff in this forum, and it was mostly because of the brainless ease of use of it, more than sheer OPness I'm sure the regular contributors will recognize it at once.
People viscerally hate nerfs, and one needs a serious sense of honesty to say "Yes, that nerf hurts my ability to do OP things, but seen as a whole, the game is better balanced now".
I'm not saying I'm describing 100% of the people here, but I think I'm well into the vast majority.

[Zavian]

I know the forums are a very small vocal minority. Does that mean we are any less important? When one of us has something to say, should it not at least be listened to? There is a group of forum members that are voicing their distaste of a decision made about the game they enjoy. I can only base my findings on what I see, and that is the forums.

As for the amount of people that have purchased the game and are playing it, my opinion is just as valid as theirs. If they want to voice their opinion then they have every opportunity to do so, just like I do.

I have listened to you. I'm pretty sure the devs heard you as well. That does not mean I agree with you. It does not mean the devs agree with you. (And it's their game. They get to balance it however they want). Please do not confuse "I don't agree with you" with "I didn't listen to you."

Now a question "How many of those commenters in recent threads actually agreed with this change?" "How many commenters disagreed?" (And note I said how many commenters. Not how many posts. But how many distinct commenters? Because you seem to be completely ignoring the people who did comment in favour of this change. People who are upset by this change are undoubtedly more vocal, but if you want to accuse us of ignoring your comments, then you ought to at least acknowledge the posts of other people who do like the changes. I've not seen any of the people who are against this change putting up any arguments other than "that means I need more bots/belts to transport barrels now", "Or barrels are so nerfed why would anyone use them?" or "Bots are more cpu friendly than pipes". No-one seems to be even attempting to refute that arguments that were given as to why they were nerfed. (Barrels with 250 fluid capacity, means a bot could carry 1000 fluid, which is roughly equivalent to 100 iron plates. That is clearly unbalanced in comparison to a bots actual limit of 4 iron plates at a time. By extension of that argument, they could justify nerfing barrels all the way down to 10 fluid. Atm, after the changes, a bot can still carry 200 fluid, roughly equivalent to 20 iron plates).

[Ghoulish]

Happy New Year Wube! <3 Really looking forward to the GUI updates, and what you do after 1.0 is released.. An expansion to Factorio maybe? Heavy Industry? Combat and biter changes and additions - more biter types would be great! Automated robots to attack or defend? Maybe the space platform? So many possibilities! I'll be more than happy to buy an expansion, £15 for Factorio was a bargain considering the number of hours I've played

Happy New Year all

[ske]

Oil for fuel and oil for lubricant are imho two wholly different things. While energy density is straight forward to calculate and the recent changes make sense in that regard I just looked at the lubricant consumption to produce items:

1 oil converts to 1 lubricant. That makes sense.

1 express belt splitter needs 80 lubricant. 80! That's now three and some barrels of lubricant. Where do you even put all that lubricant? Have you ever worked with machines using lubricant? You keep a small barrel of lubricant in your shop and use it over the next decades. It never even seems to get empty.

To me lubricant is like a catalyst that you need to manufacture things but you only need ever so tiny amounts of it. The express belt could maybe need 1 lubricant and the splitter 4 and the motor also 4 if you use it as cooling oil. A single lubricant plant could supply the whole factory and then some which is similar to real life where some substances are used widely but there is only half a handful of producers worldwide.

[roman566]

Because with size 250 barrels, you get 250*40/s=10k fluids/s over a singel blue belt. 3.3k/s over yellow, 6.6k/s over red. In comparison it is hard to transport more then ~1k/s by pipe. Also a bot all 12.5s could keep a refinery running. now a blue belt transports 2k/s. That is a lot closer to a pipe. I think the pipes are nowhere good enough for there optical size. With a pipeline of ~2m diameter in real life you supply hole regions with petrol.

But with the nerf, blue belt still moves 2k fluid/s. Which is still more than the pipe. AND bots will still move much more as you can just boost the amounts in the requester chests, or add more chests.

The problem is not that barrels are OP, it's that the pipes are so weak that nobody wants to use them. Buff pipes, buff fluid wagons, and leave barrels as they are. People won't stop using them just because they were nerfed, they will rebuild, add even MORE barrels into the system, more bots or transport belts and move on. Large pipe networks and fluid wagons will still be underused.

[sicklag]

.

[Zavian]

The problem is not that barrels are OP, it's that the pipes are so weak that nobody wants to use them. Buff pipes, buff fluid wagons, and leave barrels as they are.

I haven't used barrels since 0.15 added tankers. I've never had problems with fluid throughput for pipes. You just need to plan your pipe network the same way you would a belt network, and use multiple pipes, if one pipe won't have enough throughput. With one pipe you can get over 1200 fluid/sec over short distances (less than 10 pipe segments), and over medium distances (between 10 and 200 pipe segments) you can get between 1000 and 1200, and if you need a long run of over 200 pipe segments (1100 tiles using underground pipes), you might get less than 1000 fluid/s (and you if you want 1000 fluid/s over 1000 tiles, then you should probably think about using a train anyway).

Also you are still ignoring the bit about bots being able to carry way too much fluid in barrels compared to plates.

[Oktokolo]

You just need to plan your pipe network the same way you would a belt network, and use multiple pipes, if one pipe won't have enough throughput.

You could use pumps to get high throughoput over long distances. There even is a table in the wiki somewhere that lists the maximum amount of pipes between two pumps to achieve some levels of throughput.
But i use trains too. And Refinery setups with way more parallel pipes than i have to - just because of the looks.

[Azzinoth]

I have rarely seen such stupid comments as in this thread.

As much as it may be controversial, a shop system for paid mods or a paid monthly subscription might be a next step to finance the graphics departments of the modders.

Nobody said that there should be something like that. As far as I assess the Factorio devs, it will never exist. This is like discussing if they should implement pink elephants into the game... Why are we discussing this?

The problem is not that barrels are OP, it's that the pipes are so weak that nobody wants to use them. Buff pipes, buff fluid wagons, and leave barrels as they are.

I have never had any problems with pipe throughput and i didnt use any barrels since the release of the fluid wagons. Maybe the problem appears in megabases, but there you can still use parallel pipes, or you can just use a long row of pumps as high throughput pipes.

Sure, even I have voiced some opinions on the removal of the belt compression

In the last FFF they have already said that they are thinking about this problem:

We are considering an option where side loading and inserters would compress belts natively. We will make a branch with it to test it how it works, and we will let you know our decision.