Friday Facts #228 - High resolution turrets

[Soultechnology]

if this mods being implemented could we expect the bullet tracers too? not expecting actual ballistics as that would require an AI overhaul but just effect trickery like seen in the mod? would be nice ot see the turrets, tank guns, and handheld weapons shooting rather then just going off audio and seeing damage being done.

[vincenteam]

i would love to see a mod with this turret instead of the current one

[Oktokolo]

i would love to see a mod with this turret instead of the current one

That NOD defensive structure looks highly copyrighted

[floodo1]

Please include the HD / real lasers even if the damage calculation doesn't get updated

[Solra Bizna]

My laptop only supports OpenGL 2.1. I'd at least still be able to play on my desktop if Factorio went with 4.1, but a friend I often play multiplayer with is stuck on a machine that only goes up to 3.3. I know the benefits that later OpenGL versions offer, but I still hope that 2.1 will continue to be an option moving forward.

(And before someone responds with "Factorio probably runs terribly on dinosaurs like that anyway", my laptop managed 60 UPS on my latest singleplayer world right up until my factory grew to 10 launches per hour, and has only now started to dip into the 40s.)

[xZippy]

Lasers look so good that I got shirtless for a while.

[Roxor128]

Finally! The Laser Beam Turrets mod goes official! One less thing I need installed to play the way I like.

On another topic, if the graphics engine is going to get a rewrite, anyway, have the devs given any thoughts to using Vulkan for it?

Vulkan 1.0 has the same hardware requirements as OpenGL 4.x, so moving to that wouldn't change what players would need compared to an OpenGL 4.x rewrite, and like OpenGL, it is cross-platform. It's supposed to have lower overhead than OpenGL or DirectX, which would be desirable for a game, but I can also see the devs saying "I don't think we have the time to learn a new API from scratch".

It does also support GPGPU stuff, though I don't know how useful that would be for Factorio.

I really should try learning how to use it one of these days...

[posila]

My laptop only supports OpenGL 2.1. I'd at least still be able to play on my desktop if Factorio went with 4.1, but a friend I often play multiplayer with is stuck on a machine that only goes up to 3.3. I know the benefits that later OpenGL versions offer, but I still hope that 2.1 will continue to be an option moving forward.

(And before someone responds with "Factorio probably runs terribly on dinosaurs like that anyway", my laptop managed 60 UPS on my latest singleplayer world right up until my factory grew to 10 launches per hour, and has only now started to dip into the 40s.)

OGL 2.1 most definitelly won't be supported anymore. We have not decided if minimum will be 3.2 or 4.1, yet. We don't use OpenGL by default on Windows, if that is system you play on.

On another topic, if the graphics engine is going to get a rewrite, anyway, have the devs given any thoughts to using Vulkan for it?

As far as I know Vulkan is not yet at state suitable for general addoption and is not officially supported by Apple. If somebody on the team wants to add Vulkan renderer and there is a time for it, we'll probably have it as alternative option.

[roidal]

OGL 2.1 most definitelly won't be supported anymore. We have not decided if minimum will be 3.2 or 4.1, yet. We don't use OpenGL by default on Windows, if that is system you play on.

I hope you take in mind that linux drivers for older GPU's might not have support for OpenGL 4.x.
For example my notebook with a Radeon HD6xxx have OGL 3.x support only.

Iam not sure if its worth to break support on older hardware by using OGL 4.x for an 2D game?

Maybe you can explain us whats the idea behind?

[posila]

OGL 2.1 most definitelly won't be supported anymore. We have not decided if minimum will be 3.2 or 4.1, yet. We don't use OpenGL by default on Windows, if that is system you play on.

I hope you take in mind that linux drivers for older GPU's might not have support for OpenGL 4.x.
For example my notebook with a Radeon HD6xxx have OGL 3.x support only.

Iam not sure if its worth to break support on older hardware by using OGL 4.x for an 2D game?

Maybe you can explain us whats the idea behind?

The game currently uses Allegro graphics library which uses OpenGL 1.3. We want to start doing more effects to make the game look visually better, to do that we need to replace Allegro with something else. While we are at it, we will update from ancient graphics API to slightly less ancient one (OGL 3.2 was released in 2009 and OGL 4.1 in 2010), which will also give us more options how to do effects and optimizations. For example we are considering sending sprites as points instead of quads (two triangles) to GPU and generating quads from those points in geometry shader. That would reduce amount of data CPU needs to generate and send to GPU every frame.

It hardly matters the game is 2D what matters is how much resources does it use. If just little, it can get away with stacking bunch of sprites to do effects, but we are past that already. Yes, we won't probably have any use for cube maps or other features specific to rendering 3D worlds, but new APIs still provide features 2D game can utilize to its benefit.

But what frustrates me on your post is that Raden HD 6000 series, despite being released 8 years ago, supports up to OGL 4.4! And yet you argue for us to stick to OGL 2.1, because even OSS community didn't see value in fully supporting those old GPUs

Lastly, I can't imagine you using that PC for gaming in 5 years, but I sure hope Factorio will still be played by many people in that time.

[roidal]

But what frustrates me on your post is that Raden HD 6000 series, despite being released 8 years ago, supports up to OGL 4.4!

This is true. But since your game support linux i thought you should be aware that linux-drivers may not be able to fully utilize (especially) older GPU's.
So there might some cases where the game would not start anymore where it runs just fine now.

And yet you argue for us to stick to OGL 2.1, because even OSS community didn't see value in fully supporting those old GPUs

I did not say to stick on OGL 2.1, it was more meant to use 3.x instead of 4.x maybe. As an answer to:

We have not decided if minimum will be 3.2 or 4.1, yet.

Lastly, I can't imagine you using that PC for gaming in 5 years, but I sure hope Factorio will still be played by many people in that time.

True too. But there are still (3D) games with much more graphic(effects) compared to factorio. And they still work flawless with OGL 3.x.
So my first feeling was like "wow, OGL 4.x for factorio seems exaggerated".

[posila]

I did't not say to stick on OGL 2.1, it was more meant to use 3.x instead of 4.x maybe.

True, I am sorry, mentally I have combined what you have said with what previous posters said and misinterpreted your post.

[Dev-iL]

I would love to see a mod with this turret instead of the current one

I bet what you really meant was something more like this:
--- OR ---

Some ideas regarding laser colors:

1. If we take some inspiration from reality, within the visible spectrum, the least energetic radiation is dark red and the most energetic is purple. It could make sense that laser damage upgrades will change the color slowly in this direction:
   
2. A far simpler suggestion is just color the laser beams according to the force color, which could be cool IMHO.

[tazdu29]

But what frustrates me on your post is that Raden HD 6000 series, despite being released 8 years ago, supports up to OGL 4.4! And yet you argue for us to stick to OGL 2.1, because even OSS community didn't see value in fully supporting those old GPUs

The problem here is not the FOSS community, but the GPU manufaturers.
I also have an HD6400 series, and the problem is not OGL, but the driver itself : AMD dropped support for any ubuntu above 14.04. So I'm currently running on my laptop's iGPU, which is just unable to maintain anything above 45 IPS/35 FPS.

[Allexz]

I've been off factorio for a while unfortunately but i guess we all have our ups and downs ^^

I gasped when i saw the updates made/planned about turret trains, elevation generation and now also cliffs.

Lately i've really been wanting to find a good RTS game but sadly cannot find "it" and when i saw these updates i was just grinning my teeth and internally screaming for some major AI updates.

Have you, devs, given any thought into doing something more about the way we interact with our friends the biters?

I'm thinking in the lines of them collaborating a bit more, gathering raids, looking for weak spots in our defenses etc?

If the enemies would be to become a bit smarter there could be a whole new level in playing factorio.

What do you think?

[Daid]

But what frustrates me on your post is that Raden HD 6000 series, despite being released 8 years ago, supports up to OGL 4.4! And yet you argue for us to stick to OGL 2.1, because even OSS community didn't see value in fully supporting those old GPUs

Wrong card family to look at. Not everyone is building dedicated gaming PCs. My Intel HD 3000 card is limtied to OpenGL 3.3 for example. 5 year old laptop, plays factorio just fine. Most people that I spoke to and play factorio are not high end gaming machines. One of the powers of factorio is that is also runs decent on machines that are useless at running AAA games.

Also be prepared to debug all kids of stupid little driver bugs if you use newer OpenGL versions. Why is why I dropped back to OpenGL 2.1 for my personal development things.

[Solra Bizna]

2.1 is the "lowest common denominator" these days. Even mobile* and Open Core GPUs can be expected to support it. And, as far as performance and visual effects go, for a 2D game, you should be able to do anything in 2.1 you want. That said, the most important thing to me is that my friend on 3.3 can keep playing the game, and as long as Factorio supports 3.3 he will still be able to play.

*Hah. Factorio on a tablet. Processing power aside, the user experience would be... subpar.

Also be prepared to debug all kids of stupid little driver bugs if you use newer OpenGL versions. Why is why I dropped back to OpenGL 2.1 for my personal development things.

I almost forgot about those. They're the reason my "gl21" branch for Endless Sky won't ever be merged; its developers spent a lot of time and grief getting it working on all 3.0+ drivers, and are worried that my 2.1 compatibility changes will break it somewhere.

I can't imagine you using that PC for gaming in 5 years, but I sure hope Factorio will still be played by many people in that time.

My laptop turns 12 years old this year. There isn't anything with better performance on the market without unacceptable (to me) compromises in build quality or trust. Of course, I don't use it for much gaming... the fact that Factorio runs on it at all, let alone at a playable speed, was just a happy surprise for me. If it continues to do so, I will continue to be happily surprised. And if it doesn't, Factorio will just become another game I have to go to my desktop to play, which is not a big deal. I might be bothered on an abstract level that it could "in theory" be working on my laptop, but if I got hung up on every such game I would never actually play anything. (After all, "in theory", any program can run on any computer given enough time and memory...)

As far as I know Vulkan is not yet at state suitable for general addoption and is not officially supported by Apple. If somebody on the team wants to add Vulkan renderer and there is a time for it, we'll probably have it as alternative option.

Apart from that, Vulkan is complete overkill for this game. Khronos's intent for Vulkan is that developers that need that level of performance and control will use it, and those that don't will continue using the much-easier-to-use OpenGL.

Then again, maybe somebody on the team will need to spend a day or two having fun learning Vulkan. Only time will tell.

[Avezo]

Don't just do compression, add ability to stack items on belts!

Also - Tesla towers. Lets have new laser a single-target one and tesla tower more random aoe-laser thingy.

[Koub]

If we take some inspiration from reality, within the visible spectrum, the least energetic radiation is dark red and the most energetic is purple. It could make sense that laser damage upgrades will change the color slowly in this direction:

Actually, the mod Klonan had made for laser beams did exactly that :
viewtopic.php?f=144&t=21459

[wvlad]

Please leave OpenGL option available for Windows, I really wouldn't like to go again through SweetFx correction setup and I can't play without it already.