Friday Facts #236 - Building a rollup

[NF-Floyd]

The questions in my head, if I would see this for the first time, would be:
1. Looks complex (in a good way). How much of this is buildable by myself. I would think that not all of this is possible to build individually and the tracks or belts for example are pre-made layouts from a scenario.
2. What is the goal of the game? (keep running/construction/power management)
3. Do I control some of these entities directly?
4. Why are there trees, when it's called Factorio?

BTW I think the tracks are a very good first-glance-indication, that it is some kind of logistics-related game, because the belts maybe couldn't be recognized as what they are, until you see them moving.

[ske]

I made a mod that removes beacons and rebalances modules to compensates. Really more of a proof of concept but you might want to give it a try, V.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SimpleModules

I never really liked beacons to be honest. They act like magic. What is the reasoning behind them? What do they really add? Like with bots, if you want to make the ultimate factory, you have to use them. I support your idea of replacing them with something more sensible. But I wouldn't stop at new modules.

We already have three different tiers of assembly machines where the higher tier is (except for power) strictly better than the lower tier. Thereby the higher tier obsoletes the lower tier machine. I don't really like this concept. One way to get around this would be to make the assembly machines 2x3, 3x3, 3x4 in size. Then the faster version isn't a drop-in replacement for the slower ones and often you'd get a more compact layout if you use lower tier machines in a few places.

The modules still we have now and the modules you made and the beacons still are "magic". There is no straight reasoning why the module would make something better in a certain way. I think the module concept just barely misses the point. Instead of "modules" as we have now, we could have "tools" and "upgrades" for the assembly machines. ("processor module", "high power electronics", "low friction bearings", "HSS tools", "carbide tools" etc.)

I would suppose these changes would be relatively easy to implement in a mod but unfortunately I've never made a mod for factorio...

[zyklame]

These map is crazy (in a good way).
I could never build something these large and complex by myself.

At last i need a new PC for these. I'am dropping to 12 FPS when loading it.

[Dry Hairy Tree]

That is exactly the type of imagery that attracted me to Factorio in the first place. And do not discard the original trailer for the game as it also conveys the complexity/many questions posed in Factorio.

If I were trying to sell this game in a booth:

I'd have these roll-ups to catch people's attention, then, when they wished to engage/enquire: I'd have a folder of A4 prints of various Factory designs to illustrate how Factorio is flexible, creative, and can be approached in multiple ways. Add a wee spiel for each page illustrating a specific point...

Your 'organic look' is my cup of tea, but not everybody's. Some people like straight lines. This is a showcase of the game, not a specific playstyle.

A brochure they can take away would also be useful as they'll see many things at once, and the purchase may be made from the couch when back home sifting through merchandise.

You never do sales, that's a pity. Brochures with a discount get a lot of sales if the product is good.

Edit: What I'm trying to convey above is an audio-visual--tactile experience that will greatly enhance your 'memorability' to the public within such a dynamic environment. A clear-file of A4 pictures doubles as a memory jog for tired Dev's. Your game is awesome, all the best.

[Ahry]

Can you put somewhere better image of poster? I want to see it zoomed, but when I do it with that what is in FFF It is too much pixeling.

[BlackHat]

Can you put somewhere better image of poster? I want to see it zoomed, but when I do it with that what is in FFF It is too much pixeling.

At the end of the Imgur Album https://imgur.com/a/FmoBY listed in the FF is a link to a 2215x1558 version of the picture. It quite view-able at 2x zoom, but above 3x it starts getting fuzzy.
(On the other hand, a 2.5 zoom of the 2215x1558 image is perfectly view-able compared to an equivalent sized 7x zoom of the image in the FF.)

Hmm here is a link to the 2215x1558 image in the Imgur album. https://i.imgur.com/Q3Cx3EH.jpg

[Samlow]

I really really love the posters. Effiency is not important to me when its a display, especially a still one. Actually, I agree with whoever says its Art. As a matter of fact, two of my nephews started a company called Cook & Becker, who print Art quality concept art etc. Might be cool to add this to their collection?

Their website is here: https://www.candb.com/en/

An example of something in the gallery"


That said, I find it interesting that you found that using beacons leads to uninteresting straight lines. This does ties into using bots and beacons for the "optimal throughput" discussion a while back. I personally also dislike straight lines, love the sprawling!

[SaintFlow]

My reaction is, that through the last month's I got disappointed by the fff's I so grew to love throughout the years that I stopped caring. It's a bummer really, but maybe you have just said everything there is to say.

Fff's were a place to get excited about the game every week. Were.

[Telain]

This looks awesome. I saved the picture to share with my friends.

[Maximilien87]

Where is waldo?

[Aardwolf]

> Discoveries
> Mixed belts (different item on each belt half) are a huge amount of fun to work with, and add more visual variety.

I know! But once again, please add a splitter mode that splits left and right input lanes onto left and right output belts to have an intuitive and friendly way to split lanes onto two belts at full speed (if 2 belts at splitter input, then it could map the 4 input lanes abcd to e.g. the 4 output lanes acbd, if you know what I mean).

Thanks!!

[Avezo]

Looking at final effect, I feel something from bots-vs-belts needs to be mentioned. Beacons. At some point there was suggestion about removing them, now look at final rollup and how beacons are used only in (relatively) few places.

[Kryptos]

This reminds me of an old building platforms mod playthrough, where I let my (significantly less addicted) friends build their little production areas on the building platforms, and then challenged myself to fit high end production in the gaps using their overflow resources. I remember weaving a robot production into an 80% full blue science platform. It was glorious.

Mixed belts became required, and using the unused half of a belt was just awesome. I remember going crazy to where I ended up using mixed belts in places where the mixing was unnecessary, just for the "lemme borrow this belt real quick" factor.

Edit while adding the picture: I guess it's not really that impressive by comparison...

Here's a picture. Way less impressive, though...

Factorio Robot weave.jpg (313.58 KiB) Viewed 9163 times

[Deadly-Bagel]

I was talking to an old friend over Steam when I got back into Factorio recently and at some point he asked if I could show him this game I was always playing. With a bit of fiddling managed to get Steam's streaming working.

Actually I think if anything it turned him off. I was running some testing on an old factory that I'd already launched a rocket with so there was a lot going on, and I think often the initial reaction is "that's too complicated for me." It's not easy to convey in a picture that you start out very simple, slowly expanding and growing at your own pace (more or less) until before you realise it four days have passed and you're scratching your head over how to add a fifth belt of iron.

On the other hand, if you're turned off by complexity then the game isn't really for you anyway xD

[Yijare]

Train Setup's somewhat messy but I like how it shows how it dont have to be perfect for it

[themightygugi]

How did the ground become green and lush again at the very end of the video? Is there a terraforming function what I missed in vanilla, or was it something that was added for the sake of the video?

[fiery_salmon]

How did the ground become green and lush again at the very end of the video? Is there a terraforming function what I missed in vanilla, or was it something that was added for the sake of the video?

"You can see not much had to change, except all the terrain under the whole screenshot area was manually reworked in the map editor. This gave me a bunch of ideas of what we need to do to make the map editor better - both for our use with scenarios and campaign, and for our players. "

[themightygugi]

I think that terraforming the ground we live on, is such a simple concept that has been around since man kind started to settle this world for real. It would be nice to be able to do it here, to better control pollution and generally make the look and feel of the base better.

[JimBarracus]

reminds me of the openTTD main menu screen.
I want a poster of this.

[ske]

I think that terraforming the ground we live on, is such a simple concept that has been around since man kind started to settle this world for real. It would be nice to be able to do it here, to better control pollution and generally make the look and feel of the base better.

I'd just like to run around planting trees and flowers and maybe having a few animals in the grass. That would add a lot to the game.