0.16 Map generation Feedback

[Avezo]

I wish there was an option for "never create mixed ore patches"

[zOldBulldog]

@ alyssa. I think that most of your problems comes from not understanding the interaction of frequency and size. Low frequency means that resource patches tend to be big. low size means that resource patches tend to be frequent.

If this was truly the behavior we would not have so much trouble.

The problem is that the 0.16 generator does not follow these rules too well. Most of the time choosing low frequency, high size, high richness results in lots of tiny deposits, while more moderate choices result in fewer but larger (sometimes MUCH larger) deposits

Then when you start tweaking water, you can seriously make ores scarce. It seem to be that the generator places ores before water, so lots of water often results in very little ores even when using high ore settings.

To be honest, while it is possible to make it generate decent maps, the 0.16 map generator is just too hard and counterintuitive ato use. It needs some serious adjustments so that the masses can use it successfully.

[orzelek]

@ alyssa. I think that most of your problems comes from not understanding the interaction of frequency and size. Low frequency means that resource patches tend to be big. low size means that resource patches tend to be frequent.

If this was truly the behavior we would not have so much trouble.

The problem is that the 0.16 generator does not follow these rules too well. Most of the time choosing low frequency, high size, high richness results in lots of tiny deposits, while more moderate choices result in fewer but larger (sometimes MUCH larger) deposits

Then when you start tweaking water, you can seriously make ores scarce. It seem to be that the generator places ores before water, so lots of water often results in very little ores even when using high ore settings.

To be honest, while it is possible to make it generate decent maps, the 0.16 map generator is just too hard and counterintuitive ato use. It needs some serious adjustments so that the masses can use it successfully.

TBH trying to spawn ores while avoiding water is very annoying and computionally intensive. As for base game gen not following the rules - I tried and I gave up quickly trying to figure out what is what there based on perlin noise knowledge and explanations (both settings and autoplace params).

[zOldBulldog]

I finally remembered to post that good 0.16 map I found on a different thread.

The map is quite good. Large patches of ore, few but large bodies of water.

But... look at those settings!!! Completely counter-intuitive. The Frequency is quite high and yet it produces low frequency results.

I've given up completely on using the generator. Even understanding the theory the results don't match nor make sense. I am sticking to finding good maps on threads and saving them for my collection.

Screenshot:

bulldogMap.jpg (417.06 KiB) Viewed 7761 times

Settings:

bulldogMapSettings.jpg (523.07 KiB) Viewed 7761 times

Map Exchange String:

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[Alyssa]

I think extreme values would simply break the generator.

@ alyssa. I think that most of your problems comes from not understanding the interaction of frequency and size. Low frequency means that resource patches tend to be big. low size means that resource patches tend to be frequent. With the current generator, what you want just does not work.

So you're telling me that this generator is unable to make a map with very rare and small ore patches ?

How such a limited generator even passed the developer phase again?

Edit:
By the way I made more tries with very different settings, and the results are always terrible, water placement is bad, it makes everything looks like a frigging swamp, there's either too much water or too little, ore patches distribution is horrible, same with oil, I made a map with oil set as "Very Low Frequency and Size" and it had an HUGE FREAKING OIL DEPOSIT RIGHT AT THE STARTING AREA, why this RIDICULOUS map generator was even implemented??

[Zavian]

The devs are planning on reworking the map generation for 0.17.

[adam_bise]

I wish there was an option for "never create mixed ore patches"

Try using a splitter with filtered output.

[Oktokolo]

How such a limited generator even passed the developer phase again?

It didn't - it still is in the development phase. The whole game is. That is what "early access" and 0.x.x versioning is meant to indicate.

[joseailton]

I wish there was an option for "never create mixed ore patches"

When you set your mining drills, just put them one tile after the mixed ores, so you end up ignoring the mixed parts.

[joseailton]

Hello

I've started Factorio again after some time of inactivity,my idea was to make a railworld-like map,with "Very Low" frequency on all resources.

Well,I spent a good 30 minutes in the settings and...maps just weren't right.

The resource is distribution is nowhere near as "very low" and "very small", have a look at this example:



There's a ridiculously high amount of uranium(set to very low / very poor / very small!) and iron / copper as well (again, all set to very low frequency / very small and very poor!), and that oil patch over there? that's supposed to be "very small"? it looks between big and very big to me.

I don't know if the map generator is supposed to work like this, but this is ridiculous to me, absolutely so, when I think of a "very low" frequency I think that there should be like 95% of the map empty with very small patches there and there,not that overwhelming amount of resources everywhere and there's no way I can play a proper rail world game like this.

Edit:
Another example:


= = >



Huge, ENORMOUS iron / copper deposits on the map, so much for "very small"! and wasn't uranium supposed to be a very scarce / rare resource by default? look at those uranium deposits....

keep in mind that size is the whole problem in your settings. Just put very big and rest should be fine

[joseailton]

I wish there was an option for "never create mixed ore patches"

When you set your mining drills, just put them one tile after the mixed ores, so you end up ignoring the mixed parts.

This photo randomically just appeared in my whatsapp now. I dedicate it 4 you

[Hannu]

I wish there was an option for "never create mixed ore patches"

I would like to have truely mixed ore patches. There could be a mix of many ores in same square. When we have practical filtering option in splitters there could be some actual use for it also in vanilla game. Balancing of use of multiple products is also very interesting technical challenge. I like very much mods which add side products in recipes.

[zOldBulldog]

I would not mind truly mixed ore patches... if every deposit I got was at least 10Mil and there was decent space between them. The extra work to separate the ores would be totally worth it.

[Oktokolo]

I would like to have truely mixed ore patches. There could be a mix of many ores in same square. When we have practical filtering option in splitters there could be some actual use for it also in vanilla game. Balancing of use of multiple products is also very interesting technical challenge. I like very much mods which add side products in recipes.

Yes, mixed ores would be nice.
We already got easy sorting by filtered splitters. Vanilla is exceptionally bad at warehousing of overproduction though. You would have to do the tedious chest arrays and keep extending them as they accumulate more and more of some ore that you do not need as much as is mined together with the stuff you actually want.

So they can only add true mixed ore worlds if they also add a proper "stockpile" option.
Such a stockpile could be the player-creation of ore patches (think reverse "mining" that adds feeded ores to the ground creating fields of ever-increasing richness) - or just one of the uncountable warehouse or waste dump mods.

[Hannu]

Vanilla is exceptionally bad at warehousing of overproduction though. You would have to do the tedious chest arrays and keep extending them as they accumulate more and more of some ore that you do not need as much as is mined together with the stuff you actually want.

It is true, but it would be easy to fix. I would suggest 10 x 10 tile dump hill which could take million stone or ore items (everything which you can pile to huge heaps in real mining operations). You could take them later with inserter.

I use always void chests in modded games. First I just void side products but later when I build more advanced production I try to make circulation for all side products, at least high volume ones. It is like real development of industry. First you dump everything you do not need but begin to utilize them and protect environment later.

In my opinion there should be better ways to do it in the game. If you dump some chemicals you should get much pollution etc.

So they can only add true mixed ore worlds if they also add a proper "stockpile" option.

I do not expect that they add it ever in the vanilla game but possibility to mod it would be nice. Also ore generation which mix different ores in adjacent tiles would give the same results.

[AyleeJenn]

hello everyone I am new here and I introduced myself in this thread. A friend of mine who is very fond of this game managed to spark my interest (and love) for this wonderful and involving game and I kept hearing from him how people seem to be displeased with the random map generator.


I have tried looking into that a little and my first impression was confusion. Because the maps it generates all seemed not only playable to me but actually quite fine. So I tried to play around with it more but the more I played around with it, the easier using the map generator felt to me.

Eventually (after many more very enjoyable hours with the map generator, I find it somewhat addictive ), I decided to post here because I feel I really need to bring positive feedback about the map generator to the attention of the developers and say that the random map generator (in my humble opinion ) does not seem to be as bad as people seem to feel it is. (I like it very much but thats only my own honest personal feedback and opinion and I very much accept and respect people who have a different taste or opinion of course )

I have tried to show some examples in this thread where I was able to generate some things (like peninsulas) that I read in this thread were rarely seen.

- the generated map lacks character (I probably generated 200+ maps in preview and never saw a peninsula like map or approaching).

I honestly disagree with this. I find the maps have plenty of character and I even managed to create a little practice island for myself where I learned to play Factorio.


This lead me to wonder ... is the map generator .. maybe ... actually not as bad as people think it is? To be fair, I understand that there likely are some definitive and confirmed problems with it and I do not want to diminish all the hours (I can only imagine ) and work that went into identifying and oulining these problems for the wonderful developers to work with.
But on the other hand, I feel that a lot of the map generator's power and prowess in creating maps will be lost with some of the changes that are planned (like stream-lining starting areas, source: this blog entry).
Though, again, this is only my opinion and I accept and respect other people having different and differing opinions

Fortunately, when I read up on it on the wiki these quotes filled my heart with hope:

This might seem a bit controversial so we can add an option that disables this whole starting area logic, for purists.

All that said, I was perfectly happy when ore placement was unpredictable and sometimes there was no copper in the starting area and really long belts (and walls to defend them) were in order. So if I have my way there will be a "no special starting area resource placement" option.

I agree with this very much.

Because it seems sensible to make it a toggle-able option. A choice. I have noticed and enjoyed this element (of choice) a lot in Factorio, where you can toggle and customize your game exactly as you want or need for something. I hope that this is or will be true for the planned map generator changes so that people can choose between streamlined or "purist" ( ) settings.

I have also made this thread where I described my experiences with map generation for anyone who is interested.

Thank you for taking all the time to read this!!! I think much of the replay value of Factorio is found within the maps (and mods of course, which I have not tried yet!). So keeping that which generates the maps as powerful (meaning with as much possibilities and choices) as possible only serves the game and it's community in the end, I feel.

If anything of what I wrote is a mistake or wrong, I sincerely apologize. My intention was to share my feelings and opinions on the map generator and express my feedback to the developers and community.

Thank you very much for your time and I hope I did not step on any toes by writing this.

[Oktokolo]

So they can only add true mixed ore worlds if they also add a proper "stockpile" option.

I do not expect that they add it ever in the vanilla game but possibility to mod it would be nice. Also ore generation which mix different ores in adjacent tiles would give the same results.

Never used RSO (vanilla ore generation work fine for me) - but i would expect it to have a mixed ores generation option.
For the stockpile you can use any warehousing mod.

[Hannu]

Never used RSO (vanilla ore generation work fine for me) - but i would expect it to have a mixed ores generation option.
For the stockpile you can use any warehousing mod.

I tried RSO but do not remember mixed ores. Maybe it is an option. Typically I do not bother install RSO because I do not need huge patches. I am too lazy to build real megabases and I am mentally able to clear ores from unwanted positions by commands.

I have Angel's warehouses and use them sometimes as dump heap. Typically I am lazy and just void unwanted side products until I make proper utilization system for them. Eventually I make it for almost everything. Just storing waste do not give much interesting content. It would be better if it emitted slowly pollution, like real landfills. Voiding should emit huge amounts of pollution like real primitive incinerators do.

[robertpaulson]

huh, what do you know, so its not only me. i just wanted to test my mod and start a new play through and can't get the map to roll right.... seems its doing either w/e it wants or exact opposite

non-freq, very small but rich patches of oil? sure let me just make em huuuge and every so often, oh and you wanted close to none stone? yeah let me just cover your entire starting area in it

I will see if i can use one of my maps from 0.15

edit; nope doesn't generate the same map. i really don't want to go through tens or hundreds of previews just to find a huge patch of Uranium or Oil on the next charted sector :/ i will do some testing but doesn't sound promising

[Frightning]

I wish there was an option for "never create mixed ore patches"

When you set your mining drills, just put them one tile after the mixed ores, so you end up ignoring the mixed parts.

This doesn't really work nicely when the ore-to-ore boundaries aren't straight vertical or horizontal, the filtering via Splitter is the slickest solution available now. Before that existed, Filter Inserters were the way to deal with that problem (you only need 2 if the throughput of the boundary miners was low enough, and if not, Stack Filter Inserters could be used instead).

Frankly I like that mixed ore patches exist in the game precisely because they force the player to wrestle with this very problem.