Friday Facts #258 - New autoplace

[foodfactorio]

Hi Togos, if you are working on map generation, would you be able to please add 3 small buttons which allow us to "set whole column to..." something? viewtopic.php?f=38&t=62341&start=60#p377569

Not exactly what you're asking for, but we are replacing the dropdowns with sliders, which will make it a lot easier to set a bunch of things quickly.

thanks togos, i will try the sliders when they are ready and i think sliders will help, especially if they can be set with 1-click like oktokolo mentioned: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=62341&start=60#p377584

here is a quick mockup for the sliders version in case it can be considered to be added, as i do think that sliders screen will also grow a lot vertically, (even across multiple tabs), with mods especially, and it seems other users like setting multiple settings for how they like to customise their game, and if theres time to add it i think it wil be useful.

resource_ui-sliders_version-idea-Set_whole_column_to.png (70.9 KiB) Viewed 7825 times

i also saw a post from klonan about 9 settings available per slider (which is great for variety)
(if clicking on a slider positon in 1-click, is used, it will speed up selections, but click-dragging/sliding will also be useful once each slider has 9 positions to choose from)

[Light]

As someone who likes to declare large chunks of land for specific industry, I do hope the 0.17 water generation can permit moderate-large size continents as others have mirrored.

Oil and gas would most certainly be better off on the continent edge by the ocean where pollution can harmlessly dissipate; Instead of the current implementation where it just pisses off biters on the other side of the large river with its 100+ biter army unable to cross.

[core1331]

I just wrote down what came up in my head while I was writing it so I hope it can yield something useful for someone. Let me now if it helped you and in what way because I'd really love to know how this could've helped anyone with anything . Have fun reading!
I have to be honest, it was indeed a pain to generate a propper starting area to learn a beginning player play the game. I have this world that was rendered quite some time ago on some settings I kind of forgot but the map was fine. Uranium was added and it was rendered in not all too big patches until the new renderer arrived . Oceans became swampland, mainland became swampland, all the outer zones of the map became swampland and we suddenly found a huge uranium ore deposit like 3M uranium and soon another of 9M which kind of was ridiculously large. the base drained 2,3M uranium ore in 400+ hours and since we are expanding rapidly (the base eats through ore (copper and iron) deposits like a toddler through candy) the Uranium ore deposits will keep on increasing and just sitting there (like coal and stone sadly enough).

In regard of water and all that stuff I'd say that it may be nice for old maps to be able to prompt the user (when upgrading to the new version) whether they want oceans or swamps or maybe even a mix of both. This would then also become a new setting in the renderer.
I'd drastically reduce the uranium ore deposit size, richness is fine but the size is ridiculous even in starting worlds.
In regards of expansion/exploration I say the game is good. It's a pain to have to explore from the moment the biters can stop tanks so no way that feature isn't going to be annoying people who got past the big biters. Expanding is a must though because your base will eventually require you to expand fast and conquer loads of ore deposits each time. This event happens a lot sooner in the game than 400hours in, it's just that this is not a very efficiently build base since it was rebuild not just one but two times and each rebuild cost dozens of hours. so I think if you stick with your first base then you'll have your joy with expanding very quickly.

I do get that adding the feature of swamps and or preventing it isn't easy, I've worked with PCG's and they're, at least a lot of the time, big and hard to edit. Definitely if you want it to function within margins that are hard to define. For that reason I always use a top level noise map that influences itself while it renders and a lower level that maps details depending on it's predefined interpreter of the noise for that type of layer. Worked like a charm for me but maybe it will not work for a game like this. Probably not, because you want to allow mods to easily add items to your biomes without spending a lot of time on defining a rendering method and or priority system for each item in the mod. But hey it's just what's going through my head right now at 2am.

sidenote:
some comments talk about the biters and they are fine, they eat through 3thick walls with behind that 3thick turrets with 300% damage, 220% shooting speed and a more than sufficient power supply. and aren't too numerous to stop expanding at all. There is although one thing about the biters that annoys me and that is that they are stupid, like as stupid as a rock . The bot could keep many more things into account at maybe a higher evolution factor and make them even more lethal. The groups that attack my base are really big and I'm pretty sure they have the potential to break through those walls even faster than they do now.

[Aeternus]

I would expect landfill to produce desert or sand. Turning that sand into grass should need something more, like planting trees...

Honestly, it should produce a distinct artificial gravel-y tile, separate from the natural tiles. But that's just cosmetic, and not a big deal to me personally.

I like the idea of shallows - land you can traverse but not build on. This concept can be applied to other biomes too: Quicksand basins in the desert area, marshlands in the grassy areas.

[Tesse11ation]

Here's an idea: use the NOT-broken 0.15 mapgen settings for 0.16, declare 0.16 stable (AGAIN since we're now post-trainpocalypse), and let us all PLAYTEST 0.17 on experimental. This way, you get feedback and community bug reports, and we get to play with the shiny new GUI.

I can't be the only one who thinks that this is a good idea.

[BlueTemplar]

Please, rethink the "no oil in starting area" part...

I enjoy destroying biters and I love trains, so I don’t mind expanding to find the first oil patch.

However, it really does suck when you get a really bad roll and get a nearly unplayable game. I have started blind generating death world maps (no preview, just drop in and play) and while quite fun, I have had to end a few games due to a combination of no accessible oil and a very small stone patch. This combination means that it is tough to wall in and still ha e resources to go out and get the oil.

I did have one game (out of maybe five or so in this condition) where I was able to go place turrets and “wall-in” a patch of oil before the biters got overwhelming. I then had to transport some oil by buggy before I could get a train out to it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, that was amazingly fun dodging and massacring biters in the buggy...I felt like an oil smuggler. But it is frustrating when you have to throw in the towel on a map. I guess on masochistic advanced settings, not every map has to be winnable...but :: shrug ::

I know this is asking quite a lot, but it might be nice (as others have mentioned) to have a very crude version of liquefaction available early. I would think it should be quite inefficient, and only desirable in emergency situations. And then maybe additional research can “clean it up” and gain efficiency with higher tech?

Yeah, flamethrowers should be earned !
I think that the best way is like RSO does it : your can set it up so that your first oil won't be in the starting area, but it *also* won't be covered by a giant biter nest :

getting to first oil.png (354.04 KiB) Viewed 7684 times

(Then, at that point I hadn't thought yet of the grenades-from-car bombing run strategy... so maybe even dealing with a huge biter nest could be possible?)

See also this post explaining how no oil in starting area is not an issue :
viewtopic.php?p=376430#p376430

[BlueTemplar]

The thing is that you will never look at the map while moving your sliders

Why not ?

[BlueTemplar]

It's a pain to have to explore from the moment the biters can stop tanks so no way that feature isn't going to be annoying people who got past the big biters.

Use nukes (also gets rid of all this extra uranium that you're complaining about! ) and/or artillery ?

sidenote:
There is although one thing about the biters that annoys me and that is that they are stupid, like as stupid as a rock .

You could try Rampant :
https://mods.factorio.com/query/rampant?version=0.16
But then it's known for being quite UPS-heavy... it might not be possible to have smart biters that are still UPS-efficient?

[Everspace]

I feel like there should be some setting that is "place patch in starting area" that is by default off. This also would allow mod-makers when they make new resources to specify if it was a starting resource or not.

Generally my mind is that for kids and people who use factorio to chill, sometimes oil is surprisingly far away, and it makes it frustrating. Of course you will want to expand later, but the lack of oil is also a roadblock to bots which is something to remember.

[Tricorius]

See also this post explaining how no oil in starting area is not an issue :
viewtopic.php?p=376430#p376430

Right. I should have mentioned the only time I’ve had to abandon maps as “unplayable” is when running Death World settings with a very small starting area (very aggressive, quickly-evolving biters, very soon) and getting no starting oil and a small-ish stone patch.

As mentioned in the linked post, however, this is an advanced configuration. I’m not saying it is a problem, not every Death World needs to be winnable. I’m merely stating a crude version of coal liquifaction could give enough oil to have a fighting chance out of that situation.

[bobingabout]

Oh look, another thing I'll have to change in my mod.
I'll just have to see how different things are, hopefully it's a good change, in which case it would be worth it.

[BlueTemplar]

I feel like there should be some setting that is "place patch in starting area" that is by default off. This also would allow mod-makers when they make new resources to specify if it was a starting resource or not.

Generally my mind is that for kids and people who use factorio to chill, sometimes oil is surprisingly far away, and it makes it frustrating. Of course you will want to expand later, but the lack of oil is also a roadblock to bots which is something to remember.

Hmm, yeah, maybe that's also why most people give up on Factorio when reaching the oil stage ?

I guess that like for most games, Factorio needs to have a default easy mode called "Normal settings" ?
(With oil patch in starting area ON.)

P.S.: Would also need a non-default normal mode called "Hard settings" or something (with, for instance, oil patch in starting area OFF), for the minority of players that managed to figure out how to craft Engines !
(But *not* Death World, even the hardcore players that got to finish the game by launching a satellite do not necessarily like to have the aliens to be a challenge in themselves...)

[Engimage]

The thing is that you will never look at the map while moving your sliders

Why not ?

Cause generating map takes quite some time and you don't want it do be done at every slider move. So you will need to manually press Update or something for this to be done.
Even if so I would prefer resource patches jumping around over them disappearing completely off the map due to water taking them over.
While new resource placing algorithm takes care of consistency similar to RSO, water will still remain super random factor able to ruin it. So addition of this awesome new feature of resource spawn point viability would be just great overall improvement.

To sum this up - I would be really greatful if one makes it into the game for the whole map (as an option if you will).

[Avezo]

At the end of the day, we can still use console command to spawn oil in starting area.

[BlueTemplar]

To sum this up - I would be really greatful if one makes it into the game for the whole map (as an option if you will).

It's right there, as a checkbox !

[Durabys]

I think that should be an option to exclude oil from the starting area

Two (off by default!) options to include oil and uranium in the starting areas would be nice indeed !

Seconding this, as I'd like to have oil close to my starting water but don't care about U as much!

Thirding this. It should be like in RSO: Ticks that are OFF by default and if you tick them ON you would get oil, uranium or both in the starting area.

DONE! And no need to return to the bad default RNG for the 'purist'. And no need for a large spot of uranium or oil. 'Just enough'. Like 10k to 90k Uranium and 1 to 9 oil wells maximum and based around the new 9 levels scales of the map generator setting.

[BlueTemplar]

The "purist" setting seems to completely remove the "cheated" starting area - it's about everything, rather than just oil & uranium !

[Avezo]

Honestly, just rework red circuits to not require plastic (add it to blue circuits instead). That would result in oil not being present in starting area becoming absolutely fine, bacause transition from green to blue science become much smoother.

On a side note, why are you so conservative in overhauling recipes?

[bobingabout]

Personally, although I agree with removing Uranium from the starting area, I disagree with removing oil.
However, this is looking at it from the point of view of my mod, looking at it from the point of view of vanilla, it does make sense to remove oil from the starting area, to give you an incentive to go out and explore to find materials.
My mods actually have the same intensive with the next tier up (need to go find gold and other materials to make processing units)
It's probably something I'll change in my mod, make oil appear in the starting area.

[Durabys]

Personally, although I agree with removing Uranium from the starting area, I disagree with removing oil.
However, this is looking at it from the point of view of my mod, looking at it from the point of view of vanilla, it does make sense to remove oil from the starting area, to give you an incentive to go out and explore to find materials.
My mods actually have the same intensive with the next tier up (need to go find gold and other materials to make processing units)
It's probably something I'll change in my mod, make oil appear in the starting area.

Personally, there should be a tick option to set Uranium or/and Oil to be in the starting area. Not in large quantities but e.g. enough to make some initial red circuits for required blue science tech like Advanced Oil Processing. I always run for that one as the very first thing.