Friday Facts #247 - Pricing and its exploits

[zombieroboninja]

3. Game resources could be more optimized. I had a system with a bunch of steam engines (around 80 of them?) and whenever my system goes over that area, it just slows to a crawl.

You're totally right! Why don't the devs ever work on optimization? I think that is factorio's biggest fault. If this game was optimized it would probably be my favorite game of all time

[Oktokolo]

Final comment: I've been wanting to come back to play factorio but every time I look at the release log, I think "oh, I'll come back until there's a major change for more game play" but unfortunately, every release change is just some minor bug fixes and etc. I think the last time I came back momentarily was when the game added terrain levels. That was fun for awhile.

Try mods.

Factorio is built with modding in mind from the start. There are huge mods changing or extending most aspects of the game. The devs already froze 0.16 and aim for making 0.17 the first release candidate. So don't expect major gameplay changes before final release. We will get better performance for huge bases and on iGPUs, a GUI rewrite, some QoL tools, a campaign rewrite, a map editor rewrite and some more HD-graphics. The recipe tree may or may not get tidied up a bit. That is a lot already. But new gameplay is not in the list. So your best bet would be to try some big overhaul mod like Bob's (add Angel's for even more to build), Yuoki Industries, or 5Dim's.
You can also mix and match more specialized mods to get a less altered experience but still have more options and improved warfare. Try searching for what you want in the mod portal.

[Pascali]

The game is playing itself more and more with all this blueprints, and copy and paste-things and upgrade-tools(yellow to red belts automatically). Like a puzzle, where you can press a button and it´s done.

[BlueTemplar]

3. Game resources could be more optimized. I had a system with a bunch of steam engines (around 80 of them?) and whenever my system goes over that area, it just slows to a crawl.

You're totally right! Why don't the devs ever work on optimization? I think that is factorio's biggest fault. If this game was optimized it would probably be my favorite game of all time

But he's actually right about smoke (have you seen how many particles it uses !?),
and about graphics in general (which are in the process of being optimized for 0.17 and pretty-fied in UHD for... 0.16-1.0 ?).

(The "gloomy" atmosphere seems to be more of an aesthetic preference. I personally like it, while I know some people that can't stand it (see also : Dungeon Keeper 1). I'm sure that some modders will deal with this issue (if they haven't already!) ...)
(The "dated" graphics however probably just comes from being a 2D game - aesthetic preference again, and probably not fixable.)

[5thHorseman]

The game is playing itself more and more with all this blueprints, and copy and paste-things and upgrade-tools(yellow to red belts automatically). Like a puzzle, where you can press a button and it´s done.

Yeah this game about automation offers far too much automation.

[Pascali]

The game is playing itself more and more with all this blueprints, and copy and paste-things and upgrade-tools(yellow to red belts automatically). Like a puzzle, where you can press a button and it´s done.

Yeah this game about automation offers far too much automation.

Yes.. it´s still a GAME not an automation-macro. Otherwise you could - after starting the factorio.exe do nothing, all is done by the auomation-game itself. Just watching it, like video.

[BlueTemplar]

That would be an impressive achievement !
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/recursive-blueprints

[Alice3173]

Yes.. it´s still a GAME not an automation-macro. Otherwise you could - after starting the factorio.exe do nothing, all is done by the auomation-game itself. Just watching it, like video.

I'm not certain this is really an issue considering that you'd have to make a conscious decision to play that way. If you ruin your own fun by doing so then that's on you and not the devs.

[RobertTerwilliger]

Yes.. it´s still a GAME not an automation-macro. Otherwise you could - after starting the factorio.exe do nothing, all is done by the auomation-game itself. Just watching it, like video.

I'm not certain this is really an issue considering that you'd have to make a conscious decision to play that way. If you ruin your own fun by doing so then that's on you and not the devs.

+1
Personally I never play logistic network (apart from sometimes personsl supply). I simply like beltpuzzle too much :3
That bots are in game, I'm okay with that. I slso jever use car - 'cause I don't feel comfortable with it.
However sometimes I restrict rules for myself even more: simple example is minibase setup. Which is extremely inefficient, but is fun!

You play Factorio in a way YOU like it.

[Pascali]

yes, but for multiplayer rule-settings would be very good. And for yourself, too - to escape the tamptation.

[5thHorseman]

The game is playing itself more and more with all this blueprints, and copy and paste-things and upgrade-tools(yellow to red belts automatically). Like a puzzle, where you can press a button and it´s done.

Yeah this game about automation offers far too much automation.

Yes.. it´s still a GAME not an automation-macro. Otherwise you could - after starting the factorio.exe do nothing, all is done by the auomation-game itself. Just watching it, like video.

The whole point of the game is to set thing up so you don't have to care about them anymore, until you suddenly have to because of something you dind't plan for. Blueprints and copy/paste don't keep ore from running out or trains from bottlenecking or cliffs and lakes from being where you don't want them or biters from attacking.

You get joy from clicking every single belt in your factory and feel cheated if a robot does it for you. I get joy from the EXACT opposite.

This does mean that the game loses some joy as time goes on, but I kept my joy of the game far longer because of blueprints rather than in spite of them. If I had to click every single item on the map where I wanted them to be, I doubt I'd have made it past that first rocket at all, and launching it would have been a release from drudgery.

[Pascali]

robots can fly over cliffs. And i have seen fabrics which can get ore without any user-click anymore. And option would be nice. And an option to forbit blueprints you didn´t made in a game by yourself. If you only have to get more ore or kill biters - the games gets more time into this - and not into the puzzle-things.

[Alice3173]

And an option to forbit blueprints you didn´t made in a game by yourself.

While I wouldn't be against an option to automatically do this, you do realize you could actually do this yourself simply by giving blueprints for a given save a prefix, right? Not as good as an actual option but nonetheless viable at least.

[Pascali]

a prefix? I would habe an option where no multiplayer player could use prints. And of course it is a culture thing, too.

By the way I know 2 guys, who don´t think anymore about their setups, they copy blueprints and know they are the best ones. I see them loosing fun at the game more and more.

[Oktokolo]

I would habe an option where no multiplayer player could use prints.

Probably easiest way to mod this: Intersecpt the entity ghost creation events, so nobody can create ghosts.

By the way I know 2 guys, who don´t think anymore about their setups, they copy blueprints and know they are the best ones. I see them loosing fun at the game more and more.

It is like with every sort of recreational activity: Most often not doing it is easier than doing it. But people do play video games and run through forests regardless. Nobody has the right to force people to have fun...

[Alice3173]

a prefix? I would habe an option where no multiplayer player could use prints. And of course it is a culture thing, too.

Of course giving it as an option in a server may be a requirement if you're doing multiplayer just to ensure that's everyone is following their rules but the prefix option is still an alternative until when/if it gets added. And what I mean by a prefix is say you have a basic furnace blueprint that you have the icon set as just the furnace normally. You can choose multiple icons so you could easily use one of the letter or color ones to mark every blueprint for that file so you know which ones are valid in a given world. My apologies for that being unclear, I haven't played the game in awhile and don't actually use blueprints terribly frequently myself so I'd spaced the fact that blueprints are differentiated by icon rather than name.

By the way I know 2 guys, who don´t think anymore about their setups, they copy blueprints and know they are the best ones. I see them loosing fun at the game more and more.

Well that's really their problem. It's up to them how they want to play the game and not for me to decide for them.

[Pascali]

It´s made by the game - by the blueprints. The problem is not made by them. The programmer has to lead to the right way to play.

And an option to forbit blueprints you didn´t made in a game by yourself.

While I wouldn't be against an option to automatically do this, you do realize you could actually do this yourself simply by giving blueprints for a given save a prefix, right? Not as good as an actual option but nonetheless viable at least.

I don´t know what you mean with this prefix -thing. But i would hate, if a player in a multiplayer game could copy his own things and use them again instead of building them.

[Oktokolo]

But i would hate, if a player in a multiplayer game could copy his own things and use them again instead of building them.

Just mod it away. Should be rather easy to intercept ghost entity creation.

[thedarkbunny]

I don't think "disable blueprints entirely" is what they were going for. If I'm understanding them correctly, they believe that being able to import fully-optimized blueprints from elsewhere ruins the enjoyment of the game, both for the person doing it and the other players on the server. I'm not sure I agree with that analysis, but I see where they're coming from.

[Oktokolo]

I don't think "disable blueprints entirely" is what they were going for. If I'm understanding them correctly, they believe that being able to import fully-optimized blueprints from elsewhere ruins the enjoyment of the game, both for the person doing it and the other players on the server. I'm not sure I agree with that analysis, but I see where they're coming from.

So it would be an option to disable importing of blueprints from clipboard or inter-game player libraries (including their own player library)?
If so, that would probably indeed profit from dev support as it seems like the blueprint library can't be disabled or filtered by scripts.
But there are events for intercepting the creation and use of blueprints already. So one could track the creation of blueprints and then, on each blueprint use, check whether the blueprint was created in the same game. Definitely looks like a hack but should work.
Maybe one could even prevent players from getting unregistered blueprints into their hands by reacting to on_picked_up_item - but not sure about that.