Friday Facts #266 - Cleanup of mechanics

[Ferlonas]

Some criticize the pickaxe removal because of modability but there are posts directly saying removing the pickaxe would make the game less complex.

Jarin was also talking about Lazy Bastard. Of those two topics, you were the one who chose the pickaxe.
Besides, obviously the pickaxe is too complex, otherwise the devs wouldn't have made that post.

Regards
Ferlonas

[Atraps003]

.

[Lubricus]

Some of the research/Technology mechanics could also be cleaned up and simplified

Code: Select all

unit =
 {
   count = 20,
   time = 5,
   ingredients = { ["science-pack-1"] = 1 }
 }
 

The unit could be simplified to only count and a list of required science packs. The time could just be an standard for all technology and different numbers of different science packs could also be removed.
unit =
{
count = 20,
ingredients = { "science-pack-1","science-pack-2 }
}

[meganothing]

Some criticize the pickaxe removal because of modability but there are posts directly saying removing the pickaxe would make the game less complex.

Jarin was also talking about Lazy Bastard. Of those two topics, you were the one who chose the pickaxe.
Besides, obviously the pickaxe is too complex, otherwise the devs wouldn't have made that post.

Regards
Ferlonas

Come on, really? He said he originally wanted to talk about Lazy Bastard until he saw people defending the pickaxe. This is so clear I don't even need to wait for Jarin to butt in.

And the devs call the pickaxe "unnecessary distraction", "bloat". And that's what the pickaxe is until someone actually brings a good argument how he had a difficult decision to make between crafting the pickaxe and not crafting the pickaxe.

[Ferlonas]

And the devs call the pickaxe "unnecessary distraction", "bloat". And that's what the pickaxe is until someone actually brings a good argument how he had a difficult decision to make between crafting the pickaxe and not crafting the pickaxe.

All other topics of our difference in opinions aside, that is exactly what I had to do when I did a lazy bastard. I simply couldn't afford to craft a pickaxe.
And with that I come full circle and steer the topic back to the problem at hand: Assembler ingredient limitations should not be removed in my opinion, and neither should efficiency (just because the devs don't use it doesn't mean modders shouldn't be able to)

Regards
Ferlonas

[Kewlhotrod]

why would you remove the sense of progression by crafting new items that are stronger for a weak idea that you just get better speed? like I don't get it? pls explain kthxs

you know what would be a good idea though? if we removed all weapon slots so you no longer have to craft and weapons and just have research unlocks and you spawn them out your butthole. screw crafting guys

[Avezo]

Off Topic since the Devs are reading this:
Can we please get a function so that when a player mouses over an option in his personal crafting menu, any existing inventory slots that already contain the item are highlighted?
With something like 120-150 inventory slots, it's hard to tell at a glance whether or not I already have boilers/heat exchangers/sorter inserters/rail stops/etc. already made, or whether I need to make one more to drop where I need it.

It's already highlighted like this. I could agree that it's not very visible (light gray changing into light orange), but it's already in the game nevertheless.

[posila]

And with that I come full circle and steer the topic back to the problem at hand: Assembler ingredient limitations should not be removed in my opinion, and neither should efficiency (just because the devs don't use it doesn't mean modders shouldn't be able to)

Mods can still use efficiency (this has been stated, in FFF); Mods can still limit assembling machine ingredient count, just vanilla ones use defaul limit of 255 (FFF did not mention this)

[Grynet]

With how heated this discussion currently is in regards to the change in AMs, has anyone tried a mod where this is implemented and is able to give their verdict after actually spending some hours with the change? I have a feeling it'll be more or less negligible once you get into it no matter what your philosophical standpoint is on dumbing down the game or shortening parts of the craft progression.

Edit:
I should add that I'm quite interested in the idea of making all grey tier machines run on coal and fleshing out the early-game a bit. I always find the rush for electricity awkward and it might help being able to delay electricity a bit. We'd need long-handed burner too though because half of all belts would need to be filled with coal.

[Ferlonas]

And with that I come full circle and steer the topic back to the problem at hand: Assembler ingredient limitations should not be removed in my opinion, and neither should efficiency (just because the devs don't use it doesn't mean modders shouldn't be able to)

Mods can still use efficiency (this has been stated, in FFF); Mods can still limit assembling machine ingredient count, just vanilla ones use defaul limit of 255 (FFF did not mention this)

I stand corrected as far as the efficency goes. The entire point with the ingredient limit still stands.
And yet, bob and angel will have to rework their entire fuel system because the values will change. Besides, if you want to use coal for its pure heat (while smelting for example), I think it should have a higher efficiency than if you transform the heat into a different kind of energy (in steam engines or locomotives).

Regards
Ferlonas

[posila]

And yet, bob and angel will have to rework their entire fuel system because the values will change.

Or they can just reset them to values from 0.16. Bob has access to the source code, so he should be able to see the commit with the change and add few lines that undoes it to his mod. I mean, if we are not allowed to make changes to the game anymore, all there is left is just to push "End Early Access" on Steam.

(Disclaimer: I don't like things having 100% efficiency, because it just feels wrong, but I don't lose my sleep over it)

EDIT: Things that were not removed from the game egine are out of the way, so let's talk things that were removed - pickaxes So did any mod use the tool slot for anything iteresting? (Don't care about Diamond pickaxe with mining power 5, just change it to technology research bonus, as steel axe was changed). I thought maybe Nanobots, but I just checked and it uses weapon slot, not tool slot.

[RamiTech]

I liked the pickaxe removal, but hated the assembling machines ingredients number limit removal.

Maybe the ingredients number may not mean how complex the item is, and if so why not add a property that specifies how complex the recipe is.

This limit removal makes the higher levels of assembling machines more useless...

[5thHorseman]

you know what would be a good idea though? if we removed all weapon slots so you no longer have to craft and weapons and just have research unlocks and you spawn them out your butthole. screw crafting guys

I'd actually be down with that. Well, not the butthole part that would probably hurt.

But I see less utility in having to craft guns than picks. At least picks degrade over time and needed replacements.

[J-H]

Off Topic since the Devs are reading this:
Can we please get a function so that when a player mouses over an option in his personal crafting menu, any existing inventory slots that already contain the item are highlighted?
With something like 120-150 inventory slots, it's hard to tell at a glance whether or not I already have boilers/heat exchangers/sorter inserters/rail stops/etc. already made, or whether I need to make one more to drop where I need it.

It's already highlighted like this. I could agree that it's not very visible (light gray changing into light orange), but it's already in the game nevertheless.

Not on my computer. Is this a Beta function?

[weaknespase]

No picks? Not that it mattered much to me, since mining anything by hand is more or less reserved to first 5 minutes into the game. Then you get your miners set and is too busy to mine anything with pickaxe. I usually throw out the first one I crafted not even able to break it.

It would be nice if gun turrets would use guns instead of raw material in their recipe. At least then you would see them a lot more than now and while at it, shotgun and rocket turrets could be added to the game.

[ske]

Factorio basically IS the freeplay right now. People know it as a sandbox, all the reviews laud it as a sandbox, most of the millennia of combined youtube videos of the game treat it as a sandbox.

This sets expectations, true. We can never change it then as someone would be disappointed.

"We're going to sacrifice the strongest part of the game and its best selling point, and try to sell it on what is currently its weakest aspect" is an absolutely terrible plan.

You have to make deep cuts to get rid of the tons of illogical quirks deeply embedded in the game. For some time this would break everything but it could be put together rather quickly afterwards and provide a more clean base for further expansion.

I also don't see what's stopping Wube from just creating a campaign using the existing mechanics? If anything, removing whatever "isn't necessary" is creating extra work. (Scare quotes because who defines what's the scope of the campaign? You could make the entire campaign be "automate iron production" and delete everything else, for an extreme example.) I think the understanding was that the campaign would be complete when it had toured all the major game systems and tutorialised most of the mechanics.

The changes are honestly relatively minor and I'll probably live (though I certainly understand the modders' frustration!) but I can't wrap my head around your "It must have a campaign, and it doesn't matter what else gets destroyed in the process" mentality. Nobody bemoans minecraft for not having a campaign.

You are talking about tutorials and not a campaign. If we don't want a campaign, we can live with that. Tutorials for what factorio is now.

If you want a clean campaign you have to think about the campaign first and see what it needs. What the inner logic of it is. From that everything else follows. Factorio as it is now is an incomplete tech demonstration.

"Cutting is shipping." - you have to cut down features without mercy to deliver a polished product. Right now the benchmark for me would be a satisfying campaign. That is the game that's being shipped. The multiplayer/sandbox parts are extra. That's how I would see it right now.

Sure, but that's for things like the spiderbot. Making the simulation level worse than it was doesn't count there, nor axing completed features in the hope that it's an easy fix for underlying problems and magically makes the game play better.

The spiderbot and the space expansion were logical targets for cutting. The harder part is to cut "working" and "completed" features that break the gameplay. Think of the bots. In my opinion they mess everything up and need to go. I know that it is an unpopular opinion.

I could say this is how games are. But it is not always like this. Some games provide you with joy seemingly without end. Chess for example. Chess has something that factorio doesn't. I think that this "something" could be replicated in factorio by very carefully selecting the properties of some base items such that there are many different good solutions to do something and you always try to find another one. Having overpowered items/upgrades kills this property of the game.

Chess has an active opponent. In the more prototype stages of Factorio, the environment was your semi-active opponent, with player options being limited enough that biters were once more than a simple environmental hazard. But freeplay usually has this flaw. It's really hard to do a player vs environment experience well when the environment is rando and the player has pocket factories that spit out tanks and nukes. Rogue-likes work because the simplicity of those games and stricter player limitations.

So yes, the campaign is usually what fills in the lack of purpose or void that most freeplay experiences haven't managed to overcome.

I see this as Factorio being a completed game if narrowed down to a factory building sim/puzzle but incomplete game if expanded to the player vs. environment prototype goal. I don't see this getting fixed. I don't think it should be fixed. The campaign is the stopgap to say Factorio 1 is done.

Maybe Factorio 2 can do the player vs environment more fully, but time will tell.

Factorio also can also be played Player versus Player. It is an interesting concept but seems very hard to balance and it would probably need a lot of fine tuning. So far that concept didn't really take off since it's more easy to destroy than it is to build. Balancing the weapons in that regard is quite hard. The artillery with virtually infinite range and no way to defend against is quite the killer in PvP.

One thing some servers do to overcome some balancing problems is to disable or limit certain items like landfill and turrets.

The "campaign" for Factorio 1 would probably be more kind of an tutorial if we keep the engine as it is. I'm curious with what they manage to come up and hope to be pleasantly surprised. Making good maps is hard.

I think the campaign is the key. It will make or break whatever will be released as 1.0.

If the campaign is the key then Wube is starting from scratch and 1.0 is 2-3 years away.

Factorio's strengths are the flexibility and performance of the underlying engine. This excellent engine supports learning, freeplay, modding, and megabases.

Balance? Campaign? Story? End game? They're not even close. Maybe that's a formula for Factorio 2.0.

I'd love to see a great campaign but if Wube wants to release 1.0 this decade they're going to have to build on their strengths rather than throwing them out.

Or maybe Wube should build on its real strength - continuous development - and not allow themselves to be distracted by a spurious 1.0 release.

Starting from scratch not with the code but with the storyline and everything that follows. This shouldn't take that long... but seeing how 0.17 drags out you are probably right. There would be lots of little problems uncovered and lots of things to be done.

Factorio 2.0 seems to be the bucket to throw ideas in that we cannot satisfy soon. Can we release the game without story? Can we rip off the band-aid and cut the story instead? Maybe it has to be done.

---

Seeing all this I'm kind of losing hope for a campaign and a consistent story in factorio. It might have come too far to make deep cuts now. Cosmetic changes like renaming the axe and changing implementation details OK. But a rethinking of the story logic and cleaning up the big mess? Probably not. People would be unhappy. Make a tutorial to play through in 10-20 hours for new players. Polish the UI, clean up the rough edges and call it a day. It's still way better than most other games.

[Rythe]

EDIT: Things that were not removed from the game egine are out of the way, so let's talk things that were removed - pickaxes So did any mod use the tool slot for anything iteresting? (Don't care about Diamond pickaxe with mining power 5, just change it to technology research bonus, as steel axe was changed). I thought maybe Nanobots, but I just checked and it uses weapon slot, not tool slot.

I'll bite the AM ingredient limit removal in vanilla if Assembling Machine 1 becomes burner powered. That's a puzzle upgrade and forces an infrastructure upgrade akin to the dynamic that the item limit use to create. Forcing the upgrade from AM 1 -> 2 was a way to force an increase in puzzle complexity to advance (AM2 more complex to automate production of than AM1). So these two changes together create a net improvement that still meets the goals of both camps.

Now the problem with the pickaxe removal is an epic thread unto itself. It goes to the very heart of what kind of game Factorio was now is and what happened in the years of game development. I'll try to get it done tonight.

[Avezo]

Off Topic since the Devs are reading this:
Can we please get a function so that when a player mouses over an option in his personal crafting menu, any existing inventory slots that already contain the item are highlighted?
With something like 120-150 inventory slots, it's hard to tell at a glance whether or not I already have boilers/heat exchangers/sorter inserters/rail stops/etc. already made, or whether I need to make one more to drop where I need it.

It's already highlighted like this. I could agree that it's not very visible (light gray changing into light orange), but it's already in the game nevertheless.

Not on my computer. Is this a Beta function?

Experimental version is not available atm, so it's base feature. See picture - I'm hovering repair pack and repair packs in my inventory get orange highlight. I assume that's what you meant?
https://i.imgur.com/Dcw8dyF.jpg

[meganothing]

It would be nice if gun turrets would use guns instead of raw material in their recipe. At least then you would see them a lot more than now and while at it, shotgun and rocket turrets could be added to the game.

Now thats another nice idea. There is no reasonable way to get rid of all the pistols you get, but if they are actually useful,... !

And the devs call the pickaxe "unnecessary distraction", "bloat". And that's what the pickaxe is until someone actually brings a good argument how he had a difficult decision to make between crafting the pickaxe and not crafting the pickaxe.

All other topics of our difference in opinions aside, that is exactly what I had to do when I did a lazy bastard. I simply couldn't afford to craft a pickaxe.

Ok. Thank you, this is an example that actually answers the question. It also shows that my question was badly worded, i.e. had a loophole. The difficulty of your decision did not depend on any characteristic or use of the pickaxe, you have that difficult decision with anything you want to built per hand in that szenario. Actually the pickaxe is one of the most trivial decisions here as it is obviously just a comfort feature. If time were also limited it could be made into a difficult decision, but that would really handcraft the challenge to make the pickaxe important somehow

A carpet is not complex at all, but the decision if you can afford a carpet can be arbitrarily complex depending on your financial situation. Doesn't make the carpet complex.

[bobucles]

I'll bite the AM ingredient limit removal in vanilla if Assembling Machine 1 becomes burner powered.

I honestly think it'd be great if AM1 was burner powered. Players are forced too early and too hard to get electricity and there's too many new concepts being piled on players in the early game as is. As a burner device it is almost enough burner content for players to run a complete burner tier base (add a burner research lab to open up a path all the way to blue science). At the very least it sounds like a fun achievement run.