Steam age

[Engimage]

There were multiple suggestions on extending the start of the game or "burner" age by introducing "burner assemblers" and "burner laboratories".
However the whole "burner" stuff makes little sense as obviously you can't create motion from burning coal itself. The actual motion is generated by steam produced by vaporizing water.
And guess what - we DO have a machine for the conversion - the Boiler - which converts coal and water into steam able to provide mechanical power in a form of steam to entities.

We do already have a pipe connection capabilities on entities so it makes a lot of sense to introduce a set of entities to extend the start of the game and make it a lot more interesting and not something that is intended to rush through and forget.

We can introduce:

• Steam Mining Drill (replacing burner mining drill). Such mining drill will have the same size and pipe connections as Uranium Mining Drill allowing to streamline the liquid supply to a mining line and teach a new player what has to come later. Alternatively the mining drill can have a single pipe on its back to connect steam but I would go for the first (more general) scenario
• Steam Assembler (replacing MK1 assembler). This one can use the general assembler pipe connection.
• Steam Workshop (steam analog of Research Lab)
• Steam inserters (replacing burner inserters). Steam inserters get pipe connections at their sides (both sides) allowing to chain connect them through the pipe line along the assembler line.

All of these entities should be powered by providing steam by pipes from Boilers.


This can really extend the beginning period and make it really interesting to play through. Also steam age fits so well into Factorio style.
Also steam does not require any wood being available to the player (for power poles) making the factory pretty unique and stylish.

And you know... PIPES all around is awesome.

At some point a player can research electricity and repurpose those boilers to produce electric power using Steam Generators.

[bobingabout]

in 0.17, thanks to my work to create the fluid energy source, and Rseding's clean up and pulling it, you'll be able to make a mod of this!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/btwniwjxz4hkc ... 2.png?dl=0

[JimBarracus]

the first factories had one big steam engine and all the machines inside the factory were belt-driven.
Powering single units with dedicated steam engines was never a thing.

So it would be more accurate to have to spread the mechanical power around the factory.

[Engimage]

in 0.17, thanks to my work to create the fluid energy source, and Rseding's clean up and pulling it, you'll be able to make a mod of this!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/btwniwjxz4hkc ... 2.png?dl=0

Did you make this mockup using prototype mod for 0.17? Or is it just a photoshop?

As for screenshot - it is awesome the idea was actually worked on already. The only thing here which I can't agree with is steam powered furnace - you obviously can't use steam for smelting as it has too low temperature for that and you still require direct burner for it.

I am really glad to hear this is made possible from a mechanic standpoint in 0.17.
But I still think this is a way to go with general mechanic cleanup for vanilla game and not be just a mod.

[darkfrei]

You can try Steamed, I think that the api of 0.16 can not provide better solution.

[bobingabout]

in 0.17, thanks to my work to create the fluid energy source, and Rseding's clean up and pulling it, you'll be able to make a mod of this!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/btwniwjxz4hkc ... 2.png?dl=0

Did you make this mockup using prototype mod for 0.17? Or is it just a photoshop?

As for screenshot - it is awesome the idea was actually worked on already. The only thing here which I can't agree with is steam powered furnace - you obviously can't use steam for smelting as it has too low temperature for that and you still require direct burner for it.

I am really glad to hear this is made possible from a mechanic standpoint in 0.17.
But I still think this is a way to go with general mechanic cleanup for vanilla game and not be just a mod.

This is a screenshot of the testing mod I wrote while I was writing the code to make fluid powered "Anything with a dynamic energy_source input", you know, to make sure entities actually worked. All entities needed a tweak here or there to make this kind of change work. Remember, Source access, sometimes (on rare occasions) I contribute code to the game.

[wartthog]

the first factories had one big steam engine and all the machines inside the factory were belt-driven.
Powering single units with dedicated steam engines was never a thing.

So it would be more accurate to have to spread the mechanical power around the factory.

I was talking about this with the creator of Stone Age Factorio. I love the idea of having a mod that starts you with mechanical energy like the belt-driven factories and upgrading it to steam powered. The player could start by powering things manually using a tool (like the crank in the grinder- in FTB Minecraft) and automate it using a steam engine. The more painful the early game is, the more rewarding the progression is! Maybe a bit of RotaryCraft as well?

[Darinth]

the first factories had one big steam engine and all the machines inside the factory were belt-driven.
Powering single units with dedicated steam engines was never a thing.

So it would be more accurate to have to spread the mechanical power around the factory.

I was talking about this with the creator of Stone Age Factorio. I love the idea of having a mod that starts you with mechanical energy like the belt-driven factories and upgrading it to steam powered. The player could start by powering things manually using a tool (like the crank in the grinder- in FTB Minecraft) and automate it using a steam engine. The more painful the early game is, the more rewarding the progression is! Maybe a bit of RotaryCraft as well?

There's a lot of danger in the idea that 'the more painful the early game is, the more rewarding the progression is', and taken to an extreme I don't think it's true for most people. I think honestly that factorio hits a sweet spot right now for new players. The burner buildings that do exist show you how terrible things *could* be, but never really keep you bound to them for long.

I don't actually think I'd like to see the burner stage extended, or a steam age, or a 'stone age' added to to factorio's vanilla experience.

[nosports]

I would also like a expansion oft he game, while i feel its not entirely fitting in a futuristic game.
But otherwise what else have the lone space farer at disposal when crashing on an alien planet.......

But I think such a steam age could be realatively simple to achieve.

• Define a fluid dubbed ‘rotational-energy’
• Expand all envisioned recipes to use rotational-energy
• Add an incredible energy requirement to the above recipes (so you can’t connect it to a electric grid without bringing your factory to an halt)
• Remove the energy requirement of the above recipes
• redefine an assembler/chemplant or boiler to hand out the rotational-energy
• Drawback you can store the energy in a tank, but that could be seen as a rotation mass which stores the energy)

Refinement:
• Dedicated pipes / assemblers / storage / small scale boiler
• Dedicated inserts ? (but we have coal-inserters for this )
• Recipes which could be only assigned to the dedicated assemblers

Heck i may try this myself maybe

[BuilderOfAges]

I really like the idea of a steam age mod. I imagine it would complement / replace the burner age, since there's a lot of overlap there. And then make the progression to electric as hard (but fun) as the progression from (say) electric to blue science. @nosports: if you're thinking of making this, I would love to colaborate. Though perhaps we need to wait for 0.17 so we can use the fluid energy_source.

Like people have been saying, there are two approaches here: you have a boiler / steam engine that powers other buildings by mechanical motion (which I think is what @nosports and @wartthog have in mind), or you can pipe the steam directly into the buildings and say that they have internal steam engines turning the steam pressure into motion (which seems to be what @bobingabout was showing in his screenshot). I think there's merit to both approaches: mechanical motion seems a bit more complex but realistic, while direct steam fits in better with standard Factorio gameplay.

Another suggestion that came up a couple of times while I was working on Stone Age: start out with a water wheel / wind mill as a power source, rather than steam / a steam engine. This would work well with the mechanical power concept. Needing to hand-crank some of the first runs to get the necessary ingredients for a wind mill could also be fun, though I'm guessing there will be people who would enjoy steam age but dislike this mechanic if overused.

@darinth: I agree all this is too much for the vanilla game, but as a mod it could be fun.

[BuilderOfAges]

in 0.17, thanks to my work to create the fluid energy source, and Rseding's clean up and pulling it, you'll be able to make a mod of this!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/btwniwjxz4hkc ... 2.png?dl=0

Thanks for contributing that! Your work is going to open up a lot of interesting modding possibilities.

[Engimage]

Also I see this steam age a nice strategy for copperless start. The only thing that erroneously used copper in this steam age start is Offshore Pump which requires green chip if I remember right. But that can be fixed as well.

However the electric age will require Copper for everything - poles, generators etc.

[darkfrei]

Also I see this steam age a nice strategy for copperless start.

But steampunk steam age is pretty copper.

[Koub]

There's a lot of danger in the idea that 'the more painful the early game is, the more rewarding the progression is', and taken to an extreme I don't think it's true for most people. I think honestly that factorio hits a sweet spot right now for new players. The burner buildings that do exist show you how terrible things *could* be, but never really keep you bound to them for long.

This is exactly what I think. Different people have different potential skill, and different taste for difficulty.
Some people find Dark souls too easy and mod it to make it harder. Some others will never even pass the first opponent. I don't think Factorio should be targeted to the most hardcore players who like to suffer to feel the sense of accomplishment. It should be aimed to a easy-medium level, so that most people can play vanilla and those who want challenge always have options (map settings, mods, ...) to make it as hard as desired.

Current burner stage is in the sweet spot at the moment, in my opinion.

[Tony3D]

If you install an earlier version of Factorio this mod was interesting to try and launch. More a case of no electricity and needing coal access rather than than piping steam.

I cannot remember if burner inserters could refuel from target location but would add that.
One of the forum staff made an upgrade but did not keep it updated.

[Mod 0.11.20] Steampunk V 0.1.1
viewtopic.php?t=9435

[bobingabout]

in 0.17, thanks to my work to create the fluid energy source, and Rseding's clean up and pulling it, you'll be able to make a mod of this!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/btwniwjxz4hkc ... 2.png?dl=0

Thanks for contributing that! Your work is going to open up a lot of interesting modding possibilities.

it took me 2 weeks of programming. And I only have 1 planned use for it. But what you say there is exactly why I did it... The doors of possibility are now open!

[wartthog]

I don't actually think I'd like to see the burner stage extended, or a steam age, or a 'stone age' added to to factorio's vanilla experience.

I don't think Factorio should be targeted to the most hardcore players who like to suffer to feel the sense of accomplishment. It should be aimed to a easy-medium level, so that most people can play vanilla and those who want challenge always have options (map settings, mods, ...) to make it as hard as desired.

Totally. Unless I misunderstood, this thread is discussing the idea of a new mod. We're not suggesting a change to vanilla.

There are two approaches here: you have a boiler / steam engine that powers other buildings by mechanical motion (which I think is what @nosports and @wartthog have in mind), or you can pipe the steam directly into the buildings and say that they have internal steam engines turning the steam pressure into motion (which seems to be what @bobingabout was showing in his screenshot). I think there's merit to both approaches: mechanical motion seems a bit more complex but realistic, while direct steam fits in better with standard Factorio gameplay.

Yes exactly. Actually in my desire to expand Factorio gameplay as much as possible, I'd like to see both! I may be in the minority though.

IMO the mechanical energy idea, if done right adds a more-unique puzzle to the game than the steam idea. Here's what I'm thinking -- shooting for the moon here, with no regard to what's possible to implement! Please consider the following as wild brainstorming and instead of replying with what you don't like, let it inspire you to create something that you do!

Mechanical energy should have two components: Torque and Speed. They can be converted via a gearbox, and it's this conversion of energy that is the new mechanic. Gearboxes should be expensive enough that players are encouraged to use as few as possible. Some energy sources would be high-torque, low-speed, like waterwheels or steam engines, and others would be low-torque, high-speed like wind turbines. Energy loads would require a certain minimum torque and/or speed to function, and ideally would work faster at a higher torque and/or speed (like how buildings work slower when starved of electricity. It's not generally the Factorio way, but we could have parts break if they consume too much speed or transmit too much torque. All together (if the numbers were carefully considered) then the scarcity of gearboxes could create some interesting trade-offs the player will need to deal with. Do I run these assemblers at lower efficiency so that the friction heaters on the furnaces run better, or do I drive the assemblers harder at the risk of breaking the furnaces?

Anyway, just the ramblings of a mad man. While all this maybe fun, the steam idea is much more straightforward to implement thanks to @bobbingabout's hard work. It would make sense I think to start there, and after it's working really well, reconsider the mechanical energy idea, maybe in a new (complementary) mod.

[nosports]

This is exactly what I think. Different people have different potential skill, and different taste for difficulty.
Some people find Dark souls too easy and mod it to make it harder. Some others will never even pass the first opponent. I don't think Factorio should be targeted to the most hardcore players who like to suffer to feel the sense of accomplishment. It should be aimed to a easy-medium level, so that most people can play vanilla and those who want challenge always have options (map settings, mods, ...) to make it as hard as desired.

Current burner stage is in the sweet spot at the moment, in my opinion.

For me the burner age is just a speck.
But i keept my boiler/steam-power as a fail-save/restart electrical unit just in case.

The trouble would be somewhat to keep the steam-age intresting for a certain good use (as the boiler/steam-power for me as a emergency energy).
I just can think only to increase the energy use of all electrical usage so that a good reason still exist for keeping the steam-age at least some time before starting a huge solar/akku energy grid

[eradicator]

This is exactly what I think. Different people have different potential skill, and different taste for difficulty.
Some people find Dark souls too easy and mod it to make it harder. Some others will never even pass the first opponent.

This makes me wonder if this kind of linear perception of "difficulty" is common. Or if you're just heavily abbreviating even though you know better. What i mean is: "Difficulty" isn't a straight path from easy to hard, and "Skill" isn't a straight path from noob to pro. They come in many different variations.

...

For example Dark Souls puts a very high focus on reaction speed. But reaction speed is a rather hard skill that is difficult to improve by "learning" and that naturaly degrades with age. So the people who pride themselfs on how good they are, are imho simply the ones that were lucky enough to have a good reaction speed to begin with. I can learn all the boss attack patterns i want, if my body can't put them into action fast enough they're worthless, and thus i dislike games where i know from the start that i'm never going to be good.
Strategy games like factorio are completely different because their basic requirement is a soft skill for planning. That is to say you can learn strategies, patters, etc, and you won't usually hit any physical limitations of your body when trying to use those learned skills. And humans largely evolved due to how good they are at learning, so these types of games are often percieved as "less difficult" even when they're not. And that's just two of the types of difficulty.

Urm...ok, that derailed way too far, gonna put it in a spoiler :p.

TL;DR: Putting a more difficult (need to route power input) steam age before the easier (magic cables to every machine) electrical age would ruin the learning curve for new people, even if it felt more "natural" to experienced players because to the experienced player the start of a new map is after they already launched a rocket on the previous map.

[Oktokolo]

The player could start by powering things manually using a tool and automate it using a steam engine.

There is a mod called Hand Crank, that adds a hand crank for generating small amounts of electrical energy. It might be possible to fork it for generators generating other energy types.

I cannot remember if burner inserters could refuel from target location but would add that.
One of the forum staff made an upgrade but did not keep it updated.

I found Klonan's BurnerLeech and used it as a base for Inserter Fuel Leech, wich makes inserters fuel target buildings (and themself, if a burner inserter) from source buildings.