Re-balancing Night Vision

[voddan]

I love Night Vision Gogles because they let me build at night. I wish I could get Night Vision Gogles earlier in the game without needing modular armor, solar panels and batteries.

I hate Night Vision Gogles because they are OP. Night Vision Gogles [NVG] remove the element of surprise from biter attacks and gaming with them is not as existing as in total darkens.

Could we balance those out?

What if Factorio limited the area the Night Vision Goggles allow to see? A circle 30 tiles wide seems to be wide enough to comfortably build, but small enough to be afraid of a sudden biter attack. Basic googles could work without a power source, and then later upgrades and additional batteries would widen the visible area, make it brighter and increase resolution.

This ability to use googles without a power source further enhances by my proposal to allow using googles without even a modular armor early in the game: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=63443

[dog80]

yes we need a "torch"

-- i heard there is a free spot where we had the pickaxe available xD

[stm]

I have never even build gogles. What are they good for anyway?
You can Build just as well at night without them.
Your weapons work just as well without them (even targeting)
You move just as well without them
They take up space
You see bites on the minimap just as well
Judging from the screenshots you get a bit better visibility, but the difference between day and night is far from critical (at least for me).
Stm

[voddan]

I have never even build gogles. What are they good for anyway?
You can Build just as well at night without them.
Your weapons work just as well without them (even targeting)
You move just as well without them
They take up space
You see bites on the minimap just as well
Judging from the screenshots you get a bit better visibility, but the difference between day and night is far from critical (at least for me).
Stm

In my experience at night you can't see anything except what is right in front of you so you have to put lamps all other your factory.
Do you have default brightness settings?

[stm]

In my experience at night you can't see anything except what is right in front of you so you have to put lamps all other your factory.
Do you have default brightness settings?

I don't think I changed anything there.
But what do you want to see?
Most entities are still discernable and your flashlight shows where you are stepping.
For the rest you have the minimap.
Stm

[bobucles]

I think night vision goggles actively take away from the game. There is no real purpose to night time when it's just a greener version of day time. Factory lamps also lose their value when a single armor module renders them all obsolete. The visual effect of all the lamps slowly blinking on is pretty damn cool and letting players miss out on it is a mistake.

I'd 100% rather have NV goggles replaced with a modular lantern to upgrade your flashlight. You still get the extra vision at night time, but get to enjoy watching your base light up and glow in the dark.

[bobingabout]

I never really use lamps at all, but that's not because of night vision. Can't see at night? adjust your screen brightness so you can. get it set right so it doesn't blind me during the day and I can still see at night, and just build day and night.
The night vision just lets me set my screen back to defaults.

[voddan]

I never really use lamps at all, but that's not because of night vision. Can't see at night? adjust your screen brightness so you can.

A little bird tells me you are playing Factorio NOT entirely as-intended.

[eradicator]

I never really use lamps at all, but that's not because of night vision. Can't see at night? adjust your screen brightness so you can.

A little bird tells me you are playing Factorio NOT entirely as-intended.

My inner little bird tells me that i'm doing the exact same. Lamps provide a tiny circle of light wherever you place them, but thanks to how human eyes process contrast they make it even more difficult to see anything that's not within that circle (gratulations to you if your eyes are (still) good enough to not notice). And placing lamps so close that there aren't any black spots left is unfeasible (space contraints), annoying (time constrains), and costs resources (power, income, time). Night vision on the other hand is dirt cheap, and has the same contrast scheme that daylight has, i.e. it doesn't feel like someone pointing a flashlight into your face. It also works everywhere, even in combat. In early game i often use the map zoom-in feature instead because that also has the non-annoying contrast scheme.

I categorically object every proposal to make factorio more about fighting biters, horror, survival or the likes, that should be done by mods (and as such i support every proposal to add moddability for such things). Because i enjoy building factories, not wasting time clicking away mindless cannon fodder.

[bobucles]

I categorically object every proposal to make factorio more about fighting biters, horror, survival or the likes, that should be done by mods (and as such i support every proposal to add moddability for such things)

But it's none of the above. Removing night vision goggles is about art direction. The warm green glow is convenient yes, but it eliminates all the visual effort that goes into developing a fun night time experience. So valuable night time feedback like:

. Lamps provide a tiny circle of light wherever you place them, but thanks to how human eyes process contrast they make it even more difficult to see anything that's not within that circle (gratulations to you if your eyes are (still) good enough to not notice). And placing lamps so close that there aren't any black spots left is unfeasible (space contraints), annoying (time constrains), and costs resources (power, income, time).

Goes completely unchecked because no one has to suffer playing at night or use lamps in the first place.

I'm of the camp that removing NV will actually improve the game. That's not to say it's the only change. It'd be great to have more and stronger light sources to play with as well. Furnaces don't make much light, many factorio pieces are completely lightless, and generating light ends at the tier 0 lamp. Maybe a flood light to point outside your walls and spot biters would be cool? Maybe a flying bot that follows you around making light would be cool? These ideas can't even be considered because night vision exists and renders them obsolete out of the box.

[Oktokolo]

Could we balance those out?

Sure: Lamps need to have a bigger light radius and use less energy.
Nightvision is fine as it is.

[bobingabout]

Honestly, the only reason why I even have night time enabled at all is because I want the solar panel/accumulator challenge.

[Oktokolo]

Honestly, the only reason why I even have night time enabled at all is because I want the solar panel/accumulator challenge.

I think the same. The contrast of nighttime is just horrible. And it looks so dull (not that daytime is especially shiny - but at least it has colors).
Would be great if daytime would be a bit brighter and nighttime just a slightly darker bluish version of daytime - so it would be more of a stylistic thing and for the solar challenge than an anti QoL feature. Nightvision could just be axed then.

Is the nighttime grafical effect modable?

[eradicator]

Enforcing higher night-combat difficulty by removing night-vision is very much about making the game more combat focused.

I'm of the camp that removing NV will actually improve the game. That's not to say it's the only change. It'd be great to have more and stronger light sources to play with as well. Furnaces don't make much light, many factorio pieces are completely lightless, and generating light ends at the tier 0 lamp. Maybe a flood light to point outside your walls and spot biters would be cool? Maybe a flying bot that follows you around making light would be cool? These ideas can't even be considered because night vision exists and renders them obsolete out of the box.

The problem then is that factorios game goal of an ever expanding factory has bad compatibility with any sort of athmospheric low-vision scenario, how often do you really just stand there and watch instead of building more and more and more? I know i do it far less than in other games. If you introduce super-lamps then you're not fixing the low-vision scenario, you're just implementing a different way to always have high-vision. And seeing just a few tiles around you is simply insuffienct when you need to see the whole screen at full zoom-out. Futhermore unlike RPG games where you do different things at night, in factorio you always do the same thing, so night has no purpose for gameplay except turning off your solars.

Is the nighttime grafical effect modable?

As far as i know it's a shader (\core\graphics\shaders\alpha-mask.glsl maybe?), which aren't moddable (yet), except maybe by directly replacing game files.

[bobucles]

The problem then is that factorios game goal of an ever expanding factory has bad compatibility with any sort of atmospheric low-vision scenario,

Night time does not last long and it's hardly an obstacle to growing the factory, but the factorio solution to any inconvenience is simple. Build more stuff. One of the earliest ways people beat the wilderness was by adding light to the dark. The image of a cold dark wilderness contrasted against a dirty, flood light filled base is a better presentation of a growing factory than permanent daylight mode.

Lamps are not expensive and their resource cost was never an obstacle to anyone ever. They are a very cheap convenience and in this case help build atmosphere.

If you introduce super-lamps then you're not fixing the low-vision scenario, you're just implementing a different way to always have high-vision.

Who said anything about super lamps? The current lamps have a pretty good coverage but there is legitimate reason to desire more. A targeted light source can light up a target without having to blanket it in lamps. That's useful for perimeters and it's useful for dense bases. A personal light upgrade lets the player have good vision in the dark but it doesn't have to be unlimited. A radius of 10 or 15 is more than enough to hand place factory bits. A lamp drone is a neat way to create a powerful mobile light source while still fitting within the factorio world. It could follow the player, or follow the mouse, or maybe even wander around the factory doing its thing. Construction bots would be well served by having little night lamps on them since anything that gets damaged would be automatically lit up.

And seeing just a few tiles around you is simply insufficient when you need to see the whole screen at full zoom-out.

Absolute god vision is not a requirement to play factorio. It never was. What the devs have stated as a requirement was creating an experience of the player building up their factory as the game goes on. Night is a great time to illustrate that effect. The factory turns on, and everything you built becomes a comforting home base. Night vision removes that entire visual aspect by removing the contrast between wilderness and factory. It actually detracts from the gameplay instead of adding to it.

I think this is going to be one of those "you have to see it to believe it" kinds of things. An expert player obviously has no care for any perceived threats to their grey goo assimilation of the surface. But I think once you pull the NV goggles and start using lamps for a few hours you'll see a very different game.

[eradicator]

A radius of 10 or 15 is more than enough to hand place factory bits.

Go ahead, play some with "/c game.player.zoom = 2". Because that is what you're suggesting. That's the shooter equivalent of playing on FOV 60. If you can't understand why that is bad, then you should try understanding that other peoples brains might be much more sensitive to vision limits than your own. And i'm talking actual physical pain, headaches, nausea here. Not asthetics. Try googling for fov+motion sickness.

It actually detracts from the gameplay instead of adding to it.

You're confusing gameplay with athmosphere again. I never said nightvision has better athmosphere. But forcing the player to spam lamps everywhere isn't going to solve that problem. You'd have to redesign every machine to give them a proper night look to get what you want. Imagine someone took a photo of a city at day, applied a darkess+80% filter on it and then told you "this is how a city looks at night".

An expert player obviously has no care for any perceived threats to their grey goo assimilation of the surface.

If you actually believe that then maybe you should do somthing about that. Maybe throw your prejudices before going to talk to some of those "expert" players? (protip: I'm not one of them, i'm a modder.)

I think this is going to be one of those "you have to see it to believe it" kinds of things.

Go ahead. Make a mod.

[voddan]

eradicator, bobucles, guys, let's not take this personally!

I understand that everybody is passionate about Factorio and wants it to grow and improve, but there is no reason do invalidate someone's way of playing the game or take offence. So far most of the feedback in this topic have been very constructive and on-point, so let us keep it that way.

[ggrnd0]

May be add setting in game "Save my eyes"? @_@
My eyes hate nights...