Friday Facts #269 - Roadmap update & Transport belt perspective

[roslow82]

I LOVE THE WAY THE NEW BELTS LOOK!!!! But in the interest of realism, what about adding a rail guard to the front belt in a series, to indicate that items won't fall off, even though the belt is still moving. In that last picture there is an inserter that is pulling from a belt, but it looks like the items would be dumped on the ground if the inserter isn't fast enough.

Imagine something like this.

[Alivo]

Again, you made my Friday evening better. I have one thought though - should not belts consume some sort of energy?
They cannot just run on their own, I think. They can be perhaps propelled by some machine that would be attached to belt ends or the belt would run through them. These machines can be propelled by coal or wood, later replaced with electricity. P.S. wind turbines would be sick af
Thanks as always for an awesome job!!!

[Codemaster]

Some of my thoughts if you'll have them regarding the belts:

• They do look to be too tall now. Inserters just shrunk.
  Therefore in the curves, when the belt goes from vertical to horizontal, I feel that the understructure comes out too much.
• The sideloading has to be even-leveled. Otherwise you could expect the items to be stacked on top of each other.

[QGamer]

I love the belts so much!
Don't try to go too fast when developing the game. After all, you can't rush perfection.
But please don't forget the Spidertron! I've wanted to have one ever since I saw it in the FFF #120.

[miturion]

I like the new belt look.
I dont care about super realistic physics of them, but a blocker at the end would be nice, just like on the train rails.

[Tekky]

But please don't forget the Spidertron! I've wanted to have one ever since I saw it in the FFF #120.

I don't think that a Spidertron would fit well into Factorio.

Although I like the idea of being able to traverse the map without obstacles, I believe that a jetpack or a helicopter would be more appropriate than a Spidertron. This is already being discussed in the Spidertron news thread, so it would not be appropriate to duplicate this discussion here.

However, I have nothing against the Spidertron being implemented as an optional mod.

[Omarflyjoemacky]

like most of us say, take ur fucking time. The game is great already.

THIS.

The new belts look so good. Salivating isn't the right word to use... beyond excited doesn't match either. Can't wait!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[thecatlover1996]

I like the fact that you're trying to reduce your release cycle time good to hear that you've cleared up for yourselves (and for us!) what you like to have finished when

[Drury]

As a bonus, the underground belt structure has a variant which shows a hole when you side-load into the underground belt.

No! The underground belt structure should always have the side-load hole. Otherwise how are new players ever going to figure it out?

The hole is quite an edge case that you rarely use, and the design without hole looks much better. If you accidentally build it, you discover it. Not everything needs to be fed to you from the beginning.

yeah but

do it anyway

[eradicator]

@V453000:

Btw, would it be possible to include built-in support for tinting (i.e. have the arrows on a seperate layer)? So that mods can easily make new colors of belts without having to copy the whole sprite sheet and manually edit it in $paint. Would also save some VRAM if not every mod had it's own full copy of the sheet.

[BigmanSam]

It's one of those things I kind of overlooked in the past, but the new belts and undergrounds do look really good now!

[Drury]

@V453000:

Btw, would it be possible to include built-in support for tinting (i.e. have the arrows on a seperate layer)? So that mods can easily make new colors of belts without having to copy the whole sprite sheet and manually edit it in $paint. Would also save some VRAM if not every mod had it's own full copy of the sheet.

Seeing as just recoloring existing graphics is a hot thing in many mods, maybe in the service of saving VRAM it might be useful for the game to be able to take a 1bit mask and color a sprite using the mask + rgba information from lua.

unless something like that is already possible

or impossible

or pointless

I don't know I literally don't do mods

[Khaim]

As a bonus, the underground belt structure has a variant which shows a hole when you side-load into the underground belt.

No! The underground belt structure should always have the side-load hole. Otherwise how are new players ever going to figure it out?

The hole is quite an edge case that you rarely use, and the design without hole looks much better. If you accidentally build it, you discover it. Not everything needs to be fed to you from the beginning.

yeah but

do it anyway

Yes! I couldn't have put it better myself.

[JareX]

I just wanted to post a huge thank you to the developers.

The new belts look great, I really apreciate all the effort done.

I love this game

[Blacky007]

Will the temporary train stop (i.e. train hijacking) feature mentioned in Factorio Friday Facts #212 be available in 0.17 or 0.18?

Yes, it is still part of the plan.

I use a unconnected station in Base its name is #FULLSTOP
work fine - the trains stops the Moment it try to get to that station
btw.
We need a train-waypoint to get the traffic out of large crossings.

[mixyad3]

I'm loving these new belt graphics. My only question is: how would a belt that's connected to the circuit network look?

[Tekky]

btw.
We need a train-waypoint to get the traffic out of large crossings.

I agree.

Related suggestion threads:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21831 Train waypoints
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37562 Train waypoint/(no)stop feature request
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=59541 Train navigation checkpoint

[Ripshaft]

I was a bit uneasy with the initial belt images, but seeing them all put together in the final picture really drives home how well these incorporate into the existing aesthetic - looking forward to how they look once they go public!

[Oktokolo]

Nice new belt grafics - metoo would suggest always showing the sideloading holes on that underneathies.

[ThorsDragon]

Wow! Those belts look SO GOOD once combined with the other sprites! I was iffy at first. They look great!
Also, please take your time with the updates! WE LOVE THE WORK YOU DO!!!!!!
Also also- thank you for clearing things up! It's good to know that you're wanting to speed things up.
I am curious to know though- what will you guys do once you've officially release 1.0 Factorio???