Friday Facts #275 - 0.17 Science changes

[Serenity]

Finally light oil cracking gets pushed back to end game science where it belongs. Players don't need light oil cracking until they stop using solid fuel in favor of extreme solar (with efficiency modules) or early game nuclear power.

So you want to push people to burn solid fuel in their smelters and steam power plants to get rid of the light oil? That's nice as a choice, but shouldn't be required. There should be options about what to do with excess oil products. Right now you can do the solid fuel thing, but rushing cracking is also an option

I'm of the opinion that coal cracking should be energy positive. Forget trying to make "realistic" thermodynamics because it's not fun.

Thermodynamics isn't the only consideration here. Coal liquefication is economically inefficient compared to just pumping oil. With technological improvements it can be profitable these days, but not by much. And it's nice to reflect that in game. It shouldn't be competitive with oil. In reality it is mainly used when a country doesn't have enough access to oil and can't or doesn't want to import it for geostrategic and economical reasons (Germany in WWII, South Africa or China). This can be compensated for when it has a lot of coal instead. Same in Factorio

[featherwinglove]

Blue science already has 2 out of 3 ingredients for trains. Why not make it 3/3 by adding rails?

What the

PUFF

??

popuff.png (19.41 KiB) Viewed 6800 times

The other two ingredients aren't that specific to trains, especially engine (almost always first thing I make with engines is the car.) The other side, of course, is the theme match/realism: I like my science packs to be imaginable, and I can't imagine burning up miles of train track in a science experiment.

Forget trying to make "realistic" thermodynamics because it's not fun.

sadpuff.png (21.33 KiB) Viewed 6800 times

It's kind of annoying that the single most important field of study in the history of technology (except possibly electricity, although it could easily be argued that plentiful electricity can't happen without a good understanding of thermodynamics on the other end of the shaft as the generator) is getting such short thrift in Factorio. The nu factor has already been dropped from vanilla in the much hated #266; the reason it wasn't talked about much is because it was the least loathed of the announced changes (except maybe damage types, which are pretty meaningless without damage effects anyway.) Also, thermodynamics is fun for the Powder Toy fanatics and people who've fiddled around in AFAL SEA2 for fun (I might be the only one around here, and it is literally rocket science.)

[Serenity]

You quoted the wrong person. Stop messing everything up

[featherwinglove]

You quoted the wrong person. Stop messing everything up

I edited to make it correct. Sorry, I'm not sure how that happened

[abregado]

I like the idea of a test launch. A simpler approach would be to have all launches produce space science, for satellite technology to require space science, and for vanilla victory to require launch of a rocket with satellite.

The question I would ask is: Should the player be rewarded with victory for launching a rocket or for automating rocket launching?

[Mike5000]

I like the idea of a test launch. A simpler approach would be to have all launches produce space science, for satellite technology to require space science, and for vanilla victory to require launch of a rocket with satellite.

The question I would ask is: Should the player be rewarded with victory for launching a rocket or for automating rocket launching?

The question I would ask is: How would you define the difference between launching a rocket and automating rocket launching?

(And my answer to your question is "launching a rocket with a satellite".)

[abregado]

I started a game with a mod that includes the proposed science changes, and I am about 70% of the way to a rocket launch.

Here are my additional comments.

1. Chemical Science is now harder due to having two products that use crude oil as a raw resource. I'm not sure that was the desired effect.

(...)

That was expected. If blue science was supposed to be made easier, solid fuel should've REPLACED advanced circuits, not add yet another oil-related ingredient.

It's actually not even setting oil production for blue science that is problem, it's sudden jump into relatively complex advanced circuits production which makes getting into blue science such a big step from previous science packs.

There is an additional reason.
We see from observations of players reaching blue science for the first time that they have trouble figuring out why a subset of their factory stops running.

With Oil refining if one of the three refined products stops being consumed then the whole process stops and it is very hard for a player to diagnose the first time. In 0.16 we havent provided an obvious use for two of those refined products, and unlike in mods with waste products, we never promote storing large quantities of unneeded material in the vanilla game.

The most intuitive way to get a player to try something is to give them a recipe to follow.

It still is not a perfect solution as the player could simply try to create solid fuel from just a single refined liquid and the system will still stay locked due to unused output. In the Campaign we can break this down further via selectively making new technologies available and creating quests to consume excess materials. For example:

Find oil fields and get flamethrower turrets -> crude oil is consumed by turrets (and fluid storage is promoted as using the "ammo" lens/context)
get oil refining and accumulators -> make batteries and accumulators and feed heavy/light to flamethrowers (learn about sulfur and acid)
get electric engines (robots) -> make lubricant that consumes heavy oil, light still has a place to go
get advanced circuits, modular armor and energy shield -> two competing uses for petroleum, factory still runs while you figure that out
blue science -> uses some of everything but now you can experiment while everything still moves.

The nuclear solution is to make this part of the Freeplay tech tree very linear and force the player to get the techs in a given order. Of course, controlling the experience in this way during Freeplay is counter to what a sandbox game should be, so that nuclear solution will not be detonated.

[Serenity]

With Oil refining if one of the three refined products stops being consumed then the whole process stops and it is very hard for a player to diagnose the first time. In 0.16 we havent provided an obvious use for two of those refined products

Yeah, this is a very nice oil sink and will hopefully mean you don't always have to rush cracking right away. Getting cracking soon is still desirable, but not the only way anymore

As it is you could use solid fuel in furnaces and boilers I guess to get it rid of it, but that's far less obvious (in one of my first games when oil was super rare, I depleted my oil wells that way).

It still is not a perfect solution as the player could simply try to create solid fuel from just a single refined liquid and the system will still stay locked due to unused output.

That will certainly happen to newbies. Setting up a something to automatically switch the solid fuel source is a nice early introduction to the circuit network though. And something that can later be applied to cracking as well

[abregado]

The question I would ask is: How would you define the difference between launching a rocket and automating rocket launching?

Im sure there are many ways to define that. It just isn't worth defining if our goal is for the player to launch one rocket (or to do one thing one time regardless of what that is) to confirm they are ready to finish the game.

(And my answer to your question is "launching a rocket with a satellite".)

Should the player automate satellites before getting the "You Win" screen?

Throughout the game the first time player is always prompted to build more and bigger and faster because this factory needs to produce long into the future. Even the longest payback times are relatively short compared to infinite future time. Then the future arrives, and the player can leave on the rocket and (assuming they were playing to achieve the arbitrary win condition) they leave everything behind.

So my personal view on this (doubtful everyone/anyone in Wube agrees with this) is that if there is an item you need to craft once to win, there is no reason why there should be two items you need to craft to win. A line is drawn and everything after that is content for the player who is not here for arbitrary win conditions.

I think we can objectively say that Space science is only useful for player who choose to stay (This is my home now!) and so I would say the satellite does not assist in proving "I can build an arbitrary thing one time and push the button".

DISCLAIMER: Im not the person responsible for the end game (quite the opposite), but I enjoy engaging in these game design discussions. Nothing I say about the rocket should be taken as gospel.

[Mike5000]

So my personal view on this (doubtful everyone/anyone in Wube agrees with this) is that if there is an item you need to craft once to win, there is no reason why there should be two items you need to craft to win. A line is drawn and everything after that is content for the player who is not here for arbitrary win conditions.

But then Space Science is not part of winning the game. My suggestion is that all launches produce space science, that space science is required in order to build a satellite, and that a satellite launch is the winning condition.

Thus - as in real life - you need at least one test launch before you send up a valuable payload.

And the fact that the tech tree would require an empty launch before a satellite launch adds another little puzzle to be solved.

[Avezo]

I started a game with a mod that includes the proposed science changes, and I am about 70% of the way to a rocket launch.

Here are my additional comments.

1. Chemical Science is now harder due to having two products that use crude oil as a raw resource. I'm not sure that was the desired effect.

(...)

That was expected. If blue science was supposed to be made easier, solid fuel should've REPLACED advanced circuits, not add yet another oil-related ingredient.

It's actually not even setting oil production for blue science that is problem, it's sudden jump into relatively complex advanced circuits production which makes getting into blue science such a big step from previous science packs.

There is an additional reason.
We see from observations of players reaching blue science for the first time that they have trouble figuring out why a subset of their factory stops running.

With Oil refining if one of the three refined products stops being consumed then the whole process stops and it is very hard for a player to diagnose the first time. In 0.16 we havent provided an obvious use for two of those refined products, and unlike in mods with waste products, we never promote storing large quantities of unneeded material in the vanilla game.

The most intuitive way to get a player to try something is to give them a recipe to follow.

So far, solid fuel is a great recipe for all of what you've mentioned. still I think introducing fluids as an ingredient in a science pack recipe would fix even more of the issues, but, anway;

It still is not a perfect solution as the player could simply try to create solid fuel from just a single refined liquid and the system will still stay locked due to unused output.

I don't like the idea myself, but the more I (and you) think about oil processing, the more it seems obvious that current oil processing recipes are the main problem. Look at mods - they just burn off excess refining products. Look at refinery animation - it just burns off something. I don't like it, but refinery alone should be able to crack heavier oils on it's own. It just fits. Crap, entire oil processing needs rework, not just science packs...

In the Campaign we can break this down further via selectively making new technologies available and creating quests to consume excess materials. For example:

Be careful with campaign, I remember the first time I did campaign, I were confused why I can't make a plane in 'freeplay' game.

Find oil fields and get flamethrower turrets -> crude oil is consumed by turrets (and fluid storage is promoted as using the "ammo" lens/context)
get oil refining and accumulators -> make batteries and accumulators and feed heavy/light to flamethrowers (learn about sulfur and acid)
get electric engines (robots) -> make lubricant that consumes heavy oil, light still has a place to go
get advanced circuits, modular armor and energy shield -> two competing uses for petroleum, factory still runs while you figure that out
blue science -> uses some of everything but now you can experiment while everything still moves.

I get it that new players, for whom main focus of changes is at the moment might go for flamethrowers, but... Where the hell does that impression that any player, new or not, would rush for automating battery production? It's very complex recipe - from raw resources to final product, and, in practical uses it's merely couple items that actually need them.

But, I think this deserves a separate discussion - why developers think that batteries are easy to automate and/or how important batteries actually are in progression path.

In general I think that development proposals greatly underestimate difficulties that anything oil-related pose. Not just in this patch, but in previous ones too.

The nuclear solution is to make this part of the Freeplay tech tree very linear and force the player to get the techs in a given order. Of course, controlling the experience in this way during Freeplay is counter to what a sandbox game should be, so that nuclear solution will not be detonated.

As they are now, they will still result in linear progress path. It will change depending on scenario, i.e. peaceful mode and deathworld mode, but, no matter what you do, choice in such game will be illusionary - there will still be a 'average-optimal' research path to follow, making it linear. The only way to solve it is to introduce random research options and other random elements, which, I doubt any sane developer would want while preparing to release 1.0 version of the game. But still, the point stands.

[bobucles]

So you want to push people to burn solid fuel in their smelters and steam power plants to get rid of the light oil? That's nice as a choice, but shouldn't be required.

It also doesn't hurt anything at all. There's nothing bad about setting players up with good choices. Solid fuel is a good fuel upgrade and the blue tier is a good time to hook players up. It makes sense.

The other two ingredients aren't that specific to trains, especially engine (almost always first thing I make with engines is the car.)

Trains need 3 things: Fuel, engines and rails. Solid fuel is a great train fuel. Automating engines is mandatory because it can not be hand crafted and is an ingredient for locomotives. Rails are for trains. Put all 3 into blue science and it's a perfect setup for building the train network. Trains are important for everything beyond blue science so it's better to get those at the right time not at purple tier when it's too late.

Coal liquefication is economically inefficient compared to just pumping oil. With technological improvements it can be profitable these days, but not by much. And it's nice to reflect that in game. It shouldn't be competitive with oil.

But I don't care about that. Factorio isn't about making money. Factorio is about making factories. What does matter is the tech progression for the player. Giving the tech from weakest to strongest and in the order that fits into gameplay makes the most sense.

Coal cracking is less effective than light oil cracking. It gives a respectable boost of oil resources but it's not an end all solution. It never will be an end all solution because light oil cracking is essential to maximize oil resources. Therefore the weaker tech belongs at an earlier spot in the tech tree and the stronger tech belongs later. Gaming 101.

With Oil refining if one of the three refined products stops being consumed then the whole process stops and it is very hard for a player to diagnose the first time.

But the reason for that is two fold:
- The difference between refinery on/refinery off is very subtle. It's a tiny flame on the top and I never even noticed it in my early months.
- There is no visual indicator of the refinery's internal storage. Pipe connections also have a random selection of windows that don't necessarily place them next to a refinery output.

As such it's hard to see when a refinery is actually clogged or not working. Assemblers are a lot more obvious with all their spinning swirly bits.

[Mike5000]

Trains need 3 things: Fuel, engines and rails. Solid fuel is a great train fuel. Automating engines is mandatory because it can not be hand crafted and is an ingredient for locomotives. Rails are for trains. Put all 3 into blue science and it's a perfect setup for building the train network. Trains are important for everything beyond blue science so it's better to get those at the right time not at purple tier when it's too late.

Better to allow players to choose what mix of technologies and in what order. With your proposal blue science could be the railroad tech track. One could imagine a yellow science bot track and a purple science module/beacon track. We already have a black military track. The important thing is that the player should be able to pursue these (and perhaps more) higher tier tech tracks in any order or in parallel. Some might want to have lots of trains before logistic bots. Some might want logistic bots before building construction trains.

Linearizing constraints are for campaigns and scenarios, not freeplay.

[Nemoricus]

Coal cracking is less effective than light oil cracking. It gives a respectable boost of oil resources but it's not an end all solution. It never will be an end all solution because light oil cracking is essential to maximize oil resources. Therefore the weaker tech belongs at an earlier spot in the tech tree and the stronger tech belongs later. Gaming 101.

The trouble with this idea is that light oil is only used for two products as is: flamethrower ammo and solid fuel. Flamethrower ammo is only used for a personal weapon, and so its consumption is rather limited. As for solid fuel, I'm uncertain of its value as a sink for light oil production. It's considerable work to change over a factory to solid fuel from coal, and the benefit is not immediately obvious, especially for players just figuring out the nuances of oil production.

This problem is compounded if the player switches over to solar and electric furnaces, at which point the current best sink for light oil disappears. Cracking then becomes essential to avoid stalling out oil production, which is the primary value of light oil cracking to begin with. While it's also true that it allows you to make more effective use of oil production, that pales in comparison to its value in keeping your oil production running at all.

I don't consider this situation particularly ideal, though. Heavy oil can be converted to lubricant and eventually to express belts and robots, but light oil has no such uses. If light oil had a finished product that was independent of heavy oil or petroleum gas consumption, then light oil cracking could reasonably be pushed back.

The best case would be if heavy oil, light oil, and petroleum gas all had uses that demanded large quantities of each, and that did not require one of the other three oil products. Then stalling becomes more difficult, and instead of advanced oil processing and cracking being essential, they could be a nice option later on in a factory's development.

[catma]

I had a nerdgasm of the "OMG I CAN FINALLY PLAY AngelBobSpaceX despite the fact FNEI MOD ISN'T ENOUGH TO MAKE IT PLAYABLE" sort.

I dreamed the 2000+ hours worth of playthru I am committed to once this roadmap addition is in:

"Recipe tree GUI (Oxyd). This should be the foundation of some kind of ingame factoriopedia."

Unfortunately, that CRITICAL improvement hasn't happened yet, and AngelBobSpaceX can't be parsed by a mind such as mine even after 84 hours and 23 minutes of trying.

We need this, Onyx. Don't release 0.17 without the FACTORIOPEDIA RECIPE TREE MAKER!!! If it were a DLC costing an arm and a leg, I'd start wondering which arm and leg are more expendable...

[Lubricus]

I had a nerdgasm of the "OMG I CAN FINALLY PLAY AngelBobSpaceX despite the fact FNEI MOD ISN'T ENOUGH TO MAKE IT PLAYABLE" sort.

I dreamed the 2000+ hours worth of playthru I am committed to once this roadmap addition is in:

"Recipe tree GUI (Oxyd). This should be the foundation of some kind of ingame factoriopedia."

Unfortunately, that CRITICAL improvement hasn't happened yet, and AngelBobSpaceX can't be parsed by a mind such as mine even after 84 hours and 23 minutes of trying.

We need this, Onyx. Don't release 0.17 without the FACTORIOPEDIA RECIPE TREE MAKER!!! If it were a DLC costing an arm and a leg, I'd start wondering which arm and leg are more expendable...

Angel Bob's recipes is not just a tree it's more like a network with byproducts that loops around and different alternatives do craft the same thing... It's super fun!

[gleard]

I'm of the opinion that coal cracking should be energy positive. Forget trying to make "realistic" thermodynamics because it's not fun. More factory should absolutely be better than less factory.

Please, don't do that. While I definitely agree that more factory is better, it's just not true that "realistic" thermodynamics (and physics in general) is not fun. For some players it very much is. And unlike the situation with bots, where the "don't like it - don't use it" arguement was more or less appropriate (though it wasn't flawless even there), with "realistic" mechanics it's either they are or they aren't (i.e. the game is either notable for aiming at "realistic" things or not).

I myself is a kind of person who understands both sides here: when I first calculated resulting power output for coal liquefaction to be negative as it is, I was really disappointed that even quite complex design like this has negative net result. At the same time I felt some pride for the game that didn't automatically prefer textbookish game design decision over realism. I suppose there are a number of players who value such realism even more. And though sometimes I feel like I'd prefer having to build more complex design, I see clearly, that for realism-oriented players (like the other part of myself) it would ruin too much.

So, as long as it doesn't render the game unplayable or hamper development too much, please, hold on to realism that is already there, and, if possible, add even more.

EDIT: Fixed accidental extra-level of quoting.

[Serenity]

But I don't care about that. Factorio isn't about making money. Factorio is about making factories. What does matter is the tech progression for the player.

Factorio doesn't have money, but there are still considerations like efficiency and local resource availability. The reason why it's more expensive is because it's complicated and costs more energy. Same in Factorio, even if you don't pay money for it.

There may be several ways to accomplish something, each offering some benefit in certain situations. One solution doesn't have to be and shouldn't be the best in all situations. There can be different priorities like saving energy, saving raw resources or getting more of a certain byproduct. The player can decide if the drawbacks are worth it for the given benefit.

The only point of coal liquefaction is to get oil when you don't have enough oil wells, but have plenty of coal. Both in reality and Factorio. It doesn't have to be super efficient and directly comparable with just pumping oil out of the ground. You only use it when really necessary. The idea that it somehow should be energy positive is the height of absurdity. From a physics, economics and gameplay perspective.

Coal cracking is less effective than light oil cracking. It gives a respectable boost of oil resources but it's not an end all solution. It never will be an end all solution because light oil cracking is essential to maximize oil resources. Therefore the weaker tech belongs at an earlier spot in the tech tree and the stronger tech belongs later.

But they aren't supposed to be directly competitive. Coal liquefaction is supposed to be situational. Thus sorting them into simplistic "weaker" and "stronger" categories is pointless.

Then there is the issue noted above of the game just not having proper sinks for light oil. The oil industry is designed too much around consuming mostly petroleum. Everything but cracking is still just a stop gap measure

[bobucles]

Factorio doesn't have money, but there are still considerations like efficiency and local resource availability. The reason why it's more expensive is because it's complicated and costs more energy. Same in Factorio, even if you don't pay money for it.

Congratulations. You set up a production curve in a factory building game where the player is actively punished because they built more factory. What good did that do? Why would you even do that? Are you proud of yourself because it's now "more realistic" than before? Don't delude yourself. If it smells bad and it looks bad and it plays out bad, there's a very good chance it's actually bad.

Advanced oil is going to get rushed. The current tech tree demands more petrol than basic oil can ever provide. The player can burn all their excess heavy/light oil but that actually doesn't give them more petrol. All it does is burn out their oil reserves faster than before, which means that they need to rush advanced cracking even faster.

There are only two in game tech solutions for this. One breaks down the petrol barrier all together and gives an unlimited supply of petrol so the player never has petrol problems ever again. The other gives a tiny boost of petrol, but it kicks the player in the nuts for daring to build a factory. Which tech is more appropriate to give the player? At the current moment, neither. One choice is way too good and breaks the oil game too early. If you aren't rushing it you get screwed, and that's a bad kind of metagaming barrier to have. The other choice isn't good enough to justify using, and that's just bad.

Coal cracking needs a buff, and not even a major game breaking buff at that. All it needs is a little extra splash of output - I have the math buried on this forum somewhere- to make it worth the player's effort, and the benefits it gives cascade down the line. The player gets more energy, they get more petrol, and they get more factory for the sake of factory. If the player has coal cracking then they WON'T MISS advanced oil. They won't need to rush it. They will have everything they need for the mid game- not too much and not too little- and that means you have a beautiful sleek tech tree. It's all winning all the time. You can't go wrong with it.

[Serenity]

If that's the philosophy you put into designing and balancing your mods that's extremely sad. Just an overly simple power trip

All it does is burn out their oil reserves faster than before

That's not an issue these days. You used to be able to truly deplete oil wells very fast. Now they last ages