Friday Facts #279 - Train GUI & Modern Spitter

[pleegwat]

What I think would make worms much harder to dodge as well is longer streams. With individual shots, you can dodge them by changing direction when it shoots. With a longer stream, you can't really change directions without passing through the stream.

Not sure if it's needed though.

[Avezo]

I hope that flamethrower turrets will get this prediction algorithm too. As I see the logic is basically the same, a stream of [acid / flammable oil] is shot in "mortar style" (to a position rather than at an object) and a pool of [acid / burning oil] remains at that position. It just has different effects, damage and damage type.a

I hope so aswell, due to poor flamethrower turret aim I rarely ever use them, easier just to add more lasers instead of building all kinds of perimeter to slow down biters so turret can aim properly.

I hope they would not.
Worms and Spitters have one priority target (Player) to hit. Flamethrower turret put burning puddle on the way so mass attack can be weakened.
What would do your Flamethrower turret when some Biters move through dragon claws? Burn them or light them?

As a side question: should Personal Laser Defence target acid spits? I want so!

All turrets still pick up single target to shoot afaik. Why would anything change for worse in the case you mentioned? If anything they will be better because fire puddle would be on spot even before first biter passes.

[SpaghettiCrazy]

The new aliens look awesome! I have been playing this pretty addictive game for a while and have an idea on a alien creature that might add more diversity to your enemies.

Currently, the extremely expensive, massive, laser turret, roboport reinforced, dragon teeth and solid wall defense works pretty well against the aliens if not removing them as an aspect of the game entirely. I believe adding something that can combat heavy fortifications but not simply destroy them would add a new danger to the aliens.

Making flying aliens or jumping aliens would make them a more permanent threat. The idea would be that they would go over wall and attack the turrets behind them distracting firepower from the main army that can now, for a couple seconds, freely attack the defense and cause some real damage. Similar to the pole vaulter from Plants vs. Zombies.

[Cyonic]

This has already been mentioned, in this thread and others, but if the Train GUI looked like this in 0.17, I would be very, very happy. (This is a mockup for Conditional Goto Orders, ala OpenTTD.)

conditional-goto.png

Of course, I'm already going to be happy. But this would be even better.

Also, the new biters look amazing!

Oh man, I'd love me some Go To conditional logic for my trains. It'd open up so many possibilities and is quite easy to understand.

Hell, I'd take a later 0.17 release for this and I've got a strong craving by for 0.17 by now.

[Sad_Brother]

Worms and Spitters have one priority target (Player) to hit. Flamethrower turret put burning puddle on the way so mass attack can be weakened.
What would do your Flamethrower turret when some Biters move through dragon claws? Burn them or light them?

All turrets still pick up single target to shoot afaik. Why would anything change for worse in the case you mentioned? If anything they will be better because fire puddle would be on spot even before first biter passes.

Why?
1.But most times they are many. Especially when you need such turrets.
2.Dragon teeth force biters to move zig-zag pattern. Such prediction will force turret to send oil to wrong place.
3.Worms and Spitters are alive, but Turret is dumb (supposedly).

[Uristqwerty]

What about something like this, to show the and/or grouping?

factorio_and-or_mockup.png (34.93 KiB) Viewed 6457 times

[Oktokolo]

Combat:
I like the new war dance incentive (non-homing spits), wich adds a little movement timing to combat. Hopefully, going in myself will not feel so dumb when compared to turret creep anymore.
Another thing in favor of turret creep is the bonus-stacking of turret damage to ammunition damage - but that might already be dealt with with the damage research overhaul from an earlier FFF...

As we are at aiming AI:
I would like the napalm turrets to have a completely different aiming behaviour too.
Just before the first biter enters the turrets range, they should light up the entire reachable field in front of the wall starting with the tiles farthest away. Then, as long as biters come near the turrets range, keep all the tiles lit up.
The turret would obviously have to somehow know the area to exclude.
Having a generic mechanic for designating no-fire zones per turret would also improve the usability of modded cannon / rocket launcher turrets.

Also, all weapons should do friendly fire damage - including the worm / biter spits and their resulting acid puddles (wich would be the explanation why worms don't use the same tactics as the napalm turrets), so we could actually abuse the worms by leading the biter trail into friendly fire. Does not have to hurt the biters as much as it would hurt the player - but it would enable another crowd control style (whether that would be more effective than just throwing grenades mostly depends on spit / puddle acidity).

Train GUI:
Yes, it looks good and operator precedence is just fine. But having "and" and "or" on different indenting levels would surely help the noobs understanding what they are doing.

A way to see the content of the whole train would be nice as would be the option have preconditions for visiting a station (iron > 0 -> visit iron dropoff; copper > 0 -> visit copper dropoff; fuel < n MW -> visit refuelling station).

[m44v]

my complaint with the train GUI is its a PITA to manage lots of trains with the same schedule, copy&paste every train is a hassle to do.

[Reika]

This FFF hints at, but does not really explicitly confirm or deny, a thing I have wanted for a long time:

Condition combination control; that is, currently with AND and OR, your ability to control is somewhat limited if you want them combined in complex ways. For example, there is no way to achieve condition (A & (B | C) & D) | (E & F) | G.

Will that ever be a feature, with 0.17 or ever?

It is, your condition can be decomposed to:

A & B & D | A & C & D | E & F | G.

No need for brackets. (I know it is not perfect, but considering how much of an edge case this is, it is good enough.

So please visualize also in this way.
Make not a single indention that can be misunderstood

Proposal : Please use first indention for OR groups and a 2nd indention for AND inside a OR group

see attachment

I second this, as there is otherwise no way to know whatsoever how the logic is parsed, and most people in the community believe and will tell you that it is top-down sequential.

[Agent0012cz]

I am not sure where post this.

But in the first sentence of the ,,Wait condition visualisation", there is a missing verb.
In the sentence: ,,One of the things I always missed in the Train GUI was an indication of how much longer the train going to wait in the station."
It schould be: ,,One of the things I always missed in the Train GUI was an indication of how much longer the train IS going to wait in the station."

Again, I didn´t know, where to put this.
Thanks for reading.

[Avezo]

Worms and Spitters have one priority target (Player) to hit. Flamethrower turret put burning puddle on the way so mass attack can be weakened.
What would do your Flamethrower turret when some Biters move through dragon claws? Burn them or light them?

All turrets still pick up single target to shoot afaik. Why would anything change for worse in the case you mentioned? If anything they will be better because fire puddle would be on spot even before first biter passes.

Why?
1.But most times they are many. Especially when you need such turrets.
2.Dragon teeth force biters to move zig-zag pattern. Such prediction will force turret to send oil to wrong place.
3.Worms and Spitters are alive, but Turret is dumb (supposedly).

I wonder, everytime I've seen it in work, biters were already slow due to it, prediction should still work.

[teleksterling]

What about something like this, to show the and/or grouping?

factorio_and-or_mockup.png

This is a great look! I was going to suggest a similar way to visualise the grouping by bumping the second condition down a few pixels when it's an OR - effectively clustering ANDed conditions visually.

Item count - Here it starts to be tricky. If the comparator is > (greater than) or ≥(greater or equal than), we just calculate the amount of that item and divide it by the goal. If the comparator is anything else, I can't show a progress. I know how far I'm from the goal, but I don't know what to compare it to, so in this case, we just show either not completed at all, or fully completed.

I don't see why for (less than) and (less than or equal) that you can't simply subtract from the wagon capacity in the same way you describe for the empty condition. The range for the green bar is just (wagon capacity) to (goal value). It follows to then that an equal condition can be represented by selecting the relevant display method of these two based upon whether the current item count is above or below the goal value!

For example this means that "item count = 0" and "inventory empty" would look pretty similar, if not identical. And "item count = 8000" would look the same as a "full inventory" condition, for an appropriated sized stacking item and train length.

[Zaflis]

I'll propably still keep using aircraft mod so this may be less relevant. But if i use a train dealing with copper ore and temporarily tell it to take me to iron smelting station, what's going to happen? It will unload the ore? Filter inserters would sort that one, but if it's a loading station you're in trouble anyway. Unless there's maybe 2 sorts of automatic modes for trains, where the temporary path isn't considered a regular automated stop so wagons wouldn't be touched.

[5thHorseman]

I'll propably still keep using aircraft mod so this may be less relevant. But if i use a train dealing with copper ore and temporarily tell it to take me to iron smelting station, what's going to happen? It will unload the ore? Filter inserters would sort that one, but if it's a loading station you're in trouble anyway. Unless there's maybe 2 sorts of automatic modes for trains, where the temporary path isn't considered a regular automated stop so wagons wouldn't be touched.

Your cargo wagons should have filters set for this very reason. You're just asking to get bitten if you don't.

[Zaflis]

Your cargo wagons should have filters set for this very reason. You're just asking to get bitten if you don't.

Not if you play with LTN at least. And it's too much hassle to be required for majority of wagons.

[Arathok]

For the other comparator train goals:

Why not just do it like for the > comparator?
< 2000 for iron ore for example, count backwards from the amount of iron ore to the goal.
(I understood that you can make the progress bar still go forward?)
If total iron ore is already<2000 goal is instantly green.
<= same

[invisus]

Your cargo wagons should have filters set for this very reason. You're just asking to get bitten if you don't.

Not if you play with LTN at least. And it's too much hassle to be required for majority of wagons.

I feel like the ability to blueprint trains in 0.17 takes away a lot of the justification of this complaint. Yes, I agree that it's too much hassle... in 0.16. But in 0.17 you can do it once, blueprint it, or just copy/paste. Seems to diminish this line of argument quite a bit.

Yes it's not perfect, but it certainly goes a long way to smoothing out some rough edges of the train mechanics.

[5thHorseman]

Your cargo wagons should have filters set for this very reason. You're just asking to get bitten if you don't.

Not if you play with LTN at least. And it's too much hassle to be required for majority of wagons.

I've never used Logistic Train Network, in spite of installing it on two separate runs through the game. However, if it requires you to not set filters yet does not have a way to make sure your trains do not get loaded when you don't want them to then it's not really the stock game's fault.

[Nova]

Oh, something important: There should be a bigger difference between nearly fulfilled and fully fulfilled wait condition. The few pixels difference now could easily be missed and it would take a closer eye to notice it - how about making the partially filled condition yellow and the complete condition green?

[emp_zealoth]

So when is 0.17 coming?
No update in the FFF and January is pretty much done