Friday Facts #283 - Prepare to Launch

[CDarklock]

I'm gonna be THAT GUY

I think we're all THAT GUY about something.

In this configuration it can't really be staged in any way, so the three tips make zero sense.

Aha! Here is where I bring out some other space nerd stuff.

The solid rocket boosters on the space shuttle are a terrible design. The problem is that they are manufactured in a location that can only get the boosters out to launch facilities via train, and that train has to go through a tunnel, and that tunnel has a curve.

So the boosters not only cannot be too wide for a train to drive through the tunnel, they cannot be too long for the train to navigate the curve inside the tunnel.

They're manufactured in that location because of Federal acquisition regulations, which are designed to ensure that political favouritism doesn't give all the best contracts to the people who are best buddies with politicians. The idea was that if you let that happen, all the contractors in the heartland wouldn't get the big juicy federal contracts. So we have a supposedly fair system to make sure they get a fair shake, and the people who won the contract had this ridiculous limitation.

I always assume the design of any rocket is bounded by a series of stupid, pointless logistical restrictions imposed by things you can't control. Like in this case, the rocket is a half-arsed juryrig contraption based in the engineering principle of "push hard till it moves."

[Rinin]

The rocket in "factorio" is not very streamlined. It seems planet have very low gravity, so you don't need staging. It also explains efficiency of the flying robots.

[darkfrei]

The rocket in "factorio" is not very streamlined. It seems planet have very low gravity, so you don't need staging. It also explains efficiency of the flying robots.

Or it can have very good specific impulse, it's future!

[kuchenpirat]

Aaaand its here

Have fun Guys!!!
And Girls

[Fedorrro]

It's came out now! Let's update)

[xfir01]

As a bit of a space nerd it really triggered me a "bit" how nonsensical the rocket looks in Factorio from the point of view of actually getting to space.

The engineer can make a machine gun turret with target tracking, autofire, and friend/foe identification without using circuitry or electricity. The dude's either magic or he died in the crash and the game is just a fantasy being played out in the last moments of his oxygen deprived brain.

[irbork]

I'm gonna be THAT GUY

Preamble: I've just passed a 1000h mark in Factorio, but I've never launched a rocket before (yes i kno i kno) I've seen one up close and in such detail for the first time.

As a bit of a space nerd it really triggered me a "bit" how nonsensical the rocket looks in Factorio from the point of view of actually getting to space.
In this configuration it can't really be staged in any way, so the three tips make zero sense. The style is totally consistent with the rest of the game, I'm not whining about that.

I'd suggest adding a second stage (shorter [half or less of the current rocket?] and thinner [2/3 or less of one "tank or whatever it is"]) above the three distinct "tanks" (or whatever they are supposed to be), centered on a vertical axis of the craft.

I don't have KSP installed so... The proportions and numbers of boosters are obviously all wrong, it's just a first pic in Gimages I could find that shows the concept

On low gravity worlds with thin atmosphere, one stage to orbit is possible option.
Besides to push 30t object into Earth's orbit you need about 360GJ of energy, Factorio rocket has 225GJ for main rocket, and additional 23GJ for very light sattelite. This setup may even be good enough to launch on the Earth.

[jooe]

So all that reloading had some use. Thanks @Fedorrro for telling me, as apparently everybody else has become somehow suddenly very silent

I just wanted to say a big thanks to the developers for everything they've probably been through those last days and even more for everything they will be going through the coming days! And I'd like to remind everybody that this is an experimental release of a pre-1.0 software. Kind of: you should be happy if it does not segfault before you can see the starting screen.

(Although what I have seen from factorio developers was most of the time better quality work than most so called "production quality" software out there. You are amazing!)

[irbork]

Increased player reach from 6 to 10 - my new favorite 0.17 feature

[lordaeron1]

it's out it's out !!!... so long Real life.

[Drakken]

What am I doing reading this thread?

Have fun everyone! Thank you to the developers! This last year has been the slowest of my life.

[iLubFactorio]

Thank you!!!

[Virat8]

Nice worm's sound! Love it:) Now they smarter.

[SamuelCombrinck]

0.17 when? 0.17 NOW!!! Thank you Developers!

Goodbye Life... Hello Factorio!

[Fedorrro]

It's came out now! Let's update)

I forgot how to play this game

[Shingen]

[i guess it wasn't an appropriate place to talk about 0.17, removed]

[Arcturus_17]

The greatest part about this game is the developers and how consistent they are with updates and Friday Facts

[BlueTemplar]

But the bitters are messy and the items on my 25k belts (yes, it's a new game, only 66 hours) doesn't seem to affect the performances

Items on belts are - how should I put it - optimized to a degree heretofore unseen by any sentient being in the universe.

And why should the items on ground stay unoptimized ?

Actually, I was talking about the action of the items *spilling* on the ground as resource-heavy - I have no idea if items laying on the floor are.
Also, AFAIK, continuous items on belts are basically treated as a single item !

[BlueTemplar]

Basic rockets aren't anything special. Their recipe could replace explosives with solid fuel and it'd fit into a minimum-oil green tier. It would be a simple fuel based explosive and the overall cost would stay roughly the same. The HI-EX rocket can still keep explosive ingredients and stay in the oil tier.

I like this idea ! (Why didn't I think of that ? )
(BTW, Solid Fuel is introduced early (as an item that you can find in spaceship wrecks) in the 0.17 tutorial !)

- Maybe Accumulators and Laser Turrets ?

They would not fit in a minimal oil green tier. Lasers take batteries, and batteries work through most of the chemistry tech. That would place them very clearly in the oil chemistry tier, and towards the latter stages at that. Flame turrets do not require any fancy chemistry. It's a simple application of oil and fire, just like solid fuel. Solid fuel is the end goal of the modified green science, so it could fit at the end of green science, or around the beginning of oil science.

Well, then Laser Turrets need to be better than Flame Turrets !

[BlueTemplar]

I find it odd that so few people play at a level which includes the possibility of losing?

I die from biters more than 75% of the time and love that I fail.

If a game takes less than 2 hours to play, losing is fine. If I'm in hour 150 of a factory no way am I restarting for any reason other than that I decided I was done.

There are many ways if you do run into that issue, some less cheaty than others (additional mods vs console commands)...

But I am pretty sure every active poster on this forum is in that 13.8%, and may even be in more rarefied company. I mean, how many of us have at least gotten close to a rocket per minute? Certainly not me... but it sure seems like a lot of us have.

I have several hundred of gameplay hours by now, and I've actually never launched a single rocket !
(But I don't use Steam (anymore, and never with Factorio), so...)

Just because people don't finish the game, doesn't mean they have lost.

I never said they did. But the Steam userbase is effectively a random representative sample of all users, which is statistically valid. Whatever percentage of "Steam users playing strictly vanilla" are completing the game, the percentage of "all users with or without mods" completing the game is probably not that different.

And if over 85% of players are abandoning the game, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for it to have tens of thousands of "overwhelmingly positive" reviews. A game that 85% of players abandon before completing is generally not a very good game. I think it's more likely that a substantial portion of those players are playing for a different objective, instead.

A game that 85% of players abandoned before completing is generally **every game on steam**

I have a few hundred games on steam and gog and haven't played the majority of them (many of them aquired in bundles or from kickstarter or bought to play on a later date that never came around). Of the rest I have played the overwhelming majority just a few minutes to hours and stopped somewhere in between. Maybe 10 to 20 games I have really finished to some end.

I may be a notorious case, but it seems common that players have such a "pile of shame" (I assume most have heard of that expression). Consequently steam statistics (when they were still accessible) showed steam users ON AVERAGE only have played a small percentage of the games they own.

I bet you will find not a single game on steam that was finished by more than one third of its owners. 13.8% is probably a percentage Wube can be proud of. I bet most games have far less than 10%. I don't think it makes sense to view all owners as players of the game.

Technically, you *can* still lose a Factorio game after winning it !

----

Games that you haven't played (since Achievements were added to them) don't seem to be counted in these statistics :
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/ ... -of-games/

But Factorio is indeed exceptional in many ways.
For instance the median player has about 38 hours in it (I suppose that doesn't count non-players either?),
which means it's likely in the top 5 ... out of about 26 000 !

P.S.: One can always try to do better of course. Having barely more than half of players manage to research Oil is a bit sad, and that percentage probably drops below 50% for actually finding Oil, setting it up, and using some of its products...
But then this seems to be pretty much what some of the 0.17 science changes are addressing !