Friday Facts #284 - 0.17 experimental

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, but it seems weird from Factorio's perspective :
The car is to train what hand-carrying is to belts, so I would expect cars to be available earlier than trains ?

[CDarklock]

Actually, spitters are still easy to take out with a pistol and yellow ammo.

This examination of 0.16/0.17 biters has under a thousand views, but it is very instructive and deserves more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qhoyxV6AwQ

(Now that I think of it, you should totally learn to use fish at some point in the tutorial !)

You are so right.

But yeah, the issue (like in 0.16) is if you have Red biters show up before you even get Military 1 / Turrets. But then how much would you have to idle on standard settings for that ?
(EDIT : Or yeah, if you just pollute the crap out of Nauvis... so that the biter waves are so large that a pistol isn't enough - but wouldn't you have had similar issues in 0.16 ?)

NO. I keep watching one LetsPlay after another of people going "why are there so many biters now?!" - they're clearly experienced, and they're clearly surprised at how fast they get how many biters.

One thing is that Military 2 is now about twice as hard to get as before, due to the Green Science research.
Which is probably good, grenades make nest-cleaning a LOT easier :

Agreed. They're the game-changer, for me. Once I have grenades, I'm not worried about a nest anymore.

But the car is exponentially farther than that...

I wouldn't really say exponentially. The path from red science to car is about the same cost as the entire red science tree, though - whereas the other big equaliser, grenades, costs like twenty. I feel like there are better choices to make at this point, mostly, and if you're going to spend a hundred science packs it's probably better to go for modular armour.

Yeah, but it seems weird from Factorio's perspective :
The car is to train what hand-carrying is to belts, so I would expect cars to be available earlier than trains ?

They are. You can get trains about 25 packs sooner than cars, but you won't have stations for another 75 packs, and you won't have signals for another 100. Arguably, you don't "really" have trains for 250 packs, to the car's 100.

[BlueTemplar]

Actually, spitters are still easy to take out with a pistol and yellow ammo.

This examination of 0.16/0.17 biters has under a thousand views, but it is very instructive and deserves more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qhoyxV6AwQ

Thanks, I almost started to watch it, but I decided I'd rather experience the highest tiers for the first time for myself. Will watch if/when I hit 100% evo.

But the car is exponentially farther than that...

I wouldn't really say exponentially. The path from red science to car is about the same cost as the entire red science tree, though - whereas the other big equaliser, grenades, costs like twenty. I feel like there are better choices to make at this point, mostly, and if you're going to spend a hundred science packs it's probably better to go for modular armour.

Yes, that's what I meant :

Turrets or Mil1 = 10
Heavy Armor = 10+50+30 = 90
Mil2 = 10+50+75+20/20 = 155/20
Car = 50+75+20+100/100+200/200+100/100 = 545/400
(And Modular Armor is even farther than that, because it requires Oil and Red Circuits !)

You won't really feel it unless playing Marathon I guess ?

And what better choices ? I'm rushing a car(/train) to get oil ASAP, before Blue Biters show up...

They are. You can get trains about 25 packs sooner than cars, but you won't have stations for another 75 packs, and you won't have signals for another 100. Arguably, you don't "really" have trains for 250 packs, to the car's 100.

Oh, good point, I forgot about that...
(You can go pretty far without signals though, I went as far as Artillery without even using them, and on RSO! - But I guess that you can also go "pretty far" without undergrounds, splitters and long/filter inserters, as the tutorial has shown !)

[CDarklock]

(And Modular Armor is even farther than that, because it requires Oil and Red Circuits !)

Right, but if you're going to reach far enough to get a car, it doesn't seem a whole lot harder to just reach for modular armour. It does cost like three times as much, and you need oil, and then you have to research and make modules, but it's so much better than a car.

And what better choices ? I'm rushing a car(/train) to get oil ASAP, before Blue Biters show up...

Military 2 is the big one, at a mere 20 packs. I don't really have trouble with early biter fights once I have grenades and AP ammo. But I also like to clear a wide margin around my factory before the pollution cloud hits anyone, so my biter fights are really basic. I do a bunch of them early on, then by the time I need to do more, I'm just stomping around in level 2 power armour with an arseload of energy shields and laser defense. It's not even really fighting, it's just "go stand by the base till it dies."

And I don't like using turrets, but if I was okay with it they are kind of OP. I keep seeing YouTubers just run straight in and lay down a line of five turrets, then throw a bunch of ammo into them. Base fall down go boom. AP ammo gives that a serious bonus, too. No, idk why personal lasers are fine but turrets aren't, I am weird.

Not all the options are military, either. I have this really big lake on my map and I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to sneak a little manmade island into it with landfill, and put my power station there. And that one-tile chokepoint could be defended with a single turret.

(You can go pretty far without signals though, I went as far as Artillery without even using them, and on RSO! - But I guess that you can also go "pretty far" without undergrounds, splitters and long/filter inserters, as the tutorial has shown !)

I completed my first game with no trains at all. I researched them completely, and put one up, but it didn't work. It would drive manually from one end of the track to the other, but it would only drive automatically to one station and then it couldn't path to the other one. Ever.

I never figured out why; I moved the locomotives around, and moved the stations, and added signals, and tried to put in chain signals, all of which was pointless because it's a straight track with no intersections and neither signals nor chain signals will make anything better. I even tried reading the wiki and watching a bunch of tutorials, but eventually I just pulled it down and didn't try to build another one until I'd already launched the rocket.

I definitely did something stupid, but I will never know what. How do you get a straight track with two stations wrong? I can't even imagine what I did.

[BlueTemplar]

(And Modular Armor is even farther than that, because it requires Oil and Red Circuits !)

Right, but if you're going to reach far enough to get a car, it doesn't seem a whole lot harder to just reach for modular armour. It does cost like three times as much, and you need oil, and then you have to research and make modules, but it's so much better than a car.

I guess that it depends a lot on the map : if your oil is close enough, yeah, you can get car/train (and red belts) much later.
(Or porcupine that oil field, and hope for the best.)

And what better choices ? I'm rushing a car(/train) to get oil ASAP, before Blue Biters show up...

Military 2 is the big one, at a mere 20 packs. I don't really have trouble with early biter fights once I have grenades and AP ammo. But I also like to clear a wide margin around my factory before the pollution cloud hits anyone, so my biter fights are really basic. I do a bunch of them early on, then by the time I need to do more, I'm just stomping around in level 2 power armour with an arseload of energy shields and laser defense. It's not even really fighting, it's just "go stand by the base till it dies."

Oh, I thought by "at this point" was "after you got Military 2"...

And I don't like using turrets, but if I was okay with it they are kind of OP. I keep seeing YouTubers just run straight in and lay down a line of five turrets, then throw a bunch of ammo into them. Base fall down go boom. AP ammo gives that a serious bonus, too. No, idk why personal lasers are fine but turrets aren't, I am weird.

You should see Bob's sniper turrets + autofill ! XD

Yeah, shotgun + grenades is more fun !
(Since I got grenades, I try to use the turrets mostly for backup...)

Well, I guess that by the time you get a fully maxed out PLD loadout, you feel like you've earned it ?

I completed my first game with no trains at all. I researched them completely, and put one up, but it didn't work. It would drive manually from one end of the track to the other, but it would only drive automatically to one station and then it couldn't path to the other one. Ever.

I never figured out why; I moved the locomotives around, and moved the stations, and added signals, and tried to put in chain signals, all of which was pointless because it's a straight track with no intersections and neither signals nor chain signals will make anything better. I even tried reading the wiki and watching a bunch of tutorials, but eventually I just pulled it down and didn't try to build another one until I'd already launched the rocket.

I definitely did something stupid, but I will never know what. How do you get a straight track with two stations wrong? I can't even imagine what I did.

You didn't put a second locomotive facing the other way.
IIRC that's where I *had* to consult an out-of-the-game resource for the first time.
(And soon after, again, not managing to figure out why Fluid wagons wouldn't connect...)

[5thHorseman]

And all they really have to do is back up, take a deep breath, and keep the operation small a little longer.

Or change the game settings so the biters don't aggro so quickly. If anything I was too overzealous with my settings. I may next game only knock them down 1/4 or 1/3.

I'm currently working under a little system that has not upset anyone, just yet:

- Gather resources with one burner drill and one furnace per resource patch.
- Retreat to a water source and wall off a small area large enough for a steam engine, four labs, and a little red science production line.
- Crank out a bunch of red science. Lights. Walls. Turrets. Heavy armour. Get equipped.
- Wall off resource patches and put small drilling operations on them, defended by turrets. (I am here.)
- Transport resources to a convenient location for your green science production line.

And I think that should take me far enough down the tree that biters stop being an issue - if I treat them proactively and go eliminate their bases before pollution forces the confrontation. The car and the AP ammo are just a hop, skip, and jump down the tree in green science.

EDIT: It strikes me that my first three steps are basically the stages of the campaign.

You may have unknowingly learned them from it.

I just hate the idea of limiting my production. Especially early game where I've not yet got to the actual fun part of the game.

[5thHorseman]

I know realism is not always mandatory, but in this case, it's accurate-ish : despite the first car being created before the first train, it took a lot of time for the car to actually be produced.

The first train was built 80 years before the first car. It wasn't anything like our trains, but neither was the car anything like our cars.

[CDarklock]

Well, I guess that by the time you get a fully maxed out PLD loadout, you feel like you've earned it ?

Yeah, that seems about right. Although now that I think about it, one of my major objections to turret stuff is that you should totally not be able to just run into the enemy base and construct a gun emplacement. "Hey, hi, excuse me while I whip this out."

You didn't put a second locomotive facing the other way.

I did use the plural "locomotives" for a reason.

I put them both on one end, on opposite ends, swapped the order of the forward and backward ones, nothing worked. I even tried putting them in the midle of the train facing each other, which is just nuts.

Seriously, there's no way to anticipate every stupid thing a player might do, and I must have done something nobody in their right mind would have done. Otherwise someone would have written it down.

[BlueTemplar]

Hmm, on a non-looping track, do you need two train stops (on each side of the track) per stop ?

[orzelek]

Hmm, on a non-looping track, do you need two train stops (on each side of the track) per stop ?

As long as your train is 2 headed (it needs to be on track that has no loop) you need one stop on each end.

[CDarklock]

Or change the game settings so the biters don't aggro so quickly.

I don't even like previewing my maps. I'm on one right now where I literally have no damn clue where any oil might be. Usually, in the preview, you can tell which direction it is and how far away. I didn't look. I don't know. I think this more accurately reflects crashing on an alien planet: you don't actually get to choose where you land or what's there.

You may have unknowingly learned them from it.

I was already doing that in other games, though. I tend to slow-build. In my first completed game where I launched a rocket, I walled up my initial area and defended it with turrets. Then I went out exploring for larger resource patches and some oil. When I found them, I expanded my walls to get them inside, then busied myself placing turrets and expanding the electric grid so I could place lights.

I just hate the idea of limiting my production. Especially early game where I've not yet got to the actual fun part of the game.

I know that feeling... there are games where the initial part is the fun part, and games where the fun part is several hours down the road. I kind of feel like Factorio is really several fun games strung together, one right after the other, but they're all different - so most people just settle in on the one they like best and stay there playing that one forever. But whenever you start a new game, you have to race down the road to the part you like.

[CDarklock]

Hmm, on a non-looping track, do you need two train stops (on each side of the track) per stop ?

Not at the ends. When you have a three-stop track or more, where one stop is at each end and one or more sit in the middle, the ones in the middle need a stop on each side - and the locomotive pointing that direction is going to stop there. So if you want your inserters and pumps to line up no matter which direction the train is pointing, you need to offset your stations by the train's length to stop it in the same place.

[Light]

I've played it again with the mindset of playing with my favourite biter mods active and sure enough it was very easy. Easing back a little and focusing on defense isn't a tall order. With defenses up, you can then scale production accordingly without too much concern.

Given you only need red science packs, there's no need for major mining setups or a dozen furnaces and boilers straight away. That's overkill for what the campaign is asking.

My 9 year old brother also aced the campaign and loved the biter attacks. His factory was rather small but he didn't struggle nearly as much as I expected. He would rather venture out with his pistol than use too many turrets since he's apparently a space marine, which was kind of cute.

[CDarklock]

My 9 year old brother also aced the campaign

Oh man, if that doesn't shame the people complaining it's too hard, I don't know what will.

[Mike5000]

I completed my first game with no trains at all. I researched them completely, and put one up, but it didn't work. It would drive manually from one end of the track to the other, but it would only drive automatically to one station and then it couldn't path to the other one. Ever.

I never figured out why; I moved the locomotives around, and moved the stations, and added signals, and tried to put in chain signals, all of which was pointless because it's a straight track with no intersections and neither signals nor chain signals will make anything better. I even tried reading the wiki and watching a bunch of tutorials, but eventually I just pulled it down and didn't try to build another one until I'd already launched the rocket.

Possibly the station that could not be pathed to was on the wrong side of the track to accept trains from the other station.

[Unknow0059]

Since I am sure eight thousand people will show up to argue with your reasoning on the campaign, let me just say I was nodding my head at every reason you gave.

Looking forward to campaign updates in future patches... I have put about 30 hours into it so far, and it's still fun.

It's argued because we all want this game to be the best it can be. Deciding how it's planned and executed is the critical point.
I hope you're agreeing out of your own nature and not because people arguing is the reason.

[CDarklock]

I hope you're agreeing out of your own nature and not because people arguing is the reason.

I'm agreeing because when a bunch of people show up to argue with you, it's nice to know someone agrees.

[5thHorseman]

My 9 year old brother also aced the campaign

Oh man, if that doesn't shame the people complaining it's too hard, I don't know what will.

I lost any ability to be shamed by a 9-year-old the day I played Fortnite with my nephew.

[CDarklock]

I lost any ability to be shamed by a 9-year-old the day I played Fortnite with my nephew.

I have no problem being shown up by a younger player. But if a 9 year old can play the game, I am sure as hell not going to be banging my fist on the table screaming about it being unfairly difficult.

[Mike5000]

I have no problem being shown up by a younger player. But if a 9 year old can play the game, I am sure as hell not going to be banging my fist on the table screaming about it being unfairly difficult.

The tutorial is not unfairly difficult if you're lucky or if you know the trick. This is not the hallmark of a good tutorial.

Nor is the pointless grind. Nor are the massive differences between the tutorial and the game it's supposed to be teaching.

And the fact that this tutorial passed developer play-testing despite all of the above and 9000 kills is frankly worrying.

(But the map generator is considerably improved.)