Friday Facts #285 - Bugs, Bugs, Bugs.

[theolderbeholder]

I finally had a crash today. I was so proud, me, helping to make the game better
Alas, I work in IT, so
- can I reproduce it? (yes, I could).
- after a reboot? nope.

All my fame *poof*

[J-H]

I'm happy to report no bugs and no crashes.

I like the new research recipes. I think they make more sense, and introduce more variety, especially the sudden need for more stone for infrastructure research.

I have seen a lot of comments about biters being worse, but they have barely touched my base (Factory #27 since I got the game). I did do a slightly larger starting area and less aggressive settings specifically because of what I read, but my perimeter of turrets has held with 0 walls needed.

Maybe next game I'll turn the biters up to more lethal and try to race to complete a rocket.

For me, the "best accomplishment" of the game is not the rocket...it's getting my first nuclear power plant online with 4 turbines. All of the sudden, I no longer have to worry about the lights flickering or power brownout/blackouts from not enough coal.

[T-A-R]

Cat pictures:), These FFF getting better and better. I like these (non relevant) "feeling" facts about working on our favourite game. I imagine this update feels as a celebration and the bug squising weeks are great (but a little stressfull) to do.

Playing 0.17 this week (finally got bots unlocked) i found out more and more of the new features and implementations. And i love it. Factorio is really taken to the next level. The interface and quality of life improvements help a lot in the experience. The new features are great. The new recepies also seems to work out pretty well, i agree they feel like making more sense.

(thought i liked the old lamp recipy required a real fat metal glow stick, compared to some flumpsy circuit wire)

A small note i wanna make is about the loaders. Since mp love to use them, and they are used in the npe, i see them a lot more in 0.17. They really break the graphic immersion atm.

[skeller1982]

as for the macOS crashes.

i noticed you use the c++17 standard for development.

Since for macOS the c++ STL is incuded with the OS and linked dynamically, for each use of a c++17 library feature you will crash the application on a older macOS version which not yet has the appropriate stl included.

[luc]

Oh the grass bleeding red is a known issue? Good to know it's not just me and it will be fixed.

While reading this FFF, I just realized why I didn't report it: similar bugs report I've made have always been closed as 1/0 magic, written off as "my odd linux setup" (a completely standard Debian system with one of the major desktop environments on regular hardware). It's just not worth the effort of making a new game which might not reproduce it, anonymizing the game log that you'll ask for regardless of whether it's relevant, describing the issue exactly, seeing if it may show up in screenshots or not, etc. I just hoped it gets fixed and otherwise try not to be bothered by it.

[POPISowyNumer]

For love of gods, dear Wube, just add them loaders into game properly.
They're the only way belts can win with bots.
(Except another tier of belts, obviously)

[Unknow0059]

What's the mood like in the office?
Do you play any games during breaks? Are you eating pizza? If not pizza, what are you eating?

I'm drinking Soylent and have a cat on my lap. But then I'm working remotely. The Firefox extension that prevents me from getting sucked into looking at Facebook helps.

That sounds like the ideal mood for work environment.

[irbork]

Good to see that bug fixing is going well.
Don't forget that there should be some small content additions during 0.17 stabilization period.

[ggrnd0]

What about burning wooden boxes? is it a bug?

[ggrnd0]

Do bugs eat trees now? great XD

[Koub]

What about burning wooden boxes? is it a bug?

This change is intended. Source : viewtopic.php?f=3&t=65070

Chests and wooden power poles are no longer usable as fuel.

[posila]

Oh the grass bleeding red is a known issue? Good to know it's not just me and it will be fixed.

It should be fixed since few patches ago (since last Monday). You still have it in 0.17.9?

While reading this FFF, I just realized why I didn't report it: similar bugs report I've made have always been closed as 1/0 magic, written off as "my odd linux setup" (a completely standard Debian system with one of the major desktop environments on regular hardware). It's just not worth the effort of making a new game which might not reproduce it, anonymizing the game log that you'll ask for regardless of whether it's relevant, describing the issue exactly, seeing if it may show up in screenshots or not, etc. I just hoped it gets fixed and otherwise try not to be bothered by it.

Log is relevant in majority of cases. You should assume an issue doesn't happen on developer's computer, so something about your computer exposes the issue.

In case of graphics issues, it is always relevant. Always. I need to know what is your OS, what HW and drivers you have, what graphics options you use; if the game logged something out of ordinary during startup, etc. etc.

I can understand not wanting to report bugs, but please consider searching if somebody already reported the bug and posting to that thread. If some weird issue is reported just once or twice and we can't reproduce it and we don't know how to workaround it, it'll get thrown out to 1/0 magic. If the issue happens to 10 people, we might buy HW to match theirs, or logs might show it happens on wide range of HW, but may show some other pattern (i.e. having two screens, left one connected to Intel GPU, right one connected to AMD GPU and using OpenGL renderer on Windows - seriously, real issue that existed few major versions ago), or we might to try to find out what else players experiencing the issue have in common.

[TheRaph]

What about burning wooden boxes? is it a bug?

This change is intended. Source : viewtopic.php?f=3&t=65070

Chests and wooden power poles are no longer usable as fuel.

But why?

[Koub]

Only the devs can answer why.
For me, the real question is : why should they be burnable ? They are not the only things made from combustible stuff, why should they be burnable and not the the rest ?

[Avezo]

I don't think the main problem is that they are no longer burnable. The problem is that we eventually end up with various items like wooden power poles, wooden boxes, steel furnaces that are no longer used and there is nothing to do with them. Burning was a way to 'recycle' them.

Elegant solution would be to indroduce some sort of recycler into vanilla game where you put items that are no longer needed to get some materials back.

[5thHorseman]

I don't think the main problem is that they are no longer burnable. The problem is that we eventually end up with various items like wooden power poles, wooden boxes, steel furnaces that are no longer used and there is nothing to do with them. Burning was a way to 'recycle' them.

Not to paraphrase @Koub, but they are not the only things you make, can't upgrade or use to make better things, and eventually have lying around unused. Why should they be burnable and not the the rest?

Elegant solution would be to indroduce some sort of recycler into vanilla game where you put items that are no longer needed to get some materials back.

I like it. I've even used a mod that did it. But really is it THAT bad that you have a chest somewhere with all the junk you never use anymore?

[Koub]

Elegant solution would be to indroduce some sort of recycler into vanilla game where you put items that are no longer needed to get some materials back.

I like it. I've even used a mod that did it. But really is it THAT bad that you have a chest somewhere with all the junk you never use anymore?

Totally not OCD friendly (while Factorio attracts the most heavily OCDed players ever)

[leadraven]

Factorio would be impossible without cats!

[Bauer]

Elegant solution would be to indroduce some sort of recycler into vanilla game where you put items that are no longer needed to get some materials back.

I like it. I've even used a mod that did it. But really is it THAT bad that you have a chest somewhere with all the junk you never use anymore?

Totally not OCD friendly (while Factorio attracts the most heavily OCDed players ever)

So true! However, since the problem is not limited to wooden poles and chests, this discussion is quite artificial.

Until now, I had a destructor station to burn wood and stuff (and extra coal I "collect" in my inventory). All else accumulated in storage chests and rotted there until the end of times.
This change made me rethink. I now read it as a hint that wooden chests die rather quickly in machine gun fire, so I turn them into disposal boxes. *eg*

[Avezo]

I like it. I've even used a mod that did it. But really is it THAT bad that you have a chest somewhere with all the junk you never use anymore?

It isn't bad, it's just that ability to recycle old junk seems to fit so well into the game of automation. Any automated means of discarding old junk would fit, if not recycer, make it an incinerator destroying items completely or somesuch.

That, and also OCD indeed