Version 0.17.32

[Dominik]

The fluids are on the program but I have only had little time to do experiments between all the bugs. Right now the fluids seem to be pretty much bug free so I should get to the fluids again - along with the character gui.
Yes, the more accurate model is slower, not faster. Right now it is as fast as it gets as the model is oversimplified.

[Omnifarious]

I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for and interest in the game due to the rail planner changes. I haven't upgraded since 0.17.28, aside from a brief test to make sure they work as I expect them too.

[Mr. Tact]

I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for and interest in the game due to the rail planner changes. I haven't upgraded since 0.17.28, aside from a brief test to make sure they work as I expect them too.

Really? That just seems odd. How does it impact your game play heavily? Even in my largest base with dozens of active trains, track building takes up a small amount of my time.

[leadraven]

The time has already come to release new fluid physics. Come on, make a final effort and do it already. You put it off for too long.

If you can't wait for features to be implemented, maybe you should stop playing early access games.

Feature?! It's not a feature, it's a major (even critical in my opinion) bug that lives for years, while tons of much more minor things get done.

The fluids are on the program but I have only had little time to do experiments between all the bugs. Right now the fluids seem to be pretty much bug free so I should get to the fluids again - along with the character gui.
Yes, the more accurate model is slower, not faster. Right now it is as fast as it gets as the model is oversimplified.

Sorry, but isn't fluid flow dependence on !pipes building order! one damn serious bug? Personally I don't care much about model precision or realism.

P.S. I don't mean any disrespect, my english isn't very good. Factorio is a genius game and you guys are doing a great job. But I can't understand why this fundamental problem still isn't solved after years.

[FuryoftheStars]

The time has already come to release new fluid physics. Come on, make a final effort and do it already. You put it off for too long.

If you can't wait for features to be implemented, maybe you should stop playing early access games.

Feature?! It's not a feature, it's a major (even critical in my opinion) bug that lives for years, while tons of much more minor things get done.

The fluids are on the program but I have only had little time to do experiments between all the bugs. Right now the fluids seem to be pretty much bug free so I should get to the fluids again - along with the character gui.
Yes, the more accurate model is slower, not faster. Right now it is as fast as it gets as the model is oversimplified.

Sorry, but isn't fluid flow dependence on !pipes building order! one damn serious bug? Personally I don't care much about model precision or realism.

P.S. I don't mean any disrespect, my english isn't very good. Factorio is a genius game and you guys are doing a great job. But I can't understand why this fundamental problem still isn't solved after years.

Considering Dominik mentioned in an earlier FFF that others had tried before and failed to simply solve the issue, I'm guessing there was something more seriously wrong with the code.

I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for and interest in the game due to the rail planner changes. I haven't upgraded since 0.17.28, aside from a brief test to make sure they work as I expect them too.

Really? That just seems odd. How does it impact your game play heavily? Even in my largest base with dozens of active trains, track building takes up a small amount of my time.

We all have different styles of play. Based on your comment, I'm making the assumption that your style rarely depends on the object avoidance feature. For those of us that liked and used it regularly, this is a major impact. I too am not upgrading at this time.

[5thHorseman]

P.S. I don't mean any disrespect, my english isn't very good. Factorio is a genius game and you guys are doing a great job. But I can't understand why this fundamental problem still isn't solved after years.

There are many many reasons noncritical bugs can go unfixed for years. Here's a few I see in my real (non-Factorio) life. If a bug is in a part of the program that is going to see radical change in the future, fixing it is literally throwing development time away. The same goes for if that part of the program MAY see radical change in the future, in that fixing the bug only MAY be a complete waste of time. And finally, if fixing the bug would itself cause a radical change in the program, a LOT of planning needs to be done for it and every system it touches, to make sure that implementing that new system doesn't cause even more bugs.

I suspect all three are in play here, to various degrees. They know the fluid system is changing, they don't know by how much, and that change will likely by definition fix this problem. However it's a huge job and they need to make sure first that it won't totally mess up the rest of the game, and second that the game is ready to receive it.

[Dominik]

As a brief explanation - fixing the fluids is not that simple. It is simple to fix the asymmetry (which I do think is a problem) but then the fluids start to work too well and that is a problem. Suddenly different waves propagate through the system that can even totally clog it. And fixing a simulation so that it is not too accurate but still works is hard. I believe it is doable but takes a lot of experimentation and time. So far I tried various fixes and they always fix one problem and create another.

[BlueTemplar]

Wouldn't increased viscosity help with that ? Or would that slow down the normal flow too much ?
Err, never mind, I just can't afford to go deep into this issue right now...

Sorry, but isn't fluid flow dependence on !pipes building order! one damn serious bug? Personally I don't care much about model precision or realism.

Wait, wasn't that issue fixed in 0.15 or so ?

Concrete proof please - in the big discussion about fluids I asked for concrete proofs (with saves/blueprints) about the issues with the 0.16 fluid model, as I believed that it was more of a perceived issue than a "real" one !
There was only one answer, I'll let you decide for yourself how problematic it is :
viewtopic.php?p=379084#p379084

And, as you can see, the Factorio devs were even able to optimize the old fluid system ! Now, this discussion about "megabase nuclear" has always seemed rather silly to me, but it seems like at least one player is happy with it !

[jockeril]

Wouldn't increased viscosity help with that ? Or would that slow down the normal flow too much ?
Err, never mind, I just can't afford to go deep into this issue right now...

Sorry, but isn't fluid flow dependence on !pipes building order! one damn serious bug? Personally I don't care much about model precision or realism.

Wait, wasn't that issue fixed in 0.15 or so ?

Concrete proof please - in the big discussion about fluids I asked for concrete proofs (with saves/blueprints) about the issues with the 0.16 fluid model, as I believed that it was more of a perceived issue than a "real" one !
There was only one answer, I'll let you decide for yourself how problematic it is :
viewtopic.php?p=379084#p379084

And, as you can see, the Factorio devs were even able to optimize the old fluid system ! Now, this discussion about "megabase nuclear" has always seemed rather silly to me, but it seems like at least one player is happy with it !

I'd propose they finish the GUI update and have 0.18 be the "big fluids update" - that way, those of us who are happy with the way it is until they finish with fixing it can play 0.17 stable and those who want it fixed and are into helping by experimenting can participate.

This is how I got through the big "multiplayer update" (I think it was 0.14 ) since I wasn't interested in participating I mostly stayed on 0.13, but the tank was so tempting I couldn't wait and I started playing those experimental updates too - and since I wasn't affected by it - the changes didn't bother me if they were only for multiplayer

Also, this is my 300th post so that's a milestone

[BlueTemplar]

Seconded... but then it seems like that was already (becoming) the plan ?

[rebelyrocks]

The campaign isn't published in the current version right? I was trying to find it, and I couldn't.
They are just saying it's ready, correct?

[Jap2.0]

The campaign isn't published in the current version right? I was trying to find it, and I couldn't.
They are just saying it's ready, correct?

The new tutorial is in the current version, the new campaign is for 0.18.

[Omnifarious]

Really? That just seems odd. How does it impact your game play heavily? Even in my largest base with dozens of active trains, track building takes up a small amount of my time.

Upgrading makes my games backwards incompatible, so if I can't go forward. Upgrading has been a driver for some of my enthusiasm for the game. Also, I was told that a feature I really liked and used almost every time I built tracks between outposts or between the base and outposts was 'useless' which makes me very not hopeful about its return.

I agree that most of my time is not spent building train lines. But I'm not willing to build train lines with the current version of the game.

[jockeril]

Really? That just seems odd. How does it impact your game play heavily? Even in my largest base with dozens of active trains, track building takes up a small amount of my time.

Upgrading makes my games backwards incompatible, so if I can't go forward. Upgrading has been a driver for some of my enthusiasm for the game. Also, I was told that a feature I really liked and used almost every time I built tracks between outposts or between the base and outposts was 'useless' which makes me very not hopeful about its return.

I agree that most of my time is not spent building train lines. But I'm not willing to build train lines with the current version of the game.

I totally understand how you feel - I was disappointed when they changed the train tank car from three configurable tanks to one big tank and then they reduced the size because of that - I liked playing with the

[Hannu]

Feature?! It's not a feature, it's a major (even critical in my opinion) bug that lives for years, while tons of much more minor things get done.

Why it is major problem? Did you find some configuration which do not work? It seems to be some king of aesthetic problem for those who want to utilize everything at exact 100 % rate. Current system work well in any kind of fluid systems from beginners first oil refineries to ultimate megabases or modded games with hundreds of fluids. I understand very well why fixing is not on the top of devs lists. There is also a proverb which says "if it works don't repair it".

If you think just extreme throughput, more detailed model would be slower to compute. Even it would give some percentages throughput per tick in some situations, time needed for computing the tick would increase and maximum throughput at certain UPS would be smaller.

In my opinion rotation sensitivity of inserters is much more annoying problem (however, I would not say major). It mixes lanes of belts and leads to complete malfunctions if you just rotate blueprints without taking inconsistent behavior into account. Oddities in fluid mechanics lead to differences in practically non-significant decimals but fluid goes always eventually where the pipes lead it.

[BlueTemplar]

Also inserters behaving in a different way depending whether they're in the same chunk or not - at least pipes split fluids at least somewhat evenly !

[bobingabout]

The fluids are on the program but I have only had little time to do experiments between all the bugs. Right now the fluids seem to be pretty much bug free so I should get to the fluids again - along with the character gui.
Yes, the more accurate model is slower, not faster. Right now it is as fast as it gets as the model is oversimplified.

People are requesting I re-add the multiple pipe diameters (larger/smaller fluid boxes) mechanic in my logistics mod. is this something that's going to break again in the near future?
Is the ability to set different fluid viscosities on the table?

I it hard to answer you without risking you biting my hand of later on.
I don't think that different size fluid boxes were a problem at any point. A tank is also a big pipe and it work and should work.
The different fluid properties were a part of the changes. But since it is one direction of tuning the algorithm it might end up that the algo working properly will again depend on the values, so modifying them won't be a good idea. I don't know at this point.

[leadraven]

Why it is major problem? Did you find some configuration which do not work?

How could you play Factorio without perfectionism?
And yes, I have throughput bugs in nuclear plants and fluid stations. I can't even measure throughput because it changes unpredictably.
It is one of core game mechanics. Any bug related to it is critical.

[Hannu]

How could you play Factorio without perfectionism?

Very well. I have engineering background and I have used to plan and build technical things from imperfect parts, rules and restrictions and knowledge. Actually, it is very hard to understand for me that so many players get their enjoyment from achieving simple mathematical perfection instead of practically functioning complex systems. And why they want the game to be planned for that kind of very boring operations instead of compromises and adjustments to environmental variations.

And yes, I have throughput bugs in nuclear plants and fluid stations. I can't even measure throughput because it changes unpredictably.

Do you mean that some system does not work at all or it works at 95 % from nominal performance. I never target more than 90 %. Not in the game or in real life. In game it could maybe be possible, but far from fun for me. And in real engineering it is very very exceptional situation and typically only used in production of crap quality cheap products which are not really intended to work but just to be so cheap that customers do not bother to complain after they get third flawed unit from warranty.

It is one of core game mechanics. Any bug related to it is critical.

What if it was explained as manufacturing tolerances of pipes and other entities? And maybe added even more random variables to make more variation?

[leadraven]

How could you play Factorio without perfectionism?

Very well. I have engineering background and I have used to plan and build technical things from imperfect parts, rules and restrictions and knowledge. Actually, it is very hard to understand for me that so many players get their enjoyment from achieving simple mathematical perfection instead of practically functioning complex systems. And why they want the game to be planned for that kind of very boring operations instead of compromises and adjustments to environmental variations.

Theorists and practitioners will never understand each other. Mathematical perfection is the most satisfying thing in the world.
But currently I'm talking not about perfection, but about two instances of the same blueprint to behave identically.

What if it was explained as manufacturing tolerances of pipes and other entities? And maybe added even more random variables to make more variation?

Then Factorio will lose half of its audience.