Friday Facts #295 - New design for the chemical plant

[Ghoulish]

That's a great new look for the chemical plant, the animation of the liquid sloshing around is brilliant. Neat ideas to have the window and coloured smoke.

[BiterBait]

so it should be crystal clear what it’s going on now with this entity

I'm not super clear on this. Does the window show the inputs (the chemical that is being processed) or the outputs (the product that is being produced)?

[nafira]

Very nice looking !

And you should keep the coloring, because it pushes the player to be Eco-sensitive, or if he don't want that, he have to move his chemical plant elsewhere.

[meganothing]

Big Improvement with the plant.

The first of the rotations in the second picture looks like the round tub should protrude out of the left side. All the others look fine since the glass window seems to be either more flat or on the side instead of in the middle block

[Rockets]

I like the goal of the redesign, and I really like the window visually. And it does look cool, and better than the old design!

My main issue is something that was a problem with the old design too, which is that it's hard to tell visually which side has the inputs and which has the outputs. Of course, you can turn on the ALT arrows and there's no problem, but it would be nice if this was clear from the design too.

As it stands, the pipes kind of go everywhere. This does look cool, but there's no obvious flow to the process. Maybe if the color coding was more strict? Like if the sections carrying inputs were always unpainted steel, and sections doing processing and carrying the output were always painted.

Also -- and I realize this is really getting to be picking over small details, and isn't that important really -- in some rotations there are pipes connecting the inputs directly to the outputs, without going through the big mixing tank. This also makes it harder for me to figure out which way the fluids are supposed to be flowing in here.

[Lubricus]

It looks great and I am happy the team continue to work on the readability.
One more readability problem is train-stations the signaling lamp that indicate if it is on or of is way to hard to discern. Many doesn't even know that it exists...

[danielbrauer]

Disco Chemistry!

[Tricorius]

I cannot remember the last time a FF came out AFTER I woke up.

I love the look of the chemical plant. What color will the water be when making batteries? I say copper, just to stick it to the man as an homage to the original battery color.

I miss the copper tops.

I know why they were changed but it still makes me sad.

[POPISowyNumer]

Sweet baby jesus those chemplants look completely arousing
I kinda want Refineries retouched too a bit.

[Philip017]

I absolutely *love* the new graphics for the chemical plant, and I think colorful smoke sounds awesome !

By the way, thanks for continuing to resolve the bugs ! I will just provide another weekly reminder that Factorio is incredibly stable and bug-free for the most part, and it's entirely because of you guys and your diligence. Thanks for being awesome :>

I wholeheartedly agree. i'm glad you take such a focus on fixing the bugs, too many games cant do this and it ends up being a very frustrating experience, but your diligence makes this game that much more awesome. and also very nice job on the new chemical plant graphics.

[JekoRhino]

I love the new design but it hurts my head.

Some times the pipes are at 45° other times at 90°
it's so wired

[NelsonSKA]

Awesome design: modern, compact, and very "readability".
I really like the entities with moving. Great Work.
Maybe I'd add more rust

[Kamsta99]

Looks awesome, but when you plans to add missing HR Beacon ?

[catma]

BEFORE: we'd have generic smoke and some math that removed trees when we were not looking, and had to read the occasional forum post about it to remember pollution exists at all if it wasn't for the biters....... but it didn't click as "OMG I'm killing the forest" as it should.

AFTER: OMG the color pollution is VERY satisfying. I look forward to FEELING that I am killing the trees with several types of pollution!!!

Now if the coal industry made some black smoke, i'd be in heaven... as a pro-pollution player, I totally NEED coal industry to emit nasty smoke!!

[glee8e]

Looks a bit too bright if you place it next to oil refinery, among others, but will definitely look better when placed over desert. May be a bit werid when placed on concrete/brick tile though.

Btw, a big thank you for your continuous focus on bug fixing! If only every game developer would have such an altitude towards their game...

[linux_zealot]

The new chemical plant looks absolutely fantastic! Can not wait seeing it in game.

Just curious. When the chemical plant goes from off mode into on mode, will the smoke appear instantly or will there be some animation (no smoke->has smoke)? If yes, then I guess there need to be some animation when the chemical plant goes from on mode into off mode too, right? How will it work when electricity is turned on and off multiple times a second? Will it finish the previous animation completely before starting the next one?

[catma]

So does this new chem plant have its own remants as well?
It looks freaking great.
^_^

I TOTALLY desire an "oil tanker spill disaster" size of colored smoke emitted when one of these die. Preferably with a "pollution one time bonus" for the leaking of the intermediate-reactions-in-progress chemicals that were never meant to be leaked in normal operation. reaction specific colored temporary spill decoratives (similar to tree stumps code and layer used) for bonus points.

Yes, I'm one of THOSE players who enjoys consequences when I made a mistake, and some other people think a huge explosion is its own reward / is one way to intentionally maximize biter activity for a while. (-;

The whole thing will probably inspire a modding trend with pollution conseqences of chemical explosions, but it requires one code-working, sprites-working example for it to really take off.

[DanGio]

I love how the upper parts are slightly shaking

[Tomplus]

What with idea a glass pipe? They would be ideal for sending fluids over short distances.

[Koekjesfabriek]

Looks great!

I was looking at the four rotations, and rotating it in my head, thinking "Wait a minute. Somethings wrong here..."
Should have finished reading first, I guess.

It seems like a lot of work, you basically had to design four distinct factories. Did you consider making just two, one horizontal and one vertical? Is it meant to give the player the illusion of control? (I rotate what I want!) I feel a little disillusioned right now, but I'm pretty sure it'll pass. And I'll try not to look scrutinously at other object rotations...