Friday Facts #298 - Demo upgrade for Stable

[tayrible@game]

On the topic of deployment of robots that others have brought up, I think the quick an easy fix is to be able to hold shift/control when deploying to deploy five at a time or up to the players max count. This makes it much faster and prevents the player from being removed from the action just hold a key, click and boom back to slaughtering the natives.

[Roxor128]

Target being hit should also get some glow. (At least tiny bit.) When you focus light beam on object - it usually (if not completely black AND matt) reflects some light onto surroundings.

Add a light source at either end of the beam. Dim red for source, bright yellow or orange for target.

Making the beam light up its surroundings as a light source would also improve things.

Now, implementing that as a bunch of point lights would be computationally intensive, especially when you have a hundred turrets firing at once. However, I think I may have found something simpler that could do the job: A 2D signed-distance function. Use that with the inverse-square law, and I think it could work for a line-segment light source. Here's a page full of functions for 2D primitives, including a line-segment: https://iquilezles.org/www/articles/dis ... ions2d.htm

[Hakisak]

The beams should definitely light up the area. use the beams from the old picture (without dimming) then make a glow along the beam and at the end of the beam.

[TatsuZZMage]

Follower robots a idea for em have a lamp on them that mirros the color of user so they glow their color mask.

[ownlyme]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/laser_fix
Kinda expected something like this

[Deadlock989]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/laser_fix
Kinda expected something like this

That looks totally bizarre and flat and unrealistic. Like the air around the beam is glowing.

[ownlyme]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/laser_fix
Kinda expected something like this

That looks totally bizarre and flat and unrealistic. Like the air around the beam is glowing.

Yeah maybe i'll increase the glow radius

[eradicator]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/laser_fix
Kinda expected something like this

That looks totally bizarre and flat and unrealistic. Like the air around the beam is glowing.

About as unrealistic as being able to see a laser in the first place.
On the other hand, if they were plasma beams...

[ownlyme]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/laser_fix
Kinda expected something like this

That looks totally bizarre and flat and unrealistic. Like the air around the beam is glowing.

Better now?

[RobertTerwilliger]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/laser_fix
Kinda expected something like this

That looks totally bizarre and flat and unrealistic. Like the air around the beam is glowing.

About as unrealistic as being able to see a laser in the first place.
On the other hand, if they were plasma beams...

Actually, you can see laser beam, if there is some dust/smoke)steam/any other particles in the air.
But yeah, laser in darkness glows way too much. I'd prefer reverting brightness to former values, and adding glow on target position (glow on source is unnatural, as laser is constructed in the way it focuses all light in a beam - it never illuminating itself or surrounding, unlike target, that inevitably does deflect some portion of light)

[Koub]

I like it the way it is shown in the FFF. It may not be realistic, but it's badass

[dood]

I don't get it.
Why do you need a 1x1 "quest item consumer"?
Why not just use an inserter like in the actual game?
The "quest item consumer" already exists in the form of the assembler which is a thing that actually exists in free play.

Creating a new special campaign only thing only serves to confuse.
I know you're inspired by starcraft 2 a lot but it would probably be best not to copy that aspect of it.

That is unless you want to officially add loaders to the game.

[Ranger_Aurelien]

The beams should definitely light up the area. use the beams from the old picture (without dimming) then make a glow along the beam and at the end of the beam.

Laser light dynamics enhanced for 0.17.46 :
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=65114&p=434382&hil ... ed#p434382

[abregado]

Do you still want my folder of screenshots?

Nah tis ok, your feedback was excellent already. If you get a chance, have a nooby friend play it and send me their screenshots

[abregado]

I don't get it.
Why do you need a 1x1 "quest item consumer"?

There are only three real places that things are "consumed" in factorio. Science, military-consumables (Bullets) and Rockets.

Increasing the Science costs only takes you so far. In the Introduction I already did that.
Increasing the Bullet consumption has a cap at which the player gets killed for making a mistake. It is also increased in the Introduction.
No rockets to launch in the Intro
NB. Coal is also consumed in making electricity, but well, you can see the problems with that already.

Having an entity that consumers specific items, and a way of teaching the player what to put into it, is incredibly helpful for anwering the question "Can the play build this, and move it to this location using automation?"

It will get much more use in the full campaign, which is why it needs to be displayed during the Introduction.

Does it make more sense now?

[BattleFluffy]

That does make sense that we want to teach the player how to automate the production of items, and you're right, they need to be used somewhere. But why does the NPE need to be different from the freeplay? Why not just have new players make Automation Science Packs, and feed them into a lab? Surely that is better preparation for the freeplay than beating about the bush with 1x1 loaders/quest consumers that the player will never see again..?

[Hannu]

About as unrealistic as being able to see a laser in the first place.

Laser light is scattered from air molecules. Green beam is easy to see at less that 1 W power. Scattered light is dim and do not light surrounding, but it would be nice if hit point were illuminated. It looks very bright and illuminates like a lamp. In code it would be additional variable and moving light source and probably very efficient to calculate.

On the other hand, if they were plasma beams...

Plasma beams are fiction. It is impossible to focus plasma on long laser like beams. Plasma beams, for example metal cutting beams, are very short.

[MEOWMI]

Regarding the new campaign, I want to say it's really easy for someone to accidentally miss the electric miner unlock upgrade. Even as an experienced player, I did not see it until 15-20m after it became available, and I was actively looking for when it would become available. The upgrade tree is just somehow hard to navigate I assume or the upgrade became available after an intermediate quest and there was no notification that it suddenly became available. The old campaign kind of teached you right away how useful electric mining is just through the fact that you started with it in the 2nd (?) mission and the player naturally notices how much easier it is to use. (As a side note, it is kind of interesting to try to figure out how to make a coal-run factory, even though it's never optimal.)

[SuperSandro2000]

You should change tank controls to have 2 speed keys and 2 breaks or are controlled exactly like a car. Right now it is confusing and totally not realistic.