Friday Facts #304 - Small bugs; Big changes

[Deadlock989]

You are not a rebel by using mods

Never said I was, but please, do keep mansplaining to me what I already know and said.

[FuryoftheStars]

The mod interface is available for exactly this reason. You are not a rebel by using mods, you are the use case of mods.

For me, I don't buy a game for it's mods. I use the mods to enhance what I've paid for. If the base game doesn't interest me/loses its appeal, then mods are more of a way to "fix" it and this feels wrong to me. If the mods are more interesting than the game, why am I giving my money to the game devs?

[gGeorg]

I think that inherently by having a puzzle after knowing the basic mechanics of the process, it already does distribute the challenge better. Indeed the multiple output process is the new problematic part.

Ah, herein lies the rub then. When I think oil, I think first and foremost of the multiple outputs puzzle; as I see it, the multiple outputs problem is THE basic mechanic I associate with oil and all its processes, so while I can understand shuffling recipes around to (reduce distracting logistical complexity and) make it easier to tackle, it makes little sense to me to separate it from the introduction of oil itself.

I see. I believe the multiple output problem, and "learn the new production chain" as in recipes and fluids/items, are two different things to learn/solve and thus can (and are a good idea) be separated.

Maybe your perspective is heavy influenced by the fact that you had to go through the BOP puzzle the first time and that's how you remember it / the iconic part of it, especially now that the items/recipes are just "another recipes" retrospectively.

The bold part of post says, you are at the stage of developer who sits in own air castle, observing the others. Proposed oil change removes a peak, for a while. But the solution is like ask an elephant to deliver log into a porcelain shop. He did the work, he delivers right?
Even in the experimental version of the game, changes need precision.

[RocketManChronicles]

My two cents on the proposed changes:

(1) Oil change - I do not support this. As with the recipe for Chemical Science, you actually had a use for all products of the basic oil refining: Petroleum Gas for Plastic and also for Sulfuric Acid, the Light Oil to make Solid Fuel for Chemical Science, and then you had Heavy Oil for making Lubricant for the Construction Bots. It was not balanced, but that is fine until you unlock Advanced Oil Refining to install the Cracking to balance the whole system. It was very intuitive and rather easy to get Chemical Science going.

(2) Construction Bots - I do not like that these are move to after Chemical Science. They provided a way to use heavy oil before Chemical Science is set up. This helped balance the use of all three types of oil products from Basic Oil Processing. Please keep these before Chemical Science, otherwise, I am just storing oil products for later use.

(3) Laser Turrets - I agree with moving these to after Chemical Science. As most people view these as end-game turrets (we all know they are mid-game with Uranium Ammo), they do need to be a little harder to acquire. The timing when these can be built can make the mid-game a rather breeze to play through as nothing really counters these until Behemoths show up.

(4) Laser Glow - As an avid user of the mod, I am all for this being vanilla. It is a really nice aesthetic and adds to the power of the laser. Good job bringing this to the game! Out of curiosity as a modded game player, will this support different colored lasers as some mods had introduced different colors for different tiers (aka Bob's)?

[BlueTemplar]

I post this for forum user AntiElite as he currently has no access to the forum. Opinions (and all spelling mistakes ) are his, not mine!
[...]
I am not sure about the position of the petroleum being at the edge instead of in the middle. It looks kinda weird if you don't know the upgrade coming. Maybe it should be swapped.
[...]

[...]
The petroleum output in the middle was on my mind for quite some time, since it would allow nicer and easier fully beaconed advanced oil processing builds with integrated cracking.
In deed it happens quite often now that I set some or all of my advanced oil processing back to basic to get some heavy oil when I am short.
[...]

Well, I'd guess that it reflects the real life petroleum distillation process, where "heavy oil" flows out of the bottom, "light oils" from the middle, and finally the gas(es) comes out of the top :

So, having the gas come from the middle would be kind of weird too? (Though this is more of a nitpick... and Factorio has pretty much no "height" anyway...)

With liquids, pipes will show on alt view as having liquids in them even when it's a fraction from the way flow mechanics work. It's hard to look at an oil setup and know which product is not getting drained without tanks.

You can in all cases see how filled they are and how fast the fluid flows (relative to what speed though?), and in which direction - though it could be shown better.

Bots have been pushed back and back and back in the tech tree even though some of us find them to be the funnest part of the game. They help tremendously with base building and logistics, which makes dealing with oil so much less frustrating. By pushing bots behind oil, you're now forcing new players to deal with the mess of oil and get not get anything really interesting or fun for a long time (new players won't blow past this as fast as experienced players). Bots were a really nice reward for getting oil started and keep players motivated to power through the puzzle. I love bots, but dealing with oil was a nightmare on my first attempts to figure it out. If I didn't have bots, I don't think I would have really enjoyed the game as much dealing with it.

I think you mean "pushing bots behind Advanced Oil Processing" ?
And again, you need much more than "getting oil started" for bots : they require plastic, batteries and lubricant since at least 0.15 !

It's just more incentive not to use bots at all because they come so late that it isn't worth using them unless you're going to play past the win condition.

I think that there's quite a bit of gameplay between mid(?)-blue science and rocket launch ?
And quite a bit of scaling required to research Rocket Silo and build a rocket in a reasonable amount of time, even without the pre-0.17 satellite requirement ?

[BlueTemplar]

(4) Laser Glow - As an avid user of the mod, I am all for this being vanilla. It is a really nice aesthetic and adds to the power of the laser. Good job bringing this to the game! Out of curiosity as a modded game player, will this support different colored lasers as some mods had introduced different colors for different tiers (aka Bob's)?

BTW, laser beams (with different color support!) was a mod by one of the devs (Klonan), made as far back as 0.12 !
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Laser_Beam_Turrets

[meganothing]

Never said I was, but please, do keep mansplaining to me what I already know and said.

So descriptions like "this joke nerf pitched at the lowest common denominator" (obviously showing your contempt) is just a message that this nerf is of no concern to you? Why post it at all then? Why push for "leave the base freeplay game alone, for people who weren't born yesterday.", if it doesn't concern you?

The mod interface is available for exactly this reason. You are not a rebel by using mods, you are the use case of mods.

For me, I don't buy a game for it's mods. I use the mods to enhance what I've paid for. If the base game doesn't interest me/loses its appeal, then mods are more of a way to "fix" it and this feels wrong to me. If the mods are more interesting than the game, why am I giving my money to the game devs?

But unless you are a guy without long-term memory, vanilla will lose its appeal eventually because you know everything and have tried everything. If you are at that point and have sunk hundreds of hours into vanilla and then say "Hey, this game lost its appeal and mods are better, why did I pay for it" is ignoring that you long got your money's worth out of it.

Also mods are not built on an empty foundation. Even huge complete conversion mods like BoB's mod are just a new thin layer on top of a huge foundation of code that Wube created and made accessible for modders. Giving a modder all the credit is like declaring the artist who painted the walls of a castle to be the castle builder.

[Astrella]

Out of curiosity, is there currently a tutorial in game that covers oil refining?

[Reika]

But unless you are a guy without long-term memory, vanilla will lose its appeal eventually because you know everything and have tried everything. If you are at that point and have sunk hundreds of hours into vanilla and then say "Hey, this game lost its appeal and mods are better, why did I pay for it" is ignoring that you long got your money's worth out of it.

I am not the original poster, but here is my issue with "forcing" people to use mods that substantially change the gameplay:

* Achievements are inevitably disabled. This is true even if you use tiny QoL mods, let alone anything like this.

* If one is not a modder themselves, you have now tied your ability to play as you like to the mods you like being available for your version. Sure, simple mods like a recipe change may keep working across multiple versions (assuming you change the info.json), but more complex mods require more complex updates and have a depressing tendency to not be updated, leaving players with the choice of abandoning them and playing the game not as they most prefer, or sticking with an old version. Even if you are a modder, it is a huge pain in the ass to keep updating other people's mods every time the game updates. I know from experience.

* Being a user of mods, especially ones that substantially changes the game, somewhat isolates you from all the pure-vanilla players; your opinion on vanilla content is taken less seriously, you have a harder time discussing setups due to a lack of common understanding and sense of normality and balance, and you have a harder time finding MP companions because most people just want vanilla. I have experienced all three personally on many occasions, and the first came up earlier in this very thread where someone told me my opinion on oil processing was invalid because I tend to play (not even heavily!) modded.

* Like I have mentioned, this change appears to be part of a trend. And not every change in the trend - or in general - is moddable; for example, the mining hardness change back in October is not. As an example, what if the current changes to oil processing do not significantly help new players, and then in September, for, say, 0.17.82, Wube decides that the core problem is recipes with multiple outputs, and removes that functionality from the game engine itself. Now any sort of reversion of the oil processing is impossible, as are any complex mods like Bob's or Angel's. I used to be resolutely confident that Wube would never make such a rash or harmful decision, but as stated some pages back, that confidence is cracked.

[Yandersen]

Well, it appears that all these pages of opinions were pointless and any more will be too. The decision seems to have been made and that will be that.

I'm sorry that I dare to post counter arguments or my general impressions, but please convince me otherwise about those points if you believe I missed or overlooked something.

Why did I paid for the game you created just for yourself?
So many customers are against the proposed change, and you act like that. Hundreds arguments was posted, alternative ideas suggested. You want to do your thing - do your thing.

[FuryoftheStars]

The mod interface is available for exactly this reason. You are not a rebel by using mods, you are the use case of mods.

For me, I don't buy a game for it's mods. I use the mods to enhance what I've paid for. If the base game doesn't interest me/loses its appeal, then mods are more of a way to "fix" it and this feels wrong to me. If the mods are more interesting than the game, why am I giving my money to the game devs?

But unless you are a guy without long-term memory, vanilla will lose its appeal eventually because you know everything and have tried everything. If you are at that point and have sunk 100 hours into vanilla and then say "Hey, this game lost its appeal and mods are better, why did I pay for it" is ignoring that you long got your money's worth out of it.

Also mods are not built on an empty foundation. Even huge complete conversion mods like BoB's mod are just a new thin layer on top of a huge foundation of code that Wube created and made accessible for modders. Giving a modder all the credit is like declaring the artist who painted the walls of a castle to be the castle builder.

I paid for the game because I loved the complexity. As time goes, they've been slowly removing more and more of the complexity. If I had to make the evaluation of the game in terms of "is it worth it" now as if I was buying it for the first time or recommending it to someone else, I would have a harder time of saying yes.

From another point of view, this being a game still in development, I paid for it to support its development because I liked what I saw and the direction it was going. As it seems like this is slowly changing, I kind of wish I could withdraw that support.

I do not look at games as something to play a few times and then discard. I still go back and on occasion play really old games that I used to enjoy (I've even paid for some multiple times to get versions that run natively on newer OS's because I enjoyed them that much). If in looking or playing through a game I get the impression that this is just something to play a couple times and then get bored of, I save my money.

I also don't typically use total conversions or mods that make severe overhauls of the game, or at least not in a mainstream sense. With all due respect to their authors, mods like Bob's and Angel's don't interest me.

[FuryoftheStars]

Out of curiosity, is there currently a tutorial in game that covers oil refining?

At this time, no, there is not.

[BattleFluffy]

I like the oil change.

Oil processing in Factorio is a wall for new players because you have to learn many new concepts at once.

..

The change described in the FFF reduces the amount of new concepts you learn at once by removing (delaying) one, outputs blocking recipes. So now you only have 3 instead of 4.

I follow your logic here Bilka. Splitting up the new concepts into different stages is a good way to make it easier for new players.

However this should not come at any cost. This change seems like it would greatly reduce the complexity of oil, especially for a megabase, as there is likely no need to ever use Advanced Oil Processing recipe or cracking.

To give an analogy here, imagine a bird takes a crap on my car.


This is a problem; I need to remove the crap. One way to do this is with an industrial sander. That poop will come right off!!
But, so will the paint work..
In this case, it is not worth the trade to damage the the car just to get the poop off. There has to be a better way to remove the poop.

So it is with Factorio Oil. I agree it can use some improvements to make it easier for new players. The proposed method doesn't seem worth the cost.

[DanGio]

Well, it appears that all these pages of opinions were pointless and any more will be too. The decision seems to have been made and that will be that.

I'm sorry that I dare to post counter arguments or my general impressions, but please convince me otherwise about those points if you believe I missed or overlooked something.

Why did I paid for the game you created just for yourself?
So many customers are against the proposed change, and you act like that. Hundreds arguments was posted, alternative ideas suggested. You want to do your thing - do your thing.

Come on, this is unfair. V took free time on his sunday to answer. His arguments are valid. Also don't forget that players who agree & players who don't care may not write it on the forums as much as the disagreeing players.

[Deadlock989]

So descriptions like "this joke nerf pitched at the lowest common denominator" (obviously showing your contempt) is just a message that this nerf is of no concern to you? Why post it at all then? Why push for "leave the base freeplay game alone, for people who weren't born yesterday.", if it doesn't concern you?

I don't need to explain what I think when I have people like you to explain what I think for me, clearly.

Please, tell me again what I really believe and feel, it literally never gets old.

[BlueTemplar]

Out of curiosity, is there currently a tutorial in game that covers oil refining?

Not really...
Otherwise, I already mentioned it, but I guess that a picture is better ?

[BlueTemplar]

* Achievements are inevitably disabled. This is true even if you use tiny QoL mods, let alone anything like this.

Only Steam Achievements :

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/MoreAchievements

[Bilka]

However this should not come at any cost. This change seems like it would greatly reduce the complexity of oil, especially for a megabase, as there is likely no need to ever use Advanced Oil Processing recipe or cracking.

You just create heavy oil and light oil out of thin air? Neat. You could argue that coal liquefaction is used instead, but what's the problem with that? It's more difficult than advanced oil processing, so it definitely doesn't reduce complexity. And it won't have the exact ratio of heavy and light oil that you need, so there's cracking again.

[slippycheeze]

However this should not come at any cost. This change seems like it would greatly reduce the complexity of oil, especially for a megabase, as there is likely no need to ever use Advanced Oil Processing recipe or cracking.

You just create heavy oil and light oil out of thin air? Neat. You could argue that coal liquefaction is used instead, but what's the problem with that? It's more difficult than advanced oil processing, so it definitely doesn't reduce complexity. And it won't have the exact ratio of heavy and light oil that you need, so there's cracking again.

Can we make it a rule that any complaint about how this changes the game needs to come with a gameplay example using one of the mods that implements the change today?

[BattleFluffy]

However this should not come at any cost. This change seems like it would greatly reduce the complexity of oil, especially for a megabase, as there is likely no need to ever use Advanced Oil Processing recipe or cracking.

You just create heavy oil and light oil out of thin air? Neat. You could argue that coal liquefaction is used instead, but what's the problem with that? It's more difficult than advanced oil processing, so it definitely doesn't reduce complexity. And it won't have the exact ratio of heavy and light oil that you need, so there's cracking again.

You're right, a few cracking plants along with a liquefaction refinery seems like the optimal way to get lubricant and/or solid fuel.
Standard Oil Processing seems like far and away the most efficient method of obtaining Petroleum.
What purpose will Advanced Oil Processing then have?

Advanced Oil Processing seems like it will become entirely redundant. My personal feeling is that Advanced Oil Processing should not be made redundant. Do you think it won't be? Where would you efficiently use it?

You just create heavy oil and light oil out of thin air? Neat

This is quite a sarcastic way of making your point. I'm just trying to discuss things.. :\ I know it's probably because of mega-stress though. I love you guys, and will support you whatever happens.