Friday Facts #305 - The Oil Changes

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-305

[TheBloke]

My idea is some system where a mod can say "I want to add this GUI, and I want it to be shown relative to the character GUI on the left side" and then any time the character GUI is shown it would also show the mod GUI.

There are some critical parts to this new system. It needs to:

Be easy to expand (either automatically works with all new base game GUIs or works with minimal effort).
Not break with simple refactoring.
Not cause other programmers trouble by existing.
Not prevent base game GUIs from working how they need to work.

So far none of it seems impossible. I don't know when I'll have it working, but I'm looking forward to what mods will do with it.

This will be fantastic, I'm so pleased to hear you're working on this RSeding. I've thought for a long time that this would be a wonderful way for mods to present information to the player.

My dream was that mods could actually attach panes to vanilla UIs - kind of like a 'hook position' implemented in vanilla UIs; a standard place that mod UIs were allowed to attach to, such that they appeared as extensions to that vanilla UI but in such a way that they were still clearly mod UIs rather than vanilla. What you describe here sounds like it could basically have the same effect, and I'm really excited.

Thanks again for all the work you're doing on making the game expandable and extendable.

[IronCartographer]

There's still some concern about people building straight lines across input/output (since the refinery will only take 1 input and 1 output) and then being confused by "Can't mix fluids." when switching the refining recipe, as that has been observed a few times (Edit to clarify: With the input side pre-changes i.e. oil becoming water was enough to cause confusion, even without both input and output at the same time. Then again, output may make the problem/solution more intuitive ).

However, at least by that point they'll have a working refinery and chemical science, so it won't be part of the "oil wall" all at once.

[studix2002]

The main issue I can see with the new changes to oil is, a new player (having seen the oil refinery) will run a straight pipe above and below the refinery if it only shows 1 input and 1 output. When they have unlocked advanced oil processing, they will try to change the recipe of the refinery...can you see where I am going with this?...it won't let them change the recipe and give them a "cant fix fluids" error...

[Raphaello]

Oil changes are much better now, you have again proved to be able to make good game design decisions
Looking forward to playing the game again with the changes.

[TheCornishman]

... (having seen the oil refinery) will run a straight pipe above and below the refinery

Yes, and the solution would be to have Basic Oil Refinery and Advanced Oil Refinery as distinct entities. If Basic were an ingredient of Advanced in the entity recipe, cf. the belt hierarchy, there would be the opportunity to recycle.

[Serenity]

This doesn't fundamentally change things compared to the original proposal. The changes make sense in the context (like using sulfur). But the issue remains that this is more about doctoring symptoms than treating the underlying issue.

With rocket fuel I always felt that the game could use more chemical industry chains. Nothing too crazy, but just one more chemical as an intermediate. Depending on how it's set up that could also provide an incentive to use fluid wagons more. Right now you barely need to use them for anything but crude and acid. Adding some more light oil isn't bad in the context of the game, but overall Factorio suffers a bit from having so few basic resources. Same with only having copper and iron on the metal side.
But I know that won't change at this stage

[MrFaul]

Hm I don't know about the flamethrower ammo, just using crude oil doesn't feel right.
Crude oil is very viscose and actually hard to ignite (don't get it burning so), it just doesn't fit as ammo.

I'd have it rather if you would need a recipe change to require:
1x crude oil barrel
2x petroleum barrels
for 3x barrels of flamethrower oil

The the added complexity of setting this up is IMO worth the benefit.
Also this way barrels have a actual use case where they are consumables and need some production.
They almost lost their merits with the fluid wagons.
As for turrets they should deal 120% dmg if you feed them with flamethrower oil.
Or rather flamethrower oil should be 100% and other fluids should deal less dmg.

[BinaryPulsar]

With rocket fuel I always felt that the game could use more chemical industry chains. Nothing too crazy, but just one more chemical as an intermediate. Depending on how it's set up that could also provide an incentive to use fluid wagons more. Right now you barely need to use them for anything but crude and acid. Adding some more light oil isn't bad in the context of the game, but overall Factorio suffers a bit from having so few basic resources. Same with only having copper and iron on the metal side.

Well, there's always Bobs and Angels if you want more intermediates...

[Serenity]

Well, there's always Bobs and Angels if you want more intermediates...

I guess I should have said that I don't want it that crazy. But that should have been obvious. Just one or two more chemical chains and maybe one more metal would be fine. And only for rocket/satellite items.

[rorybecker]

Which mod (if any) is that first screen shot from?

I've been looking for a mod which allows a degree of competitive play within teams, but cannot find one with per team science etc.

Any help with this would be much appreciated.

[Philip017]

i think this is a better decision about the oil changes than was previously, but there was a mod out for changing chemical science to use heavy instead of gas, an interesting idea for sure, perhaps you looked at it and decided to just go with the gas straight up and bump heavy a bit to fix our need for the heavy to make belts. more cracking for heavy shall now be in order. with 45 gas out of basic it is even less efficient now. good thing i only have to use it for a short period of time, but after that is wont have much use for me, cracking will win out.

still hoping that the basic change to only need crude in one input will be implemented, it will make switching to advanced easier when i have already plumbed water up, as it is now i can't connect the water pipe and set basic recipe with out complaints. so i have to remove it and then replace it.

light oil to make rocket fuel? well i guess it's a good thing i usually set my rocket fuel up near to my refineries anyway, but i did like being able to run my trains on rocket fuel before i even set up chemical science. it was nice while it lasted anyway. also it uses equivalent to 11 solid fuel now to make rocket fuel (10 solid and 10 light oil, where 10 light makes 1 solid) perhaps this is an oversight and you meant to do 9 solid and 10 light oil? to keep the balance...

i turn a great deal of my light into solid, i use it to power my boilers, smelters and trains/car (turned into rocket fuel usually) at least till i have nuke power or solar power, then i switch the smelters to electric and no more need for the boilers or steel smelters use of solid.

but on the plus side you put alot more thought into the FFF and i bet alot less people are going to be upset about the changes

[bobingabout]

now that you've explained it all, and made changes, it does make a lot more sense.


I'm still going to have to undo a few of these things in my mods though, like I said last week, I make use of light and heavy oil in many things, and just making them unavailable until after SP3 would break the flow of my mods.
But then mods are mods, not vanilla.

[BattleFluffy]

For the avoidance of doubt, please can you confirm what the exact inputs and outputs of the proposed new Basic Oil Processing recipe is?

Is it 100 crude in, 100 petroleum out?
Is it 100 crude in, 40 petroleum out?

[IronCartographer]

Hm I don't know about the flamethrower ammo, just using crude oil doesn't feel right.
Crude oil is very viscose and actually hard to ignite (don't get it burning so), it just doesn't fit as ammo.

I'd have it rather if you would need a recipe change to require:
1x crude oil barrel
2x petroleum barrels
for 3x barrels of flamethrower oil

The the added complexity of setting this up is IMO worth the benefit.
Also this way barrels have a actual use case where they are consumables and need some production.

This would be pretty neat, since (handheld) flamethrower fuel requires steel already.

It's still a bit awkward, but I like where you're going with it.

[funky.bibimbap]

I take the time to reply here because I totally support the changes to oil processing (and because, as we know, people who have something to complain about are more prone to reply, so let's counter-balance that). We've all been there, facing this wall, and even though it gets less intimidating with time, it remains a daunting task, because there are so many things to setup in order to have oil processing working correctly. Now it will be indeed smoother, and I thank you about it!

[coderpatsy]

For the avoidance of doubt, please can you confirm what the exact inputs and outputs of the proposed new Basic Oil Processing recipe is?

Is it 100 crude in, 100 petroleum out?
Is it 100 crude in, 40 petroleum out?

That's in the FFF- 100 crude in, 45 petro out:

[bobingabout]

For the avoidance of doubt, please can you confirm what the exact inputs and outputs of the proposed new Basic Oil Processing recipe is?

Is it 100 crude in, 100 petroleum out?
Is it 100 crude in, 40 petroleum out?

100 crude in 45 out, or at least that's what it says on the post.

then from the same 100 crude plus water in the advanced recipe, you get 25 heavy oil, 45 light oil and 55 PG.

Honestly, it looks like when you get advanced, it makes basic completely pointless.
I would suggest upping the number to about... 75ish, so that the amount of PG you get from basic is somewhere between what you get directly from Advanced, and what you'd get from advanced if you cracked everything down (I believe 25 heavy becomes 12.5 PG, and 45 light gives you 30, so full cracking gives you somewhere around 97.5PG)

Actually, that's my only suggested change for vanilla right now, buff the basic processing to give more PG.

[frostig]

Until 0.17 I always rushed Advanced because I couldnt use the other liquids than Petrloium and had to store them as Solid Fuel in chests because my energy consumption was never enough. Then in 0.17 the update that Blue Science needed Solid Fuel and Rocket Fuel was moved from behind Rocket Silo to its own was perfect in my opinion. I was able to spend all liquids for science and Rocket Fuel for energy. Barely any deadlocks happend anymore. The moment I needed Lubricant, Bots or just wanted to build big I needed Advanced and other tan stated in the FFF I dont think that was just a small upgrade.

So for now to get Blue Science I have to make Solid Fuel[edit: Sulfur] out of Petrolium (which is the thing that I always had not enough in 0.16 while the other liquids are unused) which means I have to build a big Simple Oil Factory from the beginning on? And other as in 0.17 I will be much more dependent on cole because no more Rocket Fuel (made of the non Petrolium liquids) or just dont do Military Science?

For me all this sounds like I have to rush Advanced again but at the same time have to set up a very big Simple Oil Factory to meet my demand. How I paint that out now it would really hurt the flow of the game. After all there will always be mods but thats my opinion.

[edit some more thoughts]: The main problem IMO is that newer player dont understand that you have all three outputs flowing so it does not come to a deadlock. When they come to Advaced they will face the same problems again that you try to fix with these changes. The cheapest way would ofc be to just allow the player to burn liquids but thats not even needed. As it is for now every product in Basic has its use you just have to show it to the players. Now I know that as a designer you rather want to show the player than give him a wall of text but you solution does not solves the problem at all. It makes the learning curve flat and just postpones the steep step making it barely easier.Yes, the player has experience now with other liquids than water but not with multiple outputs.

[NelsonSKA]

The first time that I arrived to the oil stage was very overwhelming for me. Even the second time.
I didn't get it and fail to understand why my refinery didn't work sometimes.
I felt that the difficult curve was very steep at that point.

I think that make the oil processing by steps is a good implementation for the new players.