Friday Facts #305 - The Oil Changes

[lacika2000]

Without wanting to escalate or derail the conversation, what was the devs’ reason to use more than BOP products based items in blue science?

In other words: to reduce new player “wall of complexity” issues at this stage of the game, would it be possible to limit blue science ingredients to items produced by BOP (whatever they might be after the devs decide)? This way blue science, which is mandatory for many late game research, would be less complex to obtain, and possibly give some short term rewards, like even AOP, if the devs chose so.

[V453000]

.....Aaaaaaaand then you seemingly abandon it:

I've been considering all of those options for more than a week now, it's not just abandoning one, it's evaluating them.

[Engimage]

The second thing that I have been considering recently would be to make BOP output heavy and gas only, no light. The point of “oil processing only feels like a complicated process if it has multiple outputs” is quite valid. This would allow to keep robots before chemical science. The argument of robots being a confusing trap that seems to be low tier, but requires many recipes can also be interpreted as a good thing, and a choice to discover.
The problem would be that heavy oil would need some use other than lubricant, as lubricant is entirely optional in this stage. Reverting the sulfur in science would help this for sure, but the point of “don’t make me produce SF out of anything else than light oil” has some value too, so I would keep sulfur in the chemical science pack.
Making sulfur from heavy oil instead of gas would work, and I can see it would make a lot more sense chemically, but heavy oil production would need a lot of number tweaks. Correct me if I’m wrong but petroleum gas would only go into plastic?
Maybe I could find a new place that would consume petroleum gas in addition to the existing recipe... Explosives? Batteries? Lubricant?
The science pack could easily be balanced in a way where the ratio of heavy:gas produced is the same as consumed when only making science. The rest of your consumption could either be smaller than a storage tank’s worth, or you would need additional storage until you could get AOP.

I’ll give it some more thought and try to implement the second option, and see where I get stuck or find issues.

Please please please go for it man.
Sulfur made from HO makes a lot of sense.

As I said above when you convert oils to solid products (sulfur and plastic) the output blocking issue is visualized as those get to belts compared to pipes which are very hard to diagnose.

Light oil makes much sense as a higher tier product opening up recipe for rocket fuel which should probably not even include solid fuel in the first place.

However while moving sulfur to HO there might be a need to introduce either anti-cracking or sulfur recipe from PG recipe with AOP.

Also producing PG and HO specifically already teaches player not to place refineries close to each other to avoid liquid mixing. Having only 2 liquids in this case, and only on a single side of the refinery helps a lot with learning this matter.

[Theikkru]

PG + Light means the only reason you need AOP is Lubricant - that's a really weak non-high-tech motivator.

Why not make rocket fuel require a bit of heavy oil instead of light then? If light is in basic people will already be making solid fuel out of it so you don't need the encouragement at rocket fuel anymore, but heavy oil would make rocket fuel dependent on AOP/Liquefaction.

The biggest downsides are "new player might have to rebuild" which I think is highly questionnable; a new player might only have a few refineries (very likely) so it is not much of a problem to adjust, or can just build a separate new setup elsewhere.

This isn't random chance though; players who spend more time on their basic processing are punished more, which is a completely unfair thing to do; players should be rewarded for careful planning, not punished for it.

[Reika]

The biggest downsides are "new player might have to rebuild" which I think is highly questionnable; a new player might only have a few refineries (very likely) so it is not much of a problem to adjust, or can just build a separate new setup elsewhere.

This isn't random chance though; players who spend more time on their basic processing are punished more, which is a completely unfair thing to do; players should be rewarded for careful planning, not punished for it.

This, plus the point raised yesterday that in the rest of the game, rebuilding is up to the player, done to optimize something. Not because their smelting/assembling/etc setup suddenly stopped being viable. Forced rebuild is going to be nothing but aggravating, especially when combined with the above.

[V453000]

I really want to and will give the PG+HO more thought, but I'm not very optimistic.

[Nefrums]

But that does not solve the issue of blocked output.

[Theikkru]

But that does not solve the issue of blocked output.

Which doesn't? Petroleum+Light and more solid fuel required for chem science does...

[IIIByoIII]

Hello devs.
I'm a bit concerned about the oil changes, I agree about the learning curve and understand your point behind this changes. I was having trouble setting my oil processing up right. But a i managed it and it was a great sense of accomplishment! So, with the new changes what you can't do anymore as a new player, is plan ahead. The major issue I see is you get two more fluids to handle after you though you managed to set up a decent oil processing plant. It will mess with your design in a big way. I personally hate to tear things up completely and redesign them in a working manner when a i get something wrong, I find it rather tedious than fun.
I'm far from being a talented player and don't really have a big oversight, but this change worries me. I've heard other's thoughts about this who are against it, and I pretty much agree with them.
Most of us don't have anything against balancing and some recipe changes, but Please ... be careful about this major change.

And how concerned I am about this !?
(Never posted anything before on the forums and never logged in, but now, I felt the urge to give my 2 cents)
Thank you for reading my thoughts on this, and keep up the good work, you're absolutely amazing at it!

[Zarniel]

Once again thanks to the dev to try to improve this great game. With all these discussions if you still think that these modifications will improve the curve of difficulty go for it and wait and see (for all of us)

But I do not intend to change my way of designing my base.
1: make a small temporary base for research that interests me
2: rusher train technology and make a lot of rail (and logic circuits)
3: put down my rail network and train stations
4: only now automate a large scale smelter and associated copper and iron mines
5: Automate the first two science pack and search for building bots as quickly as possible (even if I have to craft red cards by hand on a temporary refinery)

I just have to add a step with your changes: rush Aop and just goodbye bop once and for all

[zenos14]

It was based off last week’s changes but adding a heavy+light only recipe unlockable in logistic science. This process had petroleum gas as an input which would make sure the most basic one has to be done first, and this process was completely optional - the player could skip it and go to AOP directly. There was no cracking available before AOP. This would require keeping solid fuel in chemical science pack as a use for light oil.

Bit confused here, are you saying Petroleum=>Heavy+Light oil or Crude oil+Petroleum=>Heavy+Light oil?
I dislike the former but the latter's an interesting option I'd say, even if my gut reaction is "Why Petroleum make Heavy/Light?"

The second thing that I have been considering recently would be to make BOP output heavy and gas only, no light. The point of “oil processing only feels like a complicated process if it has multiple outputs” is quite valid. This would allow to keep robots before chemical science. The argument of robots being a confusing trap that seems to be low tier, but requires many recipes can also be interpreted as a good thing, and a choice to discover.
The problem would be that heavy oil would need some use other than lubricant, as lubricant is entirely optional in this stage. Reverting the sulfur in science would help this for sure, but the point of “don’t make me produce SF out of anything else than light oil” has some value too, so I would keep sulfur in the chemical science pack.

This option I like better than the above, keeps BOP as a multioutput process, doesn't push back robots, and does a somewhat better job at hinting to the player that space may need to be reserved, though you do have a point about them needing some other thing to use Heavy Oil for.

Making sulfur from heavy oil instead of gas would work, and I can see it would make a lot more sense chemically, but heavy oil production would need a lot of number tweaks. Correct me if I’m wrong but petroleum gas would only go into plastic?
Maybe I could find a new place that would consume petroleum gas in addition to the existing recipe... Explosives? Batteries? Lubricant?
The science pack could easily be balanced in a way where the ratio of heavy:gas produced is the same as consumed when only making science. The rest of your consumption could either be smaller than a storage tank’s worth, or you would need additional storage until you could get AOP.

I was about to suggest "Have Heavy oil make sulfur" as a sink, but that is a good point, this would leave petroleum as mostly used for plastic, and while it's a good sink, it's still limiting. On top of that, from what I know plastic and fuel seems to be the main usage for petroleum in the real word so I'm not sure if there's any good existing option that makes chemical sense for petroleum to become (at least not without stepping on Light oil's toes as the main fuel oil product), perhaps petroleum into explosives might work? If you go with Heavy into sulfur I mean, not sure what's the best option here to be honest

I really want to and will give the PG+HO more thought, but I'm not very optimistic.

Please do, I'd still prefer BOP to stay as is, but this seems like the best out of all of the options so far in my opinion

[Serenity]

This is a big deal, and the response I gave to why there are so many things in PG.

Correct me if I’m wrong but petroleum gas would only go into plastic? Maybe I could find a new place that would consume petroleum gas in addition to the existing recipe

I didn't fully consider that there needs to be a PG sink all the time. I was thinking more about the end game where you need lots of red circuits and low density structures, so you're always consuming plastic. But initially your need for red circuits is quite low. Especially if you don't produce modules. Which new people probably won't do much. Modules are a good sink for all kinds of stuff, but easily avoided.
So from that point of view keeping the sulfur recipe as it is is probably for the best. Consumables like flame throwers don't work (never mind the logic issue). You don't need much fuel/ammo there

EDIT:
For example it seems like one construction bot costs 60 gas. But that's entirely from the sulfur from the batteries. There would need to be an added cost of 3 plastic bars to make up for that

[V453000]

It was based off last week’s changes but adding a heavy+light only recipe unlockable in logistic science. This process had petroleum gas as an input which would make sure the most basic one has to be done first, and this process was completely optional - the player could skip it and go to AOP directly. There was no cracking available before AOP. This would require keeping solid fuel in chemical science pack as a use for light oil.

Bit confused here, are you saying Petroleum=>Heavy+Light oil or Crude oil+Petroleum=>Heavy+Light oil?
I dislike the former but the latter's an interesting option I'd say, even if my gut reaction is "Why Petroleum make Heavy/Light?"

It was the latter.

[Theikkru]

This would require keeping solid fuel in chemical science pack as a use for light oil.

Wait a minute; is solid fuel in the chemical science pack being viewed as a problem now? If so, why (assuming light oil is available)? I thought it made a lot of sense (per its original justification when introduced), and provides a natural mechanism by which early oil products can be balanced. My impression is that the only problem as currently implemented boils down to chem science not requiring enough of it to constitute a reliable sink. Is there some problem with simply increasing that requirement?

[pleegwat]

I feel maybe it would be better for the first time the player runs into a multi-output recipe to be on something which produces items rather than fluid, so the blockage is immediately visible on belts. I don't have any ideas for where to add it though.

[EstebanLB]

I just came here to fully support all this throughly calculated changes to Oil processing. Many hardcore and veteran players reject them becasue they have a very fixated mind while planning ahead, and almost always play the same. But not only they are a minority, this changes will be welcome to new and casual players

[V453000]

This would require keeping solid fuel in chemical science pack as a use for light oil.

Wait a minute; is solid fuel in the chemical science pack being viewed as a problem now? If so, why (assuming light oil is available)? I thought it made a lot of sense (per its original justification when introduced), and provides a natural mechanism by which early oil products can be balanced. My impression is that the only problem as currently implemented boils down to chem science not requiring enough of it to constitute a reliable sink. Is there some problem with simply increasing that requirement?

No, I just stated that as it was relevant, it's not viewed as a bad thing if it makes sense in its context.

[Theikkru]

No, I just stated that as it was relevant, it's not viewed as a bad thing if it makes sense in its context.

Ah, OK, please don't take any of this as me jumping down your throat, I'm just trying to make sure that I'm not missing any of your reasoning.

[T-A-R]

Maybe a bit of a provocative question:
...
Or put in another way - why are you certain that adding solid fuel to the chemical science pack was the wrong approach?

The solid fuel was not a mistake, but sulfur fits the new paradigm of direct-to-gas better by not forcing use of the inefficient gas->solid recipe prior to other oil fractions becoming available.

It also crafts much faster and requires less gas than solid fuel.

Finally, it will inspire the distribution of solid sulfur to more places than before, with creative benefits. Solid fuel already had a role in extensive fuel distribution systems, along with being an ingredient in rocket fuel.

yes but sulfur is part of this 305 change. I don't see the benefit/joy of distributing sulfur In the original 305 approach. there is way more player flexibility in the solid fuel approach.

I'm glad to see that the blue wall and oils balance are more starting to pointed out as two different factors of the problem. Until you reach infinitech, your factory will always lock on something. whether that is petrol or metallic.

I might have missed a point but it feels much more obvious, to continue building on the solid fuel change, to give player more incentive to use solid fuel (like make t1 assembler a slow hybrid, while keeping labs electric). I like it how part of the challenge is dealing with waste, store it, burn it, there is (enough?) value in that fuel pile later on.
Yes, boilers run fine on fresh resource, but rather be used to clear your waste.

Not having to worry about incoming fuel to power your base at this stage is also a valuable thing (that should be more of a nice cookie, since lack of fuel is almost never a problem).

At least speaking for myself, the strong emotions are not ment to be hateful, they rather are a show of that we can be honest to each each other, speak from our hearts. That we trust each other to do so.

I think it also deserves credit nuancing who you are trying to improve for, and getting them (back) onboard, rather then getting the scope enlarged for a large 1.0 flock of sheep.

I wish to thank you for taking your time to have this conversation with us. I respect you for your honesty with us. I can see there is love in your intentions.

Giving this change of discussing these things here so deeply with us is pure dedication from WUBE itself. That fact can not be given anything else but big respect V.

[mcdjfp]

I am going to have to pull out of this discussion (I might still respond if quoted but other than that I am done). The way this change was presented, "We have decided to make a major change, and release it Monday," created a panic, and many bad feelings. I am also not convinced basic oil processing is even the issue (see the end of the post beginning with the quote).

But before I do I first want to apologize if I offended anyone.
I also wish to explain why I feel so strongly the way I do.

In high school, I and everyone else in an honors math class ended up losing a half credit's worth of elective time. To explain:
The school used a trimester system (3 x 5 = 15) to gain an extra credit each year as opposed to (2 x 7 = 14). The honors version of this particular math course ran the entire year (3 trimesters) because it also was supposed to cover one of the 2 half credit math courses from the next year. These were the smart math students, almost a quarter of these students (based on test scores following an opportunity to take the ACT/SAT during jr. high) could have potentially skipped high school and gone straight on to college if they had had the motivation.

That isn't what happened. In the end the honors course (the "smart" students) ended up taking the entire year to cover the same material that the standard version (taught by a different instructor) of the course covered in the 2 trimesters it was supposed to take.

The problem was this. In the preceding course the teacher was new and as a result (the specific cause doesn't matter) we were left a small hole in what we were supposed to learn. The instructor of the honors course was a firm believer in working it out for yourself. The teachers favorite phase was "Now I C" (Now I See), to describe the moment someone finally figures something out. Due to this, this teacher would not stop and take the time to plug the knowledge gap that we had. Instead, the teacher plowed on as the initial small lack of knowledge kept on ballooning as each successive concept tried to build upon a foundation that wasn't there. In the end, the teacher finally broke down and tried to fix the problem, but it was far to late, and by the time the repairs were done, the third trimester (which was supposed to cover a new topic) was already used up. (Meaning we still had to take it next year in place of one of the electives we should have had.)

This is why I absolutely despise delaying any part of teaching process. This could have been fixed early (and was by the teacher of the standard version of the course), but was left to cause an even bigger problem when it was finally dealt with. In my mind, putting a lesson off is simply not an acceptable option.

In addition, as far as I am concerned, an attempt must be made to actually teach the lesson. The teacher plowed on expecting the solution to finally hit us. Some of us got it, but other people (for any number of reasons) went the wrong direction, and as a result learned more and more material wrong based on a false or incomplete understanding. I feel that there is no way to make a game with anything but the most basic mechanics that can teach itself. There will be a group that goes the wrong direction. Games which attempt to do away with instructions and tutorials, they are the ones that are failing their players.

Thankfully, Factorio does have a nice tutorial system built in, in just needs the rest of the lessons added.

Finally, as each day goes by, I become more and more convinced that you are trying to solve a problem which does not exist. Or at least you are solving an imagined problem while ignoring what is really going on.

Please read this post by Antaios again. I tried to say this in words, but the pictures do a far better job.

The each science pack is a challenge. Each one grows in scale and complexity from the last. In addition what is going on around the player is also getting more complex. Biters are becoming more of a threat finally, outposts need building (and with the removal of the starting oil deposit a couple of versions back, a requirement). Oil is just a small part of what is going on. It is new, and does bring with it the first required example of multiple outputs in the game, so people complain about it. If oil wasn't there the complaints would be about something else. If I were to guess it would either be, "The biters are too hard/grow too fast." or "The starting deposits are too small to establish enough of a starting base."

Basic Oil Processing is not the issue here. It is a symptom. Ignore it for the moment. As the developers you need to determine whether or not Factorio is too hard. And if you feel it is, realize that all of the later game science packs will have to be adjusted, not just basic oil processing. Go back to those pictures in Antaios's post. Imagine the progression jump if blue (chemical science) is made easier, the build smaller. Perhaps even doable before the biters are as much of a threat, and before iron (typically) needs an outpost too. I wonder how many complaints will come in about some component of purple science if it is not made easier as well.

Excluding the current oil crisis, I agree with 90% or more of what you have done. I am really impressed with the optimizations that allow for so much to be going on at once. There is of course a 5% or so I didn't like, but I could understand the why. I do not wish to insult you at all. You, the developers, have really done a great job so far.