Version 0.17.60

[Mike5000]

0.17 has been downgrades all the way. Just don't break my 0.16.

[Aflixion]

This is the first time that my faith in Wube as developers has been shaken. In the past, you presented ideas that you weren't sure about in the FFF and took feedback into account to determine whether the ideas were good or bad. Every single time in the past, the good ideas got through while the bad ideas were filtered out. The science changes for 0.17 were a good idea and the proposed bot changes in Jan/Feb 2018 were a bad idea. This time, however, it seems like you wanted to make a change for the sake of making a change and not to solve any particular issue. The community called you out on it, pointed out your faulty logic, and you ignored us. I don't feel like I can praise you as highly as I have before if this is the direction you're going to take development.

[Nova]

At least it makes my megabase builds easier since Advanced Processing is nearly useless now so I just need a tiny build for it and then can spam production of Basic Processing for all my petro needs and less fluid boxes. Having the basic tech be superior to higher tech for late game big bases names little to since, but I guess it's what you guys wanted.

Um, advanced oil processing is strictly superiour to basic oil processing. Even if you just compare the petroleum gas, it is better, even more after cracking the heavy and light oil.

This "fluids for dummies" mechanic should be confined to the NPE campaign only, where all the rest of the baby toys are.

This is one example of why the devs ignore some critique about the change. The oil system was not dumbed down, it just has a more smooth difficulty curve now.

[Aflixion]

At least it makes my megabase builds easier since Advanced Processing is nearly useless now so I just need a tiny build for it and then can spam production of Basic Processing for all my petro needs and less fluid boxes. Having the basic tech be superior to higher tech for late game big bases names little to since, but I guess it's what you guys wanted.

Um, advanced oil processing is strictly superiour to basic oil processing. Even if you just compare the petroleum gas, it is better, even more after cracking the heavy and light oil.

Advanced oil processing may produce more petroleum gas, but it costs more UPS to do so due to all the added fluids and fluid boxes. At megabase scale, it will be more UPS-efficient to have a massive basic oil processing setup which only uses crude oil and petroleum gas than to have an advanced oil setup with cracking that has to deal with piping for crude, water, heavy, light, and petroleum gas.

[RocketManChronicles]

At least it makes my megabase builds easier since Advanced Processing is nearly useless now so I just need a tiny build for it and then can spam production of Basic Processing for all my petro needs and less fluid boxes. Having the basic tech be superior to higher tech for late game big bases names little to since, but I guess it's what you guys wanted.

Um, advanced oil processing is strictly superiour to basic oil processing. Even if you just compare the petroleum gas, it is better, even more after cracking the heavy and light oil.

Advanced oil processing may produce more petroleum gas, but it costs more UPS to do so due to all the added fluids and fluid boxes. At megabase scale, it will be more UPS-efficient to have a massive basic oil processing setup which only uses crude oil and petroleum gas than to have an advanced oil setup with cracking that has to deal with piping for crude, water, heavy, light, and petroleum gas.

And to think, we are this close to eliminating Light Oil and Heavy Oil entirely. Light Oil is only used in Rocket Fuel, change that back and [boom!], Light Oil gone. Heavy Oil is only used in Lubricant, get rid of Lubricant, make Express Belts and Bots not require it, [boom!] no more Heavy Oil.

[jodokus31]

At least it makes my megabase builds easier since Advanced Processing is nearly useless now so I just need a tiny build for it and then can spam production of Basic Processing for all my petro needs and less fluid boxes. Having the basic tech be superior to higher tech for late game big bases names little to since, but I guess it's what you guys wanted.

Um, advanced oil processing is strictly superiour to basic oil processing. Even if you just compare the petroleum gas, it is better, even more after cracking the heavy and light oil.

The last factor is always UPS in case of megabases and mining productivity big enough. I would guess, even a flare stack or void pipe for the other oils is worse.

[Nosferatu]

I know UPS efficiency is important on a megabase scale.
But you can't make all game design choices based on "will that scale till megabase"...

If seen players struggling to get past oil. I read to many posts about this too.
This needed to be dealt with and for most of as it didn't dumb down or simplify the game.

[Xterminator]

At least it makes my megabase builds easier since Advanced Processing is nearly useless now so I just need a tiny build for it and then can spam production of Basic Processing for all my petro needs and less fluid boxes. Having the basic tech be superior to higher tech for late game big bases names little to since, but I guess it's what you guys wanted.

Um, advanced oil processing is strictly superiour to basic oil processing. Even if you just compare the petroleum gas, it is better, even more after cracking the heavy and light oil.

Advanced oil processing may produce more petroleum gas, but it costs more UPS to do so due to all the added fluids and fluid boxes. At megabase scale, it will be more UPS-efficient to have a massive basic oil processing setup which only uses crude oil and petroleum gas than to have an advanced oil setup with cracking that has to deal with piping for crude, water, heavy, light, and petroleum gas.

This. Due to the UPS drain of fluid boxes (even after the optimizations of them), not having to deal with piping 3 additional liquids on a massive scale outweighs the benefit of some extra petroleum from cracking or Advanced Processing itself.

At least it makes my megabase builds easier since Advanced Processing is nearly useless now so I just need a tiny build for it and then can spam production of Basic Processing for all my petro needs and less fluid boxes. Having the basic tech be superior to higher tech for late game big bases names little to since, but I guess it's what you guys wanted.

Um, advanced oil processing is strictly superiour to basic oil processing. Even if you just compare the petroleum gas, it is better, even more after cracking the heavy and light oil.

Advanced oil processing may produce more petroleum gas, but it costs more UPS to do so due to all the added fluids and fluid boxes. At megabase scale, it will be more UPS-efficient to have a massive basic oil processing setup which only uses crude oil and petroleum gas than to have an advanced oil setup with cracking that has to deal with piping for crude, water, heavy, light, and petroleum gas.

And to think, we are this close to eliminating Light Oil and Heavy Oil entirely. Light Oil is only used in Rocket Fuel, change that back and [boom!], Light Oil gone. Heavy Oil is only used in Lubricant, get rid of Lubricant, make Express Belts and Bots not require it, [boom!] no more Heavy Oil.

Also this. Heavy and Light are used so minimally aside from cracking (which now seems even less beneficial) that they just seem like random products that are there for the reason of having 2 extra things in the game.

[DanGio]

OK, I know nothing about developpement - I play, write & teach music - but I know for sure when I'm facing someone passionate about his work, and what I read here makes me a little bit mad. Everyone complaining about being ignored should read those 4 posts :

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445621#p445621
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445733#p445733
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445794#p445794
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445843#p445843

and look at the date : 3 of them were written on a sunday. Did you read them ? Did you test the Oil changes mod V453000 made to allow us to test these changes ? From what I know, the oil changes were delayed to allow the team to look further on this, but it wasn't a guarantee that your solution got picked.

Requiring more consideration from Factorio devs is basically asking for a personal Factorio 24/24 hotline.

[Xterminator]

I know UPS efficiency is important on a megabase scale.
But you can't make all game design choices based on "will that scale till megabase"...

If seen players struggling to get past oil. I read to many posts about this too.
This needed to be dealt with and for most of as it didn't dumb down or simplify the game.

I agree, game decisions shouldn't be made for megabase players. I was just pointing that out as one of the many flaw with this change (in my opinion).

[Aflixion]

OK, I know nothing about developpement - I play, write & teach music - but I know for sure when I'm facing someone passionate about his work, and what I read here makes me a little bit mad. Everyone complaining about being ignored should read those 4 posts :

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445621#p445621
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445733#p445733
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445794#p445794
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445843#p445843

and look at the date : 3 of them were written on a sunday. Did you read them ? Did you test the Oil changes mod V453000 made to allow us to test these changes ? From what I know, the oil changes were delayed to allow the team to look further on this, but it wasn't a guarantee that your solution got picked.

Requiring more consideration from Factorio devs is basically asking for a personal Factorio 24/24 hotline.

I did read those posts. None of them considered abandoning the changes entirely as a valid option.

[V453000]

I'll just mention that the only real use for light oil was making efficient solid fuel previously. How much of it did you really spend for flamethrower?

[V453000]

OK, I know nothing about developpement - I play, write & teach music - but I know for sure when I'm facing someone passionate about his work, and what I read here makes me a little bit mad. Everyone complaining about being ignored should read those 4 posts :

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445621#p445621
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445733#p445733
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445794#p445794
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445843#p445843

and look at the date : 3 of them were written on a sunday. Did you read them ? Did you test the Oil changes mod V453000 made to allow us to test these changes ? From what I know, the oil changes were delayed to allow the team to look further on this, but it wasn't a guarantee that your solution got picked.

Requiring more consideration from Factorio devs is basically asking for a personal Factorio 24/24 hotline.

I did read those posts. None of them considered abandoning the changes entirely as a valid option.

That was an everpresent option A all the way until today's final discussions. Not better at all. I'd say almost all of the other suggestions were more or less superior to that.

[FuryoftheStars]

If seen players struggling to get past oil. I read to many posts about this too.
This needed to be dealt with and for most of as it didn't dumb down or simplify the game.

A good post about why this change wasn't actually fixing the problem: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445760#p445760

[RocketManChronicles]

I'll just mention that the only real use for light oil was making efficient solid fuel previously. How much of it did you really spend for flamethrower?

Actually, because I play with AAI mods, the Flametanks use this ammunition, so I make TONS of it. *Another reason to stick with modded games and away from Vani-- ahem, Bland now.

[FuryoftheStars]

I'll just mention that the only real use for light oil was making efficient solid fuel previously. How much of it did you really spend for flamethrower?

So instead of adding ways to use everything better you remove?

[Aflixion]

OK, I know nothing about developpement - I play, write & teach music - but I know for sure when I'm facing someone passionate about his work, and what I read here makes me a little bit mad. Everyone complaining about being ignored should read those 4 posts :

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445621#p445621
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445733#p445733
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445794#p445794
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=73684&p=445843#p445843

and look at the date : 3 of them were written on a sunday. Did you read them ? Did you test the Oil changes mod V453000 made to allow us to test these changes ? From what I know, the oil changes were delayed to allow the team to look further on this, but it wasn't a guarantee that your solution got picked.

Requiring more consideration from Factorio devs is basically asking for a personal Factorio 24/24 hotline.

I did read those posts. None of them considered abandoning the changes entirely as a valid option.

That was an everpresent option A all the way until today's final discussions. Not better at all. I'd say almost all of the other suggestions were more or less superior to that.

And that's why I said before that it seems like you're making these changes to make a change. These changes didn't address the root cause of the issue with blue science, as has been pointed out to you several times in both of the other threads, and by making these changes you've done something you promised never to do before: removing the puzzle from the game.

[jodokus31]

And to think, we are this close to eliminating Light Oil and Heavy Oil entirely. Light Oil is only used in Rocket Fuel, change that back and [boom!], Light Oil gone. Heavy Oil is only used in Lubricant, get rid of Lubricant, make Express Belts and Bots not require it, [boom!] no more Heavy Oil.

Also this. Heavy and Light are used so minimally aside from cracking (which now seems even less beneficial) that they just seem like random products that are there for the reason of having 2 extra things in the game.

I'm pretty confident, that the devs will keep the multiple fluid output puzzle.

[Xterminator]

I'll just mention that the only real use for light oil was making efficient solid fuel previously. How much of it did you really spend for flamethrower?

That is indeed true, but now that solid fuel isn't even used in Chemical Science, it makes both light oil and solid fuel near useless until you build a rocket (which a lot of new players don't even do for many playthroughs), or if you really want to use it to run your steam power.

One of my favorite changes with 0.17 was that a science actually took solid fuel which made it feel useful, and now that change has been completely undone.

[V453000]

I'll just mention that the only real use for light oil was making efficient solid fuel previously. How much of it did you really spend for flamethrower?

That is indeed true, but now that solid fuel isn't even used in Chemical Science, it makes both light oil and solid fuel near useless until you build a rocket (which a lot of new players don't even do for many playthroughs), or if you really want to use it to run your steam power.

One of my favorite changes with 0.17 was that a science actually took solid fuel which made it feel useful, and now that change has been completely undone.

That's completely fine, if you are desperate for more things to burn you can always use that if you want to, it's ok to have optional items in the game, and the fact that you still need to use the solid fuel in rocket fuel later makes it that much more ok.