Friday Facts #305 - The Oil Changes

[BlueTemplar]

No kidding. Hence my feeling hurt having given money thinking it was going one way but oops, maybe not.

Never ever give a developer money because you think the thing you're buying will some day be worth it. Give them money because the thing you're buying is currently worth it.

I paid good money for Space Base DF9 and will never buy a game I consider not worth the money again. Factorio was and still is well worth what they're charging, and if for some reason they make a change that I think makes the game so bad that it becomes not worth that money (hint: this ain't it), I can both rest easy that I already got far more enjoyment out of my money than for most other things, and also that I can always just not use that version because they give me all the options of past versions I could ever want.

Or you could give money because after what they've made in the past, it seems to be worth it to support them in the future ?
(Now, this applies to indie devs more than to today's Wube, but still...)

[DanGio]

It seems to me there's some confusion here when speaking of what's tedious.

What in setting up refineries is repetitive, unexciting, mind-numbing ? Placing pipes. And mainly, underground pipes. Because they need individual and precise mouse clicks rather than drags. Considering that, adding early cracking wasn't a good solution because it required a considerable amount of UG pipe placement.

So hey, we're in 17.60 now, so here's how 17.60 can save you some tedium. First, build Basic Oil Processing. This should take less than 1 minute :

Basic Oil Processsing.jpg (196.83 KiB) Viewed 5145 times

When Construction Robotics is researched, convert 1 refinery to Advanced Oil Processing. This 1 refinery will provide enough HO to build 20 bots/minute :

Advanced Oil Processing 1.jpg (134.97 KiB) Viewed 5145 times

Then, simply copy paste the original AOP refinery over the old BOP ones, and let the bots handle it :

Advanced Oil Processing 2.jpg (202.76 KiB) Viewed 5145 times

This couldn't be done before because BOP required manual underground pipe placement.

[AlastarFrost]

You know what is coming, so you space things out the right way.
A new player seeing this for the first time (and those are the only people who would potentially struggle here), would just run two pipes directly attached to the refineries. He would also put the consumers much too close to the first refineries.

This means, as soon as he sees the new recipe he has to redo the whole arrangement. You need at least one space between the inputs and the refinery and the outputs and the refinery to connect the underground pipes. You need at least 6 spaces above the refinery to run all the pipes with connections in between them. No one would think about that when he progresses through the game for the first time.

After you realized that, oil is not complicated anymore. So where is the point?

I'd rather set up the refineries with the right spacing from the start (which I have to do now because it starts out with 3 outputs) than redoing it a little bit later from scratch. Not to mention that I would have to move all the consumers to make room for the new piping.

The argument of using bots for the setup may be valid, but if you set up a few refineries at the start, adding underground pipes is not a big issue. Later you can just replicate the whole setup when you need the capacity. You hardly need more than 3 refineries early game, you simply don't have enough oil to run them and not enough consumers to consume all the resources. And if you do massive arrays from the start, getting to the science for bots will not be that far off.

That's at least my opinion.

[jodokus31]

It seems to me there's some confusion here when speaking of what's tedious.

What in setting up refineries is repetitive, unexciting, mind-numbing ? Placing pipes. And mainly, underground pipes. Because they need individual and precise mouse clicks rather than drags. Considering that, adding early cracking wasn't a good solution because it required a considerable amount of UG pipe placement.

That depends. If you go very often through early game, I agree.
If you are designing larger stuff later, the recipe itself is a bit tedious/boring, because of its simplicity.

[BlueTemplar]

I doubt that most first time players will even have multiple refineries (per oil patch) before hitting AOP...

[DanGio]

It seems to me there's some confusion here when speaking of what's tedious.

What in setting up refineries is repetitive, unexciting, mind-numbing ? Placing pipes. And mainly, underground pipes. Because they need individual and precise mouse clicks rather than drags. Considering that, adding early cracking wasn't a good solution because it required a considerable amount of UG pipe placement.

That depends. If you go very often through early game, I agree.
If you are designing larger stuff later, the recipe itself is a bit tedious/boring, because of its simplicity.

I disagree. IMO, tedium is a real, existing, mesurable, thing. If you're doing 500 times the same task, it's more tedious than if you do it 200 times.

That have nothing to do with a mild feeling that ssomething is too simple or easy.

[jodokus31]

It seems to me there's some confusion here when speaking of what's tedious.

What in setting up refineries is repetitive, unexciting, mind-numbing ? Placing pipes. And mainly, underground pipes. Because they need individual and precise mouse clicks rather than drags. Considering that, adding early cracking wasn't a good solution because it required a considerable amount of UG pipe placement.

That depends. If you go very often through early game, I agree.
If you are designing larger stuff later, the recipe itself is a bit tedious/boring, because of its simplicity.

I disagree. IMO, tedium is a real, existing, mesurable, thing. If you're doing 500 times the same task, it's more tedious than if you do it 200 times.

That have nothing to do with a mild feeling that ssomething is too simple or easy.

English is not my native language. My translation to tedious contains the meaning, that something feels boring.
https://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/tedious

[DanGio]

The oil design post wasn't at all a prediction attempt about how new players will play... sorry if that sounded like that.

I just wanted to show to existing players that 17.60 could reduce tedium in their future playthrough.

[DanGio]

English is not my native language. My translation to tedious contains the meaning, that something feels boring.
https://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/tedious

I can't pretend to know it better than you, being french. But I always understood tedious in this way : https://www.dictionary.com/browse/tedious

[mmmPI]

It seems to me there's some confusion here when speaking of what's tedious.

What in setting up refineries is repetitive, unexciting, mind-numbing ? Placing pipes. And mainly, underground pipes. Because they need individual and precise mouse clicks rather than drags. Considering that, adding early cracking wasn't a good solution because it required a considerable amount of UG pipe placement.

That depends. If you go very often through early game, I agree.
If you are designing larger stuff later, the recipe itself is a bit tedious/boring, because of its simplicity.

I disagree. IMO, tedium is a real, existing, mesurable, thing. If you're doing 500 times the same task, it's more tedious than if you do it 200 times.

That have nothing to do with a mild feeling that ssomething is too simple or easy.

English is not my native language. My translation to tedious contains the meaning, that something feels boring.
https://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/tedious

I think the 2 differents points are making sense to me. You can find repetition of 500 times placing the same pipes "tedious". You can find always using the same receipe the same way "tedious". There would be the "repetitive" version, or the "when it starts annoying me", one being more objective than the other as you can measure it, the other is more what you feel after doing the thing. Like killing XXXX players in a shooting game doesn't feel "tedious", even if repetitive.

[FuryoftheStars]

Well, money aside, I kind of feel like all these posts saying “it’s EA, it should be expected” are being said as if we don’t have a right to be upset or hurt over the changes.

I just feel like it’s like saying if someone was to go on a date with another person, but before that first date they were warned that things may not go as they expect/may not end well. Fast forward a year, year and half, more for some. Something happens in the relationship and the first person is hurt by it and then someone comes out and says “what’s the problem? You were warned.”


?????

In the reality and in a normal relationship both persons are hurt AND share part of the blame when it breaks up. It almost never is the "fault" of only one party. Your and Wube's image of what the game should be was never absolutely identical and you think only Wube is to blame for not having the same image. You feel betrayed because you expected something you were never promised.

For me it seems unreasonable to expect a game in alpha to only make changes I like. There are just too many.

If you want a stone golem, don't buy a mud golem

Ok, it hurts both sides, but that still doesn’t diminish the point I’m trying to make. I’m only discussing it from the first person’s side. They’re still hurt, regardless of the warning given before, and it’s stupid and wrong to say they don’t have a right to feel hurt because they were warned before.

[jodokus31]

It seems to me there's some confusion here when speaking of what's tedious.

What in setting up refineries is repetitive, unexciting, mind-numbing ? Placing pipes. And mainly, underground pipes. Because they need individual and precise mouse clicks rather than drags. Considering that, adding early cracking wasn't a good solution because it required a considerable amount of UG pipe placement.

That depends. If you go very often through early game, I agree.
If you are designing larger stuff later, the recipe itself is a bit tedious/boring, because of its simplicity.

I disagree. IMO, tedium is a real, existing, mesurable, thing. If you're doing 500 times the same task, it's more tedious than if you do it 200 times.

That have nothing to do with a mild feeling that ssomething is too simple or easy.

English is not my native language. My translation to tedious contains the meaning, that something feels boring.
https://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/tedious

I think the 2 differents points are making sense to me. You can find repetition of 500 times placing the same pipes "tedious". You can find always using the same receipe the same way "tedious". There would be the "repetitive" version, or the "when it starts annoying me", one being more objective than the other as you can measure it, the other is more what you feel after doing the thing. Like killing XXXX players in a shooting game doesn't feel "tedious", even if repetitive.

Yes, I cannot word it better.

[mcdjfp]

The pipe puzzle was different than the belt puzzle. Now until later in the game the pipe puzzle has been simplified. I still have to try it but I am afraid that without the puzzle, only the work of running pipes will remain. Then again, until I have bots I rarely overbuild. I leave space for the additional structures (like refineries) but I don't place them, or their extra pipes, until they are needed (yes I do lose a bit of raw material when moving the pipes, but I don't care as resources are effectively infinite). I like the puzzle of the build. Anyways, the real source of tedium for me is getting all of the inserters pointed in the right direction before bots.

Now that is a debugging chore. Tracking down the 1 inserter turned the wrong way in a production area. Even realizing it is the source of the slowdown isn't always obvious. In my pre 17.60 game I just found a reversed inserter in one of my module builds, that I had copied several times. (Cut production by a third)

But that is also where I find the fun.

[crambaza]

The oil design post wasn't at all a prediction attempt about how new players will play... sorry if that sounded like that.

I just wanted to show to existing players that 17.60 could reduce tedium in their future playthrough.

When I am starting over, my build order at this point of the game is 4 refineries, getting enough materials for construction bots, then replicating my refinery through bots. Then build Blue Science using my construction bots.

NOW, I have to build a refinery, still by hand, then all Blue Science, still by hand (which usually includes more smelting because of the copper and iron/steel needs, which I have to build by hand), then upgrade my refinery, still by hand, then I get bots.

The old was is less tedious and more fun.

[Koub]

9) 0.17.60 is out. The part of the community that was the more hostile to the change is still hostile and voices it continuously, but during the last period, there were more people saying they either approved the changes (totally or partially) or didn't care much.

I'd like to point out here that this is more of an indirect consequence of the fact that the oil changes discussions have been taking a whopping 2.5 weeks long and the matter is very very sophisticated. On the one hand, most people disagreeing these (either being for the changes partially or for keeping the matter in its pre-17.60 state) have just got tired in the way (that's also why some people get carried off emotionally). On the other hand, some of community's suggestions have actually made it to the end. So that's why at this point you might detect a significant bias shift towards changes' approval while the real shift may be not that major.
Should the discussion timespan be shorter we'd most probably see a harsher community response by that point. Should the devs approach be more community-centric (I mean, suggestions being collected into polls, 'you help decide' etc) — well, it depends. Although this takes up even more amount of effort from both the devs and the players, in general the changes probably would go smoother despite the bad initial reception because this helps route the community effort more within the community and less against the devs and their proposals. No need to firewall most of the 'shit in the face', bad proposals are drowned by the poll, more options to communicate the final decision as 'weighted', everybody wins (well... except the guys with really unfit proposals which didn't make it to the polls ). The result should feel quite close to the flow of FFF304 and FFF305 thread sections where V did not participate.

Yeah maybe could I have worded things differently. What I was trying to express is that during the 2.5-ish weeks of heated debate, the initial reaction was overwhelmingly against the changes. And after the second proposition, and the implementation of 0.17.60, I have started to see significantly more "I don't care", "I'm fine with it" or "I'm happy this was done". At least it's my perception of it (I didn't take the time to re-read a second time the 80+ pages of debate to count points ).

[meganothing]

Ok, it hurts both sides, but that still doesn’t diminish the point I’m trying to make. I’m only discussing it from the first person’s side. They’re still hurt, regardless of the warning given before, and it’s stupid and wrong to say they don’t have a right to feel hurt because they were warned before.

Well, the allegory breaks somewhat here. Except if you want to convert it into a mormon marriage, with one man and 2 million wifes.

Is it reasonable to expect to be the only wife the man listens to after someone told you there would be 2 million wifes?

[DanGio]

The oil design post wasn't at all a prediction attempt about how new players will play... sorry if that sounded like that.

I just wanted to show to existing players that 17.60 could reduce tedium in their future playthrough.

When I am starting over, my build order at this point of the game is 4 refineries, getting enough materials for construction bots, then replicating my refinery through bots. Then build Blue Science using my construction bots.

NOW, I have to build a refinery, still by hand, then all Blue Science, still by hand (which usually includes more smelting because of the copper and iron/steel needs, which I have to build by hand), then upgrade my refinery, still by hand, then I get bots.

The old was is less tedious and more fun.

Then I can only recommend that you apply your good strategy to blue science as well. When building blue science, build only 4 machines. These 4 will get your 350 Chemical packs - for bots - in less than 25 minutes. During this time, build robot ingredients as they unlock. Batteries 1st as they're already unlocked, then electric engines & finally robot frames. When robots are here, duplicate your initial blue science setup.

I'm not saying we can play the exact same way than before and all will be the same. But I think that it's now possible to get bots with less single placements of entities [not including "drag" for belts & pipes], so, in my view, less tedium.

[crambaza]

The oil design post wasn't at all a prediction attempt about how new players will play... sorry if that sounded like that.

I just wanted to show to existing players that 17.60 could reduce tedium in their future playthrough.

When I am starting over, my build order at this point of the game is 4 refineries, getting enough materials for construction bots, then replicating my refinery through bots. Then build Blue Science using my construction bots.

NOW, I have to build a refinery, still by hand, then all Blue Science, still by hand (which usually includes more smelting because of the copper and iron/steel needs, which I have to build by hand), then upgrade my refinery, still by hand, then I get bots.

The old was is less tedious and more fun.

Then I can only recommend that you apply your good strategy to blue science as well. When building blue science, build only 4 machines. These 4 will get your 350 Chemical packs - for bots - in less than 25 minutes. During this time, build robot ingredients as they unlock. Batteries 1st as they're already unlocked, then electric engines & finally robot frames. When robots are here, duplicate your initial blue science setup.

I'm not saying we can play the exact same way than before and all will be the same. But I think that it's now possible to get bots with less single placements of entities [not including "drag" for belts & pipes], so, in my view, less tedium.

Thank you?

I can assure you, I understand what I need to do now, and how much it delays me. Like you, I have played Factorio before.

I'm also not sure I follow your logic about less placements.
BEFORE, I could do bots, then Blue Science.
AFTER, I can only do bots after Blue Science.

So I still need the same of everything to build bots, BUT now I have to also do some Blue Science too. Doesn't that automatically mean I have to, by definition, build more by hand now? I can't wrap my head around "Now that you have to build more before you get bots, that means you actually build less before you get bots now.

Does not compute! Does not compute!

[DanGio]

I certainly wasn't trying to show that I was a better player than you or anything else like that. Sorry if it sounded like it.

[crambaza]

I have devised a new Oil method that is better than all the rest, except for the ones it's not better than.

Change the Refinery to only 1 output, get rid of all the multiple output stuff.

Change the name of "Basic Oil Processing" to "Initial Oil Processing".

Change the recipe to:
IN: Crude AND Steel Barrel
OUT: Pet Gas AND Steel Barrel filled with "Sludge" or call it some other product. (Has to be in a barrel, because it's thick and gross)

THEN, Move the Recipe for "Advanced Oil Processing" to the Chem Station, and also change it to:
IN: 2 Steel Barrels filled with "Sludge" (and add in water, because you know, water)
OUT: 1 Light Oil Barrel and 1 Heavy Oil Barrel (Or for fun, output straight liquid, and also the empty Steel Barrels which just begs the efficiency of moving the empty barrels back to the refinery. Both methods seem fun)

It has the Benefits of:
It moves away from the "dumbing down" aspect of Basic Oil including free flare stacks that just evaporate(?) the other oil products.
New player sees right away that their Oil isn't working because it's got barrels clogging the output. (Like any other machine with the output clogged)
Refineries don't have to ever be rebuilt, because they just do this one thing.
Barrels become useful again.
New puzzle, work with: a Pipe and belt materials IN, and Pipe and belt materials OUT.

I declare this idea fully fleshed out, and ready to implement in 0.17.61