Friday Facts #305 - The Oil Changes

[mcdjfp]

Fine. I was being polite. I am well aware that the delay is their plan, but when I read that post the thought that came into my head was that they don't really care at all about really fixing the problem, so long as their average playtime number goes up.

[Koub]

only the problem is delayed.

Thats what we wanted

I am sure that is not what you meant to say. It appears to imply that the goal of the change was to lure players later in the game before giving up.

As far as I remember, devs have been pretty consistent since FFF 304 saying that they wanted to delay the 3 output problem to the point where you have the tools to solve it, namely cracking. We can and have argued about if this is relevant or not, but this has been stated since the beginning.

The tools were already there. Solid Fuel.

- Until you were backed up on solid fuel.
- In that case add more storage chests for solid fuel
- but I don't need that much solud fuel, I'm on solar"
...
Now, this discussion will never have to happen at that point.

[crambaza]

Thats what we wanted

I am sure that is not what you meant to say. It appears to imply that the goal of the change was to lure players later in the game before giving up.

As far as I remember, devs have been pretty consistent since FFF 304 saying that they wanted to delay the 3 output problem to the point where you have the tools to solve it, namely cracking. We can and have argued about if this is relevant or not, but this has been stated since the beginning.

The tools were already there. Solid Fuel.

- Until you were backed up on solid fuel.
- In that case add more storage chests for solid fuel
- but I don't need that much solud fuel, I'm on solar"
...
Now, this discussion will never have to happen at that point.

Ohhh, I get it now.

All the new people who went straight to solar, burning up all that Pet Gas for batteries (or have no batteries, because they only have a day time factory). This solution was for them. I wasn't aware that the number of new players, who went straight solar who have figured out batteries, or are running a day time only factory, was such a large number.

My mistake.

Can I have my construction bots back now?

[xfir01]

when I read that post the thought that came into my head was that they don't really care at all about really fixing the problem

Look at the bigger picture:

2) You solely focus on oil changes, and by doing so, lose the big picture.
The reason I consider the oil changes a good move even if not perfect, is that there is the whole game context : oil processing, multiple output recipes that are tricky to make totally deadlock proof, blue science automation, conbots setup (and for those who suck at warfare, the evolution of the biters making them a bigger threat, and forcing significant effort on the defense perimeter setup). All these have an intrinsic difficulty curve, and pre-0.17.60, almost all happened in a very short time frame. Any of those taken individually would have been a totally doable challenge, but juggling with all these to get things done could be overwhelming.

There's a bunch of problems that rears its head at about the same time:
Oil processing
Mining outposts
Biters
Trains
Advanced Circuits
Chemical Science

There's a lot of things to deal with, so by making BOP trivial, that's one less thing to worry about and you can focus on something else. Later, when you get AOP, the same old complexity/deadlock problems come up, but now you've got fewer immediate concerns and better tools to handle it. The point of the delay is to turn a difficulty wall into two ramps.

[DanGio]

Fine. I was being polite. I am well aware that the delay is their plan, but when I read that post the thought that came into my head was that they don't really care at all about really fixing the problem, so long as their average playtime number goes up.

If you read the past years' FFF, and as you're an active forum member, I'm pretty sure you do, you can't think devs are trying to make a subpar game that just brings money. Now, the streamlining phase has been controversial amongst several players, but IMO, streamlining is just the natural road to 1.0, to the perfect, polished Factorio.

[FuryoftheStars]

- Until you were backed up on solid fuel.
- In that case add more storage chests for solid fuel
- but I don't need that much solud fuel, I'm on solar"
...
Now, this discussion will never have to happen at that point.

Move sulfur -> HO

[DanGio]

Move sulfur -> HO

And how do you handle LO ?

[meganothing]

Sure, but you are not talking about the new players that is what it is done for. A new player after many hours still does not find challenges until the AO, it will take more than 15 hours of boring game and you will find what is avoided that you are 5 hours before, it is absurd.

All we experienced players trying to speak for new players. I must have walked into a convention of mind readers.

Seriously, how did new players ever reach BOP? Did they know it would come and save them from their boredom? I have heard a few developers talking about the problem of how to keep new players, new players seem to drop out of games immediately if they get bored in the first minutes. They don't bore themselves for 10 hours to get to the interesting stuff.

Oil however is a fluid, it's being split into different chemicals yet there's no other byproduct being made to indicate where the excess fluid has gone. This is exactly why people make the connection that the flare stack on the refinery is burning light and heavy oils when using basic processing. They're correct.

The game does not simulate waste products it can't use further. See all the nuclear tech:

One uranium fuell cell needs 1 iron and 2 uranium. The spent fuel cell then is converted to 3/5th of an uranium. Conservation of Matter? And where's the plutonium?

Where's conservation of matter when 45 uranium are converted into 43 uranium in the kovarex process?

Waste products vanish.

I don't know petro-chemistry at all. There may or may not be a process that gets gas from crude oil and produces a waste product that isn't LO and HO. Even if not, LO and HO at that moment in time would be waste products.

[FuryoftheStars]

Move sulfur -> HO

And how do you handle LO ?

Leave SF on blue science and trains can run on SF. Even send it to your smelters. With less fluid going to SF, you produce less of it thus need less consumers.

[Adamo]

One uranium fuell cell needs 1 iron and 2 uranium. The spent fuel cell then is converted to 3/5th of an uranium. Conservation of Matter? And where's the plutonium?

Where's conservation of matter when 45 uranium are converted into 43 uranium in the kovarex process?

It's in the Adamo nuclear mod, that's where.

Waste products vanish.

I don't know petro-chemistry at all. There may or may not be a process that gets gas from crude oil and produces a waste product that isn't LO and HO. Even if not, LO and HO at that moment in time would be waste products.

Sulfur is the primary waste product from oil refining, whether petroleum or natural gas. Great amounts of research continue to go into figuring out what to do with all that damn sulfur. Concrete is a waste product in the sense that the waste sulfur is used both to make sulfur concrete and to make calcium sulfate, which is used in plaster and cement.

[FuryoftheStars]

Sulfur is the primary waste product from oil refining, whether petroleum or natural gas. Great amounts of research continue to go into figuring out what to do with all that damn sulfur. Concrete is a waste product in the sense that the waste sulfur is used both to make sulfur concrete and to make calcium sulfate, which is used in plaster and cement.

Stick it into a rocket.

[DanGio]

Move sulfur -> HO

And how do you handle LO ?

Leave SF on blue science and trains can run on SF. Even send it to your smelters. With less fluid going to SF, you produce less of it thus need less consumers.

That's true, but it brings us back at square 1, as it still relies on an expected player behavior. (here : the player will make blue science & trains immediately after setting up oil)

EDIT : the beauty of the current oil being : whatever the player do, he won't be bothered with blocked outputs until AOE.

[Theikkru]

- Until you were backed up on solid fuel.
- In that case add more storage chests for solid fuel
- but I don't need that much solud fuel, I'm on solar"
...
Now, this discussion will never have to happen at that point.

That's true, but it brings us back at square 1, as it still relies on an expected player behavior. (here : the player will make blue science & trains immediately after setting up oil)

Or this. I still don't see why solid fuel is treated as an intractable problem; there are plenty of ways to handle it.

[FuryoftheStars]

Move sulfur -> HO

And how do you handle LO ?

Leave SF on blue science and trains can run on SF. Even send it to your smelters. With less fluid going to SF, you produce less of it thus need less consumers.

That's true, but it brings us back at square 1, as it still relies on an expected player behavior. (here : the player will make blue science & trains immediately after setting up oil)

EDIT : the beauty of the current oil being : whatever the player do, he won't be bothered with blocked outputs until AOE.

Unless we're leading the player by the hand or only ever giving them one option to proceed forward, you're always going to have to deal with "expected player behavior" and the deviations thereof.

Let's also note, that with having to put less fluid to SF, even if the player doesn't use it, this also means storage for it will fill up slower.

EDIT: Oh, and forgot, with BOP producing regular HO/LO/PG again, Rocket fuel wouldn't need to be behind blue science, so there's another outlet for LO, whether you stick with the old all SF recipe, the new SF + LO, or go all LO (as has been pointed out is closer to how it should be).

[DanGio]

- Until you were backed up on solid fuel.
- In that case add more storage chests for solid fuel
- but I don't need that much solud fuel, I'm on solar"
...
Now, this discussion will never have to happen at that point.

That's true, but it brings us back at square 1, as it still relies on an expected player behavior. (here : the player will make blue science & trains immediately after setting up oil)

Or this. I still don't see why solid fuel is treated as an intractable problem; there are plenty of ways to handle it.

If I read it correctly, your proposition involves a balanced usage of LO & PG in early oil, LO being SF & Sulfur, PG being Plastic. To avoid one blocking other, there's also a balancing proposition in the science pack recipe. But again, this expects the player to make chemical science 1st. If he does a ton of batteries or a ton of reds, he's blocked. (to say it shortly, I know it's more subtile than that)

[FuryoftheStars]

If he does a ton of batteries or a ton of reds, he's blocked. (to say it shortly, I know it's more subtile than that)

While I don't support the LO/PG BOP version, I will say that if a player is going to produce all of one thing, neglecting everything else, then blockage should be expected.

[Theikkru]

If I read it correctly, your proposition involves a balanced usage of LO & PG in early oil, LO being SF & Sulfur, PG being Plastic. To avoid one blocking other, there's also a balancing proposition in the science pack recipe. But again, this expects the player to make chemical science 1st. If he does a ton of batteries or a ton of reds, he's blocked. (to say it shortly, I know it's more subtile than that)

Only on the mass reds. Mass batteries is sulfur based and cannot block because it can balance via solid fuel. And I also covered that case later on; all that would do is push the player through chemical science far enough to access cracking. I don't see a problem in nudging the player to go get cracking if they're insistent on diving off on a tangent to mass produce stack inserters or something.

[DanGio]

Unless we're leading the player by the hand or only ever giving them one option to proceed forward, you're always going to have to deal with "expected player behavior" and the deviations thereof.

Yes, but the oil has something really specific, it opens a LOT of possibilities. Accumulators, modules, robots (now indirectly but still), armor & equipments, explosives... It's really interesting to get a total freedom in this particular moment.

[FuryoftheStars]

Sure, but you are not talking about the new players that is what it is done for. A new player after many hours still does not find challenges until the AO, it will take more than 15 hours of boring game and you will find what is avoided that you are 5 hours before, it is absurd.

All we experienced players trying to speak for new players. I must have walked into a convention of mind readers.

Seriously, how did new players ever reach BOP? Did they know it would come and save them from their boredom? I have heard a few developers talking about the problem of how to keep new players, new players seem to drop out of games immediately if they get bored in the first minutes. They don't bore themselves for 10 hours to get to the interesting stuff.

To be honest, I seriously wonder how many are quitting because they can't figure out BOP vs they are discovering that this game is just not for them.

[DanGio]

Quick reminder about newcomers :

“Is this change to reduce complexity, refactor the tech tree, or rebalance the oil production recipes.”
It’s pretty much the first two, in the sense that it should improve the flow or the game (though the technology changes), while making the basic oil processing step less complex. A lot of negatively responding people say it is only for new players, but we really believe the flow of the game is really important for repeated playing, if not even more important.

In short, the changes make oil less annoying to set up in the basic form. I hate hearing that this is only for newcomers, I think it’s just generally better, not having to worry about as many things.

While learning curve is an important & interesting issue to think about, we certainly have way more things to say about how these changes impact us.