Friday Facts #307 - 0.17 stable candidate

[MicFac]

You're saying that there's not much major stuff left to do before calling factorio finished, but what about the "Possible future content" section on your "Content" page? There's a lot of stuff there that I think could be awesome additions, especially the space platforms. I think this could add a whole new level to factorio.

[mcdjfp]

That thread was already mentioned and it gave me the impression that categories helped, but that there were still problems when multiple mods interact. Is there any good way for an endgame miner from one mod to work with endgame deposits in another mod?

[Hiladdar]

Based on my non-employee understanding of the game, I do not see how internally changing fluids moving through entities would even be contentious as the oil refining and logistic/construction bots were when they were changed in 0.17.60. What I see happening when the new fluid mechanics come come out is an outcry of "Grads ... Thanks ... About time ... and so on"

Hiladdar

[gorothdablade]

Just wanted to say that with this post my friday night factory group decided to make the jump to 0.17 finally this weekend. I really enjoyed the updated GUI for map creation and the automatic refresh for it. The quick bars are great, and I think once I unlearn the old tool bars to learn them they will be even better. It was both frustrating and exciting seeing many of my old blue prints aren't portable (well they are portable but they don't work with new recipes)... Frustrating cause of the time spent making them... exciting for the prospect of updating them. Though we didn't make it quite to oil yet, I am curious to see how the updates play.

Thanks again for the great game. and we didn't have any issues to report (so I am reporting an absence of reportable things... )

[mmppolton]

me too hope you keep dong update that add stuff to the game and not just smal bug fix after full relase

[Dixi]

I believe I have already thought about every proposed change to oil

I afraid, you got us wrong way.

We asking about liquids flow in pipes, that works kinda bad now. We see a pipe of a good diameter (I'd say about one meter+ visually, and it performs so badly.

About oil redesign - it's your pick, and, I think we can just accept it (like me) or mod it, without problems.

[FuryoftheStars]

We asking about liquids flow in pipes, that works kinda bad now. We see a pipe of a good diameter (I'd say about one meter+ visually, and it performs so badly.

Isn’t it less than 1m diameter considering the tiles are 1m square?

Still, yes, it’d be nice to have the fluid mechanics fixed.

[Adamo]

Based on the heat capacity of water in the game, at STP, we calculated that 1 fluid unit of water should be about 50-75ml i.e. 50-75 cm^3. Based on that, the pipe seems a bit large, but this doesn't hold when you try to compute volumes from other fluids' heat capacities. And of course Nauvis isn't necessarily STP.

[jcranmer]

Based on the heat capacity of water in the game, at STP, we calculated that 1 fluid unit of water should be about 50-75ml i.e. 50-75 cm^3. Based on that, the pipe seems a bit large, but this doesn't hold when you try to compute volumes from other fluids' heat capacities. And of course Nauvis isn't necessarily STP.

The capacity of a pipe is ~1200 fluid/s. At 50 mL per unit of fluid, that comes out to around 1000 gal/min. Which is going to imply a pipe somewhere in the vicinity of 6", or ~15cm if you don't speak US units. (Pipe flow is actually a complicated thing to calculate because it depends on a lot of factors, including viscosity, pressure, pipe length, temperature, friction, gravity...). I imagine that the pipes are about 12" pipes, despite taking up most of a 1m² tile, since that's the region of pipe size that is more common in practice--your refineries or tank storage yards are typically going to be going with pipes in the 12-24" range for most of their internal piping. A 36" or larger pipe is typically a distribution main that's carrying the single input or output for a large system--think "entire oil field" (Alaska pipeline is a 48" pipe) or "municipal water system" (we had 60" and 72" pipes for transfer from the treatment plant to the storage tanks at the water plant I worked at) for scale.

[Frightning]

*anticipation for 0.17 stable intensifies*

[vampiricdust]

I like calling it the "Construction Bot delay" change instead. And agreed, made the game just a little bit more un-fun just in time for stable.

*whew* that was close.

Bots are always getting the shaft. It's not a minor delay either. I am playing through a pure vanilla play through and it has significantly delayed getting bots. I don't think the devs considered anything other than the tech tree changes.

The oil part of the game is when pollution starts to really spread and bitter attacks increase. This means shortly after you start doing oil (placing oil pumps and the power hungry refineries) you have to step up defenses and secure your borders. Then you have to go through all the blue science stuff and get all that setup during all these attacks.

Then this is always the point in the game where your starting iron starts to deplete to the point you need another iron field going to keep iron flowing when it's being heavily drained for steel. Which means you need to expand your territory and establish a perimeter around the new field. Which is even more time consuming.

By the time you get construction bots, you've already gone through the biggest slog of expansion since the game starts. The bots are already really slow and expensive to begin as it is, so by this point it seems kind of waste to get them when the resources you need for bots are being eaten up by science. By the time players will get around to bots, they're almost ready for purple science. In fact, I can get to purple science FASTER than I can bots. The cost of all those blue science techs is way greater, which means you need to expand more than before or wait longer.

Small, insignificant delay is a lie.

Comparison

This construction bot tree vs purple science tree.

Construction bots.PNG (208.33 KiB) Viewed 7534 times

Purple science.PNG (294.17 KiB) Viewed 7534 times

[Ghoulish]

"Maybe some small surprises along the way. "

This better include one or all of the following, or there'll be trouble in paradise, let me tell you!

• Spidertron
• Blueprint zoom for editing purposes
• Medovnik sent to all forums members who signed up before October 17th `15

Don't test me on this Wube!

[Pi-C]

… there'll be trouble in paradise, let me tell you!

Great idea! Will put that on tonight, haven't seen it in a long time!

[crambaza]

As such, I consider the topic closed for now, but that does not mean I am hoping people would forget. Calm down, maybe, in some cases, but I will definitely be observing and inspecting what exact effects will the changes have in the future, in case something got overlooked.
It’s possible we will tweak it at some point, I’d guess eventually released in some experimental version not to mess with stable, but we’ll see based on what it is.

I can tell you the biggest effect this change had on me. I started playing Oxygen Not Included, and haven't looked back.

In that game, I unlocked an early "gas filter" tool. You hook up 1 pipe of mixed gas, and then you can filter out another on one output, and the rest in a second output. If either output gets blocked, the entire thing stops working.

I encountered this early in the game, and didn't rage quit, I merely thanked the game for the challenge, and kept on playing.

Gotta respect a dev that respects their audience.

[BlueTemplar]

[...]
In fact, I can get to purple science FASTER than I can bots. The cost of all those blue science techs is way greater, which means you need to expand more than before or wait longer.
[...]

What makes you say that ? Don't they both need 350 Blue Science ?

[BlueTemplar]

We asking about liquids flow in pipes, that works kinda bad now. We see a pipe of a good diameter (I'd say about one meter+ visually, and it performs so badly.

Isn’t it less than 1m diameter considering the tiles are 1m square?

Still, yes, it’d be nice to have the fluid mechanics fixed.

What kind of flow would you expect ?
IIRC, Klonan said last year that when the new fluid system is implemented, pumps would be rebalanced to transfer significantly less than the max 12kL/s in 0.16 - not sure if they will go lower than the max 8.4kL/s in 0.17 ?
(Liters for the unit because IMHO it's a bit ridiculous to try to guess what the unit is - either from water calorific capacity - which works quite differently from real one when taking steam into account - or from pipe size, which is obviously limited by graphics/legibility issues... so might as well go with the usual unit !)

[FuryoftheStars]

Sorry, I should've been a bit clearer. When I think about fixing fluid mechanics, I'm thinking more about getting it to split correctly at junctions, etc.

[Adamo]

Sorry, I should've been a bit clearer. When I think about fixing fluid mechanics, I'm thinking more about getting it to split correctly at junctions, etc.

I think you were clear. My comment was just a little side commentary, for science.

[Light]

As such, I consider the topic closed for now, but that does not mean I am hoping people would forget. Calm down, maybe, in some cases, but I will definitely be observing and inspecting what exact effects will the changes have in the future, in case something got overlooked.
It’s possible we will tweak it at some point, I’d guess eventually released in some experimental version not to mess with stable, but we’ll see based on what it is.

I can tell you the biggest effect this change had on me. I started playing Oxygen Not Included, and haven't looked back.

In that game, I unlocked an early "gas filter" tool. You hook up 1 pipe of mixed gas, and then you can filter out another on one output, and the rest in a second output. If either output gets blocked, the entire thing stops working.

I encountered this early in the game, and didn't rage quit, I merely thanked the game for the challenge, and kept on playing.

Gotta respect a dev that respects their audience.

It gets better. The community has even come up with ways to filter gas without using powered filters by learning the intricacies of the fluid/gas system.

Some would call this a bug or exploit since it wasn't intended, but the developers said that such ingenuity shouldn't be punished and have embraced the insane designs people have created just by studying how the game mechanics work.

That gets them some extra points.

[Koub]

viewtopic.php?p=1848#p1848
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=48047
[Koub] btw : this is not an Oxygen not included forum, si I suggest the ONI discussion stops here.