Friday Facts #338 - The (real) Character GUI

[Itemfinder]

I miss the old inventory GUI. The new GUI is busy, dark and difficult to take account of at a glance.

[5thHorseman]

ugly af

This could be used as an example of non-constructive feedback.

[luc]

(But for real, Spidertron is not coming in 1.0 nor before)

Has this been decided officially by Wube or is this just an expectation for now?

- We don't know what exactly would be the use for the spidertron. The original idea was it would be a late game vehicle, with almost unrestricted movement. That would be it for a simple solution, adding an equipment grid would be the cheap option to add. However, as a late game thing it should be able to move very quickly, otherwise it would be inferior to just stacking exoskeleton equipment in your power armor. One of the significant issues we've already noticed with the first prototype shown in FFF#120 was that the legs start looking really stupid at higher speeds. The spider would need some ability to jump/blink or something I guess. With all that, I feel like exoskeletons in power armor and/or using trains to move around in the late game would be better in all ways. I can imagine the spidertron being really convenient in being able to walk over pipes or walls. In walls people usually build gates, and how often do you actually walk over pipes that would motivate you to enter a vehicle for it. Maybe the player would actually become the spidertron by some SpiderLeg equipment to avoid having to enter a vehicle, but that would again look stupid when moving fast. It was a cool technical experiment and became a meme, but frankly, I don't see the use as of now, and I know that when we see something as being awesome useful, we just do it immediately with top priority.
- there is nobody working on the spidertron code-wise, and the branch from FFF#120 has not been maintained since
- there is nobody working on the spidertron graphics-wise
- both programmers and gfx are busy enough with 1.0 as it is
- even if somebody has time before 1.0, I believe there more places worth putting time into (for programmers more GUIs, for gfx more entity graphics improvements, more iteration on high resolution icons, or updating some technology icons)
- However, never say never (permanently true statement)

Thanks for the thorough explanation! I guess I also see the point about it not being that useful. I don't see it as completely useless either, but I guess I can have peace with that it indeed wouldn't be a useful addition if not fast, and to make it fast, it either has to move the legs stupid fast or be weirdly large, and we already have exoskeleton stacking, so I guess it makes sense

[falk]

The new GUI looks nice and overall i think it is an improvement over the previous one.

BUT,

It takes way too many clicks to request an item from the logistic network. Even more clicks than the previous GUI, which was already bad at it.

[VinDolphin]

(But for real, Spidertron is not coming in 1.0 nor before)

Has this been decided officially by Wube or is this just an expectation for now?

- We don't know what exactly would be the use for the spidertron. The original idea was it would be a late game vehicle, with almost unrestricted movement. That would be it for a simple solution, adding an equipment grid would be the cheap option to add. However, as a late game thing it should be able to move very quickly, otherwise it would be inferior to just stacking exoskeleton equipment in your power armor. One of the significant issues we've already noticed with the first prototype shown in FFF#120 was that the legs start looking really stupid at higher speeds. The spider would need some ability to jump/blink or something I guess. With all that, I feel like exoskeletons in power armor and/or using trains to move around in the late game would be better in all ways. I can imagine the spidertron being really convenient in being able to walk over pipes or walls. In walls people usually build gates, and how often do you actually walk over pipes that would motivate you to enter a vehicle for it. Maybe the player would actually become the spidertron by some SpiderLeg equipment to avoid having to enter a vehicle, but that would again look stupid when moving fast. It was a cool technical experiment and became a meme, but frankly, I don't see the use as of now, and I know that when we see something as being awesome useful, we just do it immediately with top priority.
- there is nobody working on the spidertron code-wise, and the branch from FFF#120 has not been maintained since
- there is nobody working on the spidertron graphics-wise
- both programmers and gfx are busy enough with 1.0 as it is
- even if somebody has time before 1.0, I believe there more places worth putting time into (for programmers more GUIs, for gfx more entity graphics improvements, more iteration on high resolution icons, or updating some technology icons)
- However, never say never (permanently true statement)

I appreciate the clear response, and everything you have done for the game!

That said I am a bit bumming that spidertron most likely won’t be making it into the game, as it seemed to be a neat concept. The idea my friends and I had for a niche it could fill is instead of being a fast mobility device, competing with exoskeletons, having it be a large platform that could act as the end game replacement of the tank. A slow/medium larger platform that could have turrets and the like on its back that could be used for claiming land if you didn’t want to turret creep or build a rail infrastructure that way could fill an interesting niche, but does compete in the same role that artillery trains or turret creeping may.

[Optera]

My eyes really hurt playing factorio for any amount of time since these gui changes.

Classic GUI swaps out these dark gray icon backgrounds and the dark rubber mat. Already the whole ui already looks a lot friendlier and puts less strain on my eyes.

2020-03-26-17-18-05-8388261.png (234.13 KiB) Viewed 4421 times

[fishycat]

Classic GUI

Nice one!

Although I'm a big fan of everything dark, in certain circumstances it can be a little much for some. But since the devs again think for mostly all cases, it is no big deal. And Optera did a good job. With the new mod everything is good again.

[eradicator]

(But for real, Spidertron is not coming in 1.0 nor before)

Has this been decided officially by Wube or is this just an expectation for now?

- We don't know what exactly would be the use for the spidertron. The original idea was it would be a late game vehicle, with almost unrestricted movement.

The idea my friends and I had for a niche it could fill is [...] as the end game replacement of the tank.

I too always assumed it would become a slow-moving combat vehicle, not a player-mobility-enhancer. Like the good old "Monkey Lord" from Supreme Commander.

[Oktokolo]

I too always assumed it would become a slow-moving combat vehicle, not a player-mobility-enhancer.

It was presented as a vehicle able to traverse shallow water though. If it could effortlessly traverse cliffs (wich did not exist back then) and forests too, it would improve player mobility a lot.
But maybe, having jetpack equipment for the power armor would be a better way to enhance player mobility...

[GluAp]

[...]

Now a not-so-short rant about spidertron.

[...]

And as far as not really having a "niche" for spidertron to fit into... I'd love to leverage a "vanilla" way to obsolete my want of the infamous Squeak Through mod. Everyone (and every powerpole) knows what happens when you drive a car/tank through a factory. I would love to swap to spidertron for moving around the main section of the base. Or maybe instead of the mechanic of stacking so many exoskeletons, let spidertron be a togglable/deployable piece of suite equipment that you can enable or deploy to easily move about the base.

[...]

Spidertron would be something you have to earn via technology and building the equipment itself.

Squeak Through's existence and popularity are evidence that the "want" is there for the feature. I think spidertron would be a way to "solve" this problem in-game.

I have the same thoughts here. From the moment I finished my first game I was using SqueakThrough and it didn't take me long before adding some other QoL mods, because I love 'building big' and optimizing builds from the very beginning on. So it takes me quiet a lot of time to get to bots and ingame QoL, like exoskeleton. And shame on me, but I really don't use the car or tank.
So I'd never mind having Spidertron as an early addition to the game.

We don't know what exactly would be the use for the spidertron. The original idea was it would be a late game vehicle, with almost unrestricted movement. That would be it for a simple solution, adding an equipment grid would be the cheap option to add. However, as a late game thing it should be able to move very quickly, otherwise it would be inferior to just stacking exoskeleton equipment in your power armor. One of the significant issues we've already noticed with the first prototype shown in FFF#120 was that the legs start looking really stupid at higher speeds. The spider would need some ability to jump/blink or something I guess. With all that, I feel like exoskeletons in power armor and/or using trains to move around in the late game would be better in all ways. I can imagine the spidertron being really convenient in being able to walk over pipes or walls. In walls people usually build gates, and how often do you actually walk over pipes that would motivate you to enter a vehicle for it. Maybe the player would actually become the spidertron by some SpiderLeg equipment to avoid having to enter a vehicle, but that would again look stupid when moving fast.

As for your concern with the spiderlegs looking stupid when moving faster .. have you seen a spider running IRL? Sometime you can't even see the legs moving ^^
You could make the spidertron into something bigger. Slower movement, higher actual speed.
I guess the prototype from FF120 feels more like Dr. Otto Octavius from Spiderman. I'd imagine a late game Spidertron to be more like the spider robot from the Wild Wild West movie.
You could make it very tanky and give it automatic and/or manual weaponry.

Imo Spidertron would fit perfectly in the game:

• fast/faster and unrestricted movement through/over your base without destroying it
• no being stopped by obstacles when exploring outside the base, e.g. trees, rocks, shallow waters, cliffs
• if you want to make it late game, why don't you give it some unique late game specials? For example Spidertron could be a kind of autonomous vehicle which will follow you but can't be picked up. Or Spidertron could be equipped with automatic weaponry. Or it could be made to move to a certain point alone and work as some kind of (impenetrable) mobile radar.

At the moment, there is no current vehicle having those properties.

There is much room for good ideas what it could be made into. I'm not asking you to do it for 1.0 as there are more important things to do, as you mentioned. But after 1.0 if there is time and free capacity please think about it one more time. It has potential.

ps: I'd even pay for Horse Spidertron Armor DLC.