Friday Facts #339 - Beacon HR + Redesign process

[THC4k]

I'm not convinced by the circular hole design, it really stands out in a world where most buildings are square. Especially because 90% of all beacons are sitting between smelters and assemblers which are both very square. Beacons are also often placed in a long line as well.

Maybe if the hole of the beacon was a square it would fit in better with the world. You could even merge the holes of adjacent beacons into a long hole, that would give these boring rows of beacons we create a very unique look.

[Cgeta]

I was thinning, one way they could "merge" would be by having the pits they're in connect, creating rows or something.
But I imagine it would get complicated quickly
Another thing could be cables again, but they are placed randomly, and subtley, so not all beacons are connected, but also so that it doesn't look like the cables have any meaning

[miturion]

I am also not a big fan of the redesign. I think the first iteration looks better than the second one. But the red it too overwhelming, and the sword a bit too big in my opinion.

[Gouada]

I like the flattening of the design by sinking the building slightly into the ground. Dare I suggest thinking about doing the same thing to the Roboport?

I like that idea

[tk0421]

that thing looks so good, that i'm going to be re-designing all my builds just to put them everywhere even if they arent actually working!

[eradicator]

Soo...i wrote this while reading the FFF and came here to post...only to see that all of it has already been said dozens of times. It's like the post-count is linearly dependant on how unpopular the FFF was. I'll post it anyway. Just for the record:

1) When i look at that furnace array it seems to me that the beacons have a completely different art design pilosophy than the furnaces. Almost like they're from a different game.
2) The "needle" on top is difficult to see against the background and doesn't convey any "distribution of effects" to me.
3) Leaning more towards "clean and ordered" factory layouts i anticipate i'm gonna be very frustrated about the random rotation of the beacons... might even make a mod to remove it again. Sorry about that.

Conclusion: Due to how many beacons there are...shouldn't it stick out *less* instead of *more* than now? Kinda like solar panels hide in the background...

Totally agree with the others that the design as such is really nice. Just not as a beacon.

(Also i really hope this is all just the usual "it's new and i don't like it yet™" effect...)

[PhasmaNL]

Just take the beacon out of the game. It's impossible to design something that communicates what it actually does, because that's, well, impossible. I mean, a wireless transmitter that somehow boosts a factory's production? Sure.
That's why I almost never use them.

I didn't like the old design much either. The new design looks cool, but not as a beacon. Maybe try this as the Tesla Coil for Red Alert 4. I like the first iteration (as presented in the blog) better than the second "on stilts" version. But remove the "tesla" effect, dim the light, and desaturate the red. Make it look a bit more like a radio tower. (Pretend there are massive amounts of messages being sent to drones/robots inside the factory to constantly optimize their routines. If you must keep it in the game that is.)

[Chrisi]

In the screenshot the new beacon design looks like a combat robot about to run out of the base and zap some biters. I also think that the red color does not blend in with the furnaces very well. The new beacon design is a real eyecatcher where I would prefer it if beacons would blend in with the background. It would look way better if it were more grayish like the current beacon design, that fits in really well with furnaces and assembling machines imho.
I have not seen how the first design you have shown in the fff fits in with the factory, but personally I like it more than the second. Also without the red color. It should be more on the grey side or rusty or something to fit in with the other Factorio designs.

[TheVeteraNoob]

I agree with many of those in the forum that this seems out of place. But I would forgive it all in a heartbeat if you make the electric sparks the same color as the module that goes inside. That would be freaking sweet.

[Guilwin]

I don't like this new design for beacons at all. In my opinion it's too different from the rest of the structures you can build in the game. Every other structure looks like something that might be built in real life, this new beacon looks like it's alien technology or out of a sci-fi movie with very advanced technology we can't even comprehend (I do agree that the beacon mechanic is kinda something we couldn't really replicate in real life though, so the design fits this idea in a way).

[ThunderFD]

looks like an agressive/offensive building to me - not sure if it'll grow on me

[Soniq]

Holy forking gold! It looks like if zerglings had reinvented pylon tech.

[Mr. Mechanic]

Improving the speed and efficiency of a machine by transmitting 'signals' to it never made much sense to me.

Why not represent beacons as external cooling and waste-heat recovering units? With several pipes running into the ground, hinting at underground connections to nearby buildings (or perhaps automatically painted 'pipe connections' on the ground towards affected buildings, similar to CnC3 Nod turrets). Visual variety could be achieved by adding large vents if there are speed modules installed, and some kind of heat-exchange columns for efficiency modules.

[T__C]

I have a suggestion which I haven't seen mentioned here yet: Why don't you come up with an explanation for how the beacon actually works, then build its design around that?

If the beacon works by constantly analyzing the manufacturing process, eking out productivity gains through opportunistic adjustments, then portray it as a bank of computers, meters, and status lights.

If the beacon works by rapidly replacing worn parts, allowing factories to run hotter than they would otherwise, then portray it as a little repair factory, with streams of small parts flowing in and out from underground conduits.

If the beacon works by drenching the factories' critical parts in lubricant and/or coolant, then portray it as a tank and pump assembly.

If the beacon works by projecting magical productivity rays, then I suppose the proposed design is just about right.

[Deadlock989]

If the beacon works by projecting magical productivity rays

Wait ... it doesn't?

[DanGio]

Thanks for all the work on the beacon. I like it, although :

What I would remove/change are the metal plates screwed on the ground around the tower. Another entity has the same "hole" design: the silo. And it hasn't any metal plates and screws around it. Looking at the new beacon then at the silo, or putting them close together feels a bit weird. Maybe it's not important at all, but maybe, if the new beacon is a tower inside a hole, it could look more like the rocket silo, except for the center part. That could help with the homogeneity with the rest of the machines.

[Slayn25]

It looks like it belongs to an evil faction, like if a dead engineer was resurrected by the bugs.
If I saw that in game I'd think I was invaded Dark Souls style.

[abadinvain]

Like of majority of people here, I really don't like it. Proposed design is huge deterioration from Factorio industrial look. For me it looks too much like alien technology, like some kind of death ray weapon from 50's SF movies.I generally like idea that if you look at beacon you could be able to tell what modules it contain, so there shall be some kind of lights in colors of containing modules. I'm also not fan of red colour.

[Rseding91]

To the first, and I don't mean to derail discussion here, but: Have you considered the possible evils of "burner" beacons with beacon-specific modules as a "fuel" type so they get burned up and beacons require input, complicating beacon layouts?

Unfortunately beacons can only have an electric or void energy source, like roboports, presumably due to GUI limitations.

It's because burner and fluid energy sources are absolutely terrible for performance.

[Rockman_64]

IMHO, the spire is too tall, and the effect color needs to be dependent on the module inside. the intensity of the color can be based on the tier of the module, i.e. pale blue for level 1 speed and darker blue for higher tiers. Same idea for efficiency green. The lightning under the ring is effective, but the effect running up the spire is probably too much (probably since the spire is much too tall, imo).

Also, the thin tower version could be an electrical weapon, although that would require another weapon effect and all that entails.