Version 0.18.22

[FactorioBot]

Graphics

• Added shell particle effect for the artillery shooting.
• Added tinted scorch marks for explosion effects. Explosions on different tile types will result in scorch marks of different colors.

Changes

• Pressing escape/close GUI when a search field is focused only closes the search field instead of the entire GUI.
• Updated GUI styles for PvP configuration GUI.
• Unit groups will determine their collision mask based on the collision masks of their members. (84204)

Bugfixes

• Fixed landfill spawning under player when building landfill elsewhere. (84170)
• Fixed a crash when a train recalculating path during movement is unable to reserve rail signal within movement distance. (84216)
• Fixed production statistics corruption when recipe returns some but not all catalyst. (83881)
• Fixed a pathfinding crash related to changing tiles in a way that affected neighbouring tiles' transitions. (84181)
• Fixed that malformed data in data.raw wouldn't show the minimal-mode failure GUI. (84412)

Modding

• Fixed that writing to mod settings would silently ignore bad values.
• Added "allowed_effects" support to the lab.
• Added "creation_distance_orientation", "use_source_position", "height" and "vertical_speed" to particle creation parameters (related to shooting effect shell particles).
• Added "scorch_mark_color" to TilePrototype.
• Added util.remove_tile_references for easier compatibility maintenance with future game updates when removing base game tiles.
• Removed migration for CustomInputPrototype consuming types that were removed in 0.15.24.

Use the automatic updater if you can (check experimental updates in other settings) or download full installation at http://www.factorio.com/download/experimental.

[vladdu]

Is it just me, or did many mods break with this version? "(custom-input): Unknown consuming type: script-only"
Oh, I should have read everything "Removed migration for CustomInputPrototype consuming types that were removed in 0.15.24."

[TooG]

Yeah, this seems to have broken basically all my mods as well.

[lamenters]

Post update, all my mods cause factorio to fail to load.
Unknown consuming type: script-only

Anything I can do?

L

[aka13]

Post update, all my mods cause factorio to fail to load.
Unknown consuming type: script-only

Anything I can do?

L

Rolling back a version is always possible, and then wait for updates/mod updates, that's what I did.

Funny thing, rolling the game back reset my achievements for the savefile. I wonder how that happened. I never loaded the save with .22

[DJQuad]

It broke all of my mods as well. Rolling back to .21 worked.

[mishugashu]

Funny thing, rolling the game back reset my achievements for the savefile. I wonder how that happened. I never loaded the save with .22

Achievements are not per save file. It's per install.

[leoch]

Er, yes. Yay, a "minor patch" broke lots of stuff!

Any chance you guys can use SemVer and do at least rudimentary testing that patch-releases don't break mods? This also implies checking a player *really* wants to upgrade to the next minor version (e.g. 0.19).

[khalismur]

Er, yes. Yay, a "minor patch" broke lots of stuff!

Any chance you guys can use SemVer and do at least rudimentary testing that patch-releases don't break mods? This also implies checking a player *really* wants to upgrade to the next minor version (e.g. 0.19).

factorio is in alpha stage. the "stable" version exists for a reason.

Or are you complaining you found a bug or issue in the "experimental alpha"?

[Klonan]

Er, yes. Yay, a "minor patch" broke lots of stuff!

Any chance you guys can use SemVer and do at least rudimentary testing that patch-releases don't break mods? This also implies checking a player *really* wants to upgrade to the next minor version (e.g. 0.19).

Major version zero (0.y.z) is for initial development. Anything MAY change at any time. The public API SHOULD NOT be considered stable.

Also the API removal that broke mods was removed in version 0.15, and left in with some internal migration. The API has been non-functional for nearly 3 years, and these mods are just plain wrong for having these values.

[vladdu]

Note that what was removed had been deprecated in 0.15, so I guess that one thing to do would be to better notify mode devs that things will break, and another that the release note should note when some changes could break things like that. I would have liked to know before upgrading.

[bobingabout]

Er, yes. Yay, a "minor patch" broke lots of stuff!

Any chance you guys can use SemVer and do at least rudimentary testing that patch-releases don't break mods? This also implies checking a player *really* wants to upgrade to the next minor version (e.g. 0.19).

Major version zero (0.y.z) is for initial development. Anything MAY change at any time. The public API SHOULD NOT be considered stable.

Also the API removal that broke mods was removed in version 0.15, and left in with some internal migration. The API has been non-functional for nearly 3 years, and these mods are just plain wrong for having these values.

It's all well and good saying that, but most data.lua oriented code is basically taken from looking at stuff in the game and copying, some old things like CustomInputPrototype in mods are from the initial example, and copied from other mods.

since it isn't used in the base game, being a mod specific thing, that isn't well documented, could you please point to information on how to fix the mods? The only reference to "CustomInputPrototype" in the wiki is in the patch notes saying it's changed, then removed.

EDIT:
A forum search did find this topic, which is useful: viewtopic.php?p=492101#p492101
It's listed as custom-input on the wiki https://wiki.factorio.com/Prototype/CustomInput

[disentius]

there is a thread for that:
viewtopic.php?p=492101#p492101

[Klonan]

since it isn't used in the base game, being a mod specific thing, that isn't well documented

There is documentation here:
https://wiki.factorio.com/Prototype/CustomInput
https://wiki.factorio.com/Types/ConsumingType

[bobingabout]

since it isn't used in the base game, being a mod specific thing, that isn't well documented

There is documentation here:
https://wiki.factorio.com/Prototype/CustomInput
https://wiki.factorio.com/Types/ConsumingType

Thanks for info.

[UrbanCee]

Er, yes. Yay, a "minor patch" broke lots of stuff!

Any chance you guys can use SemVer and do at least rudimentary testing that patch-releases don't break mods? This also implies checking a player *really* wants to upgrade to the next minor version (e.g. 0.19).

Major version zero (0.y.z) is for initial development. Anything MAY change at any time. The public API SHOULD NOT be considered stable.

Also the API removal that broke mods was removed in version 0.15, and left in with some internal migration. The API has been non-functional for nearly 3 years, and these mods are just plain wrong for having these values.

so that means those mods stay dead until they get updated? (broke like 5 mods for me)

[Kyralessa]

Er, yes. Yay, a "minor patch" broke lots of stuff!

Any chance you guys can use SemVer and do at least rudimentary testing that patch-releases don't break mods? This also implies checking a player *really* wants to upgrade to the next minor version (e.g. 0.19).

Where do you find this "minor patch" description?

Where do you find the promise that an update to the experimental beta branch won't break anything?

You probably shouldn't be on the experimental branch if it's this upsetting to you that things might break.

(ASIDE: This kind of entitled attitude explains a lot about why some mod authors get fed up and withdraw or quit on their mods. At least the Factorio devs are getting paid to deal with this kind of rudeness. When people react to mod authors this way when something breaks, no wonder they decide no longer to cast their pearls before the proverbial swine.)

But because I, on the other hand, am an extremely nice and helpful guy, I'll tell you how to avoid this problem in the future:

• Download the .zip version of the game, not the installer version.
• Install it in some place such as your user folder.
• Download more .zip versions of the game. 0.17 stable, 0.16 stable, heck, 0.6.4 stable just for grins to see what Factorio looked like seven years ago.
• You might want to even have multiple copies of a single version. One copy can be for playing with no mods, just to see the latest changes. Another copy can be with a game-changing mod like IR or Krastorio 2 or whatever the heck that Bob/Angel stuff is.
• If you handle it this way, the worst a new experimental version can do to you is temporarily set you back until you download the previous .zip version and get going again. It also makes dealing with mods much easier.

I used to be a die-hard installer guy, but I've seen the light of Factorio .zip, and my life is better for it.

[Omnifarious]

so that means those mods stay dead until they get updated? (broke like 5 mods for me)

Yes. If you want to help the authors of the mods you like, and possibly increase the speed at which those mods will be updated, go and post a bug in the forum for the mod, or wherever the mod author says to post bugs (if one hasn't been posted already). Give them a link to this thread so they can quickly see what the issue is.

It's not a difficult problem to fix actually. I had a mod I maintain that ran afoul of it, and it was mostly because I just cut & pasted a prototype definition from someplace else without taking the time to understand it.

[conn11]

Er, yes. Yay, a "minor patch" broke lots of stuff!

Any chance you guys can use SemVer and do at least rudimentary testing that patch-releases don't break mods? This also implies checking a player *really* wants to upgrade to the next minor version (e.g. 0.19).

In addition to Kyralessa.
Since most play on Steam it‘s even easier:
Just don‘t select the .X version in the Beta Branche and only the version *really* wanted.

[leoch]

Where do you find this "minor patch" description?

Where do you find the promise that an update to the experimental beta branch won't break anything?

You probably shouldn't be on the experimental branch if it's this upsetting to you that things might break.

Go find out what SemVer is. Not everyone is using SemVer compatible version numbers, but it's pretty-much the standard for software now.

Yes, I probably shouldn't play the alpha. This was somewhat unintentional (was using the 0.17.x beta and forgot that experimental updates were enabled, hit "update" as usual... whoops).