Friday Facts #361 - Train stop limit, Tips and tricks

[ickputzdirwech]

I was hyped for 1.1 already. Now I am more hyped for it than I was for 1.0! The limit trains feature is huge. I can’t wait to play with it.

[MEOWMI]

These are really good changes! Across the board!

Below, a list of controls that I wish the game had told me or explained to me more thoroughly. I'm almost sure you have them all covered because of how impactful they are and how much out-of-the-box thinking some of them require to be discovered, but here they are anyway:

• Pipette by pressing Q
• Copy-and-pasting settings between entities with shift+right click and shift+left click
• Placing pipes and poles at max distance automatically by holding left click
• Rotate counter-clockwise by pressing Shift+R
• Insert full or half stack respectively by holding ctrl+left or right click with item
• Take all or half of items respectively by holding ctrl+left or right click without item
• Insert items individually (not just drop) by holding Z
• Rail planner with shift when holding rail, including rotation with shift+R
• Splitters having a settings menu

Actually, I'm pretty sure even the wiki doesn't have all of these... Certainly not in an easily discoverable fashion. While many game mechanics are best left to be discovered, I think controls like this should be explicitly mentioned.

[Ringkeeper]

FFF .. finally one again. God i missed it.

Changes sound great, especially the train. Everything that makes trains in vanilla less annoying i welcome. I use LTN (and like it) most of the time but everything that is vanilla is always better then mods.

[CureSafaia]

The train limit on station fixes what I wasn't happy about the trains in this game, I can't wait for this update !

[ThunderFD]

wow, nice!! The train limit is exactly what this game needed, I was pushed to use LTN just because of this missing before
Also super glad to see a FFF again!

[aka13]

Holy shit, the trains have me more hyped that 1.0 ever had. This is THE thing missing sinse the bew traims arrived, for building megabases and advanced stations without LTN.

Can't wait for it.

[kovarex]

The Tips looks great, though I feel VERY STRONGLY that you do not hide tips from the user. If anything, add a little dot or animated icon next to the pertinent ones, or ones most recently related to progress in the game. However, I ask you most sincerely not to hide information from the player.
Please give people the information they are thirsting for, right out of the gate!

The players can use a command, explained in the first tip, to unlock all the tips, but I think that it works better with the unlocking.
I remember talking to a guy who bought the game, and he played through all of the tutorials before building anything in a game, even when they were not suggested yet, that was painful to hear. It really doesn't make any sense to see a tutorial about train,signals, fast entity transfer and such, when you didn't even build your first miner. This was one of the pushes for me to really make them visible only when it is relevant in the game.

We are putting special effort into making sure that the unlocking is done in a proper moment. For example, why would you need to see a tutorial about drag-building poles before building a few for the first time? Or tutorial about signals before signals are even researched? It would just confuse the new user and overwhelm him with information.

imo as cool as the "tips and tricks" thing is, I genuinelly and personally think this ruins the game in a few aspects of simply not letting the player learn these kinds of things their selves. After 1000+ hours of factorio, still being able to figure out more efficent ways to do the same thing is something that makes you still want to comeback because a lot of the first few hundred hours is simply learning about these kinds of techniques and how to use them effectively.

I know you could probably argue that it saves a lot of time for newer players, but just having the ability to skip a lot of the learning process seems like you're removing a lot of the fun learning process the game has and knowing that someone else, with way less hours than you, can just know way more than you seems less encouraging than just learning this stuff yourself.

Idk, I think there's a fine line on keeping the best of both worlds rather than just ramming in this kind of information. The game is already stupidly easy as it is with how easy it is to give yourself limitless space, even with the enemies. The actual difficult part of the game is making something as efficent as possible or as tight as possible rather than just getting something to work.

I'm more than well aware, that the big part of the happiness this game brings is from figuring out things on your own. But I believe that you can safely say, that some things are fun to be figured out, and some not really, and we are focusing on the latter. We strictly avoid tips about the strategy. We explain what individual lego pieces do, the player can then think how to put them together . The only tip that is breaking this rule a bit is the "2 lanes explanation" which might be quite fun to figure out your own, but it became such a basic thing, that it is probably ok for it to stay.

[KatherineOfSky]

For example, why would you need to see a tutorial about drag-building poles before building a few for the first time? Or tutorial about signals before signals are even researched? It would just confuse the new user and overwhelm him with information.

Tutorials are different than tips. And I agree that tutorials, say on train signals, are better when the tech has actually been unlocked.

To answer the question of "why": because people who play this kind of game have a natural curiosity about what they can do in the future as they unlock things. It might even inspire them to go for a specific tech that they see highlighted in the tips, or perhaps help them organize their base better.

When I play a game for the first time, if the game has a tips document, (provided it's not the size of the Civlopedia), I read through the whole thing 100% because it plants the seeds of thoughts and planning for things to come, excitement over the tech that I see there, etc.

[Leche06]

Excelent! FFF, Trains improve and a better guide for the new people... Chapeau!

[Wip-Sama]

Can you do the same thing in mod setting?
-adding category
-collapse category
-filter setting by mod
And maybe
-advanced description formatting (a bit of markdown with the possibility to continue writing in another lane)

Like
This

(for markdown I mean just = this, this, this)

[monester]

Amazing news! I was waiting for this problem to be solved like it! Now my suggestion can be archived as many others viewtopic.php?f=6&t=83815.

[Enderdraak]

An idea for an interactive tip, a calculator for the solar- accu ratio on the current surface (would help with for example space exploration)

And a calculator for how many machines you need or the amount of items you get (to not need a calculator or excel sheet if one wants)

And with both, show the math used. This way if someone wants to calculate it via excel or calculator they can easely find the formula and are already able to interact with it to see different uses.

[Filter62]

Well, you're right, I didn't knew I needed train limit, now I do need it)))

[Lord Darkness]

Last week I just realised how much I missed the FFF every friday in my life. Thanks!

[Stefa168]

And this is why I love Wube and Factorio!
I really needed the train limit; now this monstrocity made of storage units can be simplified if it doesn't become completely obsolete...

[Molay]

I'm very excited to see the train stop limit feature becoming a reality! Thank you so much for the continued efforts Boskid, and great call for making it a "soft limit" Kovarex! I'm sure this feature will make many users very happy

With that feature vanilla is now a "complete experience" in my eyes, as it offers all the utilities and quality of life previously only available through mods. I'm genuinely impressed how many mods I've no longer needed over the years, thanks to their functionality being added into the base game. You guys are doing an amazing job, and I'm looking forward to whatever the future holds. I'm sure you'll surprise us with things we never knew we wanted soon enough

Cheers

[tamanous]

Awesome. Thank you so much!

[lonjil]

One thing I think might synergise with the train stop limit, is giving trains the option to have a "fallback station", somewhere they only path to if all other stations are disabled or full. I've seen quite a few people talk about having depots where trains stay if they aren't needed, but this seems a little annoying to me, as it means the depot stop needs to be part of the train's regular schedule, so the train will make superfluous trips. With the fallback station idea, that wouldn't be the case.

[Hanakocz]

I hope we will get access to create new tips even just on scenario settings (so without hard mods), so we can potentially move all map explanations into it. I get the idea that new prototypes aren't scenario thing, but at least some basic stuff to be there would be lovely. If we can make new category, new entry, unlock conditions, and fill it with either existing objects and text, that would be pretty much enough. If we can also scenario-script own cutscene then hell yeah.

We can already do our own guis and put it there, but always feels like official keybinded location is more proper spot for it, and more accessible mainly for newer players, as they will know where to find it (compared to veterans that usually quickly get the idea what to do, so don't need it that much).

[IronCartographer]

One thing I think might synergise with the train stop limit, is giving trains the option to have a "fallback station", somewhere they only path to if all other stations are disabled or full. I've seen quite a few people talk about having depots where trains stay if they aren't needed, but this seems a little annoying to me, as it means the depot stop needs to be part of the train's regular schedule, so the train will make superfluous trips. With the fallback station idea, that wouldn't be the case.

This might be reasonably possible if trains would check the conditions for their destination stop and skip it in their schedule if their waiting conditions were already met (at the time of destination selection), BUT still go to that train stop if there were no other options available to them. I suspect that rides a fine line between a feature and hack though, so it may not be amenable to being implemented to the devs' satisfaction.