""Factorio 2""

[Jap2.0]

I’d like to see a more performant multiplayer, one that allows a server to do simulation for the client.

I’d like to see a more 3d ish game. Not one that lets you build in 3 dimensions, but one that solves the issue of train tunnels.

The first is almost certainly never going to happen, the second seems moderately likely; the rest are comparatively small changes (don't require major architectural changes/a different game).

[NotRexButCaesar]

I’d like to see a more performant multiplayer, one that allows a server to do simulation for the client.

The first is almost certainly never going to happen

Never say never.

As for “major changes”, part of the reason for factorio 2 would be to pay the devs for all the work they would do. They can’t just add updates forever.

[blazespinnaker]

Building in 3 dimensions would be very cool, if that is what is meant by 3d. I think that might be a bit overwhelming for some, however.

But 3d graphics and animations for the sake of replacing our imagination seems like a rather large and unfortunate waste of game development budget.

That sort of stuff is everywhere and I think the video game community is maturing to the realization that it's just unnecessary bloatware when it comes to imaginative play. It's like - we don't know how to innovate, so let's just add better graphics so our players don't have to think as much.

Think about this - Map mode is super awesome, and yet the graphics are throw backs to the 80s.

[Jap2.0]

I’d like to see a more performant multiplayer, one that allows a server to do simulation for the client.

The first is almost certainly never going to happen

Never say never.

As for “major changes”, part of the reason for factorio 2 would be to pay the devs for all the work they would do. They can’t just add updates forever.

The feasibility of non-lockstep multiplayer would necessitate either

1. Significantly higher (i.e. several orders of magnitude, enough to send pretty much the entire game state every tick) internet bandwidth AND
(2a. Significantly worse latency hiding OR
2b. Simulating a significant portion of the game to hide latency anyway, negating many benefits of server-side computation)

OR

3. A massive simplification of Factorio so that it loses most of its complexity and is no longer the game we all came to know and appreciate. (You think the oil changes were bad, and know how some of the community reacted to that? This would be far, far more than that...)

OR

4. Very significant graphics capabilities on the server (à la a streaming service) - which would be difficult both because graphics cards are not especially common in servers and are generally on the expensive side, and this would likely have to be enough to render the game for each person connected to the server, making very large servers almost impossible AND
5. Bad latency AND
6. Significantly higher bandwidth requirements (enough to stream a high quality video)

[NotRexButCaesar]

I’d like to see a more performant multiplayer, one that allows a server to do simulation for the client.

The first is almost certainly never going to happen

Never say never.

As for “major changes”, part of the reason for factorio 2 would be to pay the devs for all the work they would do. They can’t just add updates forever.

The feasibility of non-lockstep multiplayer would necessitate either

1. Significantly higher (i.e. several orders of magnitude) internet bandwidth AND
(2a. Significantly worse latency hiding OR
2b. Simulating a significant portion of the game to hide latency anyway, negating many benefits of server-side computation)

OR

3. A massive simplification of Factorio so that it loses most of its complexity and is no longer the game we all came to know and appreciate. (You think the oil changes were bad, and know how some of the community reacted to that? This would be far, far more than that...)

OR

4. Very significant graphics capabilities on the server (à la a streaming service) - which would be difficult both because graphics cards are not especially common in servers and are generally on the expensive side AND
5. Bad latency AND
6. Significantly higher bandwidth requirements

Or some sort of vanilla clusterio

[Jap2.0]

I’d like to see a more performant multiplayer, one that allows a server to do simulation for the client.

Or some sort of vanilla clusterio

That's not the server doing the simulation for the client. That's teleportation between multiple servers, which is kind of moving the goalposts; the client still simulates the full server they're on and has performance limits. Furthermore that has similar server-side bottlenecks (I saw something somewhere about sum UPS with multiple instances running on one computer somewhere but I can't find it now - anyway, it's pretty quick diminishing returns), and I don't think it's reasonable to expect most people to have multiple servers lying around.

[NotRexButCaesar]

...

I don’t care how it is done, as long as it works.

[Jap2.0]

I don’t care how it is done, as long as it works.

Famous last words

More seriously: wanting something that just works and wanting an elaborate Clusterio setup are far from the same thing.

[eradicator]

Building in 3 dimensions would be very cool

Playing "Factory Town" convinced me (by being a confusing multi-layered counter-example) that single-layer building with a top-down perspective is a requirement for any good management game, not a limitation. With several layers above each other it just becomes more and more impossible to see at a glance what is actually happening. It also makes interacting with the game significantly more complicated and denies the player a sense of "total overview/understanding". Minecraft + Fortresscraft (and others i haven't played) show that 3D factories work somewhat okay-ish from a first-person perspective, but that can't ever reach the scale that Factorio does because of - again - a perspective induced lack of overview.

[Crash-Over]

Building in 3 dimensions would be very cool, if that is what is meant by 3d. I think that might be a bit overwhelming for some, however.

But 3d graphics and animations for the sake of replacing our imagination seems like a rather large and unfortunate waste of game development budget.

That sort of stuff is everywhere and I think the video game community is maturing to the realization that it's just unnecessary bloatware when it comes to imaginative play. It's like - we don't know how to innovate, so let's just add better graphics so our players don't have to think as much.

Think about this - Map mode is super awesome, and yet the graphics are throw backs to the 80s.

3d is Satisfactory and factorio 2 well what should be changed because there!!!!! I would prefer it if the developers put their heart and soul into it and add optimizations etc. There are enough possibilities but that are their decisions as far as that is concerned.

[blazespinnaker]

Building in 3 dimensions would be very cool

Playing "Factory Town" convinced me (by being a confusing multi-layered counter-example) that single-layer building with a top-down perspective is a requirement for any good management game, not a limitation. With several layers above each other it just becomes more and more impossible to see at a glance what is actually happening. It also makes interacting with the game significantly more complicated and denies the player a sense of "total overview/understanding". Minecraft + Fortresscraft (and others i haven't played) show that 3D factories work somewhat okay-ish from a first-person perspective, but that can't ever reach the scale that Factorio does because of - again - a perspective induced lack of overview.

Well, what Factorio lacks is proper encapsulation. There are blueprints, but it's really more copy paste encapsulation.

If we had encapsulation, the ability to create "meta assemblers", than I think it could help bring such things as 3d factory building to a manageable level.

[eradicator]

If we had encapsulation, the ability to create "meta assemblers", than I think it could help bring such things as 3d factory building to a manageable level.

I think those are two very different problems. Meta assemblers would just increase the order of magnitude of the numbers you deal with, which has no influence on game play mechanics. Modpacks have shown that faster assemblers don't reduce physical factory size, and i doubt more complex assemblers would be different. Physical factory "spread" is limited by UPS not complexity. Thus meta assemblers wouldn't solve the inherit bad overview problem of 3D. Infact i think they'd create their own overview problems because - just like factorissimo - they'd have the same visual representation for completely different functions.

[blazespinnaker]

Well, I was sort of thinking that a single 3d vertical building could be turned into a 'meta assembler'. In that way, you maintain your 2d over view. The 3d part just lets you invent interesting assemblers.

There's some interesting opportunities for scale here as well. At some point after it's proven it's capability via processing input into output, Factorio doesn't need to simulate the innards of the meta assembler, especially when you're more in 2d overview mode.

Of course, you can always zoom back in and improve it if that's your interest, at which point the game would resume simulating the details. Capturing and enabling this experience smoothly so it doesn't seem like different games would be tricky, but I suppose worth it.

When you think about it, you can envision many of the assemblers / plants in Factorio as complex 3d buildings doing processing. Wube could translate some of those into this concept, either for us to tinker with or use as inspiration.

3D can be difficult for many people though, spatially, and perhaps not so much fun. Frustrating enough dealing with those spaghetti underground belts in 2d

I'm also a big biter / PVE fan, and I don't really see how that all plays into this, at least not in a way that I find impressive and up to the standards of innovation that Wube has shown.

Factorio with FPS glued on would be very depressing. I think I lasted about 5 seconds watching a satisfactory youtube video before I had to turn it off. It's really that horrid to me. It felt like someone was purposely working very hard trying to demean and degrade the truly novel and creative concept that Factorio is. For what purpose, I don't know. To destroy it was all I could come up with.

And this is coming from someone who owns pretty much every VR headset made in the last 5 years.

Adding 3d, just because, has wrought a tremendous amount of damage in modern technological play. All too often it's been done as a way to replace rather than enhance the imagination we all have and should use. Just another form of brain dead TV watching, if you ask me.

But, whatever, if it sells, sure, why not I guess. got to make the doughnuts, after all.

[ptx0]

Factorio with FPS glued on would be very depressing. I think I lasted about 5 seconds watching a satisfactory youtube video before I had to turn it off. It's really that horrid to me. It felt like someone was purposely working very hard trying to demean and degrade the truly novel and creative concept that Factorio is. For what purpose, I don't know. To destroy it was all I could come up with.

And this is coming from someone who owns pretty much every VR headset made in the last 5 years.

Adding 3d, just because, has wrought a tremendous amount of damage in modern technological play. All too often it's been done as a way to replace rather than enhance the imagination we all have and should use. Just another form of brain dead TV watching, if you ask me.

But, whatever, if it sells, sure, why not I guess. got to make the doughnuts, after all.

gosh, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Factorio was based on Minecraft modpacks, BuildCraft and IndustrialCraft. It's a lot like Dwarf Fortress.

it's a really well-executed concept, but the idea of running a factory isn't new to Factorio, I remember playing a more macro version called Sim City 3000 as a kid.

personally, I quite enjoy both Factorio and Satisfactory. they're basically the same game.

[blazespinnaker]

yeah, it was a strong reaction for sure, but I did it because I really believe that 3d bloat has ruined many videos games. sad companies like coffee stain undermine by pulling revenue from visionary teams like wube that are laser focused on mechanics and game play above all else.

3d bloat all too often becomes "yeah, our gameplay sucks, but hey look over here at where we use this pbr metal library we bought off some engine reseller". or, "our players have no imagination and don't care about game play, so let's just give them some realistic looking graphics."

the youtube videos look more modern and impressive, so players get sucked in without caring about how it actually plays. they spend less time looking for games with great mechanics and sophisticated user experiences.

like scale, trains, freaking trains and signals man. bots. blueprints. the modding library. the depth here is incredible.

Your reference to minecraft above is very much my point, btw. that and roblox are really fantastic platforms where you test drive a game by playing it rather than watching a video, where mechanics win via meritocracy over shiny things. kids have great imaginations and they can fill in those details far better than a 3d engine ever could

there are so many incredible ideas implemented on those platforms that just needs a wube to give them life.

3d + factorio would be cool, but use 3d to enhance gameplay and mechanics, not replace imagination.

honest question - can you link to a youtube video of satisfactory that shows gameplay mechanics at the same level of factorio?

i've looked many times, but i'm pretty skeptical I'll ever find something, as it's very likely they are too bogged down in supporting their 3d engine to match the depth that wube provides.

not to say it isn't possible to do better with 3d. VR games, for example, require 3d and is always an inherent part of the game play and mechanics. fps as well, but there is a reason why games like csgo and tf2 are still so popular, and it's not because they are free. destiny is one of the few games that have been able to invest in 3d while still maintaining decent, if not particularly original, game play. fortnite is great, but unreal never quite took it to its conclusion.

[ptx0]

3d + factorio would be cool, but use 3d to enhance gameplay and mechanics, not replace imagination.

honest question - can you link to a youtube video of satisfactory that shows gameplay mechanics at the same level of factorio?

here i was thinking you'd actually played the game you're complaining so much about.

trains in a 3d world require more power when going up hill. much of Satisfactory is a logistical challenge.

[blazespinnaker]

3d + factorio would be cool, but use 3d to enhance gameplay and mechanics, not replace imagination.

honest question - can you link to a youtube video of satisfactory that shows gameplay mechanics at the same level of factorio?

here i was thinking you'd actually played the game you're complaining so much about.

trains in a 3d world require more power when going up hill. much of Satisfactory is a logistical challenge.

i don't really need to play it. i've seen this story play out so many times.

it's rather telling you can't answer my question.

[ptx0]

i don't really need to play it. i've seen this story play out so many times.

it's rather telling you can't answer my question.

maybe you just can't read. maybe you're afraid.

[blazespinnaker]

yeah, ad hominems and tautologic arguments don't add much

[Impatient]

guys, what are you problems? don't start to fight! this topic is much too interesting to be locked by an admin.