Friday Facts #365 - Future plans

[xaver222]

what about the promised new fluid-system (and heat [since heat=fluid])?

[Philip017]

looking forward to the expansion, considering i paid $20 for the game, and got way more hours of enjoyment, than any other game in my steam library, from factorio, i would buy the expansion today, even if you never actually released it because of the shear number of hours of fun i got out of it so far.

games that ive paid US$100 for, and got was less fun out of, vs factorio, i feel like i owe you guys at least that much.

if you are planning to release the expansion for early testing, similar to your experimental branch, but want a buy in, feel free to hit me up.

[ptx0]

...

First, I want to clarify that I'm not hating on mod authors. I love Space Exploration and AngelBob's both and I've actually been involved with them to some degree.

That being said, I like your last point in particular. Wube isn't afraid to take an idea and define very clearly what it is and isn't, which mod authors can sometimes struggle to do. Certain concepts from every mod - like the Metallurgy processes in Angel's mods or the fact that you need exotic resources for higher-tier modules and beacons in Space Exploration - are spot-on and really improve my gameplay experience. Some mods - like AAI Industry - actually hit this balance nearly perfectly, in large part because they're simple and add one or two things that are balanced really well.

well AAI Industry is an interesting example, because there was a lot of backlash toward Earendel when it was made mandatory. it was considered a deaf move.

While Angel's mods have had refining in them for a long time, it's only now with the component and tech overhauls that they're starting to have uses for certain resources like lead. Almost all of the real-world uses for materials like lead and zinc have already made it into the game, and in the net, there's not enough uses for them to consume the available supply. I've even found myself at various points looking through FNEI to ask questions like "is there anything I can do with this?"

to be fair, the industry overhaul was planned like 5 years ago and Angels is only just now getting to become what it was originally envisioned as. all of its mods are marked as Experimental / Beta, and for good reason.

In contrast, vanilla provides clear and straightforward ways of dealing with excess ingredients. You mention lubricant production as an example, but it's not one I've run into: heavy oil is generally the least of my worries unless I'm not adequately cutting off my cracking. Even if I did need massive amounts of lubricant, there are other uses for oil: it can be burned as fuel (and even prioritized as fuel via power switches connected to the circuit network), converted into rocket fuel for space science (which becomes incredibly relevant in the late game), or converted into nuclear fuel for trains. If I'm having a repeated shortage of heavy oil, I could even convert over the bulk of my production to use coal liquefaction, which has clear tradeoffs in the amount and types of oil it produces. That being said, the fact that I've never had to resort to voiding or to setting down arrays of tanks is evidence of good design.

just because you haven't "had" to doesn't mean you couldn't have. I've made tons of poor design choices in vanilla gameplay, including adding more tanks to the setup because I couldn't be arsed to figure out the real problem at that moment.

likewise, in Angel's, there's always a way to avoid the overage, even if it means not using that recipe for this particular output.

That's more or less what I was trying to say when I talked about "unnecessary complexity." Some things, like going to other planets to get Holmium or setting up more complicated smelting chains to cast sheet coils, have a very clear tradeoff in that they reward additional setup and upfront cost with better performance down the line. You have to work harder, but your factory will benefit quite clearly from the additional time and effort you put in. In effect, you feel like your hard work has been rewarded. This is a cornerstone of good game design.

those still felt like 'work for the sake of work', to me. all of the metals were roughly the same production chain with different colours and ratio.

I get what you're saying about adding more tiers. At times, I've felt like mining drill upgrades from something like Bob's mods encourage a gameplay that's about getting new materials so you can get faster drills to get new materials using exactly the same blueprints. In contrast, I think something like AAI does - where it adds machines of different sizes that have more module slots - is something that rewards additional design. I've had a lot of fun setting up factories to smelt my resources in AAI because the unusual furnace size increases my enjoyment. It feels like a genuinely different design challenge than setting up rows of three-wide furnaces. LIkewise, anything Angel's does - like setting up electrode-based electrolysis or smelting metallurgy - feels like a different challenge each time.

as someone who's currently playing pure Bob's with the goal of 1 million science per minute, I have to disagree. if you want to leave throughput on the table, yeah sure you can reuse the same blueprints from early game.. the "easy solution" is to use bots everywhere. the emergent gameplay from Bob's high output levels and infinite stack inserter hand size research resulted in some very different build design in the late game. personally, i'm doing everything directly to and from trains... mining into trains, unload directly into furnaces that load directly into trains. it's quite intense, even with Bob Inserters.

the high level beacons and modules are quite different from vanilla gameplay. I think they unfairly get a bad reputation because they're not properly implemented with correctly scaled recipes.

I would ultimately love to see a marriage of all the best elements of each of these mods - space with additional resources, rewards for setting up more complicated or slightly different designs, and meaningful progression that changes more than just the tiers of your machines. I think Wube is ideally positioned to take some of the best elements of mods - like they did with fluid wagons, nuclear power, and personal roboports - and turn them into full-fledged aspects of the game that take all kinds of balance into account - not just the literal recipes but the rewards for player agency as well.

unfortunately I just don't think they can pull it off - at least, not any better than modders could - especially considering they've decided the engine is stable and feature-complete, they're not going to refactor huge chunks of its functionality to get some new and appealing game mechanics, which is really what everyone who looks at this with skepticism is trying to get at... the game is already complete.

Wube is doing something they've actively argued against. they said for a long time that adding too much content to the game restricts what mods will be able to do to "improve" the gameplay.

[Tuxicoman]

You also have the model where you pay for updates. Like WorldOfWarcraft.

Factorio is 20$
Getting the updates across the year costs 10$
At the end of the year, Factorio + all the updates costs 20$

Rinse and repeat so that the came is always between 20-30$ and people that play it the most would pay for the updates during the year. It's the same as buying a big expansion except you have direct contact with your customers like in the early access.

Otherwise who will play the expansion before it's released?
It seems you are following the Rimworld model (which I didn't bought the expansion)

Outside of that, Space Exploration is really the endgame for me.
I found it Factorio falls short once you launch the rocket. There are interesting scalability challenges beyond but no goal and no "new" things.
To get fresh stuff you need to restart anew game, whereas with the planets, you also build new bases but you feel like expanding over and over.
However the UI and progression is not so polished as the base game.
Maybe having Factorio in a great multiplayer universe would be a thing? I don't know as competitiveness would drive away the pleasure. But cooperation (like Helldivers) could work. Like Monthly production challenges for the community where everyone contributes at his scale and rather than competes.

[noname1208]

You guys have always been at the top of my favourite devs list and I can't wait to buy whatever it is you lads cook up because I know it's going to be awesome

[KrzysD]

If you did a large expansion at $20 I'd buy it without hesitation.

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-74 Still would love to see something with space platforms play out.

[JerkedBeef]

I'm glad this Earendel guy isn't gonna touch game balance because:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/aai-progr ... 000ae31980


Very exciting news regarding the expansion though! You guys gonna get my money.

[Beuteschema]

shut up and take my money

[SkerrittT]

Excellent!

Let me know and I will be more than happy to contribute $ to the next phase.

I have 4,608 hours in the game (yes I am retired).... I have had more enjoyment and satisfaction from Factorio than any other game. Thank you all.

[malecord]

Interesting. Without spoilering what you actually have in mind, do you already know the dimension of the game you want to expand?

Examples:

1) Add another order of magniture like SpaceX where you introduce techs and stuff that requires ever larger bases with a new end goal like a full fledged FTL spaceship.
2) Add more complexity with more intermediate products, alternative recipes, resources a la Bob to reach the same end goal.
3) Mantenance, like now you have to invest resources and build dedicated mentenance bots network to keep production lines and logistic network running and/or at 100% efficiency (now it's kind of too convenient, build once and it never breacks or wears down. Even without disasters like sim city, all machines eventually break both biological or mechanical in nature).
4) Introduce a tactical layer with more species of biters that possibly react/adapt your playstile and force you to plan more carefully where you expand, how, when and how many resources/automation put to maintain area control.
5) Brand new experience like this time the ship crashed on asteroid, underwater, or whatever else with completely different resources, challenges, recipes to reach the same end goal.

I'm just curious. Personally I really appreciate the balance of "base factorio". Mods of course are super welcome once you master the vanilla version, they keep the game fresh. But personally I find the base game balance and smooth progression is unmatched by any mod. It's simply to curated, it has like a perfect balance and harmony in all its elements. So I'm really curious to learn where you think the game can actually be improved.

[DaveKap]

I'm all on board for a big expansion. I hope it ends up being the space platform y'all originally conceived of as the end game!

[burninghey]

...

Yo Drury, first of all thank you for your posts over all the years, I ALWAYS enjoy reading from you so much. And specifically this post viewtopic.php?p=97937#p97937 is something I will probably remember forever.

Mods and overhauls for Factorio are truly impressive, but we are quite confident we can still add some great things. And conversely, mods will be able to build on top of those things even further!

We are very well aware how dangerous of a practice pre-ordering is, and we don't offer anything like that. For example, we definitely don't enjoy the idea of being "forced" to release something just because we've let people pay for it too soon, and now they want it ASAP, or anything along those lines.

Love, V

Did you ever consider using the shared train schedule system from OpenTTD?

[Guenni7]

Factorio is the best Game I ever bought, gave me much more bang for my bucks than any other game before.
I have faith in Kovarex that he's going into the right direction, so whatever you will sell next, I buy it.

[plepper1]

Given what I've paid for big name games, and the time I put into them vs what I paid for Factorio and the time I've put into it (over 2100 hours, per steam at this writing) I completely agree with so many of the comments, but especially these:

For one thing, given I paid the old ($20) price for the game and have gotten countless hours of enjoyment out of it, I kind of feel like I owe Wube money anyway.

Price I paid: $20
Hours of gameplay (so far): 1610

So that means the game has cost $0.012 per hour. Talk about value for money!

Given the time I played Factorio, the high enjoyment level, and given what I've paid for, I wouldn't feel robbed even if I pre-paid for an expansion pack that never came.
Factorio is one of the very few games for which I got so much bang for my bucks that I wouldn't see preordering as a risk, but as an additional tip for what I got.

Thank you to the entire team for everything you've put into the project and thank you for everything you continue to put into it!

I'll definitely be in line when there is one. I'd buy a "DLC" whose complete content is a text file containing: "Thanks for supporting us - Wube"

[legnou]

Hi, large DLC sound nice, but Factorio 2 full 3D where you can mine your way underworld sound cool no ?

[qq271206247]

I'm so excited about the future of Factorio, love Factorio forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DanGio]

Hi, large DLC sound nice, but Factorio 2 full 3D where you can mine your way underworld sound cool no ?

The thing is, as said by others in the past, 2D fits the genre so well :
- you can see all your factory easily, more than in a 3D game like Satisfactory
- building is so much easier
- all of this result in a very pleasant gameplay where you feel connected to the game, where every idea you have is implementable in seconds, and where the result is visible right away

[Durabys]

...

Yo Drury, first of all thank you for your posts over all the years, I ALWAYS enjoy reading from you so much. And specifically this post viewtopic.php?p=97937#p97937 is something I will probably remember forever.

Mods and overhauls for Factorio are truly impressive, but we are quite confident we can still add some great things. And conversely, mods will be able to build on top of those things even further!

We are very well aware how dangerous of a practice pre-ordering is, and we don't offer anything like that. For example, we definitely don't enjoy the idea of being "forced" to release something just because we've let people pay for it too soon, and now they want it ASAP, or anything along those lines.

Love, V

So, can we all call this McHuge Expansion Pack by its old-style name: Datadisc? Btw, will you do anything about liquid mechanics?

Considering your options, personally, I prefer big expansions like in the old RTS days but I trust you with doing small worthwhile DLCs.

Dude? Did you read this?

One big expansion pack

This seems to fit the best. We could focus purely on extending what we have and make new content, which we want to do so dearly! It would be one well-defined product that would be significant enough to recapture peoples attention, and it would be compatible with our workflow. Technically, it would be "just" a new version of the game, so all the infrastructure of mods being updated, multiplayer etc. would just work the same as it worked until now.

So, Expansion pack it is!

This immediately creates two main questions: What will it contain and when is it coming.

What? It is way too early to show any of the plans, and since we want to keep the iterative process of expanding things that prove to be the most fun, the plan is quite loose anyway.
When? All I can say is, that we are starting work on it now, and we don't think that it will take less than a year to develop. I'm personally very curious how the theory of getting more efficient once the engine is solid will hold.

The one big expansion pack is basically an old-style data disc in the same vein as Firestorm was for Tiberian Sun or Forged Alliance was for Supreme Commander. Basically, it is a stand-alone complete campaign game using the same engine (graphically tuned up to 11, expect more water droplets, better explosions and so on) but with all features, everyone wanted in the original but never go (like water/liquid mechanics redesign), new campaigns, new tech, new vehicles, new buildings, new endgame, new mechanics and so on.

[wyqtor]

I would like to see an expansion that offers other planets in the local solar system, each with its own unique resources and challenges, perhaps with the final goal of building a Dyson Sphere around the star (I know, NOT very original at this point.

There would be the following additional mechanics:
1. Orbital mechanics (inspired by KSP): planets and moons would orbit according to the laws of physics, and to reach them you would have to either control your rocket or program it to reach other planets and land safely (like in Kerbal Space Program). Each rocket engine type than you can build would have different delta V values. In order to remote-control your rockets, you have to make sure they are in the line-of-sight of your radio emitter on the planet, or in range of your communications satellite network.
2. Environmental protection and renewable energy (inspired by Eco): you can either strip-mine a planet and leave it as a dead husk - with negative consequences, or establish renewable energy facilities on it and allow its biosphere to thrive (with a nice big wall and turrets around your base, of course!). Or alternatively, you could use the resources from your other worlds to terraform dead-husk planets into something Earth-like. Maybe include biomass or other resources produced by the local lifeforms (biters? local plants?) into your production chains, so you can't progress without them. Maybe have them produce oil, coal, or even oxygen (although the character in Factorio seems to not need oxygen or even food to survive, for that matter)
3. Another idea is to add more of a survival feel to the game, by having the character in Factorio require oxygen, sleep, food, water and shelter to survive, and having him set up production chains for farming. Also, when exploring other worlds, you would also have to set up a life-support system for your character on the rocket itself, and even on the planet's surface for most planets (unless of course you terraform them). And you would have to avoid ruining the atmosphere and surface temperature of your starting planet with pollution and runaway greenhouse gases.

[Kurinya]

Hi, large DLC sound nice, but Factorio 2 full 3D where you can mine your way underworld sound cool no ?

It does, but would it be a fun game to play? We already have Minecraft and Satisfactory as first-person POV mining and building, and I couldn't play hundreds of hours of those. Also, blueprints are a pain.

We now have DSP as third-person POV in a fully free-moving 3D world, and it's a really cool game but I can already see I'll have difficulty moving and orienting myself.

One of the appeals of Factorio is that you can really focus on the building, and not on how you can trick the camera into a viable position.

I'd like a 3D engine, but also keeping a strict top-down view. It'd give us at least a few advantages, without loosing the Factorio feel:

• getting a better sense of perspective, and a parallax effect when moving through the base

• more life-like models (note I didn't say "more realistic"!)

• easily rotate the map (freely or, more likely, through tile angles increments), which helps with big buildings and gives us a familiar yet new perspective on our base.

• I'm sure there's lots more.