Friday Facts #387 - Swimming in lava

[Dragonisser]

Where is the blog post? The link gives me a 404 error.

Nvm. its back.

[Terrahertz]

Also, these buildings have me wondering what the other planets will offer to dissuade me from going to Vulcanus first every game.

Same here, it's hard at the moment to imagine what could be on the other 2 planets, that makes you say "The Mega-Drill has to wait until I get ...".
Maybe the two other things seen in FFF-372

I wonder how to kickstart you factory there as a whole, are the rocks there also containing copper to get the offshore pump build? Or do you have to bring enough material with you? If so how do you get it down without the ground station? Guess only time will tell.

It's nice to see that you can now make progress when it comes to mining and aren't limited to the 2 machines available from the start of the game.
One detail I think is awesome is the little ping sound the foundry makes, when the cast is closing after ejection of the work piece.

Good Job!

[picklock]

Another FFF with lots of interesting news.

The new mining drill looks awesom and if it is not too expensive to produce it will replace my standard mining drills.

The foundry also looks awesom. I can't wait to see what you can do with it.

[wizcreations]

I like the new machines! But I notice the ear ratio is wrong on the new mining drill. When moving left/right, the little gears spin way more than they should for the amount of motion and the spacing/size of the teeth. You’d be grinding off gear teeth if they spin that fast.

[TWalk]

I just want to give kudos to the modeler and animator. Beautiful work!!!

Also, to the team - you guys delivered one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had (been gaming for 35 years!!). I have absolute trust your decisions will be great. Keep up the good work and look forward to your next ideas!

[adam_bise]

Man those big machines look so cool! Or hot rather! Can't wait!!

[Oshida]

Could have saved 3 belt here




i can't wait for the "update" to drop so i can buy the game (i know i can buy it now)

[MBkufel]

I can't wait to see if molten metal based factories on Navius will be a viable option.

The ability to cast things directly sounds amazing.

[Ghoulish]

So many new things on the way!

[yagors2]

If you have to build multiple bases then it's important to reduce points of repetition between planets so that nothing feels stale. Over time we have consistently tried to simplify and cut excessive things. If something is repetitive but can't be cut, then we can add a new twist or a new shortcut instead. This has been the case since Earendel's initial version and every iteration since, so now we can get through all the planets while keeping the gameplay fresh

I now wonder if we will get some terrain structures on other planets that make obtaining resources truly something alien. On Nauvis we got "resource is in ground, mine the ground" and on Vulcanus "resource is on lava, extract and smelt from the lava". 3 planets to go, and that makes chances of getting at least another mechanic to get raw materials very likeky. But WHAT coud it be? I picture a great boulder of pure copper being cut to chunks with laser turrets and getting picked up by carrier drones, or a scheduled ship that sails from port on an ocean world and detonates depth charges on the sea floor to mine salt deposits, then grabbing those by water-turbines that separate the water-resource mix nearby and filtrates what you want from all the sludge.
Unlimited creative potential, really. Make it weird, make it complex, but make it INDUSTRIAL. Im so happy with these FFFs

[mcmase]

Its settled, as soon as the expansion is released I'm going to Vulcanus first! I love big industrial machines and they fit right in to the lava planet. Reminds me of Mustafar. The team has done an amazing job with the foundry and big mining drill, and its great that you can actually bring this tech to other planets, even though the designs were meant to work best on Vulcanus and will probably get the most use there.

So many questions that probably won't get answered until we get to play, but I really hope next week we get to hear about the new enemies Vulcanus has in store for us. For me, Factorio 1.0 really suffers in the combat department, and combat is more something of a nuisance or just something else to be automated rather than any major strategical decision. It would be a great benefit to have enemies that forced more significant decision making (and can't just be entirely nullified late-game), and myself and other players have added suggestions to the forums along the lines of having at least one planet in the expansion be heavily combat focused...

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=109864
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=109541

But anyway, love the post and getting more excited by the week to finally get to play. If this is what we get on Vulcanus then I can't imagine what the other planets hold in store for us. Absolutely love that each planet will feel this unique, with its own progression path and challenges and setups, almost like the expansion is 5x the size of the base game!

[elfend]

Just came here to say, this FFF gave me chills with the graphics and sound show ... You guys did and are doing a once in a lifetime thing with creating Factorio / and now the expansion. So thank you so much ... and the hype is real!

[BrainlessTeddy]

Ok that is absolutely amazing. New ressources, new crazy ways to obtain our beloved iron and copper and so on with new crazy drills and machines. It feels like you perfectly scratched that itch between overwhelming and exciting.

[TheoMarque]

Very nice post, introducing new fluid pools and many ways to aquire materials... but...

Electricity. On all images that you post I do not saw any electric interfaces. And you mentioned "pollution" from mining drills.

So...

1. How we can produce electricity on Vulcanus? Solar panels with 50% less efficiency due smoke from lava pools? If water will be expensive - not steam engines and nuclear? Geothermal plants? Wind power?
2. A Pollution - if Vulcanus atmosphere contains a tons of solid pollutants (like polish air in middle of winter on rural areas) - they not affect aliens to attack us (if there will be).

Another issue that i found - dropping useless stone/items into lava pool - need to affect pollution in the air and act like landfill after reach some amounts of them reducing size of lava pools. This will be aligned with depleting mining patches on nauvis.

[bohtar]

I hope you guys expand the OST as well! The original soundtrack is genuienly one of my favourite game OSTs, amongst the likes of Disco Elysium, various Valve osts and others. I especially love studying to factorio ost so this would make me eternally happy.

It wouldn't even have to be a huge ost. Maybe three tracks per new planet that play alongside the original ost whenever you are on said planet? And maybe there could be an option to turn on the entire soundtrack regardless of which planet you are on. Idk I personally think it's a nifty idea but it could be wishful thinking. Looking forward to the expansion regardless!

[Shuisman]

Maybe three tracks per new planet…

Music depending on the planet would be really cool!

[BattleFluffy]

Looks very cool!
However I noticed that the Foundry's rate of production does not match the speed of the animation. We see a big bucket pouring out molten metal into a cast, then the cast being released... and that happens at a certain rate. But if we look at the gears being produced by the machine, they are produced at a very much faster rate. That looks a little odd to me.

[ChefOfRamen]

It would probably take a lot of graphics effort, but it seems really weird that lava/molten metal in pipes doesn't glow.

[Kadet123]

Very nice post, introducing new fluid pools and many ways to aquire materials... but...

Electricity. On all images that you post I do not saw any electric interfaces. And you mentioned "pollution" from mining drills.

So...

1. How we can produce electricity on Vulcanus? Solar panels with 50% less efficiency due smoke from lava pools? If water will be expensive - not steam engines and nuclear? Geothermal plants? Wind power?
2. A Pollution - if Vulcanus atmosphere contains a tons of solid pollutants (like polish air in middle of winter on rural areas) - they not affect aliens to attack us (if there will be).

I'm guessing power might be something heat based, like a stirling engine generators, or heat exchangers that take lava (or coal) and water to make steam. Steam might still be viable even if water comes from acid, if we get something like the condensing steam turbines from Space Exploration that return 90% of the steam as water again (meaning the overall process only consumes ~10% of the water overall).

Solar might be an option though. Last FFF said Vulcanus is closer to the sun than Nauvis, so solar might generate 2x as much power. Tungsten has interesting electrical properties, maybe it can make better solar panels, or superconductor based entities that generate 2x the power.

[Jarin]

If an intermediate is only ever used for one thing then perhaps it should be more useful or be removed

You have no idea how much of a relief it is to read these words. This was my single biggest frustration when trying to play Space Exploration (unique single-use buildings that make unique single-use items for science), and the thing that put me off continuing my playthrough of it.