Friday Facts #66 - Merry christmas

[FishSandwich]

One thing that really would benefit the game was a small item editor for making custom levels. This means that it would be really easy to add items which you could produce by setting things like which items they need, where you could craft it and how much time it takes to craft them.

This exists. It's called modding.

[MF-]

Can we add Gates to the entities which can receive a signal. Gates getting signals operate off signal otherwise they work as before. (Gated crosswalks )

I am not sure if you mean gates as "electronic circuitry" or gates as "mechanical obstacle"
At first it sounded as if any machine could be equipped with a "control gate" module,
which would power up/down the machine based on the CCnet condition status

But the gated crosswalks part confused things

[LordFedora]

I think he was taking about physical gates, as control gates aren't used much outside of computer science

[Night_Ange1]

Yes sorry to not be clear but I mean the physical gates that go on stone walls which open and close. The idea would be to tie them to signals and block your path so you can't cross the rail road

[Gemoron]

if you are working on the signal system, could you add some checkable states for the trains as well like wagon empty or wagon full? that would help my train system a lot, and it would save me from tinkering with the times every time miners run out (lil exaggeration, but it should make a point).

If working on the sinal system starts early february, do you start developing on the new endgame first? I'm really looking forward to see more information.

And thank you for fixing the scenario pack.

[Physix Factory]

Speaking of Trains, Hows about Electric Trains?? Run on batteries, like the power armor suit batteries, and things like a portable fusion reactor, panels, or run on overheads?

[Artman40]

One thing that really would benefit the game was a small item editor for making custom levels. This means that it would be really easy to add items which you could produce by setting things like which items they need, where you could craft it and how much time it takes to craft them.

This exists. It's called modding.

I think you got me wrong. I meant a feature that allows to make items WITHOUT modding.

[Nova]

Why should that be needed? Just mod it.

[Garm]

With addition of all these new controls please consider the current cable system. Current designs are buried underneath the web of red and green wires, please make a bit more organized as well.


Maybe use poles for long distance wiring and some ground wiring for local stuff. (terraria-like? who knows)

[kovarex]

With addition of all these new controls please consider the current cable system. Current designs are buried underneath the web of red and green wires, please make a bit more organized as well.


Maybe use poles for long distance wiring and some ground wiring for local stuff. (terraria-like? who knows)

We have been considering this many times. The conclusion is, that calculating the network flow is too time demanding calculation. In Factorio people have tens of thousands machines and electric poles in the network, and all the algorithms I know about are not linear but quadratic.

[tecxx]

merry christmas and thanks for the awesome game.

about the "endgame": every game needs some kind of "goal" to reach, to make you feel that you have "won" or at least achieved something.
just building more stuff, like another mining site here and another processing plant there, gets old soon. factorio currently has the same issue as "banished". an awesome game, brutally hard in the beginning, lots of fun while you struggle to grow and improve, and then there is ... nothing. yes, you can build three more houses there and another hut here, but whats the point? to make your population count go from 100 to 200? it lost me there.
with factorio, my interest usually vanishes once i finished automating tier three modules. there is nothing more to do, except rinse and repeat. starting a new game is much more rewarding at this point.
so +1 to you for realizing that "becoming a rich bastard" might not be the best goal

[Blackence]

The 0.12 circuit network plans sound awesome. Exactly what I was waiting for, and so far my modding attempts have not been very successful.

There's a thread in ideas/suggestions forum about advanced circuit networks, maybe you can get some sensor ideas from there.

[Garm]

With addition of all these new controls please consider the current cable system. Current designs are buried underneath the web of red and green wires, please make a bit more organized as well.


Maybe use poles for long distance wiring and some ground wiring for local stuff. (terraria-like? who knows)

We have been considering this many times. The conclusion is, that calculating the network flow is too time demanding calculation. In Factorio people have tens of thousands machines and electric poles in the network, and all the algorithms I know about are not linear but quadratic.

I am sorry, but you misunderstood.

Current Power system is absolutely fine, even circuit system is fine as it is. The problem lies in the large amount of signaling cables between poles and their targets resulting is total mess of red and green wires making it visually challenging to decipher.

I am afraid that if we would start building "control rooms" with lots of controls the poles around will look like

this

Here is the example from the game - kinda hard to decipher connections already

We need to somehow hide all these cables between sensor\receiver and nearby pole

[just_dont]

I wasn't there in time to comment on FFF #64 and the ending, so I'll do it here: indeed, as noticed by many players, "win by monies" sounds quite weak and anti-climactic. However, the whole "build your spaceship" concept is cool indeed and should really be attempted.

In my opinion, the optimal way to proceed for a release is to make some ending that could be easily expandable in future, but is not such an obvious placeholder as rocket defense. Given that the whole spaceship idea will be nicely implemented, you could go (for the moment) with a very simple "build a ship to get off this rather unfriendly planet (with useful stuff such as minerals and alien artifacts)" concept. If you skip small details and contextual explanations (i.e. it's better not to answer any "why"s), it's very open-ended and later could be further extended in many ways by removing the "get off" part and replacing it with something more grand and complex.

PS: Another unrelated thought on future plans -- you should really consider making game "less predictable" for the sake of replayability. I.e. random events (not the "your factory randomly explode" events, that would be just annoying), natives' migrations, possibly weather/seasons stuff, etc etc. At the moment, there's not much unpredictabilty (the terrain, the minerals' placement, the lairs -- are random, but that's all!), and it sort of crushes replayability.

[Cloner]

Kovarex, can you also make the smart inserters smarter? I would like it to be able to handle different items seperately (now the AND operation is forced on red and green condition). It would be great if i could set it up to pick repair packs from train if there are less than 50, or fuel if there is less than 100, or lasers if those are less then 30 and so on... (currenlty i didnt find a sollution to make this possible, as long as one condition is met it blocks the "smart" inserter)

[ssilk]

Kovarex, can you also make the smart inserters smarter? I would like it to be able to handle different items seperately (now the AND operation is forced on red and green condition). It would be great if i could set it up to pick repair packs from train if there are less than 50, or fuel if there is less than 100, or lasers if those are less then 30 and so on... (currenlty i didnt find a sollution to make this possible, as long as one condition is met it blocks the "smart" inserter)

You need currently for every item one smart inserter to do this. And I don't know how this could work with more than one item ever, that would mean, that an inserter knows what is in the net, before he grab an item.

[Zeeth_Kyrah]

The thing I've found useful in circuit sensors comes from a mod: sensing fluid level in storage tanks. That way I can control my oil production better, so I never run out of light and heavy oil. I'd also like more fluids (and maybe more materials), like fuel for your spaceship. And let's have blue wire to go with the red and green! It gets difficult trying to control complex systems with only two signal lines.

I like the rocket defense now, but it feels more like the entry to the late game instead of the end of the game. So you get this ten minute event which is probably a swarm defense scenario. Cool, then you go on to launch into the sky, right? But where is the flight? I want airplanes, not just robot drones. Why are airplanes and spaceships threatened, is it only ground forces or are there enemies in the air and space?

[Zeeth_Kyrah]

Kovarex, can you also make the smart inserters smarter? I would like it to be able to handle different items seperately (now the AND operation is forced on red and green condition). It would be great if i could set it up to pick repair packs from train if there are less than 50, or fuel if there is less than 100, or lasers if those are less then 30 and so on... (currenlty i didnt find a sollution to make this possible, as long as one condition is met it blocks the "smart" inserter)

You need currently for every item one smart inserter to do this. And I don't know how this could work with more than one item ever, that would mean, that an inserter knows what is in the net, before he grab an item.

That's what the circuit network is for, yes, for the smart inserter to know what is in storage before grabbing something. The problem is not being able to choose separate items based on separate conditions. I'm okay with using separate inserters, but I think the question being raised is more about inserters which are more programmable -- such as, being able to choose how these conditions relate to each other, instead of only two possible signal sets.

I think that belongs in the realm of mod items, though. And I'd call it a programmable inserter, so you can use If/Then groups and choose your Boolean connectors between the groupings.

[Cloner]

Kovarex, can you also make the smart inserters smarter? I would like it to be able to handle different items seperately (now the AND operation is forced on red and green condition). It would be great if i could set it up to pick repair packs from train if there are less than 50, or fuel if there is less than 100, or lasers if those are less then 30 and so on... (currenlty i didnt find a sollution to make this possible, as long as one condition is met it blocks the "smart" inserter)

You need currently for every item one smart inserter to do this. And I don't know how this could work with more than one item ever, that would mean, that an inserter knows what is in the net, before he grab an item.

That's what the circuit network is for, yes, for the smart inserter to know what is in storage before grabbing something. The problem is not being able to choose separate items based on separate conditions. I'm okay with using separate inserters, but I think the question being raised is more about inserters which are more programmable -- such as, being able to choose how these conditions relate to each other, instead of only two possible signal sets.

I think that belongs in the realm of mod items, though. And I'd call it a programmable inserter, so you can use If/Then groups and choose your Boolean connectors between the groupings.

Being able to fill a box with exactly 10 ore 10 copper and 10 rocket defences is something very basic and should be handled by smart inserter. Currently i dont know any wat to achieve this without using 3 "smart" inserters.

I dont think this belongs to mods as this is one of those core activities that would allow more factory designs. All i want is for smart inserter to check the destination and filter items accordingly. The current smart inserter after the changes will be too complex, bit still wont solve this simple task.

[MF-]

Yes sorry to not be clear but I mean the physical gates that go on stone walls which open and close. The idea would be to tie them to signals and block your path so you can't cross the rail road

Those are on the list ever since the announcement

Receivers

• Gate