Friday Facts #406 - Space Age Music

[JupiterSky]

The music presented so far sounds pretty intense, but I'm sure the stuff we haven't heard is going to be more ambient and designed to fill the air while still carrying a catchy tune.

Some people have said some guesses already
Here is my take on the last two planets

Planet 3 - Glebe, which isn't named after a God directly, but it refers to a land which is assigned to support the priest. So I would expect a lot of life on the planet, which would be concentrated around some kind of queen/mother, hive, Hometree (as in the Avatar movie). A lot of life dependant on something very important.

Planet 4 - Aquilo, after the God of cold north wind, stroms and winter. Very hostile, almost inhabitable planet. Anything man-like outside the warmth of the base would freeze to death. All surface resources would be covered under a thick layer of snow. I imagine it a little bit as Mann's frozen planet from the Interstellar movie.

Oh wow, that confirms my theory that the planet the unnamed music is assigned to is winter themed. This seems to be a pretty accurate assessment of the planets, thanks!

[ema]

While on the subject of track-switching, I'm wondering how Factorio is going to handle the transitions when you're on one planet but working remotely on others, and switching between them.

It would be easiest just to always play the tracks of the planet you're on, but if you're doing a particularly long remote work session, the difference between what's playing and what you're looking at might be jarring. On the other hand, I hate it when a game interrupts a track so frequently that you can't enjoy the music when your context naturally switches rapidly (looking at you with serious side eye, original Baldur's Gate, for restarting the otherwise gorgeous music whenever I quicksave).

A simple solution would be to keep the current song playing but for the next one choose one from the surface you're viewing. When you then end the remove view session they could do the transition the same as when the PC switches surfaces.

[gravityStar]

I really enjoy the music for Space and Vulcanus. However, the music for Fulgora is very stressful. I think I would like to mute both that music and the thunderstrikes in order to feel more comfortable.

Please consider incorporating jukebox or music player controls that allow users to enable/disable tracks and order/shuffle them. An example of this feature can be found in C&C Remastered: https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-co ... lized=true

[malecord]

What the other planet them will be... one can only guess one will be obviously winter themed, and the final boss one will be Greenpeace themed with loads of anti democracy biters. Mazbe even the place they come from.

[Panzerknacker]

Thanks for sharing this FFF again, gotta say I've been having some mixed feelings lately with some QoL stuff, bigger reveals and even some of the soundtracks presented here.

But seeing that scene of the space platform going with the massive engines, guns blazing and arms flexing in and out combined with that music makes everything good again. Whoever came up with that and also the amazing Quality system that im really looking forward to, you guys know what you are doing, keep up the good work.

[Ironmonk]

The one I liked the most is Vulcanus.

The sample for unknown planets are also to my liking.

The one I didn't like at all is Fulgora... to the point that I will probably turn the music off when I'm at that planet.

And this gave me the idea:

Why you devs don't add individual music control for each planet? this way the player can control the music volume more precisely or turn off the soundtrack for planets they don't like.

[Henry Loenwind]

Wait a minute... Factorio already has some music?

I'll need to check where that has been hiding, I never noticed any.

[QELO]

In the Space Factory movie, I feel something strange about the scene where the turret instantly revives after the destroyed foundation repairs itself. Unfortunately, the repair robot can't fly, so there's nothing we can do about it.

[malecord]

In the Space Factory movie, I feel something strange about the scene where the turret instantly revives after the destroyed foundation repairs itself. Unfortunately, the repair robot can't fly, so there's nothing we can do about it.

Looks to convenient huh? Like nanites or something.

A better option imho would be a sort of spidertron-like crane that goes back and forth from the main building. Maybe later on after release this will be revised graphically.

[jockeril]

I like all the new tracks I've heard. That misterios one sound like a flora planet to me so I'm thinking since we have some harsh environment planets, we would probably have an earth-like planet somewhere and that would be it's sound - I liked it so much that I downloaded it and plan on adding it (somehow) the the factorio playlist (a mod ?)

I did notice something I didn't see before - a rocket launcher that fires at the asteroids - are we getting a new weapon type ? and that rocket-silo integrated with some other stuff is also interesting - is that new graphics for the existing silo or a space-platform exclusive thing ? time will tell...

I'm a bit on the fence on this new expansion, as i'm just now (probably because of it) coming back to the game after years of not playing it since 1.0 came out (IDK, I just lost interest) but I'm hoping to become in-love with it again and decide to purchase it anyway. I mean we kinda already have a more expansive experience with a new game (which I will not fully name, DSP) so what's the point ?

But I wish Wube all the success with the expansion as well as they had with the original game and thank you for making Factorio so great that we all love it !

[akaszynski]

I joined the forms just to say I've been listening to the "other 2 planets" soundtrack on loop almost continuously while working over the past few days. Really appreciate the work being done on all fronts for this expansion.

Looking forward to seeing the Factorio OST for purchase.

[Donion]

Why you devs don't add individual music control for each planet? this way the player can control the music volume more precisely or turn off the soundtrack for planets they don't like.

To me it sounds like a complicated GUI for just a couple of people for something that can be easily done with a simple mod.
Never say never, but it would be a very low priority.

[picklock]

Another FFF with very interesting background information.

The music sounds very good. However, I'm not yet sure whether the more dynamic and faster pieces won't overload and distract too much from the actual gameplay. I'll find out when I can play it myself.

[Brambor]

May I suggest manual-auto-correct, like Grammarly? I often see missing "a" or "an" in FFF. Last week, it was the very first sentence:

Hello,
Today we have a quite a range of new features and improvements coming in 2.0.

Which should have been "Today we have quite a range"

It would be just a quick final pass. I copied the whole FFF to Grammarly, it said it found ~30 mistakes. You can quickly go through them and find that about 20% should absolutely be addressed. The rest I am not sure about since I am not a native speaker, I am Czech.

[TBC_x]

What the undisclosed music at around 4:00 sounds like to me:

Infernotown.png (339.78 KiB) Viewed 2383 times

I have a suggestion, you could have two sets of playlists for each planet.

The discovery playlist with one or two tracks that play when the player character lands on the planet to set the mood. But then have the regular factory building playlist which would play on a loop after the discovery playlist finishes + when in remote view.

This shouldn't be too demanding to add to the sound system and it would allow artists to go crazy with the discovery tracks and make more restrained factory building mood. I kinda think that you're trying to put those two things together in a single playlist where you need hard compromises.

Then there is problem of switching remote view. I would just copy what Terraria does with biome music. Then there are games that jarringly restart the playlist after biome change like The Settlers IV and that's also pretty rough.

[iestynne]

Fulgora & the mystery planet are definitely my favorite excerpts, very distinct flavors. Space and Vulcanus seem kind of like generic movie music.

[Woody]

I love Fulgora's music.

And I enjoy reading about the challenge of making this awesome music that always has to be designed to not be too distracting to the player. How about this: When the music is finished, you take everything that is left on the cutting floor and build a few actual songs per planet from it, and release a digital music album. Songs that are designed without the restraint of "not too distracting", but just songs.

That is probably way, way more work than I imagine, but I would buy it. Fulgoras music will get directly on my "music during work" playlist when it releases.

[valneq]

I am surprised to hear so many "traditional" instruments, but I guess that happens if you record an orchestra.
To me, the beauty of Factorio music so far was that it was very much dominated by industrial noises and artificial sounds.
It feels like the preview of the Space Age music presents a very big shift in the mood just based on the auditory textures we get to hear.

If there is still some wiggle room in terms of mixing: please make sure that most or all of the tracks still have some of that industrial feel as we had before.

[Mendel]

I don't usually get the chills when listening to a piece of music for the very first time. Usually it takes a few listens even for very good tracks.
The space one did it for me right away!

[Maxor_XV]

Very nice.
I liked the themes and thought they were very fitting, but the music on Fulgora is too loaded, my brain went into stress mode listening to it... i think it's good for an intro, but as a constant background music, i don't know...

I agree, although I think I would be more annoyed than stressed with thunder.