Friday Facts #414 - Spoils of Agriculture

[Niyu.Cuatro]

I'm not really sold on the visuals of the white bar. But i really like the idea of spoiling materials. Anything that puts constraints in the usual style of building is welcome.

[seePyou]

Spoiling materials/resources create a need to be prompt with using them. Seeing spoilage times being even minutes, as stated in the FF, creates in me a sense of urgency, racing. Factorio has never been about racing to a goal, it's always been "take my time to design something". That seems to contradict this. It doesn't seem like I can store some resources in waiting for my design to work, and then wait to see if this is good enough, or stop a production block that is not working as well as I'd like, and then take some time to redesign it. Now I'm being penalized against that because the resources are spoiling.

I am not looking forward to this experience, I would not like to be subjected to that. If this makes it to the expansion, I might not pick this up.

[Phauxstus]

The animation on the towers looks a little weird.
The way the hand gets stretched forward at an angle makes it look more like a human hand than a crane-like machine. I think it would look much better if it was locked to a 90 degree angle, or could only deviate a few degrees so it can connect properly.

[MiniHerc]

'Spoilage'? Haven't these people heard of fridges and freezers?

I am not happy about this new mechanic at all.

Spoiling materials/resources create a need to be prompt with using them. Seeing spoilage times being even minutes, as stated in the FF, creates in my a sense of urgency, racing. Factorio has never been about racing to a goal, it's always been "take my time to design something". That seems to contradict this. It doesn't seem like I can store some resources in waiting for my design to work, and then wait to see if this is good enough, or stop a production block that is not working as well as I'd like, and then take some time to redesign it. Now I'm being penalized against that because the resources are spoiling.

I am not looking forward to this experience, I would not like to be subjected to that. If this makes it to the expansion, I might not pick this up.

100% what you said.

Devs, please don't let Earendel's weird sense of 'balancing' ruin the game.

[gGeorg]

Also, why harvesting the fruits removes the whole tree? This is not how the fruit trees usually work.

Hop plant
Potato
Cucumber
Tomato
...

[X3KJ]

Spoiling materials/resources create a need to be prompt with using them. Seeing spoilage times being even minutes, as stated in the FF, creates in my a sense of urgency, racing. Factorio has never been about racing to a goal, it's always been "take my time to design something". That seems to contradict this. It doesn't seem like I can store some resources in waiting for my design to work, and then wait to see if this is good enough, or stop a production block that is not working as well as I'd like, and then take some time to redesign it. Now I'm being penalized against that because the resources are spoiling.

I am not looking forward to this experience, I would not like to be subjected to that. If this makes it to the expansion, I might not pick this up.

You are not asked to race... the product is to be raced automatically... Your products in your factory right now are racing through blue belts while you stand perfectly still. Are you feeling exhausted by looking at blue belts moving at rapid pace? No? Then i dont see why a timing mechanic for products will make you feel exhausted...

[luckymike11]

The plant spoilage mechanic adds new depth to the game because it will prevent products from traveling throughout the factory.

When is the premiere?

[gGeorg]

Will we be able to feed biters into the biochambers?

Install an Agri-arm over a defence wall, and here we go

[Phauxstus]

'Spoilage'? Haven't these people heard of fridges and freezers?

Freezing kills all the cells. There's a reason blood bags and cell lines aren't kept on ice.
Chilling only slows it down, so you might as well just assume it's already being done in the abstract. Or the bacteria are REALLY capricious about their temperature ranges.

But now that items can have both a quality tag and a freshness tag, is it that far off to get a recipe tag so we can have alternate recipes work with recycling? I hope it will at least be made easy to just mod such new item tags in. Alternate recipes are a huge part of many popular mods.

[Niyu.Cuatro]

More thoughts about this. I've seen seeds don't spoil. So that what you would want to stockpile for starting setups after desiging and building them.

And another UI thought. When placing down the Agricultural Tower, it would be nice to have some ui element showing the area of effect. No need to show it after that, but seeing wich areas are under agricultural towers like how the logistical areas or the power areas work would be nice.

[seePyou]

Spoiling materials/resources create a need to be prompt with using them. Seeing spoilage times being even minutes, as stated in the FF, creates in my a sense of urgency, racing. Factorio has never been about racing to a goal, it's always been "take my time to design something". That seems to contradict this. It doesn't seem like I can store some resources in waiting for my design to work, and then wait to see if this is good enough, or stop a production block that is not working as well as I'd like, and then take some time to redesign it. Now I'm being penalized against that because the resources are spoiling.

I am not looking forward to this experience, I would not like to be subjected to that. If this makes it to the expansion, I might not pick this up.

You are not asked to race... the product is to be raced automatically... Your products in your factory right now are racing through blue belts while you stand perfectly still. Are you feeling exhausted by looking at blue belts moving at rapid pace? No? Then i dont see why a timing mechanic for products will make you feel exhausted...

You misunderstand and I don't know if there is a point to argue or try to make you see. All products right now in Factorio racing down blue belts stay the same for ever. I can be running Factorio for months and no product will ever change while on a belt or in a chest. But spoiling does just that. It changes the product in as short a time as minutes. That is a racing condition against time. If you still don't understand that, that's fine, you don't have to.

[X3KJ]

'Spoilage'? Haven't these people heard of fridges and freezers?

Freezing kills all the cells. There's a reason blood bags and cell lines aren't kept on ice.
Chilling only slows it down, so you might as well just assume it's already being done in the abstract. Or the bacteria are REALLY capricious about their temperature ranges.

But now that items can have both a quality tag and a freshness tag, is it that far off to get a recipe tag so we can have alternate recipes work with recycling? I hope it will at least be made easy to just mod such new item tags in. Alternate recipes are a huge part of many popular mods.

Still, chilling extends lifetime. Similar stuff should be thinkable to extend lifetime... a bit, at the cost of extra handling/material bill.

We have barrels to put stuff in... why not some kind of "micro biome, temperature regulated boxes" - that will reduce spoil rate by some amount, so the product can be transported further.

Otherwise (since the landing pads on planets are one of a kind), you have to put most of the stuff that handles spoilables directly next to it - which is kind of boring. Having the option to extend the operating range, and put it on an express train inside of extra chilling containers would be a cool option (haha) to have.

Talking about spolables... i think i might need to get rid of a couple of crates of fish before the expansion drops...

[FuryoftheStars]

Hmm, interesting. I will admit a part of my brain is wanting refrigerators now, but maybe the timers won't be as bad as I'm fearing.

I do hope, though, that you expand the harvesting/planting mechanic to Nauvis, too, and then give us some basic uses for the wood, like wood gasification.

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Also forgot to add... it looks strange that you have to destroy the tree alltogether in order to gather the fruits. If you go that route you should not use trees but something else, like mushrooms or whatever.

I agree, kind of weird. The animation (obviously WIP, but still) also looks weird, seing trees just plopping out of existance.

Suggestion: gather the fruit only, leave the tree intact. Instead of "free product growth", you have to fertilize it with some byproduct to speed up fruit production to usable levels (as natural speed would be way too slow... or slow only if there are too many trees in the same area)
Also interesting: When trees have to grow first before reaching full "fruit production capacity", you can't just exponentially ramp up production in an instant. It takes time to grow...organically. It would fit the theme of the planet

Maybe ripping out the trees entirely can have another effect (and ressource) though? Maybe after X amounts of fruit produced, it degrades to be less productive? And has ripped out and regrown (which takes time) for optimal fruit output? So either live with the degraded output, or for optimization enthusiasts - deal with the more complicated regrowing process? Maybe burn the whole farm down occasionally and replant? ^^ At the cost of... idk, angering/upsetting something else on this planet? Multiple thinkable options for a neat optimization-puzzle-experience

fruit ... err ... food for thought?

Also, why harvesting the fruits removes the whole tree? This is not how the fruit trees usually work.

It is likely a crude harvester. It's not sophisticated enough to just reach into the branches and pull out only the fruit without causing serious damage to the tree itself, so it's better to just rip the whole thing down and then replant.

[GregoriusT]

What are you talking about? You can already read a buffer, eaither from belt or chest, and in the expansion you will be able to send an interplanetary signal.

It's still far from straightfoward, but in no way impossible.

The twist on this planet looks like it is simply to create short and compact a-z and self contained production lines to then replicate over and over rather than the usal scalable main bus or train connected thematic factories. It's like building an array of SMRs instead of a nuclear plant.

that buffer spoils too you know? so you produce spoiling science even if your currently selected tech doesnt need it.

Now you can read expected ingredients from a machine. I bet you can read current research inputs from labs.

If that is the case then my fear is remedied. ^^

[TheoMarque]

Without any option to prevent spoiling - game change into race and first mod that be installed is remove that. Idea i quite ok, but why we need transport science packs into nauvis and create science lab on gleba? Why environmental on other planets like fulgora, not stop spoiling? Many questions because of idea was developed too fast.

I thing, damage factory like biters, not items. Complex factory maintenence than ruin transport lines.

With spoilage - someone create best blueprint and will be copied because with specified time to spoil - only one design will be efficient.

[gGeorg]

'Spoilage'? Haven't these people heard of fridges and freezers?

Chilling only slows it down, so you might as well just assume it's already being done in the abstract.

Or perhaps use the best freezer in the universe. Simply expose storage on space platform to absolute zero temperature of deep space, so it is preserved forever ?

[morse]

It is likely a crude harvester. It's not sophisticated enough to just reach into the branches and pull out only the fruit without causing serious damage to the tree itself, so it's better to just rip the whole thing down and then replant.

Which would imply that a more sophisticated harvester could be researched. If that's the case that would be great.

[FuryoftheStars]

Spoiling materials/resources create a need to be prompt with using them. Seeing spoilage times being even minutes, as stated in the FF, creates in my a sense of urgency, racing. Factorio has never been about racing to a goal, it's always been "take my time to design something". That seems to contradict this. It doesn't seem like I can store some resources in waiting for my design to work, and then wait to see if this is good enough, or stop a production block that is not working as well as I'd like, and then take some time to redesign it. Now I'm being penalized against that because the resources are spoiling.

I am not looking forward to this experience, I would not like to be subjected to that. If this makes it to the expansion, I might not pick this up.

You are not asked to race... the product is to be raced automatically... Your products in your factory right now are racing through blue belts while you stand perfectly still. Are you feeling exhausted by looking at blue belts moving at rapid pace? No? Then i dont see why a timing mechanic for products will make you feel exhausted...

You misunderstand and I don't know if there is a point to argue or try to make you see. All products right now in Factorio racing down blue belts stay the same for ever. I can be running Factorio for months and no product will ever change while on a belt or in a chest. But spoiling does just that. It changes the product in as short a time as minutes. That is a racing condition against time. If you still don't understand that, that's fine, you don't have to.

With a lot of the new circuit controls we've been given, the fact that trains have interrupts (and interrupt interrupts, which the devs had mentioned would be needed for a later planet...), and that this is looking like an infinite resource, you'll likely be able to just calmly work on a design that maximizes the speed in which it uses the products, pausing harvesting or seed production as needed to prevent back filling the belts if demand drops, etc.

[SHADOW13]

bit nitpicking on the tower. I understand it's a work in progress
but would be nice if it:
- actually picks up/uproots the tree and drops it into some kind of mill (instead of tree vanishing on "touch"), once done, replants the seed
- or with a big saw chops the tree close to the root (leaving the trunk on the ground), drops the tree in the mill, removes the trunk when planting new seed

the second option would be nice visible indication of missing seeds in the "building" (ie. lots of empty tree trunks around the tower when it can't replant)
and nice industrial touch with big circular saw chopping off the tree while picking the top part and dropping it into the machine

hell, then reuse the saw animation as a close-range defense tower as well

[X3KJ]

You misunderstand and I don't know if there is a point to argue or try to make you see. All products right now in Factorio racing down blue belts stay the same for ever. I can be running Factorio for months and no product will ever change while on a belt or in a chest. But spoiling does just that. It changes the product in as short a time as minutes. That is a racing condition against time. If you still don't understand that, that's fine, you don't have to.

I dont misunderstand... Energy also "spoils" / gets lost when you do nothing, because all insertes etc have idle power draw.
What do you do as a counter measure? Produce at a constant rate so you always have enough... You dont like a new challenge, ok. But dont pretend its sooo much different to the challenges we already have ingame.

When you have no use for the spoilable product ... then pause production momentarily. We have all kinds of options for that...

Most of factorio is about throughput rate - except at the very beginning. Spoilables also are exactly the same in terms of throughput... with limited transportation length. thats it.