Friday Facts #414 - Spoils of Agriculture

[Akontio]

How is this concept functional together with quality? I'm not sure if it is a good idea to have items with different quality and changing durability at the same time. In my opinion it is overcomplicated.

Considering quality isn't mentioned in the post, I am guessing that all spoilable items have no quality maybe? With whatever non-spoilable item they create being be the ones that roll for quality- It will be fine in that case don't worry.

I do hope they change the names of both systems though, like maybe 'decay' and 'purity', especially if they want to reuse these systems in the future (plus for mod creators too)

[nimeroni]

I think I will like the spoil mechanic.

I still do not like how some parts of Gleba terrain looks. Everything that looks slimy and bubbly, half-dead and warty is really repulsive. Some parts will trigger trypophobia. It's designed to be disgusting in an alien way. It doesn't have to be that way. It could also look interesting and appealing in an alien way.

I know you mean to criticize the art style, and that's fine, but its a bit tactless to say the art style should be something else entirely after the work has already been put in. I honestly like how this style breaks the trope of alien worlds looking way too earth-like, it actually looks alien. It seems since this planet was revealed there's a small few that don't even want to give it a chance.

Also why are we concerned with Trypophobia? It's just an instinctual fear, we naturally dislike things that look or smell rotten, but it's what nature does naturally, like making everything crabs for some reason. I'd argue Fulgora is the only one deserving accessibility settings with the constant flashing (but it's likely that exists already).

Though to be honest.. we pretty much already have had things in the base game that has existed years that would dispel anyone with that fear, have you forgotten biter nests exist?
the horror of pre-existing art design!

Size and colors are impactful for Trypophobia. Personally, small black hole are what hit me the most. Nest do nothing to me, but the image from the previous FFF made me very uncomfortable.

This one in particular is really, really bad : https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blo ... wip-02.png

[Akontio]

Forgive me, I know I'm probably the 6th person to say this but there could maybe be some visual tweaks for the agricultural tower? I can't stop looking at it without feeling it looks a bit off, with the more obvious being that it kinda just pokes the trees and evaporates them. I understand things are subject change, and there was a bit of difficulty for Jerzy and Lou to make it work, but assuming the systems are are mostly place.. It could still be slightly adjusted, and I have some ideas if they haven't already been mentioned here already.

I suggest:

• The machine should first fully turn toward its target, then move its hook once it directly over (Without exactly affecting its speed of course).

• Could give the hook a whirling drill-like animation when it strikes a tree for some better visuals.

• The hook could also instead be like big sharp grappler claw, breaking trees with a big snap.

• And as my last idea it could maybe retract then lunge into things like a harpoon?

• You could also make the fruit drop unto the ground and have the machine pick it up.

• I assume the machine has some sort of vacuum function as it doesn't self-insert its resources. It would be cool if some particles gravitated toward the hook to represent that

• Would need extra some work but maybe the trees could have a destruction animation for when they break? It's currently just particles.

These are just early suggestions but in reality it is just fine as is, the planet itself is gonna seem to have A LOT of graphics toward completion.

[MistAway]

I created an account on the forums just to write this. Sorry in advance if it may sound less constructive and too emotional. Hope such feedback is valid too.

The point is that spoilage mechanic is the most disappointing part of the expansion after quality, for me personally. Honestly, I hoped that Gleba experience would be about growth, not decay.

The idea of forcing players to stop buffering everything sounds cool, no problem. But when you think about details of this implementation you find out that it is just incompatible with the game as we know it right now. In 1.1 you can beat the game without ever using circuits or over-optimized builds. Just in your own tempo, solving tasks suboptimally, knowing that the game will not punish you (biters are a pressing factor, but they can be configured as much as you like).

Well, not anymore. Now you are forced to look how resources you collected turn to rot, because you don't have mental capacity to calculate ratios after long day of work. The game is not relaxing anymore. It is punishing.
Even if you managed to get your science to not spoil before reaching the lab, it will be less effective anyway. You are never completed the task. It always will be 80-30% imperfection.

This is just frustrating and tedious. Not fun.

I am not even talking about the technical details.
What would happen when you forgot to put next bio research in the queue?
Will items spoil while inside the assembler/lab slots waiting to be processed?
How putting timestamp on every item will affect performance?
How do you calculate ratios for growing trees?
What reward the planet brings others then being a roadblock with tedious mechanics?

The most popular comment here and on reddit is freezers. The first thought even among supporters of the feature is removing it or slowing it down. This is cliffs 2.0 straight away!

Sorry guys, but I am horrified of amount of fans not seeing elephant in the room.
I still believe in Wube, but I hope they know what they are doing.

[MP23]

Looks amazing!

[FuryoftheStars]

If we look at the images provided it seems they can stack just fine together. I imagine the system works by averaging the total spoilage of a stack, likely keeping count of the highest spoilage value of each stack as to avoid players refreshing the spoilage with new product.

That's true. For some reason I had it in my head that stack inserters could still move more than one artillery shell around, but they can't. So yeah, these do stack.

---------------------------------------

Forgive me, I know I'm probably the 6th person to say this but there could maybe be some visual tweaks for the agricultural tower? I can't stop looking at it without feeling it looks a bit off [...]

I mean, they do specifically say it's not done yet. Just like the space platform when they first introduced that and expanding the platform just instantly appeared, then later they started showing us the building animations they had added in....

[Rebmes]

You brought agriculture to Factorio, and I'm excited for it ^^

Also very excited for the new mechanics, but surprised we don't have "refrigerators/freezers" to keep stuff from spoiling as fast maybe they just aren't "spoiling" everything!

Nice to have that new logistic challenge though!

[Necronium]

Farming les goooooo

Another new mechanic that will increase factory constuction skill.

the more we see visuals of Gleba in FFF the more boring current Nauvis looks like, cant wait when we got hands on SA

[AileTheAlien]

Everything that looks slimy and bubbly, half-dead and warty is really repulsive.

To me, it just seems like a marsh that ducks might swim in, with a couple alien-looking plants. Hopefully it'd be easy enough to mod in a different set of tiles.

what happens if an Item spoils while being in the Input Slot of an Assembler or so?

I'm hoping it just pauses the machine, and then you can pull it out with an inserter. I think that might be an interesting puzzle - you either have short production chains to avoid spoiling inside an assembler, or you have belts out of those assemblers, leading to your spoilage-disposal area.

Are those special landfills usable on nauvis?

I sort of hope so, since you wouldn't need to worry as much about bio science packs spoiling in space. Although, it might be weird if all the other planets' stuff can only happen on that planet.

[DeepSpaced]

I'm so excited about this expansion! You guys are doing incredible work. There's SO MUCH cool content in this expansion!

1) Love the graphics (please don't remove the beautifully hideous alien visuals... maybe a setting for those who don't like it that paints over all the holes)

2) Spoilage seems like a super fun, new & interesting challenge! I trust you guys to balance it. Love how it encourages optimizing space platform designs too.

I'm also not in love with the white bars, I feel like shaders to make items turn from green -> yellowish -> brown would work nicely. (Also love the idea someone posted of glowing steel bars that cool down over time!)

And I also agree that it feels weird to harvest the whole tree to get the fruit, but I can get on board with it, haha. I dig the idea of using nutrients to keep production up. I could also see a sapling farm where that robot arm plants seeds, spreads nutrients and then eventually pulls up saplings that get belted off to the plantations where dying trees get replaced with new saplings.

Also, trees don't need to die due to age, it could be just like standard trees where they gradually die from absorbing pollution and need to be replaced.

Anyhow, appreciate all the effort and thoughtfulness you guys are pouring into this game.

PS: guys, they might already have something like refrigeration / vacuum-packing that slows decay - would be vaguely like barrelling - throw the item into an assembler with a plastic bar, get a vacuum packed version that decays more slowly, unpack when it gets to Nauvis right before loading into the labs.

PPS: +1 to buzz saw melee turrets! Awesome idea!

[mcdjfp]

The first of the planets that I am really excited about. I do worry that the spoiling science packs (at least that is what they look like), will be extremely limiting as they would basically require that research happens on Gleba.

Is there any point where spoilage interacts with quality? Such as an item for which spoilage doesn't make sense, but one of its ingredients does spoil?

[Danjen]

This is a really cool update! I'm glad this planet exists. For a long time, I thought it would be nice to be able to replant trees. This also takes advantage of plants/seeds that many content mods already do.
I hope people aren't put off by the concept of item freshness; it's a very interesting way to handle stockpiles/buffers and force players to address throughput
The visuals are lush and stunning too. Probably my favorite planet so far

I'm also not in love with the white bars, I feel like shaders to make items turn from green -> yellowish -> brown would work nicely. (Also love the idea someone posted of glowing steel bars that cool down over time!)

I'm a fan of having options. I always play with alt-mode on so I can have access to the information I need at a glance. Bars are much easier to read than a color gradient

what happens if an Item spoils while being in the Input Slot of an Assembler or so?

I assume you'll get an output with with 0% freshness, which becomes useless to actually use. I imagine it as a sort of multiplier between 0.00 and 1.00.
Not that I use the logic circuits, but it might be nice to be able to read the freshness of an item so you can use a splitter or filter to shove the poor quality ones away. Or you could just leave it the way it is, since that would cause players to implicitly focus on good design

[Paperfrog]

Getting great Amanita Design vibes!

[JeromeG]

Why not bring the new machine back to Nauvis to be able to harvest and replant trees in order to automate tree production?
Although I've never really been running out of trees, I would like it

[RocketManChronicles]

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.

You have not seen modern robots in modern factories. Robots and cranes do not operate confined to 90 degree angles. Most manufacturing applications have robot arms moving and twisting to many obscure and compound angles. In this case, I think they should angle even more than that to be more realistic.

[GregoriusT]

Wait I just realized something, do things inside the Input Slots of Assemblers, Labs and Inserters EVER spoil? That would be a way of manually preserving Items forever, and in case of the Science Packs some absolutely ludicrous way of "Lab to Lab"-Belting the Science Packs from place to place.

I am asking this because if an Inserter especially a Bulk/Stack Inserter picks up a bunch of things and then those things rot inside it, it might not be able to ever put those rotten things into the Assembler or other Target and get stuck forever until manual intervention or until you get the idea to put a filter inserter next to the regular inserter to steal the held spoilage from it.

[Drury]

How is this concept functional together with quality? I'm not sure if it is a good idea to have items with different quality and changing durability at the same time. In my opinion it is overcomplicated.

Quality only makes sense for items that have a practical use or the items used to make them. So far all spoilable items seem to be only used for consumable science packs. Imagine you could use the perishable stuff to make solar panels and then they just rot away over time...

I created an account on the forums just to write this. Sorry in advance if it may sound less constructive and too emotional. Hope such feedback is valid too.

The point is that spoilage mechanic is the most disappointing part of the expansion after quality, for me personally. Honestly, I hoped that Gleba experience would be about growth, not decay.

The idea of forcing players to stop buffering everything sounds cool, no problem. But when you think about details of this implementation you find out that it is just incompatible with the game as we know it right now. In 1.1 you can beat the game without ever using circuits or over-optimized builds. Just in your own tempo, solving tasks suboptimally, knowing that the game will not punish you (biters are a pressing factor, but they can be configured as much as you like).

Well, not anymore. Now you are forced to look how resources you collected turn to rot, because you don't have mental capacity to calculate ratios after long day of work. The game is not relaxing anymore. It is punishing.
Even if you managed to get your science to not spoil before reaching the lab, it will be less effective anyway. You are never completed the task. It always will be 80-30% imperfection.

This is just frustrating and tedious. Not fun.

I am not even talking about the technical details.
What would happen when you forgot to put next bio research in the queue?
Will items spoil while inside the assembler/lab slots waiting to be processed?
How putting timestamp on every item will affect performance?
How do you calculate ratios for growing trees?
What reward the planet brings others then being a roadblock with tedious mechanics?

The most popular comment here and on reddit is freezers. The first thought even among supporters of the feature is removing it or slowing it down. This is cliffs 2.0 straight away!

Sorry guys, but I am horrified of amount of fans not seeing elephant in the room.
I still believe in Wube, but I hope they know what they are doing.

What if I told you you've not been playing optimally this whole time if you didn't calculate your ratios? You are now forever cursed with this knowledge and your ability to enjoy the game casually has been utterly shattered, and there's no way for you to go back! Muahahaha!

Seriously though, it seems like the spoilable items all come from eternally regrowable trees, so there's no need to be efficient in the first place. If you lose too much science to spoilage for whatever reason, just liberally spam more tree farms until you have enough, no biggie. If you're worried about your entire production turning into fertilizer and clogging, just stick a recycler to the end of it. It's not like you can only get a limited amount from the same area before having to manually move on like with ore patches, so there's no reason to stress about throwing out your production. In fact, in this sense Fulgora is much worse - nothing suggests that scrap is an unlimited resource, yet everything suggests we'll be chucking most of it into recyclers and making an excess of certain products, having to recycle them again into their component parts, an inherently inefficient process. The incompetent devs sure have pulled a fast one on us with that one...


Besides, the way I'm imagining it, there's no reason for some individual items to turn into science packs faster than others, and thus for any of them to spoil in transit while others don't. Different types of items are confirmed to have different spoilage states, but all items of a certain type seem to have identical spoilage rates. You can tell looking at the gifs - all items of the same type seem uniformly spoiled in every single one. If one science pack makes it to the labs 99% spoiled, they all do. Granted, the factory can stop for a period of time in a casual playthrough - but as I said, you can just burn the spoilage and let the fresh batch roll in. Logistics still isn't resource-expensive and space travel seems to be self-propelled, and ultimately, no non-renewable resources go wasted anywhere in the chain.

As for the technical concerns, those are actually super legitimate, especially given Wube's track record. This is probably the worst software company I've ever seen and have released nothing but half-baked unplayable updates that have been probably made and playtested by monkeys while the devs watched reruns of Argentinian soap operas. By now the game is borderline unplayable even on top-end hardware. I ask for a refund on a daily basis, but instead of my money back they keep sending increasingly incoherent threats to me and my family. Simply put - I'm scared. I wouldn't trust these people to stick a candle on a birthday cake, much less stick a decreasing integer counter on a virtual item without my computer exploding and killing everyone in a 3 mile radius.

[SunsetRain]

Idk how I feel about spoilage for science packs :/

[RocketManChronicles]

The idea of forcing players to stop buffering everything sounds cool, no problem. But when you think about details of this implementation you find out that it is just incompatible with the game as we know it right now.

Speak for yourself. I love having my factory in constant movement with no buffers and being just-in-time manufacturing. There is no wrong answer in Factorio. You are coming from one angle only, your style of play.

Well, not anymore. Now you are forced to look how resources you collected turn to rot, because you don't have mental capacity to calculate ratios after long day of work. The game is not relaxing anymore. It is punishing.

Punishing is far from what this mechanic brings. It forces you to think outside the box; not entirely a bad thing. I will bring up my style of playing this game; I play on what I call hardcore Deathworld, with many mods and settings that make the biters absolutely insane to deal with putting my factory on the edge of destruction. It is my relaxation after 15 hours days of work.

I am not even talking about the technical details.
What would happen when you forgot to put next bio research in the queue?
Will items spoil while inside the assembler/lab slots waiting to be processed?
How putting timestamp on every item will affect performance?
How do you calculate ratios for growing trees?
What reward the planet brings others then being a roadblock with tedious mechanics?

Isn't part of the charm of Factorio is to figure things out on your own as you go? And once you find a solution you have the capability to expand and improve on it? Not to mention all the tools to turn the production off when not in use or needed? Again, you are focused on one approach.

The most popular comment here and on reddit is freezers. The first thought even among supporters of the feature is removing it or slowing it down. This is cliffs 2.0 straight away!

It is a good idea, but it is a solution that rapidly simplifies one solution to the problem. I am open to see what other ideas there are, as this mechanic opens up a whole new set of gameplay.

[innesm]

I'm loving the art style of the new planet, and spoilage looks like one of the more interesting new mechanics coming in the expansion.

> Size and colors are impactful for Trypophobia.

This is a lame thing to pick as your personality.