We need to talk about the new fluid system

[Panzerknacker]

How do you define gameplay ? maybe there's a whole of things that needs be clarified , to me it appears that the reason you mentionned isn't gameplay related.

Oh it absolutely is. Building cool stuff and then seeing it operate is core gameplay for me and probably most other players.

This reply of yours proves you have a very different, god knows which, way you play/experience the (or all?) game(s) then most people. It's fine of course to have that but it kinda completely invalidates your constant pushing of your 'the game is fine currently, no changes are needed' and 'there is or could be a mod for that' sentiments as these basically only apply to your very specific viewpoint while most of the people agree that something needs to improve.

So I hereby strongly suggest you go and create your thread, thanking the devs how they made the perfect game, then we can continue here finding ways in how we would like to improve it.

[mmmPI]

How do you define gameplay ? maybe there's a whole of things that needs be clarified , to me it appears that the reason you mentionned isn't gameplay related.

Oh it absolutely is. Building cool stuff and then seeing it operate is core gameplay for me and probably most other players.

This reply of yours proves you have a very different, god knows which, way you play/experience the (or all?) game(s) then most people. It's fine of course to have that but it kinda completely invalidates your constant pushing of your 'the game is fine currently, no changes are needed' and 'there is or could be a mod for that' sentiments as these basically only apply to your very specific viewpoint while most of the people agree that something needs to improve.

So I hereby strongly suggest you go and create your thread, thanking the devs how they made the perfect game, then we can continue here finding ways in how we would like to improve it.

To me gameplay is about building stuff yes, that's why i don't understand when you say you miss the old fluid system because it looked better. I don't think the way it looks is related to gameplay, it has nothing to do with what you build how and why , it's more the cosmetic layer. To me it appears that the Fluid Wagon currently offers some viable gameplay alternative to the "long pipe strategy" is that is a thing...

If you really think you have a different meaning of gameplay and it is shared by everyone else but me, it's ok if you explain it to me lol, why not ?

[Panzerknacker]

You already just did yourself so that's great! People can judge themselves, enough has been said.

Let's have respect for the OP's thread and get on topic.

[meganothing]

One more thing:

Except for Panzerknacker it seems we all agree that the 1.1 fluid system had to go and the current system is better. And most of us think it would be even better with some more limits or disadvantages.
I don't think it needs any debate about this point because it is obvious the developers agree as well: They tried to find a better system than 1.1 fluid system again and again. And they added the new system not because it was ideal but it was the only one that solved all problems but one and added no new ones. It was the best compromise they could find.

The 2.0 system was basically rushed because a few months prior to release of Space Age, devs found out the old fluid system was not handling the throughput demand of new builds that were possible with Quality components. Also, due to the generally bigger bases spread over multiple planets, UPS impact of the fluid system was becoming more problematic.

They really had no good plan, some guy just pulled the trigger and basically hacked in this thing we got in 2.0 to make the game shippable. I think I remember them adding they would revisit this later to make improvements.

At first they didnt even have the section limit where we now need to put pumps, they didnt even foresee how OP that would be.

Well, that seems to be the same story that I told only with a negative slant to it. I don't see that helping us in any way. Remember, the last step of any result this thread might come to would be to talk Wube into doing anything. Good luck with trying to do that with someone you put down before.

[Panzerknacker]

I don't mean to sound negative or put anyone down. This is just how stuff goes in game development tbh, nothing to blame Wube. But yeah, they kinda mentioned they would come back to it. And some of us expected more from that.

[mmmPI]

Well, that seems to be the same story that I told only with a negative slant to it. I don't see that helping us in any way.

I agree ,i think there's not much in the way of propositions.

We do not really agree on things but what do you think if pump were to be able to "load" a wagon at a different rate of fluid per second than the one they push fluid between pipes ? Say 10 times faster to load a wagon, as it used to be, and the regular value for pipes. To make it more obvious that throughput = wagons, precision bot & space = barrel , and convevience and early game = pipes ?

[meganothing]

There is also a criteria D) which should be: Does it add an interesting challenge to the game?

It is very easy to say "well this mechanic is simple, maybe we could make an interesting puzzle out of it". It is very hard to propose a solution that actually does it.

Yes, D is another criteria by itself. But you could fullfil it as well by (C) limiting the pipe network so some other more puzzle-worthy alternative like a train system is needed for longer distances.

Another criteria I forgot to mention is that whatever is added should be simple to understand and preferably similar to real world physics.

I think the thread lost its direction. IMHO sarge945 wanted to search for solutions, not argue about current vs. old fluid system.

It's difficult to find solutions when no-one agrees on what is the problem. I just joined a few random multiplayer games and more often than not when players are building large base they are using fluid wagons it seemed, and it gets very obvious when you check railwords maps. Therefore it would appears that the problem is more on minority of players that seems to not want to be using it than on the game balance, to me, the game is nice enough to gives different methods, and not force one upon players.

. Using railword maps as part of your statistic is without any value because players playing railwords would be the first players who would ignore any superior system and use trains instead just because. To paraphrase Maslov; "it is tempting, if the only tool you want to use is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

The same choice could be happening in other random multiplayer games you are seeing. The two interesting question are:

Are the players who are not using fluid wagons for long distance fluid transport do that because it is easier even though they think pipes are boring? And if that group is large enough to matter, would some force or suggestive limitation of the pipe system compel them to use something else that would improve their experience with the game?

Are some of the players who use trains use them not because of a meta reason like "I want to play with trains" but because they actually see a good reason not to use large pipe networks, like the need to protect the pipes from wildlife, or because they already have a train network for solids to that area.

If a player decide not to use fluid wagons, and then complain that they don't use fluid wagon, one obvious solution is to start using fluid wagons

Why are they not using fluid wagons already ? It can be deciphered that "pipes are easier to set up and works fine enough so there is no need for the fluid wagon". Which is quite illustrating of a choice similar to using only yellow belts and complaining that red and blue exists. And suggesting to make the yellow belt "worse" isn't going to help. Suggesting to make the pipes more complex to use to me is a non-sense when coming from players who already expressed their desire to not engage with the offered complexity in the game by avoidind the fluid wagons.

Currently using very long pipes isn't a viable strategy for large base imo, because if you want to increase oil throuput in your "main-central nauvis base" by adding an oil outpost and another one and another ect "far away from your base", you will have to add additionnal pumps all along, in every segment, it's tedious, i think that's why most players doing large base actually use trains wagons because not doing so is a chore.

I would disagree to the "tedious" argument. Placing pumps at intervalls would be negligible if it weren't necessary to power them. Powering them at least triples the effort which is still far below the effort of train access. Naturally if someone uses (preexisting) blueprints, effort is not really a criteria anymore.

I think the danger of biters and preexisting train networks are far more compelling reasons to use trains instead.

It probably isn't advisable to solve increase by using stationary fluid wagons as well by combining those into the super segment as well. Detecting such setups would actually be possible but would have ugly edge cases because of pipe wagons 2 block size and setups with two unconnected segments filling the same wagon at a train station. Detecting such setups, even with two pumps one block apart, is possible, but it could mean that 2 unconnected pipe segments could actually be thrown together into a super segment. So, if someone really wants to use such an obvious exploit to increase pipe throughput, let him.

And then you have a player that makes their "stationnay wagon" move 2 tiles back and forth every so often to throw away your detection logic. Such logic which risk to inadvertedly connect fluid network together when other player are just trying to load a fluid on one side and another on the other side, or anything "legit" which appears to make it look like they are trying to game the arbitrary limit on super-segment x).

The detection logic I was thinking of would have combined any pumps pointing to a rail, not a wagon, as long as at least one pump was directed to and one directed away from that spot (reasoning: wagons would acts like a valve that is closed while the wagon is absent, and a valve would still connect segments to super-segments). Not at all easy to fool AFAIK, but we obviously agree the ugly edge cases make this not a good solution

And lastly , unfortunaly, i'd like to mention that discussion on fluid network are often filled with enthusiast and naive amateur, like me who sometimes have no clue what their technical proposition means, it can appears that a "solution" has no drawbacks from any players after one suggested it, but that it is a mathematical impossibility to achieve and none of the players had a clue. I feel the technical side is often overlooked, the fluid teleporting isn't something the devs were pleased to add, it is a consequence of optimization, of a simpler internal representation of the fluid, to reduce the time spent each frame by the computer to do the simulation. Some proposition seem to be a bit "magical" like it's not possible to have a CPU friendly system like the 2.0 that also has the granularity of the 1.0, that is able to tell the distance between end points and keep track of the topology of the network.

Discussing this in a forum is exactly to give more eyes a chance to find drawbacks that others missed. That ultimately a proposed solution is still not workable after a Wube programmer looks it over is a danger we have to accept. The chance that we arrive at a solution that Wube missed and with a lot more insight into the code ultimately comes to think it would be worth implementing was quite low from the start.

[meganothing]

I don't mean to sound negative or put anyone down. This is just how stuff goes in game development tbh, nothing to blame Wube. But yeah, they kinda mentioned they would come back to it. And some of us expected more from that.

Possibly they actually came back to it and either

A) made the observation that players largely were fine with the fluid system, at least in the grand scheme of the whole Factorio game. There is some truth in what waterBear said, some systems in Factorio may not need to be an interesting puzzle. To appeal to many players the game needs a mix of systems of different complexitiy and puzzle-worthiness.

or

B) still didn't find anything that would really improve the situation. Just look at this thread, we have a hard time at agreeing to a solution as well and none of the improvements we offered until now (including mine) look like a clear winner where lots of others chime in with "that's it".

Or you are right and they fled away from a problem that resisted more than one programmers effort at finding a better solution. Ultimately, as pernacious as Wube is with their effort at fixing the tiniest bugs they are still humans, and sometimes we simply give up after having reached a solution that is "just" a compromise.

We do not really agree on things but what do you think if pump were to be able to "load" a wagon at a different rate of fluid per second than the one they push fluid between pipes ? Say 10 times faster to load a wagon, as it used to be, and the regular value for pipes. To make it more obvious that throughput = wagons, precision bot & space = barrel , and convevience and early game = pipes ?

Aren't pumps to trains already an exception? Quote fff-430: "... the new output rate limit are applied to every fluid flow operation, with the exception of fluid wagons."

Or are you suggesting an even higher limit than the hardcoded 6000 fluid/s ?

[ProMeTheus112]

In my current game I use barrels (lubricant), I send them by train to some producing bases along with plastic and sulfur so I don't need petroleum gas in these bases. I have a few long pipelines with petroleum gas where I've had to adjust the pumps to only pump while fluid amount in pipe is > or < to some amount. I'm not using fluid wagon yet but I expect I will later. I like using barrels in general, it's kinda fun, and can be practical or economical.

[NineNine]

I like using barrels in general, it's kinda fun....

This is the most important!

[juliawtapp]

I should preface this by saying I am a railworld player and I use fluid wagons simply because I like to see the trains moving around.

The current system with fluids, in my opinion, is good as far as the amount of CPU time it needs; I don't think going back to anything that isn't large-segment-based is a good idea because we'd just be back to using undergrounds to save on UPS like the bad old days.

That being said the fact that pipes have essentially unlimited throughput at little to no cost does mean that the only reason I use fluid wagons is because I like to see the trains go.

I think it might make sense to me to nerf pipes in such a way that the larger of a pipe network you have, the lower the throughput gets.

That way, trains would become the best option for long-distance fluid transportation again but pipes could still use the current system locally.

[mmmPI]

. Using railword maps as part of your statistic is without any value because players playing railwords would be the first players who would ignore any superior system and use trains instead just because. To paraphrase Maslov; "it is tempting, if the only tool you want to use is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

That's what i keep saying about people that use "long pipes" x) it's the only thing they want to use so they ignore the superior fluid wagon. Railworld is just a larger map, you don't see players barreling stuff as much as using fluid wagon, and both use trains , they don't move around water or petroleum gas often , most of the time it's oil and a bit less often sulfuric acid for uranium.

Are the players who are not using fluid wagons for long distance fluid transport do that because it is easier even though they think pipes are boring?

I asked for screenshot to try and understand better the context, but received none, wooop, no-one willing to illustrate it seems

And if that group is large enough to matter, would some force or suggestive limitation of the pipe system compel them to use something else that would improve their experience with the game?

To me no , since i have not yet seen an example of such base with super long pipes past a certain scale, i'd be curious to see the size of the base player have that they consider it should justify upgrading fluid transport to wagon from pipe but they don't feel compelled enough by the game.

Are some of the players who use trains use them not because of a meta reason like "I want to play with trains" but because they actually see a good reason not to use large pipe networks, like the need to protect the pipes from wildlife, or because they already have a train network for solids to that area.

Players use trains and fluid wagons for the same reason they use trains and cargo wagons and don't make super long belt all the time it seem to me. There's plenty.

I would disagree to the "tedious" argument. Placing pumps at intervalls would be negligible if it weren't necessary to power them. Powering them at least triples the effort which is still far below the effort of train access. Naturally if someone uses (preexisting) blueprints, effort is not really a criteria anymore.
I think the danger of biters and preexisting train networks are far more compelling reasons to use trains instead.

oh maybe your argument about why people should use fluid wagon is better than my argument for why players use fluid wagon x) point is THEY ARE PLENTY already.

Aren't pumps to trains already an exception? Quote fff-430: "... the new output rate limit are applied to every fluid flow operation, with the exception of fluid wagons."
Or are you suggesting an even higher limit than the hardcoded 6000 fluid/s ?

Have you tried to load a fluid wagon with a single regular pump, or 2 from a fluid tank in 2.1 ? the rate for the pump is 1200/s, so if you have 2, 2400/s, when a base wagon has 50K capacity, that means 20 + second to fill in the wagon, whereas there was a moment when it took like 1 seconds, or even less, this was comically fast.

If the time required to fill in a fluid wagon was 1/10 the time it takes now, it would give even more incentive to use them to those who don't. That's because making the pipe more of a chore to use isn't going to cut it for me. The idea of it, not that i find it is a chore, it is easy and lazy to do, and tedious when you scale up or wide. But it has that appeal that it's "more of the same" you don't engage in the intellectual effort , if you punish player for that, it's not the same as if you reward them with funny fast filling wagon if they DO engage in that.

If we're talking about rushing the end game, it's not the same, you won't have a scaling base, you may not need a scaling fluid transportation system.

[meganothing]

. Using railword maps as part of your statistic is without any value because players playing railwords would be the first players who would ignore any superior system and use trains instead just because. To paraphrase Maslov; "it is tempting, if the only tool you want to use is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

That's what i keep saying about people that use "long pipes" x) it's the only thing they want to use so they ignore the superior fluid wagon.

Railworld is just a larger map, you don't see players barreling stuff as much as using fluid wagon, and both use trains , they don't move around water or petroleum gas often , most of the time it's oil and a bit less often sulfuric acid for uranium.

I would guess that people using long pipes don't do that because they like pipes themselves, but that it is the easiest, the lazy method (irrespective of whether that is really a fact, appearances count, especially for beginners). There is no setup time (to add train stations, trains, wagons, schedules, buffering tanks), you just start producing pipes and lay them down with copy&paste, design effort as well as low as it can get. No matter that you might waste more time in the long run this IS the lazy option.

Railwords are called **rail**words for a reason. For an illustration of that mindset see the post by juliawtapp right before yours.

Aren't pumps to trains already an exception? Quote fff-430: "... the new output rate limit are applied to every fluid flow operation, with the exception of fluid wagons."
Or are you suggesting an even higher limit than the hardcoded 6000 fluid/s ?

Have you tried to load a fluid wagon with a single regular pump, or 2 from a fluid tank in 2.1 ? the rate for the pump is 1200/s, so if you have 2, 2400/s, when a base wagon has 50K capacity, that means 20 + second to fill in the wagon, whereas there was a moment when it took like 1 seconds, or even less, this was comically fast.

If the time required to fill in a fluid wagon was 1/10 the time it takes now, it would give even more incentive to use them to those who don't. That's because making the pipe more of a chore to use isn't going to cut it for me. The idea of it, not that i find it is a chore, it is easy and lazy to do, and tedious when you scale up or wide. But it has that appeal that it's "more of the same" you don't engage in the intellectual effort , if you punish player for that, it's not the same as if you reward them with funny fast filling wagon if they DO engage in that.

If we're talking about rushing the end game, it's not the same, you won't have a scaling base, you may not need a scaling fluid transportation system.

Maybe filling times is a factor. But train travel times are in the same range or longer and that delay won't vanish with faster pumps while pipes have almost instanteous teleport (i.e. with ticks delay = number of pump station).

With 4 pumps (2 from both sides) you are at 4800/s aka 10+ seconds. I wouldn't want that to be much less, though I would probably not object to halving that time. Trains should feel like trains and certainly not fill up "comically fast" as you correctly state and leave a station a second after entering it. I would assume train fans would mostly agree here.

Balancing is about providing either equally valid alternatives or alternatives that supersede others later in a game, or alternatives that are better in some cases and worse in others. Obviously in the last case you have a "punishment", a worse outcome, when using the wrong method for the wrong case. Despite the emotionally loaded word "punishment" it is unavoidable that the worse method gets you worse results than the better method for a specific case.

[waterBear]

There is also a criteria D) which should be: Does it add an interesting challenge to the game?

It is very easy to say "well this mechanic is simple, maybe we could make an interesting puzzle out of it". It is very hard to propose a solution that actually does it.

Yes, D is another criteria by itself. But you could fullfil it as well by (C) limiting the pipe network so some other more puzzle-worthy alternative like a train system is needed for longer distances.

Another criteria I forgot to mention is that whatever is added should be simple to understand and preferably similar to real world physics.

You know...2.1 does change this calculus. Quality fluid wagons go up to 125k now and with quality locomotives...I wonder how competitive it actually is. I should investigate.

I love using 2.1 trains for ore and I hate placing 100 legendary pumps all over the place. Perhaps the solution all along is not to make pipes harder but to make fluid trains better, so maybe the problem is already solved.

[mmmPI]

Balancing is about providing either equally valid alternatives or alternatives that supersede others later in a game, or alternatives that are better in some cases and worse in others.

Then that's fine it's balanced, you can use pipes or later fluid wagons, which is better for throuput x)