Friday Facts #80 - Crazy start

[bobingabout]

Another idea: when the rocket animation is going, freeze the player. He watches. With a bit of screen shake it could end up nice.

I really really hate this sort of behaviour...

[waduk]

Please don't add screen shake like some suggested.

[bigyihsuan]

His first task is to implement the pre signals or rather chain signals, as we plan to call them

More signals? YAASSS. It'll make my depot design so much better.

[slpwnd]

@rocket silo proposals

Thanks for the ideas guys. Some of these are the same we have thought of, some are new and interesting. The point is that in the beginning we were like: "yeah just show the rocket flying up, simple". But as we are getting into it, this relatively simple thing is getting more and more complicated:))

[MF-]

Given that the camera is hovering above the ground,
altitude depending on the zoom level...

I'm not sure if moving on the Y axis would do.

I now see it would have to be drawn "on the opposite side of the silo than player is" for a valid Z-coordinate efffect
and also increse in size as it approches the camera.
As it flies above the camera, no on-ground chasing would get in in the field of vision.
Un-zooming would, but that's not infinite.

Would be reasonably easy with a cutscene with a fixed camera.

Do you plan supporting more "3D objects"?
If it would be just for this farily-temporary occasition,
perhaps it wouldn't hurt to draw this in a separate renderer "over the game"
Naive, right?


PS: Why is the bunny(man?) wearing a swimsuit?

[ssilk]

@rocket silo proposals

Thanks for the ideas guys. Some of these are the same we have thought of, some are new and interesting. The point is that in the beginning we were like: "yeah just show the rocket flying up, simple". But as we are getting into it, this relatively simple thing is getting more and more complicated:))

My thought is so: if you can handle large objects flying through the air, you might be able to repeat that for some Zeppelin-like airship. Or big structures on ground/water, like big ships, oil-platforms, fortress...

[jockeril]

Here's another : the rocket launch can be a cut-scene ! that way you don't fight the engine, don't have to modify it and it complies with other games that have an end of one phase before the start of another. It's kind of 90's, I know, but I think it would save time going to the next phase in-game and the despair of debugging the problems it will make (already members are thinking of chaseing the rocket with a train - I didn't even think of that - did you ?).

Why make EVERYTHING difficult

[ssilk]

You forget, that you will not only launch ONE rocket. You will start dozens or much more. You cannot always stop the game for that, maybe the first time; cut-scenes are a completely different problem - much easier to handle than this...

[Rage]

While I was at college I had a buddy who was working on a project, one of the problems they had to figure out was how to properly categorize spent nuclear fuel. They found the easiest way was with a quadratic formula, they quite literally put the information they had available into excel and let it figure it out for them.

My recommendation would be to figure out a pair of formulas to determine the x position of the rocket and y position using the x and y of the player, the x and y of the silo, the notional z of the rocket, and the height of the camera.

From there the only tricky part might be smoke, I would recommend having it draw along a line from the silo to the rocket and have it on a very short life span so you don't have to worry about smoke drifting in the wind.

As for handling robots, if it's possible to tell them to stay away from the silo for a period of time, that might be the easiest solution.

When it comes to redering the large objects, would there be any significant down side to just having the renderer look a little further beyond the edge of the screen? It would need to look further at tighter zooms and less and wider zooms.

[dee-]

Move the rocket on Y axis, its shadow on the X axis. That probably looks close enough like it's going up along the Z axis. Or pimp the engine proper Hm, did I nag you lately about implementing 3D rendering?

[jockeril]

You forget, that you will not only launch ONE rocket. You will start dozens or much more. You cannot always stop the game for that, maybe the first time; cut-scenes are a completely different problem - much easier to handle than this...

What ? there will be more than one ? I'm content with finishing the game in the launch of the one rocket...

I think Factorio is going to extend to FTL or something like that and I don't like it. I don't want another "make and trade" game. Factorio's unique way is automation - this is not to be found AFAIK in any other game and that's my appeal to buy it and support development.

I'm happy to plunder all the available resources on the planet, fighting it's inhabitants ( or other alien invaders as someone suggested in an ideas post) to the end of manufacturing the most awesome rocket to launch me and my treasures back to my home planet OR - make a facility for my fellow earthlings to come and settle on this planet and terraform it to earth 2.0

I don't understand where this game is going anymore....

yeah, KSP everybody...

Oh god NO ! please don't - let KSP have it's way and Factorio go another way (and if the OP is as I understand it - Factorio will NEVER be KSP - thank you).

[ssilk]

I don't understand where this game is going anymore....

Hm. The last 10 FFF explained that more or less. And it has been discussed a lot. Just go back in the threadlist in this board.

[jockeril]

I don't understand where this game is going anymore....

Hm. The last 10 FFF explained that more or less. And it has been discussed a lot. Just go back in the threadlist in this board.

I'v actually been reading the last 10 FFF - I meant I don't understand why it's going in that direction. You can understand from my post that I understand where it's going, but...

[Drury]

Well you did say you had no idea there was going to be more than one rocket which is news so old even I caught up

Well in your defense the posts are quite lengthy and a bit difficult to process at speed. Whatever the case - the endgame is nothing like KSP (honestly can't imagine this, why do people even keep saying it) or FTL. It's pretty much the current Factorio, except more hardcore. You still build a factory, BUT you only have a small space to do so, and it has to fare on it's own for the time it takes it to reach the colonist ship and take them back (you're not present onboard en-route to fix it). It's pretty much the pinacle of automation, a fully autonomous factory which is impossible to interact with.

[ssilk]

It's pretty much the pinacle of automation, a fully autonomous factory which is impossible to interact with.

Meanwhile you're staying on the planet. As I understood it, you don't leave the planet, you keep on mining, fight against the natives, research completely new stuff...

[marsch]

Is the rocket launch so important? I would not care so much about the animation.

[jockeril]

It's pretty much the pinacle of automation, a fully autonomous factory which is impossible to interact with.

Meanwhile you're staying on the planet. As I understood it, you don't leave the planet, you keep on mining, fight against the natives, research completely new stuff...

@ssilk - If this is the direction its going then the cut scene is an easy way to show the launch of the rocket, but why are multiple rockets needed ? do you send the factory parts on them ? do you send several ships to different colonies (or mother ships) ? (you don't have to answer - read on)

In general I'm having a problem understanding the rationale of what comes after the rocket launch - Personally, I don't share the fun in the idea of making compact factories. It feels constraining to me, though my first factory was compact - it was overly complicated and I've re-arranged it two times (after viewing other youtubers play) before I've finished it last week (after 99.5 hours of play... )

Guess I'm gonna revisit the last 10 FFF's as you suggested, and wait for the changes to come so I can see where that leads... That said - I agree that the game needs a more gratifying finish or progress and I've suggested some things myself - like making supplies for the invasion army or terraformers

[Drury]

100 hours per game is frankly not that bad. Sure some folks do it in less than 10 hours but those are guys are nuts.

To summarize it for you - from what we know thus far, you're going to be building a platform in the orbit above the planet and the rockets serve as supply ships, most likely expanding the platform. Once you have your platform ready, you build a factory on it as you would down on the planet, with belts, inserters and assemblers, all the good stuff. You will also build engines on the sides of the platform which will then be used for propulsion. The platform is actually a rescue ship with the purpose of reaching colonist ship in deep space, loading up frozen popsicles that are the colonists, and safely bringing them back to the planet. As the ship floats through space, unmanned, it will have to keep it's engines fed by catching resources floating in space with some type of automatic catchers and refining them into rocket fuel, as well as powering it's defense systems which will destroy asteroids and stuff. It will require multiple takes and every ship that fails on it's journey gives you some sort of bonus, most likely as research points.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[ssilk]

Nearly correct. But as I understood it, before you start you can simulate, if the flight will be successful.
And the other thing of that is, that this will of course need some completely new techniques. One for example is, that you don't need to be on the ship. As I understood it, you can build the ship completely "remote", some may call that also the God-mode, or in other words, your view will change from your character to more sweeping around. That may be the case also on the planet. That idea is called "control-room" or "throne-room". Look into developer proposals and search about that.

Or you need to make stuff fully automated. There is no way - like now - to interact with it. This forces many gamers, which then still feed chests by hand to rethink.

The replay will in my opinion play a big role. You start the ship simulation and when it is calculated you want to see the bottlenecks. Reminds me a bit to the Thight Spot challenge. https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... al_content

And what then follows is non-official, but it's a logical consequence: trading with other planets, fulfilling crude jobs, go to the next planet. But that all exists just in my imagination.

[Yaua]

That idea is called "control-room"...

Talking about this, I had an idea about rocket launches : in real life, when you launch a real rocket, people who launch it is in a control room. To control it, check infos, and protect themselves from the launching rocket. Why not create a control room where the player must go (and stay) when he launch a rocket ? But it's may be not compatible with the idea to launch regularly rockets...
And about the animation of the rocket, if the player can move when it's launched, can't you simply make it accelerate gradually, until it reaches a speed the player will not be able to follow, even on a train ?

Lot of problems, and it seems I don't have any better solutions to submit, so I'll make the only thing I can do : encourage you ! Keep up the great work