Friday Facts #84 - The wedding day preprations

[McRib]

Kovarex i found this news:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamW ... 5253244218
at last valve is not so pigheaded at all.

I know, this is why I wrote: "It had been cancelled already."

Great and now the biggest question. What do we need to do to get a picture of this new biter?

[kovarex]

Smoke simulation optimisation
Usage of the formula lets me know the position of the smoke without the need to update it every tick.

If you keep a position (and maybe velocity) history of smoke-emitting items, you could change smoke to be an exclusively render-time object. I.e. if it's not showing on screen it doesn't even exist! Then as the viewport moves into an area with smoke, it calculates the expected position of each smoke particle based on that saved history and renders it with your formula.

The history could be implemented as a very efficient circular buffer just long enough to render the oldest particles before they disappear.

Well it is not so simple, as you might see a smoke of locomotive, that is already 2 screens away. But anyway, the smoke update time is not significant at all now, so it isn't worth any other optimisations currently.

[vedrit]

Might we see a new build in the next few weeks? I see these posts about optimizations and I can't wait!

[Drury]

Still kovarex, the point behind pay mods is that the dev and valve get a lot more money from mods than the modder do. That is why people dont like pay mods because we dont pay the modders we pay the dev and/or valve for this mods. That is just greedy. So a donation button for example is much better. Also they are no ways to prevent plagerismen on this mod once you bought it. I mean you can just simple reupload them this is already a big issue. Because there is no way to remove this mods from the workshop.

What's interesting about this whole debacle is that workshop has always worked this way, yet the contributors never really seemed to care (they still made more than they ever dreamt of making from their contributions, no exceptions). Same formula gets used on mods, and, for some reason, everyone is suddenly miffed. And this time it's not even Valve and Valve only that takes the whole 75% cut!

Also consider that a lot of mod makers either work alone or in a group of 4 people at best. The amount of money being poured into steam is astronomical; 25% cut for a single person and the rest for essentially a whole AAA company (or two of them if it's not a Valve game) is more than fair. Every publisher of everything takes it's cut, depending on the size of the project (inverse correlation); game mods being generally small, the publisher's cut is rather large.

the smoke position is updated only once per 120 ticks (2 seconds)

I don't know anything about your implementation, but this sounds like if a lot of smoke sources sync up (entirely possible in Factorio), you get a lagspike every 2 seconds on slower systems. Would it be possible to randomize the update frequency or is your thing too elegant for that to be worth it?

[cpy]

Where can i buy more time to play all those awesome games i have?
Also factorio can eat like 99% of my time when i really want to dig in.

I like trains, i mean train schedule is cool, but wait until full or empty would be good addition to train schedule.

[Nic]

What will happen to our copy if Factorio is released on Steam?

Do we have to choose if we want the Steam version or stay "off Steam". (Like it was with Planetary Annihilation)
Will it become Steam only? (Like it was with 7 days to die)
Do we keep both? (Don't have an exapmle for that)
Will Steam users just get a "launcher" and play the same version we have "off Steam"? (Like it is with Damned)

I am asking that because I am afraid it will become Steam only - I am not saying I don't like Steam, but if I can buy an indie game "off Steam", I buy it elsewhere.

I would prefer if I could still use the game as I can use it now, without loosing any feature when Steam is offline (which happens sometimes).

[Zeblote]

Will the steam version remain DRM-free? Can existing purchases be transferred to steam and also the other way around, registering an account here with a steam purchase?

[kovarex]

the smoke position is updated only once per 120 ticks (2 seconds)

I don't know anything about your implementation, but this sounds like if a lot of smoke sources sync up (entirely possible in Factorio), you get a lagspike every 2 seconds on slower systems. Would it be possible to randomize the update frequency or is your thing too elegant for that to be worth it?

This isn't the issue, as it is every 120 ticks relative to the creation of the smoke, so the computation is evenly distributed.

[58MadMax]

Excuse me. You built train tracks over some iron.

[DaveMcW]

mine-track.jpg (167.45 KiB) Viewed 8566 times

[Drury]

Will the steam version remain DRM-free? Can existing purchases be transferred to steam and also the other way around, registering an account here with a steam purchase?

http://www.factorio.com/faq

that's got you covered

[cptepicness]

I have an idea for the behemoth!
Considering they are to replace hordes of big biters ( which is a very good bit into the game) why not put out a small chance of a behemoth attempting to "colonize" near the player's base. They will be aggressively try to get closer and closer to the player base. (Similar to how some players might use a series of roboports and turret blueprints to invade a biter nest)
Since behemoths are pretty big of a deal, they should have an appropriate warning and not just the usual warning you get when turrets go off. Or just let the warning go off but have a list of what enemies is it engaging.

To sum it up.
>Behemoths will have a rare chance of making a new nest near the player base
>Warnings should have a list of what enemies they are engaging

[jerrycheng]

@kovarex The new beam effect is great! By the way, I am wondering what is the meaning of "give us a lot of freedom if we want to use on other places in the game"? It is better if you could provide some example. Thank you very much:D

[kovarex]

@kovarex The new beam effect is great! By the way, I am wondering what is the meaning of "give us a lot of freedom if we want to use on other places in the game"? It is better if you could provide some example. Thank you very much:D

I mean, that it could be used in some factory machinery in the future.

[kovarex]

@kovarex The new beam effect is great! By the way, I am wondering what is the meaning of "give us a lot of freedom if we want to use on other places in the game"? It is better if you could provide some example. Thank you very much:D

I mean, that it could be used in some factory machinery in the future.

[Alekthefirst]

@kovarex The new beam effect is great! By the way, I am wondering what is the meaning of "give us a lot of freedom if we want to use on other places in the game"? It is better if you could provide some example. Thank you very much:D

I mean, that it could be used in some factory machinery in the future.

Awwwwww yissssssssss!
3rd age highly advanced electrical machinery here i come!

[MF-]

@kovarex
How did you deal with accumulators that reside in more networks at once?
Do you "merge" only those in the same networks & same charge?
Or do you simply ignore them for generally not being worth it?

[kovarex]

@kovarex
How did you deal with accumulators that reside in more networks at once?
Do you "merge" only those in the same networks & same charge?
Or do you simply ignore them for generally not being worth it?

I don't ignore The exact list of conditions is here:

• Same amount of energy stored
• Same combination of networks it is in
• Same charge animation cooldown
• Same discharge animation cooldown

In other words, they are stored only when their update would be exactly the same anyway.

There are some problems, like splitting a group when part of the accumulators are set to have different energy by a script, or some of them get to additional network etc. But it is all handled properly as long as I didn't make a mistake

[quinor]

Don't worry, we will test that intensively. No bug will hide!

[ssilk]

I'm some kind of disappointed when I read about reducing number of enemies

instead of group of 20 big biters, 3 behemoths can be sent

My feeling was "uh? but we need the opposite...?"

My reasons:
- I think this pure number of enemies, that are there and come is one of the great features the game has. This makes this feeling of "I'm really lost, I'm alone on this planet, everything around don't likes me ".
- this goes directly to a direction where I need stronger weapons instead of more. Which is ok. I think DyTech mod is a good example how it ends, I like this overwhelming power of the enemies, when they come step by step. But there is a difference between masses of (big) enemies and a big boss enemy with entourage. And this change goes into that direction of "a biter queen is attacking every 3 minutes". Which is stupid. (I didn't say there should be no biter queen or similar, but it makes no sense to have them regularly).

I explain a bit more: I thought always, that Factorio has this kind of "tower defense"-subgame. Enemies come in waves, they get stronger, they follow more or less stupidly a path, you have towers, that defend the base, and so on.
My thought, how this should work, was: they prefer to come at night, they should not follow stupidly one path (maybe, they retreat to reinforce even stronger? Or they avoid the smell of the dead ( https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ilit=smell ), there should be some kind of useful traps (mines is such a thing for example, to elongate the waves and slow down) and they come in MASSES, when you do nasty stuff to them. Like starting a rocket. Waves of up to 500 enemies, cause otherwise this whole afford would be useless.

500? Yes, why not? I think this makes the difference to similar games. And with 500 I mean of course not only biters/spitters, that is of course impossible. Just 500 enemies, an army.

Kovarex, I think you are clever (otherwise I really wouldn't be here ) and you thought already a lot about it, cause I would solve this situation with new types of enemies, that don't need so much CPU as the biters/spitters, like new flying enemies (interesting: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=9419 ), or stupid (flying) guards that protect just a biter/spitter, or underground enemies, which are not really seen most the time. If they are in this masses, they don't need to be animated in that details. Couldn't be seen. They can come in groups, dig tunnels, jump... There are endless ideas...

But I'm not really sure, so I just want to post my (really not so important) concerns.