Friday Facts #219 - Cliffs

[torham]

... especially since cliffs can be removed.

This is what I wanted to hear!

Finally, in Factorio nothing should stand in the way of automation, so if you don't like cliffs, you can always blow them up using a new mid-game item called "Cliff explosives".

that is quite obvious from the main article.

[mrvn]

If cliffs look like they separate 2 different hight levels (even if the game doesn't actually have any) then how does removal work?

a) Does it change the cliff into a slope that still shows a hight difference but you can walk and build on it?
b) Does it move the cliff backwards so the lower level gets bigger and the higher level smaller? Can I use landfill to go the other way?
c) The cliff magically disappears and suddenly the two sides of the cliff are at the same hight?

[Loewchen]

If cliffs look like they separate 2 different hight levels (even if the game doesn't actually have any) then how does removal work?

a) Does it change the cliff into a slope that still shows a hight difference but you can walk and build on it?
b) Does it move the cliff backwards so the lower level gets bigger and the higher level smaller? Can I use landfill to go the other way?
c) The cliff magically disappears and suddenly the two sides of the cliff are at the same hight?

I would assume it creates a gap, with the 2 ends gradually shrinking like in the bottom left of first screenshot containing cliffs.

[RobertTerwilliger]

paradoxical elevation model. For instance, with the current cliffs-are-walls model what's to stop this situation:

I guess some OP geomagnetic anomaly could create such land-vortex formation? It's alien planet, you know, anything could happen in it's geological history (wink-wink))

[QGamer]

I'm really curious about what would happen if I tried to place an underground belt or pipe to go up/down a cliff.

What I think should happen: The underground portion is normal on the top part of the cliff, but the other end comes out the side of the cliff (instead of the ground below it).

What do you guys think it should be like? What is it actually like?

[Faen]

More or less since 0.15 became stable I have been visiting the forum only to check Friday Facts every Friday, since I read this last week I have visited a hundred time hoping to see more news about 0.16!

[AbstractHand]

I'm looking at the screenshots for these cliffs, and I can't stop seeing the terrain underneath the cliffs continuing, looking like the cliffs are just an overlay on flat terrain. While I understand that's how the cliffs are being achieved, more or less, is there anything that can be done to help make this less obvious? perhaps generating different terrain tiles in the bounds of the cliff, and masking between the cliff tiles and the rest of the terrain along the cliff?

I think the main reason the cliffs don't look as convincing is because of terrain patterns that continue under them, eg:

and I think this could be solved by using different tiles in the area of a cliff, and masking the transition under the cliff sprites, eg:


I don't know enough about the way the world is generated to know if something like this would be reasonable or possible to implement, but I imagine if it were it would make cliffs much more visually convincing.

[5thHorseman]

I think the main reason the cliffs don't look as convincing is because of terrain patterns that continue under them

Agreed. I'd go so far as to say cliffs should only form on terrain type boundaries. So you'll never have forest on both sides of the cliff, but forest on one and grass on the other.

[Lav]

It makes sense not to draw terrain boundaries across cliffs, that does look silly.

It doesn't make any sense at all to force all cliffs to be terrain boundaries - or all boundaries to be cliffs.

[Andrzejef]

I'm really curious about what would happen if I tried to place an underground belt or pipe to go up/down a cliff.

What I think should happen: The underground portion is normal on the top part of the cliff, but the other end comes out the side of the cliff (instead of the ground below it).

What do you guys think it should be like? What is it actually like?

from the look of it, it will look just like you put underground belt/pipe under the wall. Cliffs are working on the same basis.

[vanatteveldt]

But it would be pretty and help the illusion of elevation if they would make a special "cliff exit sprite" for underground constructions and force underground constructions to exit at the cliff.

(of course, the next request would be to have a pedestrian tunnel to walk through the cliff, and after that would come the rail tunnel

[bobingabout]

I'm looking at the screenshots for these cliffs, and I can't stop seeing the terrain underneath the cliffs continuing, looking like the cliffs are just an overlay on flat terrain. While I understand that's how the cliffs are being achieved, more or less, is there anything that can be done to help make this less obvious? perhaps generating different terrain tiles in the bounds of the cliff, and masking between the cliff tiles and the rest of the terrain along the cliff?

I think the main reason the cliffs don't look as convincing is because of terrain patterns that continue under them, eg:

and I think this could be solved by using different tiles in the area of a cliff, and masking the transition under the cliff sprites, eg:


I don't know enough about the way the world is generated to know if something like this would be reasonable or possible to implement, but I imagine if it were it would make cliffs much more visually convincing.

I must agree with this.

[Engimage]

It seams that cliffs are generated separately as entities as opposed to terrain itself. I doubt there is a legitimate way to destinguish "sides" of the cliff to use different terrain types.
What can be done however is just replacing terrain directly beneath cliff entities and somewhat around that so even after removing the cliff via explosives there will be a "scar" left.
However this won't remove the inconsistency of terrain transition through the cliff but really - I don't think that is much of an issue.

[Oktokolo]

I doubt there is a legitimate way to destinguish "sides" of the cliff to use different terrain types.

The terrain generator uses a height map internally. So theoretically the upper terrain could be tinted to distinguish it from the lower terrain. Devs already said, that cliffs will be generated at slopes. So if they would just always tint terrain based on the heightmap used to generate it, they would get differently tinted terrain on both sides of a cliff for "free".
They still can't do "proper" shifting of underneathie exits on the lower side without sacrificing the destroyability of cliffs though...

[NotABiter]

As many others have noticed, the cliffs look like walls rather than cliffs. (This is "messes with your brain" levels of bad, like a mild form of trying to play an RTS in an M. C. Escher drawing.) When terrain discontinuities and cliffs are present in the same place, the terrain discontinuities should either coincide with the cliff or terminate at the cliff, or at least be offset (fake height difference introduced) when cutting across the cliff boundary. (When there are no terrain discontinuities at a cliff boundary, some sort of lighting difference could help sell the "cliff illusion effect", but that's very minor compared to the terrain issue.)

Also, a feature idea: The biggest biters should be able to damage cliffs like they're heavy-duty walls. (See the game "Castle Story". I see grimdanfango has also suggested that the biggest biters could climb the cliffs - that's nice, but doesn't open the floodgates for the other biters and spitters.)

I think we really need flying enemies that can fly over water and through walls

See: Will o' the wisps mod

When creatures start crawling out of the sea, the cost of defense goes up proportional with the area instead of the square root of it. This would be quite the game-changer.

See: the Armageddon mod
(They tunnel through the ground rather than swim through water, but either way - they come up inside your perimeter, so it's the same impact on defenses vs area.)

The creatures coming seaways could be very weak and very rare.

I'm afraid Biterzilla has 200000 health, does area damage, and one-shots turrets. (At least he doesn't start showing up until evolution gets to a certain point - like 0.9 or something.)

So when you blow up a cliff does it make a new cliff? Or does the explosion magically match the z-levels?

They're not really cliffs - they're walls that try to give the illusion of being cliffs, so blowing them up is just like blowing up walls... and blowing up the "cliff illusion". That said, they could still probably do the "make a new cliff" thing by just shifting the wall+illusion, but maybe it would cause problems when you start pushing cliffs together in weird ways. (hitzu makes a good case for moveable cliffs vs just blowing them up.)

A planet with a really dusty, cloudy atmosphere so solar panels would be (almost) useless

See: Mo Weather mod
(It's clouds and rain rather than dust, but has the desired impact on solar panels, and the lighting and sound effects that come with the mod add to the atmosphere of the game.)

A feature I would love to see is 'badlands' or mountainous terrain which cannot be traversed by the player, but the bugs can easily cross.

Or can be traversed by the player, but only on foot (or maybe via spidertron) - no cars, tanks or trains. And very few and small buildable spots, so not much potential for placing any defenses that can actually hold. (Games are most interesting when they make the player deal in shades of grey instead of absolutes. E.g. you want the player to see some buildable spot and wonder whether or not they could squeeze in enough defenses to hold that pass. When the answer is always 'yes' or always 'no' that's boring. It's much more interesting when it's 'maybe'.)

[Sonik-HSC]

its possible to put Cliffs optionaly in start game? Like if we want a map with cliffs or flat!

[Jon8RFC]

I couldn't think of it until I re-read the FFF, barely awake now. The cliffs remind me of an old favorite game of mine!

Here's a fun comparison picture. The cliffs are closer in tiberian sun after googling images, but the original and obelisk is what spawned the thought to find a "laser"+cliffs image:
https://us2.factorio.com/assets/img/blo ... ffs-02.png

[ske]

I think I've got a compromise regarding the Cliff-Explosives.

Removing cliffs by exploding them seems irrational... unless it's a huge atomic bomb. Said bomb would leave a radioactive mess.

* You can walk through that mess but halfway through you'd be dead from radiative poisoning.
* You can build on it but everything containing an electric circuit will fail and burn within seconds.
* Flying robots passing the area will also crash and burn.
* You can use a tank to drive through it. It protects you. But it will become contaminated and leave a deadly radioactive trail.
* Same for the train. The rails lay solid on the ground but the train drags the contamination all throughout your base.
* You can belt your items through. Somehow the belts don't get destroyed as they don't require power. (*magic*) But your items will be contaminated and if you touch them or they touch anything it will be contaminated, too and it will fail and burn.
* If biters pass the area they won't die. Instead they will gain superpowers like shooting lasers out of their eyes or breathe fire. Also they will leave the deadly radioactive trail.

Now I, too, welcome the most "useless" item in the game.

[Oktokolo]

As multiple writers pointed out, that this cliffs will not look like cliffs regardless what you do (apart from adding some more "real" height handling), i got some revolutionary and novel idea:
Just don't add cliffs. Add heavy Debris instead. Don't call em cliffs either. Remove stone fields and replace them with cliff-shaped "deposits" of heavy boulders. The boulders block the terrain they occupy (just like the mineable Rocks we already have). They would be mineable using the pickaxe or some highly specialized ultra-compact mining machine and would then slowly disappear giving stone in return.
Maybe all the other "ores" could also be terrain blocking boulders - might or might not make mining more interesting (or just plain annoying - would have to test that)...

[ske]

When creatures start crawling out of the sea, the cost of defense goes up proportional with the area instead of the square root of it. This would be quite the game-changer.

See: the Armageddon mod
(They tunnel through the ground rather than swim through water, but either way - they come up inside your perimeter, so it's the same impact on defenses vs area.)

That mod could be fun for multiplayer with many players to keep occupied. Thanks