Friday Facts #399 - Trash to Treasure

[husnikadam]

I think the problem is some of us just. can't. ever. throw things away. Everything mined must also be used for higher goals like growing the factory or perforating wildlife... eventually, but not recycled into nothingness. And that means the need to store it until then. It's a Dragon thing...

You can put some quality modules into the recyclers and suddenly you don't recycle into nothigness, but into high quality items

[Splitframe]

https://factoryidle.com/

Oh my god, what have you done? You can't just drop a game like this here. Can somebody ban this person? My life is ruined, again.

[floven1]

Here's my unrealistic guess:

Every planet has their limitations, Nauvis is ridden with biters, Vulcanus has lava pits and some hints at similarly unhappy natives. But who or what is on Fulgora to stop you?


The precursor aliens fought a war, and they were losing. The enemy had disabled their anti-spacecraft capabilities and had begun landing en masse for an invasion. The aliens, lets just call them Fulgorians, knew something had to change, or else they would be overrun by their hated enemy. The Fulgorians had technology and resources, but lacked manpower. One experiment was of particular interest, it had previously dismissed as a waste of time and manpower, but the military was desperate.

Their enemies had these disgusting biological beasts, known today as biters. They were not man-made, rather a product of the clearly inferior ecosystem run by their enemies. These things could live off the land, and they would attack Fulgora's incursions into enemy planets, but that's nothing a few plasma blasts couldn't stop. The Fulgorians copied this idea, improving upon it. Using their plentiful resources and advanced AI, they made a mechanical version. Like ants, these mechanical biters would take chunks out of enemy structures and bring it back to the Fulgorian Empire. As the war situation deteriorated, drastic measured were taken. The mecha-biters were updated to live off the land, making colonies and manufacturing copies of themselves.

This proved to be extremely effective, as the enemy's flamethrowers and lasers could barely damage the mechanical biters. The war continued on for years, but one fateful day it all changed. The enemy were fed up, causing a civil war on their home planet. Overnight, their military capabilities collapsed, so they evacuated their forces from Fulgora.

Every Fulgorian was celebrating and cheering, they had finally won! All they had to do was disable the mecha-biters. The scientists issued a recall of all mecha-biters, causing thousands of early models to come home and be shut down. But something was off, there had to be millions more out in the wild. Most of the mecha-biters were created by other mecha-biters from captured enemy materials. Only a few of these returned home.

The scientists captured a wild model, and upon analysis found the recall code had been removed. They had evolved. The Fulgorian Empire tried to remove the wild mecha-biters by force, but encountered stiff resistance. The mecha biters had been designed to evolve to new threats, and they had just turned on their creators; the Fulgorians were threats. Wild mecha-biters swarmed the undefended mechatronics lab, causing a battle between man-made and wild mecha-biters. The millions of mecha-biters quickly overwhelmed the man-made ones, killing all scientists they found.

With the scientists dead, nobody knew how to shut down these mecha-biters, sparking a war between Fulgorians and their mecha-biters. Unprepared, the Fulgorians were annihilated, with their materials used to make more mecha-biters. Every last kilogram of pure material was used by mecha-biters to make more of themselves. After entirely removing any semblance of a threat, they climbed into their caves and hibernated. For centuries, the only time they emerged was to consume stray meteorites that landed.


Until one fateful day, they sensed a disturbance. They emerged to find a fiery haze; the engineer's rocket was landing.

For now, they are rusty and barely working, but this new threat will galvanize them.


The idea:

The mecha-biters do not care about impure materials, that's why they left all this scrap lying around. But this scrap is just as useless to you as it is to them, and you'd like to recycle it. By nightfall, they hide from lightning in caves they have excavated. During the day, they scout around in search of pure material. They will steal iron, copper and other basic resources off belts, taking it home like ants. If you do not have any, they will take chunks out of your buildings. If they cannot get any, they will learn and come back until they get their metals.
You could import large amounts of raw resources to feed them, but their numbers will slowly grow until you can't afford to feed them anymore.

You may choose to go on the offensive, but their caves are reinforced. Flamethrowers cannot flush them out, as they are heat resistant and do not require air. Explosions can seal the caves, but they will just dig a new way out. But maybe if you use a large amount of explosives, you could collapse the cave permanently.

The mecha-biters are not all bad though, they will happily dine on materials you do not need, and they even pose a research opportunity. You could reverse engineer them and make your own larger versions. They would require a multitude of advanced materials, trading flight for carrying capacity, range, speed and combat ability. Perhaps their heat resistance and ability to cross rough terrain will prove useful on Vulcanus.

this, please. I am confident the devs could balance something like this
[edit:] erm, time allowing anyway...

[malecord]

We all know that something fishy is going on on the small islands. I guess the unique planet resource can be found there.

Given the unique challenges of the new planets (start from 0, mountains / lava / swamp restriciton on vulcanus, disconnected islands and thunders on fulgora) I wouldn't mind a dedicated restence mechanic.

On Navious space is infinite and aside from cliffs very epxloitable. So bugs add a cost and make the decision to when / how expand an interesting one. But on a new planet it doesn't look like we need something like that since buding surface is no so readily exploitable.

But then after we settle up working factory, the attention turns on the unique resource. The actual reason why we land there and the stuff that is needed to progress on the game as a whole (so indirectly for progress on naviosu as well). At that point I wouldn't mind if something happens that forces us to decide when / how to start exploiting those rare materials.

Something that when we leave the planet if we were to "greedy" our factory would then be destroyed while we are off world. But at same time something that allow us to come back and rebuild from scratch. That is, not something like a behemoth something that will camp the landing site waiting for us to land again like regular biters would do on Navius.

[GregoriusT]

I feel like Factorio was always missing "internal conflict" in the sense of having something specific to protect against that usually is located INSIDE the Base, like a Hole in the ground that mobile Worms come out of every now and then, which you cant just plug to close it, or if you plug it, it will only last a little longer before another Worm or two comes out of it to rampage in your Factory.

[aka13]

I feel like Factorio was always missing "internal conflict" in the sense of having something specific to protect against that usually is located INSIDE the Base, like a Hole in the ground that mobile Worms come out of every now and then, which you cant just plug to close it, or if you plug it, it will only last a little longer before another Worm or two comes out of it to rampage in your Factory.

I am going to reviewbomb if shit like that happens. This is literally the most retarded base-builder mechanic that ever existed. Especially how it always is shoehorned it without any explanation, to why you can't take precautionary preparations against. Especially in games with manufacturing and weapons. Like the stupid mecha dropships that fall on your head in rimworld, yeah, I can do limb replacement surgery, but AA-guns are unobtainable technology for me somehow.

[GregoriusT]

I feel like Factorio was always missing "internal conflict" in the sense of having something specific to protect against that usually is located INSIDE the Base, like a Hole in the ground that mobile Worms come out of every now and then, which you cant just plug to close it, or if you plug it, it will only last a little longer before another Worm or two comes out of it to rampage in your Factory.

I am going to reviewbomb if shit like that happens. This is literally the most retarded base-builder mechanic that ever existed. Especially how it always is shoehorned it without any explanation, to why you can't take precautionary preparations against. Especially in games with manufacturing and weapons. Like the stupid mecha dropships that fall on your head in rimworld, yeah, I can do limb replacement surgery, but AA-guns are unobtainable technology for me somehow.

You know such a thing COULD be solved by just putting Turrets at the Hole, right? It is no different from having to deal with external threats, and its a fixed location so its not like the RNG Dropship BS of Rimworld. It would just be a fun thing that could catch a new player offguard if two hours after building a Mining Drill on that new Resource the Dune Worms show up from the perfectly peaceful absolutely not menacing hole right next to the Mine. XD

Edit: Same Logic could apply to Volcanos located next to ore Spots too!

[XT-248]

Ah, but haven't you heard? The filter inserter has been removed. All inserters are now filter inserters, including the burner and long inserter.

You don't necessarily need filter inserters. You can use priority and filtered splitters together to split off all of one output type (ie, solid fuel) while still retaining the ability to avoid backups by allowing overflow to continue down the line which can eventually be fed back to the recyclers.

I have been playing modded Factorio recently and forgot that filter inserters are no longer a separate type. With the filter-enabled inserter, I can control what to sink and what not to do.

Most people were intimated by the thorny issue of balancing the three different fluids from basic oil processing in pre-0.17 patches, which prevented many from reaching or advancing past blue science packs (sulfur and plastic bars).

Sure, but by now (and by that I mean by the time one reaches Fulgora, even if it's their first choice) players should have at least some experience with it. Which reminds me! Players will have had some experience with this by the time they reach this planet by merit of the space travel! Remember, asteroids are random and infinite, not to mention they may give you materials early on that you can't/don't want to make use of yet, so you'll need to void some materials off the side of your platform. Same concept.

That is from an infinite source: the random appearance of asteroids while moving between planets.

This fact and the inability to control what asteroid does appear give rise to the need to void.


We don't know enough about the unique deposits that give Fulgora's scrap. Is it infinite, like water/lava?

The difference makes it difficult to compare in any meaningful way.

I see recyclers being blocked by overflow as a similar issue that may require a minor tweaking on a smaller scale than the modern basic oil processing change.

The only way for this to happen is if you're attempting to horde and are refusing to void anything. A simple priority splitter feeding the non-priority belt back to the recyclers would prevent this.

There does come a point where you need to stop holding your player's hands.

It has nothing to do with 'hoarding.' The moment you try to make it out as a disorder. You lost the plot.

Take a look at asteroids and what type of resources they give out.

There are three general asteroid types:

• Metallic asteroids for iron ore used to produce gun turret ammunition and thruster oxidizer.
• Carbonic asteroids for carbon which is a new resource used on the platform to produce thruster fuel.
• Oxide asteroids for ice which is melted into water, then used to produce thruster fuel and oxidizer.

A new machine called a crusher is used to process the asteroids. Later on, more resource types can be obtained from asteroids using advanced crushing recipes.

Source: https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-381

Compare this to a singular resource 'scrap,' giving out twelve different resource types. The leap from asteroid processing to scrap processing is significant without a modest step up in between. This concept does not factor in whether the players need to void.


In fact, there may even be a good argument made for 'hoarding' iron ore from asteroids gathered by space platforms, whose purpose is to travel continuously to trigger more metallic asteroid encounters, to dump excess on worlds that sorely need more iron.

The same is likely true of any other resources you can gather (Ice/water, carbon, and other resources generated by advanced crushing recipes).


Before the Space Age expansion, there used to be only one recipe that had a randomized output: Uranium Ore Processing. Even then, the Uranium Kovarex Enrichment exists, which adds more steps and, in exchange, gives players greater control of the amount of U-235 vs U-238 isotypes.

[aka13]

somehow.
You know such a thing COULD be solved by just putting Turrets at the Hole, right?

It's not the sinister random danger then, rather another game sin, where you can not entirely purge an enemy.
I enjoy the charme of being able to forcefully remove the biters too much

[FuryoftheStars]

Sure, but by now (and by that I mean by the time one reaches Fulgora, even if it's their first choice) players should have at least some experience with it. Which reminds me! Players will have had some experience with this by the time they reach this planet by merit of the space travel! Remember, asteroids are random and infinite, not to mention they may give you materials early on that you can't/don't want to make use of yet, so you'll need to void some materials off the side of your platform. Same concept.

That is from an infinite source: the random appearance of asteroids while moving between planets.

[...]

We don't know enough about the unique deposits that give Fulgora's scrap. Is it infinite, like water/lava?

The difference makes it difficult to compare in any meaningful way.

As far as I'm aware, the scrap on Fulgora is not infinite, but why does that matter? You are right, we don't know much about it, but I imagine the devs have balanced it to have a similar net yield, at least, as Nauvis, and when was the last time you ran out of resources to find and mine on Nauvis?

But it is premature to try mathing this out now without being able to play it.

I see recyclers being blocked by overflow as a similar issue that may require a minor tweaking on a smaller scale than the modern basic oil processing change.

The only way for this to happen is if you're attempting to horde and are refusing to void anything. A simple priority splitter feeding the non-priority belt back to the recyclers would prevent this.

There does come a point where you need to stop holding your player's hands.

It has nothing to do with 'hoarding.' The moment you try to make it out as a disorder. You lost the plot.

Nope. Stop. You are confusing me with someone else here. I am in no way making an implication towards the disease. Please do not confuse that.

My usage of the word is very directly the action of. Nothing more.

Take a look at asteroids and what type of resources they give out.

There are three general asteroid types:

• Metallic asteroids for iron ore used to produce gun turret ammunition and thruster oxidizer.
• Carbonic asteroids for carbon which is a new resource used on the platform to produce thruster fuel.
• Oxide asteroids for ice which is melted into water, then used to produce thruster fuel and oxidizer.

A new machine called a crusher is used to process the asteroids. Later on, more resource types can be obtained from asteroids using advanced crushing recipes.

Source: https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-381

Compare this to a singular resource 'scrap,' giving out twelve different resource types. The leap from asteroid processing to scrap processing is significant without a modest step up in between. This concept does not factor in whether the players need to void.

Note, too, in that very quote they say there are 3 "general" types. This implies, to me, that there are not a perfect 3 variations (and not just small, medium, large).

Though, again, we don't know for sure, yet.

In fact, there may even be a good argument made for 'hoarding' iron ore from asteroids gathered by space platforms, whose purpose is to travel continuously to trigger more metallic asteroid encounters, to dump excess on worlds that sorely need more iron.

The same is likely true of any other resources you can gather (Ice/water, carbon, and other resources generated by advanced crushing recipes).

Yeah, one could do that. Not sure how that relates, though. Remember, the discussion here is about changing the ratios to prevent backups with less reliance on voiding. And one of your supporting arguments seemed to be about the player not having the skills (prior experience) to deal with it.

Before the Space Age expansion, there used to be only one recipe that had a randomized output: Uranium Ore Processing. Even then, the Uranium Kovarex Enrichment exists, which adds more steps and, in exchange, gives players greater control of the amount of U-235 vs U-238 isotypes.

You're starting to drift.

[XT-248]

As far as I'm aware, the scrap on Fulgora is not infinite, but why does that matter? You are right, we don't know much about it, but I imagine the devs have balanced it to have a similar net yield, at least, as Nauvis, and when was the last time you ran out of resources to find and mine on Nauvis?

But it is premature to try mathing this out now without being able to play it.

I am not trying to mathing anything out.

I am simply pointing out that the differences make them incomparable.

Nope. Stop. You are confusing me with someone else here. I am in no way making an implication towards the disease. Please do not confuse that.

My usage of the word is very directly the action of. Nothing more.

Then, don't use the word 'hoarding.' It has a negative connotation and is usually associated with a disorder.

Don't believe me? Google 'hoarding' the entire first result page is precisely what one would imagine: Plyushkin's Disorder.

Amassing, Saving, Stockpiling, Accumulating, piling up, collecting, and gathering are far more neutral tones. Yes, I know I used the term myself a few times, but I prefer those neutral terms.

There are three general asteroid types:

• Metallic asteroids for iron ore used to produce gun turret ammunition and thruster oxidizer.
• Carbonic asteroids for carbon which is a new resource used on the platform to produce thruster fuel.
• Oxide asteroids for ice which is melted into water, then used to produce thruster fuel and oxidizer.

A new machine called a crusher is used to process the asteroids. Later on, more resource types can be obtained from asteroids using advanced crushing recipes.

Note, too, in that very quote they say there are 3 "general" types. This implies, to me, that there are not a perfect 3 variations (and not just small, medium, large).

Though, again, we don't know for sure, yet.

I believe the 'three general types' in that quotation block refer to the metallic, carbonic, and oxide types.

If they were referring to the size of said asteroids, then that would make for nine different types.

Yeah, one could do that. Not sure how that relates, though. Remember, the discussion here is about changing the ratios to prevent backups with less reliance on voiding. And one of your supporting arguments seemed to be about the player not having the skills (prior experience) to deal with it.

Yes, that is one facet of it.

Another facet of the same argument is that the more complicated something is, the Factorio pre-Space Age Veterans might be struggling with it at some point.

The colossal gap between asteroid collecting vs. scrap processing makes me wonder if more unrevealed recipes exist that don't always produce predictable results.

Before the Space Age expansion, there used to be only one recipe that had a randomized output: Uranium Ore Processing. Even then, the Uranium Kovarex Enrichment exists, which adds more steps and, in exchange, gives players greater control of the amount of U-235 vs U-238 isotypes.

You're starting to drift.

How is that?

Uranium Enrichment's second step gives players the tools to "re-balance" or "tweak" the imbalance of different materials from an RNG recipe into something they can control without voiding.

[Svip]

Honestly, I'm glad to see new production loops. Only kovarex and coal liquefaction had a bit of feed into it what came out. Now we have to deal with numerous items from the same source. You can find that in some mods, but it's never really been part of the core game. Or rather, it was something that you could technically ignore in the base game.

How to deal with the byproducts is a new challenge, and I feel like they are already offering a better solution than in mods with byproducts. Crushers are huge in K2, for instance, but the recycler is small and easy to fit by comparison. Still, it's going to be easier to get a feel for it, once we actually try it.

[husnikadam]

I wonder - how do you build a factory on Fulgora from scratch? The devs said, that every planet needs to have a way to craft a rocket from from scratch using its resources (even if it may be inefficient and/or expensive). How do you recycle scrap when you have no recyclers?

[GregoriusT]

I wonder - how do you build a factory on Fulgora from scratch? The devs said, that every planet needs to have a way to craft a rocket from from scratch using its resources (even if it may be inefficient and/or expensive). How do you recycle scrap when you have no recyclers?

You know how the crashed Spaceship has Inventory Slots with some Iron and Stuff inside? That might be the case for the Ruins too.

[mmmPI]

I will try to bring recyclers with me when you going to Fulgora for the first time, on the space platform after seeing those FFF , or have a space platform ready to leave Nauvis for Fulgora with some of them. Maybe also a few solar pannel. The improvements on the remote view will come handy i suppose, to fulfill those early need for building, before you have something going on a new planet. If you have "many" of such supply platforms on Nauvis it may be possible to start building on a new planet with already decent supply. No idea how much time/ressource would cost the travel, how many asteroids on the way , the damage to be expected, and so on.

Maybe it is possible to have some recyclers on a space platform to make a reycling facility in orbit at first ?

[GregoriusT]

I will try to bring recyclers with me when you going to Fulgora for the first time, on the space platform after seeing those FFF , or have a space platform ready to leave Nauvis for Fulgora with some of them.

Hate to break it to you but I am very certain Recyclers are UNLOCKED using Fulgoras "visit to unlock" thing (like mining Trash once), so at best you can get the Recyclers on your SECOND visit.

[mmmPI]

Hate to break it to you but I am very certain Recyclers are UNLOCKED using Fulgoras "visit to unlock" thing (like mining Trash once), so at best you can get the Recyclers on your SECOND visit.

That wouldn't necessarily break it ! That's where i consider the remote view, you could land on Fulgora during your first visit, and stay there, then from Fulgora mine scrap manually, explore ruins, "unlock recycler", and from here you could switch to remote view, and task some bots on Nauvis to create an assembly producing recyclers, or even automating the change in receipe in a blueprint so that it start making those recycler, while you continue exploring/setting up the material you brought in initially. And i suppose from map view you could then task a space platform filled with recycler to come and join you on Fulgora, so that you wouldn't need a second visit.

I keep forgetting things when going on other planets when playing space exploration, so i had some rocket silo on Nauvis dedicated to supply those , to be controlled from remote view, manually, to forward logistic requests, but it always felt a waste to send a full rocket with its hundred of cargo slot, just because i had forgotten some robots. The way it plays out in the expansion with cheap but low capacity rocket feel more forgiven.

[CyberCider]

I wonder - how do you build a factory on Fulgora from scratch? The devs said, that every planet needs to have a way to craft a rocket from from scratch using its resources (even if it may be inefficient and/or expensive). How do you recycle scrap when you have no recyclers?

Scrap recycling can be done by hand, actually. The devs confirmed it somewhere, discord or reddit I believe. You can get the 12 different items out of the scrap, but you can’t uncraft them down to base materials like the recycler can.

Also, if you remember, in the first fulgora fff it said that breaking the lightning attractor “yielded some useful materials”, so it will probably be possible to get iron and copper plates by breaking random alien ruins.

[GregoriusT]

Scrap recycling can be done by hand, actually.

This does not sound like the Lazy Bastard way to do things.

[husnikadam]

I would imagine, that you could find one recycler on the landing site in some ruins and materials only from all of the structures throughout the planet. Similarly like you start a game with a few resources, one furnace and one miner and than you find rocks with stone and coal on Nauvis