Factorio Forums

SerhiiS wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 1:29 pm

coffee-factorio wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 11:55 am Even though an average player doesn't see it, it would be viable enough to at least try and assume Wube has a payed playtester so they don't have to have emotion be involved in a situation.

The presence of a tester doesn't mean they're doing what you think. Balance is handled by a game designer, not a tester. But I doubt anyone compiled balance sheets. It all started with the "Megabase" Discord group. That's where the decision was made to remove the "space casino" and " LDS shuffle" from the game.
This may not be obvious to some. But as a programmer with 15 years of experience, it's clear to me that the "LDS shuffle" hasn't been removed from the game only because the developers have no idea how to remove it without completely rewriting the game engine to ban a specific recipe so that legendary plastic can't be used. This exploit works even without modules. All you need is legendary plastic. And as I already wrote here about removing the "LDS shuffle" productivity feature, it won't have any significant impact, since you'll simply need to spend more legendary plastic to craft legendary copper from it. And that's completely illogical and not in the style of Factorio. It's more like some kind of alchemy...
And regarding the "space casino," I already explained everything here viewtopic.php?p=694327#p694327 about how it could be balanced. Incidentally, they quickly implemented my idea to fix asteroid productivity, even though the FFF didn't mention it. Coincidence? I don't think so.

And, to me. Well, I have to fall back on my experience and education.

Ever in 15 years had a layman point out a context sensitive mistake that was relevant to a project? On say, functional software requirements? Because that's where this conversation is going. And if it's about social status and expertise, I'll pass because I am a layman and it's more worthwhile to send you to get a mod so you don't have to get a new supply chain.

I don't have to defend a software practices business to you, that's Wube's job. They already published they do TDD and they have a record that invites a commons sense judgement as to whether or not they have a balance sheet. If you respect me I'll respect you but that doesn't mean I'll see eye to eye or make you happy.

Tertius wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 1:21 pm

SerhiiS wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 7:43 am Fluid Voider - is a bug, an exploit.

naaaa..... I'm using it to void molten copper to get stone, in case there is demand for stone and nothing consumes molten metal. I never use exploits, so it cannot be an exploit

Seems legitimate.

meganothing wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 11:49 pm I said as much already. I have neither built a space casino nor a fluid voider. But I have read both the descriptions of casino and voider and
A) my guess is that I would have had a passable chance to discover the space casino by myself if I hadn't read about it, which is not the case for the fluid voider which seems to exploit an implementation detail.
B) I don't see any problem in building a space casino now that I have read about it. There might be one, but the absence of robots and chests is certainly not the problem that would stop or hinder me. For the fluid voider I have a dim idea where I would start experimenting but I am not sure I would actually be able to build one without looking up the solution.

Now this is only a subjective view of the relative difficulties and there is a level of assumptions in it as well. But I would assume I am a passable role model for an average player who doesn't simply "play by copy" or "play by current meta"

And I naturally don't know what player Wube wants to balance the game for. But just assuming they want to balance for players like me the nerf of space casino might have been appropriate.

When i read that, to me , it sound that space casino was not ruining your game in the slightliest, as you never ever used it, so assuming players like you, i imagine there was no need to do anything

To me, one is to discover the fluid voider as soon as they try to change the receipe of something that has a liquid input, more often than not i feel you don't want your fluid voided, and it can annoyingly happens, making you aware of the fluid voider mechanic. So you can even make one accidentaly lol. Maybe you didn't try to fiddle with that ?

meganothing wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 11:49 pm Granted. My choice of words showed it was just a guess. For me the drop belt seemed to immediately suggest the design with unfiltered collectors.

Yeah but you're already choosing here some self imposed challenge, the "no filter" on the inserter when you could just "transform" each asteroid collector into the functionnal equivalent of a miner for asteroid chunk, that output always the same type.And then build like a regular "factory" or production lane behind. That's something i saw other players doing in multiplayer games to make it simpler for themselves. And i've seen quite a lot of players sending ammo and others from Nauvis, having super simple platform. It's fairly obvious to me that space casino aren't amongst the simplest platorm. ( and also the achievements are quite telling).

Beside , the change happened not because the machine was easy or not to build, but rather because the reward was deemed to strong/good as far as the FFF says .

meganothing wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 11:49 pm I don't think the question whether a fluid voider is trivial or not is unimportant. It is unimportant only if all players Wube cares about look up solutions on the internet and just play the meta.

I've check on steamdb, and currently Factorio is more popular than ever, apart from the spike in players during the release, the average number of online player is higher than when the game was more recent. It's a very particuliar long tail, where many other games have a very fast diminshing player base after release. If there is a multiplayer community, players share tricks lol.

Otherwise why change the space casino, when only 2% players ever made a legendary prod module ? I believe the game is intended to be balanced also for the exploits people can share around. I feel amongst those methods, the one that was the least interesting to build was kept, the fluid voider, even though devs already took steps to remove possibilities to do so that existed in the past. But the interesting challenge, the new one, in space with quality, the one that mixes all, this one, the most grandiose, was removed.

Tertius wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 1:21 pm naaaa..... I'm using it to void molten copper to get stone, in case there is demand for stone and nothing consumes molten metal. I never use exploits, so it cannot be an exploit

HAha, that's very consistent of a subjective vision where one need to min/max when playing the game, but also with comon sense, and everyone is free to tell wether or not the min/maxing has gone beyond.

GregoriusT wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 10:59 am If you compare achievements you need to also bring up the achievement for tier 3 quality modules, because someone who does not even do those will also never try to do space casinos in vanilla.

2.2 % !!! If you mean the achievement for having one legendary.

SerhiiS wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 1:29 pm It all started with the "Megabase" Discord group. That's where the decision was made to remove the "space casino" and " LDS shuffle" from the game.

SerhiiS wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2026 5:46 am Actually, the removal of Space Casino and LDS Shuffle was discussed over a year ago on Reddit, and the developer made their final decision that both options would be removed in 2.1. YouTubers have nothing to do with it. This was a final and irrevocable decision over a year ago.

Where next ? x)

SerhiiS wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 1:29 pm And regarding the "space casino," I already explained everything here viewtopic.php?p=694327#p694327 about how it could be balanced. Incidentally, they quickly implemented my idea to fix asteroid productivity, even though the FFF didn't mention it. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Ohh right x) i think it is a coincidence lol

SerhiiS wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 1:29 pm This may not be obvious to some. But as a programmer with 15 years of experience, it's clear to me that the "LDS shuffle" hasn't been removed from the game only because the developers have no idea how to remove it without completely rewriting the game engine to ban a specific recipe so that legendary plastic can't be used.

have you thought of molten platic instead of solid plastic in the LDS casting receipe ? Cuz to me it doesn't appear that you need to rewrite the whole engine just to change the ingredient of the one receipe.

mmmPI wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2026 5:48 am have you thought of molten platic instead of solid plastic in the LDS casting receipe ? Cuz to me it doesn't appear that you need to rewrite the whole engine just to change the ingredient of the one receipe.

This is clearly a question for the developers, not me. You should also reread the FFF statement.

There are other recipes we were considering tweaking, such as Low Density Structure in Foundries or such, but we are leaving those alone.

They wanted to remove this recipe, but something kept it. Maybe the space casino is fixing one line of code in the recipe? And liquid plastic is a new recipe? Will the game have both solid and liquid plastic, and will that confuse newcomers? After all, judging by the Steam achievements and the features the developers have planned, they've focused on their core audience—newcomers. Old players can always install mods that fix the issues of the original game.

coffee-factorio wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2026 1:51 am They already published they do TDD and they have a record that invites a commons sense judgement as to whether or not they have a balance sheet. If you respect me I'll respect you but that doesn't mean I'll see eye to eye or make you happy.

You're confusing hot with wet. TDD is used to find bugs in code. It has nothing to do with balance or game design. It's like saying, "I'll call a chef to fix my plumbing, because a chef often works in the kitchen; he should know how to fix a drain."

And to find out whether a space casino is too profitable, you need to create a balance sheet. Programmers don't do that, and certainly not testers. And TDD won't help you create a balance sheet.

A balance sheet is any table, such as an Excel spreadsheet, that displays mathematical, statistical, and functional relationships. Typically, mathematicians or experienced game designers who have already worked on balance issues are hired for this. These people don't need to know how to program at all. They need to be able to see numbers. This is a matter of analytics, not game coding.

mmmPI wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2026 5:48 am When i read that, to me , it sound that space casino was not ruining your game in the slightliest, as you never ever used it, so assuming players like you, i imagine there was no need to do anything

It would not have ruined my experience anyway, but I might have gotten less fun out of experimenting with the quality mechanisms if I for example had heard the ultimate bestest way to get quality stuff is doing it with asteroids on a space ship. Instead I now made lots of different quality production setups, some horribly inefficient, distributed all over the planets.

Oh, and when I start a new game eventually, or even in this game I might just make a space quality factory just to see how good or bad it is. Probably it can't be called a space casino anymore as it is more like a space gambling den now.

To me, one is to discover the fluid voider as soon as they try to change the receipe of something that has a liquid input, more often than not i feel you don't want your fluid voided, and it can annoyingly happens, making you aware of the fluid voider mechanic. So you can even make one accidentaly lol. Maybe you didn't try to fiddle with that ?

Oh, seeing it happen and even being annoyed by it is not sufficient to really have the idea to use it later to void fluids. Both events would usually happen days, weeks or months apart, usually players memory is not perfect and having the right thought "outside the box" depends on intelligence and luck.

Also, voiding fluids is something only megafactory builders might need. Do they always need it?

Assuming Wube found out it is hard or inconvenient to fix this they could readily have accepted that since all solids can be destroyed anyway, why not fluids as well. The alternative might have been to redesign fluids, again!!

meganothing wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 11:49 pm Granted. My choice of words showed it was just a guess. For me the drop belt seemed to immediately suggest the design with unfiltered collectors.

Yeah but you're already choosing here some self imposed challenge, the "no filter" on the inserter when you could just "transform" each asteroid collector into the functionnal equivalent of a miner for asteroid chunk, that output always the same type.

That isn't a self imposed challenge. It just is a different design that sets the filtering at a different spot in the pipeline. Even if your proposed design were somewhat better, that doesn't mean much, not all players will automatically flock to the most optimal design. Otherwise anyone not having used space casino previously would have as well "done a self imposed challenge".

And then build like a regular "factory" or production lane behind. That's something i saw other players doing in multiplayer games to make it simpler for themselves. And i've seen quite a lot of players sending ammo and others from Nauvis, having super simple platform.

Are the players who are sending ammo from Nauvis doing a self imposed challenge? Or do all others?

It's fairly obvious to me that space casino aren't amongst the simplest platorm. ( and also the achievements are quite telling).

The simplest platforms that send stuff from planet to planet? I agree, but I wouldn't really build a space casino for that. I had thought the space casino was something to make legendary quality.

Beside , the change happened not because the machine was easy or not to build, but rather because the reward was deemed to strong/good as far as the FFF says .

It all plays into it. An easy to implement OP solution or mechanism would be the first to be nerfed whereas a complicated mechanism that only a few players can get working would be last on any nerf list. A mechanism useful for every player would as well be nerfed first and a mechanism that is only useful for a niche application or task would be last on any nerf list. ...

I've check on steamdb, and currently Factorio is more popular than ever, apart from the spike in players during the release, the average number of online player is higher than when the game was more recent. It's a very particuliar long tail, where many other games have a very fast diminshing player base after release. If there is a multiplayer community, players share tricks lol.

Otherwise why change the space casino, when only 2% players ever made a legendary prod module ? I believe the game is intended to be balanced also for the exploits people can share around. I feel amongst those methods, the one that was the least interesting to build was kept, the fluid voider, even though devs already took steps to remove possibilities to do so that existed in the past. But the interesting challenge, the new one, in space with quality, the one that mixes all, this one, the most grandiose, was removed.

I would not have the slightest problem if the fluid voider were nerfed too. Even if I eventually got to a point where it would be convenient to use one.
But we also have listed a very possible reason why fluid voider escaped the axe. And that reason can't apply to casino. So I don't think there is any mystery at all, the probable answer to your question seems rather obvious.

SerhiiS wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2026 8:10 am
You're confusing hot with wet. TDD is used to find bugs in code. It has nothing to do with balance or game design. It's like saying, "I'll call a chef to fix my plumbing, because a chef often works in the kitchen; he should know how to fix a drain."

And to find out whether a space casino is too profitable, you need to create a balance sheet. Programmers don't do that, and certainly not testers. And TDD won't help you create a balance sheet.

A balance sheet is any table, such as an Excel spreadsheet, that displays mathematical, statistical, and functional relationships. Typically, mathematicians or experienced game designers who have already worked on balance issues are hired for this. These people don't need to know how to program at all. They need to be able to see numbers. This is a matter of analytics, not game coding.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/bring-bac ... rom=search

There's a common sense judgement a lay person can make about whether or not that analysis was done. I don't believe I could do justice to your description of TDD without being poetic.

You are inviting a nuanced discussion of engineering about a video game about engineering.

On a bulletin board with fans of the game on it.

I'm not seeing a conversation I should be involved with.