Factorio Forums

Hey guys, I just got the game and get confused about what the proper version should be. Having opted out of all betas, my version shows as: 0.13.20 build 24011


Thanks in advance,

That is correct for single player.

But 0.13 has many multiplayer bugs, so it is recommended to use the latest experimental version for multiplayer.

Maizel wrote:Hey guys, I just got the game and get confused about what the proper version should be. Having opted out of all betas, my version shows as: 0.13.20 build 24011


Thanks in advance,

Thanks!


Are there any gameplay/stability differences between the two for single player?

0.14 experimental will most likely become the new stable any day now. For me, it has been rock solid. And I mostly do singleplayer. Fixes for singleplayer are not that many, but some mods are only updating in the experimentals.

just a heads up with version numbering. 0.14.17 is a newer version than 0.14.2 for example.
don't really know why they name earlier versions like this> 0.14.2 instead of> 0.14.02

impetus maximus wrote:just a heads up with version numbering. 0.14.17 is a newer version than 0.14.2 for example.
don't really know why they name earlier versions like this> 0.14.2 instead of> 0.14.02

Because a dot in a version number is not a decimal point. (That's also why there can be multiple ones.)

prg wrote:

impetus maximus wrote:just a heads up with version numbering. 0.14.17 is a newer version than 0.14.2 for example.
don't really know why they name earlier versions like this> 0.14.2 instead of> 0.14.02

Because a dot in a version number is not a decimal point. (That's also why there can be multiple ones.)

Yep, the dot/period is a delimiter, not a decimal point

ok thanks for clearing that up.

Unbelievably I had to explain all this to our software team at work, all of whom have at least degrees in software development. They thought there were only 9,999 versions possible (9.9.9.9) so appended a patch number [X] to the end which has caused no end of problems. Also they do not utilise the type of each version, each new release increments the last number which they then treat as a decimal (1.0.0.8 > 1.0.0.9 > 1.0.1.0). Ridiculous.

Also there's no point in adding leading zeroes as you have no idea how many versions of that type there would be. For example some games have five digit minor version numbers (eg x.x.x.XXXXX) such as League.

How is savegame compatibility between experimentals and whatever stable version is derived from it, generally? Does every update break saves?

When you load an update from a previous version there is a tool that automatically goes through the save and 'updates' it best it can to the new version. Typically this isn't an issue between minor versions (x.x.x.X) because generally entities are not removed or changed, the majority of stuff is tweaks, bugfixes and LUA. More major updates (X.X.X.x) are where you can run into problems. For example with 0.15 will come an updated Small Pump that is 2x1, larger than the current Small Pump. To handle this, they've said they'll probably just remove them all from the game upon upgrading the save so you will need to rebuild them yourself. Also as science is being redone the science pack recipes will be removed from their assemblers, so you'll need to redo that.

Personally I prefer to start a new game for each update so I don't need to worry about these sort of problems.

Deadly-Bagel wrote:Unbelievably I had to explain all this to our software team at work, all of whom have at least degrees in software development. They thought there were only 9,999 versions possible (9.9.9.9) so appended a patch number [X] to the end which has caused no end of problems. Also they do not utilise the type of each version, each new release increments the last number which they then treat as a decimal (1.0.0.8 > 1.0.0.9 > 1.0.1.0). Ridiculous.

Also there's no point in adding leading zeroes as you have no idea how many versions of that type there would be. For example some games have five digit minor version numbers (eg x.x.x.XXXXX) such as League.

The truth is, that version numbers are coming from internet adresses. 0.0.0.0 was the first and with 255.255.255.255 the internet ends.


Same is with version numbers!! If you have too much versions, you need to find a new name for your software. That happened for example with Windows after version 255.255.255.255 they renamed it to X Window.











Just kidding. There are standards for version numbering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning
In most software-projects I know they are used to keep track in the branches in the revision control system.