3d Factorio

[olafthecat]

Why not?
It would allow my Hydroelectric Dam idea to work, as well as more interesting fluid mechanics.
You could go faster down hill and slower up hill.
Cliffs could be used as a natural defence against biters.
This could perhaps be one for the archive, as it would be to hard to implement without creating the game again.

[Dreepa]

To be frank, this is a bit out of proportion.
You are not really putting up a suggestion on how to improve Factorio, but basically suggest to re-code the entire game in a 3D engine

[Tekky]

You are not really putting up a suggestion on how to improve Factorio, but basically suggest to re-code the entire game in a 3D engine

I don't believe that this is the case. He is not talking about the graphics, but rather about the map being completely flat, except for water. There are no mountains or hills.

The original poster's suggestion of adding a proper heightmap (e.g. 3D terrain) could be implemented also in a 2D graphics engine, as has been done in OpenTTD.

However, still, I can't believe that this will ever be implemented in Factorio 1.0. But it is a nice idea for Factorio 2.0.

[Dreepa]

You are not really putting up a suggestion on how to improve Factorio, but basically suggest to re-code the entire game in a 3D engine

I don't believe that this is the case. He is not talking about the graphics, but rather about the map being completely flat, except for water. There are no mountains or hills.

The original poster's suggestion of adding a proper heightmap (e.g. 3D terrain) could be implemented also in a 2D graphics engine, as has been done in OpenTTD.

However, still, I can't believe that this will ever be implemented in Factorio 1.0. But it is a nice idea for Factorio 2.0.

Flat shading? Mmhh.. yeah. But then it is not really "3d factorio" but still isometric.
Sorry if I misunderstood the OP. Still hell lot of work

[Jap2.0]

You are not really putting up a suggestion on how to improve Factorio, but basically suggest to re-code the entire game in a 3D engine

I don't believe that this is the case. He is not talking about the graphics, but rather about the map being completely flat, except for water. There are no mountains or hills.

The original poster's suggestion of adding a proper heightmap (e.g. 3D terrain) could be implemented also in a 2D graphics engine, as has been done in OpenTTD.

However, still, I can't believe that this will ever be implemented in Factorio 1.0. But it is a nice idea for Factorio 2.0.

Flat shading? Mmhh.. yeah. But then it is not really "3d factorio" but still isometric.
Sorry if I misunderstood the OP. Still hell lot of work

It's definately possible to do semi-3d in 2d (see AoE 2 and OTTD), but I think that at this point it would take some major changes.

[olafthecat]

You are not really putting up a suggestion on how to improve Factorio, but basically suggest to re-code the entire game in a 3D engine

I don't believe that this is the case. He is not talking about the graphics, but rather about the map being completely flat, except for water. There are no mountains or hills.

The original poster's suggestion of adding a proper heightmap (e.g. 3D terrain) could be implemented also in a 2D graphics engine, as has been done in OpenTTD.

However, still, I can't believe that this will ever be implemented in Factorio 1.0. But it is a nice idea for Factorio 2.0.

You're right, something like OpenTTD would do!

[olafthecat]

I predict that Ssilk is about to post something in ideas and suggestions.

[JohnyDL]

FFF207:


The devs seem to have a working demo of height working for their own purposes but clearly haven't added it to the game.

[hitzu]

The devs seem to have a working demo of height working for their own purposes but clearly haven't added it to the game.

Sometimes it can be hard to visualize what effect changing the noise will have on the resulting map. To give a somewhat more intuitive feel to how the 'elevation' of the noise is affected, I added height shading to the preview. While only used in the game to place water, showing it in this way really helps to see the underlying structure of the noise.

[olafthecat]

That map looks pretty cool!
Let us hope that they do something like this.

[JohnyDL]

exactly Hitzu, though that's besides the point (I could easily have quoted that too but it didn't need saying :p)

The point is there is a potential for height and they haven't added it to the game in spite of having it there and requested.

It also wouldn't help with what olafthecat wants because as you can see the sea level is at one height and there are no flowing rivers to dam anyway and I don't think it adds much to the game anyway especially if terrain features get in the way of building.

[mrvn]

Well that's just the map. The close up view is still flat. Adding a height field to the map would just change the graphics engine and not the game dynamics them self that much. Unless you also want belts to work slower uphill than down.

Hey, here is an idea, basic belts only work downhill (or flat) and you need powered belts to go uphill. Now design your early factory to start with the mine at the top of the hill and roll downhill.


Anyway, to a more practical point and why I answered: A friend of mine recently suggested adding different height levels. Think grand canyon rather then hills. So you would have great chasms in your map when the height drastically changes with steep cliffs. The cliffs would be impassable (you can't walk on water so cliff tiles would be like that) and at some few places there would be breaks in the cliffs with a way up or down.

So far everything could be done simply by adding some new tile graphics and map gen. But it would look kind of bad if an underground belt starts at the top of the cliff and ends at the bottom of the cliff. To prevent that my idea was to make each height level it's own surface but get the game to draw the other surfaces when you are near a cliff, like factorissimo can draw the inside of a factory building, but overlapping the main surface exactly. So you see the inside of the canyon but it's really a different surface.

[Alyssa]

Hello

I was wondering if there's any plan for the future to add elevated terrain in Factorio, just like in Starcraft maps,where ground is divided on multiple levels and you can only climb on certain ramps / points.
Another thing I was thinking is caves: small closed areas (like the factories in the Mod Factorissimo) where nests of biters protects rich mineral patches inside.

This would make the maps more vary and open to more possibilities,I think.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged threads sharing the same topic.

[olafthecat]

Hey, here is an idea, basic belts only work downhill (or flat) and you need powered belts to go uphill. Now design your early factory to start with the mine at the top of the hill and roll downhill.

Hmm...
That would actually be amazing!
I have never really understood how belts can run without electricity.
Would help with my immersion!

[Jap2.0]

Hey, here is an idea, basic belts only work downhill (or flat) and you need powered belts to go uphill. Now design your early factory to start with the mine at the top of the hill and roll downhill.

Hmm...
That would actually be amazing!
I have never really understood how belts can run without electricity.
Would help with my immersion!

Hampsters. Has been confirmed by devs.

[mrvn]

Hey, here is an idea, basic belts only work downhill (or flat) and you need powered belts to go uphill. Now design your early factory to start with the mine at the top of the hill and roll downhill.

Hmm...
That would actually be amazing!
I have never really understood how belts can run without electricity.
Would help with my immersion!

Hampsters. Has been confirmed by devs.

As I suggested before one should be able to catch, domesticate, train and breed aliens. At the start you catch a small biter, sick it in a hamster wheel and you have your standard transport belts. For fast transport belts you need a medium biter and for express belts a behemoth biter. Hopefully just one hamster wheel every so many belt tiles.

[olafthecat]

Hey, here is an idea, basic belts only work downhill (or flat) and you need powered belts to go uphill. Now design your early factory to start with the mine at the top of the hill and roll downhill.

Hmm...
That would actually be amazing!
I have never really understood how belts can run without electricity.
Would help with my immersion!

Hampsters. Has been confirmed by devs.

As I suggested before one should be able to catch, domesticate, train and breed aliens. At the start you catch a small biter, sick it in a hamster wheel and you have your standard transport belts. For fast transport belts you need a medium biter and for express belts a behemoth biter. Hopefully just one hamster wheel every so many belt tiles.

That would really enrage some players!
Their mega factories no work no more!

[mrvn]

Hey, here is an idea, basic belts only work downhill (or flat) and you need powered belts to go uphill. Now design your early factory to start with the mine at the top of the hill and roll downhill.

Hmm...
That would actually be amazing!
I have never really understood how belts can run without electricity.
Would help with my immersion!

Hampsters. Has been confirmed by devs.

As I suggested before one should be able to catch, domesticate, train and breed aliens. At the start you catch a small biter, sick it in a hamster wheel and you have your standard transport belts. For fast transport belts you need a medium biter and for express belts a behemoth biter. Hopefully just one hamster wheel every so many belt tiles.

That would really enrage some players!
Their mega factories no work no more!

Worse if you play with aliens = None.

[hitzu]

Hello

I was wondering if there's any plan for the future to add elevated terrain in Factorio, just like in Starcraft maps,where ground is divided on multiple levels and you can only climb on certain ramps / points.

From https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... varex_ama/

Q: Do you guys have any plans to add height?
Either in basic 'fake' methods like with Command and Conquer 1 using drawn terrain which looks like height, or with methods like having floors on a factory that let you build up above the ground above your current factory and have belts go up and down slopes?
Do you have plans to introduce other planets with different alien types like a slower but more powerful creep style plantlife reminiscent of starcraft 2 creep?
Do you have any plans to extend space to allow an orbital platform where you can create a distribution hub to allow resources to come from the planet and be shipped to other planets where they have resources you need but lack iron and copper?
Even without those, I've sunk a considerable amount of my time in to this game, so just to say how much I love it!

A: The fake height was considered many times, mainly from the graphics department, as it makes the game look much better. It was discarded for the basic game, as it would require a lot of problems to be solved (sloped belts/rails/trains). There is also this problem with blueprints. The player would want to make everything flat anyway, so he can just extend his blueprints in predictable way. Having to adjust your game to the terrain might be fun in the early stages of the game, but it would be just painful later on.
Real levels, like underground, would be easy to do, but it would introduce new problems. As you don't see both levels at the same time, it is much harder to understand the factory layout compared to simple 2d view. It would also diminish the important part of the logistic challenge.
The space part would be natural part of the space expansion that we might, or might not do in the future