Factorio Forums

Hello!

Since sulfur is like stone, coal, copper and iron ore, also a "natural" product, shouldn't it also be depicted with irregular sprites? This makes sense to me. It would be more complete, since the irregular sprites were added for all those natural raw resources.

Its not really natural, given you synthesize it.
That said, given the current sprite is clearly irregular, it should probably be either made to look artificially shaped or else natural, like you said.

If you synthesize a crystal, every individual crystal will look unique, not one will be the same as the other.

+1

I really like the idea of irregular sulfur.

Thanks valneq

Please make Sulfur Crystals look irregular before 1.0 in September 2020!

more variants to consume VRAM.

I like this idea and would suggest variants of wood, fish, uranium-235 and uranium-238 as well.

ptx0 wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:26 am more variants to consume VRAM.

If you're that close to running out you may need an upgrade. Or, at least be consistent and dislike every other asset in the game as well. Really this game would run so much faster if it was in ASCII.

5thHorseman wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 9:11 am --Snip--
Really this game would run so much faster if it was in ASCII.

Doubt it. Ascii games can run as slow as any modern game. After all, they only drop most of the graphics. The behind the scenes logic still eats a ton of processor time.

(If that was sarcasm, I couldn't tell from your tone of text, sorry)

5thHorseman wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 9:11 am

ptx0 wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:26 am more variants to consume VRAM.

If you're that close to running out you may need an upgrade. Or, at least be consistent and dislike every other asset in the game as well. Really this game would run so much faster if it was in ASCII.

didn't mean to strike a chord there, clearly you are a bit invested in this idea.

just because i said this will consume more VRAM doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, but it's not free. nothing is free.

and i do think a lot of assets in the game have an unnecessary number of variants.

it's about opportunity cost. we have this thing and it consumes X number of VRAMs, and then we optimised it so it consumes half.

do we use it twice as often now, or do we invest that freed memory on another feature people want?

yeah, one asset isn't going to cripple the system, but it's a "slippery slope" when you think "oh just one asset is not too much VRAM".

the devs have already said that they've considered additional variants for some things like the newly redesigned beacon but *those* variants are already too much VRAM. why do you think this one would be much different? because it's smaller? okay but it'll be used in tons of places on belts and flying through the air on bots.

3 extra belt variants to make 4 total = 3 extra item icons. Less atlas space than a single technology icon. Utterly trivial impact on VRAM.

Sulphur works. Solid fuel is also a good candidate. In my opinion it doesn't work for wood. You don't gain much from uranium products either. Fish would be a waste of artist time.

Ranakastrasz wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:50 pm (If that was sarcasm, I couldn't tell from your tone of text, sorry)

It was. I was basically saying sarcastically what you said outright.

The VRAM cost of making the game prettier by adding a couple more sulfur sprites is worth it. In the same way that the VRAM cost of everything else in the game was worth it. It makes it slightly better visually which is obviously important to the developers, and which a lot of us obviously appreciate.

So with today's last major graphical update according to FFF, I don't think we will see irregular looking sulphur crystals on belts. Oh well...