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Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

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Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#121

Post by aerio »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #79
freeone3000 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No trig or calc, every formula is linear. There’s some very non-integer factors in there, but if you take “time” as an input you can do it all with algebra.

Honestly, I think the feeling of not wanting to have to bust out a spreadsheet to play a video game is entirely reasonable and shouldn't be downvoted. but this is HN in 2023, so he'll get downvoted, while, who does use a spreadsheet will get downvoted when I admit that the spreadsheet I use is from Microsoft. =)

You don't have to though. Base facrorio does not require any spreadsheets or math (other than production lines for efficiency, but that's kind of the nature of the game.)

It's a mod, and so not required and already something you decided to optionally add to your game.

Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#122

Post by rollcat »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #120
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #26

Briefly mentioned in this and rendered: space exploration is an incredible factorio mod and the deepest game I've ever played. In Factorio you launch a rocket and win. Space exploration takes that and continues. You end up developing a base across multiple worlds in the solar system. After developing the solar system from the different unique resources on each planet you expand to interstellar space and then other so…

The biggest issue with biters, IMO, is that their density continues to ramp beyond you capping out your ability to efficiently eliminate them. In my (normal level biter) space exploration run, my buddy and i didn't run into any problems clearing out a large swath of space to build by rushing artillery and flamethrower turrents. The problem became the tedium of expanding our territory to keep the pollution cloud conta…

With SE you don't need that much space on Nauvis. You should be targeting 10-30SPM in your first playthru; you will get bottlenecked on extraterrestrial resources as soon as you try to ramp up space science. There are people who beat the game off of a single core drill on Nauvis - what makes this mod take so long is designing all the solutions, rather than waiting for the science to trickle.

Artillery (as well as basically everything from the base game) should be considered early game tech: you will later unlock stuff that would make Palpatine salivate.

If anything, you very suddenly run out of things worth shooting at.

> [...] maybe allow for circuit-controlled timing of when to move into the next cluster.

You can achieve that in the vanilla game by blueprinting the artillery outpost (which would include all the necessary supporting defences, like walls/turrets/roboports/etc). Train rolls in, unloads gun+flamethrower ammo, once ammo buffers are ready set a signal to load ammo into artillery, which will start shooting. Set a timer, every time you load a shell reset it, once timer runs out + there are still shells left - you can set off an alarm that the outpost is done. Use a filtered deconstructor to pick the pieces up and move it all over.

Bonus: use a blueprint deployer (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/recursive-blueprints) to automate the "move to the next sector" part. Check out this guy on Reddit to get some ideas: https://old.reddit.com/user/Drogiwan_Cannobi/submitted/

Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#123

Post by mcv »

pmoriarty wrote: post #38
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The difficulty creep that was demanded by vocal experienced players has made Factorio much harder for newcomers to get into. Factorio is a brilliant Zen garden and an absolutely terrible real time strategy game. Since the beta there's been more and more biter types and a gradual ramp up in how frantic you have to be to keep up. It's tremendously off-putting and completely opposite to what makes Factorio what…

I actually liked having the biters on my first couple of playthroughs of the game. It added a sense of urgency and a feeling that this was a dangerous alien world. After that I started playing mods that in and of themselves increased the difficulty of the game, and having the biters on top of that was just way too much. Also, in a vanilla game, once you're more or less invulnerable to the biters they become just an e…

I've never felt the desire to turn off biters. I'm in it for the building, not the fighting, but taking out biter camps combines well with exploration, and it's often a nice change of pace between all the thinking about logistics.

I'm currently playing with the Krastorio 2 mod, where the ridiculous range of the anti-material rifle makes killing biter camps a bit too trivial.

Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#124

Post by mcv »

leetcrew wrote: post #62
pram wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the bugs add some needed entropy. If you’re not paying attention your bases will eventually be demolished. Makes me more thoughtful about my planning and design rather than just plopping some half assed shit down.

they're also the entity that gives "bite" (pun intended) to the pollution mechanic, which complicates lots of tradeoffs in the game. with biters/pollution, trees are both an inconvenience and a helpful pollution buffer. it's not trivial to decide whether to build your starter base in the open desert or nested between forests. additionally, the tradeoffs between solar vs steam and the effect modules are shallower when…

I rarely defend. Factorio is a great example of a good offense being the best defense. Just take out any biter camp that comes close to the edge of your pollution cloud, and you never really have to bother with defense.

> the game gives you a lot of tools to manage pollution

The popular Krastorio 2 mod adds even more: wind turbines from the start, more efficient ways to produce energy between steam and nuclear, and it even has air purifiers that reduce pollution. That's almost cheating. On top of that, taking out biter camps is a lot easier with the anti-material rifle.

Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#125

Post by mcv »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #112
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The difficulty creep that was demanded by vocal experienced players has made Factorio much harder for newcomers to get into. Factorio is a brilliant Zen garden and an absolutely terrible real time strategy game. Since the beta there's been more and more biter types and a gradual ramp up in how frantic you have to be to keep up. It's tremendously off-putting and completely opposite to what makes Factorio what…

> needing to race the tech tree to keep up Is that actually how it ends up going? Unless your base is extremely small, then going slower means less pollution reaches the biters and they evolve slower. If you won't have 20 drills going after several hours, "play the tutorial" is probably the best advice. "Don't start in the middle of a treeless wasteland" is also important advice.

> "Don't start in the middle of a treeless wasteland" is also important advice.

Don't people just take whatever starting position the game gives you? Sometimes the starting position simply is a treeless wasteland. As far as I understand, moving to start far away from your starting position is a bad idea, because there's more biters there and the resources you need are much further apart.

Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#126

Post by mcv »

bberrry wrote: post #89
shostack wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want Factorio with amazing graphics, check out Satisfactory.

Seconding this recommendation. Definitely one of my favorite games the last decade

Get a very powerful GPU, though. I haven't played it, but from what I've seen, things can get crazy in Satisfactory.

Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#127

Post by BlueTemplar »

mcv wrote: post #124
leetcrew wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they're also the entity that gives "bite" (pun intended) to the pollution mechanic, which complicates lots of tradeoffs in the game. with biters/pollution, trees are both an inconvenience and a helpful pollution buffer. it's not trivial to decide whether to build your starter base in the open desert or nested between forests. additionally, the tradeoffs between solar vs steam and the effect modules are shallower when…

I rarely defend. Factorio is a great example of a good offense being the best defense. Just take out any biter camp that comes close to the edge of your pollution cloud, and you never really have to bother with defense. > the game gives you a lot of tools to manage pollution The popular Krastorio 2 mod adds even more: wind turbines from the start, more efficient ways to produce energy between steam and nuclear, and i…

There's a lot of important details in this : when, how and where biters expand, how much less killing settlers rather than nests increases evolution, &c.

Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#128

Post by BlueTemplar »

mcv wrote: post #125
Dylan16807 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> needing to race the tech tree to keep up Is that actually how it ends up going? Unless your base is extremely small, then going slower means less pollution reaches the biters and they evolve slower. If you won't have 20 drills going after several hours, "play the tutorial" is probably the best advice. "Don't start in the middle of a treeless wasteland" is also important advice.

> "Don't start in the middle of a treeless wasteland" is also important advice. Don't people just take whatever starting position the game gives you? Sometimes the starting position simply is a treeless wasteland. As far as I understand, moving to start far away from your starting position is a bad idea, because there's more biters there and the resources you need are much further apart.

Not sure about resources being further apart, and agree about new players. However it's well known that your starting area can have an immense impact on the game difficulty.

Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#129

Post by BlueTemplar »

rcxdude wrote: post #95
130e13a wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

another modpack that should be mentioned here is pyanodons [0]. similar to space exploration it also extends the game significantly after the rocket launch, but it also adds additional content before (in fact, the rocket launch itself becomes rather unimportant and is an at first optional blue science tech) pyanodons adds very realistic ore processing chains, petrochemical processes (the main developer, pyanodon, is…

pyanodons really does seem like grind for the sake of grind. It's great if you're basically a utility monster for factorio's core gameplay and want as much of it as possible without any regard for repetition, or you really get a lot out of the satisfaction of achieving ridiculous goals, but most people are not likely to find it very fun, even if they liked seablock or SE.

pY is very much not repetition of vanilla, not only it pushes Factorio to its limits in terms of features and of course PC load (if not in the same way than the new SpaceX), part of the fun is to have MANY alternative ways to produce most of the things, then decide which one you want to use.

Re: Alt-F4 #65 – Factorio visualizer in Unreal Engine 5

#130

Post by BlueTemplar »

evandale wrote: post #103
remarkEon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly I actually like games that make me alt-tab and then look up some equations and open excel for a bit. (No, I will not try EVE)

You don't even have to alt tab out to use Excel, they've added to the game. Seems like it doesn't fit your criteria for games you'd like anymore so there's no reason to try! :P https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/816520777052... (I mean this in jest)

Amazing, but why not something open source like LibreOffice instead ?!
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