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Factorio: Space Age

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Re: Factorio: Space Age

#301

Post by mcv »

knome wrote: post #266
pmoriarty wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For refueling I've recently been using the cybersyn mod, which let's you easily create a refueling stations that your trains will automatically go to when they're low on fuel (with exactly how "low" they need to be being configurable in the mod settings). I just plop down a refueling station, and a requester station next to it that refuels the refueler and I'm done. Don't have to worry about it again.

My most complex train system had every train carry a single item type, and a large central trainyard. trains won't leave without an active destination. so all of the destinations for dropping off a type had the same name, and similarly the pick ups and would be disabled by circuits if their dropoffs were more than a quarter or so full. so if something needed green electronics, it would activate its DropOffGreenElectr…

Interesting approach. I do give multiple pickup points for the same name (so while my old coal field is slowly running out, trains increasingly move to the new coal field by themselves), but I hadn't considered doing the same with the drop-offs.

And I haven't yet figured out how to disable drop-offs that don't need anything. I often have a single train bring stuff to a couple of drop-offs, but that always feels sloppy. I have to use timeouts on the trains so they don't linger at a station that's too full to empty them. Disabling those stations and giving them all the same name might be a better alternative.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#302

Post by rollcat »

rosmax_1337 wrote: post #236
jameshart wrote: post #162

Not sure this will scratch the itch for what I always felt was missing from Factorio, which is fundamentally a more satisfying ‘sink’ for resources. During main gameplay your resource extraction and expansion is driven mainly by the sink of ‘research’ - turn resources into science, science into unlocks. Additionally, biters eat bullets, and occasionally factory parts that need replacing. Other than that the main sink…

There just needs to be a gamemode which makes the game more about base defense and resource usage in defending the base. Currently you can just spam lasers and win no problem. Imagine something like 7 days of constant biter attacks on all fronts, with biters much stronger as well. A relentless strain on the economy of your base more than anything, with there being a real need for repair bots to fully repair and remak…

Try a deathworld then. Once you're comfortable defending until you can secure flamethrowers, you can add in some mods that slightly extend or complicate the early/mid game (like AAI industries and/or Krastorio2). Especially with K2, you get some new options for controlling your pollution (planting trees, running greenhouses, air filters...), and in the endgame you get the tech that enables fully self-sustaining bases. I think all of these are interesting alternatives to the endless expansion and the sudden, rapid power spike of the base game.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#303

Post by 12345hn6789 »

bombcar wrote: post #211
pmoriarty wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just disable cliffs during world generation. That's what I do. They're slightly helpful for biter defense, but otherwise they're just annoying. There are also many mods that let you pump water from anywhere.

I really wish there was an option for "no cliffs within X distance" or something. My "dream world" would have the starting area for maybe 100 blocks have some cliffs for early biter funneling and a bit of a challenge, then just flat world for 1000 blocks, and then back to cliffs. Or make it so you can manually mine cliffs very slowly before explosives.

Pretty sure if you set the starting area to the max size it does exactly what you asked

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#304

Post by rollcat »

pmoriarty wrote: post #145
xedrac wrote: post #101

I love Factorio and have >1000 hours in the game. Two things I would love to see: - Steam cloud sync fixed for large save files. Right now, you'll eventually reach a point where you can't save your game to the cloud anymore. - More interesting aliens and strategies for dealing with them. After awhile, the aliens start to feel like a repetitive grind. They always behave predictably and the solution to them is pretty m…

"More interesting aliens and strategies for dealing with them. After awhile, the aliens start to feel like a repetitive grind. They always behave predictably and the solution to them is pretty much always the same." Try the Rampant mod, if you want a challenge. There are a bunch of other mods that add different/tougher enemies too. That said, the focus of Factorio was never combat, it's building. If you want better c…

Rampant makes the enemies smarter, but not necessarily harder. If you've learned how to defend from the biters in vanilla, some of the new tactics will catch you by surprise. But the answer is still the same: build up your defenses to the point where no attack wave stands a chance.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#305

Post by WutWatWot »

12345hn6789 wrote: post #152
vessenes wrote: post #70

Oh wow, I'm very excited about this. The post author wrote the absolutely incredible Space Exploration mod for Factorio, pitching itself as a "100+" hour expansion, realistically closer to 1000 hours for an average player. Space Exploration has its quirks, but is fundamentally an absolutely outstanding puzzle game, among the best ever made. One of the most delightful things about Factorio for coders is that the game…

Space exploration is not the best puzzle game ever made. Space exploration is not the best factorip mod ever made. Space exploration has a great presentation layer (graphics and UI) but the logistics challenge and gameplay challenges leave lots to be desired. I implore you to try many of the other high quality factorio mods made over the years. Pyanodons is easily the greatest factorio mod. The sheer quality and scal…

Pyanodons is literally a joke. It's not designed to be finished.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#306

Post by rcxdude »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #142
Laremere wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The post author wrote the absolutely incredible Space Exploration mod for Factorio Each section has an author, and only the Space Exploration section is written by the mod author. Most of the post is written by kovarex, who is the founder of Factorio, afaik.

Is the Factorio source code available anywhere? I would be really curious to see how a game like Factorio was developed (e.g., what parts are 'the engine' and what parts are scripted? how does such a complex game have so few bugs?)

They do seem to have shared the source code with some of the more prominent modders in the past, but it is not generally available.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#307

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway03624 wrote: post #74
endigma wrote: post #22

> It has been playable from start to finish for more than a year. This means that we have already made several improvement iterations based on the playthroughs behind us. You just don't see commitment to shipping quality product in the games industry like this. This is what makes Factorio special.

No Man's Sky has a similar dedication. They have been constantly adding new features and expansions for free for the last 7 years. If this had been a different company, they might have saved some of those features for a version 2 or a paid DLC.

[deleted]

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#308

Post by dekhn »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #142
Laremere wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The post author wrote the absolutely incredible Space Exploration mod for Factorio Each section has an author, and only the Space Exploration section is written by the mod author. Most of the post is written by kovarex, who is the founder of Factorio, afaik.

Is the Factorio source code available anywhere? I would be really curious to see how a game like Factorio was developed (e.g., what parts are 'the engine' and what parts are scripted? how does such a complex game have so few bugs?)

I spent some time thinking about how to implement Factorio and it occurred to me that things like conveyors are probably represented as linked lists (all the conveyer elements in order) while also having X,Y grid coordinates. Every time you modify a conveyor belt chain, the game engine is probably adding/removing nodes from the list, or splitting lists in two, or joining two lists. I can't see how they get some of the effects in the game but there is probably a TON of clever optimization so they can maintain the target frame rate.

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#309

Post by francoisdevlin »

dekhn wrote: post #308
throwaway894345 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the Factorio source code available anywhere? I would be really curious to see how a game like Factorio was developed (e.g., what parts are 'the engine' and what parts are scripted? how does such a complex game have so few bugs?)

I spent some time thinking about how to implement Factorio and it occurred to me that things like conveyors are probably represented as linked lists (all the conveyer elements in order) while also having X,Y grid coordinates. Every time you modify a conveyor belt chain, the game engine is probably adding/removing nodes from the list, or splitting lists in two, or joining two lists. I can't see how they get some of th…

There's a lot to belts

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-176

Re: Factorio: Space Age

#310

Post by dotnet00 »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #287
adamwong246 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically impossible to track individual items in that way. Ask me how I know!

How do you know? I imagine that two useful tools would be belt sorters and inserters that filtered by a configurable shelf life threshold.

Maybe the issue there might be that if every unit of a certain thing has a shelf life, you can't just treat the item as a count.

Each item becomes unique and so you have to track each one's state as well as define rules about the shelf life. Like, what happens to its shelf life while in a train? Can the items at slightly different points in their shelf life be stacked? etc

Of course it's a solvable thing, but it maybe that would be too heavy on the game when scaling up to large factories.

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