/v/ - Video Games

I want to start a new sealand or whatever it's called game but I'm shit at optimizing.

Are they ever going to to finish this?

Remember when you were excited about all the potential behind this game?

Remember when you thought Minecraft was just an exception and the entire early-access model of development couldn't possibly be inherently broken?

>>16519519

I'll play this game when it goes on sale. And once it does I'll buy it, refund it, leave a bad review with a bullshit reason, and then pirate it (then badmouth this game again on anonymous forums).

>>16520498

I bought it for $20 US when it was worth it, then they jacked up the price a few weeks later

I am surprised that this exists in the hive of shit. Wow. Who thought that was a good idea?

Also great game got like 250+ hours on it which is rookie numbers.

>>16520530

You mean this thread? It pops up maybe once or twice a month

is this a genre? a subgenre of simulation?

>>16520575

I think everyone agrees it`s a "automation" game

>>16519519

I have a question regarding drones. Those little shits look like an amazing tool but their Network still has me wondering how exactly are they supposed to be properly used.

Do you keep Networks in a local manner, with different sites having each their own Logistic Network of drones and they only trade resources with other Networks by means of Trains?

Or do you make a long chain of Drone Ports alongside a track or wire between each zone you're at, so they are all connected?

It seems like you'd benefit a lot from having everything under the same Network since all drones would operate under it and you could easily control their number, but making a fuck ton of holoports and leaving them in long lines to connect Networks seems like a chore that easily creates more vulnerabilities in your system.

>>16520756

There is a benefit to making local networks that are separated from other networks. The robots will gather where there's work, so other parts of the network will have no robots left, instead the robots will have to potentially come all the way from the other side of your base.

The robots will also often take shortcuts through non-roboported terrain, so if you connect 2 bases for instance, the robots will fly straight to an enemy base.

I really wish there was more ways to control them, especially because the roboports have a relatively long range so it's hard to make small localized networks without having a mile long empty radius around them.

>>16520488

I think Factorio is already more or less fine as it is. It suffers from the same problem as other sandbox games though; it just slowly runs out of content without giving any kind of satisfying conclusion. Terraria is one of the few games that avoids that problem by having progression through bossfights with a flashy super hard final boss with cheat-like weapon drops. But you can't always do something like that.

How would you "finish" Factorio? I'd probably veer Factorio towards a sort of sandbox RTS game. Rather than random mobs, the aliens would be an enemy faction with several unique bases with increasing difficulty, and the final goal is to make big enough base to make big enough weapons to defeat the enemy's main base. Each base would have some unique tech unlock or something. That would of course require bigger and more interesting enemies, and maybe more interesting weapons like combat versions of the roboport robots and new grenade/drone types. I think it's fine if it's not all about automation, very few games are only about 1 thing, and I can't imagine a satisfying automation-based conclusion.

>>16520909

Oh, I assumed they could just enter a robotport and come out anywhere else on the network, effectively teleporting around as needed. If that's not the case, this is far more limtied than I expected.

>>16519519

>I can't decide between playing AngelBob's or Seablock

Pyanodon.

>>16520928

>How would you "finish" Factorio?

There's only a way up:

From a single planet, you construct a space fleet and start colonizing other planets and you then manage multiple planets production.

At a certain point like you said: aliens, that was preparing to wipe your homeplanet notice your shenanigan and try to stop you. You then proceed to eliminate them and their homeplanet.

Crisis averted.

The End

>>16520575

it's a very tiny genre started by modded minecraft.

modded minecraft has a really steep learning curve, but once you learn the basics it can entertain you for months at a time. I recommend checking out the "Enigmatica 2" pack (non-expert version) if you're interested, as it has an in game guide that teaches you the core mods.

>>16520928

Make it like Anno and give it different objectives and tweaks to the world gen for different "levels". I would buy it if they had more than 5 scenarios.

>>16524691

Launching a rocket was never very satisfying though.

I think it's cool how as time goes on you can spend more time in the map screen ordering robots instead of doing things yourself, and I'd like for that to be somehow used to escalate the building.

>>16524820

>Launching a rocket was never very satisfying though.

Killing all ayys would be though. I think it would also be convenient for megabase poopsockers since at that point there's basically no way the biters can overrun you or really play a meaningful role in the game anymore and they just eat CPU.

>>16524824

>Killing all ayys would be though

Maybe, but "removing all ayys" is another way of saying "removing the reason for half of your base existing".

Though now that I think of it, I think we're approaching this whole topic from the wrong direction. The problem is that we're looking for a satisfying conclusion to the sandbox freeplay mode, what we need is a good campaign instead.

>>16519519

the fact that they cant even design an actual gear tells you all you need to know about how shit the game will be

>no addendum

>no dedendum

>circular pitch is completely fucked

>made from cast iron

might as well just post a fucking tractor wheel

>>16527602

Yeah, seablock can be pretty soulless sometimes.

Did you use a guide for the Electrolyzer placement or did you figure that pattern out yourself? Most people seem to be able to do that, it seems. The only fix for that is they only need one input on the back so you can comfortably chain underground pipes if you need to.

I find I end up with a ton of excess copper. I usually make pipes out of them. Mind you I've only gotten to barely getting green science automated, and that took well over 12 hours.

Ironically I never thought of having a second chain of electrolyzers for the crystallizer. You could probably just split the output of the crushed rocks, though.

>>16524844

Campaigns for sandbox games are stupid, though. It's always just "can you win this predetermined scenario with only a few basic parts because we've locked the ability to produce the rest?" followed by "we've unlocked a few more parts, so now can do this other thing?" etc; it works better as a tutorial than anything else because it drip-feeds new players the mechanics and parts instead of dumping it on them all at once and leaving them overwhelmed. There really isn't anything they can do with the game as it exists to make scenarios that don't simply involve the same thing, except you've got one hand tied behind your back. It's reinforced challenges of the type that you could do yourself, strung together by a loose thread of story.

>>16527824

That's like saying scenarios for RTS games are stupid because you can play the skirmish with all tech available. They just need to add some campaign-based features that allows more interesting missions.

>>16520553

Well they can suck my dick in gonna pirate the Fuck out of it

>>16528080

The barrier to having a campaign is the fact that there are no opponents or allies of note. If the game supported an AI ally factory that played some part, it could dramatically expand the number of campaign scenarios possible. Likewise if the aliens were developed to also have their own "factory" of a sort, the number of scenarios increase dramatically.

Imagine being tasked with shipping x-units of ammunition to your ally locked in a front-line battle with the xenos. You have to build up support infrastructure and train networks to get out there. Imagine if the aliens were actually organized and you had an end boss "hivemind" type creature to defeat, but the only way to break through his massive base is by overwhelming artillery and fire force. You could even play it off the current setup. They start out disorganized and relatively docile, but as pollution speeds evolution they become organized and create leader bugs.

>>16528298

>there are no opponents or allies of note

You have the Biter swarms (Man vs. Nature, as a conflict technically), and the revamped campaign will have a helper robot that tells you what to do

>>16527662

I'm at 8 hours now and have just automated blast furnaces

Yeah I figured out the electrolyzers myself

I just got this today and man its hard af. any pointers? the mining takes loads of fucking time and I wish I could get those mechanized pickers working right off the bat.

>>16530812

I can post some stuff soon. How far along are you?

>>16530887

>no angelbobs

>not even deathworld

git gud

>>16520928

I thought there was an endgame in Factorio where you build the spaceship and go home to Earth. At least that’s how I finished it when I played it.

Also Oxygen Not Included and Rimworld are 2 games in the same ballpark

>>16531512

Neither have automation and neither has a player character. They're all sandbox games with building elements but that doesn't mean they're similar.

>>16531502

I am playing angelbobs on main. I got out of bed to do a quick vanilla base to help the other anon who was just starting, with base ideas

>>16520928

Should probably just work more closely off what the game has and how the tutorial scenario played out, and turn the endgame into a giant, massive scale tower-defense that starts as you prepare to launch the rocket, where you have to defend the silo until the rocket is launched. Could work just like a charm if the enemy and defense variety was raised to the standard of a tower defense game.

>>16531841

>>16531512

>>16524529

>>16520588

>automation genre

a definition seems needed

>>16520928

>How would you "finish" Factorio?

story-wise, you're lost on some weird alien planet

<After crash landing on this alien world you will need to explore the area, harvest local resources and automate producing the items you need to survive.

what if you could go back home? what the hell is this guy's planet like? what does he do there? or is he some type of being that is sent across the galaxy to automate everything?

>>16533569

I'm annoyed that there are no swimming biters. But with the 1.7 patch, didn't they say there would be unbuildable shallows terrain? That might make for some interesting moments but afaik vanilla wouldn't randomly spawn it, it would be placed only (or modded in spawner)

Burrowing guys to get past your walls, etc. That'd be neat

>>16531841

>Neither have automation

Rimworld has mods specifically to add automation, heavily inspired by Factorio even.

>>16533641

Swimming biters wouldn't add anything. Instead of having your base partially surrounded by walls and turrets, you'd have them completely surrounded by walls and turrets. And burrowing biters would just mean that you'd have to double-up on walls and turrets, again adding nothing. And before you mention it, flying biters wouldn't add anything except the need to put AA turrets along with the other ones.

I don't know about unbuildable shallows, but there are unbuildable cliffs that can only be removed by explosives that take fairly advanced research. For much of the game, you'll be forced to build around them, just like small water patches until you get landfill.

>>16537269

>Enemies with fire resistance don't matter because you'd just build weapons that don't use fire!

>etc

You could say this of any game, though. I know it's not ideal for Factorio, but at least ti would give some variety to the game.

>>16537285

But it's an automation game not a tower defense game

>>16537381

Okay, so your argument is basically "why have biters at all" ?

>>16537390

Because they're already there. Why add arbitrary scenarios if it's a sandbox game

>>16537480

Because you can mod it

>>16537495

Well there you go

>>16537503

What situation leads to mixed belts like that

>>16537503

I think most people just shove everything in a warehouse and then have filter loaders leading out of there.

>>16537565

I think the efficiency is on the boilers.

>>16537582

>>16537581

Googling I found this plebbit thread discussing this

https://www.reddit.com/r/Seablock/comments/b5efrg/017_no_more_early_game_power_crunch/

They seem to think but be unsure if bob went along with vanilla removing efficiency.

>>16537582

Does temperature even matter anymore now that they've changed steam to a fluid?

>>16537595

>Here he seems to contradict himself

The 1.7 patch is going to neuter a few features, such as efficiency, I take it.

Here we go, something definitive, the file that changes this.

All engines are at 100% efficiency, the only reason to upgrade is to save space.

Every tier of boiler upgrade also adds two T1 engines worth of output, but still increases efficiency.

Stats pulled from bobpower_0.17.7/prototypes/entity/boilers.lua:

B1: E = 0.5, T = 165, P = 1800kW

B2: E = 0.6, T = 315, P = 3600kW

B3: E = 0.7, T = 465, P = 5400kW

B4: E = 0.8, T = 615, P = 7200kW

B5: E = 0.9, T = 765, P = 9000kW

So T1->T2 boiler increases how much power you get out of fuel by 20%, T2->T3 a 16.6667% increase, etc etc.

>>16537592

This needs to be found out as if it does not matter than what I said about engines holds true, otherwise engines are needed to use steam efficiently.

>>16537613

And here's a wiki entry with a date I do not know.

If the temperature of the steam is lower than the steam engine or turbine can handle, then the power output will be lower than optimal, but no energy will be wasted. However, if the temperature of the steam exceeds the maximum temperature of the steam engine or turbine, then the power output is capped at maximum, and the extra energy in the steam is wasted. Other than this difference, either steam engines or turbines can be used to generate power off of steam from any source.

>>16537592

Pretty sure each degree is still 200 joule per drop.

>>16538860

Try it out anon, it's worth your time. It's a very polished game, whether you decide to buy it or not (pirate first as always).

My first rocket launch took 50 hours, and I never had blue science automated. I spent most of the endgame running stacks of items around a small base that was situated around a lake.

You can do it like that, or you can make sure you have ideal balanced machine ratios or space compact designs, or just throw everything on a belt and jam it up with throughput to get your shit done

>>16538889

Care to elaborate? Seems like something similar to Angelbob's. Is it even more autistic?

If I wasn't busy with a million other projects, I'd almost consider making a resource mod for other modders

>>16538897

> Is it even more autistic?

I'm not that far into it, so I can't say for sure, but there seems to be a fuck ton of specialized machines. It takes 35 or so to automate the first tier of circuits, not counting what you need to mine the materials and smelt them to plates. I'm also left with half a dozen fluids and some solid byproducts piling up here and there. Pretty much everything seems to have byproducts and alternate recipes. It's great.

>>16537415

Holy shit that cat thing is REALLY fluffy. Its so fluffy that I can feel its fluff transmitting to me….

But.. there is just something missing. Just looking at the fluff isnt enough, image how fluffy one would feel once he swallows it whole and feels it struggle down your throat and into your belly. That, that is REAL fluff, just thinking about it make me feel also warm and fuzzy fluffy inside!

>>16538860

The mechanics are actually very simple, if you don't care about efficiency or speed then making a factory is baby-tier easy. The complexity comes from figuring out the logistics of trains and belts in order to move items in large quantities and craft things at a speed that doesn't turn it into an idle game.

What the fuck, Factorio 17.4x keeps causing my PC to hard reset at random. It's definitely not a hardware problem, my CPU barely cracks 40C playing it, and more demanding games don't cause this.

>>16538860

>comprehend how either building all of that could even be done

You basically craft everything from your inventory as long as you have the required resources or you have a Furnace\Factory do it for you.

This whole process is just:

1-Plop down buildings that create resources

2-Feed those resources to buildings that transform them

3-Repeat step 2 with it's results as well

>how to build it in such a neat fashion that won't get my autism flaring

But that's the fun part!

You put down a small section designed to take ore and coal to start producing basic materials and later on you notice that you are not producing enough. So you gotta expand it. And then expand the production of Ore. And then expand the transport network since it's not enough to carry all the resources. And then you need better buildings to process it faster.

And throughout all this process, you'll start to develop a design that's faster and more efficient but can easily expand as needed too.

That's basically what being an Engineer IRL is too.

>you can make sure you have ideal balanced machine ratios or space compact designs, or just throw everything on a belt and jam it up with throughput to get your shit done

I've been struggling with that, actually.

Usually I just throw everything into a belt and take from there as necessary, hoping to jam the belt full of stuff and treat it as an open chest for storage.

However, this doesn't seem efficient and even quite limited. Even with 2 full belts carrying Iron Plates for instance, I'm struggling with the ratios to keep a constant production of what's downstream.

I'm still early into the game (I've reached Drones and Trains previously) and my worst example so far is automating Green Science, since it's two components require a fuckton of Iron Plates to fabricate, as well as the Gears themselves. I usually just put 5 factories of each type and leave room to expand but since Gears are being used for so many things downstream, the production simply can't keep up. And I ain't even using all 5 factories, there just isn't enough Iron Plates arriving since half of it is being sent to fabricate ammo for turrets and is carried out upstream from that.

I was considering post-ponning this optimization till I had drones since they seemed like a better way to handle logistics but I'm starting to wonder if they will end up actually turning out to be too slow for this unless I make several millions of them (with the performance loss I expect from that).

Perhaps I need to calculate how much resources each factory needs and set up a sorting section upstream that can feed the required amount to it?

Or is it better to get into the Circuitry and Logic to change focus of production as necessary?

Or will Drones suffice once I get there?

>>16540721

>Half of it is being used to fabricate ammo for turrets

Sounds like you need to go purge some Xenos, you should be able to do it easily with nades, a shotgun and SMG.

>>16542645

Fuckin' works. Why waste time reinventing the wheel?

>>16530840

Not very far. Seems like a promising game.

>>16540124

>tidy up

>not just burning it all down with fire

>>16542618

What people don't realize about these kinds of images is that it requires significant infrastructure overhead. You need two entire full belts of copper and iron to feed it. That's a massive number of miners, smelters, powerplants, and movers to get to that point.

>>16542618

>Outputting the sides of the assembler and doing a central belt merge

Ohhh, never thought of this, great

>>16542901

I don't have the means to bully the tougher biters yet and need to seriously hit tier 3 shit

>>16543686

To be fair, I didn't make this layout, someone showed it to me and it works well. It's also tile-able, but I probably wouldn't push it past three stacked tiles. Three is pushing it, two is about as much as I could support running at full load with single lane inputs like this. Left to itself, that thing would probably wipe my bus if I was pulling all of its output.

>>16544508

For one, you need orders of magnitude more space, for two, it's kind of futile with B/A, it's going to turn into spaghetti no matter what you do.

>>16544638

>More space

Fucking wonderful.

I mean, I could always just do 1-1-1 instead of the 8-5-4 ratio just to get SOME automation going. Do ratios really matter that much? Can't I just expand as I need it?

>>16544640

>make a temporary solution

>have to expand it temporarily

>temporary becomes permanent

Enjoy bob+engel.

>>16547894

I didn't actually finish one of the tracks, gomen

>>16542618

> splits 1 line of copper into 2, then merges it back into 1

wut

>>16552323

Prevents the belt from being completely drained before it reaches the last machine on the line.

>>16552650

The issue with roundabouts is that they have low throughput - getting traffic jams is basically a guarantee at busy intersections if you have a lot of trains in your network. There's more efficient intersection designs if you want to optimize for throughput, but they're not as simple, easy to use or low-cost as a roundabout.

>>16553124

>getting traffic jams is basically a guarantee at busy intersections

How does that work? The only avoidable way for trains to hinder each other in that roundabout is if 2 trains come from opposite directions and both turn left (relative to itself). Every other case is the same ignoring the minor length difference.

It's not the most efficient though for sure.

>>16553168

My last factory was designed based on a rail grid connected by roundabouts in every intersection - without chain signals within the roundabouts, to avoid the deadlock scenario you described - and the central intersections tended to have 5 trains waiting at them on average, sometimes with trains waiting disproportionally long as new arrivals were given priority over long-waiting trains. Sometimes the train lines were so long they reached another intersection, and you'd get deadlocks similar to the ones you described in the space between two roundabouts. I've made some poor design choices with the rail system altogether in retrospective, but the point of the story is you should avoid having roundabouts at particularily high-traffic intersections and/or make sure you have a lot of waiting space for the trains so the situation doesn't escalate.

>>16553449

I forgot the exact reason why I decided to remove the chain signals, so it might have been a really stupid thought. I do recall having an extra rail entering and exiting in every cardinal direction for train stations, maybe I failed to properly signal that and just decided to give up and cut all signals within the roundabout.

How's the game after the gay updates?

Did the mod makers cuck out or is the game pretty much divided in half right now?

How does chain signals make a difference? Can't you just use multiple regular signals for the same effect?

>>16556691

Chain signals are red when the signal in front of them is red (specifically, when the signal the train wants to pass is red, in the case of branching tracks).

It matters when you have tracks crossing each other, in which case you don't want a train sitting on the crossing waiting for a green light. Putting a chain signal before the crossing makes the train wait until it the exit is clear before it will enter the crossing.

>>16556710

So if I put a regular signal before the crossing, it will report red if either track is in use, even if the target one is empty?

>>16556691

Chain signal will be red if it can't find a green Rail signal anywhere in front of it. It will be blue if there's a mix of red and green signals. A train will only pass a Chain signal if the next Rail signal in the direction it wants to go to is green (along with the path into it).

>>16527602

>Creating an elaborate, unscalable loop of charcoal over just having a bob's adjustable inserter feed back into a furnace that spits out furnace fuel.

Impressive.

>>16557387

I couldn't figure out the adjustable inserters

Did you know if you deconstruct planner on fish, they'll stop moving?

Alright, I spent tonight making blueprints for a restart. Got all my red-tier basics, plus some rail blueprints that cover double track right-hand drive, and a number of intersection / loop pieces that fit the entire map cell. Tomorrow I'll work on figuring out smelting and green science

>>16557896

Until you get the best inserters and assemblers, you'll still have to tear it down anyways. Eventually you'll get to modules that affect how you structure things anyways.

The goal is to automate. Ratios dont have to be perfect, because any automation is better than no automation. And you just go from there.

>>16560482

Holy shit, that's a cool thing. I was just messing around with it in sandbox mode. It almost feels like cheating, but in a good way. You can make real cool shit with it, I bet.

>>16553449

I've found some success preventing congestion by adding extra "corners" so any train making only a 90-degree left turn doesn't have to enter the roundabout proper. This does sometimes lead to inefficiencies where, for example: a train wants to go straight through but it can't because another train is in the roundabout, so it'll take the corner, head to the next roundabout, make a u-turn, head back, and then make another left. But, really, if you're properly managing your train network, there shouldn't be that many instances of trains needing to cross paths close to your base where there is a lot a traffic. Shit, half the time I ended up just setting up a new station some distance away, and then covering the last bit of distance bringing the ores in via blue belts. The trains don't even get a chance to get close enough to affect central traffic. Unless you're doing something that requires you to be bringing ALL your trains through some kind of bottleneck into your base, there's no reason not to do this to spread out the traffic.

The only thing is that Factorio train networks, without fail, are Murphy's Law machines. Given enough dozens of hours of running, SOMETHING will eventually happen and your entire fucking network will end up gridlocked somehow, because the trains are kinda stupid.

>>16553740

>keep clear

I'd want to keep clear of that clusterfuck.

>>16561246

Time you enjoyed wasting isn't time wasted, anon.

>>16556691

Chain signals are kind of like painting "KEEP CLEAR" in an intersection. It means don't enter until you can go all the way through.

Standard rule of thumb is "chain signals before and inside intersections, normal signals after them, and anywhere else."

>>16588952

The real problem is if you use the same track for bi-directional travel. That just makes a massive headache at intersections and stations. Remember kids, bi-directional travel is the devil's work.

>>16589299

Oh yeah, don't do that.

Only time I can think of where a two-way track would not be a bad idea is if it's used by a single train exclusively.

Even then I probably wouldn't, since I might need to expand later.

>>16527114

>although it really feels unfinished

It's in early access you fucking mongoloid.

Next big update is supposed to be this month they're supposed to be adding trains.

>>16570482

>The only thing is that Factorio train networks, without fail, are Murphy's Law machines. Given enough dozens of hours of running, SOMETHING will eventually happen and your entire fucking network will end up gridlocked somehow

I don't generally like quoting myself, but QED: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-299

>>16589972

Plus double headed trains are really slow anyway since backwards trains provide no impulse and weigh as much as 3 cargo wagons.

>>16519519

What other Automation games are there besides factorio and satisfactory? And don't say zachtronic games, those are puzzle games.

>>16609143

First train "network" I ever made was just a single line but I put loops on the end so the train could turn around. I can't imagine why anyone would ever bother with a double-headed train.

>>16527114

>satisfactory

>have literal danger hair in their crew

i'll pass.

magnet for latest version?

>>16623083

I'd be more concerned about

>epic games exclusive, refuses to say anything about the game coming to other platforms

>coffee stain studios, aka the fucks that brought us goat simulator and sanctum 2

>quirky meme responses as PR

>no blueprint system is planned, making scaling your factory up more busywork than anything

>>16626704

>>no blueprint system is planned, making scaling your factory up more busywork than anything

Heh, more like more time spent playing the game!

>Epic Games exclusive

Even if a game is planned to release on Steam, there have been cases where that was neglected and forced onto Epic game store

>>16621272

>A furry

>Works with real birds

Unlikely.

That said, it's kinda funny how the people get more and more… weird, the farther you go down the page and the fewer responsibilities they actually have on the team. When I started reading this I was expecting just the core few, but no, they included absolutely everyone who works for them including the guy at the very bottom who looks like a high-school freshman who just joined theater, and whose only job is designing blood and spit splatters. I only skimmed much of the bios because it got to the point where these weren't the people who had any influence on the game anymore; when introducing your design "team", you don't also include the fucking office janitor and the chick who brings your staff coffees.

>>16633783

The second webm IIRC was proven to be CG. Albeit really well done CG. The camera movements aren't natural

>>16633788

>a windmill spinning faster than the ones around it

How much proof did it take?

>>16633897

True, also notice the shrapnel from the broken windmill just sort of fall to the ground and are unaffected but strong winds that should be there

>>16633783

Every automation game is sci-fi. I'd like to see one that's more realistic and based on history. You're the dude that's going to single handedly bring the onset of the Industrial Revolution, but all you've got is a one-gallon steam boiler and a bucket of coal right now.

>>16636858

I keep imagining shit-tier automation at the start of Factorio, even before you get a lot of iron. Think wooden belts

>>16637901

>wooden belts

I have to imagine there's a mod that gives you just that level of drudgery, considering that Bob's/Angel's is basically just adding a bunch of intermediary steps between the vanilla ones.

>>16636858

Stangenkunsten was here, belts a shit.

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/02/the-mechanical-transmission-of-power-jerker-line-systems.html

>>16643551

>Mechanically-transmitted power over long distances

This is fucking amazing. I had no idea something like this ever existed, much less was commonplace before the invention of electricity. Oh sure, belts and gears and rams over a distance of a few dozen feet, like a waterwheel powering a sawmill or windmill powering an archimedes screw, but a steam engine mechanically powering a well MILES AWAY? That's insane. Also really cool. I can easily see that in a Factorio mod where you need to use wooden rods and then later steel cables to mechanically transmit power from your steam turbines to distant machines, long before you have access to electrical generation.

Does anyone have a simple guide to creating a rail system? Mainly where to place rail signals & chain signals and efficiently managing everything. Creating super basic one rail line for one train takes up way too much space so I'd want trains to share a handful of tracks without anything crashing into each other

>>16654314

Best thing to do, turn on the debug options and enable the map chunk grids, then you can align the railway system a bit easier over long distances.

Basically, you want each row to be 3 rail tiles away, so you can do an S to merge them if needed. Treat them like real roads - right lane is "forward". Break the track up with a signal every few map blocks so you can have multiple trains on one rail. Intersections are a bit trickier, someone else can explain them.

Basically, with a 4-way intersection, loops are simple for small scale factories when you just need "any" kind of automation going. The rule of thumb is that you place a rail signal on one of the first tiles leaving the intersection, and chain signals on any entrances to the loop

Never tried Factorio, what actually is it? I've heard it's some space sim with a bunch of management that you can sink fucking weeks into. also notch praises it a lot i think

>>16520553

>It's never going on sale

Do they just hate money?

>>16655874

1. set up drills to mine resources

2. use belts or trains to move resources between locations

3. move resources to various machines to craft things

4. craft more things with crafted resources

5. craft more things with crafted resources crafted from resources

6. craft science to unlock new technologies

7. die to an alien invasion because you didn't build walls or turrets to defend your base

8. craft weapons and kill aliens to expand your territory

It's very well designed, and if you want to you can get really autistic about optimizing the speed and size of parts of your factory, and figuring out the logistics for moving large amounts of items between places.

>>16655941

So can I like, make my own empire and stuff?

>>16633788

> really well done CG

Looks fake as fuck actually.

>>16656525

There's only you and your autism on that planet. It's all about your factory and the items moving through it.

>>16633788

>It was proven to be fake

>believe me bro

>>16655874

>Do they just hate money?

It's a reasonably priced game for the hundreds of hours you can put into it, and you can easily pirate it, even MP works perfectly fine for pirates. People then buy it because it's a good game. You should pirate it, see if you like it, then buy.

>>16656569

It's obviously fake. The debris at the explosion and the dust when the part hits the floor make it obvious.

>>16656619

Do you not see it, or did I miss some irony?

>>16657253

What's that brown square building by the bottom washer?

>>16657956

This is the most disgusting thing I've seen ITT thread yet. But I'm intrigued. Keep going. I want to see how far you get before it collapses under its own weight.

You can press Alt to show production items, too.

>>16655874

>Never tried Factorio, what actually is it?

Basically you build a factory that makes parts to build the factory.

>>16657956

>that inserter daisy chain

>that iron plate on its way to the boiler

>those green beakers destined to overflow onto the iron belt when it clears

>>16658523

Oh okay, so you just add mud and it turns into a self sufficient power generator. I've always just used Arboretums once I could. What's the advantage of farms?

>>16659231

The farms produce the crops required to make the compost required to mix with the mud to make the dirt to make the trees.

>>16659246

Sure but isn't a single algae farm going to produce enough stuff for tons of compost?

>>16659231

Depending on what you grow on them, you need them anyway for making mineral oil.

>>16659249

One farm produces enough for probably 4 or 5 aboretums, and it is a small building. Plus, it doesn't use nearly as much electricity as algae farms, and it is faster.

>>16659267

>>16659282

Nice

Any big features coming to factorio or is it mostly just bugfixing and HD graphics until release?

>>16633788

Looks close enough to a real wind turbine failure (they can tear themselves apart in a storm, alternatively they burn up)

>>16659263

>>16659292

Fair enough. I never really got more than the first few bits of blue science anyways

>>16659310

I still haven't automated any kind of science.

>>16657822

How do you ensure that every centrifuge gets exactly 40 U-235 with that setup? It looks like they can either output too much, or stock up on an extra 40.

>>16659534

Better than I've ever done. Mind tossing up a picture of your power network, just for curiosity sake?

>>16659565

Oh, I meant the large map with the blue powerlines drawn on it. It always makes me feel comfy

>>16659581

>>16659584

FACTORIES ARE JUDGED BY POWER LINE AESTHETICS

>>16659339

>Literally factory farms

Eh… I don't know how to feel about that. Automation and comfy aren't really compatible.

>>16659706

>he doesn't find audomation comfy

>>16660583

Well, picking crops by machine is certainly LESS comfy than picking them yourself. Besides, the point of automation is efficiency, and comfort is automatically inefficient.

Something that I was thinking I wanted to try one of these days was doing a factory run where you can't break items you've already placed. Either to add a 'You better think about your lay out.', or give it a 'Well, I've built all I can here, time to expand.' It would be sprawling mess, which might look interesting, except for all the double placed powerlines.

>>16660758

>He doesn't know you can daisy chain laboratories.

No, no, it's more entertaining this way.

>>16661090

I wonder if people who make things this perfectly are dangerous.

>>16661505

Don't worry, he forgot to add a way to get raw ore out for catalysts. Also mixed sorting is destined to jam.

>>16662200

By having sliders the variables can be changed by degrees. It's better.

>>16661090

>Those flatter underground belt looking things that seem to feed directly into the building

Excuse me, what?

>>16660821

What about rotating placed items, such as belts or inserters? Otherwise, I feel like if you placed down a bunch of miners you'd have to process it all in one go, and not be able to use a splitter, you'd have to leave a gap and then split it after you tech up.

For 1x1 buildings, I'd be okay with destroying them and not recovering the items inside (including modules). For larger bulidings, they should remain fixed.

>>16663097

It's called a loader, it's for dirty cheaters

>>16663202

I can see why you would feel that way, and that's fair. What do you think about customizeable inserters?

>>16663202

It's useful if you've gotten to the point where a belt's throughput simply isn't enough to deliver enough items per second into a certain space. If you're running a mod like factorissimo (and especially if you start fucking nesting them), it's essential to not simply be wasting the potential of the build. Mods that require more throughput require items that push more throughput or there is no point, simple. You're basically saying that a commercial kitchen shouldn't have a massive stand mixer while you're mixing things in a bowl by hand. Well, you're making food for one person and they're making food for thousands; different needs, different tools.

>>16664110

You're making a rocket for one person :^)

>>16663205

Mostly fits with all of the other stuff in Bob's mods.

>>16664110

These are not valid

>It's useful if you've gotten to the point where a belt's throughput simply isn't enough to deliver enough items per second into a certain space.

Except your factory is already broken and shit. You're inputting 6 full belts and getting out 6 belts that are roughly 98% empty. You aren't utilizing the throughput, you are just building a bunch of belts to get backed up on. I'm quite certain I could build a factorissimo factory that has at least 5x the throughput even with inserters.

> If you're running a mod like factorissimo (and especially if you start fucking nesting them), it's essential to not simply be wasting the potential of the build.

Why? Just build more. You have infinite space in Factorio. Exponentially more with Factorissimo. Your issue is not planning your logistics properly thereby causing a need for hyper-squished together buildings necessitating loaders.

>Spend dozens of hours using pre-bots technology to rebuild and replace elaborate pipe network to effectively manage and story liquids to feed around my entire factory

>finish with an odd number of pipe-to-grounds in my inventory

>Meaning somewhere there's a pipe to ground that isn't connected to my factory

>No way to get it back without ripping up the entire factory from the ground up

>By hand

Is there any worse feel?

>>16664835

there is a mod that highlights not connected pipes. bottleneck should also help find what machines aren't working.

>>16664880

Last i checked it only worked for 16.x Anyway, i found a solution, which was to restart my seablock run while crying in the fetal position and just rushing green science

>>16664835

>>16664903

You can use a blueprint to figure out exactly how many pipe to grounds there are in any given area

>>16664927

Only if you cover area by area in bunches of 999 or less, cause otherwise you get a lovely 1.0k indicator. And even then, using blueprints to count stuff goes wrong pretty quickly cause you think you find a dangling pipe and it turns out to be one half to a pipe on the other side of the selected blueprint, which makes the whole ordeal into a nightmare. Also, none of that covers what i think actually happened, which was that it got dropped to ground as an item while hoovering up more stuff then my toolbelt had room for.

>>16664942

Just set your redprint to item on ground then.

>>16664786

>your factory

Learn to read IDs and maybe I'll bother debating your retard ass.

>>16664880

>bottleneck

bottleneck mod destroys ups

>>16667139

I don't give a flying fuck about memorizing IDs. If you are defending loaders and that factory then its your's.

>>16668857

Should have minimal effect. I believe they implemented (or have as an option) a cap of the number of checks per tick.

>>16668981

admittedly i haven't checked it in 6 months but last time bottleneck was cutting my ups in half, if there's an option now to change checks per tick then it should be less of an issue.

>>16671064

Place a self-powered radar station on top of every single xeno cesspool you torch. Eventually they honeycomb the map and you can see everything.

>>16671067

more radars = less ups

the fewer the better, only put them where you absolutely need them, along your walls, etc.

>>16669708

keep on keeping on.

>>16669708

spaghetti factories are peak aesthetics don't let anyone tell you otherwise

>>16663108

rotation would be fine. Effectively, the idea is that you just can't right click to destroy, but if you can snap a building on top of another structure, it's free reign.

>>16672253

What about shooting them yourself?

>>16669708

The only thing you have to learn is "the map is infinitely large so you have unlimited space: USE IT!"

>>16672491

Then it wouldn't really be any different from a normal run.

The problem with factorio is that there is no point. Every game you build the same production facilities in the same order. The tech-tree/research is the biggest limiter to changing up the game.

>>16673071

I like the idea of an alternate, non-linear tech tree. Ultimately, you'll still need to build the rocket as a goal, but if they say, removed the requirements to build oil production so you could do it at the start, you might have a slightly more interesting run. Or not.

>>16673089

That's one of the things I really like about Satisfactory. You can explore and find crash sites which have some random condition for opening up. When you open it you get a hard drive that allows you to unlock alternate recipes.

Sometimes just getting a small tweak to a recipe is enough to refactor and entire factory for the massive simplification it allows you to make.

>>16673256

>epic store

>discord

It's still wearing a mantle of cancer and as such I refuse to participate. It was also buggy as shit in the alpha, I wouldn't know how much fixed it is by release though.

>>16673256

Satisfactory is a stupid idea since the 3d limits understanding and scope of the factory complexity. Also fuck Epic store.

>>16673558

Just checking that ID there

>>16673558

3D offers verticality, which Factorio cannot utilize. You have to think about problem solving differently to efficiently incorporate vertical setups into your overall design and layout.

>>16674242

One of my main problems was how difficult they made it to get onto the top of things to take advantage of that verticality. Maybe they changed it but they should either embrace parkour mechanics like crouch jumping or add a jetpack.

>>16674527

Yeah you've missed a lot, they literally added a jetpack and some sort of power legs that make you jump higher. Also stackable splitters/mergers.

>>16674548

That's nice. If they ever bother releasing it on GoG (They won't) I might consider taking a look.

Bumpan

Posting this here (because it's relevant to the game) and mirroring it to the gamergate thread:

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303

http://archive.is/sR0n4

>There was recently some news about G2A, prompted by a tweet by Mike Rose of No More Robots. In a follow up tweet he said: Please, if you’re going to buy a game from G2A, just pirate it instead! Genuinely!.

>We have talked about the grey market resellers in some previous Friday Facts (FFF-145 and FFF-171), and our stance is pretty much the same as Mike, we would rather you pirate Factorio.

>We had a ton of chargeback and fraud issues in 2016 just after our Steam launch, with over 300 Steam keys of the game being purchased with stolen credit cards. With an average chargeback fee of about $20, we estimate the total amount of fees we paid because of chargebacks is about $6,600. We will be doing a deeper evaluation of our historic accounting records to get a more exact figure, but it doesn't matter so much now.

>So I emailed G2A about the article and their 'vow' last week, and they are not exactly prompt in terms of dealing with the request. I have a list of all the Steam keys I had to revoke because they were purchased fraudulently, and G2A offered to check the keys. Currently this is where the story ends, they haven't replied to my last email (2 days ago) sending them the keys and asking how many of them were sold on the website.

>>16672997

>"the map is infinitely large so you have unlimited space: USE IT!"

-the map is infinitely large but the more chunks you generate (the map is generated on the fly). the less UPS you will get.

-pollution will also expand infinitely and with every new chunk it expands too UPS are futher reduced.

-every chunk that has a radar will also reduce UPS to a large degree

your best bet is to expand your base only as much as needed and regularly delete all unoccupied chunks (rehiding them in black on the map) for maximum UPS.

Also explore only in one direction and only in a straight line. The farther out you go the richer the deposits will be, requiring even less exploration and associated UPS reductions to generate resources.

>>16689262

>muh UPS

UPS and Satellites per minute is the only metric to success in factorio. If you satellites launched per tick is high; you win, if it is not, your base is a failure and you should rethink your organizational abilities.

>Have no problem with having to make expansive factories

<can't fucking stand dealing with oil refining and trying to make it efficient and not look like a giant clusterfuck

Everything off my main bus is so nice and pretty… But holy fuck, fuck I just can't make my refineries look nice unless I use a blueprint I find online, and even then they're all super cramped

>>16689313

the only way to do this is to use a huge amount of space, this really get's crazy with angelbob's.

usually i put oil/gas refining in a completely separate area far off the main base and bus, and eventually pipe or train in finished product into the main bus (pipe's on main bus).

pipe's on the main bus doesn't really seem necessary though as the stuff that requires it is already at the end of the main bus, so it's only on the bus for a fraction of it or attached directly.

>>16689245

This is another reason why they never want to have the game go on sale.

>>16689262

>the more chunks you generate (the map is generated on the fly). the less UPS you will get

Depends what's in them. If you cram the same amount of stuff in a small area or across a large area, it won't make much of a difference. They've done a lot of optimization regarding pollution, and that really only affects loaded chunks because that pollution is affecting biter nests and causing them to update. If you clear the biters from your pollution cloud, it won't do anything to your UPS. Also, you don't need radars in empty space, so if you're using hundreds of them, that's your own fault.

Should you be building a giant modded megabase where it's probable that you will have significant issues with UPS, you're so beyond giving a fuck about biters that nobody would blame you if you just turned them off once you reach endgame.

>>16689372

>i put oil/gas refining in a completely separate area far off the main base and bus, and eventually pipe or train in finished product

Basically this. Since the advent of liquid cargo wagons, there's really no reason to not be refining/cracking oil where you're getting it, and then shipping the products to wherever they are needed in your main base. You can even use some of that oil to fuel flamethrower turrets right on-site.

>>16699818

Nani?

>>16701684

It was spam, desu ne

>>16533557

>what if you could go back home? what the hell is this guy's planet like?

I bet he was dumped on that alien planet on purpose. He was making a mess of his home planet, turning the whole thing into one big autistic factory and making it uninhabitable. They wanted to get rid of him.

>>16704869

anyone who tries to destroy or stop the expansion is instantly vaporized by laser turrets

>>16705104

>gets back home

>discovers they tore up all his shit

>gets consumed by autistic rage

>>16705296

>orders some artillery strikes to get over it

>immediately goes back to turning home into a factory because the autism never stops

>Eventually the flow of time itself around the planet begins to slow down

>this was the fate his homeworld wished to avoid.

>dude ruining home planet with autism factory

>crash land him on alien planet to get rid of him

>builds ever expanding factory complex on alien planet

>starts building space rocket silo

>[home planet sweating intensely]

>>16528298

That actually sounds really cool, and probably something we'll never get because we're stuck in eternal "bugfixes", "performance improvements", and "tweaks".

>Friday Facts #304

>Oil processing changes

>We decided to change the Basic oil processing recipe so that now it only outputs petroleum gas.

>This means that light and heavy oil is only available after Advanced oil processing is researched.

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-304

>>16708466

Ironically this actually makes the game harder.

>Forced to set up initial solid fuel with petro in order to make blue sci at the start, even though it's guaranteed you'll want it from light oil asap

>Laser turrets and robots not nearly as quick to rush with just a simple oil setup due to being moved further up the tree

It's a pointless change of course since no one spends more than the minimum time possible using basic oil processing.

>>16708712

>add more intermediate steps to get what I want

This is why I avoid AB. I wouldn't mind a mod that adds waste products, waste management and reprocessing, but AB goes way too far that the game stops being fun.

>>16708712

What do you mean ironically? I'm sure that was intentional, combined with the laser turret 50% DPS nerf. Currently Deathworld is a race to get just a drip-feed of oil set up so that you can replace a thousand gun turrets and a huge amount of iron/copper tied up in bullets (which then cost a ton of pollution to produce, escalating your attacks) with a few hundred basically clean armor-piercing lasers. This pushes lasers back quite a bit (keeping in mind early game deathworld constraints + expensive mode costs), and when you get them they are way, way less effective.

It'll be simpler for newbs to figure out in small steps, harder to get to the point where your trivialize the main obstacle of the game (biters). Good change.

>>16712020

anyone have the latest GNU/Linux version? there's torrents for Not-GNU/Windows available but linux is hard to find.

>>16712486

Russians have huge boner on pirating linux apps. Just a reminder.

Factorio 0.17.58 [amd64], reuploaded 4 days ago, torrent gets updated sometimes:

https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5697070

Other native linux games:

https://rutracker.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=1992

Ports with inbuilt wine:

https://rutracker.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=2059

>>16712492

oh shit thanks anon

What is anon's strategy for only turning on beacons when machines are making something?

>>16718592

Ensuring all machines are running at all times

>>16718754

No thanks, not a fan of horrendously inefficient giant material buffers that make it harder to locate bottlenecks. I like to make things when they're needed and use things when they're made. There's no reason to waste power making shit that isn't needed at the moment.

>>16718772

>>16718772

>he doesn't want a factory that consumes more electricity over time than most 1st world nations

>he doesn't hit every assembler with 12 beacons

Just divide factory areas by circuited power switches that react to the amount of the relevant item(s) in a chest/lognet if you must have an "only on when needed" setup. Better yet, just use as close to optimal ratios with very slight overproduction and then it never matters anyway. Power is also the 'easiest' resource in the game by far so it shouldn't really be the primary concern in any kind of design in the first place.

>>16718937

I've been using conditional checks on input and output belts to roughly estimate if enough materials are flowing in that a machine would be running and if enough materials are on the outputs that a backup has occurred thus ceasing machine activity. They're very imprecise, rough proxies on real machine activity though, and it doesn't work at all for fluids where you need a giant storage tank filled to capacity on both inputs and outputs in order to estimate when your fluid throughput is backed up (thus halting machine production). Chests have the same problem. I feel like there has to be a better way to determine machine activity.

>>16718966

If power efficiency is a larger concern than ups, then why use beacons at all? There's virtually no downside beside the small idle draw for having output-full assemblers by themselves. I think you can only optimize for so many things and people choose to ignore power because it eventually has no impact on play beyond "oh, I need to spend 30 seconds spamming some more solar prints from the map view"

>>16719013

>If power efficiency is a larger concern than ups, then why use beacons at all?

Because it turns out that due to the way in which module penalties and bonuses are calculated, beacons dramatically improve the per-item efficiency of machines with productivity modules in them.

Solar panels are babby mode and I typically play without them to make the game more interesting. Actually being mindful of wasteful power draw is one of the ways it becomes more interesting.

>>16719242

Seems like too much manual recalculations for me (and I already do a ton of autistic calculation), but that's a solution that probably works well. The problem is you would have to alter your algorithm every time you change your production focus, including moving between a lot of recipe types.

>>16718592

Never use beacons…?

I mean, what's the point of boosting assembler productivity or speed when you could just BUILD MORE OF THEM? What's the point of worrying about power when you can just BUILD MORE POWER?

>>16719242

Nah, forget nuclear, too. If you can build a megabase that launches rockets reliably powered entirely by coal or solid fuel, then you have my respect. It just gets to the point where, at least with coal, the mines run out so quickly that all you're doing by endgame is running train lines to the next one, and then the next one, and then the next one. Solar is the easiest power option because it doesn't require anything to keep producing.

>>16719294

I think it has something to do with base density or production/building, whereas you can do more direct insertions than from having running belts everywhere.

But I like short, dense belts, it feels comfy

>>16719294

Because adding beacons is often more efficient than adding machines when you're using productivity modules. Here's an example to illustrate the point:

-One Assembler 3 with four Productivity Module 3s = 882 kW, 10.584 direct pollution, 0.4 crafting speed

-Two Assembler 3 with four Productivity Module 3s each = 1764 kW and 21.168 direct pollution, 0.8 combined crafting speed

-One Assembler 3 with four Productivity Module 3s in it + 1 Basic Beacon with two Speed Module 3s = 1029 kW + 480 kW = 1509 kW, 12.348 direct pollution, 0.9 crafting speed

So you see in this example adding a beacon results in not only faster production than two assemblers but uses less energy and less pollution. And even if you don't care at all about energy or electricity, the difference is eight costly level 3 modules vs six costly level 3 modules.

>>16719294

I bet a megabase running on nothing but boilers would be possible. If you prod module everything, a chain of coal liquefaction > rocket fuel would increase the fuel value of each piece of coal almost 6-fold. If we say a smallish megabase uses 10GW of power, that works out to somewhere around 25k coal/m to provide all that. Still way less than your iron/copper consumption at that point, but the logistics would take considerable autism to set up.

>>16719544

Fully beaconed for speed mining drills w/some production bonus from tech can easily produce 5-10 coal a second. That's 42 to 83 drills mining coal. Not too bad, assuming your coal liquefaction production chain is indeed a 6-fold increase. We're only talking about ~10 blue belts of coal.

The bigger question is whether the UPS hit from fluids and extra insertions would be worth the coal liquefaction setup rather than just running more coal. It could very well be more efficient to simply mine 6x as much coal rather than mining coal and running it through the entire liquefaction line.

>>16719544

>I bet a megabase running on nothing but boilers would be possible.

Well I don't know how you would define megabase, but I've certainly constructed the rocket defense with a solid fuel infrastructure before. It looks like they've seriously gimped solid fuel in recent experimental releases so it might not be as fun anymore. You used to be able to get a solid 2 MW of power out of one depleted oil well.

I'm pretty shit at lategame stuff. The changes to oil just seem to make the early game more streamlined, and at 1-2 more researches, doesn't seem that bad to me, since you never really used the early oil products that much to begin with anyways. Also, everyone just rushed laser turrets anyways, and since batteries needed blue science anyways, it had a soft blue+military cost anyways.

>>16722623

>>16722696

Other way around. Blue science was battery+steel+filter inserter+red circuit.

>>16727828

>Vertically stacked belts

Oh god could you imagine the autism possible

>>16727872

Is this game worth it yet?

>>16727901

Worth a pirate for sure

>>16727907

Too lazy for something unfinished.

I assume it's an early access type of deal.

>>16727915

You can easily waste 100+ hours on a single world already.

>>16727938

Piracy is more for games I really want, just can't afford, rather than for games that might be good.

Basically for games I can't wait until I've the cash lying around for, as opposed to something for a game that might be okay.

>>16727953

Let me say it like this;

At this point it's basically very close to factorio in terms of core gameplay and things to build, minus the ayy shooting.

They just added trains and nuclear power, too.

>4-minute intro before you can actually start the game

>>16708381

>Rocket fuel recipe now includes Light Oil, and therefore requires Advanced Oil Processing

>Chemical science pack now uses Sulfur instead of Solid Fuel

>Flamethrower Ammo is now made with Crude Oil

>Basic Oil Processing produces 45 Petroleum Gas (increased from 40)

>Advanced Oil Processing produces 25H/45L/55P (an increase of 15 Heavy Oil)

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-305

>We are confident about these changes but nothing is set in stone, so let us know what you think about them.

>You can test these oil changes with this mod.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Oil-Changes

>>16712492

Someone needs to tell kovarex to just release the damn source code already. And tell him he doesn't need to take pull requests if he's worried about losing the spotlight, but having to pirate the latest version everytime instead of just installing from source is dumb.

>>16737747

Version 0.17.60 is out, these oil changes are now live.

>>16742043

frequent updates are an anti-piracy measure

>>16754651

Meanwhile my friends and I have been sitting patiently at v0.16.51 until v0.17 is upgraded to stable and the turbulent gameplay changes stop.

Missed you fuckers.

>>16763759

I miss you fag too no homo