FFF Speculations

[solemn cosmos]

what would it be about for the trains? we gonna be new trains or somthing?

[half mountain]

new train scheduling mechanics

[solemn cosmos]

ah

[topaz wing]

Hopefully some way to make depot/fuel stations easier, i believe they did tease that somewhere

[raven bridge]

And the trains changing colors

[half mountain]

also kovarex straight up said it on reddit in the SA FFF thread

[solemn cosmos]

?? that are ??

[raven bridge]

See https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-378

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-378-junction-furnaces.mp4

So the blue train coming from the right. It turns orange.

[solemn cosmos]

oh yeah. i wonder if it is for debugging? yk bc they only change colors when they go onto the rails

[grave crag]

The blue train turns white

[sick pond]

That too.

[elder raptor]

ooh, link?

[half mountain]

https://old.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/160w331/friday_facts_373_factorio_space_age/jxru3yx/?context=5

[elder raptor]

nice

[sweet wind]

The trains changing colours and the odd naming conventions used for the FFF-380 train stops can be explained by trains having the ability to skip stops, use new fuel level conditions and painting themselves based on the destination station.

That's what I think will be done, I personally don't see trains changing schedules themselves, instead having schedules be more dynamic through stop skipping.

[vagrant pumice]

so I bet we will see geothermal energy on vulcanus or the new technologies

Make your bets!

[sweet wind]

Confirmed sulfuric acid + calcite -> 500C steam is basically geothermal with extra steps

I'd love to see that elaborated on

[half mountain]

imagine moving the old decider combinator logic into the train schedule for each station.

in the train itself, where it can read it's cargo, and fuel levels and decide if it should skip the next station in its schedule

[sweet wind]

That's pretty much what I think will be revealed yeah

Not like the decider combinator necessarily though, probably just another section on the train stop in the schedule

[elder raptor]

yeah, the main thing I'd like to see is a heat exchanger type thing to cool down steam back into water, for various effects

[sweet wind]

The simple option is just a chemical plant recipe that turns steam into water, apart from oil processing and concrete there isn't any use for water.

(when you can just use the steam to generate power)

[elder raptor]

sulfuric ac- wait

[sweet wind]

I guess, acid to me counts as oil processing chain but that doesn't apply on Vulcanus

[elder raptor]

we do use water for explosives (and thus cliff explosives) and the two cracking recipes

also concrete

but given everything (except Concrete) is a chemical process, I wouldn't be surprised in seeing no way to get water from steam, and having alternate recipes (or one recipe that accepts either water or steam)

[half mountain]

We haven’t see any new personal equipment yet. I wonder what metallurgic tech might unlock for that category.

[sweet wind]

I wouldn't be surprised if most of the Mk2 equipment is moved to other planets, possibly the personal roboport for vulcanus?

[half mountain]

I still expect a handful of new armor toys 🙂

[sweet wind]

I'd love a spider legs module

I wanna walk over cliffs

[half mountain]

That sounds like a nice 1.1 mod… where is codegreen…

Blue science. But it’s gotta slow you down or something.

[sweet wind]

I just don't want to be blocked by cliffs haha

it's the most annoying part of them

[half mountain]

At least the mk1 version. And maybe it can’t climb Vulcanus cliffs. Need mk2 for that.

🤷‍♂️

[bold shard]

SA endgame armor/equipment is probably going to be godlike compared to vanilla endgame

I don't think we will be disappointed

[small bear]

power armor already has the same grid size as power armor mk2, so I’ll be fine if they lock mk2 on the last planet

[bold mirage]

I wonder how much new equipment stuff will there be aside from just higher quality

not that I'm complaining I can't wait to get all legendary stuff on me

[vagrant pumice]

what kind of equipment is lacking right now? I can't picture anything

something that adds more arms to put weapons maybe, that would be cool

[pale pumice]

Big FFF inbound if our dev interaction theory is correct. developer activity in #friday-facts is at an all-time high. I'm not actually convinced by this metric myself, but we will see how that goes.

[raven bridge]

jetpack obviously

inventory equipment

[vagrant pumice]

I don't think they will add the jetpack actually

[lament rampart]

grappling hook and accelerated backwards bunnyhopping would be nice though

[raven bridge]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/jump-and-swing

[vagrant pumice]

if the exoskeleton can jump that would be enough

[bold mirage]

It's not that it's lacking per se, but it would feel weir if after 4 planets and 5 new science packs the engineer didn't develop any new stuff

who knows maybe we get some fire immunity stuff from vulcanus or something

[raven bridge]

Well.. Raiguard said one of his mods will be obsolete by today's FFF

Cursor Enhancements?

[bold mirage]

klonan said 5

hoping for some fluid stuff

[vagrant pumice]

Yea I understand but I can't figure what kind of equipment it would be

[small bear]

I bet this FFF is new enemies

[raven bridge]

trains.

[half tree]

noice

[sweet wind]

I feel extremely vindicated

[pale pumice]

Okay, we're probably right.

[small bear]

seems like they are releasing 2-3 2.0 base game FFFs and 2-3 expansion content FFFs alternately

so next time we’ll see some expansion things

most likely SA stuff

[half mountain]

Good thing we didn’t short that rail FFF to dk

[raven bridge]

hah

[solemn cosmos]

maybe next time we will see the new biters 😞

[half mountain]

#1177597309572366396 message eyyyyyyy

i ws right, but backwards. You don't skip the station in the schedule from a condition, you add it!

[sweet wind]

So where do I collect my prize?

The only thing I gain from this FFF is an ego boost, no knowledge

[violet willow]

true, i love me some train porn and that's what we got, perhaps dk was told about the next train fff

[violet willow]

this is such a spot on prediction!

Next FFF: The planet that this thing is relevant for.
It'll probably not be mentioned in the FFF as they'll likely want to do an introduction like the one to Vulcanus, but they hate repetition so it'll probably be more unique than that. Plus it's very specific so it'll likely be mentioned in the second FFF about the planet.

[bold shard]

I have high hopes for the next 2, given end of year and the current low/medium/high tempo

[raven bridge]

Signal transmitter readable on trains

Would allow for much simpler priority stations

[bold shard]

it ties into the last sentence of this as well: ^

there can be some kind of event where trains need to take cover (asteroid, environmental, etc) around some kind of defense, and this is how you let them know to go to designated areas

something where it can be unsafe for trains to be moving around on tracks outside your base

[violet willow]

it has the train pallet, could be, genius!

[violet willow]

Interesting, perhaps it's ? I'd imagine a nature-based planet to have a more dynamic environment, could be that there's "interruptions" (hehe, now i wonder how they got the name for schedule interrupts) of the track. Maybe moving ground or some other disaster or entity. Or even debree on the track that requires an armor train to plow through and clean it.

[bold shard]

yes, something like that 🤔

would definitely be a cool mechanic

[violet willow]

Actually that would be SICK, imagine a train retreating and making way for an armored plow train to clean the tracks!

It would feel so organic like the trains have military capabilities and strategies

[bold shard]

armed trains would be awesome. equipment slots would be cool, but perhaps there are dedicated weapon platform cars

[topaz wing]

That would be some Mad Max stuff

[late venture]

I predict a complete overhaul of train tutorals. Probably not in the next FFF, but somewhere in the near future.

[solemn cosmos]

I was wrong 😦

[vagrant pumice]

The pre-christmas FFF would be a loving biter gift, right?

[topaz wing]

or icy planet

Though probably not as i think that's the last planet

[solemn cosmos]

🎁

[solemn cosmos]

armed trains and weapon platform cars would be frickin awsome

ik there is already a mod for that but its super outdated

plus armored trains and weapon platforms could be useful with the new biters

[rugged onyx]

I think a roboport train wagon could be cool

Though you'd probably to have it in range of a power pole when parked

[raven bridge]

Flipping buildings is this Friday

[solemn cosmos]

i swear if it is....

[small bear]

I think we will se a big FFF this week, similar to how big the space platform FFF was.

[raven bridge]

We got a big one last Friday so I think otherwise

[small bear]

smal things for 2.0 FFF is like the abstract item FFF, and the train interrupts are like the remote view FFF.

[small bear]

new train schedule is big, but is less ‘new content’. Space platform was both big and new content

and the remote view FFF was also a big FFF but less of a new content FFF

so I think this week will be new SA contents

[sweet wind]

Being the closest to Christmas it's either a really big one or a pretty small one I reckon

[small bear]

the pattern I see is (small qol)—>(huge system change)->(new content introduction)

train FFF was the huge system change one

[lament rampart]

this friday: new content
29th: year recap with some new teaser artwork
jan 5th: season 3 begins
march: planet 2
june: planet 3
september: closed beta and launch preparations
december: planet 4, either shortly before or after the F:SA release

[vagrant pumice]

weird question but each planet needs some kind of healing food, right?

lava fish?

[lament rampart]

perhaps not, but there might be some tech on the green planet to grow some food or to make healing potions, adding to the strategic element of choosing in which order to explore the planets

[rugged onyx]

Spicy tree fruit

[half mountain]

I thought we were already in season 3. Klonan said we wouldn’t get any more train stuff till season 3.

I think the small qol was the first episode of season 3. Making Vulcanus the penultimate episode for season 2. Seems like a good schedule.

[bold shard]

seems believable, but maybe compress the end of it a little assuming the release is 1-2 months beforehand

[rugged onyx]

I think we are in the spinoff movie series

[half mountain]

Are they at least theatrical releases, or straight to dvd ?

[rugged onyx]

I think it's a Netflix adaptation

[lament rampart]

I think we're still in season 2, and season 3 is still train season, meaning there will be several train FFFs (we know there's at least one more, and I personally expect at least two), but they decided for whatever reason to move the train control improvements FFF forward to season 2. Possibly just to screw with our predictions.

[rocky plover]

I doubt there will be better healing than fish, for the simple reason that fish are already so good at healing. Maybe if they nerf fish...

[raven bridge]

How do we heal on

[rocky plover]

There's alsothe question of why would you need healing? What if the enemies/environmental hazards on other planets don't deal damage o you, only your buildings

[small bear]

I think Vulcanus was the season 2 finale

now we’re in season 3 and they may introduce the train planet

there will be a planet where special train schedule matters more

[solemn cosmos]

slowly

[vagrant pumice]

send 1ton of fish from nauvis

[shadow trench]

Will you be able to send things from planet to planet, or is it ayou land and then have to work from nothing

[bold shard]

you can ship anything over, provided it can fit on the rocket/space platform cargo and you paid the resource price for the rocket launch

[pale pumice]

what was season 1 finale?

How do we even know there are seasons

[late venture]

One word: Klonan. I think that should tell you enough :P

[pale pumice]

It does.

"season means nothing I made it up"

I think it suggests that the FFFs have a clear seperation tied to the planets, but that this is just how it happened, and klonan made the distinction and cutting in his head

Or, possibly, it's made up entirely

[raven bridge]

Klonan also said trains after NYE

[pale pumice]

Klonan said probably

[raven bridge]

I'd say S3 started with "smaller things"

[pale pumice]

I agree, it has a different vibe

but we also agree that seasons are an after-thought, it wasn't originally made with seasons

we're just cutting it into logical chunks

[late venture]

I mean, not unlikely given that we still have more train FFFs coming up... Any promises on how soon after NYE though?

[raven bridge]

I wonder how much our talking affects the FFFs

Like we talked about a lot, and it came not much after, with the features there not super polished

[pale pumice]

I think perhaps... not at all.

was shown precisely because it was teased

[elder raptor]

I think the had its features polished and ready to show, but also they could receive suggestions. Our blabbering has no impact as to when things are revealed

[pale pumice]

our blabbering only affects how well klonan sleeps at night

[solemn cosmos]

Chapter 2: Season 2

[raven bridge]

still has a feature that they showed but "will expand on in the future" (the quality stuff)

[elder raptor]

I wonder if there was any suggestion that they'll add

[raven bridge]

We said that we really want * and they said it will come in 2.0

Also, we asked for a "don't build here" entity that we can put in blueprints, so that can deconstruct at those points and they said it's an interesting idea

We asked for 🟥 🟩 🟦 signals for the RGB and it was considered

[elder raptor]

Yeah that second one I can't wait for

[half mountain]

The probably have something that’s akin to the “pirates code” of their fff release cycle.

“More like guidelines” for getting them out. And then they can still change things ok the fly if needed.

[bold flume]

on the train topic, we might need a trigger based schedule change for trains.. not just dependent on their load or fuel status, but also based on circuit networks and automatic/dynamic rerouting when a track got destroyed or changed

[sweet wind]

We already got that in the last one

[rocky plover]

Did anyone come up with any cool new predictions about other planets over the last few weeks to add to the matrix of cool ideas?

[lament rampart]

I'm afraid there won't be any new logistical modes like boats or ground bots in F:SA, because:

1. all of the new logistical stuff revealed so far is either improvements that apply to 2.0 base game or is packaged as a separate mod that can be applied to the 2.0 base game, namely elevated rails
2. some devs confirmed that there are no other separate mods besides elevated rails, quality, and expensive mode.

If there would be a totally new logistical mode, like boats, the demand to have it available in the base game (using adjusted recipes and tech where necessary) would be quite high and it would make sense for Wube to make that mod.

[bold shard]

It could always be not its own separate mod and just baked into 2.0 or most likely just SA, and that the dev team is saving the coolest new toys for the end (or don't reveal them at all for us to find out in game, like they've done in the past with new content updates)

[solemn cosmos]

new toys 😍

[rain sonnet]

So what are people thinking for the additional train changes mentioned at the end of the last FFF? Going off a post JG (or maybe it was another dev) said, we are not likely to get a new rolling stock so what other improvements are out there?

[late venture]

Tutorial overhaul

[rain sonnet]

I'm hoping for backwards trains not being dead weight

[late venture]

Unlikely

[rain sonnet]

Hadn't even thought about that but it makes sense

[solemn cosmos]

its the price you pay for 2-way trains

[elder raptor]

I mean, irl backwards trains are not dead weight (since you don't lose any torque when going backwards)

[sweet wind]

It would certainly be nice

[rain sonnet]

Even if it was partial power would be nice

[solemn cosmos]

still, its the price you pay for 2-way trains

[rugged onyx]

Wonder if we might get a new planet

[solemn cosmos]

i hope we get new biters

but new planit would be cool

maybe the ice one

[rain sonnet]

but should you pay a price like that?

[solemn cosmos]

yes.

[rain sonnet]

Why?

[solemn cosmos]

its not too hard to set up a one way track tbh using only one locomotive

[rain sonnet]

I've almost exlusively used 1 way tracks

So I do know its not very hard

[solemn cosmos]

👍

[rain sonnet]

I think it would open up more options for types/sizes of trains

and wouldn't really favor any specific variety over another

at least imho

[solemn cosmos]

thats my layout

[raven bridge]

They said we will get "new military targets"

[rain sonnet]

I think they said that in the initial Space Age FFF

[solemn cosmos]

more things to shoot 😄

i hope we get new things that can shoot the new military targets

[rain sonnet]

I believe they hinted at that in the follow-up FFF to the Space Platform FFF

[solemn cosmos]

😍

[grave crag]

Is that a bidirectional loco?

[solemn cosmos]

nerp
one way

i messed it up a little

[grave crag]

It is bidirectional loco because'

[solemn cosmos]

the emojis, i messed them up a little

[grave crag]

And made a bidirectional loco of 8 tile length
Not i'm checking API if thats possible

[lament rampart]

which post?

[rain sonnet]

Second to last line of FFF 389

[lament rampart]

I'm asking about this: "we are not likely to get a new rolling stock"

[rain sonnet]

ah that one

It was awhile ago in #friday-facts , I think after elevated rails were announced

[lament rampart]

can't find it

[rain sonnet]

yeah I can't either. Expanding to other devs. It was a posts specifically about how many sprites each rolling stock now needs with the new rail angles and elevated rails

[late venture]

Boskid possibly? I remember chatting with him about that

[still pasture]

way too many sprites

[rain sonnet]

I think around here #friday-facts message

and yes Boskid... thats a lot of sprites

It might have been my own conclusion that hinted at no new rolling stocks. If I am proven wrong, I would be thrilled

[topaz wing]

When we get the next planet FFF we can also kind of predict the pacing at which we will get the other planet FFF's

[rain sonnet]

I was discussing with a friend which we were more likely to see first: more from vulcanus (like enemies and tech from the new science) or the introduction to another planet.

[bold shard]

the fact its end of year is going to make these next 2 good I think

[rain sonnet]

I think the "opposite" for the same reason

Specifically I do think these next two will not be "controversial" or talk on stuff that having devs available to answer questions would be required

[topaz wing]

Yeah i expect they will be more light because of the holidays for the team

And rightfully so

[bold shard]

I'm a glass half full kind of guy

hopefully they throw us a banger and leave it to us to figure it out until they return lol

after all, they had a big FFF last december with the preview pics and stuff

[rain sonnet]

Haha. True. My prediction is tomorrow will be a banger and next week be more relaxing

[bold shard]

yeah I could see that

[topaz wing]

That's true

[bold shard]

like a year wrap up kind of thing, with a sprinkling of some preview stuff perhaps

[rugged onyx]

Could be fun

[raven bridge]

Following the "small -> major -> new", tomorrow will be new stuff

[solemn cosmos]

😄

[small bear]

I expect some new entities

beacon substation

[solemn cosmos]

sweet

[vagrant pumice]

I would say vulcanus biters and combat big fff

make your bets

[half mountain]

Lets go for something that has to do with the new planet conditions.

[vagrant pumice]

I would love to see climate changes like rain or solar flares

acid rain on vulcanus maybe

[pale pumice]

I'm guessing small QOL.

[topaz wing]

I would be happy with some new space age stuff in general

[small bear]

this one could be similar to the selector combinator FFF where it introduces a small new feature

but we will see new entities

[vocal rock]

small new feature is too sad - don't predict something this horrible...

[small bear]

or could it be spidertron update

[raven bridge]

I don't see E so it's likely not new SA stuff

[late venture]

lol

[raven bridge]

At least not a new planet. It could be the tower, the book, or something like that

[small bear]

damn E is active

guess

[raven bridge]

OK so new SA content 😄

[topaz wing]

So new art probably, so that means new stuff

[small bear]

so new stuff

[raven bridge]

Could be another technical review, but I assume it'll be content

[raven bridge]

They only gave us tech stuff after a couple of contents

technical!

[small bear]

[fluid crow]

[bold shard]

this is too much work to just use for a christmas postcard. I think this is of the final planet, Aquilo

[pale pumice]

I believe so too, but Earendel is literally insane, so it's hard to really know.

[vocal rock]

#friday-facts message

[vagrant pumice]

yeah those new noise functions should be for snow I think

[topaz wing]

Would be really cool if this happens ingame

[raven bridge]

If they made all sprites for snow I'd be flabbergasted.

[topaz wing]

also there seemed to be 2 new buildings on the left side?

[raven bridge]

Yea does seem like it

[short roost]

booring fff

[small bear]

remember that we got Vulcanus right after the last technical FFF

[raven bridge]

[bold shard]

so next FFF should be good, and considering its end of year

[half mountain]

I think the one on the left here is the blue machine from last years Christmas fff.

[grave crag]

And considering it's end of the year it should be made two days early so they have time to rest!

[bold shard]

yeah. just send it to us early wube, enjoy your time off

[sick pond]

Somthing I want is weather, so Nauvis is pretty mild, Vulcanus could have Volcano eruptions, the water planet could have flooding/heavy rain that could slow down equipment. And I don't know what the other planets are like, so yeah.

[rugged onyx]

there are mods for that kind of thing. Factorio focuses more on making the base vanilla mechanics work smoothly to allow you to layer stuff like that on top

[raven bridge]

I want weather and pollution to mean something

[rugged onyx]

pollution does mean something but odds are we are goiing to get a massisve biter update to make polluting indiscriminately a dangerous option

[small bear]

pollution affects machines productivity

[vagrant pumice]

A volcano filling the sky with ash would be so cool

makes you use something else besides solar panels

[pale pumice]

solar already sucks on vulcanus

[raven bridge]

How do you figure?

It's likely closer to the sun

[pale pumice]

The atmosphere

Ever used a solar panel on venus?

[rocky plover]

Yeah, about once a week. Problem is they keep melting so I keep needing to reinstall it all the time.

[short roost]

vulcanus isnt venus, or a venus equivalent...

[pale pumice]

Vulcanus almost certainly has a thick atmosphere and is close to the sun

[small bear]

well they should still work so u can kickstart acid neutralisation for 500C steam

[pale pumice]

That's close enough for my comparison.

[pale pumice]

Yup. hence 'sucks'

[small bear]

Small scale solar always has been a non ideal power solution compared to other alternatives tho

I think it is okay to keep solar on Valcanus to have similar strength as on Nauvis. since space is quite limited

theres cliffs and lava everywhere

[pale pumice]

I think it still needs to be weaker than that

[small bear]

I guess solar strength is quite easy to change on the Wube side so they may not have a final number at the moment

I'm thinking more about gameplay aspect than realism

if solar is weaker it might be difficult to kickstart acid power. I wouldn't worry about huge solar farm breaking balance because it will still be a huge infrastructure investment even if soar is 150% strong. also space is limited (clifff,lava)

its like nuclear power vs mega solar blocks

and there might even be better alternative power methods

[pale pumice]

I don't think it would be hard to kickstart at all

even 1 panel will eventually start acid power

you just need 1 craft cycle and then it will become critical

[raven bridge]

Prediction: One of the planets will have ores submerged in water and we'll get a system (not just landfill) that lets us mine them.

Something not unlike this mod https://mods.factorio.com/mod/dredgeworks

[vagrant pumice]

like the oil platforms on the sea, but that would mean u need to be able to transport it sooo... boats

actually maybe the elevated rails were a compromise so they don't have to add boats, maybe

[rocky plover]

What about a planet where the ores aren't just under water, they're disolved in acid and you had to use electrolysis to get them

[raven bridge]

Or there are no ores at all and you have to farm animals that poop ores

[vagrant pumice]

Farmtorio

maybe in u need plants to make some organics resources like plastics or biofuel

synthesized oil I guess

[small bear]

agriculture science

growing plants for bio lubricant and oil products

[short roost]

seablock

[hoary timber]

3d factorio jk

[raven bridge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xP1FVh8yzk

[hoary timber]

oh god that is trippy

[grave crag]

I would like to see some 3d tho

With elevation

[violet willow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01qux-5Qx_Y

considering the buildup of information, it just has to be the planet FFF, most likely not the last one (Aquilo?), but the one that train FFF was building towards, considering noise expressions were explained and that is supposed to be a complex vegetated planet, i guess they wanted to hint that it's unique in its terrain in a different way than just having new biomes and resources

[raven bridge]

I want the environment to mean more. E is doing some cool work in SE0.7 with the flooded plains, where water periodically floods them and replenishes organic matter. Would be awesome if vanilla Factorio had some interactions like those.

[solemn cosmos]

fue5 🙂

[grave crag]

No updates in last 6 months

[solemn cosmos]

thats too bad. was looking like it was going to be a cool project

[vocal rock]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-381
Сonstruction trains could be absolutely insane if autorequest from here would be expanded!

Basically tweak autorequest to turn any bp from anywhere into logistic group, and it's half done. other half would be train/chest filters from logistic group to make sure train will be filled properly, roboport wagon mb - and it's good to go

So i'm betting on next train FFF to be something like that

[raven bridge]

They said specifically there will not be any sort of ghost scanner (except for space platforms)

But they said a lot of things in the past

[vocal rock]

It just makes too much sense to use system everywhere once it's developed. Can you link their message about it pls?

[raven bridge]

I don't remember where it was, but someone asked for a similar feature for ghosts in an area, but was rejected

[vocal rock]

Oh, that's a bit sad

[small bear]

I think someone mentioned that they could do ghost request on space platform because there can only be one platform per surface, whereas there could be many bot networks on planets.

[vocal rock]

ghost request can always store result in a buffer to copypaste, instead of doing it completely automatic

[small bear]

¯_(ツ)_/¯ I'm not the one who write the code but I guess it is still expensive to implement

ghost checking per surface is probably cheaper than per network.

perhaps there are already mods for that

[raven bridge]

Ghost Scanner

[vocal rock]

yeah, big chunk of it is in this ☝️ mod already

but not all of it and not as convenient

[small bear]

tbh I think we can already use the new train schedule and logistic groups to make quite efficient mall item supplies

[raven bridge]

Nothing we couldn't essentially do in vanilla, for this goal

[vocal rock]

not sure - let's say I want to copypaste outpost far outside of roboport network - what's the least I would need to do to just make it work?

[small bear]

just have a train to automatically supply a list of mall items, and ensure there is a small buffer in the logi network. If u expand very far then u r probably at a scale to increase the buffer size

if u have done mixed item rocket once in SE then its essentially the same idea

or similar

I have a system where I design filtered train wagon to supply roughly 12 different mall items per wagon, and at the destination I use constant combinators to tell filter inserters what items and how many to unload into the station to keep the buffer

[raven bridge]

If you're doing it from remote view, you'll have to botnet it

[small bear]

with logistic groups I can controll this system a bit easier

[raven bridge]

I have a freeform wagon system that works with a constant combinator (per wagon). It can insert exactly how much I want, without even having filters, leaving space for whatever

[small bear]

ah

I'll take that idea

still learning new things after 3000hrs

[raven bridge]

Same for the unloader stations. And it calls the train when it has less than 1/2 of some item

So when I want to build a wall, I just put the builder train, and the wall BP and it does its thing

Similary, if I want to add turrets because it's a hot zone, some ghosts and it all just works

[small bear]

technically u can put 40 different items per wagon?

[raven bridge]

ye, and they don't have to be full stacks

[small bear]

do u use multiple blue chests and devide the request item number by the number of blue chests?

[raven bridge]

Single blue chest

Stack inserter stack size is set according to the number of items needed, so it's quite fast, but still accurate

[small bear]

I usually don't need accurate control for that when I start using train for mall items

[vocal rock]

is it automatic? can it handle 2 outposts being built simultaneously?

[small bear]

because its not like u know u will need 102 blue belts for the next outpost

[rugged onyx]

Sometimes "good enough" is perfection for Factorio

[raven bridge]

Yes. I don't see why having more than one station matters.

I have one unload station per wall

[vocal rock]

if 2 outposts sending requests on one logic cable - train will probably attempt to load stuff for both or something like that - a bit annoying, but maybe it's just me being silly and trying to perfect the crap out of trains

[raven bridge]

There are no global logic cables in this system

Only local circuits in the loader and the unloaders

[desert lake]

So, am I getting this wrong, or did the devs say that infinite technologies will be available in midgame?

In the space platform fff

[pale pumice]

They already basically are

Oh, I see.

Do you mean some of them won't use all of the science packs?

[desert lake]

Ah, right, nevermind

More infinite technologies use purple and yellow than I remember

[small bear]

they mentioned that there is one infinite tech that doesn’t even require space science

also many of them don’t require all science packs

so infinite tech will no longer be a post endgame thing

[raven bridge]

Technically*. The increased cost makes it effectively end game.

[rugged onyx]

Technically space science unlocks space features, not necessarily infinite techs anymore

[desert lake]

They did mention infinite techs specifically

That's actually the whole reason for my first message

Space science used to be the post endgame thing that unlocked post endgame content, but now that it's been moved to midgame, its old post endgame uses seemingly remained largely the same

But I forgot that infinite techs are also locked away behind purple and yellow science (mostly yellow, it seems)

So infinite techs have only been shifted back by a relatively small distance

Though I suppose the key difference is, choosing whether or not to advance the extraplanetary researches to unlock new content, or focus on infinite techs to buff your current setup

That choice was never really present before

[rugged onyx]

Choice is wonderful

When a game offers several good ways to build, I'm always a fan

[desert lake]

I'm still wishing upon a star for some more non-military infinite techs, though

Because right now there are: Two 💔

Though I see how the concept of infinity has the potential to break certain things, so you would have to be careful with what they apply to, as well as taking into consideration what players would want and use the most

But one idea I've fallen in love with, are electricity related infinite techs

Accumulator charge, bot battery life, maybe even something like solar panel efficiency...

I think they would be a perfect fit

[bold shard]

they'd have to give the tech the right name though so it makes sense

like optimized design 1, 2, etc

[desert lake]

Eh, I'd say generic and easily understandable names would be best

The concepts are quite simple, I don't think there's any need to get fancy

Especially when "Artillery speed" and "Follower robot count" exist

[bold shard]

I think what I proposed is quite generic and easily understandable. Optimized Solar Panel Design 1, Optimized Solar Panel Design 2, etc

how else can you describe a solar panel that suddenly has a higher output?

but considering quality exists as a mechanic, not sure if this is something that will be implemented

[desert lake]

Oh, the original message was a little bit vague, I wasn't sure what exactly you were referring to. Yeah, that seems just fine to me

[bold shard]

my bad

personally I'd like research like this to exist, but just make it plenty expensive

IMO the game needs more things in the "very expensive but very worth it if you go through with it" category

it adds another layer of strategy on what to spend your time/resources on

[rugged onyx]

I think that's the quality aspect

[raven bridge]

Quality and early infinite research

Also gives players something to research while building new things. New players tend to run out of science to do before they have the next, so this can help

[bold shard]

to clarify, I mean things that are very expensive from the beginning, not just research that become that after running it enough times

[raven bridge]

Like nukes and spiders being 5k and 2.5k? (which is plenty expensive for smaller bases)

[bold shard]

like that, but now plenty expensive for a large base

something big and exciting to work towards

[half mountain]

Last Friday of the year! Predictions?

[wise marsh]

5% on no FFF because Christmas holiday

[raven bridge]

Naa they'd have something lined up before

[half mountain]

I think they’re mostly automated at this point.

I doubt klonan is pushing a button at the same time each week…

[grave crag]

5% off Factorio price

I mean, I did suggest to write FFF yesterday

[bold shard]

I'm thinking 1) end of year review 2) some words about 2024 3) some teaser like xmas 2022 but with new things 4) (possible bonus) actual in depth FFF about something new and exciting

[raven bridge]

"We're still on track for release in 2024"

[half mountain]

“No sooner than 2024”

They will for sure tell you it won’t be early. But since we never got a date. It can’t be late!

[raven bridge]

"It won't release in 2023"

[iron venture]

I predict vulcanus enemies

[raven bridge]

I predict 2nd planet or water stuff

[final dove]

My money's on sticking to the formula but with a little holiday cheer sprinkled over top

[wise marsh]

I second the lookback post (this year we had 1 billion sales, so we all decided to disband the company and retire. Later suckers)

[bold shard]

PS- the game is complete and we're keeping it to ourselves

[wise marsh]

I give it less than a week before Wube's servers are hacked after an announcement like that

[late venture]

Can't hack them if they shut them down :P

[wise marsh]

Can't shut them down if they have been heisted ocean's N style

[raven bridge]

"We realized quality doesn't work and removed it from the game"

Just to see hundreds of hours of discussion tossed into the bin

[sweet wind]

Only hundreds?

[raven bridge]

No E so it's not a new planet or more . Possibly more train things, or the weird tower

But it's likely just a recap

[pale pumice]

Feeling very bearish. Selling calls!

[late venture]

Recap guessers win!

[raven bridge]

Didn't expect mod manager

[bold shard]

where are we in the pattern, next week should be good?

[raven bridge]

yes

[grave crag]

What's recap
I didn't see a recap

[late venture]

Read FFF

[grave crag]

Nvm found it
But didn't find my own message to delete it

[bold shard]

so...

what are the guesses for next week lol

[elder raptor]

points to username

[vagrant pumice]

next planet reveal? maaaybeee

I don't think they will reveal all of vulcanus first, maybe they will leave the most cool parts for the future and reveal something about the other planets

[elder raptor]

They did say was the most complete yet, so I think we might get a bit more of it before moving on to the next planet (which might not have all graphics finalized yet)

[desert lake]

Speaking of planets

What do you guys think will be Aquilo's deal

My assumption so far has been
Vulcanus=Metals
Bacchus=Oil
Fulgora=Electricity

So what could be a hypothetical fourth and final addition to all this?

Actually, now that I think about it, they never did actually show Aquilo's special round science pack

Due to the way the tree works, it could have one, because the science pack always comes after the planet itself

But if there is one, for some reason it's not shown

But we could say that its existance isn't confirmed

And that has its own implications

[elder raptor]

It's been confirmed that Aquilo has its own science pack, and that there's an additional endgame science pack

[desert lake]

Additional?

Well, I presume that it will fill the role previously held by space science

Because that is now being demoted from its previous place in the post-endgame

[elder raptor]

Also confirmed

[desert lake]

Well, it was a logical development, really

[elder raptor]

Yeah

[desert lake]

But, I suppose this both simplifies my original question, and makes it harder to answer

Because previously one of the more likely options for Aquilo's science pack was this new post endgame one

Due to its status as the final planet

But now that we know that isn't it... What else is left?

[desert lake]

Oh no... Imagine this option...

"Quality science pack"

[grave crag]

And?

Ah

A quality science pack

Imagine a Legendary Quality Science Pack (literally)

I wonder if you can make recipes with quality requirement

[desert lake]

What do you mean by that

[grave crag]

#mod-dev-discussion message

[short roost]

Aquilus mechanic will be... hmmmm, aqua? water? seablock

[elder raptor]

it's Aquilo, and it's the god of the North Wind; cold, not water

(I made that mistake multiple times)

[raven bridge]

It's likely the frozen planet, so you'd have to mine ice and melt it. Probably the same ice as we can get from asteroids

[elder raptor]

oh I hadn't thought about that. yeah, I like that

with Aquilo being the last planet, there's plenty of opportunities to have stuff "required" to have when we land. if not specific materials, at least a functioning base with robots and radars and deliveries that we can receive

(and, well, they did confirm that's the case)

I wonder if one such thing will be... power

[raven bridge]

Since it's the farthest (and coldest) there won't be much solar

Maybe there's geothermal? An Iceland like planet.

[pure siren]

If it has water/ice, we can bring a couple Fuel Cells, no problem. Sounds to easy imho.

[half mountain]

What does “last” mean in this context?

Y’all think Aquilo is the final planet?

Oh. “Last” as in the order from the screenshot of the planet names.

[elder raptor]

we know it is

from the tech tree as well

we could map the beta art for those directly to the names

[half mountain]

Yeah. That makes sense.

[lilac arrow]

I wonder if we'll get new ost for the planets

[raven bridge]

Kovarex said there are new things in the audio department. We don't know more.

[desert lake]

I'm pretty sure I saw some discussion earlier on that topic

It was something about the way entities emitting sound works

Normally, entities can only have a constant noise, but someone noticed something in the demonstration videos of vulcanus buildings that may suggest they're changing that

It was a while ago, so I'm probably misremembering something, but it was something like this

[raven bridge]

They said that explicitly. Audio can now trigger on certain animation frames

In the foundry FFF

[desert lake]

Oh, cool

[solemn cosmos]

nice

[vagrant pumice]

any chance we will see loaders in vanilla? I don't know if I want to but im curious

something like trains-only loaders

[half mountain]

very high doubt, with you can really get going.

[vagrant pumice]

Yea ur right

[raven bridge]

Devs said that don't like loaders, so you'll not get them in vanilla.

[vagrant pumice]

If we can use the fish for the spidertron maybe in we can use other animals for robots? I'm just thinking out loud

some biter brain to create an aggressive combat robot

[half mountain]

that would be awesome. I'd love to see a return of the alien loot economy.

[vagrant pumice]

It would be very RTS-like but id loved it

[half mountain]

vanilla loader:

just like "we have quality at home", "we have loaders at home" now

(thanks SoulBurn!)

[raven bridge]

Cheers

You almost not even need 2 of them. Each moves 69~ from box to box, and 34.5~ from box to belt.

Actually, chest to splitter should be enough with even one.

When an inserter drops items onto the side of a perpendicular splitter, it always is considered to do so on the input side, enabling the splitter to move half of the items to the other belt (assuming that the splitter filter/priority settings allow it to do so and that there is available space on both belts). This allows the inserter to drop its items twice as fast. A fully upgraded stack inserter can drop twelve items onto an express splitter every 38 ticks (18.95 items/second) instead of the usual 52.
At 2.5x that rate, it's 47~ so more than a

[half mountain]

I didn’t even try that. Will in a sec.

[raven bridge]

https://wiki.factorio.com/images/thumb/Inserter_belt_saturation.png/414px-Inserter_belt_saturation.png

[half mountain]

cant quite make it

and you need the splitters as a buffer, because straight to the belt can't quite get it either.

[raven bridge]

Too bad!

[short roost]

I do doubt that, since fish are mainly in the ingredients as a meme.

[vagrant pumice]

We can have more memes

[sick pond]

Bitertron.

Spittertron.

Fishtron.

Treetron?

[vagrant pumice]

I need more bioengineering in factorio

[sick pond]

I want to grow geneticly modified soldiers, and send hordes against the biters.

Like better combat robots.

Bit bio

But*

[vagrant pumice]

we can capture biters, brainwash them and put a machine gun on top

pure evilness

[sick pond]

Aren't they a hivemind?

What I think would be cool, wait for an attack on you're base, tranq a biter or 2, get Geneseed, grow abominations.

[vagrant pumice]

I mean like chirurgical half biter half bot style

[sick pond]

Ahh, cyborg

[vagrant pumice]

the robobiter

[sick pond]

That would be cool,

Behemoth spitter with artillery

[vagrant pumice]

until the release i would believe it is true

[sick pond]

Now I want to make a mod!

I don't know how tho.

[grave crag]

Make the recipe table and images

[grave crag]

Check the AAI and https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Unit_Control for stuff to reuse or depend on

[sick pond]

Ok Thansk man.

Now I have to I guess.

[vagrant pumice]

what if we can connect the power armor to the spidertron so they share power, that would be cool

you could use the spidertron full of legs

I mean is not broken or anything

[half mountain]

what could possibly go wrong?

[small bear]

spider armor

[small bear]

time for the next FFF prediction: more circuits stuff: machines can connect to wires, reads input/output buffer, controls enable/disable

maybe combined with flippable chem plant and refineries

[small bear]

Alternatively, new year, new planet

[granite terrace]

next FFF will be 2023 retrospective, part 2

[solemn cosmos]

hear me out....

[half mountain]

I'm on your side. The power of the sunbiters in the palm of my hand!

someone will turn these into personal equipment, and I'm here for it.

[solemn cosmos]

Id bet it would look cool

[solemn cosmos]

https://tenor.com/view/spider-man-doctor-octopus-the-power-of-the-sun-in-the-palm-of-my-hand-sun-gif-23770857

[rugged onyx]

I will break the w key on your keyboard if you're correct

[iron venture]

I predict vulcanus enemies

[desert lake]

I think it was sort of implied to be some type of burrowing enemy

But the devs have really great alien design, whatever it is I bet none of us will be expecting it

[small bear]

there must be some melee attack units otherwise they wouldn’t have shown us the laser turrets inside natural wall

so, at least there will be biters potentially with different skin

[pure siren]

Balrogs coming after you when mining too deep.

[vagrant pumice]

mining too deep like rimworld, spawns a swarm of bugs

[sick pond]

"Drums in the deep."

[half mountain]

We automated too deep, too greedily.

[sick pond]

No such thing!

orange light at end of tunnel

Oh no...

[late venture]

choo choo!

[half mountain]

[late venture]

[half mountain]

why am I always standing on my rails when I'm looking at somethig nearby?

like some quantum magnetic attraction to them.

[raven bridge]

(fixed)

[half mountain]

smol

[late venture]

Do remove spaces though :P

[raven bridge]

Naa this is smol https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Mini_Trains

[crisp cosmos]

Smol

[solemn cosmos]

cute lill train 🥰

[finite rivet]

I love them

[grave crag]

I didn't like them in FF honestly, they were slow af

[distant tendon]

🤔 now if they were running on narrow gauge with tight tight curve radius…

[pale pumice]

2 weeks of reasonably weak FFF. are we bullish for the next one?

[raven bridge]

Recap 2023 2

[small bear]

another technical FFF

[rugged onyx]

I'm hoping for some biter content

[raven bridge]

Not biter, but "military targets" in general

[small bear]

military targets doesn’t have to be aliens. Asteroid is an example

[vagrant pumice]

Besides biters are from Nauvis, why would they be in another planet if they are natives

I need a huge new content FFF PLEASE

[small bear]

[solemn cosmos]

it better be good fr

[bold shard]

nothing is guaranteed of course, but I feel hopeful it will be good

the longer we go without new content, the higher the chance the next content FFF will be solid. this principle seems to be built in to the pace of new FFFs

[solemn cosmos]

we gonna get a mega FFF that will blow our minds

[pure siren]

that's how gamblers think

[bold shard]

good thing I've never set foot in a casino lmao

[rugged onyx]

I mean, nothing says biters were not once advanced beings who migrated to Nauvis. Engineers aren't native to Nauvis either

I think that'll be the story of the final planet, discovering the origins

[small bear]

seems like they strategically lower the expectation before the big FFF comes

[rugged onyx]

That the same logic of "a broken analog clock is correct twice a day"

[vocal rock]

not really - devs probably have some intent behind the order of FFFs, while gambling and broken clock lacking it

[half mountain]

Depends how broken…

[vagrant pumice]

that would be so cool, like some Frozen Prehistoric biter in Aquilo you can study

[rugged onyx]

I mean I might be overthinking things. It took me years to realize the world is named Nauvis for Novice

[pure siren]

TIL we're noobs.

[raven bridge]

No one could expect this.

[lilac arrow]

w h a t

[violet willow]

Wait, Nauvis means novice?!?

[rugged onyx]

You think that's bad, there used to be a place I went to that was a chocolate shop that was also a full wet bar that served some really good chocolate themed cocktails.

It is a chocolate-bar, that one took me 2 years to get the joke

[bold shard]

today was unexpected but good IMO

next week new content hopefully

[topaz wing]

Yeah it's really interesting. Not sure how i will use it myself as i have generic stations with a single constant combinator that are perfectly fine. But better ways to make template designs is always welcome, and i'm sure i will figure out new uses when it's here.

[late venture]

Unlike today?

[raven bridge]

Remember it's also station names!

[half mountain]

My prediction: we have no clue. And we’re in for a fucking ride. Chooooo choooooo!!!

[small bear]

icon (rich text) in the station name can also be parameterised, which means u don't need to configure the station name

now I wonder if we will be able to read more signals from assemblers: recipe, ingredients, crafting time, machines speed etc.

[half mountain]

I use a mod that allows you to configure station names via paramters, and the 'paste' on them to set the name (paste from ASM or constant combinator)

[elder raptor]

I wonder if we'll get something like a "parametrible blueprints 2.0" FFF in a couple of months, where user suggestions have been added, and stuff like that

[raven bridge]

Possibly. Also more and more "new combinator" stuff

.
New combinator stuff: Allow between and i.e. red * green
New selector stuff: get item, return ingredients. Also a radio button "1" or "multiply" for stack size, weight, and ingredients.
New parameterized BPs: Ingredient count of X, as a number parameter

[pure siren]

New selector stuff: get item, return stack size?

[elder raptor]

that's already a thing

[raven bridge]

We have stack size and weight, but I want also a radio button for "1" or "multiply by input", so you could input "3 " and get "300 " as output with stack size, or "6 " with ingredients

[pure siren]

ah, I guess I need to read that FFF again 🫣

[distant tendon]

still waiting for the fluid overhaul

[elder raptor]

yes. every single day

[vagrant pumice]

same here haha, we can only hope

[iron venture]

I still have no idea why people want a fluid mechanics change

fluids work fine

[half mountain]

They get weird when you're trying to push the throughput limits of pipes. I try and stay around 1k units/sec per pipeline and I've never really had any issues.

Example, pump into an empty take with 2 or 3 more pumps pumping out of it at max speed, and only one of the output pumps will ever pump.

the right output pump pumps, the others never will.

[desert lake]

And since we'll soon be handling metals as fluids, maybe it's the best opportunity they could have to implement it

[pure siren]

That issue is more fundamental than Factorio though. Don't think there's anything that can be done without significant performance cost.

I know this is just an example, but if that single pump is consuming the entire input, then there's a supply issue present.

[distant tendon]

re-reading https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-260 https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-274 https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-283 https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-349

"Pipes suck. Two people already tried to fix it and failed, who wants to be next?"
tl;dr: there was a new algo planned & implemented for 0.17, but in the end it was shelved because of some unspecified issues (… and becaus there was no more time left to work on it)

[topaz wing]

Will that still happen if the supply matches the demand after the pipes are filled up?

[grave crag]

There's an easy solution, enabled=oil>1k

[pure siren]

A single void pipe only supplies 6 k/s while pumps can move up to 12 k/s. Definitely a supply issue.

[half mountain]

I don’t know all the intricacies. But I have run into issues where fluid only ever takes one path when running up at the pipe throughput limit.

Like I said earlier. My solution to that is just to try to avoid trying you push more than 1k fluid through any given pipeline if I can help it 😁

[pure siren]

throughput up to 3k is still somewhat sane, builds pushing beyond that are getting ridiculous

[vagrant pumice]

IMO you should be able to put 2 pipes next to each other and don't connect, is not some crazy mod idea

[raven bridge]

You can, if it's a 2x1 pipe 🙂

[rugged onyx]

It would be nice to have an option when laying pipe to exclude connecting except straight.

But I honestly think we are going to get a major fluids overhaul. They were debating on it back in 0.18, but concluded that except for CPU optimization, fluids were in a nice place and didn't want to change it (yet)

[iron venture]

I don't see how this is fundamentally different from a single inserter taking all the items from a belt before the items can reach further inserters. Or 2 inserters, on the opposite sides of the same belt, each trying to grab the same items, only one will ever get items.

really my only gripe with how fluids work currently is it's hard to see exactly what the problem is, if it's not enough input or pipe throughput issues

[rugged onyx]

Top off valves would be nice. Pumps and circuit logic can do this already but would be nice if they changed how the tanks themselves worked

Most of these FFFs have been changes to entities rather than changes to base mechanics, so fluid tanks could get some love and not just be unintelligent fluid bottles

[half mountain]

I like to use this mod, and another help to remove all the pipes, so it's just the valves https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Flow Control & https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Flow_Control_Valves_Only

[raven bridge]

Annoying we don't have small tanks for operations. Need 11 tiles for a valve

[half mountain]

the minibuffer tank would really help a lot in vanilla 😄

[vagrant pumice]

Would be great for all the molten iron and copper we are going to have

[small bear]

maybe we’ll be able to read pipe content by wire

[raven bridge]

Next FFF is about multiplayer optimizations

(because it's something I don't really care about)

[small bear]

when will we see

or

[bold shard]

adding to this:

the longer we go without banger FFFs, the bigger of a barrage we'll get of them

the last few months before release could be nonstop "shutup and take my money" FFFs

[topaz wing]

i'm kind of waiting for the next planet reveal, because that might give us a timeframe of how many fff's there will be between the planet FFF's until release

[grave crag]

Whoops

[small bear]

Wube revealing all the planets in the next 3 FFFs be like:

[desert lake]

Reminder that we STILL haven’t seen what the vulcanus science pack unlocks

[iron venture]

I predict Vulcanus enemies

[desert lake]

The drill and foundry are what’s required to get the science pack, so there’s much more to come

[iron venture]

probably won't be until after the other 2 middle planets, since part of the metallurgic science pack will be getting to the final planet

[grave crag]

I guess that means I did guess some FFF

[bold shard]

which one do you think that is?

[grave crag]

stuff

[bold shard]

I see I see

[grave crag]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/603392474458882065/1194321727229009980/image.png?ex=65afedc9&is=659d78c9&hm=38d23fd4c33df42d40c73840cdd189356e66632a8df74ac946b6deb0733d8a9c&

[violet willow]

that looks like the mod with the underground surface, but different

Even if it won't be next fff or covered in fff at all, i feel like 2.0 will have filter chests (why do and have filters and doesn't, perhaps because the logistic filters?, it just feels weird), color coded planners (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ColorCodedPlanners), and more train content.

• Maybe a new tier of train, maybe a rebalance.
• Definitely going to talk about the thing they promised from the schedule interrupts fff.
• Vanilla belt and pipe visualizers?! (we have something, but it's just debug stuff not meant for visualization)

[topaz wing]

what do you mean with belt and pipe visualizers?

oh i looked it up, that would be a good QOL
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/belt-visualizer

[solemn cosmos]

a new mode

[rugged onyx]

SA by default will be a new mode since launching the rocket will no longer be the win condition unless you turn the SA part of the expansion off

[sweet wind]

I wonder if we'll first get initial coverage over the other planets or a deeper dive into Vulcanus

Depends how they're developing the planets I suppose, are they going one by one or are they doing them all in parallel

[bold shard]

unless huge progress was recently made, it seems like the art assets for the other planets are still WIP

[sweet wind]

Pretty much my thoughts, I'd expect them to go one at a time

[iron venture]

they mentioned in one of the FFs that they had to redo 2 of the planets because they were too similar to nauvis

which 2 do you think they were?

[sweet wind]

Not vulcanus I guess? Bacchus and Fulgora

I'd be suprised if the last, and presumably most complex/difficult planet was 'too similar' to nauvis

And Vulcanus is the most developed so it stands to reason it wasn't redone

[bold shard]

this isn't a prediction for this week, but in general-

I think we're going to have new turrets with a much greater range

this is from a few weeks ago from a post from Klonan in the FFF channel

it was a shot of a map, with a bunch of small/medium sized outposts

and instead of turret perimeters like usual, there was a single group of turrets around a power pole, seemingly defending a much larger area

and Klonan didn't say it directly but pretty much implied that was good enough to defend it

[sweet wind]

I'd be pretty keen on a cannon turret, something that can use cannon shells with good range.
equally I think something like a rail cannon makes more immediate sense, you could use simple metal projectiles on a space platform as well then, would not be necessary if we have a way to make explosives/plastic on the platform from asteroids, which I personally don't see happening with what we know

[raven bridge]

We're gonna see something huge we didn't expect and don't care that much about

But still cool

[desert lake]

Cannon turrets would be really nice imo

Because besides being an ingredient in artillery shells, cannon shells are the only ammo type that becomes truly obsolete in the engame

(for all intents and purposes shotguns do not even exist)

Also it would give us a chance to use the fancy uranium shells

[vagrant pumice]

We should be able to use the satellites to scan or reveal a good size of the map like a super radar, i think

I'm really hyped to see the new enemies (or friends who knows)

[raven bridge]

Combat shotguns is actually quite strong at that stage, but once you get personal lasers you don't need much else.

[still pasture]

That was related to annoying me by pinging without a good reason

[grave crag]

Okay sorry
Do you mean if I'd disable @ or used @silent it'd be fine? (I'm not wery good with Discord pings)

[vocal rock]

no need to disable @ - if you write a name without it - it's fine

[grave crag]

Anyways, hoping to see some new rail vids after you implement them
...
Now I've imagined disconnected rail pieces (7 straight) linked to each outher in a random pattern, forming a "grid" shape, a train coming there and strarting to teleport to random places
Looks absolutely hilarious 😂

[grave crag]

@vocal rock I don't write the name, I swipe a message or click the nickname, that's the thing

[vocal rock]

I think using them more sparingly might just do the trick - of course in a situations, where it's obvious, who are you talking to

[violet willow]

i see what you mean, but in terms of a gamemode, it's still freeplay by default, perhaps we'll get the other modes improved, overhauled or removed as people barely use them, or maybe we get new modes like a new type of pvp/wave defense

[brave wharf]

why not shotgun turrets as well, then

like, it would actually make sense, because atm the flamethrower is the only turret that can handle groups well

and a shotgun (especially with piercing shells) would be pretty good at that

not as good, but if we have fire resistant enemies (for example on vulcanus, maybe?) it would allow you to actually properly defend

though maybe not, maybe that's part of the challenge

[violet willow]

iirc they implied the existence of new amazing turrets in the space platform fff because there's huge asteroids and the basic turret isn't quite enough to get it in time

[raven bridge]

Bigger turrets though

[bold shard]

it makes sense from Wube's design philosophy as well

"in the vanilla game, you always had to use walls of turrets to defend an area. this simplifies that with something more powerful/expensive with a much greater range"

[solemn cosmos]

factorio zero build

[violet willow]

perhaps a continuation of this?

like a meme

[half mountain]

What if we're overthinking the flipped buildings implementation.

What if they literally just let the buildings flip, and have another set of sprites for it?

[grave crag]

Why would flipped buildings need another set of sprites?

They can just have opposite clockwisity

[half mountain]

so the plumbing still hookes up the way it normally does, and we don't have to wonder if a building is flipped before a recipe is set.

[grave crag]

It will have the same sprite flipped?

[half mountain]

Oh I guess it would just be the same sprite mirrored

[grave crag]

Now imagine every item in the game has a mirrored counterparts with 50/50 chance of producing either

Where unmirrored buildings can only use unmirrored recipes and otherwise

[bold shard]

what season are we in btw? lol

[violet willow]

Winter, the biters are cool as metal

[half mountain]

4 I think?

[late venture]

The dry season

We'll have to wait for the next wet season until we get some juicy FFFs again

[half mountain]

hopefully it's not badwater next

[rugged onyx]

I predict we are going to get changes to fluid tanks, perhaps with built in circuitry or top off settings to prioiritize fluid flow through certain outputs

[elder raptor]

the believers grow by the minute

[raven bridge]

Summer in the southern hemisphere though

[lament rampart]

big blueprint FFF today?

[raven bridge]

We have 2 3d artists in chat, I'd assume it's a new thing

[bold shard]

I GUESSED IT

much higher throughput without making belts 10x faster

[topaz wing]

So even much better than faster belts

[raven bridge]

Absolutely bonkers

We wanted to add it as a mod, but now it'll be vanilla

[desert lake]

So… do we all agree that bulk inserters will probably be from vulcanus?

Because of the big mining drill thing

[small bear]

it could be on the last planet because it’s quite powerful

but if not then Vulcanus is probably the best candidate

tho we don’t know the theme of the other planets

[vocal rock]

my bet rn is each logistic method probably tied to one of the first 3 planets, so bulk might be on vulcanus, and other 2 planets will buff trains and bots respectively

[desert lake]

And in the interrupt fff they mentioned interrupts will be especially useful on a specific planet, too

Maybe this planet will somehow be particularly train-centric, somehow?

[desert lake]

Actually, thinking about this a little more, I think I might actually disagree

Purely because of what we already saw for vulcanus

If anything, vulcanus will be focusing the most on pipes

[vocal rock]

not sure which planet will get which - vulcanus might get better trains or bots to navigate around insane amount of lava and cliffs

[grave crag]

I think we are in the Winter season
And we'll get the next planets on Spring, Summer and, erm, Winter?

Vulcanus was Autumn I guess

[raven bridge]

We're getting 1x1 splitters

[violet willow]

lots of love to all the aussies and everyone else

[raven bridge]

I'm not from there, I just care about them too 🙂

[half mountain]

*mindustry routing intensifies*

[raven bridge]

Also shapez

[half mountain]

oh yeah, next up junctions, and the 1x3 splitter

I wonder how much 'stacks on belts' were talked about before we had that hilarious chat in the FFF room with the 1000x coin stack.

[topaz wing]

As i understand it it wasn't even implemented until that discussion a month ago?

So it really is a bonus feature for SA

[half mountain]

the code was mostly written apparently, boskid didn't chnage much to make it do that.

[bold shard]

take pride in the fact that we're all probably partially responsible for this

[raven bridge]

Yea Mr. Boss played around with it, and added the item offset back then

[raven bridge]

oh no you summoned him!

[half mountain]

we did it reddit!

oops

[violet willow]

Bro, i swear i always get mod ideas like right beofre a new feature is made that would make my mod useless for 2.0. Previously I was thinking of more complex, but rewarding miners that require lube to run and when combined with sulfur mining, this would be really challenging, they showed the new big drill. Now i just got the idea about late game burner inserters yesterday and this fff drops.

My idea is, since fueling inserters is a challenge, why not make a late game version of several burner inserters which are capable of having a greater throughput? Dual-arm inserters (just two blue in one place); one with higher hand stack size than green, but slower; and one faster than blue, but with the same stack size. This felt like a genius idea as it adds a slight difficulty challenge and improves your throughput, but i have never used bots to the extent of replacing belt logistics because i always thought "bots must be so performance heavy no way i mass use them".

Btw i haven't read the full fff yet.

[elfin zenith]

Well, I doubt they'd do that double inserter, so...

[half mountain]

@rugged onyx this FFF is our fault.

[rugged onyx]

I know.... I was there for that discussion

I don't know how to feel about it

[half mountain]

You started it. You win!

Your disguise worked I guess?

[rugged onyx]

What disguise?

[half mountain]

the one in your name

[rugged onyx]

I just didn't know how to announce in that crowd of a Friday facts room "hey, that's MY idea"

The real lesson here is "Oh my God be careful what you suggest to devs.... They're maniacs"

[half mountain]

hahaha

just come with your receipts 😉

[rugged onyx]

If only I had the logs from a month ago!

Might have to do some digging and screenshot the logs

[half mountain]

this log? #friday-facts message

[bold shard]

in fact, you actually said it even earlier lol #1175042793220087899 message

and it was "my idea" 3 days later 😛

[half mountain]

[you made this i made this meme]

[rugged onyx]

Lol

I mean it just felt weird palletizing things all day at work not to wonder why we don't stack things higher in the belt

[half mountain]

Disguised biter created the fff predictions, and then proceeded to invent a feature into an fff thus making it a nearly perfect prediction. This is some rigged contest shit if I ever saw it.

[raven bridge]

@rugged onyx is an upstanding engineer in our community.

don't you accuse them of anything

[rugged onyx]

does that mean I win the FFF prediction thread?

[half mountain]

fully

close it down, we're done here. this is like when obama "thanks obama"d.

[rugged onyx]

lol

well thanks for letting me feel special at the end

[half mountain]

it's like the discord equivalent of getting your mod absorbed into the game 😄

[small bear]

no one saw this coming 😅

[bold shard]

stacks of biters raiding the factory. might this be better for ups and vanilla freeplay megabasing.

[rugged onyx]

I F'ING DID

[rugged onyx]

I felt such joy that a stupid idea of mine made it into an FFF

[topaz wing]

What does everyone think they mean with these linked rails?

[late venture]

Linked belts but rail

[small bear]

mountains and train tunnels?

[vagrant pumice]

Stacked barrels would make them more efficient over pipes

[small bear]

wait how much fluid each barrel holds?

a full stack of fluid barrels on 4stack green belt is 50460 = 12000 fluids/s but need to loop empty barrels back so need to half the throughput, then its 6000 fluids/s/belt

[bold shard]

I'd love to see a benchmark of moving liquids at scale whenever SA releases, observing which is more performant

[half mountain]

I didn't get to pay enough attention to the fff channel today, are we getting linked rails the same way that things on top of things came about?

[iron venture]

6000/s is still better than all but the most optimized pipes

you also can recycle the empty barrels if you don't want to take them back

[raven bridge]

Only if Mr. Boss finds a solution to heuristics.

[half mountain]

Nice.

sounds good to me!

[small bear]

random prediction: in future there will be a FFF about different routes between planets for space platform. There’s 5 planets in total, assuming there’s no other space locations, then theres 15 possible routes in total

[pale pumice]

Is 15 exactly right? you always start with 1 of them

and you have to end at aquilio

[small bear]

why do I have to end at aquilo

I mean routes for space platform travel

if u mean the possible order to vist planets there’s only 6 combinations

as u always start on Nauvis and end on the last planet

[pale pumice]

Oh, I see.

I count more routes

Is not not 5! ?

[rocky plover]

Since they're in orbit, don't all the routes constantly change?

[pale pumice]

5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1

[small bear]

5+4+3+2+1

[small bear]

it would be interesting if they manage to simulate planet movements in star map

[raven bridge]

There's places in between planets

You can't get from Nauvis to the final planet

3 to/from Nauvis, 3 to/from final planet, 3 between middle planets. So 9 total routes.

[small bear]

we don’t know if that’s true tho

[small bear]

no? the middle planets are not located together. Vulcanus is closest to sun and then its Nauvis

if u can go to the last planet directly from Vulcanus I see no reason why u can’t do that from Nauvis

[topaz wing]

i wonder if they'll get something like the train schedule with conditions. I suppose it will

[raven bridge]

Well from Nauvis you can get to all 3 middle planets

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-planet-selection-old.png

[small bear]

it could mean that u currently have platforms flying between these routes

or the fourth planet haven’t been researched

[raven bridge]

I mean this

[small bear]

I mean this

[raven bridge]

And you can see there are 5 planets on the left

• 

[small bear]

those connections could mean whether there’s platforms flying between? Im not confident about this

[raven bridge]

It's planet information

[small bear]

it can be dynamic

[raven bridge]

this means there's a ship traveling between them

[small bear]

u get more biter evoluted

[raven bridge]

Yea but it's more likely that it's not.

[small bear]

it could also mean the connection needs extra research/action to setup

[raven bridge]

Well that's my prediction

[small bear]

plot twist: devs decide to only make 4 routes, all connecting to Nauvis

u have to go to Nauvis as a check point

[grave crag]

4th is not connected to Nauvis

[small bear]

its not connected to Nauvis in the image. it doesn’t mean it will never connect

maybe we need another FFF explaining how to make connections

[sick pond]

DiAgAnAl InSeRtErS???

[rugged onyx]

but why

[pale pumice]

is there a mod you can try stacking with?

It's already in the game technically, right?

[rugged onyx]

not really, that's why i suggested it to boskid in the first place 😛

[raven bridge]

It's only possible with Lua, or manually rotating a belt, and it looks like 1 item on the belt

[pale pumice]

Well, I have to admit I like the addition.

60/s belt is also quite a nice add-on to it. It's 1/t which is very nice :)

[iron venture]

really 2 every other tick though

[pale pumice]

okay, fine

60 is still a very nice and happy number to work with

much much more so than 45.

[rocky plover]

It's nice because you can upgrade belt limiters using yellow and red belts to belt limiters using red and green belt.

[pale pumice]

45's factors are: 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, 45
60's factors are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60

[pure siren]

we get 6.25 times faster crafting and 5.33x faster belts
technically a nerf 🫣

[desert lake]

But we do get to put iron, copper and steel into pipes

[pale pumice]

6.25 isn't even starting it

we have larger and faster machines, such as the foundry.

larger machine means more beacons

and the new machines, at least so far (sample size 1) are faster

[desert lake]

And there are going to be even more crafters which are notably really fast, too

[pale pumice]

Well, we're not sure yet, but it would follow the pattern

[desert lake]

They said it in the stacking fff

[pale pumice]

Really?

Increasing belt throughput was something we had really wanted to do for a while now, and Quality magnified this desire 6.25 times (machines can work 2.5 times faster * speed modules can get 2.5 times faster). Not to mention some of Space Age's producers craft much quicker than assembling machines do.

This?

[pale pumice]

Yes, that would be for example the foundry

[desert lake]

Dang, you were quicker

But it's plural, and personally I expect at least one per planet. But, could be more, or could be less

[pale pumice]

Well, I already know what they are.

I can assure you there are one per planet.

[desert lake]

Yeah yeah the christmas image

[pale pumice]

I think revisiting this image is neat.

Look at the foundry, and how little detail it has here.

[raven bridge]

Because it's based on the item icon

[pale pumice]

This means we can expect those other 2 buildings to be much more intricate than presented as well.

[raven bridge]

For now, we can offer this Christmas postcard Albert has made, which has a sneak peek of some new item icons.

[desert lake]

Also, did you see the new tease for the fulgora building in this year's holiday fff?

[pale pumice]

Yeah, but it's so small!

[raven bridge]

Well we probably saw those buildings

[pale pumice]

Link it if you don't mind

[raven bridge]

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-390-frozen-xmas.png

[desert lake]

To the left iirc

At the edge

[raven bridge]

Left, bottom left, and top right

[pale pumice]

I was wondering how a coil-winder could craft circuits

but if it's anything like the foundry, it likely has other parts to it besides the main feature

[desert lake]

Ooh, circuit crafting, that would really be something

[pale pumice]

I'm reasonably sure it's involved in circuits.

[desert lake]

I somehow managed to disconnect the concepts of circuits and electricity in my mind, and I was wondering what a fulgora building could craft

[pale pumice]

Well, the reason I'm reasonably sure is thus:

[desert lake]

So, the foundry can make LDS, the fulgora circuit winder thingy can make blue chips, and the bwuhuo tank thingy can mix rocket fuel

[pale pumice]

After you land on a planet, you need to launch rockets again in order to get back into space. At the start this is more of a throwback to again experience the stranded feeling. This time the process is already greatly accelerated since you have all the technologies and your space platform can bring you a lot of construction materials. However, building the rocket infrastructure 4 times starts to feel repetitive, so we definitely aimed to have each of the planet's recipes simplify or completely skip some parts.

[desert lake]

Maybe each one can also make a unique special item, and you need all three to make some kind of "super rocket" to reach aquilo?

[raven bridge]

Well you need science packs to reach it

[desert lake]

I am wondering though, how could circuit crafting possibly be any more convenient than vulcanus already makes it? Direct mining of acid for blue chips, and direct casting of copper wire

[pale pumice]

speed and prod alone are enough

ideally, + for

without the

stuff like that

[desert lake]

When the devs added molten metals, I pretty much lost all hope I could try to predict them

Whatever it is, it will definitely blow our minds

[pale pumice]

I'm not entirely sure by any means, but I am reasonably sure fulgora will be circuit related

[desert lake]

It would make sense to complete the sort of trinity

[pale pumice]

We also know it has to abide by the rules of the recycler

Well, they're just running out of items to make easier for the rocket.

These are my guesses

[desert lake]

I really hope bwuhuo expands the usefulness of oil

Right now, outside of the petrol branch, it feels really underwhelming

[pale pumice]

I expect one new use for heavy and light

[desert lake]

Yeah they have like less than 10 uses combined

[pale pumice]

I hope the editor UI doesn't look like this

[raven bridge]

It doesn't

[desert lake]

Legendary placeholder art loaders

[raven bridge]

You have a quality selector at the bottom

[pale pumice]

How do you know