FFF Speculations

[raven bridge]

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-375-logistic-request-with-quality.png

[pale pumice]

That's a request.

I'm talking about editor

Editor will almost certainly not look like that though, I'm mostly joking

[raven bridge]

Last point

[pale pumice]

Yeah, that's pretty clear :P

[pure siren]

When I first saw this I thought the blue machine is crafting a golden pineapple or something.

[pale pumice]

Frankly I don't even know what it's making.

[pure siren]

a golden pineapple

and the machine itself looks a bit like these automated palette wrappers

[bold shard]

so if helps accelerate the rocket component , the other two planets can have means to accelerate and production, which maps to and Fulgora (lightning)

[pale pumice]

See here :)

[bold shard]

yep it makes sense

[pale pumice]

it's kinda like science

we're not sure about anything, but all of our theories work together, and have (hopefully) produce reasonable predictions

[raven bridge]

Will bulks require ?

[desert lake]

Yikes

Well, with the way the game currently treats blue chips, most likely not

But we don’t know to what extent 2.0 will change things up

[small bear]

perhaps u unlock bulk inserter on fulgora where u also get better production.

if we follow that pattern, u probably unlock on as u have foundry to mass produce gears

[pale pumice]

Then do you have the slightest clue what we'll make on Bacchus?

[small bear]

may give some military toys as I expect it give better access to , explosives etc

[raven bridge]

The whole planet is alive, with vines that blocks our

[small bear]

[raven bridge]

Nothing a small 🔥 can't fix

[small bear]

since better belt and better inserter are on separate planets, will there be another logistics method upgrade on another planet?

can’t imagine better rails or trains. elevated rails is purple science

better bots?

stack logistics bots

with upgradable cargo size up to 16

hummmm…. better power poles?

I do wonder what that red substation tower does in that FFF image

[vagrant pumice]

electric trains? a new train tier? logistic biters

domestic biters would be insane

[iron venture]

electric trains with built-in power connection along the rails would be cool

my prediction is still vulcanus enemies

[vagrant pumice]

actually I think we will see vulcanus science and research

[desert lake]

I pray for this every day

Even though objectively it would suck a little bit if it was added

Because the little remaining usefulness of light oil would go 💀

Especially in 2.0, where you don’t need nearly as much rocket fuel

[iron venture]

you'll be launching a ton of rockets though

[desert lake]

I’m more interested in the amount of different places an item is used, rather than the quantity

[raven bridge]

I don't understand the power on rails thing that people keep asking for

why not put radars on rails? or turrets?

why power specifically

[pale pumice]

Because they want electric trains to use that power

[pale pumice]

You'll need a lot more rocket fuel in 2.0

well, in SA+2.0

[iron venture]

because with power and rails you're basically doing the same thing: connecting something far away to your main base.

they do the same thing, just carry different stuff

[sweet wind]

I like the tinting solution they came up with for higher belt speeds, will fix it for modded belts as well

Also funny to see boskid's joking around be taken seriously and put into the game

I was there!

[sweet wind]

Specifically because anywhere you send rails, you also need power (congrats if you're the one person who uses separated power networks).
The thought process was now that you can send rails over water, you should also be able to send power over water (going around a lake with power but over it with rail seems a bit redundant).
This was alleviated a little with mineable landfill and super force building, but it would still be nice to either have power be carried by rail or be able to place large power poles on water.

[rocky plover]

I don't see the issue with just force-building large power poles over water, which then auto-places landfill underneath each one.

[sweet wind]

Well, yeah, that's why I said it's helped by mineable landfill and super force building

Super force building and mineable landfill was announced after elevated rail

[iron venture]

It's not that it's hard to drop power poles, it's that it's kind of redundant to have to bring 2 things over.

[sweet wind]

I don't necessarily agree with it being redundant, but before they announced mineable landfill I'd hate to permanently landfill in between elevated rail just to get power somewhere.

[raven bridge]

water poles seem like a no brainer for 2.0

[iron venture]

how about electric rails that damage biters that walk over them?

[raven bridge]

But also players

[small bear]

electric rails is unlikely. devs doesn’t seem to want train fuels and large power poles to be obsolete

[iron venture]

You could easily make train fuels non-obsolete by having electric powered trains be slower than fueled trains. And I don't think large power poles would be obsoleted, there are lots of scenarios where you want to move just power a ways

Or even just much slower acceleration - that would make electrics trains good for long distances but bad for places with lots of train traffic

[raven bridge]

Electric trains IRL have much better acceleration

Even fueled trains just use fuel to charge batteries

[iron venture]

irl trains are also not powered by rocket fuel

but then that would make more sense to have electric trains just be slower

[small bear]

well, this would just make electric train obsolete if they have lower acceleration. fueling and power poles are not difficult at all to do

[pale pumice]

The developers just put in major effort to re-do the train system, in part to fix the refueling issue.

I think it's reasonably clear they're not going with electric trains, mostly because they're uninteresting.

[rocky plover]

I think the philosophy is as you progress, the things you get are better AND more complicated.

Steam engine boilers with the perfect 1:2 ratio that are really easy to make -> nuclear reactors

The only exception being electric furnaces which are worse and less complicated

[vagrant pumice]

It shouldn't make fuel obsolete but it would be a nice alternative to have trains with rechargeables batteries, they can charge at the station or something

besides even if the devs have a vision it doesn't mean we should play just the way they want, it is a sandbox game anyway, it gets better with more options

[sweet wind]

I would have to disagree, for the base game/expansion the devs will restrict the development to their vision, the greatest sandbox element they promote is modding, where you can absolutely use whatever types of trains you want. There are functionally unlimited options with mods.

More options doesn't always mean better gameplay as well, the more options there are the harder it is to maintain a clear vision and balance of gameplay systems.

[vagrant pumice]

yea that's a valid point

[fluid lichen]

there might be a random chance of finding planets or having to explore something in space to do something. because it seams not all space platforms will have factories on them. like platforms that are made to be like satellites or logic transmitters between planets. (something along those lines)

[pale pumice]

I believe 'or not' was referring to little

[sweet wind]

All space platforms are factory platforms, you need to convert the asteroids into fuel and ammo for defence. Mobile platforms are the only way to transport materials from one planet to the other, but we've got confirmation that you will probably have at least 1 stationary 'satellite' platform for making space science in space.
Having another platform specifically for transmitting signals(?) seems redundant, they've given hints towards the space platform request logic to be quite a bit stronger/more flexible than train scheduling/bot requests

[pale pumice]

Also, I'm amazed how clearly you can read 'Fulgora' now that you know it's Fulgora

[sweet wind]

Brains are good at what they do

[desert lake]

Has anyone had the thought that fulgora might have some magnetism related stuff

[pale pumice]

No, albeit that is a good hunch.

At least I haven't heard much talk of it.

[sweet wind]

I did post ages ago about the new building being something electromagnet adjacent

with coils and electricity and stuff

But I haven't put much thought into how it would fit into progression or new items

[scarlet bane]

I’m thinking it’s just a name of the ship/ train. Like enterprise

[past nova]

Craziest prediction, underwater planet.
ie. next level Seablock

Swimming biter fish.
Refine everything from the water or sandy seabed.

I mean, the more I think about it, the less it would work, obviously,
( how does electricity, or power production, or even being able to see from the player's top down perspective work)

But I wouldn't put it past the devs to have even spitballed it once

[desert lake]

I feel like minable landfill almost necessitates biters to be able to cross water one way or another

[raven bridge]

They confirmed no swimming, but haven't said anything about diving

[pure siren]

or floating

[desert lake]

Maybe only a majority of the planet is underwater, and when first landing you will be on a small landmass (they have proven that they can force a specific type of starting area for each planet). Then, you need to research a submarine and/or diving suit to be able to epxloit the underwater resources

[desert lake]

Factorio x Raft crossover

[past nova]

Also, its worth noting why "Fulgora" means the goddess of Lightning, not necessarily because of the electrical component of Lightning (the ancient romans had no concept of electricity at the time), but rather the Light aspect, and suggests it might have very high solar-yield.

What probably makes more sense, and is easier to implement, engine-wise, are perhaps solar/EMP-storms that knockout the electricals of your factory, meaking the player sink resources into non-electrical biter-defense and production:

• Flamethrowers/Gun Turrets
• Burner miners, burner smelteries, burner inserters (PLEASE ADD FUEL SPEED-BONUSES TO BURNER INSERTERS).

[desert lake]

I have seen some people predict fulgora to be a desert planet

Judging by its planet icon

But the teased building makes me stick to the lightning idea

That and the metal/fuel/circuits trinity

Though… now that I think about it… irl circuits are made of sand, aren’t they?

Huh

[pure siren]

"sand" lol
yes

[past nova]

shhh, they're made of two extremely conductive metals with little to no potential differential pancaked together
trust me bro

[desert lake]

Never ever try to interpret what an item represents solely based on its item icon

[vagrant pumice]

Wait, in the remote view FFF there is a magnetic field info for the planets

[scarlet bane]

[vagrant pumice]

it can't be just for lore, right?

pressure and gravity too

I mean it really seems like it is some desert and stormy planet more than anything

can't wait to friday

[desert lake]

I think it can

[vagrant pumice]

[small bear]

deserts and mountains? lightning and mountains are quite compatible

[desert lake]

Simple: It’s a planet with sandstorms, and the friction of the sand generates static electricity, resulting in lightning as well

[past nova]

bots on Fulgora is gonna suck, I'm betting some kind of attrition is going to take place, if lightning/EMP storms are a thing

[pure siren]

Lightning provides infinite charge maybe?

[small bear]

then bots won’t need recharge on Fulgora

imagine logi bots with no need of charging

[pure siren]

no wasting time returning to the roboport for charging :)

[rocky plover]

I really doubt Fulgora will be desert. We already have Vulcanus as a desert planet (except much more interesting since it has volcanoes) and Nauvis also has deserts too. Deserts are kind of done now.

[grave crag]

I think Fulgora will have CVE

(or other equivaent weather)

[rocky plover]

CVE?

[grave crag]

https://spaceexploration.miraheze.org/wiki/Coronal_Mass_Ejection

[halcyon bolt]

teased building

?

[pure siren]

There're 3 buildings teased in the 2022 recap:
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-372

[scarlet bane]

45.5 hours left

[grave crag]

I wonder if there be heat decay for heat pipes

[small bear]

this tho. Perhaps rocky desert and mountains?

[scarlet bane]

Considering Bacchus is also a member of the pantheon

[desert lake]

That could also potentially be reddish sand 😳

[rocky plover]

Sand at the bottom of an ocean

The water was removed to avoid spoilers / because it isn't done yet

[gilded mica]

Perhaps something science related with extreme energy costs. Would fit the storm planet.

[small bear]

particle accelerator

[raven bridge]

#friday-facts message
Important enough leak to put here as well

[pure siren]

Splitters may need a new feature: Sorting by stack height.

[raven bridge]

The leaked image shows: Red sand planet. Recyclers in flipped orientations. Recyclers stack. Some item requires , , and . Nothing in vanilla uses just those 3 items.

[small bear]

it could be recyclers recycling themselves

#friday-facts message

[small bear]

also concrete

[raven bridge]

Yes

[small bear]

seems too complex for the new blue machine or any one of the signature machines on the first 3 planets. Id assume it is something that comes after one of the planet science

so recycler is possible

it would be hilarious if it turns out we need to collect in orbit in order to make on because u can only get molten iron not ore from lava

[pure siren]

Do we know what happens when recycling iron/copper plates?

[past nova]

was just thinking this

[small bear]

recycling any chemistry/smelting recipes just output the same input but with 25%chance

[subtle temple]

The next FFF will be about this new fun (for the whole family) feature: Machine Wear

[bold shard]

it is nice to see recycle output can stack. that will make things slightly easier to manage if mass-recycling items

[desert lake]

But I highly doubt the recycler would be that expensive

It seems like an early mid game item to me

[pale pumice]

I personally hope concrete recipe is ammended :(

It needing iron ore has been annoying for a long time

[desert lake]

It is indeed super annoying

[pale pumice]

It's a logistical puzzle for sure, but not a fun to solve or satisfying one, at least in my opinion.

[desert lake]

I don’t care how expensive refined concrete becomes as a consequence of this, but the normal concrete recipe should use iron sticks like refined does now

[bold shard]

if each planet has a very good benefit, its fair to see each can have a glaring issue with it too

[pale pumice]

Also, I'd like to mention you'd be far more likely to ship in iron ore, than to space mine it nearby

[desert lake]

Ship in, like, from other planets?

Space-ship in?

[pale pumice]

yes

space-ship it in

[desert lake]

That seems kind of wasteful, you’d have to pay for all those rockets, just for concrete

I’d much rather stick to space platforms if at all possible

[pale pumice]

you'll have 30 of them mining iron ore

[past nova]

Eh, its a tossup between the LLN of average iron-ore gather rate in space vs. the controlled regularity of shipping it from another planet.

[pale pumice]

They don't 'mine' very quickly, I think.

LLM?

[past nova]

law of large numbers....(fixed)

[pale pumice]

LLM is large language model

[desert lake]

Well if it’s a dedicated platform for just mining, you can make it as large as you’d like, since it’s immobile and doesn’t even need to defend itself

[past nova]

goddamn this day and age, so many acronyms to keep track of

[pale pumice]

It does if it wants to ... mine?

[desert lake]

When in orbit of a planet, only little asteroids will fly in

They don’t need to get shot up, they can be collected right away

[past nova]

I suppose platforms can stay above a certain planet, no?

Were multiple platforms in multiple orbits allowed?

[pale pumice]

Yeah, they are.

[bold shard]

I dont think the number of platforms matter in a certain location

[pale pumice]

In fact, they're a bit of a necessity, you'll want a 'sattelite' to do

[bold shard]

they all seem disconnected from each other

[past nova]

I meant more if you aren't restricted to one platform per orbit

[pale pumice]

That's actually their biggest 'limitation', they can only 'talk' with one-another via ground-hubs.

[pale pumice]

You are not :)

Well, what do you mean orbit?

If you mean around a given planet, no. You can have as many as you want.

[past nova]

As in close to a planet

[pale pumice]

If you mean per surface, it is a limit of 1. There will never be two platforms on one surface (platforms are a surface)

[past nova]

Because platforms can move between planets.

[desert lake]

Sidenote I am super curious about carbon and ice having more uses. The devs did mention advanced crusher recipes will be coming. And metallic asteroids are only “metallic”, no specific metal named, so maybe eventually we’ll be able to get copper out of them as well

[pale pumice]

We know so much yet so little

Every week could be 'yeah, that follows' or 'oh my god this changes everything'

[past nova]

God I just want the black space background to have a blurred but slowly encroaching/disappearing planetoid "skybox" depending on how close/far you are to which planet/star

Give some visual feedback of where you are

[pale pumice]

I also think that would be cool, I kinda hope it's in 2.1 though.

They have 7 months-ish, and I want it spent on other things :)

[past nova]

they can take another year if they want, they've done it before and it was worth it for 0.18/1.0

[pale pumice]

They can, but they've said many times that they do not believe they're going to.

I'm going to take them at face-value for now, even if my developer instincts tell me otherwise.

[bold shard]

I wonder if there will be any overview screen that shows where the platforms are on a map, or if it will just be like the train map showing its either at planet x, or its going from x -> y

[past nova]

[bold shard]

will platforms have groups too, like trains?

[small bear]

recycler is actually a mid/late game thing. devs mentioned u won’t unlock it on Nauvis. And if u can’t afford expensive recyclers, u probably shouldn’t do recycling in the first place

[pale pumice]

I think we're going to see Fulgora next.

We haven't even seen a peek at Bacchus.

[small bear]

but we have

[pale pumice]

Sure, we've seen the icon.

But we don't have a single screenshot.

We have multiple of 'red desert place'

We can't see a lot of the ground here, but is it very boring

[past nova]

that represents a whole new kind of overlay, which, if you want it to be realistic, would require a new rendition of the current map-view to render as a solar-system map.

Experience shows that you don't build something super complex just for one thing if you could otherwise spend another 10% effort on top and make it flexible for many things. ie. the train schedule design now being used for multi-condition decider-combs.

So the question is more what other things would/could that feature be implemented in, or if a solar system map can be implemented as a version of the regular map logic.

[pale pumice]

I would almost suspect Fulgora is currently just an exansive red tile right now, with virutally no features.

[desert lake]

Oh, in that case, I stand corrected

I really don’t remember the “not on nauvis” part

[pale pumice]

Guys, it's not a recycler though.

[desert lake]

But, it’s interesting that we now know two quality related things will be space locked ( and recycler). What are the chances of them both being on the same planet?

[pale pumice]

Look in #friday-facts

I believe you are missing something.

[bold shard]

you make a good argument... it will probably be the same as the train overview window then, perhaps with some other way to filter platforms over a given planet.

[small bear]

yeah u r right, they didn’t say not on Nauvis, just this

[past nova]

It would be very nice to be able to continue a scroll-zoom-out to further out than a planet/Nauvis map layer, to show said solar-system overview, where the individual platforms are clickable to bring you to that surface remote view.

Otherwise WASD moving the map-view, then centering over remotely-viewable surfaces, such as a platform or colonized planet and mouse-scrolling-in would be such a seamless experience...

[subtle temple]

Maybe tomorrows FFF will be about weapons?

[small bear]

next FFF about 3D solar system map

[desert lake]

Tungsten artillery rounds

[rugged onyx]

orbital kinetic weapons

[pale pumice]

Next FFF about building flipping

[rugged onyx]

Flippable Crafting Machines (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

[pale pumice]

low developer activity 6 hours before FFF

expected impact: low

[sweet wind]

This FFF - decision/discussion of renaming stack inserters, no guesses from me could go either way.
This and next FFF, not sure which. Entity chirality - flipping buildings with asymmetric inputs/outputs. New planet, probably the lightning/storm one (Fulgora)

[past nova]

gotta admit, lowkey wondering what other widely used mod(s) is/are on the chopping block as a result.

[sweet wind]

I think we're running quite low on widely used QOL mods that they'd actually put into the game
My best guesses would be something like https://mods.factorio.com/mod/GDIW and perhaps some aspects of https://mods.factorio.com/mod/CursorEnhancements

I'm sure there are others out there that I haven't heard of though

[elder raptor]

I don't think that means anything; I'd more look at activity half an hour before

[pale pumice]

true

low-medium

the train FFF had a lot of activity 5-6h before

[rocky plover]

Editor extensions for sandbox mode?

[vagrant pumice]

my guess is a little tease at Bacchus concept

but I'm wishing for new recipes and machines

[grave crag]

Flippable inserters

[raven bridge]

It's actually important because flipping breaks builds

[tough ginkgo]

per-recipe production stats
new music
also some 6671f75d7955840b405b221adc3608ec

[grave crag]

some whaaaaat

[tough ginkgo]

i accidentally hashed the rest of that sentence

[raven bridge]

Today will be SA content

[topaz wing]

The Art of the Belt

[grave crag]

I guess it won't be , that'll be in 3 weeks

[elder raptor]

This is gonna be some art stuff. Wonder what

[raven bridge]

Did I win? 😄

[past nova]

Alright, who had Blueprint Flipping?

[raven bridge]

well at some point I said it

[past nova]

Think you did

[small bear]

#friday-facts messagenot sure if that’s a good prediction

[sweet wind]

I know I got the flipping, didnt get the circuits though that's cool

I'll be really happy if next week is fulgora

[past nova]

Ok, here's a really controversial prediction:

Extendable/Connectable Splitters.

Universally TU Balance everything with a single wide phalanx of Splitters.

[small bear]

I think it would not inspire more designs. It would remove many designs actually

[raven bridge]

1x1 splitters

[elder raptor]

One of the reasons we haven't been getting planetary stuff and the like, is likely because they haven't finished the graphics and coding of them yet. It takes time

I'm excited for all the small things for sure

[subtle temple]

speaking of controversial, fluid update

[raven bridge]

Fluid won't get an update unless something big happens with it

Internals are OK enough for what we have. They will only change it if a new feature needs it

[elder raptor]

I believe

[pale pumice]

ding ding ding

[raven bridge]

We had it coming for a while now

That and building circuitry

We're running out of leaks

We still have the tower, the book, the 2 buildings, cut recycled recipe, and recipe that was recycled there

[pale pumice]

the BOOK?

what

[paper herald]

holup where do leaks come from?

[pale pumice]

we don't talk about that

[paper herald]

I didn't know there were leaks :o

[pale pumice]

it's against wube policy

(or secretly maybe part of their policy)

I wouldn't be surprised if the NDA said to be as cryptic and intriging as possible and to occasionally leak information

[raven bridge]

Fff-380 shows a book in the top right

Next to the space map etc

[pale pumice]

in game guide

like wiki

is at least my guess?

[grave crag]

There were shitposts of modded 1x1 splitters forming

[raven bridge]

Ye, a built in recipe book

RecipeBook 4 is ages in development, and then they hired the dev

[vocal rock]

which picture has book in it?

[half mountain]

that one

[raven bridge]

Top right

It also has the tower

[vocal rock]

thanks, now i see it)

[raven bridge]

And foundry recipes using calcite

[half mountain]

can we zoom in? is there a flipped oil build in here too?

[raven bridge]

Flipped oil we had in a different fff

[half mountain]

I know, I'm just wondering if it's visible here and we just missed it because it's nearly impossible for us to descern what it was from just these colors

[sick pond]

I want medium inserters.

They take items from right next to them, and deposit them 2 tiles away, or the reverse.

[rugged onyx]

The more directions inserters can go, the less creative designs we get. Limitations breed creativity. After seeing how bobs inserters can be abused, I'm kind of glad we don't have that in vanilla

[half mountain]

just wait till bobs inserters can unload from elevated rails

[sick pond]

That does make sense, I will need to test that mod now.

[desert lake]

Bob’s elevated rails

10 different elevation levels

[rugged onyx]

Hah, if only we can have airplane logistics

[scarlet bane]

Bob retired

[half mountain]

sad

[raven bridge]

Bob's mods have different maintainers now

Also Angel's

And Py's too tbh

Not to mention Krastor doesn't do Krastorio anymore

[distant tendon]

Just wait until cars can dump cargo into chests right below them :D

[desert lake]

You know, I love trains as much as the next guy, and I’m aware of how unpractical and hard to execute it would be, but car/truck based logistics would be really funny

Making actual concrete roads for them and everything

[grave crag]

DoshTransportDroned.mp4

[half mountain]

elevated rail -> bulk rail loader -> klonans transport drone loader -> road network.

[desert lake]

Logistics and construction robots replaced by humanoid androids that are stored in buildings and drive cars to get to work

[half mountain]

wait no, not like this

[elder raptor]

Satisfactory does this, and it's as hilarious as you expect

most of the time it works fine

but when it doesn't it's hilarious

[rugged onyx]

A hopper system would make sense for an elevated train to dump into, but I doubt it

Kind of goes against the inserter based game we know

[desert lake]

I fully expect elevated trains to be inaccessible to logistics

And you have to bring them down to load/unload them

As part of the challenge

[raven bridge]

I know Factorio is a game about logistics, but can we get something which isn't just moving items from one place to another?

[pale pumice]

what else do you want?

[pure siren]

A machine that turns items into different items?

[desert lake]

Hey, I already said housing and traffic

[raven bridge]

Dunno, maybe weather?

Pollution to be something more relevant

Something more "in the world"

Rather than just "input items -> output items"

[desert lake]

Well there will be

Space platforms

With the “space” limitations

And rocket costs

[raven bridge]

ya, that's one

I want moooooooore

And we'll probably get more on the new planets

[pure siren]

Space platforms
With the “space” limitations
And rocket costs
that sounds like more logistics tho

[raven bridge]

Well it's a very different mode of transport. Belts, rails, bots are all technically interchangeable. Space platforms are different, with different request mechanisms etc.

[rocky plover]

Shooting bugs with a flamethrowee?

Wait that's also just moving stuff, in this case oil from a pumpjack to a biter.

[paper herald]

oh here I was thinking like social engineering leak like the GTA 6 leaks :P

[elfin zenith]

Wait, so...
SHOOTING A GUN IS TECHNICALLY LOGISTICS!?

Because the bullet has to go, in the gun:
Mag -> Receiver -> Barrel -> Biter.

And to make that bullet, it has to go;
Miner -> Smelter -> Assembler -> Gun

[past nova]

New prediction:

All planets will be revealed, and then we'll get new enemies with their own native mechanic for each respective planet, which, to make it interesting, are vulnerable to weapons requiring resources not found on that planet.

Perhaps lava-worms and fire resistant enemies on Vulcanus. Discharge resistant, very fast bois on Fulgora, finally other planets have bugs that, themselves, are very quick to evolve and become tougher as they wander into chunks with high evolution, making them difficult to kill as you approach as a swarm. Maybe flying enemies unhindered by walls or mines.

"oh cute, a swarm of small bi- oh crap..."

[rugged onyx]

I predict Biters will become more of a threat. The problem with biters at present is that as long as you automate some defense, biters are pretty easy to deal with

[desert lake]

Whenever I think about this, I always remember that one reddit comment by V453000

Which I will now try to find

AHA

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/97zqqk/comment/e4d2x3q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

It's a short comment chain with some rando, not a single comment

But the point there

[rugged onyx]

It's true, and the fact is that the base game tries to be accessible to everyone, but at a certain point biters stop being a threat and it is disappointing when you reach that point

You can always play hard mode and nerf your own defensese

[pale pumice]

I wholeheartedly agree with v453000's post here.

[desert lake]

But hey, the devs are cooking something up for sure

At the absolute very minimum, the different “military targets” of the new planets will require completely new defense designs, and that’s not even mentioning the new defense methods that have already been teased

But I doubt they’ll just stop there

[pale pumice]

The biters serve their role well, they're not really supposed to be a 'it will kill you' threat, but a logistical and production challenge - they're very right about bases with and without biters proving that the biters are doing their job

[past nova]

I really do like SE's way of going about it, where being able to completely "cleanse" a planet (by killing all living objects, including the organic base resource you need for a certain research) is a reward and that has the added bonus of being able to clear unused chunks.

This saves UPS.

Now considering we'd only get in total 5 planets, not the tens or hundres of little locations like in SE, this issue might be non-existent. But it going about the issue in a different way, by setting a Devils Bargain as a goal, is quite a fresh perspective, because it lets you pursue your version of an endgame without what has become just a "running cost".

[pure siren]

So you shouldn't be there to watch while cleansing a planet?

[past nova]

Errr, you probably can, but I think getting run over by a train is more exciting.

Hell, SE doesn't even show asteroid impacts.

You just see a chunk of factory get damaged/disappear

[pure siren]

I was alluding to the all living objects part

[rugged onyx]

well that's why I'm glad SA has only 5 planets instead of SE having a few dozen active

[desert lake]

Quality over quantity

[raven bridge]

Trickster biter rotates your buildings

Friendly creatures that you don't want to kill

[late venture]

Do we really need those when there's gonna be at least 3 hotkeys you can accidentally press over a building to mess them up?

[raven bridge]

I hope the flipping doesn't let you flip if it connects different fluids.

[pale pumice]

see: #friday-facts

[desert lake]

https://tenor.com/view/rotate-gif-25402076

My poor gun turrets will have to go through this

[raven bridge]

Eaxctly.

[half mountain]

oh no, maybe the MIRV will be coming after all...

I would love some nice end game technology to "mow the lawn"

[desert lake]

Mirv with 20x cheaper rockets…

Horrifying mental image

For a biter, at least

But, funny, mirv or no mirv, in 2.0 we are sending uranium into space anyway

[bold shard]

if production is getting dramatically ramped up (belts, quality, new machines like foundry and big miner, etc), it should mean a whole new class of high end expensive items will be unlocked

FFF 373: The rocket is cheaper in Space Age to not make it drag forever, but you still are expected to build bigger in preparation of what is to come.

so far we've only seen a few new items, the vast majority of FFF posts have been new mechanics or internal changes to the game

aside from science, quality, or building up your base normally like in vanilla factorio, there will likely be other big places to pour large amounts of your resources into

[raven bridge]

[desert lake]

Do keep in mind that even if rockets will be “cheaper”, they definitely won’t be “cheap”

Still more expensive than any one thing in vanilla factorio, and you’ll need to be launching them in the hundreds to support interplanetary logistics

So that’s one thing already

[bold shard]

other than quality. ie, normal quality items costing 1000+ , and things like that

[desert lake]

4 giving 100% productivity though 😳

[sweet wind]

It'll be 50 each of without potentially 100% productivity so significantly cheaper than a number of things

[desert lake]

Well I said “single thing”

Like, single item

I mean I didn’t check super thoroughly, just things like nuclear reactor and tier 3 module, but maybe there really is something

[sweet wind]

Portable fusion reactor, power armour mk2 and nuclear reactors come to mind

Kinda funny how cheap they are making a full rocket compared to those things, but it makes sense for the gameplay

[pure siren]

It fits only 3 stacks of Processing Units, can't be too expensive.

they're also renamed to Blue Fries in 2.0

#friday-facts message

[desert lake]

Ah, totally forgot about personal equipment stuff

Power armor is already 60 blue chips even without the modules

[raven bridge]

Also remember foundry does at +50% base prod

[desert lake]

And the other planets will likely have a similar effect on the other two ingredients

[sweet wind]

Was thinking about this more, they said the rocket would be 20x cheaper before they removed . I assumed that when they said it would use instead it would just be 1-1 conversion, but did they every confirm that?

[bold shard]

good question

[elder raptor]

yeah it's been confirmed

[desert lake]

Sidenote I am extremely glad RCU is going away

[rare canopy]

I think people see the rocket still as an end game motif still, but it is transitioning you from "Act 1" to "Act 2" now within 2.0 so makes sense that its resources are reduced since it is no longer the real end game peice. I like to think Wube is going to add some new motif that replaces what the rocket is now in 1.X and that isn't even factoring in Quality yet.

[sweet wind]

At this point it's hard to imagine the endgame not involving heavy production statistics with legendary recycling loops, as anything that's added can be made more demanding by having to make legendary variants of them.

[rare canopy]

My hope for updates to mention is one to power. Nuclear since it has been added while the task of manufacturing makes sense, I think the maintenance cost for the benefit is way too low even if you don't mange it with circuit conditions.

[sweet wind]

Keep in mind that nuclear uses comparatively very little uranium, especially in comparison to space science in space production

Changes the dynamic a little now that you basically have to have decent uranium production anyway

[rare canopy]

I think this is a hold over from other modded environments adding nukes tends to be delicate mechanisms. The nukes kind of acts like Solar in terms of the upkeep costs. Yeah it can be made to run inefficiently but due to them using very little fuel, it kind of doesn't matter in my experience. I personally feel like there should be more to it.

[sweet wind]

Fair enough, but I tend to disagree when it comes to power generation I guess, it should be a relatively predictable and stable thing in Factorio because of the spiralling effects losing power has

[pure siren]

The focus is also on managing factories, not managing power production.

[small bear]

I wonder if ther will add power priority management

[sweet wind]

If you could read the overall power production/usage through circuits that's all you'd need

[small bear]

say u will be able to set the priority of a power grid more easily using power switches

[rare canopy]

In any case I am expecting other power related stuff if not something like Geothermal gens for Vulcanas or something akin to that

Feels kind of like the writting is on the wall for it.

[sweet wind]

I actually really like this idea, I don't know where you should be able to read the usage statistics from exactly, possibly just an option on power poles, but reading overall usage/production would be awesome and 100% something I could see them adding

[sweet wind]

Vulcanus has psuedo-geothermal power through processing sulfuric acid into steam using calcite

[rare canopy]

fair enough I guess that is exactly what a geothermal gen would do anyway in this game

I would not mind more Bot related stuff. The things shown already I am quite happy to see and I do like going bot heavy for logistcs solving though the UPS on servers do no like it

[sweet wind]

Bot's are getting a pretty significant buff just with the changes they mentioned in FFF#374, I wouldn't hold my breath for anything too significant to make them stronger.
I hope to be surprised by just how much better bots and roboports are though, faster charging and bigger batteries are pretty nice.

[rare canopy]

For some reason I did not consider Legendary bots and roboports

I guess that is fair seeing as we got...The Insters formaly known as Bulk Inserters...

and the new speedy boi

[sweet wind]

Heavy bot swarms will be necessary for really large bases as well, there are only so many tiles next to a landing pad so beyond that you need bots to move the items out of it.

I hope we see more planets this friday . My bet's on seeing Fulgora next.

[rare canopy]

Wonder if they should name the Stack Inserters in 1.0 currently to Bulk Inserter...idk what that could break but I feel like conversations could get awkward around it with the inbetween nature of versions we are.

Ice Planet let's goo

or did I miss them divulging all the themes of the planets?

Maybe a water based upgrade? especially if one of the planets is water based.

[cursive cave]

I think we will get some info about what special new tech depends on vulcanis, but I have no idea what that will be

[rare canopy]

Yeah I am not sure what kind of logistic challenges are being added for the new sicence tiers.

[cursive cave]

Well, they kinda explained the logistics challenge of vulcanis (extracting resources from lava), but not what it rewards (unless the reward is the train bridge tech or similar I guess)

[rocky plover]

I think train bridge tech will be purple science.

[rare canopy]

A lot of things from that planet are huge buffs the new Miner and Liquid Metal manufactuering seems quite potent.

[cursive cave]

oh, fair

[rare canopy]

Skipping the need to make plates is kind of huge

[cursive cave]

then yeah, I guess its time for another planet indeed

[rare canopy]

Though having to contend with pipe logic might be a downgrade to some.

IDK if they will let you barrel this.

though at that point might as well make plates maybe

[cursive cave]

pipes are so much better anywhere you can use them though, right? you can just make a liquid bus, unless you want to ship liquids off-planet

[rare canopy]

Well knowing the issues with setting up Alaskan Pipe Lines in the game is the gartuatious need for pumps to prevent odd dead spots from occuring

Also idk if they are going to let you pump this unless we get new items. I am fine with lava in an iron bucket happening but I feel like Factorio tend to lean toward being somewhat more grounded. Even more so if it provides logistic issues to solve.

[cursive cave]

fair, I'm used to mods where they let you pipe around plasma, molten metals, or even like emotional states

[rare canopy]

mmm I feel like Wube would let you do that but I imagine they would give you Tungstan based alloys to deal with crazy hot materials

for instance whether this is done or not remains to be seen

[cursive cave]

wube doesn't mind you piping around sulfuric acid in iron pipes, so idk, its probably fine

[rare canopy]

I guess I never considered that

[cursive cave]

or using belts in 0g 😛

[rare canopy]

something else I did not consider

[cursive cave]

that said, they keep things grounded enough to not break your immersion too badly generally, but not to the point where it impacts on gameplay

there has been an (imho underused) temperature system for liquids in the game, and making pipes be sensentive to it would be a neat addition

[rare canopy]

Kind of opening that up a bit with making Tungsten a new matieral

[cursive cave]

... this is the first time I ever actually bothered to experiment with this and confirm that it works. I always just took peoples word for it that steam mixing was possible

[rare canopy]

Steam Mixing?

[cursive cave]

yeah, you can take the 415C steam from exchangers and 165C steam from boilers and mix them into other temperatures

there is just no reason to ever do this, and I haven't even seen mods utilize this ability to mix meaningfully, but the game does technically does track the temperature of liquids this way

[rare canopy]

odd mechanic feels more like an organic outcome of the logic they are using then anything intentional with mechanics

[raven bridge]

I want to mix steam and water, but can't

[cursive cave]

I always though it would be cool to like have, like, an assember that is more efficient the hotter the input steam, but explodes if its over 300C or something, to create complex steam temperature balancing shenanigans. and you could do similar with other liquids too

[rare canopy]

pneumatic explosions

my favorite kind

[cursive cave]

shuffling heat around in interesting ways is like half of Oxygen Not Included, but I wouldn't mind a bit of it in factorio too 🙂

[rare canopy]

We got a Fission Reactor now onto a Fusion Recator. We craft a portable one...

[sweet wind]

The names themselves divulge the theming: #friday-facts message

(presumably, it worked for Vulcanus)

[rare canopy]

Other then that one I am not sure what the root words are that indicats the theme

[sweet wind]

Each is a roman god, Bacchus for harvest, Fulgora for storms/thunder, Aquillo for nothern winds/cold/winter

[rare canopy]

Harvest eh?

[sweet wind]

well, other things as well but guesses are that's the most relevant, vegetation, fertility, harvest, etc

Greek equivalent is Dionysus, Wikipedia describes as God of wine, vegetation, fertility, festivity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre

[subtle temple]

not sure if splitters can have filters set by signals and/or set priority in/out, if not, then I predict this will be in the next FFF

[pure siren]

that and sorting by stack height

not sure it'll be in the next FFF tho

[small bear]

technically u can already achieve similar things by enable/disable belts that connects to corresponding splitters. I’m not sure what are the use cases that need setting spliter filters by signals. If u really want u can use inserter filters. For sorting stack height, u probably can just branch a full height bus to production by splitters/stack inserters so u won’t leave non full stack on belt

[pure siren]

We have programmable ASMs now soon. The obivous and most flexible choice to feed them is bots. Achieving the same behaviour with belts only will be a lot more convoluted when splitters aren't programmable as well.

[subtle temple]

"Achieving the same behaviour with belts only will be a lot more convoluted" <- this is why I hope they add controll logic for splitters

[small bear]

I think if u want to use belts for programmable assemblers, u probably have to use sushi belt + filtered inserters. having programmable splitters won’t help

I just don’t see what scenario can be significantly simplified by having programmable splitters

also u probably don’t need to use programmable assemblers for an item that is mass produced, so filtered inserters can handle the throughput without using splitters

programmable assemblers are probably only for those quality mall items where u don’t need a constant flow of

[pure siren]

Programmable assemblers are invaluable when kickstarting the quality module production.

[past nova]

Here's an FFF prediction:

- posila
"You now get to toggle which warning icons show up on every screen they show up in, and their size."
"That flashing yellow screen of missing Prod3 modules lighting up your bedroom at 3AM in the morning?

"Gone."

"Have a nice weekend.

As always, send your alerts, warnings, and dangers to let us know what you think

[pure siren]

they won't hear much, if everything's turned off 😂

Unrelated prediction:
SA gives us new science packs in new locations. The shipping fees will be too high to send everything to one central place.
I predict we won't have to have all different science pack in a single lab to research stuff.

[rocky plover]

The problem when you do this is that you still end up with 4 items that have "gone the wrong way" and then you need to somehow get rid of them which is annoying.

[small bear]

I don’t see why 16 or 100 existing on the bus branch is something annoying. if u care about items on belts that much why not just

[pure siren]

Every single item counts when programming your ASMs.

[small bear]

idk but on sushi belt every item loops on the belt so there won’t be items sent to the ‘wrong way’ and need to be removed

[short roost]

Ooor you have different methods of making them on different planets

Maybe red science packs can be made with stone and lava on vulcanus

[pure siren]

I was thinking the other way around. Vulcanus science surely needs tungsten to produce. I don't think we'll get a watered down version that we can make on Nauvis.

[desert lake]

I PRAY for this feature

Shipping science sucks

And lab arrays are boring

[pure siren]

add sushi to make them fun

[elder raptor]

that first part has been confirmed. second part would be interesting

[desert lake]

I’ve wanted that even for just 1.0 sciences

[pure siren]

That's why my prediction starts after the first part 🫣

I think the official SA announcement (FFF-373) contradicts me already:

The space platforms are used on their own to generate space science, but mainly, they are eventually used to travel to different planets, and for automated interplanetary logistics.

[desert lake]

Well, they didn’t specify what exactly we’ll be transporting

But they did explicitly talk about science packs in rockets in the logistic groups fff

And how they bent the weight rules for them because they wanted to let players put lots of them in a rocket easily

1k per rocket

Very good number imo 😳

1 rocket of uranium used to craft 1k space science, 1 rocket used to send 1k of planet science back to labs…

Though productivity modules have me a teeny tiny bit worried about the first one

Might throw things off, but honestly who would really care

It’s free stuff

[pure siren]

there goes my prediction

[iron venture]

since transporting from platform in orbit to planet is free there's no further logistics to worry about for space science after making the science packs, so you'll be launching fewer rockets than for other sciences but it won't affect anything else

[pale pumice]

prediction: Bacchus next week

bold, but what else could be so many gifs?

[raven bridge]

Were we promised many gifs?

[bold shard]

#friday-facts message

[raven bridge]

Oooh

[bold shard]

promising outlook

[raven bridge]

Hopefully new mechanics

[rugged onyx]

That's a funny way to spell Bwuhuo

Devs might just rename Bacchus for the meme

[pale pumice]

I'd be pretty upset to be honest.

[late venture]

If you're gonna correct people at least get it right lol

[rugged onyx]

What is it then?

[late venture]

Bwuhuo

[rugged onyx]

That's what I typed

(edited)

[late venture]

Must have been the wind

[small bear]

I feel like it’s gonna be a qol FFF

because Klonan writes it

[pale pumice]

makes sense, but 10-16 gifs?!

[small bear]

probably a big qol

or some non planet new features

like circuit stuff

perhaps we will see the finished space platform construction animation

reworked assembler!

[pale pumice]

what would reworked assembler even mean

[small bear]

graphics rework

also electric furnace

[bold shard]

it has to be something good

what kind of boring FFF would have so many videos

[small bear]

hopefully it will be a long one

plot twist: the next FFF only contains GIFs

no text

[elder raptor]

so many people skim through the text and look only at the images lol, that'd work

[iron venture]

lots of gifs sounds like moving parts

I'd expect earendel to write the intros for new planets like he did for vulcanus

I predict vulcanus enemies

[rare canopy]

I listen to Xterminator read them as I am doing other things so I guess that counts as skimming

The unofficial audio book of FFF

[cursive cave]

longshot: giant gears and rods and pistons to assemble into big multipart machines

[rare canopy]

Minecraft Create mod intensifies

[sweet wind]

For a sec I thought multipart machines would be really interesting, kinda like good multiblock structures in minecraft, but then I thought, isn't that just what we do anyway in this game?

[rare canopy]

The ouroboros grows stronger everyday

[cursive cave]

I just think of Dwarf Fortress, the OG tech game which uses mechanically transmitted power like that

... to age myself, I first heard about the early Minecraft alpha/betas in a Dwarf Fortress IRC channel, where it was described as "3d, first person, multiplayer dwarf fortress"

[rare canopy]

The best games are inspirations of others

I can't wait until I turn my landscape into Rollercoaster Tycoon

[cursive cave]

I wonder if it would make any sense to play a succession game of factorio...

succession was very popular in DF; you would play for 1 year in-game, then pass off the save file to the next person

[pale pumice]

Xterminator is a bit infuriating to me for his reading comprehension. He misses a lot of obvious stuff in the FFFs.

[rare canopy]

🤷‍♂️

I always comb back through them myself I just like hearing other people musing about games I like

Oddly I missed the new belt that was added when I read through it first...somehow so I guess my reading comprehension is in the negatives.

[pale pumice]

I always watch them anyways lol

[cursive cave]

my reading comprehension is fine, my memory is terrible. I've already forgotten half the stuff from like 2 FFFs ago

[rare canopy]

Vulcanus is probably the big thing

The inserters formally known as Bulk Inserters.

Speedy Green boi

[sweet wind]

Bulk inserters!

Also I do agree with earlier, if Klonan is writing this weeks fff it's probably QoL or adjacent content.

[rare canopy]

I do enjoy me some QoL

Oh and filter Inserters are no more that kind big huge all inserters can filter

Now my long bois can filter

So many good things

[sweet wind]

is there anything that usually bugs people that they haven't touched in an FFF yet?

Maybe we get a medium things for 2.0

Or a smaller things for 2.0 2 - electric boogaloo

I reckon there's a good chance it's going over some of the things that were not fully discussed in previous FFFs
Quality transfer on the selector, fixing the 'thing' on abstract rewiring, maybe the 'substation pylon thing' has something to do with it as well

[cursive cave]

Aight, then, my final submission: module management with bots

[rare canopy]

Yeah still hung up on item transfer from station to world especially if the central building you can only have one of suggests there will be an upper limit to item bandwidth at least with the info provided

I guess slightly mitigated with the green belts

And Stack Inserters 🤔

(Aka the inserters formally known as Bulk Inserters)

[sweet wind]

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-add-remove-ghost-module.mp4

Or did you mean something different?

[cursive cave]

how do I do that with every assembler at once?

but yeah, I guess maybe I forgot that feature was already in the list

[sweet wind]

I don't remember if it was confirmed but I think you should be able to upgrade/swap them with the upgrade planner, not sure if you can insert with it or if they'll change how copy/paste works

Super force building should work actually, copy an assembler with modules and super force build it on top, should place in the modules

[cursive cave]

ah, neat

I was thinking "whats the most annoying thing that should be in the game and isn't"

[sweet wind]

But you are correct that is one of the more annoying things

I'm definitely running out of 'common annoying things' I guess

not being able to mine landfill, bots being stupid with gaps in coverage, sending bots from too far away for tasks, not being able to edit ghosts, having to edit blueprints externally and place twice for landfill, not being able to flip fluid builds, not being able to adjust spidertron/vehicles/chests from a distance

there's so many things they've improved

[cursive cave]

ability to rotate the map 90 degrees? but that wouldnt take any gifs to explain

[sweet wind]

There's even a couple things they didn't acknowledge directly like how blueprinting now shows exactly which tiles are blocked:

So many more things will 'just work' it feels like

[cursive cave]

even better ingame tutorialization? for trains and combinators specifically, since those are common pain points, and maybe bot and ships too?

[sweet wind]

I don't think they covered better save file management yet? or did I forget

I know they went over a better mod manager (which is greatly appreciated x1000)

No they did a little, you can sort by last saved now

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-388-save-sorting.png

But I was hoping for save file folders in the game (without having to manually edit the save file folder)

[cursive cave]

oooh blurred save name

[sweet wind]

#friday-facts message

[sweet wind]

Actually the biggest improvement they could make for QoL would be to incorporate most of https://mods.factorio.com/mod/CursorEnhancements

iirc they already said that with the remote view changes they'll let you pipette, 'Q', anywhere, so crafting menus and stuff

The big one for me is automatic ghost cursor

[bold shard]

raiguard makes some solid mods

this one is A+ https://mods.factorio.com/mod/UltimateResearchQueue

[sweet wind]

Pipe and belt visualisers are really nice, I don't think they're super needed in vanilla though. Haven't used URQ since the game added it's own

I probably would if I ran the game afk though

[bold shard]

which is my exact plan in 2.0 lol. lay out a long queue, and go to sleep

[sweet wind]

Might not be a bad idea with the new earlier infinite researches

And quality grinding

[small bear]

I hope they add save file folders or something similar

save groups, mod groups

for easy management

[pure siren]

afaik save file folders exist. You just have to manually create them in the save directory.

found it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXJ_IKGrLoM
03:22

[sweet wind]

Yeah I said that, I want to be able to do that in the game though

[bold shard]

you got it, those are the two reasons

[scarlet bane]

Wont be able to. We got physical research tech now!!!

[bold shard]

I guess we'll have to see to what extent they lay out the unlocks lol

and I'm mostly talking about lategame megabase stuff anyway

[scarlet bane]

Oil at least is a manual one

[bold shard]

although quality I'll probably get running asap

a lot of the planet specific stuff is too I'm sure

[desert lake]

Still thinking about cliff explosives becoming one ofthese "planet specific" things

[pure siren]

easy solution, set cliffs to "none"

[desert lake]

Oh, no way

Personally I love cliffs

They look so nice

The 3d effect breaking up the flatness can make things look so pretty

Honestly I wish we could make our own cliffs

Just add climbing for players and biters, and keep them as an aesthetic thing

[pure siren]

Wall ourselves in.

They are pretty, you're right about that.

[desert lake]

Biters are bugs, I doubt they would have problems with climbing, and maybe players could climb slowly but exoskeletons would eventually make it easier

Maybe one day when I learn I'll make a mod for it, because I doubt the devs or majority of players would ever think about something like this, and natural cliff formations losing their strategic value would objectively be a little sucky for the game all round

Also, on the topic of aesthetics dreams that will never come true, I wish adjacent beacons would connect their sprites, instead of each having its own "frame"

It would make everything look more interconnected and wired up (and just overall slightly less nasty than the current beacons because I've seen several people complain about them ruining builds 😭)

[pure siren]

you mean the cables interconnecting?

In Austria we call that cable salad.

[desert lake]

No, I meant like, the buildings completely connect

Like if you put two beacons next to each other they would just look like a 3x6 beacon with two antennas and 4 modules

[small bear]

like how cargo bay in SA works

[desert lake]

My absolutely HIDEOUS mockup 😭😭😭

[small bear]

it will probably need a lot of extra graphics because beacons can also sit next to each other with 1-2 tile offset

[desert lake]

Yeah I thought of that

All the little one tile corner connections and everything

For all sides

[pure siren]

Yeah, that's sort of what I meant. Just not that extreme.
I envisioned a sort of cable carpet between the two.

[raven bridge]

Double-yolk beacon!

[sweet wind]

We also get early infinite researches that don't need every science pack

[half mountain]

I don’t think infinite early science is getting enough recognition. I’m super excited to be able to build bigger and go slower and keep having things for the factory to do.

[sweet wind]

110% yes! always felt bad wanting to spend time optimising aspects of the base when there was no research to do

[half mountain]

Especially with (hopefully) some byproducts that are all balanced around the factory actually running.

The mod packs all roll like that. I’d hope at this point vanilla will invest in some more byproducts that have to be dealt with.

[sweet wind]

Also I've seen a few people ignore the infinite productivity researches, but we know that these are some of the early infinite researches that you can do (rip RCU and good riddance)

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-376-rocket-control-unit-productivity.png

[iron venture]

I think they said steel productivity is a red-only infinite research

[sweet wind]

That would be interesting for sure

[pale pumice]

this was said when

[sweet wind]

Currently the only science that you can really get away with building to a different scale is military, but with different infinite researches not needing later sciences you can really overbuild at the start and still give it something to do while the later sciences stockpile

Also it lets you give Nauvis stuff to do whilst conquering your second planet

Very good decisions by Wube 👍

[pale pumice]

perhaps only earlier levels are only red science though?

like bullet shooting speed

[sweet wind]

Could be an option

I don't dislike the idea of an only infinite research though

if there are going to be infinite researches that don't need all the science packs, why not one that just needs red?

[sweet wind]

If you can confirm this it would be greatly appreciated 🙏

[iron venture]

ok it's not red only, but we know there's one infinite that doesn't require space science and that steel productivity is an infinite, so I'm assuming it's steel that doesn't require space science

#friday-facts message

[scarlet bane]

wtf is steel

[pale pumice]

How do we know there's one?

[scarlet bane]

O I c

[iron venture]

the friday facts link takes you to a screenshot of a reddit comment

because directly linking is for suckers

[scarlet bane]

Where is this from

[iron venture]

technology fff

376

[sweet wind]

Okay, one that doesn't need space science is really good

In the grand scheme of things the complexity for mass production of red science isn't too different to red+green+blue science

[iron venture]

now that I think about it it probably requires purple science though

production science for productivity

[sweet wind]

Would make sense, but not needing to launch rockets or process uranium for it is a pretty big plus

[iron venture]

yeah, I wonder how far people will go on it before getting off planet

[pale pumice]

it sounds like a really cool noob trap

[sweet wind]

If its the same for most of them, getting to level 5 infinite prod is less than 20k science packs iirc

[pale pumice]

kinda like recyclers

[sweet wind]

So if you're going slow and taking your time it's not impossible to get +50% productivity

Someone with a 90spm base might spend 2-3 hours investigating and testing space platform things before fully commiting

[pale pumice]

i do 90/m sci

[cursive cave]

the only red infinite research: Tree Cutting Productivity 😛

[iron venture]

+25% productivity would change the steel/iron ratio from 1:5 to 1:4

+66% for 1:3

[pale pumice]

when is it a new machine ratio though

[sweet wind]

1:1 still

[pale pumice]

the ingredient ratios aren't really the interesting part

how would it be 1:1 sti

OH

that makes so much sense

just the out of steel changes duh

[iron venture]

yeah, I'm talking about total output of steel, machines would be unchanged

[sweet wind]

once you 'complete' the research it'll be 4:5 which will be nice

although good luck getting there

I wonder if there will be an achievement for reaching +300% productivity on a machine

[iron venture]

legendary prod modules and foundries will probably make it attainable

[cursive cave]

"Entropy Elided"

[sweet wind]

Yeah you'd only need +150% from research

Considering there's supposedly an achievement for filled best power armour and it's very reasonable

[iron venture]

legendary fish is going to absolutely murder 100% speedruns

[sweet wind]

Any guesses on how long the 100% Space Age speedrun will be after ~1 year?

obv we don't know all the space age achievements but and full maxed legendary power armour are gonna be tough

I'll throw out 30 hours

[raven bridge]

Those will replace the 20m time investment

[pale pumice]

honestly legendary fish will be easy part

Imagine if there's a '300% prod' achievement

[cursive cave]

I'll say 5.5 hours

naw, maybe thats underguessing a little, ill go with 7 hours instead

[sweet wind]

I'd be shocked if it got under a day with what we know, but I'd love to see the insanity that would be put into a 7 hour run for

[cursive cave]

speedruns are quite exponential, and more unlocked tools will make the endgame faster, not slower

a lot of the existing 100% speedrun is limited by how fast you clear biters and hook up resources to the train network (I think?). if you can increase endgame production efficiency, then you will be able to scale up to more with less, speeding up production scaling

[sweet wind]

If my math is right getting to lvl15 should be ~1.3 million science packs which with foundry and legendary modules should be all you need

getting to level 30 is nearly 600 million

I might be wrong though, but probably within the ballpark

[cursive cave]

I doubt it will be an achievement then. they dont do megabase achievements

[sweet wind]

I mean 20 million takes a really long time

[cursive cave]

yeah, 4.5 hours from start to finish for the whole run right now

[sweet wind]

1.3 mill science packs is on a similar scale then

[pale pumice]

This makes me doubt it less

[cursive cave]

but like, if we get tools to push productivity up by 2x, they might save a solid half hour to hour on that time? idk I havent done the speedrun math lol. anyways, then its just a matter of collecting what you need from each planet. so yeah, 7 hours is my guess

Space Age challenges are more streamlined and self-contained for a faster pace of 60-100 hours (rough estimate)
so thats like, double the base game, or maybe a bit more, for a playthough, so guessing a bit less then double on the speedrun (again, cause of the optimal exponential growth speedrunners do) seems plausable at least

[raven bridge]

Main yes, achievements less so

Also it might be possible to still get fish from

[sweet wind]

Pretty sure they've said that rocket results aren't affected by quality unfortunately

[cursive cave]

if you assemble and recycle spidertrons with everything else being ?

[sweet wind]

well, more that they confirmed that recycling spidertrons is the only way to get which implies the former

When crafting an item, it uses the lowest quality item as the quality base

So using everything else at is a waste

[cursive cave]

what I will say is that if that becomes the time-setting achievement, then the category will die or exclude it, because pure unmitigated RNG like that does not make for a fun speedrun

[sweet wind]

Probably, yeah

[pale pumice]

I doubt that will be the time setter

[sweet wind]

I mean, getting max highest tier power armour full of equipment is no small task either

[cursive cave]

yeah, I suspect that will be just a thing that like ... 1% of speedruns randomly die because it didn't pop while they were exploring other planets or whatever

[pale pumice]

It’s what, 80 normal ones?

[cursive cave]

100% speedruns are almost purely a resource gathering thing. factory complexity or scale is irrelevant because all you do is paste your blueprint factory over your other blueprint factory in a fraction of a second and then feed it more stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhFPgbZ-GBs its about 1:20 min of getting to bots without failing lazy bastard, like another 40 min of helping the bots expand the initial factory while they are still slow and limited, and then 2.5 hours of killing bitters and hooking up mining to the rail network until the last achievement pops. not that I am an expert or anything, thats just how it seems from the outside at least

[sweet wind]

hmm, we don't know how long travelling between planets takes, and you'd have to do that setup for each planet, so I would be surprised if it wasn't around 5x the length then, with improvements to speed being from added speed of setup from new and existing tech

depends on new achievements heavily though

probably an overstatement considering you can run a lot of the achievements in parallel

[cursive cave]

the setup itself wouldn't take that long on each planet though I imagine. you just come in with resources, drop a blueprint on the planet, hook of a few needed local inputs, and the off to the next one. almost all those resources are just for the green circuits, which you wont have to do on each planet

[sweet wind]

You'd also need to set up shipping back to Nauvis for research presumably, you wouldn't need to travel back though with the remote view upgrades.

I'm not smart enough to optimise it and I'm sure we'll get some crazy times though

[cursive cave]

I think there is only the one platform, right? shipping all has to happen through it?

[sweet wind]

No you can build as many platforms as you want, you can only have one landing pad per planet though

[cursive cave]

I probably misremembered that

ah

[sweet wind]

You can only have one platform hub per platform surface as well

I think running with only one platform would make for an interesting challenge run though

Probably in conjunction with other restrictions though

[raven bridge]

When I asked, they actually said they do get affected. IIRC

[sweet wind]

hmmm, contradicting themselves I see

[raven bridge]

#friday-facts message

[sweet wind]

Personally, I think it would make sense if sending legendary items gave you legendary rocket results, but I don't know because of the contradictions

[small bear]

they might just remove the fish from rocket recipe duh

[cursive cave]

"Fishless 100% speedrun" is sounding like a more and more likely category then lol

[small bear]

Id say quality excluded speedrun, quality modules are not allowed

and any achievements relying on quality modules are excluded

[cursive cave]

eh, I dont think quality modules will have that much of an impact on speedrun time variance. the bulk production of most things will result in basically constant production rates anyways

[small bear]

mainly to remove personal equipment rng

[cursive cave]

I guess I can see that, fair point

[small bear]

in speedrun there are some items u may want high quality but u only craft a few of them

[raven bridge]

They are just annoying about it

[small bear]

the coal rock rng is fine because its only at the start of the game, but any quality involved rng that may affect the run will be annoying

[cursive cave]

yeah, I guess the expoential growth nature of factorio works against it in that case, as the slight edge a quality item has, even if you quickly replace it with a better one, can snowball a lot

on the other hand, people run stuff with heavy random elements sometimes, as long as there are good tools to mitigate it and work around it. if you roll the dice 100 times in a run, and all have some impact, you can use the advantages to compensate for the disadvantages through creative thinking maybe?

[small bear]

the thing is that there might be some dice rolling that significantly impacts the run and for them to be effective u can’t rely on rolling dice lots of times

if u plan around different possible quality results then the planning could become too complex as the play through will be much less deterministic

[cursive cave]

yeah, hard to say

[small bear]

if quality is involved in a speedrun, then we will have different quality speedrun records

the luckiest one will win

[cursive cave]

I knew a guy who participated in a nethack race, where you had to beat nethack with every class. everyone gets different runs, but because you do multiple runs and nethack has a lot of different systems you can use to compensate for bad luck in others, they made it work

or a better example would be the bingo speedruns of Zelda, where you get a bingo card and have to work out a new speedrun strategy for which ones to go for and in what order on the fly as you play

but again, thats the optimisitics version. I agree its very plausible that RNG ends up far to wild to be a fun speedrun

[subtle temple]

should work as how stellaris does their saving

[rugged onyx]

Law of large numbers means that with proper automation, we should get semi expected quality results

[small bear]

the law of large numbers doesn’t work when the number is not large

and in speedrun u definitely gonna have finite production of certain important items

in that case quality may play a big role

and rng will have large affect

no speedrunner’s gonna plan for a 95% confidence of getting a high quality equipment because it could be too expensive, but how low the chance can they accept? 50%? 30%? This is when rng can affect the run.

[vocal rock]

speedrunners can plan for uncommon with 10%-25% chance - sounds totally reasonable for 100% run, for others - slow return of investments from quality will probably be a deal breaker already

[bold shard]

hopefully that changes for 2.x

[rugged onyx]

I think that's where the definition of the speed run comes into play. SA and Quality are separate "mods" so you could say you speedran SA without enabling quality

Though yeah a 100% 2.0 speed run will need to be lucky

[vocal rock]

but how much value you can get from luck realistically? sure, if you gonna reroll for legendary 3t productivity module - that's decent, but way too silly as a strategy

[rugged onyx]

It's about the achievements, if there's one involving quality, that could affect the goalpost

I could see one for "equip a legendary armor"

Any% speed runs will probably ignore quality

[vocal rock]

it might fall into "stuff I gonna do while waiting for 20M green chips" category

[vocal rock]

but getting this one might be a bit of a problem if you really unlucky

[rugged onyx]

This is why I don't worry about speed, I'm just slowly turning up the pain in my CPU until it cries

But to be on topic, I predict one of these FFFs is going to be about changes to achievements

[rocky plover]

Speedruns that don't have set seeds already contain randomness from the map, so might still allow quality.

You've got to remember that Q5 is locked behind a tech from the final planet, so once you get the ability to get Q5, you will probably have a ridiculously large amount of ressources ready to be recycled into Q5 items.

[bold shard]

even if speedrunners just aim for or to put in their labs, thats a 6-12% productivity boost. if these 2.0 speedrun games go long enough where its worth spending time on lvl 3 mods, this is a no brainer to throw in some when making them

[raven bridge]

Ya even Any% is likely to have some random

[vocal rock]

not betting my money on that - quality takes forever to pay off

[small bear]

I’m not sure if they will use at all. one reason they use many in base game any% is because they can reuse those modules to make for the rocket. Similarly they can reuse the for RCU and beacons for rockets. Since u can’t reuse for any actual progression target I doubt it will play a big roll in any% runs

[vocal rock]

prods are not that bad - they pay off in like ~30 mins in good recipes like greenchips, and even faster with bluechips
quality is much much slower

[subtle temple]

there will be expansion specific achievements right?
so I assume a 100% expansion run would probably have to use 's

[small bear]

Any% is a different story

hum.. if u put 4 into making , u get 2 per stack of crafted

[small bear]

in this FFF we will see:
-signal tower
-updated combinator functions
-space platform animation progress
-train related upgrades

parameterized train schedual!

[rocky plover]

might no longer be obligatory for the rocket silo since the rocket is much cheaper

[pale pumice]

for the first rocket, sure

but the first rocket is no longer a cutoff milestone

[pure siren]

For the first rocket, it's no longer possible. We don't have T3 modules on Nauvis iirc.

[rocky plover]

Oh yeah that too

[pure siren]

Do we know whether we have by the time we unlock ?

[pale pumice]

we have no clue when either of those are unlocked haha

[pale pumice]

man, that went from 'no longer obligatory' to 'impossible' fast

[small bear]

all the T1 modules are unlocked by green science

T2 modules are by satellite science

is purple science

[small bear]

but u need to send much more rockets

the rocket part recipe is probably still one of the best place for to go

[raven bridge]

You don't even get by that time

Not even

[small bear]

yeah, u get only after launching several satellites

and is on another planet

[unborn lintel]

I think new planet will be one of the next 3 fff's

[small bear]

We may actually see Fulgora before Bwuhuo

[rugged onyx]

I predict we will get the new FFF <t:1706270400:R>

[subtle temple]

thats cheating! 😄

[rugged onyx]

Last time I predicted correct we got the bulk stack inserter

[subtle temple]

then we better get the stack logistic robot this time

can fetch directly from belts/inventories

[small bear]

#1177597309572366396 message
does this count as win?

[half mountain]

Count it

[pale pumice]

I count this. gg!

[grave crag]

t2q2 is basically a new t3

[pure siren]

Do we have any info when the Qs unlock, other than Q5 will be unlocked on the last planet?

[half mountain]

today's FFF TLDR:
factorio devs [undertaker meme] train logistics mods

[desert lake]

is unlocked on one of the mid planets

So before space, you will only be able to get and at most

And even longer, if you don't go to this planet first

[grave crag]

"at most" lol

[pure siren]

I wonder whether we'll be able to go to a new planet without the Engineer leaving Nauvis.

Could settle all 3 mid planets simultaneously with the remote view.

Which probably means the answer is no.

[elder raptor]

No radar or power means you need to go personally

Also I seem to remember someone mentioning that each T2 module will be unlocked on a different planet

(Though I may admittedly be thinking of T3)

[pure siren]

4 new planets, 4 different modules. makes sense

I think it's T1 Nauvis, T2 Space, T3 1/planet

[elder raptor]

That'd make sense

Also, I think each module will map neatly mechanics wise to the planets

We know does productivity stuff. Fulgora would make sense as speed. Bacchus as efficiency would make sense too.

[raven bridge]

Spidertrons

Remember that remote requests work with any , including those in

[small bear]

u probably r thinking about T3. All the T2 modules are unlocked by satellite space science

[elder raptor]

must've misremembered then, thanks!

[raven bridge]

The question is: Can we deploy a spider remotely from space.

We can with with bots

[small bear]

the question is if we can place a spidertron remotely

[raven bridge]

FFF-380 suggests we can

[small bear]

unneed bot for that

[raven bridge]

With bots yes, the question is if without bots

The FFF only had 7 images, and most of them not animated. Where's the 15 gifs Klo-dude promised?

[small bear]

I assume before u have a landing pad, u can only drop items on ground or send a capsule manually. And there will be no bots to help u place any items u drop

and u probably still need roboports even if u have the landing pad

unless the space platform can directly drop buildings and placed them as planned, which is not likely

[desert lake]

Though, if we are still talking about the same thing

Remember that the spidertron itself will be planet locked

So, at least one planet will have to be done without it

[small bear]

the thing is we probably can’t deploy any bot or spider onto a new planet without bot infrastructure exists in the first place. So it doesn’t matter when u unlock spider

[violet willow]

Exactly, i was very confused as to what the current end game would be especially since we saw no science pack confirmation for the last planet, but maybe it'll exist. Maybe the last planet will unlock ultimate end game infinity researches through its rocket equivalent to 1.1. The only things i could think of are: Again a hint to where the game goes next like an interstellar rocket; Something large and difficult to use similar to end game goals like the intergalactic transceiver from Krastorio.

[pure siren]

I remember a post endgame science pack being mentioned.

[elder raptor]

We did get confirmation from the devs that each planet has their own science pack, and that there is an additional endgame science pack

[violet willow]

incredible, this would explain a lot of possibilities and the player would probably again be omnipotent, but with more effort until maxing out

[bold shard]

something tells me endgame SA will be next level omnipotent

[violet willow]

doom music plays

[cursive cave]

Own science pack, or own science? Cause the discovery triggered science system could be used to gate stuff as well

[elder raptor]

science pack

[pale pumice]

why is there another endgame science pack lol

it's something I've been thinking about

it must be really cool to neccesitate one more science pack after getting one for every planet..

[bold shard]

its like the new , how I currently think about it

what I wonder is if its going to take after 1.x where its for infinite research, or if there are any post-victory items aimed at longer plays/megabases

it'll be a long time until we get these answers, but I can't help but think about it

[raven bridge]

We know there are some midgame infinite sciences

[bold shard]

it might model research like bullet damage, where it opens up with fewer required science packs, but the later game will require aquilo, and then post-endgame science, whatever it is called

[raven bridge]

We know there are infinite sciences that don't require the post-endgame science.

[bold shard]

interesting

[pure siren]

The productivity researches are technically not infinite though. With a +300% productivity cap we can only do them 30x.

[raven bridge]

Recipe prods you mean, because mining and lab are uncapped

[pale pumice]

lab prod is insane

[bold shard]

lab prod is uncapped? now that will be huge

[raven bridge]

I wonder if these researches will be exponential or quadratic

[bold shard]

I figured it would cap at 50% or something, which is already massive

not sure if its been discussed today but kovarex had some insightful reddit comments today: https://www.reddit.com/user/kovarex/

[raven bridge]

yah

[bold shard]

including future train optimizations

[raven bridge]

Seems like the expansion leans heavily on trains

I hardly use them in my runs, but I don't usually megabase

[pale pumice]

what could even be next lol

I'm out of ideas

[elder raptor]

my guess is that we'll get the next planet around the end of February

and my other guess is it'll be Fulgora

[pale pumice]

we haven't seen anything of bacchus

aquilo would be a strange next

so yeah, I bet fulgora too

[elder raptor]

Tbf we haven't seen anything of either two planets yet

I think there's still some stuff to be shown in

[pale pumice]

no we've seen fulgora

[elder raptor]

We have?

[pale pumice]

It looks like this

[elder raptor]

Has it been confirmed? Do we know it wasn't just placeholder textures?

Anyway, I wanna see the science we can research with the metallurgic science pack

[raven bridge]

Waiting for more new systems (other than space platforms)

[sweet wind]

All of the productivity researches are infinite, the same as mining productivity, but with different costs. The recipes/machines will cap only using 300% if you go any higher. The cap can be changed by mods however.

[pale pumice]

Nah, it's not limited

Klonan sends you a mod if you go beyond level 30

It's part of the contract

[pure siren]

The recipes/machines will cap only using 300%
reaching that also means no more Productivity modules for that recipce, freeing space for Quality modules. and ofc free recycling.
Legendaries will be the new Common.

[pale pumice]

getting to level 15 will take a lot of cost anyways

do we have the math for the cost of lvl 15?

(150% + 50% + 100%)

If it's prohibitive, it's ignorable

1.3M science

@pure siren You did the math on the curve of recycling cost at different recipe prods, right?

I assume 250% productivity still has huge yield, right?

That only costs 170k science

[pure siren]

No, only with productivity modules.

currently busy with other things :/

[pale pumice]

I thought you calculated how good the recycler got at the prod went up

I know at 300% the recycler has infinite rolls per item

[pure siren]

nope, was someone else

[pale pumice]

I think I can trivially calculate it

It's just sum((0.25)(prod)^n), n -> infinity

[pure siren]

at +300% the assembler gives you 4x the input

the recycler cuts that down to 1x

resulting in a lossless loop

you can upgrade from common to legendary without loss

[pale pumice]

This function should show how many crafts you get out of each ingredient:

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/msuk6x1mv4

at a given productivity

do note that 100% prod is the base productivity

When people say 100% prod they often really mean '+100%'

[pure siren]

should actually be more because the last assembler turning Legendary ingredients into Legendary products gives 4x the inputs

[pale pumice]

yeah, you extract at the end of the loop

I'm just measuring how many loops you get here roughly

[pure siren]

The assembler-recycler-loop is a black box for me. Helmod will do the throughput calculations for me.

[pale pumice]

It's an infinite series

[raven bridge]

I mean, people are playing 1000x science Factorio, and players get to 150 mining prod. They will get to 30 prod, eventually

[pale pumice]

It's effectively P + 0.25P + 0.25*0.25P + ...

I'm planning on sending Klonan an email

[pure siren]

Yes, and a magic math trick can get rid of that.

just use 1/(1-q) or something

[raven bridge]

More like (q^n-1)/(q-1)

[pale pumice]

my computer is strong

brute force it totally fine here

I have learned my lesson from excessive use of algebra

I just model the problem and tell desmos to sum lol

[pure siren]

brute force will only give an approximation