FFF Speculations

[small bear]

sounds a bit niche

if u have various specialized armor then the meta will be carrying multiple armors and constantly switching armor for different circumstances

which doesn’t sound very fun

[sweet wind]

Doing that is already optimal, one for running around, one for building things, one for fighting bugs

I just think "specialised" armours are very unnecessary because they're already modular

[small bear]

we will have armor and equipments

[candid pawn]

and mech suit

[sweet wind]

Yep, getting a 15x15 PA Mk2 grid with equipment being 2.5x better will be very silly

Armour Mk2 will be at least ~6x more powerful at full legendary, very silly.

[small bear]

also

[sweet wind]

The difference is even bigger when starting with a smaller grid, like on

10x4 to 15x9 is 3.375x the size, so with equipment at least ~8.4x as powerful

[small bear]

I’m sure it’s more than 8.4

because u get more power from quality generators

and higher quality equipment consume the same amount of power

[sweet wind]

There, fixed

[arctic wasp]

if my math is correct, filling a legendary spidertron with legendary exoskeletons gives a top speed of 529 km/h

this is mildly amusing

[sweet wind]

I don't think calculating spidertron's speed is that simple though, you kinda have to measure it.

A single exoskeleton doesn't increase the measured top speed by 30%

[arctic wasp]

I'll test it when I'm at my PC

shouldn't be too hard to mod in

[sweet wind]

I'm just looking at the numbers on the wiki, and the measured speeds there say it goes from ~46 to ~57, which is a ~24% increase

[arctic wasp]

but tbh wube may change spidertron behaviour for 2.0

[candid pawn]

Do we know what legendary leg's stats even are

[sweet wind]

Presumably 30x2.5 = 75% speed increase

[short patio]

Also, because the energy demands don't increase for better quality stuff but the energy generation does, you can use less of your grid for reactors and batteries compared to the functional things like exos and roboports

[final dove]

^ besides bots

[sweet wind]

Personal roboports are interesting, because they get ridiculously more space efficient, but still consume the same amount of energy per work.

[pure siren]

Conservation of energy is not to be fucked with.
||ik Factorio doesn't care about it||

[short patio]

Uses boilers and prod mods to turn coal into uranium

[untold finch]

I'm hoping for more SA stuff, like a new planet or more about

[raven bridge]

We'll get more QoL, polish, or technical. No SA stuff

[small bear]

how many more FFF we have before release?

about 21?

I do wonder if they want to talk more about planetary techs in future FFFs.

[magic crest]

It will release in 670 days... I think.

[sweet wind]

bot says 95

[bold shard]

well we are in the rhythm to get new content this friday so you never know

[magic crest]

It will release in 834 days... I think.

[ashen herald]

When it releases will there be a biter expansion party?

[small bear]

Latest leak: there will biter expansions

[desert lake]

I feel like that's not really "cool" enough to warrant fff coverage. Unless of course there's a tech that introduces a new mechanic or something, like stacking

But then it's more about the mechanic/gameplay change than the tech itself

[small bear]

there isn’t much tech that doesn’t introduce new mechanics or different gameplay tho, except those bonus upgrades

otherwise there is not much point to add the tech

[topaz wing]

It also makes sense to not reveal more on the planets we already know so we can still figure some things out on release

[raven bridge]

Prediction: Another QoL/polish, but with leaked hints about more things.
We'll probably only see spidertron remote revamp when they reveal the mech suit thing, which I predict will come in the coming month.

[slender glen]

there will be both, the expansion and the party

[raven bridge]

Will there be a party, if I happen to be in Prague when the game releases?

(I won't, but hypothetically if I were)

[slender glen]

forget i said anything about a party

[pure siren]

Who's invited to the expansion party?

[slender glen]

biters and spitters. worms were invited too but won't be able to attend

said that they are grounded or something

[magic crest]

It will release in 809 days... I think.

It will release in 674 days... I think.

[candid pawn]

harshest uninvite so far in 2024

[pure siren]

How many people do I need to bite for an invitation?

[candid pawn]

one, the security guard

[untold finch]

I think it's gonna be something totaly new nobody expects. (bc I can't think of anything )

[pure siren]

Skipping an FFF for a joke would be totally new, but very much expected.

[tough ginkgo]

"this FFF covers the greatly anticipated fish multithreading update"

[pure siren]

Followed by 3 FFFs about how they got the UPS back to 60.

[tough ginkgo]

(to be fair i don't know for certain they're not already multithreaded, i mean they don't seem to have a problem with swimming over each other...)

ok they're not - the update happens in the main entity-update loop

[strange jay]

wow big thread

[fickle sapphire]

no party like a biter party

[pure siren]

Do Biters swallow?
Factories aren't made of edible stuff, all the chunks they bite off, do they swallow them? If so, they must have one hell of a digestive system.

[late venture]

Ohno Klonan has found the speculation thread. Now no prediction will ever be correct again!

[fickle sapphire]

in Nullius the biters you grow take a steady supply of guns and produce iron oxide as waste. I like to think they eat metal.

why they prefer it in pistol form is unclear

[pure siren]

they're probably fine with large amounts of concrete walls then

[fickle sapphire]

the spitters are an evolved form of biters so the acid is probably just biter stomach acid

meaning biters are fully capable of digesting your base

[pure siren]

literally outsourcing digestion

[bold shard]

next week will be 🔥

[raven bridge]

Kinda called it with spiders?

[bold shard]

yeah that solves the mystery of how to control spidertrons lol

[raven bridge]

I love how you can put the groups on the bar

and last group

[bold shard]

its a small thing, but I like how you no longer need to have x many of them needing to follow a certain one if you want all of them to go somewhere

[desert lake]

That's especially great to me because the one they're following will always run slightly ahead, and tends to take by far the most damage if you run them into nests

[ashen herald]

An inbuilt calculator would be nice

You ever want to do a calculation but then you have to alt tab and bring up your desktop calc

[raven bridge]

We're getting simple math in number entries, which is nice

[candid pawn]

so instead i cant alt c to bring up in game calc?

[ashen herald]

Does it exist?

It definitely should

[worldly sandal]

You'll be able to, for example, set a logistics request for 300 items by simply typing 50*6 into the field in the UI.
As opposed to having to calculate 50 times 6 somewhere else (mentally, or a calculator) and then input 300 into the field.

Was in FFF#388

[ashen herald]

Hmmm, yea. That doesn't really help for decimals I don't think.

[sick pond]

I like how they renamed the Spidertron controller, to somthing very generic.🧐

[raven bridge]

Yet still have "spidertron" several times in the tooltip

[pure siren]

almost as if we'd control other things as well

Pretty sure somebody will make a mod that enables the RTS tool to work on other players.

[sick pond]

🧐👍

[short patio]

Rule 7

[barren kelp]

rule 34

[desert lake]

I think the conflicting name and tooltip can potentially be explained if we take into account mod support. The tooltip probably has to stay clear and unambiguous so new players don't get confused, but the name is changed for the sake of mods adding other controllable units

I mean, wouldn't it be weird if in modded 2.0 we controlled AAI vehicles with a "spidertron remote"?

[raven bridge]

Both can be easily changed in the locale file

[orchid onyx]

Add a remote to tanks as well, RTS hunting squad with tanks and spiders and some jeeps to pull the biters

add legs to power armor and let it walk alone, remote them too

[small bear]

tbh RTS controlling a group of tanks that auto fire enemies sounds as OP as spidertrons combatwise

[raven bridge]

RTS controlling a train would also probably be better than the janky train minimap

[small bear]

will blueprints become abstract items in 2.0?

[raven bridge]

And finally, a "mouse only" mode for Factorio would be good for people with disabilities

Controlling the engineer with the RTS controller

[small bear]

I bind ctrl to mouse button 4 so it’s mostly just mouse

imagine rts player control and clicking player to open inventory

[raven bridge]

Like you can do in multiplayer

[small bear]

yeah

[raven bridge]

And a mouse button for rotate

[small bear]

why do u need to rotate player when u can rts control them

iirc the direction of player doesn’t affect the movement control

[sweet wind]

"We were considering the fact that we're adding a lot of QoL improvements recently, and figured we need to balance it out. We've changed player movement controls in 2.0 so they function the same as vehicle controls."

[oak mirage]

Car Engineer

Factorio mod where you are stuck in a car. Forever.
You are the car.

Owner

JanSharp

Downloads

87

[raven bridge]

Now vanilla 😄

[pale pumice]

I'm awaiting a big FFF

[candid pawn]

[final dove]

these have been some pretty hype little FFFs. its gonna be wild when the next big one drops

[bold shard]

they can't hide the big drops forever

[ashen herald]

Dangerops

[raven bridge]

Biter dating sim

[small bear]

still waiting for the next space platform FFF

perhaps we will have several big FFFs in a row before the releasing week

I’m expecting to see more planetary techs, one more fff for each planet

and at least one more for space platform

[solemn cosmos]

Would it be out sometime this year? i assume sometime late/middle summer

[magic crest]

It will release in 496 days... I think.

[halcyon bolt]

earliest speculation is august i’m assuming it’s gonna be late september

[small bear]

nah Christmas

[bold shard]

I honestly think it'll be sometime Q4. they'll want to add more things, more polish, more balancing, possible bugfixes, etc

something like that for odds

[small bear]

what is the y axis

[late venture]

The odds

[small bear]

oh

[strange jay]

technically its odds density

[rocky plover]

Day 1 of predicting burner beacons.

(the regular electric beacons can get moved far up the tech tree to allow for this)

[pale pumice]

Why is august so low here?

[bold shard]

wube sets a high bar for quality, I see them using a bit more time to bring it closer to perfection

[magic crest]

It will release in 486 days... I think.

[hasty rapids]

The answer is pretty clear

[magic crest]

It will release in 944 days... I think.

[sweet wind]

Extremely

[halcyon bolt]

i think that october has a nice ring to it

pretty good release month imo, top 12 for me for sure

[magic crest]

It will release in 439 days... I think.

[elfin zenith]

Make up your mind!

[magic crest]

It will release in 366 days... I think.

[hasty rapids]

It will release tomorrow...for sure.

[last maple]

we foxhole now, next update unlocks in 15 minutes

[raven bridge]

Tomorrow is going to be a banger of an FFF

Something unexpected like driving or space platform schedules

[rocky plover]

What about something truly unexpected like burner beacons?

[raven bridge]

Which you put... what in?

[pale pumice]

fuel

[raven bridge]

And it then......?

[pale pumice]

That’s it

[raven bridge]

Oh, so just a way to void fuel, gotcha

[pale pumice]

burner beacons have 0 module slots unfortunately

inside a burner beacon is a massive ring of burner observers

[raven bridge]

I thought it might power nearby buildings, or affect their power efficiency in some way

[candid pawn]

hype bros .... its over ....

[rocky plover]

You know, I'd originally thought of burner beacons as just regular beacons with 2 module slots except instead of electricity they use fuel, but the idea that they have 0 module slots is just too funny.

[arctic wasp]

Modules now have a fuel value

[candid pawn]

okay i love that

you burn a module and you get an effect based on the module type

[magic crest]

It will release in 482 days... I think.

[raven bridge]

It will have 100% effect transfer, and will munch on the module for a while e.g. an hour

So you would get a lot of value, but at a relatively high cost

[candid pawn]

it also accepts prod modules

[topaz wing]

We've had 5 smaller fff's in a row so tomorrow should be something big I think?

[candid pawn]

hahah yeah

honk honk

[topaz wing]

🤡

[bold shard]

uh oh

[sweet wind]

Yeah we getting Bacchus today

Gonna have the spidertron too

[primal tinsel]

my bet for the fff is the assembler 4

[sweet wind]

I'll eat my shirt if we get an assembler 4

[candid pawn]

screencapped

[short patio]

Imagine that being the entirety of a FFF
"In Space Age, you can research to get the assembler mk 4. It has 5 module slots and a crafting speed of 2.

Thanks for tuning in, come back next week for more updates on the upcoming expansion."

[quasi crest]

My prediction is Qol + small SA changes

[raven bridge]

My prediction is small SA stuff, but not big stuff.

[small bear]

I’m expecting a FFF similar to

[raven bridge]

Ya that makes sense.

[desert lake]

"To craft it, you need to mine a new ore which requires you to pump 134.5 degree water into the mining drills. Before smelting the ore, you need to deepfry it, and after smelting it you can craft it into 12 new intermediates, all of which are used for absolutely nothing except for the assembler mk4. We are so glad to finally implement this long requested feature into the game, was it everything you hoped it would be?"

[raven bridge]

I called for a logistic screen upgrade a couple of weeks ago 🙂

[fluid crow]

who noticed the half light armour and helmetless power armour in one of the GIFs

[little seal]

it was an absolute banger GUI revision!

[quasi crest]

where? i cant find it

[fluid crow]

its in the first iteration of the third ui

the power armour one might be modular armour i cant remember

[bold shard]

not the FFF I was predicting.... but the logistics GUI is a nice change

[fresh grotto]

Belt reader seems really interesting. Not entirely sure yet if I'll ever use it, but could potentially make non-sushi shared belts a possibility

So long as the belt ends where the last inserter is...

[topaz wing]

It's also nice if you want to send expensive items over a belt without overproducing them

[fresh grotto]

Actually scratch that, I could see it still failing if the last machine already has enough of that item
I got my hopes up prematurely

[desert lake]

Oh wow they really are there

That's so weird

Especially considering the normal, helmeted versions can be seen in the same image

This is bizarre, I genuinely have no idea what this could even imply

Armor with no brim 😭😭😭

[worldly sandal]

[candid pawn]

over bros, we won!

[bold shard]

my friends.... I think they officially diverted from their original pattern

furthermore, I don't even know what season we're in anymore

[magic crest]

Friday Facts #367 - Expansion news

Step 1 - High level plan

We decided and planned the general topics of the expansion. This is comparable to when we were deciding to add trains to the game. We knew that we wanted to control how the intersections work, and that it should act as the largest scale logistics option, but the details weren't laid out yet.

Step 2 - Basic shape

This is the step where we start to make the actual game objects, even when they don't even do anything at that point. For the rail example, this would mean that we make mock objects for rails, trains, train stops and signals, so different people can start implementing the behaviour in parallel, and start making it interact as they go. In this phase, as things stop being as abstract, a lot of the most basic unexpected problems start to show.

Step 3 - Implementation of sub systems

The goal of this part is to get the individual mechanics and their object definitions into place, but they are usually the minimum necessary to test it. It's like implementing biter and spawner mechanics, but having just 1 type of biter, not connecting it to pollution, and having no sense of balancing with the player weapon systems.

Step 4 - Connecting systems into a prototype

Here we put all the sub systems together and try to connect them. A lot of bigger structural problems can be discovered at this point, which might require some wild removals, changes, or additions, required to make it all work together.

Step 5 - First pass of tweaking

This part should feel much better, as the content is more stable and the chance of removing things is lower. This is where we can actually have the semi-final list of requirements for the graphics department, which allows us to start making reasonable time estimates. At this point, we do more playtesting, and we can start polishing the roughest edges. This polishing is mainly focused on basic balancing, the biggest UX issues, broad pacing improvements, etc.

Step 6 - Beta test

At this point, most of the graphics are in place, and the game is fully playable. When the game feels close to finished, we can tweak the final details, like new simulation screens, tips and tricks, achievements, and so on. We can also start to invite a limited number of players to help us find the most obvious bugs. We want to also invite some of the mod makers to help us test the modding API, and let them prepare for the release. Same goes for our top community translators/proofreaders on Crowdin.

Step 7 - Release

The tricky part is, that we want to release basically directly to stable, without an experimental phase, like when we released 1.0. The reason is the obvious problem we would have otherwise: An experimental release is not interesting to many people, but by the time it becomes officially stable, it is old news and nobody cares. Hopefully the focus on automated tests and beta testing should make it smooth enough.

[little seal]

My speculation for FFF 406:

Step 5 is at the end-end phase

Step 6 is at start phase

[topaz wing]

This is definitely the longest gap between SA fff's

[raven bridge]

Except it's not

387 was Vulcanus 2, 398 was Fulgora 1.

Next planet won't be in the coming 2 weeks

[maiden magnet]

I wonder if they're like going to show everything in the fffs Like are they gonna show every planet?

[topaz wing]

I had new SA content in mind, like we also got 5 fff's after vulcanus with the bulk inserter and new conveyor belts

[raven bridge]

The is indeed SA, but it doesn't feel SA-ish

[topaz wing]

To rephrace it, the longest gap between SA exclusive content

[candid pawn]

if its content in the SA mod its SA content

we also had the one about map gen that revealed more vulcanus terrain

[topaz wing]

I don't mind though. the SA content may double our playthroughs, but all the QoL additions will actually keep us playing for another thousand hours

[halcyon bolt]

only a thousand?

[bold shard]

rookie numbers

[cursive reef]

xD this is perfect

[little seal]

Well, I would say Factorio 2.0 is a new game, else it would have been Factorio 1.2
So thousand hours as a tutorial is good number to grasp new stuff

Once we master 2.0, then we gotta pump those numbers up! 🔥

[slender glen]

every realese is a new game

theseus ship problem

[magic crest]

Friday Facts #1

[magic crest]

Error

Couldn't find FFF #406.

Friday Facts #405 - Whole belt reader, New logistics GUI

Iteration 1

The new Trains overview GUI (FFF-364) was a winning formula in my book, so lets just try to copy it:

• A list on the side to categorize things.
• Minimaps to give specific information about each individual related item.

Iteration 2

Here I tried to tackle the network selection. The first step was to change from a drop down, to a list.
Instantly better. The second step was to add the icon in front to differentiate the mobile and roboport networks. So we're getting
somewhere.

Iteration 3

After some testing, I determined that the individual item minimaps were not proving to be that useful. With that
in mind, I could change things around.

Iteration 4

So there is an obvious improvement, we move the items to the side. This gives us more height, which means we can
make the minimap square and bigger.

Integration with Remote view

However the GUI still had a problem, in that it was a 'Real GUI', it covered the whole screen and the minimap didn't allow any of the normal map interaction.

[raven bridge]

Speculations for Friday?

[short patio]

I think it will be the 12th of April

[topaz wing]

I think we'll see a new SA feature that isn't
Something mechanical like the stacking inserter.

[raven bridge]

Revamp of the production/pollution etc screen

Personally I'm waiting for a pollution revamp in general, but I doubt they'll change them

[topaz wing]

I'm really curious if and how pollution on other planets will work

[candid pawn]

what things would you want to see fixed about pollution

[vague cedar]

Yeah, I always wondering why the pollution didn't take in account the wind when spreading. It can be fun and add a bit of unpredictable situation 🙃

[raven bridge]

Wind? Would it also carry wildfires better? 🙂

I want a planet with rain

[desert lake]

Personally I think it's more or less perfect as it is now. Maybe some tiny functional details could be changed, but the core of the mechanic is exactly as it should be

[bold mirage]

bwuhuo isn't happening anytime soon so I'm going to go with the mech/armor we saw a couple FFFs ago

[candid pawn]

wind would be intersting

id like to see different types of pollution -- noise, air, metal dust, oil spills, etc showin on the map

and maybe each type of pollution has different effects

and spreads differently

[desert lake]

Personally I think wind would be uninteresting 💔

[vague cedar]

there is already wind in the game, it change the direction of the steam and smoke. It is just not taking in account for pollution

[candid pawn]

i think wind would be interesting because it would cause pollution to flow in different directions and spread to unexpected and new places

like you might say "the west is a desert so I will build up defenses there" but then the wind changes and the pollution blows to the east

[raven bridge]

Pollution currently only matters when there are a biters, which seems odd.

See mods like https://mods.factorio.com/mod/NauvisDay
where pollution can cause offshore pumps to jam, and various other mechanics

[candid pawn]

aaaaaaaa

hate that

[vague cedar]

a funny mod whould be the pollution increase assembler speed, more you pollute, more you produce lol

[raven bridge]

I kinda like the IR3 approach, where forestries work off living trees in nearby chunks, and then pollution kills the trees -> lower production

So you have to build them a bit away from your main production, leading to an interesting logistic challenge

[desert lake]

Or you can do the opposite, and pipe polluting gases far away before venting them

It also has air filters which are relatively cheap iirc

[raven bridge]

IR also does that 🙂 You get too much sulphurous gas, and you need to vent it somewhere

[desert lake]

Yes, I know the mod, it was a statement

[bold mirage]

store barreled gasses and shoot the chest

[candid pawn]

shoot the pollution into space

[raven bridge]

In IR, if you explode or empty tanks with polluting fluids, they pollute right away...

I think it also works with barrels there

so shooting the chest doesn't work 😉

[desert lake]

And I think chests spill their items? Or maybe they just instantly pollute like fluid tanks, it's been a while

[vague cedar]

oooh, a mod need to convert that in a massive pollution amount 😂

[raven bridge]

There's also that mod that spreads the chest's content on the ground 😄

[bold mirage]

wait for SA and dump them into the void of interplanetary space

[raven bridge]

Or into lava

Or into a recycler

[bold mirage]

recycle the co2 to get back usable oil

[desert lake]

But then you have to count the pollution you generated while producing all the rocket parts, and see if it's a net positive...

[raven bridge]

CO2 + H2O -> Methane, using the Sabatier process

[vague cedar]

recycling a non empty barrel ? 🤔

[desert lake]

25% chance to get the non empty barrel back

75% chance it just disappears

[raven bridge]

It would return a 25% barrel, possibly higher quality, if quality modded

The fluid is still without quality

But the barrel can be quality

[bold mirage]

wonder what whacky chemical reactions will bacchus have

[desert lake]

I'm still counting petri dish theory as plausible...

[grave crag]

Now imagine replacing liquids with barrels

[raven bridge]

You know how has 5 fluid connections? Now use it for other things 😉

[bold mirage]

and apart from the main building what other "secondary" stuff will there be, like the drills or the recycler

[raven bridge]

something biologic

Biter ranching... biter dating sim

[bold mirage]

biter bbq

[raven bridge]

Biter milkshake

[vague cedar]

If I'm not wrong, in the last FFF about train, they said it will be more about train no ? 🤔

[raven bridge]

You know spitters? We'll now get swallowers

[candid pawn]

biters are swallowers

[bold mirage]

did we ever figure out what the white or the green stuff is

[candid pawn]

no

if they teased something, just assume they've never come back to it

[bold mirage]

damn

I wonder if we'll get a revisit to each planet once all have been revealed

[raven bridge]

It is something unique that doesn't have a high throughput connection to it, seemingly only bots

And it's not near the wall of roboports on the right, so it's relatively low throughput

Considering it's a small island, it could be whatever the strong white dots are

It was said that the white dots are "very dense scrap, with something above it"

We speculated it to be robot defenses. But maybe it's a very hard shell we need to mine through to crack open.

[candid pawn]

they are the footprints of titans

[bold mirage]

the only thing I can think of for the green is a landing pad with one cargo bay on each side

but still a bit of a low troughtput for your one and only import site

[raven bridge]

I'd wager the landing pad is somewhere near the sea of roboports

[flat cobalt]

Have we had an FFF about earendel hitting the tile limit? cause if not that is my prediction for the next FFF, until it happens

[hasty rapids]

Next fff is about a new unmentioned feature, calling it now

[short roost]

Do all planets have atmospheres?

[sweet wind]

We don't know, but it's quite likely they do

Planets without an atmosphere would (probably) have very boring environments.

[strange jay]

Tile limit was increased

1 byte -> 2 bytes

[raven bridge]

How much effect did it have on save file sizes? I assume compression still helps a ton

[grave crag]

So you, I mean we, modders, can make different quality tiles?

[grave crag]

I'd assume they have a tilemap per chunk
As lonk as the chunk doesn't have over 256 different tiles you may keep them mapped to 1byte ones

[elfin zenith]

Day %%###$$$$ of predicting:
$$%^^^^%$##@ Smut.
Biter Dating Simulator.
Steam Locomotives.

[strange jay]

wrong, we just went for 2 byte tile IDs

[pale pumice]

this seems silly because you could easily go over that number in a given chunk

what do we expect the program to do then? panic?

[pure siren]

we have Steam Locomotives

[sweet wind]

Not in base

[raven bridge]

raiguard is in chat for FFF

[sweet wind]

yeah they've been in #combinators for a bit #combinators message

[chilly widget]

[sweet wind]

The feature in question is so subtle that most people will probably miss it, but I can't play without it anymore!
It was originally a net negative line count but now it adds a few hundred lines after all of the edge case fixing

[chilly widget]

You cannot escape my All-Seeing eye

[sweet wind]

I clearly see two eyes here

[pale pumice]

I doubt this is the feature in question

[sweet wind]

Same, I'm just putting it here for 'speculation'

[desert lake]

My dreams tried to predict the fff 😭😭😭

I had a dream that it was out and I was reading it

It was about slugs (the animal)

They added slugs to the game

They grew metals on their back or something

[strange jay]

keep going ✍️

[desert lake]

They also added this new "type of planet", which was very good for "producing food"

[desert lake]

It had squares of this weird shiny green surface on it, and you had to build on them to produce food. I remember reading that it was "to encourage compact and tileable blueprints"

I think in this last part some stellaris may have leaked into the dream

Anyway, now wube is going to send men in suits to my house because I leaked their top secret slug content

[chilly widget]

Write that down, write that down!

[vital jacinth]

What's the consensus for today? QoL or space? I think it's a bit too early for space right now

[small bear]

not sure what to expect

I will be very happy if its a space platform fff

at least showcasing the latest space platform construction animation

[raven bridge]

"Epic"

[small bear]

it could be more circuit-quality stuff

[vital jacinth]

we just had one

[small bear]

nothing stops them to have two similar fffs in a row

it could be statistics UI rework

It’s not always very straightforward to see if one thing running lower than expected is because theres too much or no enough of supply

also we haven’t seen biters for a long time

and there might be more music fffs

[small bear]

engineer character rework?

[raven bridge]

MUSIC

(also Aquileaked)

[small bear]

there’s no inserters for the cargo wagons, only input and output inserters for the locomotives. It’s probably taking low tier fuel out and putting better ones in

or it could be nuclear rocket fuel reprocessing

[bold shard]

yeah... quite odd there are no inserters

perhaps they can be requester/provider chests when parked?

[worldly sandal]

[raven bridge]

It's just a fuel changer imho

[small bear]

it’s probably just a refuel station

with inserters able to take unwanted fuel type out

to allow switching fuel type

it actually solves the mix fuel interrupt problem quite elegantly

just take the unwanted fuel type out

[bold shard]

yeah it could be. I keep forgetting refuel stations are even a thing now lol

[raven bridge]

So many 2.0 features

[small bear]

I wonder if we have to be personally on the corresponding surface to hear the soundtrack

but not in the remote view

[small bear]

technical FFF next week

after that?

or could be military FFF to properly introduce the rocket turrets and perhaps character rework

[rocky plover]

What's the mix fuel interrupt problem?

[small bear]

its not very straightforward to set proper interrupt conditions if u want to for example change fuel from coal to nuclear

[rocky plover]

What's the problem with simply cutting off coal and putting nuclear fuel on the belt that used to have coal?

[small bear]

u need to think about it in 2.0 context

where u use fuel condition interrupts to tell them to goto refuel station

in this case u need to design a proper ‘go refuel’ condition to cover all possible fuel types

[rocky plover]

oh right so like if wood + coal * 2 + solid fuel * 4 + rocket fuel * 20 + nuclear fuel * 100 < critical value -> go refuel ?

(numbers not accurate)

[small bear]

yeah something like that

and there’s probably no perfect formula

but if u can take out unwanted fuel, then u can simply update the train group to go refuel if they don’t have enough amount of new fuel.

which is super simple to setup

[final dove]

If I understand what you're saying, then this build is meant to be a transitioning stop, to take out old fuel and replace it with good fuel. which would be much easier to do with an interrupt.

[small bear]

no, the station is still a refuel interrupt stop, just that u don need a complex interrupt condition to account for remaining low tier fuel in the train. (to prevent the train full of wrong fuel stuck at refuel station forever)

[final dove]

AH. got it. you're so right. its so unassuming I wasn't thinking it could the the refueling stop for the whole network

[small bear]

yeah, if u want to replace coal with nuclear fuel, u can just goto the train group and change the refuel condition from“if coal<50” to “if nuclear fuel<1”. All trains will get their fuel upgraded and u don’t need to worry about coal that haven’t been consumed

[final dove]

that's so smart

[stable summit]

It is really well possible that they don't reveal or Aquilo until release, or that they are saving something really big that they never even hint towards

[small bear]

if they don’t reveal something before the release it’s probably because they haven’t finish those content

[small bear]

I expect them to not reveal every single tech unlocks, but as one of the major part of gameplay I expect them to show the concept and the rough game progression for all the planets

[raven bridge]

They will likely only reveal the last planet on release week

[small bear]

but they will

[bold shard]

it wouldn't surprise me if it doesn't go into more detail than the intro FFF for or when they do so, with a light sprinkling of what happens there

[raven bridge]

Yea it will be "part 1"/teaser on the week before release, then release FFF, and maybe after that, the part 2

[small bear]

I’m expecting they reveal the endgame goal on the release week

[primal nacelle]

I still kind of expect them to not reveal the last planet at all before launch. Perhaps a quick teaser? And then more after the launch. But we'll see what the devs do

[raven bridge]

Teaser like they teased on the 1.0 announcement

[small bear]

one planet is quite a lot to hide compared to spidertron in 1.0

[gilded mica]

What's the leading theory for the unique resource of the ice/water planet?

[raven bridge]

Ice, and water

[candid pawn]

assembler chains:
ice -> snow -> snowmen -> frosty the snowman (requires legendary hat)

[raven bridge]

Imagine if you need heat pipes to uncover resources and buildable land

[rocky plover]

Speculation: as soon as you reach space, all coal is renamed to "carbon". It functions exactly the same as before, except now you can find it in places other than Nauvis.

[raven bridge]

Unlikely

[small bear]

#friday-facts message
based on this Im quite sure carbon and coal are different, and we probably have a new recipe to convert carbon into coal

[small bear]

perhaps just ice. I expect water on

ice and water are kind of repetitive for power

if there’s water then there’s not much point to have ice

[rocky plover]

Good point.

I wonder how the chain carbon + sulfur -> coal -> heavy oil -> light oil -> petroleum -> sulfur works with productivity modules. Can you create sulfur from nothing? (or rather, sulfur from carbon, but you know what I mean)

[small bear]

u still need carbon as input

[rocky plover]

Yeah, but carbon -> sulfur without an obvious nuclear reactor would be weird

[small bear]

and it is possible that sulfur is not needed for the recipe, just that they happens to be on the same belt

so simply carbon+water = coal

[rocky plover]

In which case instead of carbon+ sulfur -> potentially more sulfur than you started with, it's just carbon -> definitely more sulfur than you started with

[small bear]

there’s no sulfur loop wdym

its the same as coal liquefaction

u can get sulfur from coal in 1.0

also cracking all they way with liquefaction is space inefficient

probably not suitable for space platform

[raven bridge]

Water

Water isn't free in 3 of the surfaces we saw 🙂

[small bear]

I see no problem that we can convert carbon into sulfur

we can already do that with coal

[rocky plover]

Fine: the question is, with productivity, can you go: sulfur + carbon + water -> more sulfur than your started with?

I mean coal can contain sulfur

That's why coal powerplants give off sulfur dioxide which creates acid rain.

[small bear]

it depends on the recipe but likely yes

[raven bridge]

Depends if all these recipes accept prod

[small bear]

but I don’t see it as a big problem because both carbon and sulfur are from asteroids crushing

just get more asteroids is probably easier (and more space efficient) for more sulfur

[rocky plover]

TBH productivity in factorio is a very unrealistic mechanic, so it's not a big surprise if it creates completely illogical situations

[raven bridge]

Better usage of input materials

[small bear]

there will definitely no infinite positive loop tho

[raven bridge]

Space mining is probably infinite positive loop

But slowish

I feel like it's SA's response to SE's core mining

[rocky plover]

An offshore pump is an infinite ressource generator

[small bear]

feels like we’re talking about if it worth to make a giant platform to farm free asteroids again 😅

[raven bridge]

Well... you'll have to fight

[small bear]

I would argue that the setup cost is way higher to justify the low maintenance cost, also UPS is probably worse than miners+rockets

especially with high level mining prod

not sure if we will have asteroid processing prod infinite tech tho

[raven bridge]

inb4 mining prod helps crushers

[rocky plover]

I wasn't asking thinking it was a good idea to generate sulfur, I was asking about whether the game would break physics and have a way of generating sulfur from things that aren't sulfur without a nuclear reactor

[small bear]

well, effectively u r converting energy into mass with prod modules

at this point I throw away realism already

[rocky plover]

So prod modules are actually fusion reactors making matter from pure energy?

TBH we have a portable fusion reactor so I guess it's possible

[small bear]

u can also explain it as reducing waste

imo it doesn’t matter that much gameplay wise if it breaks a bit of physics

and if in doubt u can always make changes on the physics constants in the Factorio universe

btw this kinda confirms the endgame will be covered in a future FFF

[raven bridge]

Won't be surprised if they come from deep space asteroid mining

[small bear]

hunting giant asteroids in deep space

sounds fun

hope to see artillery on space platforms

[small bear]

based on the likely music track I suspect there will be heavy rain/flooding events. The second half of the music quite fit the vibe

and there might be caves or dark forest areas

where u have limited access to sunlight (likely covered by tree)

or could be something happens at night

[candid pawn]

id love more weather

[late venture]

I think there might be city building events

[small bear]

still curious about new enemies

but fits for both weather and the brain enemy

Also I feel like the soundtrack showcased is only for night storm times. During days the music might be a lot more quiet

[bold shard]

desolate, mysterious vibes then

[small bear]

ethereal vibe

basically the melody part without electric noises

and probably without the base

[bold shard]

yeah it doesn't even have to be a cleanly defined beat, just gentle meandering tones

[candid pawn]

they said the music isnt affect by game events (except the surface ur looking at)

[small bear]

is it based on remote view or the actual location of player?

[candid pawn]

remote view

but its not implemented yet so details could presumably change

[small bear]

this is sad, but does the time cycle count as an event?

[candid pawn]

idk man

probably

[small bear]

also they have two versions of music for space platform: stationary and moving

or two states

[candid pawn]

no

there's a giant paragraph in the FFF about how the engine cant tell the music whats happening

so the music just randomly plays

[small bear]

sad

I hope they change it in 2.1

[candid pawn]

well they've designed the music itself around this

so to really take advantage of that, they'd need to write new music

so i doubt it

[small bear]

but the sample music feels quite dynamic and would be a bit weird if the wrong part is played at incorrect situation

especially for the one

[candid pawn]

if you compare the music to other building / engineering games with music that randomly plays, its pretty similar in terms of dynamism

however, we'll need to wait and see

for me the fulgoria one is a bit much

[bold shard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wi0iwEeucc its a pretty noticeable difference with the new stuff vs the original/nauvis music

[candid pawn]

solar intervention is pretty vibes

[small bear]

the new music definitely feels more epic

[candid pawn]

does the last song play in game?

[bold shard]

not sure honestly lol, but its probably my favorite

[small bear]

I only remember hearing it on menu screen

still I think the new music is a lot more epic and dynamic than the old ones

perhaps it’s because they haven’t been remixed

also the engine has to be able at least tell the music ‘something’ otherwise it can’t tell which surface the player is looking at

the question is to what extent

the fff only says it can’t read players actions

like if they’re building factories or in a combat

but didn’t confirm if the music player can tell the time and natural (daynight based) events on the planet

also if the platform is moving or not

[candid pawn]

no, it says

We don't have a way for the engine to tell the music system what is happening in the game

[small bear]

well if we read that literally, then it can’t tell which surface the player is looking at

In other words, the music system has no idea if the player is in the middle of a battle destroying biter nests, or meticulously placing transport belts to satisfy the needs of a growing factory.

[candid pawn]

I suspect the surface part is being added and is the only thing the music will know about because its required for the sound system to work at all

[small bear]

the thing is daynight cycle is independent of player activity so might be easier to read (I have no idea tho)

[candid pawn]

i think its best to assume that any capabilities not explicitly stated to exist do not exist

[small bear]

Probably they will explain some more techniques next week as they teased

[candid pawn]

the only facts we have are

• the music system knows nothing about the game
• but it will pick music based on the surface you are looking on (and this is in devlopment)

[small bear]

not sure where is the source of the second half

not in the fff at least

[candid pawn]

these are a little contradictory, but I think its safe to assume the only thing the music system knows is current surface

#friday-facts message

[small bear]

nice

[raven bridge]

Weather would be awesome

[desert lake]

How am I only now realizing this...

[small bear]

well… technically u don’t need core mining in SA because planet area (thus resource) is practically infinite

[primal nacelle]

Especially if the resources behave like they do in vanilla (get richer the further from origo the resource field is)

[small bear]

I guess this is making EMP from refined concrete, processors, steel and holmium plate

[raven bridge]

It's making recyclers

[small bear]

no recyclers in in another area

recycler recipe is and doens't require holmium

[raven bridge]

Ah it is indeed another thing

[small bear]

recyclers are made in assemblers not in EMP

quite sure the EMPs are making EMPs

[raven bridge]

It can craft wire, circuits, electric poles, accumulators, lightning rods, supercapacitors, the new science pack, more electromagnetic plants, various tesla items, a few other things, and last but not least, modules.
Could also be advanced lightning rods, but yea probably EMPs

[small bear]

advanced lighting rod probably need supercapacitor

I bet u can simply smelt holmium ore in furnace to get plate

[raven bridge]

We haven't seen molten holmium, so yea it's probably a direct ore -> plate thing.

[bold shard]

EMPs can craft themselves?

[small bear]

we know foundry can craft foundry

EMP is likely similar

[bold shard]

interesting, that base prod will help a lot with recycle loops

[bold shard]

it would be strange though if was some kind of chemical plant for its special crafting building, and that could craft itself

[small bear]

I think thats okay

advanced crafting machien with chemical processing capabilities

[bold shard]

if the scope of what it can craft is larger than the chem plant then yeah thats within the realm of believability lol

[raven bridge]

It can craft wire, circuits, electric poles, accumulators, lightning rods, supercapacitors, the new science pack, more electromagnetic plants, various tesla items, a few other things, and last but not least, modules.

[bold shard]

definitely a huge help

the problem now will be powering tons of them lol

[small bear]

lightning rods probably provide more power than Nauvis solar

[bold shard]

I'm sure, but we have yet to see what use they'll have outside of

[raven bridge]

if

[bold shard]

yep lol

[small bear]

I don’t mind if lightning rods are only useful on

[candid pawn]

lightning rods can generate power and protect your ship if you fly though a plasma storm in space (I made this up)

[desert lake]

Me neither

But I would mind if lightning collectors are

[small bear]

I wouldn’t mind if lightning collectors are just lighting rod mk2

I don’t see any issues if there are some entities made on a planet that only has use on that planet

[desert lake]

The thing with collectors is that they're gated behind science

You have to invest in them, and I feel like that should warrant a bigger payoff

[small bear]

so wat

it can be a cheap research

[candid pawn]

the devs have shown that they dont like buildings that only have one use

[small bear]

it doesn’t mean they won’t add one

[candid pawn]

i agree

[pale pumice]

There can obviously be exceptions, think the asteroid collector

[candid pawn]

but there are some issues with buildings with one use

[small bear]

also crusher

[pale pumice]

crusher is not an example

[small bear]

crusher only crush asteroids and only on space platform

[pale pumice]

that would be like saying assembling machine has 1 use

we don't know that

plus there is crushing 1 and crushing 2

[desert lake]

We do, actually, it has a space gravity requirement to work

[pale pumice]

true

[small bear]

well lightning collector not only protects u, they also generate power

[desert lake]

Yeah but that's one thing, it does both at the same time

[small bear]

assemblers also just crafts. That’s one thing to me

no matter what recipe u set, it just crafts

[primal tinsel]

if we dont get an assembler 4, my dreams will be ruined

[small bear]

u can also dynamically change recipe using circuit

[desert lake]

Yes, but you use assemblers constantly and everywhere. The reason we are even looking for more things for the collector to do isn't just for the sake of it, it's because unlike the assembler it needs a reason to be used widely

[small bear]

I just don’t see why there can’t be an entity that’s only useful where needed

[desert lake]

I'm not saying that

The lightning rod is perfectly fine

[small bear]

say landfill only useful on water planets

well we don’t know the research cost for lighting collectors, but it can be as well just 75 packs

also even if it just boots power, that’s big enough that I will pay 500 science or even more for it

lighting collector is probably not the main reason u go to

[candid pawn]

i think we agree that it is possible the lightning rod might only be used on fulgora. but it would be cool, and in line with wube's philosophy, for it to be useful elsewhere

[small bear]

u probably go there for EMP and holmium

[bold mirage]

could even be a trigger

[small bear]

I just don’t see how. At this point it feels unnecessary to find another role, for them if just for the sake of it

[desert lake]

We know it's not

[candid pawn]

i suggested that it could be used in space to protect aginst lightning storms

[desert lake]

But then that means they were added "just for the sake of it", if they do the exact job another building but better, which is to say they have flatly incresed output numbers with no mechanical difference. It's like a solar panel mk2. Assemblers at least have the difference in module slots

[candid pawn]

there's nothing wrong with a building being another building but better tho

for example, red belts are yellow belts but better

[small bear]

mk3 assemblers is just upgraded mk2

more module slots doesn’t allow them to do different things

its just better

[desert lake]

Belts and inserters aren't really on the same level, they're logistics, not production, and their tasks are too simple to allow much room for nuance. But even inserters manage to do something interesting, with stack and bulk

[small bear]

imo the lighting collector is more like the ‘proper lighting rod’ and the lighting rod is more like a initial trigger tech to get u to EM science

just for the kickstart

u r probably not supposed to scale your power using lightning rods

u only need them to crate a small playground to figure out the initial Fulgora production

[candid pawn]

what if the final planet has stuff from all planets

so u need lightning rod there

what if you can set up 2 lightning rods to create a tesla arc defense

flip a lightning rod to "discharge mode" and if you pump electricity into it, it creates lightning strikes to damage enemies

[small bear]

well I don’t mind if they do have uses elsewhere. I’m simply satisfied even they’re only useful on Fulgora

to me they are useful enough

surely it might be better if theres applications for them elsewhere, but it need to in a way that makes the game much more fun imo

it could be that the route to Aquilo is gated by electric fields

so u need Fulgora tech as one of the prerequisites

but I think if anything its more likely that u need other things from Fulgora to help u to get to Aquilo, instead of the lighting collector

[candid pawn]

yeah. very possible. its not really easy to predict what "will" be in the expansion so I like predict what would be fun to be in the expansion

[hasty rapids]

I wasn't completely wrong

[pale pumice]

Very arguable

are we sure they never mentioned new music?

[sweet wind]

I would say that new music was absolutely mentioned

[pale pumice]

Oh, but to you I have the same question: where?

Interestingly too - you have the burden of proof

[sweet wind]

Music
I am sure you all want to hear about the new music coming in Factorio: Space Age, but we are saving that for a future FFF, stay tuned!

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-396

[pale pumice]

That did not seem to be too heavy of a burden.

[sweet wind]

Not particularly

[small bear]

this makes me wonder if next week will be a technical fff

[desert lake]

I'd think so

[bold shard]

if we're lucky it might even include a few more pictures/videos of SA stuff

[small bear]

I hope the introduction fff will have music included

[raven bridge]

That would be hype... same for Aquilo

[chilly widget]

This reads like "Maybe the devs will actually talk about their game in their devlog" 🤣

[bold shard]

#friday-facts message big if true

"october at the latest"

[raven bridge]

26 FFFs to go

[topaz wing]

October is great, having a specific time-frame feels good after a lot of "probably this year, maybe later"

[magic crest]

The expansion will be released when it's done.

It will release in 470 days... I think.

[pale pumice]

I mean, to be fair, most of the FFFs have been far more 2.0 stuff than SA stuff. If you picked 5 at random to read you might not even know space age was a thing.

The FFFs are very SA-light, by %

[small bear]

well SA is only one of 3 mods in the expansion

that’s already 33%

and theres also qol 2.0 stuff

[raven bridge]

I don't care. 2.0 QoL is amazing

[candid pawn]

its something like 27% SA focused FFF's at this point

[small bear]

some of the qol are more amazing than SA stuff

[candid pawn]

I do care. QoL is good but its not exciting

[small bear]

QoL makes u love Factorio

[raven bridge]

excites me

[small bear]

space platform excites me

[candid pawn]

ive been whining about (lack of) super force build for years but the music + videos in the new FFF got me 10x as excited

[raven bridge]

Space Platform is SA though

Yea latest FFF was a banger

[small bear]

generic interrupts excites me

[raven bridge]

Remote requests excites me

[small bear]

yeah remote view

the whole thing

[raven bridge]

But I agree that the most bangers were quality, elevated rails, platforms, the 2 new planets

[small bear]

new content attracts players, qol makes players stay

[topaz wing]

Do we think there will be something else besides the planet stuff on the level of elevated rails and quality?

[raven bridge]

I speculate no. That said both quality and elevated rails came as a surprise

[small bear]

I think they’re not hiding a secret 4th mod in the expansion

(or 5th)

if we count the expensive mode

how about new new tutorial campaign

[raven bridge]

We will have a lot of new tutorials and tips for the planets

[small bear]

let’s imagine how many players will complain that they keep dying on Fulgora during night

and how sucks solar are there

[raven bridge]

They should stand under a native lightning rod

I wonder if the game drops you for the first time during day or is it a global timer

[small bear]

“I spent all the space on the island for solar to power a few miner and recyclers, then the lighting ruins everything”

[raven bridge]

"Can Wube plz remove lightning it break my base"

[small bear]

they just deconstructed the initial lightning rods for resource

[raven bridge]

"I put mod now build everywhere and fulgora boring planet, plz fix"

We still need to know how planet generation works

[small bear]

new new map settings!

[raven bridge]

I still think it should be decided when you first want to drop to the planet, or when you finish researching the planet

rather than a huge settings screen at the start with all the planets' sliders

[small bear]

or it just don’t let u preview the planets at all before u land

[raven bridge]

You should be allowed to choose your landing spot i.e. your seed

[small bear]

will there be different seeds per planet?

[raven bridge]

That's what I think would be interesting, but it might not be

SE doesn't let you choose anything after you start

At the minimum, you should be able to scan the planet before dropping to it, know what you're getting into

[pale pumice]

I kinda wish we could just agree that these people's experience was not going to be good in the first place

[candid pawn]

Id want to see how fiddling with the map settings changes the other planets so I'd hope for a preview before the game starts

[raven bridge]

The best option is to preview before each planet, allowing you to play with some of the settings

[candid pawn]

not a bad idea

[small bear]

I guess when u drop there first time it will always start at day

otherwise imagine instantly killed by lightning

[raven bridge]

Hopefully, something smart. But I won't be surprised if you just get a huge list of ores at the beginning like in SE or Py's

[frail kestrel]

Given that you can turn off biters in vanilla, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an option to reduce or remove lightning from fulgora.

[raven bridge]

That would kill your power generation

[small bear]

perhaps removing lightning damage

but tbh lightning is a lot more controllable and easier to deal with than biters

and they give u actual practical benefits

[small bear]

Bacchus prediction: lakes on mountain, almost no building area here (cliffs and water). Special resources and main building area in basin, forest with basic resources and some building area.

there will be rains periodically causing floods due to lakes on mountain, and will flush everything (or makes them stop working) in the basin without proper defense. After flooding the water will be slowly absorbed by forests which are on a slightly higher ground, and the forest acts as a safe area to start with but has limited resources and building area

any suggestions on what could be the special resource that are protected by the floods?

[raven bridge]

If we get a fourth limited space surface, I'd call Wube uncreative.

So I doubt this.

[sweet wind]

I'd hesitate to call Vulcanus a "limited space surface"

But I do doubt that Bacchus will be as restrictive as space platforms or Fulgora

[raven bridge]

Lava limits you a lot

And we don't start with

[sweet wind]

It getting really close to also having be a limited space surface

[candid pawn]

if they can think of another way to make limited surface space interesting id call them creative

yeah "terrain" seems to be a theme of the expansion

[sweet wind]

It's not unlikely unlocks and the lava restricts a similar amount of surface as water on

Plus there's nothing on forbidding you from building things close together and dense, on you're restricted by the power you can generate on any given island as well as by the space available to you.

Yes, is more restrictive than . But personally I feel it's not very comparable to space platforms or

[worldly sandal]

Is a difference of degree, not a difference of kind.

You have to consider space to build on both Vulcanus and Fulgora. But it will likely be far more of a primary consideration on Fulgora.

[candid pawn]

here's a portion of a vulcanus map. what portion of the map is buildable and suitable for a factory?

[desert lake]

Mostly the flat plains between mountains and lavalands. Mountains will be the source of acid and calcite, and lavalands will be the source of tungsten and lava

[bold shard]

it just can't be your usual rectangular shaped base lol

it'll either twist around the counters of buildable terrain or you'll need separate sub-bases connected via rail

[candid pawn]

without cliff explosives, its actually pretty dire

[late venture]

Seems fine to me

Factories in tight spaces are fun

[bold shard]

things will help a lot as well

also the 50% base prod machines shrink down the footprint

[desert lake]

That's just one way it can look, you will most likely be able to find spots with more space

[candid pawn]

I'm not saying its not fun. I'm just inviting a comparison to Fulgora. Its pretty similar in many ways

In fact, without cliff explosives, Fulgora might actually have more land?

[pale pumice]

can we maybe nix this channel :(

[candid pawn]

no

[pale pumice]

so many FFF channels, it gets a bit confusing

[late venture]

Stop complaining about terrain here, that's what #space-age is for. This thread is for predicting the topic of the next FFF :P

[pale pumice]

Technically no

The scope was changed

It is now 'FFF speculations'

[candid pawn]

I'm not complaining about terrain :)

[pale pumice]

So this channel would technically be for any speculation of unspecified FFF content

but that would argue that #friday-facts is for only the stuff we know - which is silly

[late venture]

renames thread
#speculations about upcoming FFF topics

[pale pumice]

I'd support lol

[candid pawn]

This conversation grew from speculation that Bwohuo would not be space restricted. So people started exploring the space restritions of other planets. But I can stop talking here if its off topic

[pale pumice]

I love the topic

I just nearly missed it because of it's location :(

[late venture]

Gotta keep it in your channel list

[pale pumice]

I do

[candid pawn]

I think the next FFF will be about trains

[bold mirage]

they said next fff would be about music implementation

[pale pumice]

no they didn't.

'a future FFF' has seldom meaned the next one

[candid pawn]

Yeah, that and trains

[late venture]

The sounds of trains

[candid pawn]

heeh

[late venture]

Especially their horns

[pale pumice]

oh, that said next week

well you win

[rocky plover]

TBH looks like there is plenty of space to build a factory. If you can't manage without cliff explosives it sounds like a skill issue.

[topaz wing]

It's also very hard to imagine the zoom level on these maps without factories to compare. Those islands and ashlands may be much bigger than you think.

[bold shard]

you can kindof make it out with the checkerboard pattern on the ore patches, since at least in 1.x it doesn't scale with zoom level. that coal patch in the middle of that pic is definitely on the larger size

theres certainly room to get stuff done, but it'll require some strategy by distributing stuff across multiple areas if you want to go big (pre-cliff explosives/advanced landfill)

[uncut moon]

Cliffs also don't change based on zoom. There looks like a decent enough space

[raven bridge]

We can estimate the map though

[small bear]

[gilded mica]

This conversation grew from speculation that Bwohuo would not be space restricted. So people started exploring the space restritions of other planets.

wait all planets this far are space restricted?

When was this announced?

[bold shard]

and have limited build areas until you eventually research cliff explosives and advanced landfill, whatever they are

look at the FFFs on them and you'll see

[gilded mica]

ahh, yes sure

I thought hard limit as in x by x area

[bold shard]

ahhhh

[candid pawn]

Sorry for the confusion, I just mean there's lots of stuff on them that prevent you from building

[gilded mica]

Unrelated prediction
at least one planet will have orbital dangers/ resources e.g. asteroids, comets etc. Think rings like Saturn or similar.
So far we have ground dangers with vulcanus and atmospheric dangers with Fulgaro. This would fit nicely along this theme.

[candid pawn]

Do you mean astroids that exist for space platforms that are in orbit? Or dangers on the ground that come in from space?

[gilded mica]

Or dangers on the ground that come in from space?

While thematically similar to the resources you can farm on the space platform, I think you can do many implementations for ground bases

[candid pawn]

That would be interesting and cool!

[gilded mica]

I also saw a neat theory that the jungle/water planet will have biologic, ecological dangers; e.g. tree creep destroying your machines

[desert lake]

Asteroid rings would be totally on-brand for Aquilo

[candid pawn]

we know nothing about aquillo's brand tho

[desert lake]

It's on the edge of the solar system, it's cold, and it's probably going to be an appropriate level of cool/epic because it's the final planet. That's enough for me

[elfin zenith]

Week 1 of predicting 'Space platforms can land'.
Week 1 of predicting 'Space platform train ferries".

[raven bridge]

You're thinking of SE. It won't happen in vanilla SA.

[solemn cosmos]

(I did not see any rules on poll but if I need to delete tell me)

[candid pawn]

it will be about music

making of

[bold shard]

how they made 5+ hours of it, apparently

[pure siren]

how they stretched 5 hours of music into much longer

Every surface of the game plays around 1h of music. That means that we have to play 5 hours of soundtrack, +1h of Nauvis. Next week we will speak about some techniques that we developed to not only cover this amount of time, but also surpass it.

[candid pawn]

next time on FFF

[small bear]

I think it actually makes sense that cliff explosives are unlocked on , as a reward from learning coal liquefaction.

I guess u can’t get sulfur from acid

“u have very limited space on until u learn coal liquefaction and make cliff explosives”

[gilded mica]

I hope they at least add a teaser for new features. While I do care a lot about music composition, SA new OST is just not interesting enough (for me)

[violet willow]

due to recent discussion here i think the FFFs are more QOL than SA content because they know only the people who are loyal to the game read all these

as one of you said: "content brings new people, QOL makes players stay"

[sweet wind]

It's also hard to talk about just one thing in space age without giving context more broadly

You can talk about one QoL thing and it can remain self contained.

[vocal rock]

Wild predictions time: FFF about music, but with bwuhuo/aquilo landscape as a background

[small bear]

I think its still too early for part 1

I expect more mp4 if there will be any

[bold mirage]

hoping they showcase more dev factories, liked the fulgora one quite a bit

[small bear]

perhaps showcasing the factory

[raven bridge]

Today will be technical, relatively short, possibly some music tracks, nothing ground breaking

[pale pumice]

I second this motion

[obsidian hawk]

wube made an a capella version of every new track and today they show us the footage of them singing

(i hope none of my predictions ever come true)

[pure siren]

why not, that would be fun to watch

[obsidian hawk]

sure but playing on Fulgora with all the Wube crew going "dun dun dun dun dun dun"... i don't know

[pale pumice]

dooo doo do doooooooooooooooo

[raven bridge]

doo doodoo doooooo.... doo doodoo doooooo... doo dooooooo.......

[strange jay]

who is the girl wearing nothin but a smile and towel in the picture on the billboard in the field near the big old highway

[gilded mica]

Mana mana doo dodo doo
Mana mana doo dodo doo
Mana mana doo dodo doo
Dodo dodo do do dodo do

[raven bridge]

I have no speculation for today

[small bear]

music technical fff

[raven bridge]

as expected I guess

[small bear]

the first music could be Aquilo, and the second one could be an end game space location

or ice cave

[solemn cosmos]

it was indeed technical

[elder raptor]

I've been saying this for a while! It was partly because I was trying to come up with something that would make sense for plants, and partly because, at the time, I was listening to a podcast where the characters were trudging through a living jungle, and shamelessly stole it

[gilded mica]

My disappointment is unmeasureable and my day is ruined

[rocky plover]

Probably 10th time I'm posting this, but I really like the idea of the only local source of water being giant trees you have to chop down (with military stuff) and the harvest the water by placing a pumpjack on the stump to suck out everything from the roots.

[gilded mica]

sounds like micro management hell tbh.

[desert lake]

Imagine having to do that before artillery

[rocky plover]

I mean it's like killing a biter nest that's on top of an oil well, and then placing a pumpjack on the oil well.

Not any more micro heavy than anything else in the game

Do you guys play on peaceful mode always or something? Because otherwise I can't believe you've never used military means in order to access ressources before.

[desert lake]

I tend to usually access resources close to my existing expansion, which is already clear of biters for other reasons

[rocky plover]

But you did clear the biters ?

[elfin zenith]

I predict... more train stuff! Or, maybe smarter Biter AI? (Rampart intensities)

[desert lake]

V has already expressed their opinion on smarter biter AI

That being that it won’t really add anything meaningful

Because the only countermeasure to it would be to just put turrets everywhere instead of only in tactical positions

[small bear]

I hope they make biter AI less smart

so u only need to put defenses near high pollution sources or at tactical locations

instead of a full perimeter wall

tbh I hope biters only attack miners and power plant

[raven bridge]

I never trust that. A train going over a biter causes the group to attack the train/rails/poles near it.

[desert lake]

I mean, pollution from your mining will always reach the biters first anyway. Perimeter walls exist mostly to stop expansions

[small bear]

I still don’t get why biters are willing to build new home inside pollution cloud

[desert lake]

Just because they know you don’t like it

[rocky plover]

I've had biters decide to build a new home not only in my pollution cloud, but the biters decided the best way to travel there was THROUGH my main base. Managed to get biters attacking my base without a single gram of pollution hitting a nest.

Now that's annoying

Didn't have any defences ready because I was watching the pollution graph to decide when was the right time and seeing 0 pollution absorbed, well, no defences.

[desert lake]

Oh I saw that happen once, except luckily they didn’t bump into anything so they didn’t attack. I was out nest raiding, and I zoomed in on my base to check on something random, and I just walked in on an expansion party creeping through my entire base to set up a nest somewhere on the other side. It was like a horror movie moment…

Thankfully it was a bus base and they went perpendicular through it

[small bear]

I hope there will be circuit interactions to statistics numbers

for example alert me if theres biter nest absorbing pollution

check if the item prodction is sufficient

[candid pawn]

that would be cool!

[void sapphire]

If they don’t add it to 2.0 someone should make a mod.

[small bear]

new speculation: On Aquilo there will be blizzards that temporarily disable bots, so u can’t rely on logi bots as a major logistics method. This might be also where non-bot rocket loading is useful

[pale pumice]

Do you remmeber where they said that?

I asked about it just today and nobody could find it

[pale pumice]

@small bear *

[small bear]

I think its in a fff

I’m trying to find it

[pale pumice]

I do too, but I've looked and it had eluded me

[small bear]

here in the space platform fff

this makes me wonder if there will be a planet where bots are not reliable

and if there is, it’s probably the last planet

[elder raptor]

Space has no bots already; I don't think they'll make a planet have no bots

Even if it's the last planet, you still want to build a whole factory there

[pure siren]

It says "manually stockpile the silo", not "bring stuff to silo with other means than bots"
this goes further, claiming that our automation won't solve some specific problems

[pale pumice]

I doubt this is about bots. I think it's actually about the need to stock rockets intelligently.

Perhaps this is part of the final challenge for the super secret science pack

[pure siren]

It cannot be about bots. Bots can't deliver stuff to the silo, no?

[pale pumice]

They can

[small bear]

not necessarily no bots, just unreliable bots

[pale pumice]

One of the key features of the silo is that it can request locally the things that are needed somewhere else

[pure siren]

Is that a 2.0 thing?

[pale pumice]

platform requests get 'forwarded' as local logistics requests on the silo

Well It's an SA thing

(by definition)

[elder raptor]

Yeah, new feature

[pure siren]

Hmm, I thought it's limited to Landing Platforms, but it makes sense.
Hope Wube had an idea how to control which Silo gets the request.

[elder raptor]

Might be backported to 2.0, who knows

[pale pumice]

Yeah.. this part is not so clear to me.

The silo requests a single item in auto mode

If you request 5 things, and have 5 silos, I wonder how it will behave.

[pure siren]

Without any memory of that FFF, I'd expect it to be routed through the Landing Pad and it's our job to make sure we don't overdeliver the stuff.

[pale pumice]

wdym to the landing pad?

[small bear]

silo in auto mode probably only can have one request

[pale pumice]

no probably

that is explicitly stated

and the request is, I believe, automatically determined.

[elder raptor]

Orbital logistics are probably gonna be covered later

[pale pumice]

or maybe you can set it explicitly to be 1 item

but it is for sure 1 item

[elder raptor]

Don't forget silos are connected to the logistic network

[pure siren]

The Landing Pad is the entity that gets the request, and we can read it with circuitry.
If the request would be routed to all Silos, we couldn't prevent sending too much stuff.

[pale pumice]

Nothing in the FFF seems to correbate that as far as I read.

[pure siren]

yeah, I'm making shit up as I go
can you point me to the FFF?

[pale pumice]

It's okay. I've argued about this exact FFF all day.

Craziest thing is a feature I was arguing should exist... for 4 hours ... from further study we learned it already existed

But more on that in a moment

[small bear]

so far we know that we can set requests imon platform hub and it will be synced with silo on ground. We also know that we can set request in landing pad on ground but we don’t know who will respond to this request

[pale pumice]

We know a bit more that is distrubing

Here is the FFF in question @pure siren https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-382

[small bear]

Id imagine the landing pad request will only send to orbiting platforms

[pale pumice]

We know that all of these entities support general requests

IE they support both a min and a max level...

[pure siren]

thanks
brb

[small bear]

ah yeah

I think the landing pad request and platform hub requests are independent

[pure siren]

btw, there're 4 sizes of asteroid, so there's one more weapon we don't know yet

[pale pumice]

wait really?

[small bear]

no?

the smallest size don’t need weapons

[pure siren]

We only see gun turrets on the platforms, are laser turrets ineffective against asteroids?
Each asteroid size has a different preferred weapon. Laser turrets are only efficient against the small asteroids, and the medium ones need at least a gun turret.
Since energy is quite scarce on the platform, it is usually a better strategy to just use gun turrets for both small and medium asteroids.
There are also going to be big and huge asteroids on some of the more dangerous routes, and these will need even heavier weapons, but more on that later.

[small bear]

hum

so the fragments are not small asteroids?

[pale pumice]

we saw a big

[strange jay]

thats wasn't a big

[pure siren]

Huge confirmed

[strange jay]

Behemoth!

[pale pumice]

so it was a huge?

are you saying we have never seen a big asteroid?

[pure siren]

I was suspecting the reason it crashed into the platform was that it was too big for the rocket turrets the moment I read that paragraph

[strange jay]

That was a medium 👀 🤯

[small bear]

[pure siren]

pretty sure you're lying Klonan

[strange jay]

true that

[pale pumice]

Klonan, can the rocket turret take nukes?

It would be really funny if it could

[strange jay]

There is no reason why not

[pale pumice]

one reason is sorta performance

and it would look weird in space

like really weird

... unless you did custom nuke graphics for space

[pure siren]

Doesn't look weird in Armageddon (1998)

[pale pumice]

but that implies there would be a reason to use a nuke in space

[pure siren]

no scorch marks is reason enough for me

[pale pumice]

so we know there are four sizes of asteroids

only small can really be beat by lasers, medium needs 'at least a gun'

That one can't be a medium because it wasn't killed by gun

[desert lake]

Actually, what if rocket turrets have a minimum range, due to the explosions? And that's why we didn't see them fire at the large asteroid in that one moment, because it was already too close when the camera got to it

[pale pumice]

That's what we come up with last time

That is the current belief, but you'd need confirmation that rocket turrets do have a minimum range.

[desert lake]

Automated nuke defenses

[pure siren]

watched it again, they didn't even fire
neither did the rocket turrets
Rail Guns confirmed?

[small bear]

nah probably just artillery

[pale pumice]

not neccesarily

my belief is that if it is a minimum range thing

they just spawned the asteroid in

they could also just be messing around

[pure siren]

that would be cheating

[pale pumice]

it starts shooting immediately after

well realize they want the asteroid to hit

but this is a pretty well built platform

[small bear]

well yeah.. it is possible that they made the artificial crash

and rockets are for the huge asteriods

[pale pumice]

I'm not sure that one is a big.

[pure siren]

I didn't see the rocket turrets try
But it could be that rocket turrets are the highest tier

rockets have the longest range on the ground too

regardless, we get another turret type for space platforms

[small bear]

I think they mean large will become medium, medium become small on destruction

[pale pumice]

yes, I do

[small bear]

#1177597309572366396 message
and according to this

theres three stages

[pale pumice]

do you see enough split actions in the video?

[small bear]

I see one big become one medium become two small and them many chunks

[pale pumice]

wait did mods delete that one

I thought it was on topic

[small bear]

no meme gif lmao

[pale pumice]

I concur then. That is big.

[pure siren]

might've been Klonan deleting it himself.
he does that

[pale pumice]

It's an ironic gif for Klonan

being copied is his entire origin story

so many clones of Konan

[strange jay]

https://tenor.com/view/infinite-dragon-dream-feet-loop-gif-21680163

[pale pumice]

then the one we saw was a huge

[strange jay]

(this is the one I was looking for originally)

[pale pumice]

Yeah this is the one i expected. I was a little confused when I watched it for a few seconds and it didn't 'do the thing'

[strange jay]

false advertising of the preview

[pale pumice]

I chalked it up to my memory being wrong

[pure siren]

regarding minimum range:
that space platform is litered with rocket turrets
none of them shot at the huge asteroid
maybe minimum range from the platform?

[pale pumice]

oh, that is a good catch

minimum distance away from friendly entities doesn't sound super computationally easy

I suppose it could be precomputed, but still a bit expensive

[pure siren]

They also don't cheat. I think it's legit a Huge Assteroid and we'll see another turret tier.

[pale pumice]

they do too cheat

[small bear]

A closer look at the asteroid splitting: there are two possibilities:
Big -> medium -> 1 chunk + 2 small -> 5 chunks
Big -> 3 small -> 6 chunks

[pale pumice]

well this lovely source I have right here says it actually splits into 2 every time so idk

[pure siren]

do you have an example where they fugded with the game to show something?

[pale pumice]

Copying a fulgoran railway intersection and keeping the charged accumulators