Speculations

[late sentinel]

your best option: wait

if best option == wait, it's dead time

[stray wharf]

My overall point is this: in your first run of SA, there's going to be plenty of time spent sitting around experimenting with new things, figuring out how they work, and maybe grinding away on some infinite research. Why would you not also have some quality production happening in the background?

[timid crescent]

Both options offer quality production

[late sentinel]

I do expect to try the strategy you describe, I just doubt it will be opoimal

I actually imagine i'll be more overloaded with stuff to do than even in 1.1

always so much to do in factorio that is high impact, and SA adds tons more of those things

[weary widget]

finding the 'best' path almost seems like a joke with the options to invest time in

[late sentinel]

the search space is uncomprehendably huge, yeah.

the idea is really to find a better one than you have found before, sorta.

global optimal has almost certainly not been found in 1.1 - but the speedrunners are trying

but if strategy X takes 2x as long as strategy Y, for no benefit (same reached state), we can say X is 'worse' than Y - loosely speaking, no?

There are more metrics to compare on than time, but usually for most X, X is also higher effort

[weary widget]

if its that black and white, then sure

[late sentinel]

I would note I'm not a speedrunner, but I am conscious of effectivity, I try to stay effective when I play by prioritizing my tasks somewhat well

Everyone does that to some degree, I think. But making it a concious task/decision is a different thing.

[timid crescent]

I have a friend I play with that struggles with that when we play haha

Constantly wanting to do things that we aren't in a position to achieve yet

Like yes, it would be great if we could build this crazy beaconed smelting setup, but we're running on 100MW of boiler power right now...

[weary widget]

you develop a sense for those things with enough hours. its the same thing with my younger cousin starting to play.

[timid crescent]

Yeah a big one is wanting a massive rail network before we even have bots

I cri every time

Most of the time I just tell them to run a belt/pipe. We don't need trains yet

[late sentinel]

Hearing that is still a bit annoying, when I suggest A is more optimal than B, and I get this 'but you're measuring by speed' ... almost ever time - I do get a little flustered, because everyone is measuring by speed to some degree, they just don't admit it.

[late sentinel]

For example, why is this bad?

[timid crescent]

Because decent rail intersections takes 5x as long when you don't have bots and cliff explosives

[late sentinel]

it's the speed argument again... the problem is there is really no other good way to compare these things, right?

[timid crescent]

I also just find it mind numbing

So I could probably use mental health as an argument

[late sentinel]

very probable

I mean, I certainly do that. I'm effectivity concious, but I am not playing at speedrunning speed because it is exhausting and mechanical.

There are certainly secondary aspects that do come up

[timid crescent]

I keep on reading that as effectively concious and keep thinking "well yeah, most people are silly"

[stray wharf]

To me, it's not "the speed argument"; it's "the fun argument". Laying down rails manually may be slow, but it's also boring.

[weary widget]

you can also use maximization of spm. having a rail line go to some new resource patch achieves that end (assuming you have the infrastructure to turn it into science). building out a big rail network that you're only using 15-20% of doesn't in that time

[late sentinel]

maximization of spm is a time argument as well

[timid crescent]

Fun is definitely the argument I'd go with over speed. But most people find slow tedious and therefore not fun so there's a lot of overlap

[late sentinel]

I also just generally like doing things well. I have a growth mindset and if I can improve, I like to do that.

[timid crescent]

I can agree with that for sure

[late sentinel]

so if I see a way to swap two things I am doing and get the same result with less effort, I usually take it.

There are obviously exceptions - I do value my sanity too :P

[weary widget]

its a broad statement, but doing things the right way reduces headache with them down the road as you scale up

the other side of the coin, and what I think is a primary skill at getting good at this game- is knowing the setups requiring 20% of the time or resources that gets you 80% of the results, and understanding the nuances of the design to understand its inherent weaknesses and how it can be expanded/improved later on

[tardy quarry]

I usually prefer to take the route that takes less effort in short term. Don’t get me wrong, I do like to plan for scalability or using ‘space inefficient’ like city blocks or bus designs to save my sanity, but I wouldn’t do that when I still not have a large enough bot network and infrastructure production to make the construction easy enough. (do note that u need to dedicate some effort for the supply production for infrastructure too)

I don’t like to set a too large goal and just grind through everything to reach there

something like, manually lay down 8 yellow belts smelting columns at red/green stage

[misty falcon]

That's why I underground pipe oil and red belt my first ore expansions

[shrewd citrus]

I took the simple train pill, just do a 2-way 1-1-1 train from mine to smelter

no signals

[misty falcon]

i.e. the tutorial 5th map strategy

[shrewd citrus]

it's fun because you can still reaaaasonably scale it with multiple mines

[misty falcon]

Hmm... ignoring stone, rails are actually cheaper than underground pipes

[shrewd citrus]

and easier to scale and with better throughput

e.g. to red belts

[tardy quarry]

I drag 4 yellow belts for my first ore outpost

[misty falcon]

2 reds are cheaper considering the items on them

And easier to build

[tardy quarry]

I actually never thought about this

[tardy quarry]

but u can’t compare iron ore directly with iron plate as they require different amount of infrastructure to produce

[misty falcon]

It's all static numbers

The important part is that they are cheap and easier to build

[tardy quarry]

red belts are not as easy to produce as yellow belts

[misty falcon]

They are as easy to produce as yellow undergrounds

[tropic basin]

2 yellow belts cost 3 iron and can store 16 items when compressed, for a total of 19
1 red belt costs 11.5 iron and can store 8 items, for a total of 19.5
the difference is there, but not massive and doesn't take into account higher processing for red belts (and uncompressed belts)
forget that, yellow belts are cheaper

[tardy quarry]

2 yellow belts needs 3 iron plates, 1 red belt needs 11.5 iron plates, the difference is 8.5 iron which is more than the iron ore u save by having less buffer on belt

[misty falcon]

We're talking about belts from ore patches, they are supposed to be compressed

[tropic basin]

oh wait, yellow belt recipe gives 2 belts

[misty falcon]

Red belts are easier to build at this stage of the game, pre-bots

[tardy quarry]

belt dragging is easy enough that 2 vs 4 is negligible

tbh manual belt dragging is faster and easier than early bots

[misty falcon]

What are you gaining by using yellow belts here?

[tardy quarry]

I’m saving infrastructure cost with affordable manual building time

red belts are not cheap to make before u get the first iron outpost

[tropic basin]

yellow belts have most of their cost in the ore sitting on the belt
red belts have more than half their cost in the belt itself, so the material has to go through your base first

[tardy quarry]

yellow belts are much cheaper, remember that each craft gives u 2 yellow belts but for red belt u only get 1

[misty falcon]

yellow belts cost in items sitting on them

and latency

[tardy quarry]

2 yellow belts: 3 iron plate cost + 16 iron ore on belt = 19

1 red belt: 11.5 iron plate cost + 8 iron ore on belt = 19.5, and u also need more infrastructure to make red belts

[tropic basin]

the other day I heard red belts called "n00b trap"

[tardy quarry]

latency doesn’t matter at this stage that much as u build slowly, by the time u finished building the smelter the ore will already arrive

[tropic basin]

I don't think it's much of an issue though, unless speedrunning

[misty falcon]

Blue belts are a noob trap, red belts are not

[tardy quarry]

the real downside for yellow belts is that u need to spend more time deconstructing them later

[misty falcon]

Upgrading -> and -> is perfect

[tropic basin]

upgrading yellow to red is not the discussion we're having right now

[tardy quarry]

I use 24 columns with , its also perfect

2x24 with is cheaper than 1x48 with

[misty falcon]

I do 2x24 with . Otherwise it doesn't have enough throughput

[tardy quarry]

2x24 I mean 2x12x2

[misty falcon]

ok

[tardy quarry]

basically 12 to fill half yellow belt

anyway, I do use red belts early sometimes, but not always. For some of my save I only started automating red belts until I have a bot mall

[misty falcon]

Speculation: tmrw is some small QoL

[stone cradle]

I'm guessing something with combat - maybe biter optimizations with a little bit of content, focused on nauvis

[stray wharf]

August will be the Month of Combat

[stone cradle]

Fair!

[misty falcon]

We at least saw one new weapon (rocket turrets) and new ammo (blue shells)

[indigo fog]

we will get one machine. just the one. but it will be one hell of a machine

[timid crescent]

I'm keen for a "smaller things for 2.0 two: electric boogaloo"

Stuff like artillery remote area selection, reordering of research queue, mark for deconstruction in blueprints for super force build, etc.

[agile river]

but with lots of previously unmentioned details in screenshots

[timid crescent]

There's pleanty of time

It's still a devlog, not a "Comprehensive expansion overview before release™️ " blog

[late sentinel]

Artillery remote area selection is huge. Last time we heard it didn't exist though, so it would be a new development.

[timid crescent]

It would be an excellent QoL change for offensive artillery use.
I don't even care that it would probably be horribly shell inefficient. I just want to carpet an area and see nothing left once the dust settles.

[late sentinel]

I mean - explicitly saying no to this feature is basically saying that clicking 1000s of times is intended, or that manual range should only be used a minimal amount. Both are quite unsatisfying answers.

[timid crescent]

They would be very unsatisfying answers.

[late sentinel]

Then almost the only logiical conclusion is that it should be removed, or area select is a feature that should be added, or some alternative.

[tardy quarry]

we have RTS spider remote, so artillery area selection seems reasonable

[dreamy eagle]

What would be a good follow up to fusion reactor? Could it be something related to high power use?

[late sentinel]

I don't think they're linearly related like that.

[tardy quarry]

it can be something completely unrelated

but if its up to my hope, I hope to see how correct/wrong the fission-eff3-fusion theory is

[misty falcon]

Technical/QoL

[late sentinel]

Hoping QoL. Will be satisfied with a well written technical.

[young breach]

just something with a lot of text, so I can avoid working for as long as possible

[tropic basin]

I predict it's entirely wrong.

fission, eff3, fusion are 3 features that do not depend on each other

[tardy quarry]

excited to know how it will go!

[misty falcon]

Pretty much what I expected. Nice FFF but nothing groundbreaking

[late sentinel]

my solar blueprint is ALREADY out of date.

[tardy quarry]

is this my proposed combined color signal??

[late sentinel]

no

this is a bitpacked color signal

[tardy quarry]

there’s color component option and packed RGB option

is it possible to compute a packed RGB from RGB components using combinators

[late sentinel]

yes

it is possible using an arithmetic and a constant.

do you know what it means by 'packed' pepperbox?

[misty falcon]

Basically bit shifted

[timid wing]

R << 16 | G << 8 | B

[late sentinel]

Oh, you need to or them

for some reason I thought addition would be sufficient.

Actually, it addition not sufficient? none of the bits overlap so it should be the same as or

[timid wing]

if you want to be overly correct:
((R & 0xFF) << 16) | ((G & 0xFF) << 8) || (B & 0xFF)

[timid wing]

yes but why bother with the cost of calculating addition when you can just use a bitwise OR

[late sentinel]

Addition is free in factorio.

[timid wing]

it is in factorio yes, doesn't change that everywhere else when you "pack" something you don't add shifted values together

[late sentinel]

Simply each<red> << each<green> -> 'your signal' will directly do it if you put {r:16, g:8, b:0} into a constant combinator.

[misty falcon]

I read that as "Addiction is free in factorio." and it was also right

The cool part about the packed signals (and actually component as well), is that you can use many different signals for your lamp array

As many signals as there are

So addressing is easy

[cobalt blaze]

12 more FFF's :)

[ripe gyro]

The expansion will release in 37410.2 uranium fuel cells

[ripe gyro]

The expansion will release in 448388400.0 ticks

[ripe gyro]

The expansion will release in 22.6 radon-222 half-lives

[ripe gyro]

The expansion will release in 36929.1 uranium fuel cells

[ripe gyro]

The expansion will release in 12214821.7 inserter swings

[ripe gyro]

The expansion will release in 1.620 dog years

[tropic basin]

shower thought:
ASMs can now be controlled via circuit signals
does that apply to Chemplants as well?
If so, would "deleting" the recipe be more UPS efficient than using circuit controlled pumps as overflow valves? (e.g. for balancing the cracking)

[stray wharf]

It applies to most things that use the "assembling machines" prototype. Machines that auto-detect their recipe based on their inputs probably can't have their recipes set, and you almost certainly cannot set machines that have a fixed recipe. But other than that, sure.

As for "deleting the recipe", the UI shows a convenient "enable/disable" setting, so it'd be better to use that 😉

As to UPS-efficiency... who knows.

[tropic basin]

didn't remember that. for balancing fluids that's certainly more convenient

afaik crafting machines with fluid connections are always active and thus always draining some UPS
it might be more efficient to not have a recipe set

[barren oasis]

Do we know if that's still true with the new fluid update?

(don't know why it would have changed, just hoping that it did)

[dull grove]

I imagine the activity of assemblies is low priority addressed. Similar how the roboports have been treated.

They prob. have a list sorted for UPS sinners.

[late sentinel]

wdym 'low priority addressed' ?

[tropic basin]

probably not because "it depends"

[dull grove]

Should have worded better. 1) They know the problem exist & 2) Its impact should be very minor. Compared to what we've seen improved.

Given the roboport fix, I imagine they already addressed the above in a similar way.

[tropic basin]

The improvements featured in the recent FFFs turned out bigger than expected and not a real problem in the first place iirc.

[misty falcon]

I'd assume a machine with full buffers could be sleeping

[tardy quarry]

with spoilable buffers tho

[misty falcon]

Special cased

[fringe verge]

just saw this film and it's giving me so many ideas of what they might do on gleba
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dajBhMSd00

a really large and fascinating design space for the creatures there, or what we can do with the bio tech

[radiant galleon]

i always thought the renaming of the spidertron remote to "rts tool" was kinda weird and bad because you need to understand what an rts game is beforehand and it only really made sense in the context of what the remote used to do

but i just had a thought. what if they renamed the spidertron remote because it doesn't control only the spidertron anymore

[young breach]

I think it was confirmed you could control the car and thank with it, or maybe that was also a speculation from somebody

hmm I don't see it in FFF 404 so maybe it was a speculation

[tropic basin]

the tank is outclassed by the spidertron, not because of lack of firepower, but inferior mobility.
adding more shells as seen in the release date FFF doesn't help the tank
unless we can do a Blitzkrieg against biters
would very much appreciate a remote controlled tank army

[radiant galleon]

that might be it

with quality tanks they might start to get more even footing. but legendary spidertrons also exist obviously

[dreamy eagle]

Tanks just get stuck too often

[radiant galleon]

which just begs the question as to why they wouldn't have shown that off by now. maybe it just wasn't ready

[tropic basin]

I hope turret rotation of higher quality tanks gets improved. that's the main issue I have with them

[dreamy eagle]

And getting stuck means death is seconds away

[radiant galleon]

yeah that swivel speed will be your ass sometimes

[tropic basin]

dealing metric craptons of damage is only helpful if it's directed at biters

[radiant galleon]

higher quality tanks slow down less when they hit an object making them more effective rammers

[tropic basin]

maybe we won't be able to RC cars and tanks (they have no brain), and the RTS tool is renamed for the mysterious excavator arm instead

[radiant galleon]

man i gotta stay more in touch with these things. what excavator arm 👁️👁️

[dreamy eagle]

There is a glimpse of it in one of the foundry gifs, iirc

[radiant galleon]

well we never did find out what the metallurgic science does right? foundry and big drill are both pre science pack

[radiant galleon]

also pics or it didn't happen

[tropic basin]

in a foundry gif and an FFF thumbnail

[dreamy eagle]

If you want me to search it for you, you'll have to wait around 4-5 hours before I can do such a thing

[radiant galleon]

nah i figured you didn't know which one. was just a general cry for assistance

[tropic basin]

Thumbnail of FFF#389 has a mysterious figure staring at us:
https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-389-thumbnail-choochoo-MF.png

[radiant galleon]

OHHHHH THOSE BASTARDS

[crystal dune]

Good filename

[radiant galleon]

THAT'S A MECH. 100% A MECH

you thought you'd just be bugging around on the MAP???????? REMOTE VIEW???? FIRE UP THE AUTONOMOUS ENGINEER ROBOT AND LIVE VICARIOUSLY THROUGH IT MORON

[tropic basin]

you may want to slow down a little

[radiant galleon]

yes yes

[crystal dune]

The tooltip still only refers to spidertrons specifically

And the sprite is still spider adjacent

[radiant galleon]

i want to believe

[misty falcon]

RTS = Real-time Spider

[crystal dune]

[tropic basin]

I don't remember the specific FFF either. There's a gif showing us a GUI window that's halfway over a Foundry.
At the edge of the GUI there's an excavator arm peeking out.
That's as much as I can help you with finding it yourself.

[misty falcon]

That's the mech arm

[radiant galleon]

noted. the hunt begins

[misty falcon]

Here https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-402-superfast-foundry.mp4

[tropic basin]

ah, beacon FFF

[misty falcon]

Nop, lightspeed circuits

[tropic basin]

ok, "superfast foundry" tricked my memory

[radiant galleon]

i see this as i come up on it

i hold this gif close to my heart and i know it top to bottom. where's the arm

[misty falcon]

Center

to the right of the window

You can see it moving, "idlely"

[radiant galleon]

yep that's the arm for it

didn't think they'd ever make a spidertron successor

unless it's not a successor and it's actually earlier technology

[misty falcon]

We don't know if it's autonomous or a vehicle/armor

[radiant galleon]

could be both. spidertron's both

[sand saddle]

shrek drone

[tardy quarry]

my ear

[silk citrus]

I assume that's like a remote avatar you can send to other planets, so you can 'be' on other planets without only being in remote view

[radiant galleon]

but it's way bigger than a regular player

[silk citrus]

I don't see how that precludes what I said

[radiant galleon]

im also personally of that theory but i feel like something as large as that might be inconvenient to lug around and squeeze where normal players can

[stray wharf]

If there's going to be some kind of remote avatar, it needs to be less capable than the player or otherwise have some unpleasant limitations. Like, maybe it can't hold weapons, but it does have inventory, so it can use combat drones.

Switching into/outof it should probably require that you go to a special building that does the remote control access. Returning requires returning the avatar to its version of that building.

[timid crescent]

Personally I see little point in a remote avatar other than "because they can"

There isn't really anything that can be done with the character that can't be done with bots and spidertrons

[stray wharf]

That depends. If the Spidertron is saved until after all 3 initial planets (but pre-Aquilo), then there's a lot of design space open for a way to expand on planets without being there.

[timid crescent]

Even then, is it really that much of a hassle to take a space platform back to another planet when you didn't think enough into the future to set up more outposts for base expansion?

[stray wharf]

... yes. Especially if you haven't set up a rocket silo and rocket part production yet.

[timid crescent]

...so you've been gone for what, a few hours? and the base already needs attention that can't be given through remote view?

[stray wharf]

Yes. People make mistakes. It happens. The question is how much are you going to punish them for it?

I don't think that SA strictly needs a remote avatar. But I do think it would fill a particular niche and serve as a good anti-frustration feature.

[silk citrus]

It would also permit consistent gameplay experience between the planets without resorting to teleporting. I know the devs have seriously improved remote view, but I kinda doubt it is intended to play the 80% of the game after nauvis is through remote view

Whatever the solution though, I know it will be well thought out and playtested before it gets into our hands

[tropic basin]

Expanding to a new island on Fulgora requires the player before Spidertrons or Foundation Landfill are unlocked.

unless we jury rig an excavator arm to the compilatron

[young breach]

lol nice detail

[static root]

This is not related, but it got me thinking. Having a completion bar at such crafting speeds feels kinda useless. It could be interesting that when you go over a certain threshold instead of displaying a rapidly-blinking bar UIs should display some other info, it scales up to tracking the production of a whole stack, or displays the number of items per second, or something like that

[crystal dune]

I hope it is

Even if it isn’t I’m going to do it that way

[weary widget]

an avatar with its own power armor and equipment on other planets would be cool, but otherwise I'll enjoy making a fleet of quality spidertrons on the different planets serving different roles

[spice yew]

I agree, I thought it would change to a number instead of a epilepsy inducing progress bar

[cobalt blaze]

the use is that it shows you just how hard you've broken the game

[tropic basin]

the goal is to get it to flicker fast enough to transition into different shades of green

[spice yew]

I was thinking about the crafting speed being faster than 1 craft a tick now, i wonder if there is some sort of inherent limit to it anyways

[stray wharf]

Having a limit of 1 craft per tick makes sense given a certain (high-performance) implementation of crafting. But once you change the implementation specifically to alleviate that limitation, it's unclear why you would implement it in such a way as to impose a new limit.

[dull grove]

I'd set the limit to 0.5craft/tick or even 0.2. I very much doubt the end-user will notice the difference visually

Alternatively machines could dynamically switch to hidden higher cost/yield recipes.

[stray wharf]

Why would either of those be helpful gameplay? What behavior are you trying to encourage or discourage?

Also, in SA, I'm pretty sure the end-user would notice that they don't get a bonus from spending a bunch of resources to get a Q5 beacon, two Q5 speed modules, and a Q5 Foundry.

[dull grove]

just shaving off computations by making machines artificially sleep. Hidden higher cost/yield recipes. K2 has these as default to account for its speedy assemblies.

[stray wharf]

That sounds like the kind of hack someone implements when they don't have access to the engine.

[dull grove]

It is.

But it works

and Raiguard implemented them

[stray wharf]

It doesn't work if you try to heavily beacon an Advanced Chemical plant's plastic recipe.

[dull grove]

Explain

[stray wharf]

You still run into the 1 craft/tick problem because the recipe wasn't scaled enough if you throw enough beacons and singularity beacons at the machine.

[dull grove]

What's stopping them from adding more scalars? As I said: the recipes should be hidden from the player. They'll be none the wiser.

[stray wharf]

So instead of an engine change to allow multiple crafts per tick, you want an engine change to invisibly allow multiple versions of the same recipe, thereby forcing every mod author to create multiple versions of any recipe if they think that a machine can be sped up to craft more than one per tick? And if they don't think that this particular recipe on this particular machine will get that fast, even though it can (possibly through the action of a different mod), then it breaks.

What exactly are you saving here? What's the upside of not fixing the actual problem?

[dull grove]

Is it an engine change? K2 didn't require one. Why should SA need one (for this)?
It should be a minor script that multiplies prod,input,output of a given recipe if machineSpeed/recipeSpeed exceeds some limit. Save that recipe in a local variable. Reference it when the MachineSpeed substantially changes (more beacons) and recalculate a new one for the new set of possible speeds.
Inside the machine the recipe will have the same icon, the asme cost text and will link to the original recipe

[stray wharf]

Lua can't do that; the engine isn't designed to allow it.

[dull grove]

Well that just sucks

Does it need to interact with Lua? I thought it only includes stuff for modders to interact with. This shouldn't need any meddling

[stray wharf]

If it's not "Lua", then what would this "minor script" be?

[late sentinel]

🐍

[dull grove]

C++, Python,... idk everything they're currently using

I also used script and algorithm interchangeably above

[stray wharf]

Yeah, Factorio doesn't work that way. The engine allows mods because it is built to allow mods, and it allows mods in the particular way it is built to allow them. That modding interface is through the Lua scripting language.

Python can do a lot of stuff, but if a program isn't written to expose itself to Python (or via more generic interfaces that Python can speak), then Python can't do anything special with the program.

[dull grove]

It doesn't need a modding interface. Does it still not work?

[stray wharf]

... Does what "still not work"?

[dull grove]

It should be a minor that multiplies prod,input,output of a given recipe if machineSpeed/recipeSpeed exceeds some limit. Save that recipe in a local variable. Reference it when the MachineSpeed substantially changes (more beacons) and recalculate a new one for the new set of possible speeds.Inside the machine the recipe will have the same icon, the asme cost text and will link to the original recipe

[wanton igloo]

That sounds like it needs to interact with the game engine at runtime

The only way to do that is via the Lua API

Besides, you can't make data changes at runtime

You'd have to preload all of them and switch between them at runtime

[stray wharf]

Mods can adjust what recipes are in a machine, but what you're talking about requires getting some kind of callback every time anything on (or affecting) a machine changes.

[tawny gulch]

Space Age ran into the same issue as Krastorio did with reaching the 1 craft/tick limit due to insane bonuses. Krastorio had to work around the limitation because mods can't change fundamental engine behavior, but in Space Age we just fixed the behavior so it works like you would expect.

[dull grove]

Care to hint how you solved it?

[tawny gulch]

I didn't do it myself, you'd have to ask Rseding.

[dull grove]

How do pings work for people outside of threads...

[wanton igloo]

They add the person to the thread

[dull grove]

already pinged in #friday-facts

[misty falcon]

divmod

[radiant quiver]

if progress > 1: Output = floor(progress) Progress = fract(progress) If connectedToCircuit: Circuitnetwork.append(output)

[misty falcon]

This week will be nice, because I'm not at home

[mint berry]

Thank you for your service

[cobalt blaze]

welcome to the golden state

[dull grove]

Shits on Fire

[cobalt blaze]

i didnt even know it

[dull grove]

TBF this year kinda slept on their fires.

[late sentinel]

If california continues to burn at the rate is is, we can eventually say it is well cooked and rename it the golden brown state

[static root]

They should rename California into the Fire Nation

[weary widget]

place your bets for tomorrow

[stray wharf]

August: month of combat.

[barren oasis]

I really want more information on why we should choose Gleba first...
I want to be as excited for it as I am about the other planets.

But I'd also be ok with another technical blog ^^

[crystal dune]

Buzz shelf gif

[dull grove]

I'd be happy if they push other "hidden" (like the burner inserters..) optimizations behind the release.

We prob. learn why Klonan got fired this week

[radiant galleon]

i just skimmed every fff since space age got announced to weigh how often things are talked about. my count said 21 were about content, 24 were about qol, and 16 were about technical stuff and the dev process

with some overlap of course there are not 61 space age facts

i pray for more content. there's only 12 more and there's still so much we don't know

[weary widget]

I think it'll be almost entirely content as we get closer, unless there are some big optimizations that haven't been announced yet

[stray wharf]

Temper your expectations. We're not going to know everything (or even most things) before the game releases.

[young breach]

I thinks we will know about most things, maybe not the exact way they work but at least that they exist

[late sentinel]

one concern is that there actually is not that much more we don't know, and SA is not 'that huge'

[weary widget]

well I don't think theres 100 more items, but I definitely believe they're keeping a lot of cool stuff close to their vest until near release for maximum hypage

[stray wharf]

There's a lot we don't know.

We have no idea what Vulcanus does besides molten metal and green belts. We have no idea what Fulgora produces besides quality module 3s. We have no idea what Gleba gives us. We know that there are certain things (artillery, cliff explosives, rocket turrets, etc), but no idea what else is on these planets.

And we have no idea about any planet's enemies.

[young breach]

is suspect that all the new planets have about the same amount of 'new content'

[late sentinel]

I'm saying one possible theory is that there isn't more on those planets

I don't believe it, but I could see someone having it as a concern

[stray wharf]

Under that theory, you go to Vulcanus, do a bunch of trigger techs, research green belts, calcite from asteriods, maybe artillery and/or cliff explosives... and then you're done?

[crystal dune]

I feel like each planet will have at least… 10ish? Techs unlocked by their planetary science

[stray wharf]

Gleba seems like it would need to have more researched tech, unless they force you to ship science packs off-world to use them.

[late sentinel]

Yeah 💀

[radiant galleon]

yeah no there's definitely more. we don't know anything about what metallurgic science does

and it absolutely does not do nothing

[late sentinel]

green belt

cliff explosive

[crystal dune]

Also probably artillery

[radiant galleon]

feel like artillery would be reserved for a planet where you can actually use it

[crystal dune]

So Vulcanus

[radiant galleon]

there's probably no enemies on vulcanus

the best evidence we have for that to my knowledge is "yeah there's probably nothing here... but who knows!!"

[crystal dune]

Also these

[weary widget]

vulcanus would be too OP IMO, if it had no enemies

its already a 10/10 place for mass producing iron/copper hungry stuff.... which is a lot

[late sentinel]

we have a lot of evidence of enemies on Vulcanus

[crystal dune]

I still believe only Aquilo will be enemy-less

[misty falcon]

Enemies this week?

[late sentinel]

I'm not feeling it

[weary widget]

weapons/military before enemies, or vice versa?

[crystal dune]

Personally I would rather see literally anything else over enemies

They don’t interest me much

[misty falcon]

Maybe so hot QoL? Like max production per machine, or warnings on bad fluid connections....

[vivid turret]

It doesn't make sense for the last planet to have no enemies after the middle 3 unlock a bunch of new weapons for you.

[radiant galleon]

you cannot tell me there is a speck of life on fulgora

and why would the last planet be the only one that doesn't make you engage with the combat

my belief is gleba and aquilo have enemies and vulcanus and fulgora do not

that's 3 planets you need to defend and 2 planets you don't. that seems like a good number

[vivid turret]

Are the on Vulcanus a decoration then?

[radiant galleon]

yeah maybe

[crystal dune]

I didn’t say life, I said enemies

[radiant galleon]

but why would they make nearly no mention of the vulcanus enemies but be so open about the existence of the gleba ones

[weary widget]

they did hint at something on one of the vulcanus FFFs

386 ...but who knows what might awaken in the depths of Vulcanus.

[radiant galleon]

i think gleba set the precedent that they'll tell you about the enemies wherever there's enemies

[crystal dune]

Meh, the intent of the Vulcanus tease always seemed pretty clear

[stray wharf]

... you don't set a precedent with the third planet out of four.

[radiant galleon]

you don't cool down coolant for the sole purpose of heating it up again but here we are

sorry

[stray wharf]

... that's literally what coolant is for.

[radiant galleon]

alright but like where the hell is an enemy spawner supposed to fit here

don't say the ashlands or im gonna kill you with my laser

[crystal dune]

Enemy spawners are pretty small

And they can fill out irregular space efficiently

And for all we know the enemies might come out of lava or something, we don’t have an idea of how much they’re mixing things up with new enemies

[radiant galleon]

they took out plants specifically to make the planet look less hospitable

[stray wharf]

The FFF talks about an enemy waking up from the "depths". That could easily indicate burrowing enemies, with burrowed nests of some kind.

[radiant galleon]

seems like a very literal interpretation

[stray wharf]

Um... yes?

[radiant galleon]

again, the most compelling evidence we have is literally "who knows!!!" and to me it really reads like there's nothing there and they just wanted to keep it mysterious

[stray wharf]

The compelling evidence are:

1. The presence of actual weapons in many, many screenshots on the planet.
2. Direct statements from the developers suggesting something hazardous is there.

[radiant galleon]

but why would they reveal the gleba enemies and only imply the vulcanus ones

[stray wharf]

The evidence against it seems to be that they haven't shown any on map shots, and that they removed some trees from the planet?

[weary widget]

if there were no enemies, I think they'd just say no enemies outright to not ruin expectations. and thats something they've tried hard to prevent in the past, especially earlier on in SA development

[stray wharf]

They haven't revealed Gleba enemies. They merely revealed red blips on the map.

[radiant galleon]

revealed that there are gleba enemies i mean

[stray wharf]

I mean, those are enemies, but we don't know anything about them.

[weary widget]

they said in some early FFF "most planets have unique enemies" which is another piece of this puzzle

[crystal dune]

Most, with 4 planets, most likely means 3/4

[stray wharf]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There could be many reasons why they showed us that there were enemy structures on Gleba. Vulcanus enemies may not show up on the map like that. Or maybe they wanted to get them out of the way for demonstration purposes.

[radiant galleon]

have we seen any turrets other than laser turrets. i feel like vulcanus enemies would be largely unaffected by lasers if they were made of rock or something

[stone cradle]

having enemies emerge from lava/big drills/whatever could be interesting - interior defenses rather than a wall

[radiant galleon]

but they clearly have surface structures if artillery is useful on the planet

[crystal dune]

My guess is that they’re resistant to flamers first and foremost

And giving them two resistances would have been a bit much, so they left it at that

[stray wharf]

Why would they have to be "surface structures"? Artillery might be able to damage underground bases.

[radiant galleon]

it would be a wonderful place for the rocket turret but by extension that'd probably also mean you get spidertron there too

[stray wharf]

Also, there are laser turrets on the Vulcanus shots. So you can either imagine that the game developers don't know how to play their own game, or that whatever the enemies that come through that area are, they're something laser turrets can somewhat deal with.

[radiant galleon]

i take it all back they're real

i fondly and distinctly remembered a line about using lava against enemies back when i was a vulcanus enemies believer but i could never find the line

im not so easily swayed by their little marketing setpieces but this is the second time they've mentioned it in text

so this sorta implies they're not immune to lava? which is unexpected

why did nobody bring up the unwanted company thing anyway

[crystal dune]

Because nobody really took it seriously, especially compared to the other stuff

[radiant galleon]

explicitly referring to enemies seems a little more significant to me than "i dunno there might be something"

[crystal dune]

Probably influenced at least a little by the “cursed rings of power” right next to it

And this one also has a “maybe even”

[olive seal]

"Who knows what might awaken" and defensive structures on many screenshots also are very explicit references to me

[radiant galleon]

might

it really just came off to me as flavor text that didn't mean so much

[olive seal]

But why write that and put turrets in bases other than to mislead people? And that's just a thing that wube wouldn't do from my experience

[radiant galleon]

most of my belief was based on the fact that they've had like 10 months to show off or at least confirm the enemies and nothing has happened while the gleba enemies were confirmed right out the door

and also the planet was characterized as an unlivable shithole like fulgora

[crystal dune]

But there is life on Vulcanus

Less than there was going to be initally, but there’s still some

[radiant galleon]

*the most pathetic barebones excuse for life in the whole game

sorry vulcanus trees

[late sentinel]

idk how you see turrets, "I really like putting turrets in the craters", artilleries zooming about, statements of "who knows what might awaken" and conclude "yeah idk man, doesn't seem there are any enemies here"

Like, clearly we're not sure, but we have a lot of datapoints and they all seem to be saying that there probably are enemies here

[weary widget]

I don't think we've seen Wube hint at something and then end up not happening

how else you can interpret everything Dylan said

[radiant galleon]

it just didn't seem like they would sit on that secret for a year. again gleba was my precedent

[late sentinel]

'it just didn't seem like they would sit on that secret for a year.' have we been reading the same blog?

Sitting on secrets for far longer than you'd expect almost defines FFF to me

[fossil hawk]

I mean it’s up to interpretation. Who cares who was wrong or right on what was in the game just as long as the game is good

[crystal dune]

Remember this 😭

[fossil hawk]

I hope Fulgura has enemies and it still may but doesn’t seem like; that doesn’t mean I’m going to be upset or feel bad about not being right

[late sentinel]

well in your case you want to be wrong

[fossil hawk]

lol how do you remember that?

But also you made your point let’s get back to speculating

[late sentinel]

we're out of stuff to speculate on ... for precisely this reason:

[crystal dune]

I hope it’s about a new doodad

A singular new thingy

We sort of had a streak of those going until last week, maybe there could be more

[late sentinel]

last FFF was still solid imo

Last FFF embodied a good technical FFF to me

and it has that slight touch of new content with the roboport radars :) and rgb circuit lamps.

[fossil hawk]

I’d say there’s plenty of more things to speculate on:

• the ion engine/turret
• new enemies
• new ai systems/processes/optimization
• new combat mechanics/weapons
• end game goals
• end game content
• Coolant recipes/ how Aquila effects precious planets
• Nauvis/tech tree changes
• Blue wires
• Spoilage outside biological
• Minimal new lore
• Compilatron companion quest

[crystal dune]

Blue wires 😭

[late sentinel]

the ion engine/turret
w'bout it? We have no evidence.

new enemies
They likely exist on Vulcanus, Gleba, and maybe Aquilo; but again - we have no evidence.

new ai systems/processes/optimization
No evidence.

end game goals
Minimal evidence.

end game content
Nothing we haven't explicitly seen

Coolant recipes/ how Aquila effects precious planets
We have discussed this quite a bit, specifically coolant. For aquilo affecting other planets we yet again have minimal evidence.

Nauvis/tech tree changes
We know about these, there is little left to speculate on here.

Blue wires
This is just superconducting wire. We know this crafting chain.

Spoilage outside biological
Could you elaborate?

Minimal new lore
Could you elaborate?

Compilatron companion quest
Could you elaborate? (like a lot for this one, what is this?!)

We have the ability to guess about many things, but they haven't given us many leads like we had in the past.

[crystal dune]

😭

[late sentinel]

Notably, guessing is not speculation - I class them as two very different things. You need some supporting evidence for good speculation - but still an aire of uncertainty.

[fossil hawk]

Is speculating not just guessing with initial conditions?

[late sentinel]

Yes, but we don't have the sufficient initial conditions. Speculation is semi-informed guessing.

We know these things maybe exist, but there's really not much to go on, if anything at all.

[radiant galleon]

i know i was wrong about vulcanus enemies but fulgora is dead as all hell

[late sentinel]

Evidence does point to no enemies on Fulgora. Only remaining question there is what are the big white blocks

They're something 'on' a the deep ore deposits, that's all we know.

[radiant galleon]

they're not single big structures because most of them aren't perfect rectangles

[late sentinel]

you sure?

not what I recall

[fossil hawk]

That is not dead which may eternal lie

[errant crest]

my speculations list:

• what sciences will give on , , and
• benefits of early game pre-science (so it can better compete to be first to visit planet)
• new enemies
• new endgame goal
• more information about space routes and platforms
• aquilo FFFs

[late sentinel]

isn't that just a list of things you want to know more about?

[errant crest]

pure coincidence

[fossil hawk]

speculation
/spĕk″yə-lā′shən/

noun
Reasoning based on inconclusive evidence; conjecture or supposition.

[radiant galleon]

yeah you have to look really really close but there's like single pixel discrepancies

[fossil hawk]

Or in this thread, wish casting for things with just a thread of evidence

[late sentinel]

show me

[errant crest]

any of this FFFs may or may not happen - there's no conclusive evidence for them to even be disclosed before release in the first place

[radiant galleon]

note the bumpiness on the left side and rounded top right corner

[fossil hawk]

supposition
/sŭp″ə-zĭsh′ən/

The act of supposing, laying down, imagining, or considering as true or existing, what is known not to be true, or what is not proved.

[late sentinel]

that's weird.

I think that might be encoding and not really there.

simmilar thing as secret wood

[fossil hawk]

I think it’s been mentioned before. Might have been placed manually was the supposition.

Dead asleep can be roused.

[radiant galleon]

this one here doesn't seem to be on the resource patch at all

[cobalt blaze]

side view:

[late sentinel]

j5drops are you the one who thinks they're mechs 'because it would be cool'

[fossil hawk]

I still think (wish) it’s sleeping defenses for greater resources and it hasn’t been revealed because it ties in with enemies as a whole

[late sentinel]

i forgot who that was

[cobalt blaze]

yes thats me

[late sentinel]

lol I didn't know you then

[cobalt blaze]

it being cool is the only reason i think the white rectangles are giant mechs

[errant crest]

cuz it would be cool

[radiant galleon]

i feel like such a tall structure would be tall on the minimap as well but all the rectangles are horizontal

[fossil hawk]

Having enemies only be triggered by trying to get resources is a neat way to expand combat mechanics and prevent new enemies from being just reskinned biters

As much as their is a large faction in the community that dislikes biters, I believe they are an important game mechanic (putting in resources to prevent being overrun/pressure to get technology/barrier to expansion)

*there is

Having new gameplay via spoilage and recycling implies the same feature twisting for combat

Just as recycling is producing backwards (final products -> intermediates instead of resources-> intermediates-> final products)

Combat should be not about just a wave enemy but maybe a singular enemy that is in place but can be roused to move by player action (or inaction)

[vivid turret]

I'm not sure how much design space there is for enemies.

[fossil hawk]

It would compliment the factory gameplay features we’ve seen already

And I think not having one combat FFF yet is evidence that there will be some sort of new combat design

I may be wishful in how expansive it is but Dylan4812571 has to agree that there’s some evidence for this conjecture

[late sentinel]

confused what to agree with here

looking closer; yeah, I agree, we have plenty of evidence to suggest that enemies on other planets will be quite different, but I have the same concern @vivid turret has about the design space being quite narrow to begin with.

[late sentinel]

I agree here too

[weary widget]

Klonan confirmed at some point that we're guaranteed planet #3 FFFs

[late sentinel]

not quite

he strongly suggested

[fossil hawk]

Fair, you know me, very wrong most of the time.

But I don’t let failure stop me from dreaming.

I think the new features have been imaginative, and combat is too simple to be regulated to nothing new in the expansion

[weary widget]

lol

[late sentinel]

I was there when it happened, it was pepperbox who said it and klonan said it was a 'damn good feel'

#friday-facts message

[weary widget]

based on how hints have become reality in the past, I consider stuff like that confirmations until something a dev says that deviates from that pattern

[errant crest]

to me, enemies is incredibly important pillar of modded factorio and (to lesser degree) vanilla too, and one of the big selling points in comparison to games like satisfactory

[fossil hawk]

lol it’s so hard to tell with Klonan what is hints and what’s just trolling, but maybe that’s why the FFF and post discussion are so much fun

[fossil hawk]

Yes I feel that this is what Satisfactory is lacking and why I always come back to Factorio

I always have fun just playing unmodded deathworld

[serene sage]

prediction: today's FFF will be ||posted in four hours and three minutes||

[mint berry]

No way that's gonna happen

[radiant galleon]

yeah now it's 3 hours and 3 minutes

[mint berry]

These FFF theories are getting too crazy

[tropic basin]

calling them theories is a bit of a stretch

[serene sage]

yeah, theories need evidence and broad acceptance. these are wild hypotheses.

[lament basin]

I’m very surprised that it’s nearly been a full year with nothing about biters

I’m very big into biters and am surprised that they haven’t shared anything about them

[mint berry]

They probably removed them altogether

[lament basin]

Nah

[mint berry]

It's the right thing to do. Violence is never the answer!

[lament basin]

I do recall them mentioning enemies of Gleba I think

[crystal dune]

That’s the only logical conclusion from all this

The rocket turret is clearly just for clearing trees

[lament basin]

Let me be clear

_ _

_ _

[tropic basin]

the FFFs mentioned "military targets", not enemies iirc

[mint berry]

Misinformation is the new enemy

[tropic basin]

why the distinction? asteroids are military targets, but not enemies

[tardy quarry]

it’s probably not going to happen in the game but I want to see a animated scene of a rocket carrying the space platform starter pack, and transition from ground to space, then the space platform unfolds itself

[radiant quiver]

I somehow feel today is gonna be reasonably exciting, like not the biggest thing but 1 or 2 new buildings

[shrewd citrus]

they are slowly running out of FFFs, and there are quite a few things to talk about

[timid crescent]

They can keep releasing FFFs after the expansion releases

[shrewd citrus]

and since they're currently working on more QoL/technical stuff, it means the actual content is pretty much done

and FFF-able

[radiant quiver]

Oh they are NOT running out of things at this rate, we've seen very few intermediate recipes, let's hope it stays that way tho

[shrewd citrus]

I meant running out of actual fridays until release

[crystal dune]

Not that few

We know pretty much all of the Vulcanus and Fulgora ones

Including science packs

The Gleba ones are still mysterious though, we don’t even know the names of most

[radiant quiver]

I do not remember any science packs recipes

[crystal dune]

Orange: Tungsteel, tungsten carbide, molten copper
Pink: Electrolyte, supercapacitor, holmium solution (unknown if it’s an input or maybe a byproduct), (there is possibly another solid ingredient)
Lime: Nutrients, jelly coated cooked brain (name pending 😭)

[misty falcon]

Speculation?

[weary widget]

gleba 3, why not

I don't mind being wrong at all

[tropic basin]

That explains why we got the Fusion Reactor 2 weeks ago

[crystal dune]

Yay I got it

What do I win

[radiant galleon]

aaand it was a turret

[tropic basin]

last paragraph might read as "this is not the 4th tier turret for huge asteroids"

[tardy quarry]

artillery

[crystal dune]

That would be hilarious if they made us do that though

Just point blank those things with artillery shells 😭😭😭

[tardy quarry]

with simplified shell recipe

require green circuits instead of radar

[crystal dune]

imo all we’d really need is steam-less coal liquefaction in some form

Either that or some non-nuclear non-burner way to make steam

[tardy quarry]

change liquefaction to require water instead

[crystal dune]

Or just make us use basic liquefaction

And have basic liquefaction not require steam

Interestingly, Vulcanus is the planet that gives us the ability to make plastic in space, and at the same time the one most likely to unlock artillery…

[tropic basin]

basic liquefaction already doesn't require Heavy Oil. no need for steam would remove all liquid inputs.

[tardy quarry]

imagine nuclear for steam on space platform

[crystal dune]

I mean, replace it with water

[tropic basin]

Steam is readily available at Vulcanus, where we unlock Coal Liquefaction. Using Water instead of Steam would be weird.

[crystal dune]

Would be really annoying for fusion powered platforms, that’s why I think there’s another way

[crystal dune]

Advanced liquefaction would still use steam

[sand saddle]

Didn’t we see a nuclear reactor on a space platform already?

[tardy quarry]

for liquefaction

[dreamy eagle]

Yup. I think they even mentioned nuclear reactors specifically in one of the space platform FFFs. The "lack of easy water is a problem"

[tardy quarry]

imagine that

[sand saddle]

Just send some barrels of water up in a rocket. Ez.

[weary widget]

next fff is probably filler

last 3 have been big, and theres like a dozen left to go

[shrewd citrus]

no more Filler Factorio Friday Facts

[tardy quarry]

I’m expecting more content as we get closer to release

and the last two fffs are not really content heavy

they were more focused on technical/development

[misty falcon]

Last FFF will be "game released!" and teaser for something big (like Spidertron in 1.0)

[tardy quarry]

fff about how they make the final trailer

[misty falcon]

Oh yeah I'd love seeing the Spage trailler. My speculation is that it will start like the 1.0 trailer, and will quickly get to the rocket, platform, planets, enemies etc

[tardy quarry]

I wonder how they gonna do for surface transition scenes

[misty falcon]

For the game or for the trailer?

[tardy quarry]

trailer

[misty falcon]

For trailer it'll just be a moving character and the background changes around them. That's the classic approach.

[tardy quarry]

well in the game idk if there need to be a smooth surface transition

[misty falcon]

Well I'm pretty sure we will fly up with the rocket like when putting a car in there. And likely there will be some nice transition, background fading to black etc

[late sentinel]

I said that 4 months ago. Now that we're 11 FFFs away I don't believe it anymore.

[tardy quarry]

it’s still possible that the hype zone is after the final planet reveal

[radiant quiver]

Final planet will be revealed on October 21

[dreamy eagle]

And what do you believe now?

[late sentinel]

I expect the content cadence from here forward to remain roughly the same, until the hype zone pepper talks about.

I don't think there's significantly more to be unlocked on Fulgora; I think we've seen it and this is about how much a planet has.

[dreamy eagle]

Seems likely yeah

[stray wharf]

So after almost an hour of setup, and possibly making a new space platform for interplanetary shipping, each planet has only 6 techs to research. Yeah, that seems likely. /s

[shrewd citrus]

there are likely a couple more researches, but there have to be some (pseudo)infinite researches tied to each planet

otherwise you need a fixed amount of science, and afterwards it's just exporting infrastructure

[stray wharf]

Each planet could be associated with a different infinite military research and have a prod research for one of its own intermediates. For Fulgora, laser damage (you can get a couple more levels on Nauvis, but not the infinite range) and maybe superconducting wire.

If Vulcanus is where we get those super-tank shells, perhaps that's where infinite bullet research is along with tungsteel or tungsten carbide for productivity.

Gleba would be the place for explosives and one of its other intermediates.

[shrewd citrus]

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.

NB: we only have two tesla items, so we might not have seen all of them. We've yet to see the "a few other things"

[stray wharf]

We have seen at least some of the "few other things". They didn't mention beacons and solar panels, but we know they can be made at the EMP.

I wonder if the EMP recipes have to be researched or can you get them just by having the EMP.

[shrewd citrus]

I assume they would have mentioned them in the knowns

[stray wharf]

No, we know those are at the EMP; we saw evidence in a later screenshot.

[shrewd citrus]

yes, I meant it's more likely they forgot to include those in the list in the FFF, as opposed to including them in the "a few other things" category

[weary widget]

we've already entered the lower levels of the hype zone IMO. fusion reactors, endgame/megabase optimizations, new powerful weapons. 🔥

[crystal dune]

We do?

Have my prayers really been answered 🥺

[crystal dune]

Would be neat, but I’m not so sure. This part from the space platform fff sort of makes it sound otherwise

I understand the reasoning though

[weary widget]

@crystal dune what FFF did that come from out of curiosity

[crystal dune]

I was just in the middle of editing that in

[stray wharf]

Yes. There was a map-view picture of several quality cycler loops for multiple materials. They were taking from the same parameterized blueprints, but there were two sizes of them. The size used for quality cycling modules and accumulators was also used for solar panels and beacons.

The EMP is a bigger building, so it would need a bigger quality cycler setup than if you used an assembler. And you'd never quality cycle modules without the EMP, so...

[crystal dune]

I sincerely hope that’s it

I even made a post on the forums’ suggestions board asking for beacons in the EMP

I’m not the biggest fan of solar power so I’m not as excited about that, but it’s still cool

Would have been a little odd to have accumulators but not also the building they’re so commonly paired with

[tardy quarry]

now I wonder if this is really the full recipe list for foundry

[crystal dune]

Personally I was more curious about the comprehensiveness of the “exclusive recipes” list

Because tesla turret fff sort of made it sound like the tesla will be an exclusive recipe

“has to be made on Fulgora”

And that seems to set a bit of a different standard for what gets exclusivized and what doesn’t, compared to what the Vulcanus factoriopedia page led us to believe prior

[tardy quarry]

same standard isn’t it

some ppl believed that exclusive recipes means they’re made from planet exclusive resources, but I always thought it means the recipe is only available on specific surface

[crystal dune]

We know that’s what it is

[tardy quarry]

also we saw being quality grinded on Nauvis does it mean its not an exclusive recipe?

[crystal dune]

We saws ands too

[tardy quarry]

although its using exclusive resource

yeah

so exclusive or not doesn’t fully depends on if it contains exclusive raw resources

it’s more like an environmental requirement

say need high temperature on Vulcanus to process heavy metal

or need electrostatic field on Fulgora for tesla items

I still don’t know how to thematically makes sense that green belts, BMD and foundry are exclusive, but tungsten processing is not

[tropic basin]

pretty sure it's not

dear god, that's 5 ingredients already :/

thinking about the Foundry ingredients, it needs Refined Concrete.
Regular Concrete needs Iron Ore, which cannot be automated on Vulcanus.
Either the recipe for regular Concrete has been changed, or Iron Ore is one of the things we need to ship between planets.

[stray wharf]

That same picture shows a Foundry recipe for concrete from molten iron. That's how you automate concrete on Vulcanus (and later everywhere else).

[crystal dune]

Bless 😭🙏

Iron ore begone

Forever

That’s a real reason to visit Vulcanus first

[tropic basin]

technically I'm right, the recipe has been changed
thanks for pointing that out :)

[barren oasis]

Right now, I can't see myself going anywhere other than Vulcanus first
It won my heart, and nothing else has come close so far

[tropic basin]

Fulgora is nice, but I'm a sucker for a gloomy industrial setting.

[weary widget]

vulcanus is the equivalent of "eating your vegetables" lol

you get the infrastructure to stretch out your resources and spend less time babysitting different planets

(as you work on other ones)

[stray wharf]

Those all seem like good reasons to go to Vulcanus last. I can hand out EMPs and whatever along the way, but if I'm going to reorganize the infrastructure on multiple planets, I only want to do it once.

[barren oasis]

Liquid metals

[weary widget]

thats fair Alfonse

at least how I currently see it, I'll be upgrading every part of all factories 3-5+ times anyway with increasing technology unlocks and as higher quality stuff gets produced in sufficient quantity

some leaps will be taken so its not too maddening (ie straight to rare quality for some stuff) but its going to be continuous upgrades

it also depends if you're just trying to beat the game, or if the end is just the beginning 😎

[tardy quarry]

nah, beat the first three planets all without helps from other planet so u only need to rebuild all the factories once before going to Aquilo

[stray wharf]

You mean, don't use the EMP to make circuits cheaper on other planets even if you get access to it earlier? Never.

[crystal dune]

Or go Vulcanus first and reorganize the infrastructure on only one planet

[tardy quarry]

now add into the consideration

[tropic basin]

factory blocks can be designed with in mind, so it can be a straight inplace upgrade

upgrading your BC block from ASMs to EMPs will be a bigger effort

[misty falcon]

for me

How many and which kinds of platforms do you expect to build?
Like of course we'll have our first colonizer platform. But do you plan on building a second one, to haul stuff, at the same time or near that time?

[stray wharf]

I expect to have a personal chariot, but ultimately I think there will need to be at least one platform from/to each planet.

[misty falcon]

Will it make sense to build the second+ platforms on another planet which isn't ?

[weary widget]

depends on what its made out of

[misty falcon]

We don't know their rates, so it could make sense to do a star pattern

Like -> -> -> -> -> -> 🔁

[weary widget]

if nauvis is already built out, might as well take advantage of the existing infrastructure and make a handful of basic platforms that are good enough for the time being

[stray wharf]

Probably not. Nauvis has plenty of resources, and so long as the most critical parts can be made on Nauvis, I don't see a need to shift the shipyard stuff to a different planet. If a platform needs additional, planet-exclusive stuff, it can be shipped to Nauvis for installation.

Also some platforms will need nuclear power, so Nauvis is a good choice as a starting point.

[weary widget]

hopefully platforms have interrupts then, so they can refuel on a certain planet, versus shipping the fuel to that planet, and paying for a rocket launch twice

[stray wharf]

I think it'd be easier to just have them regularly go to Nauvis to refuel. For most planets, that ought to be a fairly easy trip. Indeed, there may not be a direct way to go from Fulgora to Vulcanus, for example.

[weary widget]

destination will play a big part too, even if its early/mid game and you're leaving nauvis for the first time. for solar, vulcanus yes, fulgora maybe not, gleba probably yes

or rather it could work on fulgora, but you'll either need a lot of higher quality ones, or its a less efficient platform from less sunlight. 🤷‍♂️

[tropic basin]

they use the train schedule system afaik, so that should be a "yes"

[weary widget]

Like Alfonse said though, there might be some limitations in where you can go from a given planet. That is a crucial piece of this that we don't yet know.

[tropic basin]

there are some limitations to the possible routes

[tropic basin]

proof

Vulcanus connects to Nauvis and Bwuhuo only, not to Fulgora.
Aquilo we can't say anything about, because it might be omitted for spoiler reasons.

[weary widget]

Thats true. One thing to consider is that those images are from #397. Fulgora FFFs are #398-399. For the same reasons Aquilo could be hidden, the same could apply here.

[tropic basin]

that's a fair point.
counter argument: Did we have the planet icon of Fulgora back then?

[weary widget]

I don't think. At that point, the best we could've had was this:

[tropic basin]

Might be true. I don't want to do the proper research to find out.
Vulcanus FFF was before the Factoriopedia, so we had that icon. others I dunno

[tardy quarry]

I want to see the space map within 4 weeks

[late sentinel]

That's an odd measure of time. Why 4 weeks?

[tardy quarry]

I kinda expect it to be prior to the Aquilo reveal

its too much teasing for me if they don’t show the space map before Aquilo fff

oh and I also want to see the full platform construction animation

so far they have the scaffolding animation

but no animation for the buildings

also my ear reveal when

its been there for so long

[late sentinel]

I think 'too much teasing' is just how FFFs are now.

[tardy quarry]

this tbh

I’m starting to believe that they are not actually hiding anything

but still hoping that its to buildup for the hype season

[late sentinel]

I get called crazy for that opinion so be careful 😉

[late sentinel]

"a few other things" is accumulators, solars, and beacons.

[vivid turret]

Where did we see them making ?

[stray wharf]

I just realized that this base bothers to quality cycle labs. That suggests that there's no end-game lab.

[late sentinel]

true!

I already believed that for what it's worth

[stray wharf]

Here's an oddball question. We know that the Foundry has a recipe for making holmium plate. But is that a thing you have to separately research, or does it come along with the trigger tech for making plate in a furnace? That might be interesting as it could require both Vulcanus and Fulgora's science packs.

In particular, it should be noted that the Foundry's recipe uses holmium solution rather than ore.

[timid crescent]

I would not be surprised if recipes like that require both planet's science packs

[weary widget]

I don't know the answer, but its nice to have 2 steps to boost prod for holmium. I was afraid the best we could do is smelt it in an electric furnace with the best prod modules you could

[timid crescent]

I already believed there was no end-game lab when they showed us the lab setup in FFF-417

Cleanly fitting 13 belts around one lab sounds like quite a challenge

Bots sound far easier

[weary widget]

plus you can feel less guilty because of the optimizations

[stray wharf]

Especially when it comes to getting spoilage out.

[timid crescent]

Doing half belts instead of full belts also sounds way better, only need 7 belts then

[timid crescent]

Yeah that's the one I was thinking of

Just couldn't be bothered to find it this time

[shrewd citrus]

none of those are Fulgora exclusive – how can you tell that they were the few other things and not some more holmium-based recipes?

[timid crescent]

Because we know that they can craft them

So they would be classified under "a few other things"

Modules and circuits aren't Fulgora exclusive either, so I don't really see your point

[shrewd citrus]

my point was that the science pack doesn't really do anything until the very late game and there's little reason to export it to Nauvis.

I'm mostly thinking about something for platforms to ensure you can reach Aquilo safely

if you aren't doing quality then all you do on Fulgora is set up a rump EMP production and and that's it, no science researches except for one batch for the turrets

but eh, then again, maybe that's okay with Aquilo and the post-game probably requiring mass science packs for something

we might also get some new bonus research tiers, like an extra robot capacity research or, as someone mentioned previously, laser damage

[spare aurora]

you can also use 1 belt for sushi since you can read the whole thing and no more combinator magic to count stuff.

[stray wharf]

I'm really unsure where these takes are coming from. Yes, if you assume that there's nothing on Fulgora we haven't specifically been told is there (or where there's some likelihood of it being there), then the planet consists of at most 8 researched technologies.

But even those consist of:

Known researches

• lightning rod mk2
• Tesla turret
• Tesla handgun
• Quality Module 3

Possible researches

• Foundry recipe for holmium plate
• copper extraction from asteroids
• Personal roboport mk2
• Personal battery mk2

8 researches doesn't sound like a lot, but... that's more than you get from just purple science in 1.1. Throw in the EMP and recycler, and that's easily comparable to purple science packs.

[timid crescent]

If you're talking about the take that there's not much else to unlock on Fulgora, I'd be referring to new stuff, not stuff we already know about that would require a research on Fulgora like (potentially) holmium plate, Mk2 equipment, etc.

[stray wharf]

And that's without considering missing stuff like why do you need copper in space (maybe Fulgora has an answer for that) or infinite techs.

[weary widget]

piercing ammo is the first thing that comes to mind

[timid crescent]

As in I wouldn't expect anything that would blow open a whole new production chain on Fulgora that we don't know about

[stray wharf]

I was mostly talking about what Skandus was referring to, basically only getting one or two techs from the planet and moving on.

[spare aurora]

my understanding is we dont get copper in space? cause missiles lost circuits due to a lack of copper

[shrewd citrus]

that's fair, I forgot about the roboport/batteries/copper

[spare aurora]

for building missiles on the go

[timid crescent]

You can get copper in space later in the game, rocket changes were to make it more accessible early on

[stray wharf]

The devs said that you can extract copper from space. But rockets already require a full production setup for explosives. Adding onto that copper refining and circuit processing was too much for a mid-game thing.

[shrewd citrus]

my issue wasn't with what Fulgora gets you, but rather what the science pack gets you. and what you mentioned above is plenty

[stray wharf]

The thing I'm most curious about are multi-planetary science techs. I mentioned the Foundry recipe for holmium plate, which sounds very much like a thing that you'd have to research with both science packs.

[timid crescent]

Multi planetary techs are a really interesting design space. From what I remember the only real hints we've gotten for it's existence are holmium 'casting' and Gleba shipping various spoilables to 'other planets'

There are some items and recipes with spoilable ingredients which need to be crafted on different planets, so on top of optimizing the production chain, it'll also be meaningful to make a fast space platform to deliver them.

Especially because the design space multiplies with the number of planetary science packs

[stray wharf]

The only specific hints. It'd be really difficult to imagine a fusion reactor without superconductors.

[timid crescent]

I think Aquilo fits outside/on top of that space. But I get what you mean

It's the culmination of everything that came before it sort of thing

[late sentinel]

I should be clear I’m not making a value judgement of if we’ve seen ‘enough’ stuff from fulgora, just that we’ve probably seen most of it.

[misty falcon]

Tesla items would be more than 2 weapons. But intermediates make sense too. Personally I'm predicting a K2 tesla charger

How many techs do we assume each planet has? (With and without triggers)

[stray wharf]

I don't think the devs are looking to fill a particular count of techs. It's likely more about how meaningful those techs are in aggregate.

However, Fulgora's known trigger techs include (some of these may well be bundled together):

• Recycler
• lightning rod mk1
• holmium plate
• holmium solution
• EMP
• electrolyte
• superconducing wire
• supercapacitor
• science pack

[late sentinel]

Gleba is still weird imo. Most planets are more trigger than unlock heavy, and gleba seems to have no significant triggers… something isn’t right there.

[timid crescent]

Do we really know that stuff like the science pack and intermediaries are trigger techs? Obviously whatever is needed for the emp and recycler would be so I guess it just depends on what their recipes are

[stray wharf]

Remember: in the early versions of the game, trigger techs were just for things you need to get started on the planet. You weren't allowed to put Foundries or EMPs on other planets. It's just that Gleba's main building was so intimately tied to its production mechanic that other places couldn't really take advantage of it.

[misty falcon]

has triggers for Agritower, biochamber, fruit mashing, mash into nutrient, mash into things, science pack

[stray wharf]

That is kind of the point of trigger techs: to allow you to get to the point of producing science packs without having to produce science packs.

[timid crescent]

But you're already producing science packs back on Nauvis

Not saying that it wouldn't make sense for all those things to be trigger techs, just don't think that all of them have to be trigger techs

[stray wharf]

And so you research a bunch of buildings and recipes you can't use until you go to that specific planet? The whole point of trigger techs is to avoid throwing a bunch of stuff at you that you can't use right now.

[timid crescent]

The intermediaries, not the buildings

[tardy quarry]

its to allow u to gradually unlock things at the planet without using Nauvis science (as u don’t have to visit the planet to unlocke the tech then)

[timid crescent]

Obviously the intermediaries that need the buildings to be processed would be gated by the building trigger techs

[stray wharf]

Same difference. What does it mean to research "holmium plate" or "fruit mashing" when you're not on either planet?

[timid crescent]

You couldn't because the building trigger tech would gate it

[stray wharf]

Neither of those recipes require a special building. Holmium plate would undoubtedly be made in a furnace, and we've already seen fruit mashing happens in an assembler.

[tardy quarry]

I believe intermediate and buildings are separate trigger techs

iirc there isn’t much tech in vanilla that puts buildings and their ingredients together

[timid crescent]

So? why wouldn't it be gated behide the recycler? you need the recycler to automate holmium in the first place

[tardy quarry]

behind it yes

[timid crescent]

Same with fruit and the agricultural tower

[tardy quarry]

I’m saying u don’t unlock holmium processing and EMP at same tech

[stray wharf]

You can chop down trees manually.

[timid crescent]

Then the biochamber, whatever

[tardy quarry]

u can hand recycle the scraps at the beginning tho

[stray wharf]

... you need to mash fruit to make seeds to build the biochamber.

[timid crescent]

I feel like you're not reading what I'm saying

[stray wharf]

And I feel like you're not understanding that I specifically picked two recipes that are in no way gated by buildings.

[timid crescent]

How do you know that all of these are definitely trigger techs?

[tardy quarry]

because those are the least u need to make local science

[stray wharf]

Because we know that the recipe for the science pack requires an EMP, super-capacitors, holmium solution and electrolyte.

[timid crescent]

And why couldn't the science pack need to be researched before you can make it?

[tardy quarry]

I don’t think it makes sense to unlock those tech using Nauvis science

[stray wharf]

... how would that change anything? Here's a recipe that you don't have the things to make.

[late sentinel]

I think Alfonse just means they’re gated behind a trigger tech and do not use that planet’s science pack.

[timid crescent]

You couldn't research it without first unlocking the recycler

You would already have the things to make it

[tardy quarry]

it doesn’t matter, the first tech is trigger tech, if the following tech until planet science isn’t trigger tech it would be weird

[timid crescent]

If he means that then they should say that instead of saying

"However, Fulgora's known trigger techs include"

Why would it be weird?

[late sentinel]

well, the point of this whole discussion is to split it into pre-planet research and post planet research

[timid crescent]

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-376-early-tech-graph.png

Green science needs red science, red science is a trigger tech, I don't see what's weird about that

[tardy quarry]

because u can just mine a piece of scrap, unlock the gate and then researchall the way up to the science pack using Nauvis science without producing anything

[tardy quarry]

red science is the first science on this planet, and all the tech before it is trigger tech

[timid crescent]

Red science is the first science at all, there are no sciences before it. Of course it's a trigger tech

[stray wharf]

Whether it's "weird" is irrelevant; it's not what the devs claim to want:

The alternative would have been that the science pack is made available immediately on arrival, but then it couldn't really be too interesting as it wouldn't include any of the processing you have discovered past that point.

[timid crescent]

Electromagnetic science has at least 4 sciences before it

[stray wharf]

What you've described is basically that.

[timid crescent]

How? you'd still need to do all the stuff to unlock and make the ingredients?

That's hardly having it available immediately on arrival

[stray wharf]

Currently we have a few technology triggers that unlock research:

Mining an entity
Crafting an item/fluid
Launching a rocket with a certain item

This means that each time you land on a planet, you discover and exploit its new resources in a way that feels quite natural, as everything happens while you're actually there.

[tardy quarry]

for Vulcanus at least

[stray wharf]

Nothing the developers have stated about any planet's initial techs suggest that they intend to force you to do planet-specific research to get a planet's science pack going through any means other than trigger techs.

[timid crescent]

Thank you for actually answering the question

[stray wharf]

Is it possible that they won't do that, that there will just be the one or two early triggers but everything else will be pre-planet research? Yes. Is there any evidence for it? No.

[tardy quarry]

exactly, the point is that every unlock happens while you’re actually there

[timid crescent]

You're still completely misunderstanding what I'm saying

There's no reason the science pack can't require research while also being gated behind trigger techs unlocking it's ingredients

[stray wharf]

Besides the fact that this is against the purpose of trigger techs, yes, the devs could do that.

[timid crescent]

A dev statement claiming that "everything presented above is obtained from trigger technologies" is an actual reason why we would know that the science packs are trigger techs

[tardy quarry]

well yes, but I think its natural that everything from planet landing to its science pack is trigger tech, and its save enough to assume so.

[stray wharf]

So was the devs telling us how they were using trigger techs to begin with.

[late sentinel]

The difference between them is not meaningful.

[timid crescent]

I never claimed that it wouldn't make sense that the packs are unlocked through trigger techs, I just wanted to know how you knew

[tardy quarry]

there’s no 100% solid confirm

[timid crescent]

And you're just arguing that I have to be wrong with my question instead of explaining how you know

[late sentinel]

The real important thing is there is some science there that is gated behind triggers (likely entirely) - and other science is gated behind the planet’s science pack

and there’s been running discussion that we’ve seen very little of the latter.

[stray wharf]

There was an entire FFF explaining trigger techs and the philosophy behind them. I assumed that this was common knowledge.

[late sentinel]

Which has lead some people, such as myself, to speculate the amount of them that we’ve seen is about how many we get, and there just aren’t as many planet researches as we mostly imagined.

[stray wharf]

What's interesting about Gleba is that it probably has the fewest trigger techs of any planet. Or at least, the least consequential.

[late sentinel]

Gleba buts heads with everything we know in a very holistic way.

[timid crescent]

I guess having the least consequences is interesting in it's own way haha

[late sentinel]

If SA is mostly trigger techs, wtf is

gleba has to have lots of good non-triggers unless we’ve been fundamentally mislead about this planet

But we haven’t seen those either.

[timid crescent]

I'm extremely interested in what spoilable intermediaries we'll have to ship around and to what planets

If it's just Aquilo then I think their statements are misleading

[stray wharf]

I'm talking about how its resources are structured. Fulgora and Vulcanus only have 1 unique resource, and that resource is only used to make all of their special stuff. Gleba not only has 2, but they're used to make a variety of items, some of which are just the same stuff made a different way.

[tardy quarry]

tbh not really. It still has two new machines and some processing chains. Just that the two new machines are not used for Nauvis recipe

[stray wharf]

We know almost all of the Gleba science pack's ingredients. You need nutrients+green sphere to make the pack. Green sphere comes from baked pinecones+green cubes. And Baked pinecones comes from pink pinecones. The only thing we don't know is where green cubes come from, but they're likely an alternate processed version of red apples (otherwise the pack would only use one fruit).

[timid crescent]

The other difference is that a lot of the low-level intermediates on Gleba seem to be entirely made from it's two unique resources. Tungsten and holmium I expect to quickly be combined with other resources like iron, copper, petrochem

[tardy quarry]

probably rocket turrets, carbon sulfur crushing, spidertrons

[stray wharf]

Because of this, you can get the science pack without needing trigger techs for any of the oil processing intermediates. Or for bioflux (unless that's what the green sphere is called) or carbon fiber. Basically, Gleba's packs don't seem to use most of Gleba's new intermediates.

What this means is that, where Vulcanus and Fulgora research likely doesn't involve non-trigger intermediates, a lot of Gleba's research likely will. So Gleba probably has more on-planet researches than other planets.

This also gives the player time to get used to a spoiling science pack.

[cobalt blaze]

I dont get why this is the cas, can someone explain?

[late sentinel]

Well, if we argue that most impact comes from triggers, gleba has no meaningful triggers, and that the planets are roughly equal, gleba has to make up for that with good science unlocks.

[cobalt blaze]

ohh I understand. like there's currently no revealed reason to go to gleba because all its buildings are gleba specific

[stray wharf]

The basic idea is that the EMP and the Foundry trigger techs are themselves quite useful in your base (however, it is entirely possible that this isn't the case immediately). Indeed, you could say that for those two planets, the most important things you get from them are their trigger techs. But Gleba's trigger techs are all about agriculture production that cannot be used directly on other planets. So what you research using its science pack has to provide a similar impact to your base.

[shrewd citrus]

we don't know that agriculture cannot be used directly on other planets though, only that they don't use Nauvis recipes

[stray wharf]

That's true; it is theoretically possible that you can get agriculture going on another planet and have (non-exclusive) recipes manufactured there.

But... why?

Fulgora doesn't need oil products much.

Nauvis has infinite crude oil, so agriculture-based oil processing holds no value.

The only planet that struggles with oil processing is Vulcanus, which is the least likely planet for doing agriculture on.

Though if you ignore the fact that plants don't generally grow in a volcanic hellscape, being able to export low-water-consuming (relative to coal liquefaction and cracking) agriculture to Vulcanus would be interesting.

And the only planet more obviously inhospitable to life than Vulcanus would be Aquilo.

[cobalt blaze]

probably various productivity researches will need planetary sciences

[timid crescent]

I very much doubt the notion that we'll be growing things on other planets. Mainly because of the statement from FFF-417

We also allowed the usage of planet specific producers to be exported to other places, which greatly increased the motivation to expand, and also made the progression faster and more rewarding, as these machines are strong.

The only reason we can use the foundry and EMP on other planets is because they speed up progression, are a great milestone of progression, and they slot in nicely to existing production

[tardy quarry]

Now thinking about it, it might be possible that the ore melting recipe is only available with metallurgic science unlock

also the EMP circuit recipes

[timid crescent]

The agri tower and biochamber do none of these things

[tardy quarry]

as u mainly do recycling for circuits on Fulgora

[timid crescent]

Yeah the off-planet uses needing research makes sense

Specifically so you don't just smash and grab things

[stray wharf]

Welp, there goes the Fulgora smash-and grab 😉

[tardy quarry]

at least we still have recyclers immediately useful

but not as useful before u have quality module 3

[timid crescent]

You'd need to at least bootsrap yourself to some science, a slow trickle would eventually get you enough

Quality beacons seem like such an important thing throughout a base, thinking about it

[late sentinel]

I think pepper box has found a solution of sorts. Things we thought were free are actually researched

[timid crescent]

Just getting some EMPs and recyclers for quality beacons would pay off a lot I'd imagine

[stray wharf]

Yeah, but the more holmium you use for science, the less you have available for the EMP. Not only that, there are a large number of things the EMP makes; it could very well be that you have multiple such researches:

• Make circuits
• Make modules
• Make beacons

With qual module 3s gated behind "make modules".

[tardy quarry]

BMD are still immediately useful

[timid crescent]

Gating circuits/beacons/etc. from being made in the EMP until you research them would be a new unlock type, no?

Because afaik it's still the same recipe, and when you unlock a recipe it's immediately available to every machine that can make it.

[stray wharf]

Sure, but the attraction of the Fulgora smash-and-grab is that rocket parts basically fall out of the sky. To smash-and-grab on Vulcanus, you have to build significant infrastructure.

[stray wharf]

I don't know what the rules are with regard to the engine. They should be the same recipe (unlike ore melting in the Foundry, which is a totally new thing), but if the engine doesn't allow you to separate the researches, then they could just be copies of the same recipe.

[timid crescent]

Copies of the same recipe would be 😵‍💫

[stray wharf]

Yeah, it'd be weird, but if they wanted to make you have to research various assembler recipes in the EMP, then it would be a viable solution.

[timid crescent]

Yeah it would work, but the weirdness makes me think it wouldn't be done that way

Might create bug reports from mods

"why are there two of the same recipe" type thing

[tardy quarry]

yeah… can research gate recipes that already exists in a particular machine?

[timid crescent]

I don't think so, at least I've never seen it in a mod

Which makes me think it's not possible (currently)

[shrewd citrus]

or they could be slightly tweaked so they're not exact duplicates

[timid crescent]

I think that would be less intuitive. If it's different it should be different for a good, noticeable reason imo.

[shrewd citrus]

the tweak would be just to allow the research to unlock it separately

[timid crescent]

Then that would just be the duplicate we were talking about

[shrewd citrus]

for instance, 1 x is 3 x , 1 x for an assembler.

the fulgora research unlock would be something like 2 x : 5 x , 2 x , EMP only

[tardy quarry]

EMP has built in prod already tho

we do however have the foundry LDS changed to molten version

[kindred ice]

LDS appears to use the same recipe in the foundry in FFF387. Copper plates, plastic bars and steel plates; and no fluid inputs. It's probably the exact same recipe but benefiting from the foundry's innate +50% productivity.

[tardy quarry]

this image is outdated according to devs in discord

based on the discord discussion foundry LDS now need molten iron and copper instead

[crystal dune]

New theory just dropped...

"Shovel Knight Dig Theory"™️

According to this, Aquilo may be the origin planet of the fish

Most unhinged thing I have ever made

[fossil hawk]

Honestly here for it. The creating but also accidentally creating and wrecking the solar system would be fitting lore

[radiant galleon]

shovel knight dig mentioned

[weary widget]

#friday-facts message possible FFF before release

[radiant quiver]

you think there will be many things the devs will intentionally not make an fff on to have us discover it as we are playing after space age release?

[tardy quarry]

maybe a few tech

like spidertron is just a single tech example

and if SA has similar content as base game, there probably won’t be much for them to hide

[patent sparrow]

I think the FFF will continue for a bit after release too, showing some cool stuff

[radiant quiver]

Good point

[tardy quarry]

iirc the spidertron was introduced in fff after its release?

[crystal dune]

It was a surprise feature

[tardy quarry]

My point was that we had just one surprise feature for base game. If SA will have similar amount of content as the base game, I think it’s reasonable to assume that we won’t have a lot of surprise content in SA

[serene sage]

on the other hand, the base game had early access, so we got to personally experience the vast majority of features before the game was released. this is not the case for Space Age.

[tardy quarry]

true

imagine SA has early access phase

[misty falcon]

I'm still surprised they didn't go the 2.0 first, then Spage, but I also understand it, to combine the launches, hype cycles, coverage... They don't want 2.0 to overshadow Spage.

[tardy quarry]

unless they give SA one more year

[stray wharf]

It's really more about the engine. The main reason 2.0 is getting all of the QoL changes is so that the devs don't have to support 2 separate codebases.

[misty falcon]

It would be the same engine, with the flags disabling the new features

[radiant quiver]

I'm not an expert but it seems like 2.0 will be different enough to call it a new engine, also shipping the new features early might cause a lot of leaks from data miners 🥬🥬🥬

[timid crescent]

I'd think calling 2.0 a different engine to 1.1 would be like calling UE5 a different engine to UE4. Not entirely inaccurate, but I don't think it's particularly clear.

i.e. it's still the same engine, just a newer version with more features

[crystal dune]

Tomorrow is efficiency module rework/buff

[weary widget]

it'll be interesting to see if T3 module recipes will change. that'll greatly shift whether you can mass produce them all together on your planet of choice (with the exception of quality modules requiring fulgora)

[crystal dune]

I don’t see why quality modules would be some special case. To me the change of its recipe meant the change of every T3 module recipe in some way

Also we have already seen them being quality cycled on Nauvis

[weary widget]

that's true. based on other items that are considered exclusive recipes (see factoriopedia FFF), it definitely seems to diverge from Wube's philosophy on that if you can just import a bunch of superconducting cable to make them somewhere else. look at the recipes locked to vulcanus. the quality module is arguably more powerful than all of them (in terms of what it can do), which seemingly is a main driver to make recipes planet exclusive.

its strange

[crystal dune]

It may be due to the telescopic nature of modules

People could already have T2 module production set up

Belts are telescopic too but they don’t have quality, and are just a lot easier to make than modules

The Vulcanus list we saw is probably not comprehensive, because it would spoil what Nauvis techs were moved there

Like the commonly guessed artillery and cliff explosives

[weary widget]

seems to me like the devs would just want people to ship the T2's to the appropriate planet, just like everything else. the benefit would justify the cost. 🤷‍♂️

[crystal dune]

Well, it’s a good thing you can still do that

Besides, as long as there is one key set of exclusive recipes (science, building, an extra or two), that will sort of “push people over the line” because they already need a base there for those

So any further recipes they will seriously consider making on the planet, since the hard work has already been done

[weary widget]

I agree with what you've said, but its still a mystery to me why T3 quality modules don't fall in that category

[crystal dune]

Because if they did, the most optimal thing to do would be to tear down your Q2 production on Nauvis and rebuild it on Fulgora

Sure you could ship them through space, but you could lose all the rocket costs of that if you made them on Fulgora instead

[stray wharf]

The way I see it, it doesn't take too many exclusives to keep a world from becoming just a resourcing operation. Sure, you can make qual module 3s elsewhere, and you could do that by shipping superconducting wire there. But what else are you going to make there from that?

Also, they didn't say that they never wanted you to ship intermediates. It's just shipping intermediates that they wanted you to avoid.

[weary widget]

That makes sense.

[radiant quiver]

We've already seen quality modules take some new ingredients so not changing the other modules will look very off

[misty falcon]

We're also almost certain eff3 take bluranium

[weary widget]

If efficiency 3 is an Aquilo unlock, perhaps productivity and speed are too

[stray wharf]

That doesn't make a lot of sense. Why have quality module 3s so early relative to the others? Because they're new?

[weary widget]

you can ask the inverse of that as well, why are just efficiency 3's put in so late?

[stray wharf]

I don't think eff3s will be on Aquilo though.

[weary widget]

it would make more sense of all 3 of them were together

[crystal dune]

From what we’ve seen so far, Q mod is supposed an equal to the old three

Unlocked at the same level at every stage

[weary widget]

if efficiency T3 uses bluranium like soul burn said, it would have to be aquilo

[stray wharf]

Unless bluranium is a Nauvis product.

[misty falcon]

Or a deep space product?

[stray wharf]

Um, what would that mean? That you have to fabricate it on a platform or something else?

[misty falcon]

Yea in specific places in space. Just tossing ideas.

BTW we think the bluranium requirement because of this. See how the consumption of and bluranium are correlated on the consumption graph
https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-408-quality-graph.png

[weary widget]

I'm guessing GUI changes for tomorrow

[radiant galleon]

this wouldn't make sense because that would mean the cells are being consumed at very uneven rates and are produced the instant another one is consumed. i think those 4 ingredients are involved in one recipe together

[agile river]

I'm guessing space platform scheduling and related GUIs

[vivid turret]

Still waiting on that planet settings FFF

[stray wharf]

Yes, that's what Soul Burn is saying. What recipe would take 4 eff2s, 5 blue and red circuits? Sound familiar? Because whatever it is also takes bluranium.

[spare aurora]

klonan has been teasing it multiple times

[stray wharf]

He has?

[spare aurora]

#friday-facts message
#friday-facts message

#friday-facts message

[weary widget]

yep lol

either what I said and/or Lou/Insubordonate

[timid crescent]

Specifically: I think this FFF will be about the system chart view, showing the different surfaces/planets and such

Maybe with visual representations of different platforms, their speed and the routes they're taking

[spare aurora]

i just hope its not a "how we optimized more", like i ❤️ the work and really appreciate pushing the engine as far as it can go for bigger bases but i really prefer the content side of FFF.

[stray wharf]

Well, as long as there are more combat-related FFFs in August than others, I'll consider my "The month of combat" prediction confirmed.

[spare aurora]

unless the optimizations are gameplay ones. like the bot algo, pipes, trains etc

i kinda hope they don't spoil the biters, tell us about the guns but not the enemies.

if we get a nuclear mirv gernade, were going to imagine what kind of enemey needs one

i like them when playing but i prefer to learn about new content when hyping the release

post launch look at all the cool ways we made your factory faster is perfect

[late sentinel]

Previous optimizations FFF was golden. If it’s like that I will be super happy. Optimization FFF before that not so much.

[misty falcon]

I wrote that they are consumed in the same recipe. Like, that's the whole sentence I wrote.

[radiant galleon]

my dumb ass

[weary widget]

[tardy quarry]

foundry dumping excess molten iron

[late sentinel]

we've seen this much from boskid before, very very long ago.

Remember, foundry recipe makes molten iron and copper in lockstep.

It almost has to produce excess iron under science load if you ever want to be able to afford belts

[cobalt blaze]

another day, another QoL update. surely they're out of them by now

[timid wing]

they could just add more

[weary widget]

unless you're loaded with quality intermediates or just don't care, you're much better off just quality looping it so you can slowly fill up a box of rare+ gears or plates

[tardy quarry]

nah quality cycling intermediate is probably a complexity trap

[weary widget]

not for this, its just iron plates

[tardy quarry]

what do u need quality iron plates for if u don’t quality cycle other intermediates

also recyclers are not that fast, u would need a lot of power and space to recycle all the plates

[tardy quarry]

specifically, copper based intermediates

[weary widget]

I meant for that immediate area, it wouldn't be a complex thing to design. If its valuable enough and you don't have any quality processing with copper on vulcanus, you can just ship it somewhere that does.

as for power, assuming you're able to and not in the bootstrap phase, just build more. doing this is a long term investment to start a slow trickle of high quality ingredients. get a few of these going where appropriate in different places, and sooner than later you'll have full chests of it that can be used for whatever will benefit you most.

[tardy quarry]

the point is that u still need non-iron quality intermediates from other places, and quality cyling intermediates are typically more infrastructure heavier than just quality cycle the end products that gets actual quality bonus. Plus that u need to solve the complexity of quality cycling all the required intermediate for specific end products

[weary widget]

I understand your points and what you're saying, its just not an issue to me. You can quality loop the iron to save only epic+ or even legendary, which at the cost of material efficiency (incremental upgrades when using quality), this makes it simpler to manage.

[stray wharf]

Actually, quality copper and steel are easy to get on Vulcanus: recycle quality LDS produced from quality coal (because the Foundry LDS recipe has plastic as its only solid intermediate, all you need is quality plastic). The real question is how difficult it is to get quality tungsten intermediates.

And speaking of quality coal, you can use that excess molten iron to make quality coal and iron via quality cycling grenades.

[weary widget]

if I'm not importing quality plastic from gleba (or not enough), thats a good secondary way to obtain it. as for tungsten I could see it coming down to how calcite hungry the smelting process is. these are key areas for your best productivity modules if you're scaling up production here.

[late sentinel]

I mean frankly this one was miniscule

[hallow shell]

10 fffs remaining

[spare aurora]

they can't all be bangers, meh ones make the good ones better.

[late sentinel]

They totally can be. We only had 11 FFFs remaining and so many things we 'will learn about later'

'meh ones make the good ones better' is such classic fallacious reasoning I will not address it

[spare aurora]

so like most tv i can't even be bothered to care about any calamity, cause they got plot armor thicker than a tank in a knife fight.

if everyone is better than the last they're going to run out of material very quickly or spoil everything

[late sentinel]

I never said every one of them needs to be better than the last 😅

[spare aurora]

fair

[late sentinel]

They're at negative risk of running out of material currently.

they would need to double to quadruple the biggest FFF sizes to adequately get through just the stuff we know we don't know.

[spare aurora]

im cool with not knowing, all will be revealed oct 21.

fluff is fine

[misty falcon]

A lot will be left to the player

[late sentinel]

That's my conclusion

One of three things has to be true:

• The expansion is smaller than we believe
• FFFs will get extremely more dense moving forward
• Many things will not be covered