Speculations

[misty falcon]

3 is my prediction

[late sentinel]

It has to be some combination of the three of these given how much time is left

#3 is likely the most solid pick, as there are many things we know we don't know.

[spare aurora]

i do hope they spoil what ever that excavator arm was.

[late sentinel]

wdym spoiler?

[spare aurora]

spoil, opps

im dying to know what that thing was

[spare aurora]

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

overlapping with the foundry

next to a conviently placed ui panel

[cobalt blaze]

still waiting on the squiward reveal that was teased 3 years ago

[kindred ice]

It seems to be some kind of tree-sized humanoid mech. You can see it in FFF-389's thumbnail if you zoom in the middle of the image: https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-389-thumbnail-choochoo-MF.png

[spare aurora]

Interesting i wonder what they’re for

[weary widget]

wow we have like a 9x13 pixel image of it

wube are such teases

[spare aurora]

the arms dont look the same tho

but maybe its just the size difference

to be fair his arm is like 2px wide

[undone spade]

Oh bro that is a nice spot

I count 26 things:

F, my list do not fit in Discord messages

[crystal dune]

[undone spade]

1. The flying ennemy of #367

2. "Some upcoming feature will help you [build more quality-mini factories]" #376

3. "[Increasing lab-productivity] will require the end-game resources" #376

4. "Some yet-undisclosed Space Age content require" [to put things in a rocket silo manually] #381

5. "There are quite a few more things to try [about specialisation of space plateforms], but more about that some other day..." #381

6. "[The "import from planet x" option] will be important later" #382

7. [What we will throw in lava] "Outdated gadgets, cursed rings of power, maybe even unwanted company." #386.
   Cann we really throw/push ennemies?

8. "But who knows what might awaken in the depths of Vulcanus." #386
   --> definitiely ennemies on Vulcanus

9. "There were some additional forms of vegetation [on vulkanus], but those were later moved to a different planet" #386
   --> where? Probably not gleba due to style, hence it is 5th planet imo

10. "What you could unlock with the Metallurgic science pack... Perhaps some other time!" #387

11. "There is some very specific case where this [interrupt in train interrupt] is a crucial thing to have, but it is on a planet we didn't reveal yet, so more on that later 🙂 ." #389
    --> This is strange. What on Nauvis would need that? #399

12. "fancy new noise functions that we'll reveal along with a new planet later." #390
    --> For me, this is not about Fulgora nor the "new" Nauvis. Vulcanus was already revealed back then. Hence it is either Gleba (did not see much of the map yet) or 5th planet.

13. "there are now machines with an even more complex sound set [than the foundry]" #396

14. There is a pixelised pinned in second image of #400

15. There is a barely noticable excavator arm moving in the superfast foundry. Look at the place where speed modules should be. #402

16. The music of a secret planet #406
    --> the 8-minute samples seems 1. Full of life 2. Ethearial.
    Imo, it fits with the energy of the flying ennemy. It could be Gleba or 5th Planet, but I cannot really know. It fits with the music shown in #413 though

17. "There is another part […, other than asteroids] where target filtering will play a crucial role" #410

18. There are walls on a space plateforme, but we have never been told about any use of them there. (And it as legendary ammunitions, meaning this is a post-5th planet space plateforme) #411

19. "Interaction [of the car] with not yet published mechanic" #412
    --> it could be the stun of the electric turret, maybe some pushback, maybe some alien attack

20. "A trumpeting scream […] followed by an earth shaking stomp Stomp STOMP" #413
    --> definitely tanky ennemy on Gleba

21. "[Bioflux, ]but more on that later" #414

22. "There are some items and recipes with spoilable ingredients which need to be crafted on different planets" #415

23. "There are many interesting possibilities with [fluids 2.0] that we did not predict, and we will share some of our stories in future FFFs." #416

24. "There is one more building typically combined with foundry and electromagnetic plants, which will be covered later." #417

25. "There's a special machine for [cooling], but we'll save that for another FFF." #420

26. "We have some ideas which could help [performances a] lot, so stay tuned, and hope that these would be success stories" #421

That's all formally hinted I got from reading FFFs
Please send me ideas, corrections, or anything I missed either via @-ing me or DM ☺️

Compare above with hinted but already answered things:

1. "Other ways to improve productivity [than quality]" #375
   --> Foundry, Electromagnetic plant, …

2. "[Asteroids] will need even heavier weapons" #382
   --> Rocket and Tesla turrets

3. "A new system for how entities can play sounds." #383 --> #396

4. "There are new things entities do with circuit network" #384
   --> #394 assembler circuit control, #404 pump filters

5. "Tesla items" #399
   --> #422 Tesla tower

[crystal dune]

I don’t think tesla turrets will see use in space

I think there is another turret we haven’t seen, that possibly uses the mystery shells from the title screen

[dull grove]

What you mean? I love electrocuting rocks

[kindred ice]

The blue tank shells?

[crystal dune]

Yes

Also walls on the space platform are… Just walls lol. They absorb impacts so turrets aren’t destroyed

[undone spade]

I think I missunderstood something from asteroids

[undone spade]

Is anyone aware of a similar list somewhere else?
Maybe on reddit?

[misty falcon]

We know buildings take damage before the platform

So walls can tank some damage

[undone spade]

I had the feeling asteroid could inpact anywhere, not only at the border of the plateforme

But that was my feeling, proved wrong by examples of asteroid collidings, all at the border

[misty falcon]

That much we knew

And they come from the front, mostly

[errant crest]

if you move - they mostly come from the front, if stationary - from all directions iirc

[misty falcon]

We also know Norbit is safe from larger asteroids but know not about other orbits or paths.

[misty falcon]

Biter dating sim next week?

We know there are different factions now

[shrewd citrus]

biter love triangle 😳

[weary widget]

there may be some cool new content on Friday based on the previous pattern of the last few

[late sentinel]

what pattern are you even seeing here

[weary widget]

SA content, and then smaller improvements

there is an alternating pattern

[late sentinel]

heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails

[weary widget]

but sooner than later it'll just be straight SA content I'm sure

I spend too much effort speculating on this stuff... I just want this game to release lol

[tropic basin]

soon™

[radiant quiver]

I'd like to add an observation that's not in your list. In fff 417 in the early Gleba image a new building can be seen 3 times, it looks like a 3 by 3 flare stack and has fluid connections on the center of each side

I'm sure it was spotted before but I couldn't find it in your list

[shrewd citrus]

it might not be in the game anymore

[dreamy eagle]

Or that might be the cultivator-harvester-crane

Just a placeholder version

[crystal dune]

That’s what I assumed…

I thought it was obvious

Especially because when I made a diarrhea joke about the brown fluid, JG said it was fertilizer

And in my defense, it turned out that fertilizer was actually made of shit

[plain ermine]

i made that shit up

[crystal dune]

You mean to tell me… Legendary shit was not real

I am shocked…

[misty falcon]

JG is lying to us

[plain ermine]

🌎🧑‍🚀🔫🧑‍🚀

[crystal dune]

[tardy quarry]

[static root]

"wait... it's all spaghetti!"

[spare aurora]

its all pasta, some pasta is just better organized than others.

[tardy quarry]

noodles

[undone spade]

My thanks! Heading to add that to my brand new reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1eqokhr/more_known_fff_unkowns/, if I may)

[radiant quiver]

Of course you may, no need to ask permission about open information

[undone spade]

The "if I may" was more about copypasting the link, could be not welcomed in discord 😉
I am happy to make my first edit of the post, hope I will see many

[stray wharf]

Considering that the building is surrounded by trees, it's likely a placeholder for the Ag tower.

[radiant quiver]

I don't think it's the AG tower, this wierd building has 4 pipe connections and the AG tower doesn't look or sound like it needs any let alone 4 pipe connections. Also the wierd building is not a grey box meaning some effort has been put into the temp art, and I think they would make it look more like an AG tower if that's what it's supposed to look like

[crystal dune]

The tower has a fluid connection

And it doesn’t need one because there’s no longer a plant that makes it output lube

And there’s no more fertilizer (at least in the situations we’ve seen)

But I suspect there will be fertilizer, and that’s what the one pipe connection is for

Also it’s pretty obvious this is a “harvest lube plants for lube” recipe icon

I probably should have started with this

[radiant quiver]

Oh that makes sense

[forest cradle]

Can your corpse spoil in SA? would be funny if it did

[stray wharf]

It "spoils" in vanilla by disappearing after a time.

[weary widget]

speaking of corpses, I wonder if there will be some kind of way to grab their stuff without having to run up to them with your character. perhaps with a spidertron or having construction bots pick up the stuff

[spare aurora]

"Deconstruct your coprse" that sounds terrifying

why is the spidertron so red?

[weary widget]

you make it sound so bad

its just robots scavenging it

[undone spade]

Plus, where do we respawn?? 🫢

[spare aurora]

in SA, its local planet / last planet if in space

*IIRC

[ripe gyro]

The expansion will release in 29555.8 uranium fuel cells

[undone spade]

That does make sense
Even though I liked the idea to have respawn always on Nauvis, which makes death exteremly punitive

But depending on travel tine, this would have been too punitive ig

[undone spade]

Vow do you know though?

[spare aurora]

dev message somewhere in ff chat, but i dont recall when i read that

its also why aquilo can soft lock you

[undone spade]

That does make sense

[spare aurora]

it seems aquilo might be missing some key ingredients for getting you back off the planet

so if your logistics stops sending resources you could find yourself stuck

[undone spade]

Okey yes

So you need to make sure at least one of the other planets is resilient enough (and producing enough of rockets amd what is missing)

[spare aurora]

and who knows, maybe they changed their mind since then and wil give us better tools to deal with such situations

[indigo fog]

from my understanding, it's missing the resources to get you back to making rockets - it hasn't said whether it's missing the stuff to make rockets directly

[spare aurora]

tomato , to-mat-o

[tardy quarry]

I’m guessing power

[tardy quarry]

I guess its similar for modules

[misty falcon]

Interesting. For modules it makes even more sense, considering the icons now how the request mark when they are requested

[tardy quarry]

FFF#393

One of our concerns was that if transport belt throughput multiplies, you might never need to use more than 1 or 2 belts worth of throughput for almost any item, reducing the logistics challenge drastically. With Space Age adding planets, we can now easily lock things quite far in the technology tree, which is the case for both the Bulk inserter and the faster belts, with each being unlocked on a different planet.

FFF#410

Unlocked on one of the three initial planets.

notice that one emphasized ‘initial’ planet, and one did not. Now I suspect more that is unlocked on Aquilo

[stray wharf]

What would be the point of having belt stacking research then? If the stack inserter is found right before the final endgame, that's 2 extra researches that don't really feel like significant researches; they'd be busywork, like bot capacity upgrades.

[tardy quarry]

Aquilo might not be right before the end game

[stray wharf]

But at least bot capacity upgrades require additional science packs.

[tardy quarry]

also more belt stacking could be post end game

[weary widget]

took the words out of my mouth pepperbox

[stray wharf]

There are only 2 levels of belt stacking; the stack inserter gives you a stack of 2, so that's 2 researches. What's the point?

Now if it's on one of the initial 3 planets, then you can research stack 3 on Aquilo and stack 4 in the endgame.

It's the reason why Fulgora doesn't give you Q5.

[tardy quarry]

stack 3 and 4 both post endgame with different cost

that’s how DSP belt stacking works

[stray wharf]

That's just busywork.

[tardy quarry]

u really don’t need belt stacking 3 and 4 before post endgame

[weary widget]

do you think anything is wrong with some research/tech being more relevant past the main game?

[tardy quarry]

no

[stray wharf]

One upgrade post-endgame is fine. 2 upgrades post-endgame is redundant, unless it's an infinite series.

[tardy quarry]

theres already some tech in vanilla thats only relevant post endgame

[misty falcon]

It was specifically said that stack 4 is very late game

[stray wharf]

How do you define "relevant"?

[stray wharf]

And that makes sense. The stack inserter is on one of the early planets, doubling belt throughput. Belt stack 3 is on Aquilo. And belt stack 4 can use the final pack.

[weary widget]

its also worth noting nothing is gating these research items behind winning the game, this is just a matter of what someone would reasonably need while attempting to beat the game in a reasonable amount of time

[stray wharf]

That gives you plenty of time at each level of belt stacking.

[weary widget]

increasing belt capacity 2x is already a huge jump in throughput

[tardy quarry]

why do u need plenty of time at each level tho

looking at stack inserter bonus

also train speed bonus levels using the same science pack cost

similarly damage upgrades

why not just merge multiple levels

[stray wharf]

Yeah, and those aren't great techs.

They should be merged into fewer, more significant upgrades.

[tardy quarry]

different people has different opinions on that

and that’s probably your preference

not as a reason why Wube will do that

[vivid turret]

I played when personal logistics had like 20 tiny, annoying techs that didn't all need to exist. Now it's 1.

[stray wharf]

Well, the design we've seen out of SA seems to be spreading upgrades around a lot more. Module 2s are now space science, and module 3s are off world, possibly scattered to different planets. Same goes for all of the Mk2 techs.

[misty falcon]

Except

[tardy quarry]

looking at early infinite upgrades

imo it is totally fine that two consecutive upgrades need the same science packs (higher level need more packs), as u can still decide how deep to go for the upgrade or instead spending the time on other unlocks/upgrades

looking at lab speed 3 and 4

both at blue science

[stray wharf]

How does that change what I said about the apparent design of SA?

SA seems to be spreading things out. Things that were closer together in vanilla are much more spread out.

The only cases where this isn't done are explicit "crutch" technologies. Basic vs. advanced coal liquefaction, lighting rods vs. collectors. Techs where the lower-end version exists to get you through to the higher end version.

[tardy quarry]

it doesn’t change what u said

belt stacking upgrade is more of a bonus tech rather than a new toy tech. SA do spreads out new toy techs more, but early infinite research is an example that bonus techs are not spread out

[vivid turret]

I have my suspicions that the black post-endgame pack is for infinite researches only, like current

[tardy quarry]

probably yes

[misty falcon]

What do you consider a toy tech?

Tesla towers and spiders?

[radiant quiver]

Toy techs imo: nukes, distractor/destroyer capsules, 90% of circuits, lamps (except you need it for solar), nuclear fuel (except you get it with kovarex). These are all funny features but better/cheaper options exist, except circuits wich are very useful in very few places but you can make really fun stuff with it

[tardy quarry]

tech that gives u new items to craft and utilize as end product

under this definition, belt stacking bonus is not new toy, but stack inserters is new toy

also, quality level unlocks are technically new toy as different quality items are considered as different items?

think about it this way: if theres never belt tiers, but instead factorio has tech upgrades to increase belts speed (like how shapez belt upgrade works)

then no one will say that a tech to increase belt throughput is considered “new toy”

which is why I won’t be surprised even if stack inserters and belt stack 3-4 are unlocked using the same science

just like how bulk inserter and inserter hand stack size are unlocked by separate techs but at same tech level

something like: 200 packs to unlock stack inserter and belt stacking 2, 1000 packs to unlock belt stacking 3, 2000 packs to unlock belt stacking 4

when other new toy techs are all 100-500 packs, a cost of 1k-2k pack is a good reason to leave the upgrade for later

[stray wharf]

I don't think anybody was confused as to what you were suggesting. The question is why is this good design? Why would this be better than putting the stack inserter on one of the earlier planets and spreading the upgrades out, the same way that quality or many other upgrades added in SA are spread out?

[tardy quarry]

the concern is that stack inserter is too early that people end up never needing more than two belts of each item

the fact is that stack inserters are very powerful

even with just 2 stacks on the belt

[misty falcon]

I approve of that

I almost never build that many belts of things, other than ores

[stray wharf]

... are they, though? Are they really?

Consider the mid game. You're about to leave Nauvis. Maybe you decided to delay your trip to get 10 levels of mining prod and a couple of levels of item productivities. But you don't even have module 3s yet. Maybe you invested in some Q3 prod 2s and speed 2s, but without recyclers, those are going to be pretty scarce.

So... can you even max out blue belts? Maybe. But not in massive quantities. Most processes just don't spit out enough stuff to fill up a blue belt.

But the thing you're most likely to fill up a blue belt on is the base of your resource pyramid: ores. And stack inserters themselves don't help; you need the stack inserter and the BMD. So if you want to use stack inserters with a furnace stack, you also have to make the furnace stack take multiple belts of ore, since the ore can't be stacked (unless you put it in a box and stack it).

So I would argue that stack inserters aren't that powerful in the mid game. They are pretty strong, but their strength is that they allow you to use lower-tier belts for higher throughput materials. You can promote a yellow belt into a red belt, or a red belt into a green one.

But even then, they're not the same. Especially in the context of spoilage. If a spoilable is on a belt, a 2-stack red belt is not equivalent to a green belt.

I like the idea that you can go to Vulcanus first and pick up green belts, or you can go to Gleba first and pick up stack inserters. Both increase throughput but in different ways, and each one is actually more useful on the other planet.

Also, note that from the videos we've seen, the Ag tower on Gleba seems to spit out resources in volume all at once, with delays between tree harvesting. Stack inserters would be beneficial in that case. Similarly, nutrient manufacture seems to barf out a bunch of them all at once.

[tardy quarry]

my impression is that u r expected to already have BMD when u unlock belt stacking

it makes more sense that stack inserters are unlocked after green belt stage

[dull grove]

I thought we get Belt STacking on Nauvis

level 2 Nauvis, 3 Vulcanus, 4 Aquilo

(not sure about where 3 was)

[tardy quarry]

stack inserter+ blue belt gives 45/s extra throughput while green belt gives just 15/s extra throughput

well at least it’s confirmed in fff that stack inserters is a new planet unlock

so not on Nauvis

[stray wharf]

But green belts matter more on Gleba, where raw speed is more important than throughput.

[tropic basin]

that was before the inserter name swap, right?

[stray wharf]

What's the basis for that impression?

[crystal dune]

Stack inserters are definitely made on some other planet

It’s just a question of which

Either Gleba or Aquilo

[crystal dune]

Ugh it was already answered 😭

I keep letting this happen to me

[stray wharf]

Also, there was that picture of a bunch of bulk inserters being launched from rocket silos in a Nauvis desert to be fuel for making high-quality stack inserters. So not only is it not on Nauvis, they're likely exclusive to a planet that doesn't readily have the resources to mass produce bulk inserters.

[tardy quarry]

its rather my own feeling that it would feel weird if u unlock belt stacking before BMD. u probably don’t expect BMD to output two stacks. But it could also be weird the other way around for some people

[stray wharf]

The BMD has 5 times the speed of an ordinary miner, 1 extra module slot, a much larger radius, and has a built-in depletion bonus. The BMD was made before belt stacking was a thing. So it seems unlikely that people would see belt staking as the reason to use a BMD.

Especially if the meta goes the way the devs suggested, where you direct mine into Foundries.

[late sentinel]

The BMD was made before belt stacking was a thing.
this is your strongest evidence

[tropic basin]

it doesn't need belt stacking to function

the stack inserter does

the stack inserter is not unlocked on Vulcanus

[stray wharf]

We know that because they said green belts and the stack inserter were on different planets. The question is will they put it on Aquilo or will it be one of the other two.

[tropic basin]

It would be logical that the first belt stacking level is part of the stack inserter research, similar to how it is with the bulk inserter

[stray wharf]

At first along with the bulkstack inserter you just get +1 bonus

[tropic basin]

I'd place the stack inserter on Fulgora, but that's because it's the most fitting among the middle three. I don't know enough anything about Aquilo to make a guess whether it's there or Fulgora.

it's the place for fancy electronics after all
and inserter ingredients are mostly gears and circuits

[late sentinel]

I place it on Aquilo because it's fancy

(and busted)

but I have very low confidence here.

could be gleba, fulgora.. just no vulcanus

[stray wharf]

It should also be noted that Gleba seems to have a decent number of processes that output a lot of items all at once (nutrients from biochambers, Ag towers, etc). So being able to more quickly get that stuff out would be helpful thanks to spoilage.

[crystal dune]

I just think it’s most fitting for carbon fiber

[stray wharf]

Since the whole "Month of Combat" thing for August didn't pan out, I'm hoping to see a new UI for the tech tree. Specifically, I want to see how it integrates with Factoriopedia as well as giving us an "accidental" look at various parts of the tree (like the Factoripedia FFF told us a lot).

[late sentinel]

was month of combat based on any actual analysis?

[stray wharf]

Nope: pure guess

[cobalt blaze]

well, not so fast! so far its 50% combat and there are still 3 more FFF's left in aug

[tardy quarry]

no more UI this week otherwise I’ll be mad

if there’s any UI this week, why not merge into last week fff

[weary widget]

I'm betting new SA content 🤞

[crystal dune]

I’m hoping new SA content 🙏

[timid crescent]

I'd love to see a polished technology GUI. I expect trigger techs to help a lot with organising techs, but being able to reorder the research queue would be a nice QoL update. Sometimes I'd like to see more of the tech tree at once as well.

[misty falcon]

Rai wanted to integrate URQ, but for now they only succeeded in pushing the ETA

[late sentinel]

duality of man

[silk citrus]

iirc reordering the research queue was confirmed already. Too lazy to find source

[late sentinel]

content is overdue

major QOL is fine too

for example something as impactful as logistics groups

Well, the reason it wasn't in the other pin FFF is likely because the feature didn't exist yet.

But I 100% agree the last FFF was not substantial enough to be a standalone FFF

Yeah 2.0/SA is still under quite active development.

For example, stack inserters were posted roughly 2-3 weeks after being invented

[tardy quarry]

I’m expecting something as major as train interrupt

[late sentinel]

my expectations are entirely coded by the previous FFF so I am expecting 2 sentences about pixel color adjustment

[forest cradle]

new factorio merchandise

[cobalt blaze]

no way

[tardy quarry]

or as big as diminishing beacons or stack inserter

[cobalt blaze]

diminshing beacons maybe

[radiant galleon]

i intentionally paced my expectations last week because we had gotten a more substantial update the week before so im gonna go in expecting planet 6 today

[radiant quiver]

imo its very likely today will be big as last week was kinda small

[weary widget]

maybe it is afterall

[tawny snow]

Things are looking good for spidertron in gleba believers

[tropic basin]

rockets are important it seems - makes sense that the rocket turret is from there
(not done reading though)

[misty falcon]

And flame

[timid crescent]

100% spidertron is on gleba, rocket turrets and leggy enemies are there

I'm interested in what those "spidertron improvements" are

Would be very cool to see the normal maps and new sprites for an improved spidertron

[misty falcon]

Probably better pathfinding, as they mentioned for the enemies

[radiant galleon]

inferring from the station names on the spore map the harvestable plants may be called yumakos and something -ynuts

[viscid ferry]

Have spidertron improvements been confirmed?

[timid crescent]

Thanks to a lot of upgrades by StrangePan, we can now have these wonderful creatures and some spidertron improvements too.

Presumably graphics upgrades, maybe pathfinding

[viscid ferry]

nice, i missed that

[misty falcon]

Pathfinding was mentioned for enemies

[timid crescent]

The enemies clearly are using many sprites, maybe normal maps, whereas the current spidertrons just stretches like inserters do. I'm kinda expecting a significant improvement to how spidertrons legs look

[pearl solar]

Turns out, I was wrong indeed

[viscid ferry]

now the question is when we will see Vulcanus enemies. Probably not next week, but then there are not that many FFF's left

#friday-facts message putting this here

[crystal dune]

I wonder how accurate my biter biology speculation was…

It was sort of based on eusocial insects (wow)

“biters” are females, and worms are males of the species

And then spitters are males mutated by pollution

Well, not really mutated, but more like the pollution triggered some dormant genes

And please try not to think about the implications this could have for their “acid”

[dreamy eagle]

Might also be that the biter nests aren't structures, but living beings. Specifically, females.

[crystal dune]

Jellynut is my guess

[tardy quarry]

since pollution on Gleba is different from Nauvis, I think Vulcanus pollution will be noise level

which probably comes from miners

[stray wharf]

I suspect Foundries will also produce significant vibtrations too.

[tardy quarry]

yeah

likely

[tropic basin]

the FFF mentioned that gleba pollution is produced by farming, not regular production. i.e. only specific parts of your factory
If it's similar on Vulcanus, it'd have to be something related to noise. Seismic activity? Doesn't really linger around.

[crystal dune]

We also have this

I mean I wouldn’t take it as confirmation

[radiant galleon]

vulcanus is far and away the most seismically active planet so i doubt whatever's on there will mind. not every planet needs its own kind of pollution

[fossil hawk]

Not sure about that, seems like that's the direction they want to go.

Could see electricity being Fulgora's "pollution" and probably have heat exchangers/pipes used for "heat pollution" on Aquillo that maybe impacts where you can build

Just like the different mechanics of spoilage, lava resources, and recycling are planet tied, think the different pollutions will make interesting game decisions, which is what it seems the devs are trying to go for.

(For instance, maybe mining makes alot of noise pollution, which attracts enemies, so lava pumping is good to get around noise but you can only mine the tungsten which probably allows for artilllary production)

[tropic basin]

seismic activity was just something that would not be emitted by regular assemblers, unlike noise
If digging up the ground "awakens" the Vulcanus enemy, it'd still be primary resource production under threat, not the processing (just like on Gleba)
which would be a pattern ..

so I expect it to be more than a reskin of Gleba smells

[crystal dune]

Calcite and coal also have to be mined

Oh right, that reminded me

If Gleba has leggy enemies that path over cliffs

Then what the hell will Vulcanus enemies do about that terrain

[tropic basin]

burrow under it?

just pop into existence at the right place?

[crystal dune]

Ah, they definitely need to be stopped by cliffs at some point, because of those mini forts inside craters

I just remembered those

[tropic basin]

the nice 2x2 laser fort? :)

[fossil hawk]

Tremors

[tropic basin]

I knew that 1984 Dune movie was weird

[tardy quarry]

now I wonder if there will be biter eggs

and if that’s how biters got onto the space platform in the music fff mp4

[crystal dune]

Either that or those were placeholder wriggler remains

[vivid turret]

Those turrets are in a strange spot to defend against asteroids.

[misty falcon]

They are there to solve spoiled eggs

[vivid turret]

I think rockets are a bit overkill for wrigglers however.

[weary widget]

maybe they're the red ones

[stray wharf]

I suspect the turrets are there to deal with the case of planets that have dangerous asteroids in orbit.

[misty falcon]

on the back?

[stray wharf]

When not moving, asteroids come from all directions.

[radiant galleon]

yeah you can see one floating in from the back at the start

[weary widget]

I'm going to be bullish and predict SA content from here on out. any optimizations will be something major

[spare aurora]

feels like wrigglers outside of the platforms' atmosphere should be a self solving problem

[tropic basin]

the little ones are not dangerous though

[late sentinel]

Why ship eggs?

[misty falcon]

Good question. We'll know in 9-10 weeks

[tardy quarry]

we can't disable enemies because we need the eggs for biochamber, but at least we will probably still have the peaceful mode

[late sentinel]

I mean they could just have the egg sack things be there

[dull grove]

I call: Vulcanus will have slug enemies

[crystal dune]

Agreed

Especially with the whole “take inspiration from freaky Earth stuff” design philosophy

Maybe their thing could be that they approach very slowly but have crazy health

Possibly a damaging lava puddle on death? But stompers already sort of do that with spawning wrigglers on death, so maybe not

And it does sound like the perfect place for a cannon turret to shine, if Vulcanus is getting that

Maybe they could even be so slow and so tough, that they would be targeted by artillery as they approach

In case artillery is the only “turret” of Vulcanus

[dull grove]

On that note: it's the perfect chance to make red wrigglers be volatile a la small boom

Lava doesn't really fit the volatile theme

[radiant galleon]

if there's anything the pentapods taught me it's that i have no idea what to expect from the new enemies so whatever the devs come up with will be way cooler than anything i could come up with

[misty falcon]

We had speculations for burrowing or swimming enemies, but spider enemies is just so natural I'm surprised it wasn't speculated more.

If we're going with that, a vehicle i.e. car/tank enemies for makes sense

[misty falcon]

FFF said rocket turrets are unlocked there, and spidertron using a rocket turret as ingredient... (and 4 exoskeletons, and fish)

[spare aurora]

mecha biters

[dull grove]

I even speculate we'll get thick spidertron

[radiant galleon]

the spidertron getting recontextualized in space age as learning from the enemies and using their own designs against them is just the coolest thing

[crystal dune]

Same with coal liquefaction

[stray wharf]

Power from lightning. It's a bit of a theme in SA.

[crystal dune]

We were referring to 1.1 features specifically…

[fossil hawk]

Cliff explosives?

[sturdy oriole]

and they said that it’s a theme

[radiant quiver]

i dont expect it but how based would it be if they just reveal the enemies of all other planets in the following 3 fffs

[tropic basin]

we have 9 prerelease FFFs left
Doesn't make sense to do 4 enemy reveals in a row until unless immediately before the release

[indigo fog]

I don't think has enemies, and we won't know about Aquilo until likely after release

So there would only be one more FFF about enemies

[tropic basin]

Fulgora certainly doesn't have the vibe for enemies, but the tesla turret has to have a purpose, no?

[indigo fog]

Exporting it!

Aquilo will likely have very difficult enemies

[tropic basin]

Bad game design if there's nothing on Fulgora to use it on.

[crystal dune]

I just want enemies on Fulgora because I think they would have cool designs

Whatever their behavior ends up being

[tropic basin]

dormant robots defending the former inhabitants stuff

[weary widget]

if its killer robots, the previous statement of "nothing is living on this planet" still holds true

[tardy quarry]

well, if we get bot enemies, it actually quite align with Earendels SE theme

there are lot of things from SE roadmap thats being implemented in SA

[crystal dune]

He was more ambitious about it though

iirc he was planning like a whole faction with its own factories

[stray wharf]

Planets should have stuff on them that's useful on other planets. While Spidertrons are always useful, they are more useful to Fulgora than they are to Gleba. Tesla turrets can be like that. Also, if there are stationary enemies (fortresses), the handgun would still be useful even if the turret isn't.

[tropic basin]

Planets should have stuff on them that's useful on other planets
Yes. But what's the point in placing a weapon on a planet where it cannot be used? If it's only use is to be exported.

[stray wharf]

Depending on the order you visit the new planets, and how much you rush to the end, the Tesla turret is one of the things that you might never use and still complete Space Age.

That suggests that it isn't inherently useful to Fulgora in the same way that the rocket turret can be integral to defense on Gleba (imagine your defenses trying to take down a T2 stomper or strafer without rocket turrets). No matter how quickly you rush on Gleba, you're going to need better turrets.

[crystal dune]

Aren’t rocket turrets more for strafers

Ah, now I’m at the other end of this thing that happens to me so much

I edit a lot

[stray wharf]

I imagine Stompers have enough health and defenses to not care about bullets or lasers. The focused damage of a rocket is a different story.

[late sentinel]

Lasers have rather decent damage compared to rockets; not nearly as high, but hp alone wouldn’t invalidate them

Laser resistances on the other hand easily could

[stray wharf]

Highly evolved Pentapods may have substantial laser resistance, but the devs aren't trying to out-right kill you. The minimum you can go to Gleba with are gun turrets, laser turrets, and flamethrower turrets (the latter of which may not even have ammo on Gleba). So they can't make threats that render all of your current weaponry instantly irrelevant.

T1s can probably be stopped with your initial gear, but T2s will require rocket turrets. And T3s will require more rocket turrets (possibly with infinite explosives upgrades on Gleba) or possibly some off-world help (uranium ammo, etc).

[weary widget]

shipping light oil for flame turrets will still be op

[serene sage]

prediction: there will be at least one more train FFF.

[spare aurora]

hopefully we get a mk2 wagon

[weary widget]

I think throughput with trains is a largely solved issue now. with you can move an 8-32 train through your base without interfering with any other rail traffic (or multiple)

molten metal w/ fluid wagons is a game changer as well

[serene sage]

we already have wagons for items, fluids, and democracy. we could get bot wagons, but using those to build the rail network would require more new behavior than I'm comfortable predicting. accumulator wagons would be... interesting, but not in Factorio. any other ideas?

[weary widget]

some kind of means to build over water would be nice, whether a dedicated vehicle or some way to implement an equipment grid into a wagon (along with new equipment that serves as a radar) as well as logistics functionality like the spidertron. the spidertron is very useful, but it fails on maps with a lot of water, and especially with SA if you want to build an elevated rail line to some island/continent. you would be forced to do it manually.

actually a dedicated wagon for this would be better, it can have a little roboport entrance on top and similar in shape to a normal wagon. this way you won't have all of this unused functionality on >95% of your wagons that are just serving as basic item transport

plus, if you're playing over a larger area and building stuff, it would be nice to get to it faster than waiting for your spidertron(s) to walk over there

[radiant quiver]

They did mention that they didn't "need" to add the Tesla turret

But I do think the early teased flying enemy looks like it's from Fulgora

[crystal dune]

Or you could use coal liquefaction to get it

This has to be like, the 4th Gleba Vulcanus synergy already

[tardy quarry]

tbh u can probably get light oil from Gleba fruits or pentapod eggs

[crystal dune]

I kind of doubt that

Well more like I hope it isn’t the case

[tardy quarry]

if not then there will be alt recipe of rocket fuel directly from fruits

[crystal dune]

Well duh there will

Weren’t we all expecting that

[tardy quarry]

i’m not

[crystal dune]

Vulcanus: Cast LDS
Fulgora: EMP blue circuits
Gleba: Nothing changes about rocket fuel?

The rocket fuel assembler recipe itself is definitely the most substantial part of making rocket fuel. If they plan to improve one part, I think it will be this one

[stray wharf]

Well, the LDS recipe in the Foundry was changed to use molten metals. It's still good and still something you want to do, but it now relies on you having set up calcite shipments.

Also, even if Gleba did make rocket fuel in an alternate way... you still couldn't export that recipe anywhere, unlike Foundry and EMP processing. So it doesn't matter all that much, outside of how many assemblers you need to set up.

Lastly, rocket fuel need to be recyclable so that you can quality cycle it, since quality fuels can make trains go faster. If you give it a completely different recipe (ie: not just swapping light oil for a different fluid), then rocket fuel would need to be made non-recyclable.

[crystal dune]

Time for my daily attempt to manifest my hopes into reality by repeatedly writing them into discord messages

🙏

I really hope we get to export Gleba agriculture

And therefore the rocket fuel recipe with it

[stray wharf]

The Aquilo building might take over for giving us a 50% prod bonus on rocket fuel. It would also give us a reason to use it on Gleba.

[crystal dune]

I’m still overall skeptical about the concept of a super chemplant/refinery

It seems very hard to make interesting

[stray wharf]

Would the Foundry be useful if it didn't have recipes to melt iron and copper ores? Would it be an interesting mechanic and building if it couldn't replace furnaces on other planets? I think it would.

[crystal dune]

Is this about the biochamber

[stray wharf]

I was talking about Aquilo's building. If it can replace chemical plants, that doesn't mean that's all it does. It's not just a chemical plant but bigger; it's going to have its own recipes and mechanics that you engage with on Aquilo (and possibly elsewhere).

Being a chemical plant replacement would be a bonus, not the marque feature.

[crystal dune]

I guess that could save it

[late sentinel]

think about EMP

[crystal dune]

EMP has its role in quality cycling many important finished products

That’s its key attribute, besides the circuit productivity

[stray wharf]

I think of the EMP as more of a reward for successfully engaging with Fulgora's scrap mechanics. You go to Fulgora, invert your production hierarchy, do well, so you get this thing that makes a bunch of expensive infrastructure way cheaper.

[crystal dune]

Anyway I just think agri tower+biochamber is already a very interesting way to put a spin on chemistry, and I would be a little disappointed if it didn’t get the opportunity to perform this role

But as always, we are all talking about things of which we don’t know the whole truth 🤷‍♂️

So maybe there’s no point to feeling this way when things could turn out differently in the end

[stray wharf]

This really goes back to that statement from one of the FFFs where they said that they changed things to allow you to use buildings on other planets. SA was not initially designed so that you'd use the Foundry and EMP on other planets. That is, other planets were as land-locked as Gleba.

It turns out that (especially with Fulgora's makeover) doing so helped the game a lot. But Gleba's mechanics are inherently bound to a completely different resourcing structure, one based on agriculture, which doesn't really feel transferable (especially in older versions with many more fruits). It would certainly be hard to justify why you can harvest a crop on Vulcanus, a volcanic world with basically no liquid water, for example.

That, coupled with the fact that the oil processing setups on most planets don't use resources that run out, makes the value proposition of growing stuff elsewhere pretty low.

[crystal dune]

Yes, I’ve heard this one before

But I remain hopeful, somehow

Oh, regarding that last part, I decided to do this just for fun:
Nauvis: Oil is infinite, water is infinite
Vulcanus: Both coal and water are finite
Fulgora: Oil is infinite, but water is not
So, it wouldn’t be entirely right to say “most”, because only 1.5 out of 3 are infinite

Funny how it lines up that way, I wonder if Aquilo will act as a tiebreaker

[tropic basin]

its key attribute is crafting tesla items
Foundries key attribute is liquid metal crafting
no other crafting machine can do either of those things
everything else is the bonus

[tropic basin]

If this is true, it breaks the pattern, yes. Wube has a thing for breaking patterns though

[crystal dune]

Tbf, liquid metal crafting can be done by furnaces and assemblers, just with a little less liquid metal

Same items come in and out, just in a different number of steps

[tropic basin]

show me the fluid input of electric furnaces

[crystal dune]

“just with a little less liquid metal”

[tropic basin]

the liquid metal part is the game mechanic that the Foundry is about

not that it's the only crafter that can make iron plates

[crystal dune]

Its primary functionality is producing plates and simple intermediates out of ores

Which is something other machines can do as well

More or less directly, but it’s still the same function

[stray wharf]

The main thing about Fulgora is that, because of the scrap mechanic, you don't need oil that much. You don't make plastic from oil, and you don't need sulfur at all. The only thing that needs water is light oil for rocket fuel, and that doesn't take much water at all.

[crystal dune]

No no, I really meant that “just for fun” part

I wanted to calculate this theoretical ratio, and the result being 50/50 was amusing to me somewhat

[stray wharf]

Do we know that the EMP makes tesla turrets and handguns? It might, but it might not. Many planets have recipes that go in an assembler rather than their special building (apple mashing and pinecone baking on Gleba, tungsten carbide on Vulcanus, etc). I doubt the Spidertron or rocket turret is going to be made in a Biochamber.

[crystal dune]

Ehh

[tropic basin]

In case of the tesla turret, it's pretty obvious that it's a EMP exclusive recipe

if not, then the tesla intermediates

[crystal dune]

I mean, “those tesla items” seemed pretty on the nose to me

[stray wharf]

It's a Fulgora exclusive, not necessarily an EMP exclusive. Some of the holmium derivatives are EMP recipes, but not even all of them are.

[crystal dune]

“the EMP crafts various tesla items”
“now, let’s talk about those tesla items”

[tropic basin]

can be overinterpreting the writing though

language isn't math

[crystal dune]

It’s even more direct than I remembered

[stray wharf]

Fair enough. Though the recipes are likely to take into account the 50% prod bonus, so I don't feel like you'd be saving much.

[crystal dune]

Also I actually kind of expect the biochamber to make machines in it

[stray wharf]

That would only be useful if it had a prod bonus. Otherwise, you could do it in an assembler.

Also, remember that the biochamber is a burner device.

[crystal dune]

Maybe it does have a prod bonus

Might not, but it could

[stray wharf]

Given that the biochamber uses bespoke recipes, those could just be baked into the recipes themselves. Granted, that would multiply with prod modules rather than add, but it'd work fine.

[tropic basin]

Biochamber being a burner device only means it takes burner fuel to operate, no?
Does that prevent the use of modules/electricity though?

(I know that's a question only the devs can answer)

[crystal dune]

Foundry recipes seems pretty bespoke to me, and yet the bonus persists

[tropic basin]

yeah, but you can account for the prod bonus when making the recipe

[stray wharf]

There's nothing in the engine that prevents a burner device from using modules or being affected by beacons. The power systems work correctly, in that increase power usage means using more fuel.

[stray wharf]

That's because it has recipes that are either the same as assembler ones (Foundry, LDS before it was changed) or are directly comparable (molten metal casting, concrete).

Most biochamber recipes aren't like that.

[narrow vale]

I predict...
StEaM lOcOmOtIvEs.

Next FFF I shall predict the same thing.
I SHALL NEVER STOP PREDICTING!

[indigo fog]

I mean, it works sometimes

I was predicting fluid overhaul for months

[tardy quarry]

try to predict steam tank

[tropic basin]

steam locos have been added with 0.1.0

[narrow vale]

Steam car

[mint berry]

I predict release of SA

[ripe gyro]

The expansion will release in 2.256 milligenerations

[misty falcon]

Yes, but in 8 weeks or so

[agile river]

+expansion

[ripe gyro]

The expansion will release in 702.5 galactic picoyears

[stray wharf]

The next FFF will not be SA-specific. The one after that will either be another planet's enemies or Vulcanus's turret (I'm also calling artillery on Vulcanus).

[weary widget]

arti is probably aquilo

[dreamy eagle]

Vulcanus is more likely

[crystal dune]

I’m still thinking about the blue shells from the menu

[dreamy eagle]

I'd say even Nauvis is more likely for arty unlock than Aquilo

[crystal dune]

Artillery was confirmed as off planet

[weary widget]

rereading fffs, back in 383 they said "These both put together make stamping down steam engine or reactor setups so much nicer and less worrisome.", i wonder if waifu was legitimately up in the air when they wrote that

[misty falcon]

Artuillo

[tardy quarry]

devs mentioned that all vanilla unlocks will be relatively early in SA, so I won’t expect it on the final planet

[stray wharf]

FFF 383 was back in November of 2023. As I understand it, fluids 2.0 wasn't even on the table at the time.

[tawny gulch]

The fluid rewrite started in March

[indigo fog]

... I think I had changed my username by then

[undone spade]

The what from what?

[vivid turret]

The kind that hits the player in 1st place
This means they are adding a racing minigame
Factorio Kart™

[stray wharf]

The "Space Age" Logo picture in the to-left corner. The full-sized version shows some blue shells.

You can see the full thing on the Steam DLC page.

[undone spade]

My thanks

[stray wharf]

The most interesting bit about them is that the shell casing has a glowing section on it. What's that about?

[undone spade]

Could it be Fusion-artillery shell?

[late sentinel]

Tesla ammo

[undone spade]

It probably makes no sense from physical point of view

[crystal dune]

It’s way too projectile shaped to be an energy canister or whatever a tesla gun would use

[late sentinel]

maybe fair

but likely placeholder

[undone spade]

And it is on a belt with other munitions

[crystal dune]

That belt sort of has everything on it, in the full picture

[undone spade]

Anyway, I will add that to my list (https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1eqokhr/more_known_fff_unkowns/) tomorrow

[stray wharf]

It could, if it's a railgun shell. It would make a lot of sense to shove a pre-charged capacitor into those things, given how much power they use.

[late sentinel]

You could add the existence of tesla ammo to your list too.

We've never seen it

[undone spade]

Isn't the tesla tower just using electricity?
I do not get your idea

[crystal dune]

The gun

[late sentinel]

tesla handheld gun

maybe it doesn't need ammo at all - can't remember if the FFF said and can't check right now.

[crystal dune]

They made no mention of it iirc

[late sentinel]

Both options are kinda weird, right?

[undone spade]

Aha yes interesting point
Well one could add a capacitor as an equipement

[crystal dune]

Oh, would you look at that

[late sentinel]

misinformation!

well in that case, I believe that is tesla ammo

[tropic basin]

I think JG sort of "un-confirmed" rail guns at once point

[late sentinel]

yes but JG has unconfirmed JG, kittens, and unconfirmations

[crystal dune]

I still think they would use literally anything other than a cannon shell for it

Even a cannon shell with the top erased would fit better

[tropic basin]

my bad, what actually happend is that JG unconfirmed that the fancy new shells are railgun ammo:
#friday-facts message

pretty sure he meant that unironically

[undone spade]

I am not quite sure what you mean
But, if you speak about a communitiy maintained list of all things we know we do not know, I try my best to keep an updted version in my list (see link above)

Aga yeah I see

[thick prawn]

“Did you know: Wube will be adding 7 new planets in upcoming Space Age update!!!”

Readers added context they thought people should know:
Wube will be adding 4 completely new planets and revamping the original. There will not be 7.

[crystal dune]

1. Vulcanus
2. Fulgora
3. Gleba
4. Aquilo
5. The mysterious one they said they would add in the Nauvis fff
6. Bwuhuo
7. Bacchus

Smh smh

[weary widget]

looks like the fact checker became the fact checkee

[tardy quarry]

today we will know if we’re in the hype season or not

for hype season, it will probably be another enemy fff

[tropic basin]

it won't be another enemy FFF
there's 2-3 enemy FFFs left and they won't burn through them all in the beginning of the end of pre-release FFFs

might not even be 2 if there's no enemy on Fulgora

[forest cradle]

fff about nauvis biter revamp

[weary widget]

why are you so sure they wouldn't do the enemy lightning round in 4 fffs in a row

[tropic basin]

too much repetition

[tardy quarry]

including today, theres 9 FFFs left
-Vulcanus enemy
-Vulcanus science unlocks
-Fulgora science unlocks
-Gleba science unlocks
-Aquilo intro/mechanics
-Aquilo science unlocks
-Aquilo enemy
-Endgame goal
-Fulgora enemy (maybe not exsist)

-Space map

[tropic basin]

that's 10

I hope that none of the pre-release FFFs will be about Aquilo, so "we" are down to 7

[tardy quarry]

it means they either don’t cover all of them or we will get huge fffs

I hope the opposite

that we will see Aquilo mechanics before the release

[tropic basin]

I think we got all Fulgora science unlocks that Wube wants to give us.

[tardy quarry]

u mean tesla items that might not be used at all

[radiant quiver]

Mech suit fff

[tropic basin]

yes please

[tardy quarry]

oh also my ear fff

[radiant quiver]

Exactly

[tardy quarry]

Anyway, I will be very surprised if I see Fulgora enemy today

(and if there will be enemy on Fulgora at all)

[radiant quiver]

really looks like it would be from Fulgora tho

[mint berry]

Do you guys think the brain guy can have been scrapped completely?

[tardy quarry]

possibly

[tropic basin]

Fulgora is described as "lifeless and desolate planet". The expansion brain looks very much live (and fleshy).
However, somebody had the idea that robots are not alive, so they wouldn't contradict the description.

[radiant galleon]

if there are enemies on fulgora they're definitely gonna be robots but they did say most of the new planets were gonna have enemies which is rather critically not the same as all of them

and i really doubt the last planet is gonna be the one without enemies

[misty falcon]

Unlikely

It was the first thing we saw from the expansion. Even if they completely revamped it, it'll still be in the game

[radiant quiver]

Wube likes to only show stuff that's done or almost done, so I think brain guy is real

[tardy quarry]

but it’s concept art done

not the final art

I won’t be that underwhelming if Aquilo has severe environmental challenges instead of enemies

[radiant quiver]

I know, it's very confusing, I think lightning will be the enemies on Fulgora but also brain guy looks like a fulgorian

[tardy quarry]

Vulcanus enemy teased for next week…

[tropic basin]

Last week we announced two entirely new enemies [..]: Stompers and Strafers
Wrigglers: Am I a joke to you?

[viscid ferry]

"it's about time I check on my Vulcanus factory. I've been getting a bunch of alerts from there, so I sure hope nothing is disrupting my foundries... "
So i think we can predict next week...

[misty falcon]

Good call!

[crystal dune]

I am in shambles
One precious fff slot sacrificed

[tropic basin]

to be about QoL?
better alert system to know when you can ignore them and when you need to check on your factory?

[radiant quiver]

Yeah, next week seems almost locked in

[narrow vale]

I predict...
Steam locomotives.

[stray wharf]

OK: why? What do they do that a regular locomotive can't?

[radiant quiver]

Vape tricks

[narrow vale]

My idea:
Steam locomotives will what you 'start' with. Uses both water and coal.

It can haul more than a standard diesel locomotive (which would require liquid fuel in this case)...

[crystal dune]

[stray wharf]

So you have two locomotive types: one that needs water+fuel, and one that just needs fuel.

OK: why? What does this meaningfully do for the gameplay? Because it feels like an irritation, nothing more.

Also, there's a UX problem: upgrading trains is very hard. It's not a thing bots can do. This is one reason why the devs have been leery about making quality locomotives or wagons do anything useful (be faster, have more storage, etc).

Quality fuels make locomotives faster because it's way easier to swap out quality fuels than it is to swap out quality locomotives.

[crystal dune]

Also unless I misunderstood, you start with the better locomotive out of the two?

Hauls more, and is easier to refuel

[tropic basin]

what's the point of the worse locomotive then?

[stray wharf]

I think Kev was saying that you start with a locomotive that needs water+solid fuel, then you research a locomotive that uses just a liquid fuel. Honestly, I don't know what the point of the second one is, aside from being more difficult to fuel.

[crystal dune]

But the second half of the message

“it can haul more”

That means what I think it means, right?

[tropic basin]

yeah, I read that as "2nd one is inferior" as well

while Wube usually does "higher complexity for higher efficiency"

[stray wharf]

Also, the idea that diesel locomotives would be less effective than steam ones is... bizarre.

[tropic basin]

well, if the 2nd one is inferior, the paradigm is not broken
the unlock is useless though

[misty falcon]

Only upgrade I can think of is an electric train, and I'm not keen on that either

[stray wharf]

With quality fuel now affecting train performance, even if you could easily upgrade locomotives, an electric train looks like a bad idea. Unless it always has acceleration and speed comparable to the highest quality, best fuels.

[tropic basin]

speed record for an electric loco is 357 km/h
show me a diesel loco that can get anywhere near it

[weary widget]

they're a cool concept, it just doesn't fit in with the rest of the game that well. you bypass the entire fuel production/logistics aspect and simplify it to sufficient power = max speed trains

[misty falcon]

Reminder that most diesel locos are electric, with diesel just as fuel for an electric generator

[weary widget]

thats why I wish factorio locomotives could have an equal amount of power regardless of direction. thats how it works with modern IRL locomotives, no transmission or gears. just really strong electric motors that don't care which direction they spin. this would redefine in-game train layouts, especially for two-direction trains

[tardy quarry]

tbh why the code can’t be that locomotives consumes fuel and contributes to acceleration regardless of their directions? The train head direction only used to decide if the train can head in the direction

so single head trains still can’t drive backwards but double head trains can go both directions with both locomotives contribute to acceleration

doesn’t that also simply the code because the locomotive doesn’t need to check if it need to consume fuel or not

[stray wharf]

They probably could do that, but why would you ever use more than one locomotive in the same direction? The way it stands now, if you need more pulling power, you use more locomotives in that direction. If you want reversing power, you have to accept that your train will weigh more and lose something relative to a double-engine, one direction train.

[weary widget]

it would no longer be an issue of differing propulsion for a given direction, but rather simply the location of the engines when stopped at a given station. I know the point of the game isn't for it to be a 1:1 model of reality, but this is in line with how trains work in real life.

[indigo fog]

irl trains can provide the exact same torque forward and backward

but you'll typically use the one facing the direction of travel as the "leader" and the other ones will be providing power

[weary widget]

generally for safety yeah, but the orientation of rest of them have no effect on the performance

[indigo fog]

well, the typical approach is to have all locos provide the same amount of torque, meaning each one works less than it would have to if it were alone, thus saving on fuel

[weary widget]

lower maintenance costs as well. plus having them distributed throughout the train allows for much longer trains, since the power is distributed, and not all needing to be pulled from the front (distributed power units)

my father was a railroad engineer so I'd hear about this stuff almost daily from him as a kid

[indigo fog]

nice

glad to see the tism runs in the family /lh

[weary widget]

haha indeed

[narrow vale]

...

Well

My idea aged like rotten fucking milk, didn't it?

[misty falcon]

What was your idea?

[tropic basin]

that's because IRL locos don't have a "forward"

(technically there's axle numberings and driver's cab 1 and 2)

[hybrid briar]

definitely modded territory

[radiant quiver]

Getting Vulcanus enemies next week means we'll also get one more Vulcanus song next week

[ebon notch]

I speculate one of Vulcanus enemies is the Neobuthus factorio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neobuthus_factorio)

[shrewd citrus]

alternatively, Fulgora could have roboscorpions protecting scrap nests

[weary widget]

omg it's called factorio because a wube dev's parent was one of the researchers that described it

[static root]

Imagine having a scorpion named after your creation and a uranium treatment process named after you

[shrewd citrus]

I'm seeing an evil genius using nuclear powered roboscorpions already

[crystal dune]

The evil genius in question:

[young breach]

Any speculations of what the vulcunus enemy's could be?

[tardy quarry]

armored worm

[young breach]

I think an underground creature would fit, but idk if it's doable in factorio

[tardy quarry]

I’m thinking about long underground enemies similar to this

perhaps it splits into multiple sections when a section is destroyed

[young breach]

yeah that would be very cool

[young breach]

unlikely I think bc that's already a thing with gleba enemy's

[tardy quarry]

larger target splitting into smaller targets is not only on Gleba but also for asteroids tho

[young breach]

oh yeah I forgot about the asteroids

[tropic basin]

would be more rewarding if either of the sections would just die

penalty could be that the dying section collapses and deals damage

[mint berry]

Shai-Hulud!

[tardy quarry]

the idea is that no matter what, u would need to destroy all sections one by one, just if u break the middle ones first, the rest can still move independently

[tropic basin]

Yes, and I don't like that idea

[tardy quarry]

humm… how about, if it breaks in the middle, the shorter section dies?

[tropic basin]

that works

I was thinking everything behind the broken segment, but the shorter one is fine too

[tardy quarry]

a double head worm?

[tropic basin]

where does the 💩 go?

[tardy quarry]

the thing is, why not just kill the head

[tropic basin]

bad aim?

[tardy quarry]

maybe the head is underground most of the time

[tropic basin]

was just thinking of that

[tardy quarry]

there’s limited time window to shoot the head

maybe this is where target priorities become crucial ?

[tropic basin]

if the remaining length would limit how long the head can be underground, ..

can force it overground eventually

[tawny snow]

Worm enemies being drawn to vibrations makes a lot of sense actually

[shrewd citrus]

Shai-Hulud Balrogs

[toxic merlin]

They are drawn to Jesus

[undone spade]

You read fast

[hybrid briar]

or reading the last line first :P

[tardy quarry]

I jumped directly to the bottom

[late sentinel]

the 'analyst' types (cough @tardy quarry ) read the FFFs very differently than average

[tardy quarry]

[hybrid briar]

it's the "build backwards" approach applied to reading comprehension

for clarity and directness of communication, you start with the punchline

to take someone on a journey and let them explore the side-passages in ways you can't foresee, start from the beginning without thesis

[tardy quarry]

well actually what happened was I scanned through the entire fff quickly looking for and skipped the technical parts

and the first I was able to quickly find was at the end

[sturdy oriole]

i predict they’ll wreck your stuff

[young breach]

DAMN

thats a really nice drawing

they should use this as the thumbnail of the fff (even if its something else xd)

[tardy quarry]

my speculation is long enemies

[tardy quarry]

but damn this fits the theme so well

[tropic basin]

those slugs are about to recieve rapidly delivered love letters

I predict an auto turret to complete our set of space platform defenses

[crystal dune]

Auto turret as in rapid fire?

I think guns already fill that niche

Cannons would be the more standard spaceship projectile weapon

[stray wharf]

If those blue cannon shells are an indication, then either we'll get a "cannon turret" (that fires tank shells) or a "railgun turret" on Vulcanus. Possibly with an emphasis on armor penetration.

If artillery is on Vulcanus, then it would actually make some sense for a Vulcanus enemy to switch from being a mobile enemy to being some kind of "artillery worm": long range, but immobile. And thus, susceptible to artillery itself.

[vivid turret]

Tank shells work a little differently from other projectiles, they detonate on the first thing they hit rather than what they're actually aimed at.
This poses an issue for our hypothetical cannon turret; it can't shoot over walls or other turrets.

[sullen forge]

ballistics?

[crystal dune]

Unless they rewrite cannon shells for that specific purpose, of course

[dreamy eagle]

Same applies to missiles and they seem to go over your walls if they're launched from a rocket turret

[stray wharf]

No, rockets don't work that way when fired either from a Spidertron or a rocket launcher. They hit the thing they're aiming at. Unless you aim them at a wall, they won't hit the wall even if its on the way to the target.

[dreamy eagle]

?
Now I'm wondering if it is some mod thing. Since they do hit every rock and tree, just like all the other projectiles. Which go over walls.
Or was this a case of a specific tank shell interaction with the walls? Although I still remember using the tank cannon to shoot enemies over a wall

[tardy quarry]

well shotgun does that so it’s probably something easy to mod in

[tropic basin]

they detonate when they have run out of penetration damage

[tropic basin]

JG might be shitposting as usual, or hinting that railguns won't be a thing
#friday-facts message

[late sentinel]

Why not both?

[tropic basin]

two turrets that serve the same purpose?

[timid crescent]

No, JG is both shitposting and hinting that railguns won't be a thing

[dull grove]

Slugs! Slugs! Slugs!

[tardy quarry]

2000 items per rocket is possible

means items can be less than 1kg

we gonna export some light weight items from Gleba

maybe plastic

[crystal dune]

Very interesting that the LDS casting recipe changes the ratio to be even more copper heavy

2 less iron, 5 more copper

[tardy quarry]

steel casting needs 3 molten iron tho

[serene sage]

LDS also stacks 5x higher now

[tardy quarry]

perhaps the same for rocket fuels

also its a 15s recipe instead of 20s

[misty falcon]

Oh right LDS is stack 50 now instead of 10

[serene sage]

did we already know this?

[misty falcon]

I wonder if also stacks higher now, considering stack to 100

Nope it's new data 🙂

[tardy quarry]

note that nutrients rocket capacity is 2000, which means it is 0.5 kg

so it’s possible that plastics is 0.5 kg or lower, making them feasible to export from Gleba

imagine if plastic is 0.2kg

that’s 5000 plastic easily made on Gleba exported to other places

per rocket

maybe they also buff the stack size of plastic to 200

[misty falcon]

So jelly-yum come comes from.... jellynut?

[tardy quarry]

from wiggler jelly and yumnut

also 2 module slots for biochambers confirmed

[misty falcon]

We saw a station for ...llynut

And yum yum yumako cannon

Jellynut + Yumako?

[tardy quarry]

humm

[static root]

what

[tardy quarry]

is it tomato but yum, so yumako?

[static root]

oh

[crystal dune]

Well, I’m glad this fff is what it is instead of Vulcanus enemies

Especially glad to see another item name reveal

So it looks like the jelly orbs aren’t bioflux afterall
Unless it’s placeholder, of course

[tardy quarry]

well it’s probably made from bioflux

which is the green cube

[crystal dune]

That has been my speculation as well

[tardy quarry]

I’m still wondering if Gleba will be a good candidate to export plastic

[crystal dune]

I know

[tardy quarry]

now we know that items can be lighter than 1kg

so technically we can have an item that weight 0.1kg

which means a rocket can send 10k of the item

[misty falcon]

It will be good to export quality plastic

[tardy quarry]

what do u need quality LDS for

[misty falcon]

0.1? We saw just 0.5

[tardy quarry]

if 0.5 is possible then I would expect 0.1 is also possible

[misty falcon]

But do you think we'll see such items?

[tardy quarry]

maybe 0.2

so 5k per rocket

which is still reasonable

remember that each train wagon can carry 8k

I wouldn’t be surprised if we will be able to send 10k plastics per rocket

but thats only if the design intention is Gleba being a good plastic export

[stray wharf]

That makes even less sense now that we know that jelly/yum (green sphere) are the 3rd nutrient recipe. Why would you use a bioflux derivative for nutrients?

Granted, I'm really unsure why you would use jelly-yum to make nutrients. Sure, it's a 4:50 ratio, but that's a tier 2 intermediate at least compared to using red mash, which is tier 1.

[crystal dune]

Maybe it’s just more yield overall 🤷‍♂️

More efficient

You progress from spoilage nutrients, to mash nutrients, to jelly yum nutrients

[tardy quarry]

it seems like u might be able to turn most of spoilable bio products into nutrients, maybe they are too spoiled so they give u better value if u turn them into nutrients, or the more advanced intem give u more yield of nutrients

[crystal dune]

We only saw three nutrient recipes

The handcraftable one, one from something orange, and one from something green

[stray wharf]

For lots of things. Quality equipment, quality PFiRs, etc. Also, you can use quality LDS to make quality steel and copper plates in a recycler. So while the exchange rate is 5:1, if you can get quality plastic, you can get quality copper plates through the LDS recipe.

[stray wharf]

Maybe mash has a very short spoil time, like 2-3 minutes or so. Whereas jelly-yum could be 10 minutes. Thus allowing you to ship this pre-packaged nutrient farther.

[crystal dune]

I just realized this isn’t lube

[stray wharf]

That being said, Ag science is made from jelly-yum and nutrients. Maybe the nutrients from jelly-yum recipe has to be researched, whereas the mash recipe is a trigger tech (similar to basic/advanced coal liquefaction and lightning rods/collectors elsewhere).

[crystal dune]

That’s what I meant by progress

[stray wharf]

And the mash recipe could still be useful for making plastic, where you need nutrients for biochamber fuel, but you also need red mash for the plastic itself.

That way, you wouldn't have to import/manufacture jelly-yum on-site.

[tardy quarry]

is it easier to quality recycle LDS using foundry with molten metals from lava, or quality recycling plastics with just recyclers

[late sentinel]

Jelly Yum naming is a bit too silly for me

[tardy quarry]

Yummy-Jay

better than gummy bear

[stray wharf]

The problem with LDS quality cycling is that you only get the Foundry's 50% prod bonus once. Once you recycle it, you're back to using the assembler to craft it again.

I would suggest quality cycling grenades to get quality coal for quality plastic. That also gives you quality iron plate, so the whole process gives you all of the base components at whatever quality you like.

[misty falcon]

Just quality cycle considering it's cheap on

[vivid turret]

Coolant?

[stray wharf]

Neither of the coolant icons we've seen is green.

[stray wharf]

We don't know what it takes to make green cubes.

[vivid turret]

The coolant itself is almost exactly this color.

[weary widget]

it seems like we're primed for something big next week

[misty falcon]

Vulcanus enemies?

[tropic basin]

that was supposed to happen this week

[tardy quarry]

it could be from the wiggler egg multiplier

[stray wharf]

Egg multiplier? What are you talking about?

[tardy quarry]

u can multiply wiggler eggs

[misty falcon]

Egg duping

[stray wharf]

Yes, there's a recipe for making eggs. But what does that have to do with green cubes?

[tardy quarry]

what I mean is green cube is made from the eggs

thus from this part of the factory

[stray wharf]

Yeah, that sounds really unlikely.

What is the impetus to think of green cubes as some kind of special intermediate with a complex or unusual synthesis pathway instead of just another fruit product?

I don't see this speculation around the orange blob thing we haven't seen since the initial FFF reveal.

[tardy quarry]

wiggler eggs are green, so does green cube, easy

[tardy quarry]

orange blob is probably made from orange mash

[stray wharf]

Eggs are inherently dangerous to work with, and green cubes are used in many critical recipes on Gleba (plastic, Ag science, high-yield nutrients). It is highly unlikely that they're going to force players to continuously risk hatching a bunch of wrigglers in order to make vital recipes like that. Using them for the Biochamber is one thing; that's something you want on and off, and you can build some simple logic to say "make Biochambers now" and "I don't have enough seeds, so don't make eggs anymore".

That sounds like something Krastorio: Space Age would do, not the base game.

[late sentinel]

I personally hope eggs are part of the long term process on gleba.

[stray wharf]

You need them for Biochambers. And given that they only seem to have 2 module slots, quality will be even more important for those. Which means quality cycling, which is pretty dangerous, given that one of its ingredients spoils into wrigglers.

[vivid turret]

Adding an intermediate that is only used for 1 thing is unusual.

[tropic basin]

Removing an intermediate that is only used for 1 thing is usual.

(yes, I know it's actually used by 3 other things)

[stray wharf]

I'm not saying that eggs won't be used for anything else. But being a fundamental part of most of the critical processes on the planet? That's a lot to ask of a new player.

There's a pretty big difference between "has only one use" and "you must risk killing your own base to even function."

[weary widget]

I found this interesting few sentences in #151 The meaningful possibility as I see it would be to make proper expansion. That way we could implement the ideas like the space platform, biter farms and more with energy and time it deserves. I wonder if will have some version of enemy farms

[late sentinel]

It already does to a degree, but with a twist.

Egg farm

[tardy quarry]

if eggs are required to make biochambers, it’s already kinda a basic component

also wigglers are not as dangerous as strafers and stompers

and killing them does not attract enemies

or does it?

[late sentinel]

them hatching out of the belts is honestly funny to me

[tardy quarry]

tbh it’s probably easy enough to just keep producing eggs non stop and convert the excess into non egg products/nutrients/fuels and burn them

having a dangerous spoiling result is a strong lesson to learn, and ensures that players understand how to deal with spoiling mechanics well

Id imagine the eggs will have relatively long spoiling time

at least 10min

[tardy quarry]

I don’t think if u hatch some wigglers in your base they will spontaneously attack the factory, as they’re still just attracted by spores?

[weary widget]

it would be amusing if instead of quality lengthening their spoilage time it instead shortened it, raising the stakes for making whatever products it uses

[tardy quarry]

quality egg spawns quality enemy

[weary widget]

I really hope that becomes a thing lol

[stray wharf]

Isn't damage to your factory the whole threat of having them spoil into enemies? Take that away, and it would actually be better for them to hatch into something benign than to turn into spoilage (that you must dispose of).

[stray wharf]

I can't think of a thing that would make Gleba more irritating than to make crafting quality versions of its unique building (which, remember, is only useful on this one planet) even harder than it currently is (ie: quality cycling on two seeds whose stockpile you have to manage and a spoilable that spoils into an enemy).

[weary widget]

I enjoy suffering in my factorio games, what can I say. If it was a particularly powerful item it could be used for, a niche challenge for something like that would be fun IMO.

[forest cradle]

bioflux better be pretty awesome if the biochamber is a pain in the balls to make

[tardy quarry]

easy solution: surround your egg multiplier by turrets and just keep hatching enemies

[tardy quarry]

wigglers has no reasons to attack non military/agriculture units tho

[misty falcon]

unless they are in the way

[stray wharf]

That doesn't actually address the point: what is the downside of having spoilage spawn enemies if they don't do bad things to you? It's just a regular spoilable, but better since there's no spoilage to clean up.

So while regular Wrigglers may be passive to buildings, it's rather likely that hatchling Wrigglers will be.

It should also be noted that the main thing we're talking about is whether eggs are the source of green cubes, which represent a critical resource for most production processes on Gleba. This is what the developers have said about egg usage as a resource:

Destroying an egg raft will yield some of the pentapod eggs it contained. Pentapod eggs are a key ingredient needed to make the Biochamber - an important bio processing machine on Gleba. Make sure to use the eggs quickly though. Like many biological items on Gleba they're on a timer, however, they don't "spoil" in the normal way. Wait too long and you may find yourself face to face with a hungry hatchling pentapod...

You will need quite a few biochambers in your time on Gleba. More importantly though, Gleba might need more biochambers when you're not there. So, of course, just automate everything. With a bit of technology you can turn a limited egg supply into a fully automated but somewhat risky production cycle.

If eggs are the source of green cubes, a key intermediate in basically every recipe we've seen on Gleba, isn't it odd how the devs only talked about egg usage in biochamber production? If eggs really are a third resource equivalent to the two fruits, wouldn't they take the time to point that out?

[crystal dune]

I’m still on team “green cube is Gleba’s green circuit”

[vivid turret]

literally or figuratively?

[stray wharf]

This question is really more about how you get them. They're clearly used in a number of places, but the idea of them coming from eggs is just... no. That makes the process of setting up Ag science really hard and quite dangerous, let alone something like making plastic.

[crystal dune]

Specifically in the sense of “it’s made of the two primary resources and used in pretty much everything”

[stray wharf]

Possibly, but consider the (possible placeholder) name of the green sphere: Jelly-Yum. As in, what you get when you combine Jellynuts with Yumako fruits. To me, that strongly suggests that the green cube is a pure Yumako-derivative of some kind, since we know that the other ingredient to Jelly-Yum are baked Jellynuts.

Jelly-Yum seems more likely to be the "green circuit" of Gleba in terms of its crafting.

Especially since Jelly-Yum is used for bulk nutrient generation (and Ag science).

[tardy quarry]

so plastic is made from both yellow mash and green cube

tbh the main reason I don’t believe the green cube is from either of the fruits is because of its color

we have yumako fruit with red skin and yellow mash, and pink jelly nuts

it doesn’t makes sense that we make green gel out of them

while the wiggler eggs have perfectly matched color

[vivid turret]

What if the yellow mash is actually the gleba?

[tardy quarry]

wat

remember, if u need to automate egg production, theres no way to permanently store the eggs, so u have to keep producing eggs and turn them into something that doesn’t hatch (or hatch them and kill the enemies). You cannot just stop producing eggs because the only automatic way to get more eggs is by multiplying eggs

[tardy quarry]

not hard tbh. The essence is just to produce eggs non stop at a reasonable rate and convert them into something that doesn’t hatch (green cube) and then they are save to spoil. If u want to automate biochamber production, u must keep some eggs in the cycle. You cannot just shut the egg multiplier down when eggs are not needed as u need to manually grab some eggs to restart it if it fully stops. You will always need to deal with excess eggs if u decide to automate biochamber, so the eggs must be able to be processed into something generally useful, and green cube is the perfect candidate

And I think it would be boring if the egg is not involved in the Ag science production

[vivid turret]

Problem:
The output of a recipe inherits the freshness (or lack of it) from the inputs.
An "eggs->more eggs" recipe doesn't stave off hatching.

[tardy quarry]

the egg multiplication can be an exception otherwise the concept doesn’t work at all

something like:
egg -> green gel
green gel + nutrient-> more fresh eggs

Also it doesn’t makes sense if you can produce an egg that immediately hatches

thematically

because eggs are not “spoiled” but “hatched” thematically

so it doesn’t makes sense if spoiled items can produce an egg that hatches faster

[stray wharf]

This is really all Krastorio: Space Age stuff. Kovarex your eggs and maintain a constant supply of fresh eggs or else your base gets ripped apart and you have to replenish your supply from nests. Constantly produce eggs for vital intermediates but don't let them spoil or else your base gets ripped apart.

It's not bad gameplay, but it's not Factorio gameplay. Stuff like this basically requires circuits which is not something the devs want to force you into that much.

Gleba has plenty of complexity already. Spoilage, seed management, and then dealing with Pentapods. We don't need high-risk farms incorporated into the science production setup too. That's the sort of thing you might put on a player at the end of the game, but not the middle. And certainly not before they can do anything useful on the planet.

Speaking of the end of the game, maybe the end-game science pack requires each of the planet-specific buildings. You wouldn't be required to ship eggs, but you would be forced to engage with more continuous egg production.

And since the packs might be only sporadically consumed, you'll have to deal with stopping the process without spawning wrigglers.

[tawny gulch]

My gleba base has zero circuits.

[thick prawn]

Impressive

[hybrid briar]

deliberate self-imposed goal or circumstantial?

[weary widget]

and how much are we talking?

[tardy quarry]

stuff like that doesn’t require circuit tbh and I see no reason its not ‘factorio’

how do think peopel control oil cracking in base game

they don’t and is still works

same on Gleba

u just let everything flow constantly

and filter out spoilage’s and use some priority splitters

[stray wharf]

... are you seriously comparing a minor issue like possibly jamming your fluid network to unleasing a group of enemies into the middle of your base and having to go personally fight some more just to replenish your egg supply?

[tardy quarry]

base game and SA are not suppose to be the same difficulty

[tardy quarry]

my whole point is just that circuit is not needed

[stray wharf]

Yeah, just do this thing perfectly and it'll be fine. It's not like part of your base is likely to be destroyed if you're wrong.

I've looked at the totality of the recipes and intermediates that we have either seen exist on Gleba or that we know have to exist in some form (ways to get sulfur, etc). And you're talking about a good 20 or so new recipes and the like the player has to contend with, alongside this new spoilage mechanic that can already completely stall a system unless you have a setup for dealing with backpressure and restarting nutrient production.

[tardy quarry]

u need to figure out how to fail proof a section of your factory I don’t see that as a too harsh requirement

[stray wharf]

So on top of all of that, you want to take this already complex mechanic and tell the player, "OK, if you do any of it wrong with this part, then part of your base gets destroyed and you have to go fight some mobs to start over"?

And the player has to contend with that before they can even do actual research.

[hybrid briar]

the egg automation is if you want to automate production of the biochambers, players can do it manually if they don't want the risk

[tardy quarry]

what if the base is not destroyed and u just spawn more enemies constantly heading to your farm

[stray wharf]

We're talking about Pepperbox's notion that green cubes come from eggs, and therefore egg production must be a part of many Gleba production lines.

[hybrid briar]

I thought the FFF said it was only for-- alright o.O

I figured they just had some alternate recipe the eggs could be used in entirely optionally where they'd spoil safely

[stray wharf]

The FFF didn't say that it was "only" for Biochambers, but there's no indication that eggs are on the critical production pathways. This is purely Pepperbox's speculation, based mainly on the idea that eggs are green and so are cubes.

[tardy quarry]

well, one possibility is that, u don’t have to use green cube to make plastic and there’s alternatives using fruits with less yield

[hybrid briar]

hehe

so alternate recipes with a risk reward, I like it

[stray wharf]

Jelly-Yums are used for bulk nutrient production. So they're going to be on critical production pathways.

[tardy quarry]

imagine alternative recipes for Ag science

[stray wharf]

Right. Because when dealing with a planet that already seems to have 2x the number of recipes and intermediates as other planets, the best thing you can do is... make more alternative recipes?

This is not Krastorio: Space Age.

[hybrid briar]

I can't wait for Aquilo to really lean into something absurd if this is your response to multiple bio pathways 😅

[tardy quarry]

the whole ‘this is Krastorio not Factorio’ argument is just

if something makes the game fun, why not

[hybrid briar]

I get not wanting the game to emulate mods but I think there's a place for a DLC to start to explore some concepts that were previously only in mods

[tawny gulch]

Gleba is my favorite planet because it really forced me to change up how I build factories so I could deal with these things. New challenges are fun.

[hybrid briar]

also alternate recipes really makes me think more of Angel's

the original developer said he'd keep doing playthroughs and find new pathways to add so that each one could take a different route

in a sense, that's going to be abstracted out to picking a different planet to go to first

[stray wharf]

Sure, but I think from what we've seen of Gleba, it's already doing that and is complicated enough. It doesn't need mass production of things that spoil into dangerous entities, nor does it need multiple alternate recipes for everything like this.

You've got seed management, Biochamber production, spoilage, and some seriously dangerous enemies to deal with that want to kill your fruit production.

It looks pretty complicated already.

[tardy quarry]

does seed spoil?

do u really need to manage your seeds

oh, how about this, because green cube production is not agriculture activity, so its actually a safe way to make bio products without attracting enemies

[hybrid briar]

The alien artifact farm at home:

[tardy quarry]

safe only if u manage it properly

but u probably have enough time to make a desgin for that

[stray wharf]

That all depends on one question: does baking a Jellynut return seeds?

My assumption is that there are two initial processing steps for each fruit: one that returns seeds, and one that doesn't. Yumako can turn into red mash+seeds, or it can be made into green cubes but with no seeds. So if you're making plastic, you need both, which is good since you'll return some seeds to the farm.

But making green cubes doesn't return seeds. Presumably neither would baking jellynuts. Therefore, making a Jelly-Yum is a great way to get nutrients, but you can't get seeds from it. So you can't always be doing that.

[tardy quarry]

one question, if green cube is from jelly nut, why its not pink cube?

[stray wharf]

So you'd have to balance out how many of the seed-bearing intermediates you're creating to make sure you don't run out.

[stray wharf]

For the same reason baked jellynuts aren't pink.

[tardy quarry]

I think the green color matching is a strong argument

[tardy quarry]

its similar tint

dark pink

purple whatever

but not green

not even close to green

enemy management is such an unique concept that I can’t imagine they didn’t put it into the core part of science production

its the perfect thing to do on a bio themed planet

[stray wharf]

Except that it's not "enemy management". It's "harvest some resources from enemies for bootstrapping use and then make them later".

It's basically Gleba's equivalent to rocks that contain tungsten ore. You don't mine rocks forever.

[hybrid briar]

the way they described it as being something for players who wanted to make more biochambers while not on the planet indicated to me that it won't be part of the science production...

[stray wharf]

I'm not sure why the color of the item is so important. The mash that comes from Yumako is about the same shade of red as freshly picked jellynuts. Yet they're from completely different places.

[hybrid briar]

unless, as you say, it might allow more efficient recipe pathways of some kind

[tardy quarry]

u need to solve biochamber production before making Ag science so I don’t see why it just stops here as just needed for biochamber but not for further productions

[hybrid briar]

you don't "solve" it, you get the eggs manually

[tardy quarry]

hand crafting is not ideal in factorio

u want to automate it eventually

[stray wharf]

It really sounds very much like tungsten ore in rocks or alien lightning rods on Fulgora: you use them for a while, but eventually you automate them.

[hybrid briar]

it's a harvesting step, not crafting, but the point is that the FFF highlighted it's part of infrastructure automation, not the ongoing science pathway

I would love to see it take a role elsewhere with efficiency benefits as you suggested but I don't see that happening as a baseline critical path

[tardy quarry]

Imagine SA forcing players to solve egg automation…

[hybrid briar]

starts up space age with coal deposits disabled

[stray wharf]

You do have to solve egg automation. What you probably don't have to do is solve egg automation before you've made a science pack.

[tardy quarry]

why not

[hybrid briar]

for the same reason you can win with coal deposits disabled

[tardy quarry]

u have trigger techs

wait I didn’t get the reference of this

[hybrid briar]

things don't have to be automated immediately

[stray wharf]

The following list represents everything that we know of which you need to trigger tech to get Ag science going:

• Red mash
• Nutrients from spoilage
• Biochamber
• Ag Tower
• Green cube
• Baked Jellynut
• Jelly-Yum
• Nutrients from red mash
• Science Pack

[tardy quarry]

sure u can manually manage the egg multiplication initially

[hybrid briar]

I don't even mean multiplication

[stray wharf]

That's a lot. And on top of that, you now want to make Green cubes come from a dangerous spoilable intermediate, for a player who is just starting to deal with spoilage?

[tardy quarry]

I’m sure getting eggs from biochamber by hand feeding is much easier than hunting eggs in the wild

[hybrid briar]

I imagine that depends on who you ask

[tardy quarry]

if the eggs need 30min to hatch

[hybrid briar]

I'd agree, but... neither you nor I nor Alfonse are the audience Alfonse and I are worried about

plus a lot of people enjoy the hunt almost as much if not more than the automation

[tardy quarry]

I’m not worrying about the audience u are worried about tbh. People tend to underestimate how stupid players can be but that doesn’t stop u to put great challenging puzzles in the game

[hybrid briar]

as options! :D

[tardy quarry]

and there can always be accessibility settings

[stray wharf]

The reason I keep bringing up Krastorio is because K2 is very much this kind of thing: complexity for the sake of complexity. The automation core is a multi-stage intermediate that's widely used for many early-game buildings. Vanilla doesn't have one of those; it's just gears and circuits.

Gears are one stage; circuits are two stage. It has complexity, but it's very contained.

[tardy quarry]

does K2 still has the inserter part intermediate?

[stray wharf]

Yes, but that is really just an alternative to vanilla's "telescoping" inserter recipes.

It allows K2's crusher to turn inserters back into parts for use in newer inserters.

[tardy quarry]

imagine the Gleba production lines changes depending on your enemy setting

what happens to Gleba if u turn off enemies

or can you?

options, options

[hybrid briar]

eggs might still exist without the chance of spawning enemies from them

[tardy quarry]

installing SA is also an option

[stray wharf]

That's a pretty easy one: nests still exist, and eggs are still gotten from them. But they don't spoil into enemies.

[hybrid briar]

passive egg sacs both in the world and as items

[tropic basin]

That's where the recycler comes in handy.
Instead of stopping the egg production, it can be slowed down as much as you dare, and the little excess production be fed into a recycler.

like a sourdough

but you take bits away instead of feeding it every couple days

[tardy quarry]

yeah I’d imagine recyclers being helpful

[tardy quarry]

u can also just stockpile the green cube in boxes, prioritize fresh outputs, and let the rest spoil and turn into nutrients/burn them

I thnk the idea of Gleba is that u should expect things to spoil and have proper spoilage handling in mind for everything

as long as u have a robust spoilage processor, it should be not a problem to have continuous egg multiplication and stockpiling the green cubes

[tropic basin]

that's way less complex
complexity bad

[tardy quarry]

imagine spoilage being a primary power source

tho I think Gleba is probably okay with nuclear power

power generator priority when

so I can have spoilage burner priorities over solar

[tropic basin]

It kind of works that way at night. Solar > Boilers > solar_energy_stored_in_accumulators

[tardy quarry]

spoilage burner/steam consumer only work at night is not ideal

well, we do have a new recipe to turn steam back to water tho

[tropic basin]

will it work on 165 °C steam?

another way will be a separte electric network that has some beacons powered by boilers

I tried to design a speed beaconed water barreling-unbarreling factory for such a case (burn excess power) but it turned out that the overwhelming majority of power drain came from the beacons just sitting there. 😄

it's much easier, cheaper, more space efficient to place a couple beacons. they don't even need modules

[tardy quarry]

the thing is that we cannot set the power priority easily seems like an unnecessary limitation on factory designs

imo it doesn’t really make the game fun

[tropic basin]

the priorities are sensible, but geared towards uptime
that's a good, but limiting for power users

[tardy quarry]

while removing this limitation enables more interesting designs with more accessibility

[tropic basin]

I think the accessibility is better the way it is now. Imagine someone messing with the prioritites without understanding them.

[tardy quarry]

imagine someone messing with circuit networks without understanding them

same for train stop priority

changing priorities doesn’t stop them from working normally

[tropic basin]

I can see a scenario where accumulators are primary power source, accumulator charging is behind it. Solar and boilers won't charge them.

could blackout every night at sundown

Affects whole factory instead of the circuit contraption you built.

[tardy quarry]

how solar and boilers not charging accumulators when we are talking about priority, not enabling/disabling?

[tropic basin]

Circuit system can mess up your whole factory too. But it's unlikely somebody gets that far immediately. Power priorities immediately affect the entire factory.

[tropic basin]

Isn't accumulator charging and discharging on a separate priority?

If you order them all in the wrong way, your factory can be crippled.

i.e. solar and boiler sources on a lower priority than accumulator charging.

[tardy quarry]

solar and boiler are power producer, while accumulator in this context is power consumer, I don’t see anything that could go wrong.

[tropic basin]

Accumulator is both (it can even be both at the same time!). and while I don't actually know, I think those are on separate priorities

[tardy quarry]

power generator priority and power consumer priority is two different thing, and I’m only talking about the former

the latter makes less sense to add

if anything, they can also add priority power switches like Satisfactory to deal with the power consumer priority

[tropic basin]

Only adding either is inconsistent.

[tardy quarry]

or add a check boxes for steam turbines to run regardless of power demand

anyway, I think a recipe to turn steam to water is enough to waste the steam power if needed

[crystal dune]

That’s actually smart

[tardy quarry]

I wonder if we will be able to do point to point logistics routes using logi chest, for example, let a blue chest only request from a specific red chest

[crystal dune]

Oddly specific

[tropic basin]

You can do that already. The logistic chest you're thinking about is called train station

You can even give them custom colours!

[narrow vale]

I predict...
Steam Locomotives.

[tropic basin]

That's already a thing in 1.1

the fuel they take is solid
it's burnt to heat water
Dieselelectric needs a liquid fuel ..

[dreamy eagle]

Gleba inspired rapid biomatter conversion to oil?

The engines in factorio are most likely stirling-type. They only need a burnable or other heat source and no water

[stray wharf]

No, that's just Fulgora or Vulcanus with more steps. If there are any oils on Gleba, it would just be light oil to use the standard rocket fuel recipe.

[dreamy eagle]

That is a point yeah

[crystal dune]

I thought the purpose of the bio stuff was to replace oil processing

Not add an extra step before it

[dreamy eagle]

Yea it was (I think at least?)

[sturdy oriole]

.... Didn't they say all ores are 0.5 kg like when they introduced the weight system

[stray wharf]

2kg.

[sturdy oriole]

Nope I was wrong

Yeah

[stray wharf]

But even then, things get tweaked and adjusted. I believe calcite is going to be only 1k, so 1000 per launch.

[tardy quarry]

what if calcite is also 0.5 kg

[indigo fog]

All other ore is 2kg per, so I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if calcite is any different

[crystal dune]

Oh hey I just realized
Biochamber 50% prod officially deconfirmed

Because we saw its UI and there was no prod bar