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kovarex



05 Jan

Friday Facts #392 - Parametrised blueprints

Post

Hello,
I'm going to cover a feature I only just finished.
I was thinking about this idea for years already.
I always thought the feature is too hardcore to be included, but I learned that it is usually a mistake to underestimate the players, so I gave it a go, and decided to share it right away.

Motivation

The most common motivational example is the train unloading station.
Typically, I have the whole setup in a blueprint: rails, train stop, filtered inserters to avoid contamination, etc.

This is nice, but whenever I build the blueprint I need to re-configure all the filtered inserters for the target item, and also change the name of the stop, and it is tedious.

Mp4 playback not supported on your device. The long monotonous process of setting up station after station.

There are 2 ways to solve it in 1.1:
  • Use circuit network, but it feels l...
Read more

16 Dec

Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Comment

Originally posted by Herestheproof

It sounds pretty trivial to add a “and inventory empty” condition to the go to depot interrupt if you’re worried about that.

This is what we show in the FFF screenshot.


15 Dec

Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Comment

Originally posted by F_Carrod

Will there also be interrupt conditions like "train is currently at station X"?

Use case: Maybe I want my trains to stop by the refuel station only on their way from outpost to main hase, but not on the way to the outpost. Because e.g. my refuel station is better reachable on the way to the main base.

I don't know how this can be done if all interrupts are checked at each station (apart from "hacks" like "check if cargo is full").

For the generic system, it is basically required to allow going to depo or refuel only when the train is empty.

Otherwise, once the system backs up, all the full train will fill the depo and wait there.

Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Comment

Originally posted by Goranim

Does "global" in the context of train interrupts being global mean that they are the same for each train on the same planet or the same for each train on all planets?

Across all planets.

Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Comment

Originally posted by AbyssalSolitude

We have been asked to do something like 'logistic trains' many times. Schedule interrupts provide a more generic system, where logistic trains is just one of the things you can build from it.

RIP native logistic trains, I guess.

I very much hope that we can generate interrupts automatically, because writing the same "if cargo = x, then go to x drop station" interrupt for every single cargo type in the game to make generic trains going sounds like the opposite of what Factorio is.

I 100% agree with this.
We don't have antyhing implemented yet, but we were considering several times to have some kind of generic interrupt possible. So you could say something like:
if ([X] Cargo > 0) -> (go to station [X])
It would only work as long as you would consistently use chat tags to name your stations, but since we (and probably many other poeple) do it anyway, it would be a good option.

Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Comment

Originally posted by wheels405

Amazing update.

One concern about train limits being held until the train leaves the station: is it possible this will lead to deadlocks if a player tries having [sum of train limits] - 1 trains? If a train has no destination to go, and no trains can leave to take its spot, that seems like a deadlock. To avoid this, I feel like you would need to have no more trains than either [sum of loading limits] - 1 or [sum of dropoff limits] - 1, which could be significantly fewer trains.

This is where the depot and the interrupt "Destination full" comes into play. If it has nowhere to go, you send it to the depo.

Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Comment

Originally posted by punkbert

for not letting us have these things already.

I'm smoking some excellent hopium for a Factorio 1.5 beta christmas surprise release with all the QOL-features already described in recent FFFs.

It's a potent mixture.

I'm sorry, but it is just not happening.


03 Nov

Friday Facts #383 - Super force building

Comment

Originally posted by Nicksaurus

Ah right, so it only places the undergrounds if the total width of the thing you're placing is short enough for a single connection to cover it?

yes

Friday Facts #383 - Super force building

Comment

Originally posted by I_am_a_fern

What else could happen ?
Same thing if for some reason your logistic network is out of undies.

Yes, it is skipped and the preview also doesn't show it, to indicate it is too far.

Friday Facts #383 - Super force building

Comment

Originally posted by seky16

Question: when super force building upgrade of an entity (eg. blue belt over red belt), do we get them marked for upgrade or marked for deconstruction and ghosted new ones?

If not, can we? That would be a great upgrade to the feature

They are marked for upgrade if possible.
With the "plowing" through belts, it is done through deconstruction, to not mix possibly difffernet belt contents.

Friday Facts #383 - Super force building

Comment

Originally posted by Nicksaurus

If any developers read this - how complicated is the algorithm to automatically place underground belts? I can imagine there are some pathological cases where you would have to do some sort of complicated graph search to find a solution that keeps all the belts connected

Also, this mechanic makes me even more certain that we're getting swimming and/or flying biters in the expansion, otherwise you could just build a moat around your factory and never worry about attacks again

The belt replacing logic is made to only work in obvious cases of straight belt connections.
It also works when you are about to extend an existing underground connection by building on top of underground belt (which we probably have included in the original video).

Friday Facts #383 - Super force building

Comment

Originally posted by RedsToad

Oml all of these changes are so so wonderful. The gif of super forcing entities over belts brought so so much satisfaction I love you factorio team!

The one thing that mildly bothers me is belt preview being weird, seen here https://imgur.com/a/rJKjDO4

I know. It is a technical detail that had a lower priority, but I will probably not be able to hold myself from fixing it.

Friday Facts #383 - Super force building

Comment

Originally posted by Mornar

I have one question. What does that mean for biters? We can now moat them off in vanilla. Surely, surely something will change about them?

You can only mine landfil, which means water had to be there in the first place. So you can't just moat-off your whole base if it wasn't on island in the first place.

Friday Facts #383 - Super force building

Comment

Originally posted by thejakkle

Is there going to be an 'empty space' you can add to blueprints I wonder. The forced build is great but if it leaves a rogue belt or inserter because it didn't collide with the new blueprint that could cause havoc with what you've just built.

That sounds like a reasonable idea! For example, If I want to build 4X4 balancer on top of 4 belts, it doesn't end well, and it always needs manual intervention to fix it. But if I could add a deconstruction marker in the blueprint on the few tiles that need to be empty, it would be useful.


27 Oct

Friday Facts #382 - Logistic groups

Comment

Originally posted by m_stitek

I'm really worried about the limitation of 1 Cargo Landing Pod per planet. That means this will always be a single point of limitation for megabases as it's throughput cannot be scaled up indefinitely. Everything else can. Is this the end of 10k+ SPM megabases?

The potential throughput of the cargo landing pad can be really really huge I think.
Also, don't forget that only select list of items have to be transported between planets for production, a lot of things can be done locally.

I have 1kSPM in my playthrough, and it is very very far from being on the max, so i don't think that this would be a real problem.

(Imagine legendary inserters inserting directly to trains, and legendary bots with roboports all around unloading at the same time)

Friday Facts #382 - Logistic groups

Comment

Originally posted by poayjay07

Factorio is already a hard game. It's easy to forget that when the all the people active in the forums have hundreds or thousands of hours of play time. I seriously doubt most people who bought the game got past blue science. All of the DLC changes add SO much complexity to an already complex and difficult game. I can foresee all the negative steam reviews complaining that there are so many rules that it is unplayable. Maybe they are just going all in on their hardcore fans?

I agree. But on the other hand, the expansion is just meant to be more challanging than the base game, you build bigger you build more complex etc.

Sometimes, I thought that some feature is little bit too complex for a game, and maybe it is too much. But at least I'm making it for me to be more enjoyable and maybe others will follow, I probably can't do it otherwise ....

Friday Facts #382 - Logistic groups

Comment

Originally posted by shinozoa

Are constant combinators limited on how many signals a single combinator can output with the logistic group change?

What if I made a long logistic list of every item? Would a single combinator output all that? Or is 20 the limit?

There si no limit.

Friday Facts #382 - Logistic groups

Comment

Originally posted by Mehovod

I have some questions related to request groups.

  • Can different request groups contain the same item? I.e. I would have solar pannels both in solar setup and nuclear setup.
  • Are request groups related to game or player? I.e. if you have blueprint with entity with group A would it appear in other entities when you place this blueprint or it would be here from previous game where you created this group?
  • What if you created request group A but it is already presented in one blueprint with another contents? Then what happens when you place such a blueprint?

Yes, the counts are summed up.
If the group doesn't exist yet, it is taken from the blueprint, otherwise, it is taken from the game.

Friday Facts #382 - Logistic groups

Comment

Originally posted by ZenEngineer

I wonder how logistics groups interact with blueprints.

I assume you can have logistic groups in requests and combinator in blueprints. I expect that when the group doesn't exist it gets created. But then what happens if you update it? You probably don't want it reset when you place another copy of the BP. But then what if you do have a fixed version of the BP, can you update the requests then?

The whole schedule and the group is in the blueprint.
When the group doesn't exist upon building the blueprint, the group is created with the contents.
When the group already exists upon building the blueprint, the group in the game i spreserved, and the newly build entity is synced to the existing group.

Friday Facts #382 - Logistic groups

Comment

Originally posted by bm13kk

On the screenshot with "request item selector," there is a separate tab for a rocket.

For now, we get only several space items

  • platform
  • hub
  • grinder
  • arms
  • engines

Even if we add existing things (rocket silo, satellite, rocket part?) - it is not enough items to have a separate tab.

So I have a conclusion, that we did not have seen even half of the new space content.

There are several other things, but this tab is generally smaller then others anyway.
Even though, it feels useful to have these things in a separate tab.