I did a similar thing for the game Highfleet, until I ran into roadblocks with the dev team.
My ultimate goal was to have a "print poster" button that would generate the image and ship it off to one of those poster drop-shippers for a small fee. In that game, you can annotate the maps, and the world map with battle annotations is really special with lots of memories of victories and defeats. Alas, no dice.
I suggest you do this for blueprints! The first thing I'm going to do is take my favorite space platforms and outposts and make posters - the colored block imagery is really artful.
And, if you want a real challenge, you could parse the end-game uploads (galaxy) if available, or save files themselves.
Or, slightly less ambitious - a game mod that generates links to this site directly.
Very nicely done!
Plus, I grew up playing MicroProse games in the early to mid 1990s so wild to see that they are still around and making great content.
I also loved this quote from the reviews:
"A typical Microprose game in that you need to a) immerse yourself in it and b) READ THE GOSH DANG MANUAL in order to have any hope of enjoying it." [0]
0 - https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197989787811/recomm...
1. radio decryption and cyphers
2. Complete flying fortress customization
3. ancient tech-obsessed desert culture kinda like homeworld
4. merchant raiding and resource constrained survival
If you get deep into building customized ships, I have an automated optimizer for you to check your stats against :)
I got radio silence from everyone when I tried to confirm the way to correctly determine links. So I moved on to an easier problem.
I think it's not possible to access the actual file upload using the galaxy hall of fame (https://www.factorio.com/galaxy) or I just can't find them. Otherwise it would be pretty cool.
Oh yeah, I like the mod idea. That should also be quite doable, thanks.
There's a good ecosystem for Lithophanes [0][1] and maps [2][3]. This would be a cool addition to that.
[0] https://all3dp.com/2/how-to-3d-print-your-own-lithophane/
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU13fzqAu4BTAhOSHJgHRqg
[2] https://blog.prusa3d.com/how-to-print-maps-terrains-and-land...
The map2stl tool is also cool. I created a similar tool [0] for pen plotters using OpenStreetMap Data a while ago, which is fun to play around with.
Some designs in 100% runs use sushi (e.g. red circuits, as they take a lot of space/time but few resources, and must initially be built by hand). You can estimate the rates, but you won't be able to find a bottleneck.
Inserter timing often comes up in plastic builds - on paper it's easy to build the exact amount of chem plants to saturate a blue belt, but if you ignore inserter timing you'll be leaving tiny gaps.
Also remember spoilage is now a thing (,: as well as loops, probabilistic recipes, thruster efficiency, probably some more.
Only Factorio can simulate Factorio. The best way to automatically find bottlenecks is probably with a mod.
Computer 1 - Human
Computer 2 - Claude Computer Use or other controlling the other
A chat interface or voice interface (Whisper Speech to Text) for Human to feed instructions to Computer 2?
Amazing benefits of doing this:
- infinitely scalable
- could let agents continue to implement strategy and unblock themselves without needing constant intervention
The visualizations are so similar to integrated circuit layouts; they immediately reminded me of some of the coasters that GamersNexus sell which represent simplified computer subsystems.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29381969 - Nov 2021 (15 comments)
All good things have an end.
I really hope Wube could make it more interesting to play in multiplayer, in games of 50 or 100 players, unfortunately there are no incentives for it.
I suggested to add some resources trading and currency, coupled with a land ownership system, to prevent trolls and scale the game so that any player can join, but it would probably require some balancing.
This game is already 10 years old and still going strong.
Unfortunately mods are not very good quality, or too difficult to enjoy.
Space age is interesting because new planets are being added by fans, but I don't think they're going to be as well designed and really bring anything interesting.
Most of my playtime in Factorio is with overhaul mods, there's a lot of quality content there. I'm not sure how many of them have been brought to 2.0 or even will be. I'm curious where you think quality lacks.
Space Exploration has been my favorite, but Ultracube, Krastorio2, and Nullius were all quite fun. I'll admit I haven't finished Ultracube and Nullius, but I have restarted my Ultracube run in 2.0.
> Space age is interesting because new planets are being added by fans, but I don't think they're going to be as well designed and really bring anything interesting.
Check out Maraxsis and/or Cerys, these were the kinds of planet mods I was hoping for in Space Age. Maraxsis is an ocean planet and you build underwater and in deep trenches, and the planet's building has a base 50% quality. Cerys is a moon of Fulgora that's really quite small and it's more of a puzzle than anything.
Generally game design revolves the concept of a effort-reward loop: the player must feel he is regularly advancing in the game, at a steady pace, with a difficulty that slowly increases.
Mods are often badly designed because they are made by hardcore factorio fans who don't understand this or follow this golden rule.
There was a FFF who talked about a game designer they hired, and wube constantly had to make his designs simpler so the game can be a success. It requires a lot of work.
Making a great game is about "easy to learn, hard to master". A lot of people don't understand it, but a game must be attractive enough for casual to medium players, or it just will not sell.
The magic of factorio vanilla and space age is that the difficulty is well designed. Mods often just don't follow that rule, or have a lower quality.
There is more psychology behind game design that we want to admit.
For when Factorio has turned into a Job. And the engineer inside cant' help but optimize.
If the game would look more like those visualizations, I might have enjoyed it more.
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-320
(There's also now a saturation slider in the graphics settings.)
And maybe again with 2.0, including some more colorful new planets in the Space Age expansion.
P.S.: The Industrial Revolution overhaul mod might also be to your liking ?
Sadly, it's not compatible with Factorio 2.0, and the developer has no intent to update it or allow others to do so.
It's a neat mod which I enjoyed playing (and I wish it were playable in 2.0!), but it's aimed at experienced players. Someone with only a few hours in the game will hit a wall pretty quickly.
[0] https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-422-concept-v3..., might be a minor spoiler for a late-game turret.
It's a lot more bright and colorful, though I think it lacks some depth relative to Factorio, but I think that just makes it more approachable.
I'm currently at a couple hundred hours into Factorio and I can safely say I like it better. It is way more polished and way more in-depth. It has definitely had much more time to mature and respond to user feedback. Also the threat level keeps it more interesting. But I do find Satisfactory much more beautiful, and I think the idea of having belts go directly into/out of buildings, etc, without the need for inserters, a much better style than inserters.
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/loaders-modernized or https://mods.factorio.com/mod/vanilla-loaders-hd or this one made by a Wube developer: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/aai-loaders
This is not helped by the fact that Coffee Stain has been aggressively anti-QoL as they developed the game. They absolutely refused to put any sort of blueprint feature or tool to speed up placing foundation for the longest time. Then when they finally added those things, the features sucked compared to what players had done with mods because they were so crippled. Then in 1.0 they finally grudgingly added slightly bigger blueprints, which are inexplicably locked behind high tier tech, and they actually make fun of the player for daring to want blueprints that don't suck. It's just baffling how hostile the developers have been to making the building part of the game (which is by far the biggest part) user-friendly.
In their defense, Coffee Stain/Satisfactory makes fun of the player for absolutely everything. They always have. It's just the culture of their studio.
[0] https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article/23053098/starcraft-c...
Some observations - get off a planet, but in first person perspective. No guns/fighting. Less of a time suck than factorio. Upgrades seem to be less tightly tied to exactly what you do. It's somewhat unclear how to even know how to progress, but maybe it doesn't matter. When automation becomes available, it is easier. There's a struggle for food, water, air at the beginning I didn't like at first (even in menus it doesn't pause). I learned to accept and enjoy it though, and things you do make it less of an issue.
That said, I loved the redesign work needed on Aquilo, it took me quite a while to get the hang of cascading temperature brownouts, heat fluid dynamics, and adding piping to layouts. I found that fun.
Eventually, Aquilo can work like any other base, with rare - legendary bots, it can be remotely laid out and expanded as needed; in reality, very very little needs to be built on Aquilo to support even relatively large economies. I’m on my second playthrough, I have legendary-only production lines up for everything but railguns and fusion power and I’m just thinking about adding my second pump jack for fluorine.
Anyway, come back to it in a year - you might find it’s fun after all. :)
Something that stands out is that Space Age is more of an adventure (overcome challenges in series) where Factorio the base game was a sandbox (challenges can be handled in parallel).
In the base game, if someone doesn't like rail then they can just ignore it for an entire playthrough. Ditto nuclear/solar, most military techs, most other logistics, and so on. If someone likes yellow belts and coal power that can carry them through an entire playthrough. If you don't like Gleba/spoilage, you can't skip it because it is necessary to see any parts of the game gated behind it which is Aquilo onwards. Heaven help you if you don't like how space platforms work, because they gate everything and are quite unique compared to the rest of the game which some players must hate.
Aquilo is just so barren. The new mechanic it introduces locks down player choice, as opposed to the other planets that are rife with opportunities for exploration and creativity.
I find fulgora and gleba a bit tedious, but I appreciate that each of them bring unique new restrictions/mechanics/challenges to the game. Vulcanus is actually the least inspired, from a mechanics perspective. Mining->lava. It's a good lead-in to those wilder planets.
I agree with that, but I also think that the huge mechanical divergence of the other planets is a bad thing. Like I said, building on other planets it really doesn't feel like Factorio any more... more some new game with Factorio graphics.
I think that they are a terrific sequel/expansion to Factorio. It's still "Logistics: The Game".
Fulgora requires you to work in confined space and manage a complex situation regarding waste.
Gleba requires you to deal with stock that expires, sometimes dangerously. (Tip: Basically you need to keep refining the "dangerous" spoilable products into non-dangerous products constantly, or else burn it).
Aquilo I haven't gotten to yet.
These planets have expanded the scope of real-world logistics concepts one may think about in manufacturing, in my opinion. The expansion would have been a lot more boring if all they did was add stack inserters and turbo belts. If they are not fun, then there are mods to disable/modify recipes to not need them, while still getting all the cool new tech in Space Age.
I love all the mods/tools around Factorio, I don't think I've put more hours in any other video game, maybe Skyrim, maybe not. It tickles all right parts of my brain especially now that I write less code in my current position.
Does this work with mods?
The file is normally generated automatically with the get_items.py script and this data dump: https://gist.github.com/Bilka2/6b8a6a9e4a4ec779573ad703d03c1...
