Taming the random generatorTwinsen One of the things in the large TODO list for 0.17 is giving a final polish to the map generator. There are quite a few obvious problems now in 0.16, and some less obvious ones. Here are some of the fixes and improvements (some work in progress): All combinations of settings should no longer create strange maps such as circles of cliffs. Much more predictable starting area resources that don't overlap each-other and are not covered by water. The resource generation settings now have a much more dramatic effect (previously they had little to no effect). Increased the number of steps (small, medium, big, etc) for each setting from 5 to 9 for even more customization. The starting area will always contain water, most often a lake close to the spawn position. Since the algorithm for generating ores was pretty much completely rewritten, there are many small improvements. Now for the less obvious problem: unpredictability. I saw quite a few people complain with vague comments like "the map generator sucks". So I often asked them what the problem is in detail. Some were complaining about the above problems, some did not understand what the settings do, and some had problems finding a "good map". I saw quite a few players click "regenerate" like crazy until they got a map with fat patches in the starting area, big oil patch and also uranium, complaining that it's too hard to find a "good map". Due to the randomness we seem to have set the expectation for "good map" a bit too high. Oil and uranium were never intended to be in the starting area, but due to the randomness of the generator they sometimes were there. Also sometimes maps were so wild that you would start off either swimming in resources or desperately looking for another iron patch. It would be simple to just say "that's just RNG, deal with it", but blaming poor game experience on RNG is just bad design. So what we did is: The starting area contains only iron, copper, coal and stone, in very predictable amounts. Uranium and oil are explicitly excluded from the starting area. Starting area resources are usually in one ore patch each (depending on settings). The starting area patches are usually close together. The starting area size setting no longer affects resource placement, it just has a fixed size. Outside the starting area, the regular algorithm "kicks in" so you can still get quite wild results, but they are far enough that it averages out. I believe this is a good balance where you can still have different experiences depending on your luck, but your starting experience is much more predictable and does not leave you with the feeling that you got screwed over by the map generator. We definitely don't want the map generator to be extremely flat and predictable. Opinions on the subject are quite wild too, with people having different expectations of what a good map should look like, so we try to only make changes based on actual problems. This might seem a bit controversial so we can add an option that disables this whole starting area logic, for purists. We plan some small tweaks coming to biters also (a tiny bit more biters close to the starting area), small tweaks to terrain, cliffs, water generation and possibly some new features to make the generated trees and decoratives look better. Most of these problems including the obvious and apparently simple ones were not that easy to solve. It's hard to make random generators do what you want, so TOGoS will explain what it took to actually get it done.

With most of the team away for Gamescom or vacation, I have the pleasure of writing a Friday Facts for you this week.

Hello, A bunch of us will be travelling to Gamescom next week as visitors, if you see anybody wearing a Factorio t-shirt, it might very well be one of us. We don't have a booth or exhibit this year, as we don't want to take any focus away from the development of the game.

Hello, we had a small Factorio 0.17 LAN party this weekend. The purpose was to try and test some of the new features and play the game properly as I haven't had time for that for quite a while. I used this opportunity to think about all the smaller or bigger decisions, features or change of plans in the context of playing the game for many hours.

Hello, we are really appreciating that the new offices have proper air conditioning...

Going through to-do list (kovarex) One of the many small tasks for 0.17, was to solve the occasional problem I had when I didn't notice that one of my trains didn't have the refuelling automated. One train out of fuel can halt all the train logistics easily, and sometimes it takes quite a while to notice it. For this reason, we added an alert for trains running out of fuel when in automatic mode.

New sound design Val: Do you remember the smell of the fresh air near the seashore? Can you describe, a forest that rumbles its trees after a summer rain? All that you hear and see goes right into your mind. All of our senses are connected with each other in our memories. When we feel at least one of them, our imagination brings the others. Sometimes, and even often, we can't see the object, but we can hear it! You can't see the wind, but you feel it and hear it! The bird is singing. You can't see it hiding in a bush, but you hear a beautiful song and can define the direction it comes from. The forest, the sea, the desert... Night and day. Clanking of a loading cannon and snoring of unseen monsters. That is what we are planning to do. To put the unseen colors of sound and add some feeling of life to the planet of Factorio. Even the emptiness has it's own voice... Albert: As you probably know, we are in a stage of polishing all the possible aspects of the game. Last week we were cooperating with Val, our new sound designer, and we spent the entire week defining new concepts for environmental sounds and sound effects. Also we were working on the sound of the biter nests and the artillery cannon. This is definitely a huge subject full of details that can really improve the play experience of Factorio. Here I can show you a work in progress of the artillery cannon: We have to tweak some behaviour of the entity in order to make it act more mechanical, but overall, the possibilities that sound design can bring to the game are really interesting. Compare the simple shooting of the cannon in the actual version with this proof of concept with all those details in rotation and loading. Of course this level of detail complicates the work a little bit, but I'm convinced it's worth it.

Factorio at the National Library of Technology Prague (Klonan) If you are in Prague this summer, and wanting to satiate your Factorio cravings, you can stop in to the National Library of Technology Prague, where Factorio is loaded onto 150 computers for all to play. Entry is free for all visitors Monday to Friday 08:00 - 22:00 until the 31st of August. The PC's are running Linux (Fedora), loaded with a custom build of the game HanziQ put together, and you can host LAN servers and play with your friends. On the 23rd of July we will be hosting our own Factorio LAN party at the library starting at 16:00 CEST (Prague time), so you can come along and play with us. It is advised to bring your own set of headphones if you are going to attend.

Mod portal features (Klonan) Sanqui has been quite effective these last weeks getting stuck in with the mod portal, so we have some interesting additions to talk about. Mod deprecation A modder can mark a mod as deprecated, which indicates they are no longer updating or maintaining it. The typical case is a mod will add something relevant for the current version of the game (E.G, a mod to scan the players starting area), and then an update to the base game makes the mod obsolete. Just deleting the mod could potentially cause problems for people playing an older version, people might ask what has happened to it etc. Marking as deprecated will keep the mod up on the portal, but it will be hidden from any public searches. This way people downloading using 'Sync mods with save' feature can keep playing, while new players won't stumble upon a mod that is no longer useful or up to date. It also preserves the downloads and discussions in case the author wants to revive it later. Collaborators It is often the case, that a mod author will want someone else to help them maintain and manage their mod, for instance if they are going on holiday when a major release is coming out. The way it has worked in the past, another modder would have to come and upload an updated version of the mod under their own name. Now a modder can set another player as a 'collaborator', which means they can help out will all the maintenance of the mod. Collaborators can do everything the author can do, except add or remove collaborators. You might also spot the other feature, transferring mod ownership. This lets the author give the mod completely to a collaborator, in the case that they are no longer interested in working on the mod at all. Discussions notice Mod authors can now display a notice above their mod page discussions, informing the users of any useful information. For example, an author might prefer you to report bugs on their GitHub page, so the notice will inform users of where they should go. An additional option allows the author to disable the discussions completely, in the case they have their own forum/thread somewhere for discussions. If you have any ideas for an improvement to the mod portal, please let us know on our Mod portal discussion subforum.

While working on the GUI, we reached the infamous blueprint library, and we started talking about how to improve it. This lead to discussions about how we can improve the entire system of blueprints. The problem was not simple at all, and these discussions have been going on for a few days.