Hello, we just released 0.17.73, with 0.17.74 coming very soon. This is just some bug fixes and further pathfinding improvements, and we hope to be able to mark the release as Stable next week.
Hello factorio builders, I hope you enjoy lists and numbers, because you are going to be fed by these today :).
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.
Hello, Another trains FFF!
Hello, Today we have quite a range of new features and improvements coming in 2.0.
Hello, trains are one of our most favorite parts of the game. We already talked about the ways we improved rails (FFF-377), so its time to talk about how we improved the way you can control the trains that ride on them.
A week in the office This week is another week of typical bug fixing, so I thought we would make a one-time change of style and do a day-by-day account of what exactly that means for us.
Space science As you already know, in 0.15 we have reworked the science packs and added infinite science. More and different science packs make the game a lot more interesting. It reduces the complexity of blue science (which is great for newer players) while adding complexity later, and you now have to decide what to research first, especially with the more expensive game modes (which is interesting for advanced players), and infinite science adds something to do forever in the game. However, one of my biggest complaints about Factorio always was that the rocket has no purpose, even though it is being propagated at all the points as the final step of the game. It is said at the trailer, at the introduction of freeplay, and by being the most advanced research, everything seems like it’s the thing to desire, but when I launched it for the first time and seeing the victory screen, I was feeling like "And now what...". For me there is one main reason why Factorio is so awesome and why I can forget myself playing until 4 a.m., and that reason is the infinite loop of 'there is always a bottleneck', you always need to fix something, you have not enough power, or your production of a particular product is insufficient etc. When you launch the rocket, you escape from this loop because it doesn’t lead anywhere. As we can see, we have learned to take the rocket as a measurable resource sink to quantify the size of our factories, which is great, but I think it makes sense to us only because we got used to it, not because it made sense in the first place, or at least it didn’t to me. Now when 0.15 adds infinite research, I started to ask myself why would I launch the rocket at all, and I have seen many of you ask similar questions. To compare the two, the infinite science is also quantifiable as I can see the amount I produced in the production screen, it also has an interesting crafting recipe (rocket parts vs. all science packs together), and it is also an infinite resource sink. The main difference is, the infinite research is actually useful. This is where the space science comes into play. We now have a space science pack, obtained by launching a rocket. You get 1000 of these science packs per rocket, and every infinite research requires these science packs. Such a simple feature, but it closes the infinite game loop again. But of course in case you want to just launch rockets without worrying about science, you can still do that, just like previously. We have also added more infinite researches, so now apart from worker robot speed, combat robot follower count and mining productivity bonus researches, we also have all of the combative damage upgrades infinite (not shooting speed as that would get ridiculous sooner or later), however their prices increase exponentially to prevent it from getting too extreme. The rocket has to have a satellite in order to get the science packs (the rocket has to be able send back the discoveries, right?). The rocket silo now has an auto-launch checkbox so you can launch them automatically, and the launch is only going to happen when you insert satellite. So you can control the inserter with satellite to only launch rockets when you need the science packs automatically through circuit network. Of course we also added support for mods, so you can define what do you get from sending a rocket, and depending on what you put in the rocket - say, if you put a tank into the rocket, you receive 100 raw fish, because that would make perfect sense. We can build up on this concept in the future, but for now this already brings a lot of sense to the game as it is. As a bonus, here is a album of my factory where I tested the infinite science concept.
Roadmap update (kovarex) A lot of people have been asking recently, when can they expect a new release and when is the game going to be finished. The original plan was to finish everything, and release the final version of Factorio ideally before the end of 2018. This was the plan at the beginning of the year. We worked in our usual way of "it is done when it is done" for quite some time, but then it started taking a little bit too long, and we weren't even sure what is a realistic timeframe to finish it in. To help this issue, we tried to become a little more organized in the past few weeks. We went through our list of all the development tasks, and tried to finalize it. We removed all the things that we decided to cut, and added all the missing things that we need to do before the game is finished. Then we tried to make some kind of time estimate for each task, to get a general idea of when everything will be finished. We started to be more conscious of who is working on what, and how much time each task is taking, to know how accurate the estimates are. The result was, that if it all goes well, we could be done in 6-9 months. This is probably not something you wanted to hear. After a few rounds of discussions, we decided split the releases of 0.17 and 0.18 in the following way: 0.17 plan It will contain all the things we have done up to this point, mainly: New render backend, which helps performance and solves a lot of issues (FFF-251) The graphical updates: walls, gates, turrets, belts, biters, spawners, electric poles (FFF-268, FFF-228, FFF-253) The GUI reskin (FFF-243) New map editor (FFF-252) Resource generation overhaul (FFF-258) Robot construction tools (FFF-255) Rich text (FFF-237, FFF-267) And more... It will also include some things we know we can finish soon enough, mainly: Redoing some of the most important GUIs (Action bar, character screen, main game GUI, train GUI, play GUI, tooltips) Fluid optimisations And several smaller things, which depends on how it goes We will release this during January 2019, we will announce it more precisely in advance. 0.18 plan It will become the final 1.0 version once it is stable. It will contain mainly: New tutorial New campaign Final mini tutorials Revision of rest of the GUI All remaining high res graphics graphics and final polish We obviously don't know exactly when is it going to be ready, but we hope it to be sooner than 9 months from now.
