Space science

As you already know, in 0.15 we have reworked the science packs and added infinite science. Moreand different science packs make the game a lot more interesting. It reduces the complexity ofblue science (which is great for newer players) while adding complexity later, and you now haveto decide what to research first, especially with the more expensive game modes (which isinteresting 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 nopurpose, even though it is being propagated at all the points as the final step of the game. It issaid 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 seeingthe 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 myselfplaying until 4 a.m., and that reason is the infinite loop of 'there is always a bottleneck', youalways need to fix something, you have not enough power, or your production of a particularproduct is insufficient etc.
When you launch the rocket, you escape from this loop because it doesn’t lead anywhere. Aswe can see, we have learned to take the rocket as a measurable resource sink to quantify thesize of our factories, which is great, but I think it makes sense to us only because we got usedto 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 atall, 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 producedin the production screen, it also has an interesting crafting recipe (rocket parts vs. all sciencepacks together), and it is also an infinite resource sink. The main difference is, the infiniteresearch 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 everyinfinite research requires these science packs. Such a simple feature, but it closes the infinitegame loop again. But of course in case you want to just launch rockets without worrying aboutscience, you can still do that, just like previously. We have also added more infinite researches, so now apart from worker robot speed, combatrobot follower count and mining productivity bonus researches, we also have all of thecombative damage upgrades infinite (not shooting speed as that would get ridiculous sooner orlater), 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 ablesend back the discoveries, right?). The rocket silo now has an auto-launch checkbox so you canlaunch them automatically, and the launch is only going to happen when you insert satellite. Soyou can control the inserter with satellite to only launch rockets when you need the sciencepacks automatically through circuit network. Of course we also added support for mods, so you can define what do you get from sending arocket, and depending on what you put in the rocket - say, if you put a tank into the rocket, youreceive 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 tothe game as it is.
As a bonus, here is a album of my factory where I tested the infinite science concept.

Nuclear power

There is a great amount of new graphics and high resolution translations of old ones. Thebiggest news is obviously the nuclear power, so let’s have a look at that.
As you can see, the whole process starts with a mining drill and new uranium ore graphics (itglows at night by the way). Since mining uranium requires sulfuric acid, we needed to add anew patch for pipe connection. The acid flows between neighbouring miners, so you only needto bring pipes to the edge ones. The first step of uranium processing happens at the centrifuge, which creates U-238 and U-235in certain percentages. Most of the time you get a U-238, but sometimes you get a U-235.When you get a U-235, you can turn it into uranium fuel cell which goes to the nuclear reactor.The nuclear reactor heats up and transfers the heat to heat exchangers, optionally via heatpipes when the setup gets bigger. The heat exchanger accepts water and outputs steam whichthen goes to the steam turbines which generate power.
The centrifuge can do a few other processes which are useful for getting more U-235 andre-utilizing burnt out fuel cells into more U-238. Even though it’s one of the most expectedthings, we probably didn’t mention before that you can make uranium ammo and tank shellsfrom U-238, and U-235 can be used to create warheads for rocket launcher missiles whicherase about 50 tile area per shot of anything in the way, including you if you don’t run fastenough. The steam comes out of the heat exchangers at 500 degrees, which is the maximum a steam turbine canutilize. A steam engine in comparison can only make use of steam up to 165 degrees - which iswhat a normal boiler produces. So if you use a steam turbine with normal boiler, it will work, butthe turbine will have a poor efficiency. And if you use steam engine with heat exchangers, it willwork, but a lot of the heat will be lost for no benefit.
As you already know from earlier, we have also changed the boiler to be 2x3 tiles instead of 1x1which required new graphics. We also added high resolution steam engine to make them gotogether nicely. This also allows for some new designs which is very nice. The ratio of boilers tosteam engines is exactly 1 boiler to 2 steam engines now.

High resolution graphics

As you already see with the nuclear graphics, they all have their high resolution versions, butwhat else is there? Currently in early versions of 0.15 you can look forward to the following in high resolution:

• Resources
• Electric mining drill
• Belts, splitters and underground belts
• Pipes and pump
• Rails, rail signals & rail station
• Locomotive, cargo wagon and fluid wagon
• Furnaces
• Assembling machines
• Refinery and chemical plant
• Boiler & steam engine
• Nuclear power graphics - centrifuge, nuclear reactor, heat pipe, heat exchanger, steam
• Steam turbine
• Car
• Programmable speaker

Everything in the following picture except inserters is in high resolution. The high resolution terrain integration is still in progress, so it won't make it to 0.15 right away.
During 0.15 stabilization we will be adding more high resolution graphics, with the aim to doeverything. Let’s see how that goes, but seeing what we already have, we are confident we canget it done sooner or later.

GUI reskin & new icons

For a long time we have been keeping some placeholder icons and we wanted to replace theskin of the GUI in 0.13 already. Here is how it looks like now.
The changes aren’t massive, but it has a big impact on everything. Because of that, some of ouricons needed changing so that they don’t become less visible. There are also many new iconreplacements for the old awful things like mining drill, laser turret, rail signals, and more. We willlikely tweak it further, but this is what we have for now. The technology tree looks like this.

New map colors

We have reworked the map colors to make them look nicer and give a little bit more info whatis what.
As you can probably see, it has been a lot of work, and we are very proud of it.The best part is that you will all be able to help us play and test 0.15 this coming Tuesday, so let us know what you think on our forums or I personally am also active on reddit.

[ 2017-04-21 15:48:43 CET ] [ Original post ]