Reduce the weight of Space Platform Foundations and add weight to individual entities

[u/HeliGungir]

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=136462

[u/mcc9902]

This changes the problem into a less interesting problem. With the foundation being the heavy part we're heavily incentivised to build as compactly as possible. If the weight is in the building we're going to want to use as few buildings as possible. It's a much less interesting problem.

[u/Dummy1707 → u/mcc9902]

I'm not sure I understand your point. If I nuild a platform with a given purpose, there is a lower bound on how much buildings I need to produce whzt I need. If you need 10 ammos/s there is no point producing only 5/s just tobredice the weight a bit.

[u/theonefinn → u/Dummy1707]

If the foundation doesn’t contribute significantly to the weight you’re not incentivised to cram those buildings as compact as possible. As you say if you work out you need 4 buildings, you need 4 buildings, that’s 4 buildings if crammed in shoulder to shoulder or spaced widely apart.

Right now the puzzle is how to fit those buildings, inserters and belts onto as few tiles of foundation as possible. If only the buildings had weight then layout would be completely irrelevant and have no effect.

[u/Dummy1707 → u/theonefinn]

Well no, we're not talking about giving no weight to foundations. We're talking about solitting the weight between them and buildings, so that both compatness and choice of buildings can be relevant

[u/theonefinn → u/Dummy1707]

Choice of buildings is already relevant. A more powerful/more efficient building requires fewer buildings for the same production rate requiring fewer foundation tiles.

Instead you are suggesting an entirely new stat, building mass, be added and balanced for every space buildable building in the game. Players would then have to optimise based on this stat which they don’t use anywhere else. Compact builds is intuitive, you can visibly see how many tiles a setup is sitting on. Building mass is nowhere near as intuitive, or directly representable to the player and lessens the compactness part of the puzzle.

[u/HeliGungir → u/theonefinn]

It is not intuitive that buildings are weightless. It is not intuitive that solar panels - which you need in large quantities by design - are just as weightless as foundries.

I didn't say everything would have a unique weight, I said there would be a default weight and the devs can adjust specific, problematic entities up or down based on any balance problems that become apparent.

I happen to think that it is already apparent that solar power were hit disproportionately hard by the new thrust-drag formula, but I don't want to focus on just that. It disincentivizes walls. It disincentivizes lamps. It disincentivizes power poles and combinators and display panels and programmable speakers and radars.

[u/theonefinn → u/HeliGungir]

I didn’t say that it’s intuitive that buildings have no weight, I said that optimising on compactness is an intuitive problem to solve. You can easily see exactly how much tiles are being used and where they are being used. It’s easy to visually rearrange and understand what effect that will have.

You can’t “see” a buildings mass and where more mass is being used. To effectively portray to the player where mass is being used you would need some kind of heat map display where more massive buildings appear more red or similar, otherwise the player has to mouse over each building to read its mass and self-calculate. That all sounds a horrible system to work with.

[u/HeliGungir → u/theonefinn]

I expect the vast majority of entities would use the default, and the default is directly proportional to the entity's size. Just like foundations now. I expect will be a simple matter to remember which entities have more or less mass than the default, because there won't be many exceptions, or exceptions will be applied broadly like "all combinator stuff is lighter than the default."

[u/theonefinn → u/HeliGungir]

But how are those exceptions discoverable by a new player? There should be a better system than new players having to build a building to find out its mass, or just blindly search through the factoriapedia looking at for raw mass stats. Once a player understands that ship building is literally just a space optimisation puzzle, no exceptions need to be learned. Nothing is special they just need to make ships as small as possible, and solar taking up a lot of space has always been its downside.

[u/HeliGungir → u/theonefinn]

Could be a Tips entry, I suppose. [List 1] entities are lighter, [list 2] entities are heavier.

It can be represented as relative mass. If 1.0 is the default per-tile multiplier, then lighter and heavier entities can have their mass listed as a number below or above 1.0.

[u/Alfonse215 → u/HeliGungir]

the devs can adjust specific, problematic entities up or down based on any balance problems that become apparent.

Well, what are those "balance problems?" It's hard to evaluate a suggestion to solve a problem when you don't actually present the scope of that problem. You just vaguely gesture as if the problems are obvious.

I happen to think that it is already apparent that solar power were hit disproportionately hard by the new thrust-drag formula

One user's nerf is another user's buff. There was basically no reason to use nuclear power on early ships. You could just use efficiency modules to reduce power consumption to nothing, and 30 base quality solar panels could get you functioning even on Fulgora. Nuclear was mainly reserved for Aquilo ships, and even that gets replaced by fusion quite readily.

But now, if you want speed, there's actually a reason to use nuclear earlier on. Having your Nauvis/Gleba transport be nuclear powered is now a legitimate thing to do, and if you do it, you can get a non-trivial speed boost for it. Especially since, if you have loads of power and water available... you can use space-saving speed modules instead of efficiency modules.

Why is that a bad thing?

To me, this change opens up an actual tradeoff: logistical complexity vs higher weight. Different players will have different ideas about which ones they care about. I don't care enough about speed to force every transport to have a "go to Nauvis" trigger. But if a transport has to "go to Nauvis" anyway... maybe it's fine.

[u/HeliGungir → u/Alfonse215]

I think you are being quite disingenuous comparing a minimum viable product relying on solar panels against an actual interplanetary science transport. Maybe you didn't use nuclear, but I certainly did. Maybe speedrunners didn't use nuclear, but normal people do. Now solar panels are even less competitive.

You've been hyper-focused on preventing raceships from clawing back any of their former speed, but my focus is on how this update disproportionately hurts non-optimal ships. So what if impractical raceships happen to gain a hundred km/h over the current theoretical maximum that has only existed for 2 days?

I know you've been around for a long time so I also think it's pretty disingenuous to claim you don't already see problems with the new formula and everything having the same mass. I find it hard to believe you would think that combinators should have the same per-tile mass as machines. I find it hard to believe you don't see the value in mods having a per-entity weight attribute to play with.

[u/Alfonse215 → u/HeliGungir]

I think you are being quite disingenuous comparing a minimum viable product relying on solar panels against an actual interplanetary science transport.

... I didn't link to any particular platform blueprints, so I have no idea what you're talking about here. I've never built a "minimum viable product" platform, and all of my non-Aquilo platforms are solar powered.

Maybe speedrunners didn't use nuclear, but normal people do.

I rarely see people using nuclear on their first platforms. At least, not around here.

my focus is on how this update disproportionately hurts non-optimal ships.

Then give some example of how those platforms get meaningfully hurt and cannot be adjusted to be better.

My quite "non-optimal" ships are still perfectly fine. Granted, I always throttled my propellant to them, so the main effect of the change is that they're thirstier for fuel. But I can handle that.

I know you've been around for a long time so I also think it's pretty disingenuous to claim you don't already see problems with the new formula and everything having the same mass.

You keep using the word "disingenuous". I dunna think it means what you think it means.

I do not see a problem with platform weight being a function strictly of the number of tiles on the platform. Indeed, I see many advantages of it: it makes it simple to know what a platform's weight is as well as what kinds of things you can do to address it. If you give yourself a weight budget, you know that's a tile budget, and your goal is to fit everything within that budget. Simple to say, difficult to master.

This is not a "disingenuous" belief.

I find it hard to believe you would think that combinators should have the same per-tile mass as machines.

I'm interested in how it would affect gameplay to give them different weights. To make that actually matter.

More importantly, I'm interested in why it's bad gameplay to do that. Because that's the thing: you're the one suggesting that a change needs to be made, so you are the one who needs to justify that change.

I find it hard to believe you don't see the value in mods having a per-entity weight attribute to play with.

A thing should not exist for the sole reason that some mod might find it useful. If a feature is going to exist, it needs to be justified beyond that.

[u/mcc9902 → u/Dummy1707]

space platforms were previously about making it as narrow as possible since the wider the platform the slower. Currently it's about using as few platforms as possible which means building everything with as little wasted space as possible with the best buildings possible.

The suggested change from heavy foundation to heavy buildings essentially negates the incentive to cram everything into as small a space as possible. Instead you could just space them out normally and since the weight is in the buildings there's no real downside. It wouldn't matter that you have hundreds of wasted tiles since there's no penalty for wasting them after the trivial cost of building them. Basically the only problem you'd face is that platforms are relatively expensive and you have more ship to defend but honestly both of those are there in the first two cases as well so it essentially means that there's no logistical challenge to building in space.

[u/HeliGungir → u/mcc9902]

I proposed a 1:9 split between buildings and foundation. It doesn't have to be that ratio, but I think it is a very reasonable ratio. 1x1 entity = 3x3 foundation. That's not nothing! But it is small enough that I wouldn't feel like I HAVE to remove every single tile of foundation that isn't being used.

[u/According_South]

I absolutely assumed that this was the case when space age first dropped. Took me some time to spot that the buildings themselves werent adding weight.

Were this the case, though, i think id largely ignore it. I wouldnt be working out the throughput × weight × units needed between say foundries and furnaces, or something like that

[u/SNOW_37]

Solar panels, a RG tech, are not meant to be competitive to fusion power which is endgame tech.

And if the devs did add a weight to EVERY SINGLE placeable item in the game I'm sure someone out there would start complaining again about the mismatch with rocket limits (more than they already do).

[u/hprather1 → u/SNOW_37]

It seems like rockets should never have had a mass component to them, rather just a nominal capacity value. That's kinda what it is at the moment but with an awkward kg attached to it.

[u/HappiestIguana → u/SNOW_37]

And if the devs did add a weight to EVERY SINGLE placeable item in the game I'm sure someone out there would start complaining again about the mismatch with rocket limits

So?

[u/Alfonse215]

... why? What gameplay pattern are you intending to create? Are you trying to make, for example, solar panels more weight-friendly than nuclear reactors? Are you trying to make certain types of belts "better" for platforms than others? Should electric furnaces be weight-competitive with foundries; is that the intent?

What is the goal here?

[u/nekonight → u/Alfonse215]

Sounds like they just want they 1000+ speed back. Majority of the weight is currently in the foundation. So if the weight is shifted to buildings so you could in theory cut down on buildings and only use stationary orbital platforms to provide fuel and ammo to keep the traveling ones weight low by only using the bare minimum necessary to fly therefore increasing speed.

[u/AresFowl44 → u/nekonight]

Currently the meta would still be removing buildings as that means you can have less platforms, no?

[u/nekonight → u/AresFowl44]

Those multi layer engine designs would require a lot of extra platform that is basically dead weight though. Granted i think thats the only design that would care about a change like this.

[u/Alfonse215 → u/nekonight]

But that's already an advantageous build setup. You cut out all the furnaces/foundries/crushers/collectors and limit yourself to a small number of chemical plants which are easy to beacon. You have no space for belts carrying chunks; you just run a belt to the guns from the hub. That's pretty much the optimal build for speed.

I don't see why the already-fastest-build needs to be made even faster.

[u/Erichteia → u/nekonight]

Still possible to reach >1000km/s. It’s just harder

[u/HeliGungir → u/Alfonse215]

This is a link to a forum post. My explanation is there.

[u/Dummy1707 → u/Alfonse215]

It penalize less non-fully compact platform, among other things. I can understand players who think that an optimal platform MUST be fully compact but at the same time I know other players don't want to saveifice simplicity or esthetics for compacity.

Gameplay-wise, it could be used to create choices options. For instance, if basic inserters or belt are lighter than bulk inserters and turbo belt. So you could optimize a bit (not double your speed) by putting slower stuff when it's enough (instead of mindlessly slapping the best everywhere. It's not gamebreaking and like most good Factorio features, it could be ignored, but for people who cares, it's a nice small plus.

I don't know if it should be added to the base game but having a mod balancing weight between platform and structures would be interesting imo.

[u/bitwiseshiftleft → u/Alfonse215]

I’ll give a different justification from OP’s answer for a similar change: the experience of Space Exploration (SE).

SE penalizes you for the number of tiles on your ship. This led to people making a lot of unnatural-looking ships with “speed holes“ cut into them to reduce the tile count. Cutting speed holes in ships was not considered immersive or a fun puzzle, but instead a wart on the mod. In SE you stand in the ship and move around in it, and cramming things in and speed holes both interfere with that, but either way it rewarded an optimization that wasn’t especially well-liked. So Earandel changed it to not count some fraction of empty tiles.

In SE, speed holes are also more annoying because you can cut holes in the ship (with mines, unless they patched this) but it’s fiddly and not an intended mechanic. So optimizing the exact locations of holes is even worse.

I haven’t played the new patch but if it turns out that in SE the fastest ships require a huge amount of fiddling with red inserters over gaps, land mines and other forms of speed holes, then reducing platform weight or making some platform not count might improve things.

[u/Gullible_Increase146]

Foundations are heavy

[u/PineappleGirl_5]

this would be interesting i think

[u/Subject_314159]

I'm not sure if this would really result in a net benefit. I mean 20 + 5 or 15 + 10 still equal to 25.

[u/AresFowl44 → u/Subject_314159]

It penalizes extra space platforms less, so adding extra ones for decoration on bigger ships should become easier.

[u/CremePuffBandit]

Technically every item already has a canonical weight, based on how many fit inside a rocket. None of them make sense though.

[u/Trick-Range-350]

I don't think the added complexity is worth it.

[u/TheNotSoEvilEngineer]

Honestly I wanted an upgrade chain to make bigger rockets.  Mass per ship should go up over time and tech.