Menu simulation V453000 In the last FFF, we presented that we now have the capability to show real game simulations in the Tips and tricks. Naturally we asked ourselves what else could we use this new technology for... We've dreamed about this multiple times in the past, but the technical roadblocks didn't make us think too seriously. We'd like the main menu background to be a real animated simulation of the game, similar to what Transport Tycoon or Rollercoaster Tycoon games have. Instead of things like cinematic trailers, we always present the game in its true form, and the menu background does not follow this logic. Also, any time we improve any graphics, a static image immediately gets older while a real game simulation is updated automatically. We've created a variety of scenes that each demonstrate some feature(s) of the game, from first miners all the way to the artillery and Spidertron. The screen is quite zoomed in and the factories are rather small, so it's more of a demonstration of the game's features rather than a showcase of "the best things anybody has ever built". The scenes are randomly rotated, where all of them have to play once before any repeat. The main menu should include both Factorio and Wube software logos. The Factorio logo has been used in many places from prints to trailers many times already. Its concept is that the logo is an entity like any other, and integrates itself into the world by being built there if at all possible. The Wube logo is different, both graphically and in concept, so we can't represent it as an entity. It makes a lot of sense that Wube is in a layer underneath the world of Factorio, so we're using it as a special water tile. From now on, the Factorio entity and Wube water tile are both buildable in the map editor without the use of mods. The "water-wube" only works well in specific positions, as it repeats in a 8x8 tile pattern, so fitting it in an existing factory can be tricky. To make it clear that behind the menu is not your factory, every scene has the logos in the exact same position, and the screen has a vignette-like shader on the edges.

Hello, we finished with the regular Friday Facts series, and yet, there is still so much we want to talk about. I want to clarify, that we are not going to release FFF every week, but there are a few of them coming in the near future.

Hello, the atmosphere in the last week was kind of special. We experienced the feeling of the final release being on the horizon many times. And we were shown that it isn't the case time and time again. So it feels very special when it is actually becoming reality. We were trying to be especially careful with any last minute changes to make sure that we don't introduce major bugs into our precious 1.0 release. The image of all the players having the game crash on some simple stupid bug is horrifying.

0.18 mods will be loadable in 1.0 Klonan With 1.0 approaching, we want to ensure that the day of the launch goes as smoothly as possible, and shows the game in the best light. Something that would really work against that would be if the update broke a bunch of mods and disgruntled all of our most dedicated players. So we are making efforts to ensure that mods that work in 0.18, will work without any update needed in 1.0. Theoretically this isn't so difficult, as the 0.18 release structure has meant that mods have maintained compatibility with all the latest changes, and in essence 1.0 will just be a small update of 0.18. However it does take a bit of special handling: 1.0 will allow mods marked for 0.18 to load. The mod portal will show 0.18 mods when browsing in 1.0. Avoiding breaking mods also means we need to be very careful with changing anything, even something as simple as renaming a sprite can break dozens of mods. I think we never realised how easy it is to break mods before we started this new release structure. Big apologies and big thanks to all the modders who stuck with us through these breakages. We hope that what this effort means, is that on the day of 1.0, players new and old alike can login to the mod portal and have a very large catalog of mods they can enjoy right away, and that the modders can relax and enjoy the game instead of worrying about updating all their work. However, we cannot say 100% that all mods will work, it is possible one of the features in 1.0 (like the new nuke or alien decoratives) will break some mods.

Launch party cancelled Jitka The COVID pandemic around the globe is making it really hard to plan any event these days, and we were pretty optimistic just a few weeks back. However the situation here is now changing for the worse it seems. The number of positively tested cases of COVID here in Czech has been increasing in relatively high numbers every day for the past two weeks, and the restrictions are again taking place. In Prague, face masks are required to be worn again where more than 100 people gather indoors, no events over 500 people are permitted as of last week, etc. The current uncertainty together with the fact that at least half of the invited guests will not be able to attend the party (including some members of our own team), have led us into making a tough decision: we have decided to cancel the Factorio 1.0 release party we were intending to throw on 4th September 2020. For those of you who already purchased a ticket(s) - the full ticket price will be refunded. We hope there will be another opportunity to meet you all in the foreseeable future, but for now, please accept our apologies for any inconveniences caused. This wasn't an easy decision for us to make, but we believe it is the right one.

Blueprint library finishing touches kovarex At the time of writing the Friday Facts last week, not all of the planned changes were finished, here is the finalisation, so here we go.

We've been updating, reworking and redesigning many graphics, and the majority of entities have had high resolution for a while now. With 1.0 we're trying to be as "complete" as feasible.

The launch party Klonan To celebrate the launch of the game later this summer (only 6 more FFFs to go!), we have decided to throw a party! It is going to be at the same venue as our 1 million sale party (FFF-192). It will take place on Friday the 4th of September, 2020, at Žluté Lázně here in Prague. We are inviting a lot of people to the party, such as other Czech game developers, Youtubers, and of course we will be there. As we want you (the fans) to be able to come, we have some tickets for sale. The reason to sell them, rather than give them away, is so that we don't have 'messers' saying they will come when they don't intend to. You can buy a ticket here. While the COVID-19 pandemic might be 'over' here in Czechia (Czechs hold 'farewell party' for pandemic), the reality is, the situation could change with great speed. It is likely many won't be able to come due to travel restrictions, or we may even need to cancel the event. Please keep this in mind while you are considering whether to come. We hope everything lines up in our favour, and we look forwarding to meeting you.

Locale plan update Klonan Earlier this week I received the English proofreadings from Altagram, and overall I integrated over 500 suggestions into the game. Most were small, such as replacing "can't" with "cannot", things like that. It was the exact sort of external scrutiny we really needed, as it showed some areas where we were quite inconsistent. It feels like things are in a better place now, even if the majority of changes are relatively unnoticeable. However it was very noticeable to our great community translators on Crowdin. When we update the English strings, the translations have to be updated on Crowdin. For the last few days I've been working through the issues raised on Crowdin, and there was a lot of good input on that last 1% of the changes. So this concludes the 'English proofreading' phase. Starting on Monday, Altagram will start proofreading the target languages, and filling in any missing strings where needed. This should take about 3 weeks. Since Altagram has their own translation system for their team, it isn't really feasible to include Crowdin in this part of the work, they will just take the content from Crowdin at the start of the process, and after 3 weeks, push what they have back to Crowdin. So any translation work by volunteers on Crowdin for these 3 weeks would be wasted. So we ask that, if you want to volunteer your time, save it for a little while. Any work done on Crowdin this weekend will be included. We deliberately made this buffer between the English corrections and the Target proofreading so that the players on Crowdin have an opportunity to contribute before Altagram starts. After Altagram has pushed their corrections back to Crowdin, we will start the 'Community review' part of the process. This is when the work that Altagram's team has done is reviewed by players and feedback is given to Altagram via Crowdin issues. This helps us make sure the terms of the translations are consistent with the established community usage, and ensure there are no contextual issues or misunderstandings.