Hello, I'm alone here today, Tomas is on yoga camp. We will switch during the weekend, as he will get back, and I will start my paraglide course. I hope you wish me no injury so I can continue to develop Factorio without interruptions.
Ladies (hopefully some) and Gentlemen, the 0.11.0 with first version of the Multiplayer has been released. The multiplayer experience is expected to be really buggy (as we learned today during a test with 4 players), but it is a first step. Oddly enough, our efforts haven't escaped the attention of a local newspaper which made an article about us - see the picture below.
Hello everyone, even though it is not Friday anymore here we come with yet another regular update. We didn't want to make a blogpost on Friday the 13th because for sure something would go wrong. And also I am on a skiing trip in Austria and I was too tired yesterday to do anything, after all the day going downhills. So the 0.8.0 has been succesfully released last Friday. We finished at the same time when first guests for the party started coming. We just crossed our fingers, pressed the release button (maybe we should have a real, big, red "release" button) and went off to drink beer and talk to people. The cake (see the picture in the last post) was delicious:) Back to the release - there were small issues, but nothing really major ("Pump cannot be built" kind of thing). We have already fixed most of the reported issues for the 0.8.1, which will happen in the beginning of the next week. We haven't worked on anything major aside from the issues. We took the time to relax after the intensive release sprint (says the guy who has been skiing all day long:). Kovarex was playing some games (including classics like Dune 2000) looking for inspiration. There was also a long conversation about how the new industry with oil and chemicals should work. Interesting things ahead. Originally we wanted to start the Steam Greenlight campaign before the Christmas. Now it is clear that this will not happen. The reason is that the music for the new trailer is not yet ready. The cooperation with the guy we hired for the music hasn't brought the expected result. So we are back where we started. Recently, we found a composer in Prague, who looks like a very good fit for the job, but he will not have time until after Christmas. At least Albert will have more time to work on doodads for the game (and the trailer) - things like trees, rocks, etc. Albert also took the opportunity to work on something completely different for a while and he came up with a proposal for the new Factorio logo. The old (current) logo has been done by me and then face-lifted by another artist. But still it looks painfully amateurish. The new logo doesn't have that problem:) Together with the logo Albert worked on the new forum style, this will be deployed sometimes next week. So here is the thing. We actually have two proposals for the logo. And we would appreciate some help and opinions for deciding which one to use. You can see the proposals below. They are shown on the potential loading screen of the game. We do have our preference but will not say which one that is to avoid influencing the outcome. They both work as links for larger versions. There are polls for you to vote and comment in the post on our forums, so go there and let us know what you think.
Hi there, after a hectical sprint, the 0.8.0 release is done. We have continuously reported on the progress, so the content of the release won't be a big surprise. Still, you can checkout the release notes on our forums. And if you are brave enough you can even try it out. The thing is that considering the circumstances the release will be "very" experimental. We have fixed all the major errors and crashes we came acrros. But still there were plenty of changes under the hood in non-trivial areas (namely the logistic system) so there are a lot of potential places for error. Just a reminder, you need to set "Enable experimental updates" in the "Other settings" for the builtin updater to update your version to 0.8.0. After a major release we usually take a day or two off. This time it will be no exception. Moreover it was Kovarex's birthday yesterday, so today in the evening we will have a party in our place. After the headaches are gone, the place is clean again and we recharge our batteries, we will be after the (supposedly found) bugs in 0.8 and planning the 0.9. It is kind of a never ending story:). The last bigger feature we worked on for the 0.8 was the Roboport. That is the "home" for the logistic and construction robots, where they can charge, station and which navigates them on the map. This neatly solves some issues there were with the logistic system before: Balancing - Roboport requires quite some energy to charge the robots. So the Logistic Robots will be less overpowered than they have been. Stationing - In the past robots without orders kept hanging at the place where they stopped. This was annoying and even caused robots to become a target for enemies after they delivered stuff to the player's inventory. Now every robot that has nothing to do goes to the roboport to station there. Area Separation - Before, all the logistic robots could fly all over the map. From the base to the expansion if necessary. Following the player fighting the enemy bases, etc. This was also less than desirable. Now the connections between the roboports define separate logistic networks which can't be mixed. This way, small independent systems can be setup in the expansions and one large network in the main base for instance. And on top of all that the roboports look really cool:D Albert happily took the break from the terrain and made a great machine in a short amount of time. You can checkout the "making of" animation below. Some of the instructional pictures in the demo were getting really outdated. So we replaced them with setups with the current graphics. Below is a side-by-side comparison for the instruction on how to use inserters from some months ago and from now. The last picture is the courtesy to Kovarex's grandmother, who made this wonderful cake for his birthday. The tradition is the commenting thread on our forum.
Hello everyone, we have been lucky that the New Years day happens to be on Friday this year. I am happy to wish you all the best for the 2016 both in the real world as well as in your factory worlds. Let the machines work smoothly, the pollution spread slowly and the biters be merciful.
Hello, I'm turning 30 today. Few years ago, I was thinking, that I should achieve something great before I get 30. Now I work on Factorio, and I feel like this is the best position for me that could exist. I enjoy it very much and I feel that it also is the best learning experience I could hope for. I managed to not disappoint the younger me, and it makes me happy ... or maybe just less frustrated from the infinite queue of bugs waiting to be solved :)
The modern biter (Albert, Ernestas) Besides vegetable and plant stuff, biters are the main population on the surface of the Factorio planet. They are the locals, and somehow, from a twisted perspective, they can even be considered the bad guys. Not anymore. The magic of high resolution gives us the chance to move deeper into their conceptualisation and we've added a new ingredient to their formulation: cute...-ish. For the last couple of weeks Ernestas and I have been working on the new version of the biters. Together we worked on developing the concept and ideas behind them, and Ernestas was doing the rest: modeling, texturing, shading, rigging, skinning, animating, rendering, post-processing, and being patient with me and my constant comments and changes. Cute is how we like them, we want you to feel sorry about planning massive biter massacres. In fact we want you to feel pity towards them, especially when you are killing them and destroying their habitat at industrial scale. But also we want you to be disgusted by them, because they are alien to you, and they need to look the part, so it is quite a complicated equation. Basically after the experience in-game with the classic version, we've learned what aspects of the biters are working well, and how to improve the parts which aren't. So we've decided to elongate their legs and accent their eyes in order to provide this more insectoid feeling. Also their new design is optimized for their attacks, they have 2 stronger front legs for providing destruction, 4 back legs to be able to run and stand during the attack, and stronger articulated mandibles to chew on your factories. In these animations we can fully see the potential of disgust, the way they move now is more insect-like, similar to a cockroach (many people are disgusted by cockroaches), and also we've balanced the animation loop with their speed in the game, so they shouldn't slide around. Keep in mind that this is still a work-in-progress and we have some more tweaks to do and extra animations to make, like their attack and death. We are also working on their sound design, and apart from that we might have some other surprises to make killing them extra gratifying to watch.
Good afternoon, today is the national holiday to commemorate the end of the WWII. Yet, surprisingly quite a few of us have met in the office. But the atmoshpere is very relaxed and we will call it a day early. The week has been spent mostly on smaller tasks (quite a few of those were non-game-development related).
Good afternoon, the week in the office has been relatively quiet. The whole non-dev department is away, kovarex is flying his paraglide somewhere over Macedonia so in the end there is like 6 of us meeting here to make the game crash less often=)
Hello, there has been an illness running around the office this week, so productivity has been down. Regardless, it is still friday, so here are the Factorio Facts.
