Hello, We released 0.18.2 and 0.18.3 this week. In terms of major releases, this one has very few bugs, so we haven't had a lot of pressure to crank out the releases at lightning speed.

0.18.0 release Klonan Early this week we pushed the deploy button on 0.18.0 (patch notes). This was quite a surprise to many of our players, as more typically the time between major releases and the scope of the release is greater. However this isn't like the old days, we are trying to keep the size of releases as small as possible (FFF-314). What this means, is that what is currently in 0.18 is only really a small part of the work needed to be done on 0.18, and releases in the coming months will continue finishing off our 0.18 task list. Once everything on the 0.18 list is completed and the time is right, we will turn 0.18 into 1.0. What we have accomplished with 0.18.0: GUI Main menu redesign GFX Water animation Tree animation Color correction (LUTs) New explosions and damage effects Other Optimizations New Particle system First work on new sound design Steam login What we have left to do in 0.18: GUI Character GUI Blueprint library Statistics GUIs (production, electric network stats, etc.) Entity GUIs (Inserter, Assembling machine, chests, etc.) Main screen GUIs (Chat, minimap, etc.) Many more... GFX Offshore pump redesign Assembling machine redesign Beacon redesign High-res icons Final tweaks and polish Other Further sound design improvements Mini-tutorials Replace NPE with old tutorial Final game balancing and tweaks Finalised locale and proofreading With this in mind, it wouldn't make sense to mark 0.18 stable before most of the above is finished. We made 0.18 a major version because it will break mods with all the changes we are making, and while initially it hasn't broken that much, many things to come will have a bigger impact, such as the Character GUI.

The main menu rework Twinsen Up until I looked at the source code, I was always confused about the differences between "Start campaign", "New game" and "Scenarios". New game seems like the same thing as "Scenarios"->"Freeplay", but are there any differences? We then later added a few more bonus scenarios, but they are hidden in the scenarios menu, with no explanation about what each is, what to expect or if it works in multiplayer. I believe it's very important to communicate to new players information about the game's content. It's also important to show that freeplay is the intended way to play. So all this prompted me to rework the main menu a bit. I started with the structure. The structure always seemed odd to me, compared to what I'm used to from other games. Important options like "Load game" are lost among options that are never used (like "Replay game"). So I came up with a new structure. It looks like this: Continue Single player New game Load game Multiplayer Host new game Host saved game Browse public games Browse LAN games Connect to address Map Editor New scenario Convert save Settings ... Mods About The first new thing to notice is the "Continue" button. Since "start the game and continue my last save" is probably the most common thing players will do, it makes sense that there is an option for this right at the top of the main menu. The button will contain the name of your latest save. Pressing it will immediately load the game and get you in game. Due to implementation complications, for now it only handles save games and it will NOT connect you to the last server you played on if your last play session was multiplayer, but I might implement that if it's highly requested. Next, everything was grouped into either Single player or Multiplayer. There are much fewer options, since "Replay game" was moved as a small button in "Load Game", and every way to start playing the game was moved to the new "New Game" GUI. The "New game" GUI shows all the ways to play the game. It also groups them nicely, places freeplay on top, shows a description and even a nice image. This GUI is used for new game, multiplayer hosting and map editor, thus simplifying the menu quite a bit. For modders, scenarios can now contain a description.json file. In the file "order" determines the sorting in the New Game GUI; "multiplayer-compatible" determines whether the scenario is shown when trying to host multiplayer games. "multiplayer-compatible" was added to description.json file of campaigns also.

Merch store open again Klonan Our e-shop is now open again after taking a break over the holidays and new year. We have also restocked our new Factorio sew-on patches, so if you didn't manage to pick one up over the last weeks, now is your chance to order one.

Hello, The office here in Prague is still 'closed' until next week, so not much is happening (so our team can rightfully rest). Things will get cracking again on Monday, and our first task is to get 0.18 done! For that reason, the FFF today is a little on the short side.

2020 Vision Albert, Klonan 2020 is going to be quite an exciting year for us. We have our 1.0 date set to the 25th of September, and there is a lot of preparation to do. It is no doubt to any of us that we would not be able to have any success without the great community that has developed for the game over the last years, and the support of all our players and fans. As is almost tradition, Albert has prepared a commemorative postcard/wallpaper to celebrate the last FFF of the year. Click to view full resolution Here's to a great year to come!

More particle optimisations Allaizn Rseding's recent optimisations of the particle system (FFF-322) made particles much more lightweight than they were before, but it still left particles as rather complex beasts. A quick summary of the possible actions a particle can make during it's update: Move their own position. Advance their animation to another frame. Land in water and apply a trigger. Apply another trigger with a certain frequency. Remove themselves from the game world once their life time ends. What makes this complex is that triggers are general purpose systems that can do all kinds of things, including creating and destroying entities, fire, smoke and other particles as well as playing sounds or recursively applying even more triggers. In other words: applying a trigger is an "anything can happen" situation and thus totally unpredictable, which in turn makes optimisations extremely hard.

Hello, The year is wrapping up, and we have been hard at work finishing off some topics before we take our Christmas break. As you can imagine, releasing any new version of the game without a few weeks to do bugfixing wouldn't be wise, so you can rest easy this holiday period without the worry of a surprise 0.18 release.

Factorio logo patches Jitka We would like to introduce our new fabric Factorio logo patches, which are now available at our e-shop. These sew-on embroidered patches are ideal for clothing, hats, backpacks, etc. The dimensions are 2.5 x 12 cm. As we are uncertain how large the demand for these patches is going to be, we have only limited stock available at the moment. Please note that our online store ships only once a week every Wednesday, and it is highly possible that the orders placed now will not be delivered before the 25th or December, this applies especially for orders shipped outside of Europe.

Water animation - Concept Albert Since the very beginning of the project, we have focused a lot in the side of the factory, providing better designs for the machines, and expressive animations that give a sense of life and credibility in this area. We put a lot of effort also in the environmental side, adding different tile sizes, improving textures, adding doodads, cliffs, trees, decals, and constantly improving the map generation for a better feeling. But apart from biters and the factory, nothing else moves in this Factorio planet. So the environment is nice looking but it feels somehow unreal due this lack of motion. Today we proudly present the first experiment in this area: Animated water. This animation doesn't try to grab your attention, it's just there. Slowly moving. I personally bet that this animation, with the proper sound design, will provide the natural feeling that the planet needs.