Preparing for Factorio 2.0

The release date for the Factorio: Space Age expansion has been set for a long time, but there was always a chance for it to be pushed back depending on the beta access feedback. Well we’re in beta testing now, and the feedback from the big playtesting LAN was good, so the release date is locked in. 

I didn’t start getting my mods ready for Factorio 2.0 before this point. From a time efficiency point of view that’s a good thing; a lot has changed so a lot of time would have been wasted. From a time availability point of view it makes things difficult…

You can plan contingencies in a project to account for coworkers needing unexpected leave, but if the worst happens exceeding all your expectations then sometimes you just need to change your plans, or change your hours.

For reasons I can’t go into, Wube needs more of my time. There’s not much time left for anything else and I have other real life things to do too. That doesn’t leave a lot of hours in the week for updating mods for Factorio 2.0, but I’m doing what I can.

Usually my contributors help with bugfixing, small improvements, or compatibility work while I work on new features for the next big version of Space Exploration. It wasn’t really possible for them to help with updating mods to 2.0. The main reason is that if they see some parts of the updated mod code, then that reveals secret engine features, and that would count as an NDA breach. In other words they’d need Factorio source access or Space Age beta access to be able to even look at the new code, let alone help make it.

It’s been my pleasure to give something back to the contributors. For some of them I managed to get them an invite to the playtesting LAN event. Now that LAN is over, I’ve been able to get a few more contributors beta access. They’ve been playing around with the expansion, and when they’re done playing they have volunteered to share some of the updating workload.

The progress on the simple mods like bullet trails has been quick, but the time to update seems to be exponential based on mod complexity. Space Exploration is probably the most complicated mod on the portal in terms of number of novel mechanics and new system interactions, so the expectation is that it will take a lot of work just from the mod’s size and complexity.  It’s more complicated than that though, because Factorio 2.0 has some things that directly conflict with what SE is trying to do, and many of these details are changing on a weekly basis so it’s hard to plan for.

For now the plan is to get all of the casual addon mods updated first. Things that you might want if you’re starting a new game in 2.0 or Space Age.

Space Exploration will be updated last. At the current pace it looks like it might be ready for 2.0, but then there’s this thing called integration hell… Anyway, if SE for 2.0 needs to be delayed by a week or two then it’s not the end of the world. Maybe you can finish Space Age in that time ;)

But that reminds me, when the mods have a 2.0 version they will all get a version bump. This means that when SE 0.6 supports Factorio 2.0, it will be called Space Exploration 0.7, but don’t get too excited: It’s not the big 0.7 that I’ve been working on. All the “big new version content” will need to be called SE0.8 from now on.

The initial updates for 2.0 won’t make use of all the new features right away. Generally they will work the same way as before but using the new engine. If the new engine has a better way of doing it but switching would take longer or create uncertainty, then it will just use the old way (if possible). Over time the mods will gradually make use of new features, like trying to make use of the improved 2.0 map view and phase out my custom remote view. I know a lot of you are excited for what Space Exploration can do with 2.0 features and Space Age features and we’ll get there in time. Sometimes that means more significant changes to game mechanics and code, so it makes more sense to do that as part of 0.8. 

I am still putting in a decent number of mod hours, but naturally some of that is having to shift to management, code review, testing. I can’t talk about what I’m doing at Wube that’s taking all my time, but you see some of it in the Factorio Friday Facts and for the rest; I can say that it still helps my mods indirectly… by making things better for all Factorio players.