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The only reason you would have for layering sprites is to create depth, therefore you've created a 3rd dimension, therefore you've created a 3-dimensional game. If depth was irrelevant, you'd be able to settle for a single layer and laying it all out on a plane.
Eh, it is largely about semantics here, or getting really specific with how we define our terms. If you have a game that is using assets that are all 2 dimensional, most people will consider it a 2d game. I'm fine with defining a game as 2d or 3d based upon what assets it uses, not which axis (is axes the plural?) are actually used in the game.
For technical reasons, sure you are right. But for ease of communicating with general people, I'll stick with the way they make use of the words. :P
If you think 3d doesn't have hitbox issues, you are wrong about that. Yes, a lot of them are doing it very well, but you look closely you'll be able to find the exact same issues you mention about 2d hitboxes happening to 3d hitboxes.
They cannot (or at least they don't) calculate collisions off of the meshes you see in a 3d game. They use a second, much simpler mesh or meshes to detect collisions which never matches up with the "real" model. For performance reasons. And I brought these up because I think it is another illusion that is comparable to the "tricks" you mentioned come with 2d.
I think that falls under some kind of logical fallacy. Just because "most" games are 3d, does not mean that there are not good reasons for going with a 2 dimensional engine. And I guess what I'm trying to work out is, what improvements do you think moving to 3d is going to bring. Beyond "immersion" and a "better" artstyle. How is it going to add more depth to the design puzzles that Factorio already presents in 2d?
I'm not in this to win anything. I'm in it to hear some cool ideas for what a 3d Factorio could be. But I'm a little confused by some of your assumptions and just trying to get a better idea of where you are coming from.
Anyways, this paragraph doesn't defeat my argument. I think you missed the point. The Factorio crew is already working with 3d models. However, they've decided to convert that into 2d to run on a 2d engine. Doesn't that indicate that they are capable of working with 3d? Yet they have decided for some reason or another, to still do it in 2 dimensions anyway.
What reason do you think they have for doing it this way? Why take the more convoluted method of building your art in 3d only to render the 3d into 2-dimensional sprites, instead of just drawing it in 2 dimensions in the first place?
Okay, you don't quite understand what a hitbox is. With 3d games, it is generally too expensive to try to calculate collisions with the "real" mesh that the player sees. So they use much simpler, invisible meshes, called hitboxes, to calculate collisions.
A hitbox is what determines whether your shot hit the dude you were aiming at, whether you fall through the floor, or whether you walk into a wall. They aren't something that are just "figured out once", they are used in calculations everytime different game objects collide to determine what should happen. And the more complicated these hitboxes get, the harder the calculations are to perform.
That is why you'll see clipping issues, it is just too expensive sometimes to properly model the whole hitbox rather than allowing some minor visual glitches to happen. Or if you look real closely at a shooting game, you'll probably find parts of character's bodies that can be shot with no effect because the invisible hitbox doesn't cover it. Or even pieces of the enviroment that bullets or other stuff will clip through.
We are talking about 2 completely different things in terms of size.
You are talking about realistic scales between objects. I'm all for adding realism, but only when it makes the game mechanics more interesting and deeper. You'll have to describe to me how making the scale between objects is going to make the game mechanics more interesting or deeper, because I don't see it having that effect. To me, that would just make it look "better" or more real, not actually make the game any deeper or more fun. I have no problem with the "messed up" scale of objects in Factorio.
The size that I was talking about was in relation to how big you build your factory. I want to be able to have as much buildings and stuff going on as possible. The more you can build and have simulated, the better. Imagine thousands of assemblers and inserters building stuff, thousands of mines w/smelters, hundreds of thousands of belts and bots transporting stuff, and millions of resources being moved about. And they are all working with "real" objects that are being simulated, unlike resource collection in a typical RTS game. If you could double or triple the amounts of objects above and still run the game, that would be incredible.
And I have a suspicion that a transition to 3d would mean that the overall factory size (as in the count of how many machines you have and how complex your factory is) would have to shrink because 3d isn't going to be able to simulate as much of that as you can in 2d before the 3d version starts to run into performance issues. That might even come with Minecraft style graphics, and if that was the trade, I much prefer Factorio's artstyle to Minecraft.
Games, like other art, have restrictions for stylistic and technical reasons. There is 3D art, like sculptures. There is 2D art, like paintings. One isn't better than the other; they're just different. It is possible to like (or dislike) both.
To be (slightly) on topic for this game (or any game), going from pure 2D to 3D is a non-trivial matter. Considering how long Factorio has been (and still is) in development, I see little need to speculate on a version that I expect would require almost a total rewrite and more powerful computers than are available today.
But that's much more about exploration (digging tunnels to find ore) than building a factory. It does have conveyor belts and smelters and assemblers to create what are basically science packs to feed a laboratory, but that side of it is all much simpler than Factorio.
The building side doesn't really benefit from 3D. If you've played Space Engineers or Empyrion (both of which are basically about building bases and spaceships from blocks), you'll understand that a first-person perspective view is not the best choice for CAD, to put it mildly.