Please Do Not Break Old Saves and Blueprints

[Maltheus]

If you're going to break all of the old save and blueprints with this new rail update, then just release the expansion as a "Factorio 2" and leave the original game alone!!! I know of several other games that have done something like this, in the past year. Breaking the old game to introducing some minor new mechanic, that nobody was asking for, in the first place. And it was a disaster for them all. See Ark: Survival Evolved and Minecraft, for good examples. Once you're out of early access, you should never be making game-breaking changes.

If they are going through with this, not only will I not be buying the new expansion, I'll be locking down my install to prevent it from ever updating again, and leaving the appropriate review for a game that tosses out hundreds of hours of work (multiplied by every player) on the whim on a single developer.

[Cryten]

I understand your pain but it is inevitable that any elements that are back ported to the main game will cause old saves to have issues. You will have to get over that. A game should not be held hostage by previous saves against progress. At least your are being given a lot of warning with the expansion and update still being over half a year out (unless the improvements launch earlier, but you will see beta's first).

[brian_va]

2.0 wont break anything, according to the latest blog. they said it will at some point, maybe 2.1. you'll probably talking 2-3 real life years.

i'll meet you half way, making a 1.x backup before the 2.0 update comes out is an excellent idea. i'm looking forward to the expected engine updates as well as the rail changes, but a plan b is always a good idea.

[PunCrathod]

Factorio devs have been really good about this. They provide almost all the older versions of the game just for this reason. The selection on steam is limited because of valve but if you link your steam account to an account on their website you can enjoy allmost all the versions ever published DRM free without paying any additional fees.

Also improvements for the rail system has been requested several times on the official forums with lots of support from lots of people.

Also in an ideal world after release game-breaking changes should never happen but lets be honest. In the real world they are kind of unavoidable if you want to continue making your game better.

[Maltheus]

Originally posted by brian_va:

2.0 wont break anything, according to the latest blog. they said it will at some point, maybe 2.1. you'll probably talking 2-3 real life years.

It won't break saves (for a short while, much shorter than 2-3 years to get to 2.1), but it will immediately break blueprints, which are far more important to me. In fact, my blueprint collection is the most important thing to me in this game, and I'm not going to spend hundreds of hours recreating them, for an expansion that I was only barely excited for.

They don't need to go through with this. Breaking old content in a game that is out of early access is always a huge mistake. Especially for something so minor. It makes no sense.

[PunCrathod]

Originally posted by Maltheus:

Originally posted by brian_va:

2.0 wont break anything, according to the latest blog. they said it will at some point, maybe 2.1. you'll probably talking 2-3 real life years.

It won't break saves (for a short while, much shorter than 2-3 years to get to 2.1), but it will immediately break blueprints, which are far more important to me. In fact, my blueprint collection is the most important thing to me in this game, and I'm not going to spend hundreds of hours recreating them, for an expansion that I was only barely excited for.

They don't need to go through with this. Breaking old content in a game that is out of early access is always a huge mistake. Especially for something so minor. It makes no sense.

You are overreacting quite a bit. It will only break blueprints containing rails. If it would take hundreds of hours recreating those blueprints then you probably should remake them anyway and this time make better ones so you do not need thousands upon thousands of them.

[knighttemplar1960]

If you want the devs to see your post you need to post it on the Factorio website. If you do that don't be surprised to find that you are a fraction of a percent of the player base. I'm hoping we get bridges and tunnels. If we do I'll have to redesign all my rail prints but the increased through put that will allow will make it worth while.

The only reason this will destroy your blue prints is if you designed them so that the rails ran through the sub factory instead of end at the sub factory so that they can load or unload. My blue prints are modular. I'll be able to update them in 30-60 minutes and there should be an overlap in versions where you can use a completed mega base to retool your blue prints using construction bots instead of having to do every thing by hand.

[PunCrathod]

A tunnel or a bridge that lets you cross another rail without blocking it for other trains would make my intersections much smaller and increase throughput. My current intersections split into three way before any rails are crossed to allow for a train or two to be waiting at an intersection without blocking the next train behind it from going to another direction. With a bridge or a tunnel I would not need that as no train has to wait for another train coming and going in other directions.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by PunCrathod:

A tunnel or a bridge that lets you cross another rail without blocking it for other trains would make my intersections much smaller and increase throughput. My current intersections split into three way before any rails are crossed to allow for a train or two to be waiting at an intersection without blocking the next train behind it from going to another direction. With a bridge or a tunnel I would not need that as no train has to wait for another train coming and going in other directions.

I'll be making clover leaf intersections just like the ones I use in Open TTD.

[Biometrix]

You won't be able to play 2.1 on 1.1 maps, it won't delete the maps. Just start over or save it into 2.0, and remove the offending rail sections. I wonder if they'll do it for us.

[🆄🅽🅲🅻🅴 🅹🅾]

If only people would take the time to read and understand the direction Factorio is taking, there will be much less whining and spitting out of dummies on these forums.

Quote:

"The new rails are coming as a free update to Factorio 2.0 even without Space Age.

As you can probably guess, the new rail curves will be incompatible with the old ones. Savegames from 1.1 can be opened and trains will still run on previously built rails just like normal, but you won't be able to construct the old rails at all anymore.
In some future Factorio update when we decide to drop 1.1 savegame compatibility (Let's say 2.1), we will eventually get rid of the old rail shapes completely."

End quote.

So you can keep your precious little blueprints from years ago, that you've use hundreds of times over and over without ever innovating new designs. You can keep running your trains on the current rails in your Ver 1.1 maps and remain stuck there while everyone moves on to explore Ver 2.0.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by 🆄🅽🅲🅻🅴 🅹🅾:

So you can keep your precious little blueprints from years ago, that you've use hundreds of times over and over without ever innovating new designs.

But not be able to place the blueprints, unless you version lock to 1.1.

[Ferox_Stormdragon]

just create new blueprints or adapt the old ones

[Chindraba]

I've got some bad news for a few folks. The blueprints they have now are already broken for older games. Switch to an older version of the game, something you can do even from within Steam to some extent, and try to open your blueprint library.

Originally posted by Error Message:

Loading blueprint storage failed: Map version 1.1.91-0 cannot be loaded because it is higher than the game version (1.1.87-0).. Backing up current storage to /some-directory/blueprint-storage-backup.dat.

Then you start with a completely empty blueprint library.

This has been the way of things for longer than I've been playing the game.

With the rails, it just happens to have a move visible effect with new sprites for the rails and new routing for their placement. If you insist on using the blueprints from 1.1.91, or any other 1.1.x version, then just don't update your game to 2.0. It is even a setting you can set in your preferences which Steam will honor (for a while). If the version number gets high enough that Steam decides to force an update, you can, as already mentioned, download the DRM-free version from Factorio's website and keep playing it for decades.

And, for those hoping for auto-upgrade; not happening. The curves are a different size and are placed in different tiles. There's not practical way for the game to know which rails can be replaced and what to do about the ones which cannot. The new rails and the old rails can only connect on straights. Diagonals and curves are different and will not meet, let alone connect.

Upgrades which have the side effect of making other connected elements obsolete is not new. Upgrade from and AMD socket AM3 board to an AMD socket AM4 board and all the DDR3 RAM you have is now completely worthless. Switch from and Apple computer to a Windows computer and you can't even read the files on your disks. You can go through the process of converting them, by perhaps writing them to PC-compatible USB sticks, which the Mac can handle. It's going to be a very long process, however, if you have many files.

Upgrading rail prints will require some work. I am looking forward to the process myself. It won't be simple in many cases, and it will require a bit of planning. Planning is one thing Factorio players seem to good at though, so it shouldn't be too difficult for most - even if it seems tedious. And, perhaps all those rail prints are due for an update anyway. The concepts and practices you had when they were made are probably out-dated compared to what you know now, and a good Spring cleaning just might be the thing all those rail prints need.
My library has over 3000 prints which will need updating. I anted to know how much work was going to be needed, but I quit counting at 3000 because I realized it was just a rabbit hole and I would do all of them, however many there are.

[Daniel]

i think your ( post maker ) thinking is funamentally flawed ( i have 2500 hours of factorio ) in my 10-12 runs maybe and every time i start there are like 0 blueprints i use the same as last run and and the ones i really like i tweak to my new playtrhough. the game is about creating factories and with the ammount of possibilities the game offers there is NO reason to use the exact same design you used in your last playthrough. isn't one of the games purposes to create unique bases and megabases ? Don;t you get bored if you use the same design over and over again ? Are you trying to replay your last replay ? i don't get it

[MechBFP]

Oh no, this single guy isn’t going to buy the expansion if the developers don’t bend over backwards to meet their entitlement.

Oh whatever will they do!