Infinite Oil

[I am Hashex]

First of all - what a game! I'm a huge fan of factory games and this one exceeded all my expectations. Can't wait for what the future brings.
The way I play these games is "usually go big or go home" approach. And I mean go MASSIVE or go home.
In order to support my factory I often need look for new crude olumite reservoirs. The fact that there is a need to look for new ones is not a problem. The problem is that the reservoirs run out and every time I move to new one it causes problem with my late game factory design. Since the metals are infinite I am happy to find new veins and set up my mining, design production around it and it stays there.
It would be nice if there was a way to get liquids/gases from raw materials/reservoirs that don't run out - no matter how hard or rare that would be.
Any thoughts?

[TargetLost]

Well it is what I wonder a bit too.
Awesome game I agree. The cartoons look does not justify what is in the game. Why did they go with that look?

Well I just build this 2 large arc furnance and have them connected to my infinite vens.. but haven't finished the build yet.. but i wonder too once that is done the only thing that will run out is the oil. You can however improve its pumping efficiency with infinite research you know. Maybe that is the idea to boost it to insignificant that way ?

Anway I am 100 hours in and I am at the point where I might simple stop playing as I do with most games even BG3 I did not play to the very end. So it is not that relevant for me.
But I am curious what the idea is given the other resources are infinite.

[Fenix]

They can easily add unlimited olumite to bedrock just make the yield low, and the nodes rare. to offsite them being unlimited.
Maybe have it as Tier 6 science.

[kremlin]

Originally posted by TargetLost:

Well it is what I wonder a bit too.
Awesome game I agree. The cartoons look does not justify what is in the game. Why did they go with that look?

There are lots of reasons, but the one I'd go to is readability. The cartoony look makes the game easier to read. It makes it easier to follow the flow of the factory that you're building.

Compare say, Industries of Titan; a voxel modeled game, but with a much darker / grittier overall theme. The at a glance readability suffers. You have to pay closer attention to the details to know what's going on.

More complex graphics wouldn't do this game any good in my opinion. Contrasting colors and distance readability are key as the factory grows and becomes more complex.

Remember the CG transformers movies and how you can't tell what's going on *at all* once the action starts, because the transformers are too complex to be readable when they're fighting and mutating at the same time. It's just a blur.

Moving away from a cartoony style would almost certainly make this game ugly and unreadable in ways you don't want in a factory game.

[Clanner Jake]

Originally posted by Fenix:

They can easily add unlimited olumite to bedrock just make the yield low, and the nodes rare. to offsite them being unlimited.
Maybe have it as Tier 6 science.

Fracking should move to oil, it shouldn't require oil. oil should be in the tens of millions of barrels, fracking should be one of the things you use all those dirt/world blocks to make and using it on a well should accelerate the pumpjack output. wells should produce some gas as well. there should be a crude distillation phase, but distillation should be a part building, there should be secondaries for reprocessing other byproducts into things you'll actually use in production for efficiency. then it would make oil coke a viable pathway. the large ore deposits should move to a similar model, insane levels of ore; but you have to process it.

i know they say the world is infinite, but it's not setup like factorio, i have no motivation to want to move. also moving anything long distance via the cargo ships with an abysmal container II, no in hub container, makes ships above 1km away a massive pain to use. i have two drone ports with 6 green belts each feeding them and the same when they land, i still run dry at my hub station for several minutes at a run. these are all under 1.1km away.

so, you are left to run belts on the scale of km; they want us to make factory buildings, for some reason, but you have to knock down miles of belts and they keep going to the horizon to the next small node that will deplete. yes there is efficiency, but factorio has that and the nodes expand as you head out so the pain gets exponentially less as you progress and there isn't 200/-200 of terrain jumping up and down at you that takes ages to mine threw. and this isn't even going into baffling choices like the 2 block high input/output ports and the elevators which can't even do two item types; the choice not to allow us to remote at any terminal, cause we're robots, and require us to stand on belts to see the screens to refresh ourselves cause we're not the main character from limitless.

[barbrady123]

If you're interested in mods, there's a mod to increase vein frequency/density. It's fully adjustable and you can set it to only apply to Olemite (which is what I did). Works great...but it won't apply to already-generated veins. So, either you'd have to go really far out beyond your exploring to see them, or just start a new save...I ended up just starting over. They aren't technically "unlimited" but they are like 600M+ so....good enough for while :)

[jhughes]

Originally posted by barbrady123:

If you're interested in mods, there's a mod to increase vein frequency/density. It's fully adjustable and you can set it to only apply to Olemite (which is what I did). Works great...but it won't apply to already-generated veins. So, either you'd have to go really far out beyond your exploring to see them, or just start a new save...I ended up just starting over. They aren't technically "unlimited" but they are like 600M+ so....good enough for while :)

I love that mod manager and the tweaks.

[Clanner Jake]

Originally posted by barbrady123:

... or just start a new save...I ended up just starting over. They aren't technically "unlimited" but they are like 600M+ so....good enough for while :)

i'm 155 hours of factory, so that's not happening. and my scanner was left on for awhile so... and 600 mil isn't much, this is in units which is dunno large; i have ones with 12mil and they deplete pretty fast; i'm now at 1.1km of pipe to supply my industry... the largest deposit of oil ever discovered was in america at an estimated average of 20 billion barrels of oil, or 840,000,000,000 us gallons. if we assume they're using liters then that's 3,179,746,080,000 liters. and i'd rather have better game design and not crutch on mods; it's like saying homeworlds 2 or x 4 are great star wars games. what my generalized fear is that people pick this up, have a bad experience in 2h's or see it from others they won't coin in; and the last thing we all want is another 'well, we tried out best' message as everyone moves on to the next thing with tags they're looking for.

[barbrady123]

Well, you can probably adjust it higher, I simply did 100x....and 600M would take over 6000 hours for a single pumpjack to drain...even with 20 on a single vein that's 300 hours, and that's not including efficiency tech, which you should be pumping out. Plus, you can increase the frequency of veins, so there's many more, much closer together.

Anyway, I'm not disagreeing that this is a short-term solution and not the best route to go, I'm 100% an "unlimited resources" player in every factory game I play...just giving it as a short-term suggestion.

[TheGeneralZinn]

So just throwing this out there once an oil node is empty couldnt it just become infinite with the yield dependent on research?

[Loser]

Just scale up your research and have the efficiency research going non stop. I'm at like level 10 now.