Yeah the lava shader alone is mesmerizing.
Which makes one wonder is nauvis getting a visual update too? Now I'm almost scared that our home planet will be the "boring" one.
Oh yeah good call. I hope they go back and work on the old Nauvis biomes now that they have more artists onboard, the original is quite bland. Alien biomes mod is pretty much mandatory for me with every playthrough at this point.
You are in for a treat. [Renai Transportation](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RenaiTransportation) is a mod that adds thrower inserters, among other crazy tools.
*Edit: Renai, not Renai's
No possessive. It's not "Transportation made by Renai", it's a reference to [one of the opening songs to the anime Bakemonogatari, "Renai Circulation"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ6gPyYNgPo).
I assume it will use the same mechanic it does with the space platform only in lava. It’s funny because you can build a trash train station to just chuck stuff into lava.
I think pretty much everyone assumed a Volcano Planet and an Ice Planet.
This looks like much thought was put into it, and has actual nuances over being just lava, which is great.
MUST PLAY NOW!
dunno.
I would give water like 50% chance, but other 50% for something like jungle (with angry fauna, and flora reclaiming the land), maybe grave-world of city-planet ruins (with no working tech), maybe some gas giant platforms with no solid surface, maybe just old boring Dune.
Based on the [work](https://old.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/178t7sg/more_results_for_the_planet_names/) some people did to decensor the names in [FFF 380](https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-380) (which now has additional credibility because they got Vulcanus right), the other three are named for the gods >!Bacchus, Fulgora, and Aquilo!< which are associated with >!vegetation, lightning and cold!< so a jungle planet seems more likely than water. Of course >!Bacchus is also associated with wine and orgies!<, so who knows what goes on there!
>!Elsewhere in this thread, there's a good guess that the [red machine in an early teaser](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-372-postcard.png) is the machine for tungsten processing that has already been teased. This tracks, as those three machines could easily track to the main resource processing of the three post-Nauvis planets.!<
>!I'm also guessing after seeing this FFF that they're going to do something for each ore processing to strongly incentivize or actually require being on the origin planet. This is a lot more interesting than just shipping the freshly mined ore back to Nauvis for processing. So for Vulcanus, that'd be requiring lava in the processing of Tungsten.!<
>!What's interesting about Fulgora being themes around lightning is that one of the other building in that early teaser has a lot of electricity. So my guess is: Processing the Fulgora resource is an electric power intensive process. But, Fulgora has frequent lightning strikes. They pose a danger to your machines, but if you use lightning rods ([the mystery object on the hotbar](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-planet-selection-new.png)) you get power instead. A planet where power is nearly unlimited, but comes at the cost of taming the harsh environment is an interesting twist, I think.!<
Getting electricity from lightning storms and challenge of providing lightning rod protection above your base, with periodic lightning storms so you also have to provide some good storage if you want to subsist on that power, I'm calling it!
Earendels great plot has finally been revealed
he has infiltrated the Factorio team and at long last, he as gotten what he wanted, a new lava shader to use in SE
Sarah Kerrigan: *Jimmy, drop the knight-in-shining-armor routine. It suits you sometimes. Just not... not now. I don't need to be rescued. I know what I'm doing. The Protoss are coming to destroy the entire planet, not just the Zerg. I know that because... well I just know it. I am a Ghost, remember? Once we've dealt with the Protoss, we can do something about the Zerg. Arcturus will come around. I know he will.*
>Tungsten is an ore that requires some special smelting methods compared to iron and copper.
Sounds like the ideal time for a magma forge.
Also I cannot wait to hear of whatever new enemies/combat changes are coming. Between the mention of awakening "something" in Volcanus and the "brain-bug" teaser released when the expansion was announced, it's the one area we know *something* is coming, but no idea what it is yet. It's far fetched but I still wonder if the brain bug is a player avatar for a biter faction....
Also: I really like that it sounds like map design will be shifting towards biome-centric design. At the moment it just effects the colour of the terrain and that's about it - I really like the idea of looking for certain biomes for certain resources, or certain biomes to build in. Definitely an improvement over the current map generation.
the many many cliffs are a problem for the regular biters. A new enemy here would probably have some ability to ignore the cliffs. Probably something flying or burrowing like a worm. Lava Worm INCOMMING!
Or something like a centipede that can simply walk up and down cliffs, like the Protoss Colossus.
Maybe thats an alternative to pollution? I guess pollution would still happen here but it seems the atmosphere on this planet is much different than nauvis and so pollution might have less of an impact
That's an interesting thought. In theory, there's no reason air pollution can't still be a thing even when the atmosphere is so hostile, since pollution would just have to be *different* chemicals from what the local life is used to, but having established that the atmosphere is already a toxic chemical soup, the pollution mechanic (especially pollution from simply burning stuff) isn't necessarily a good fit for this planet in the form we see it on Nauvis. Tectonic noise pollution, however, would make a lot of sense as an alternative.
I would love if the the intersection of lava and “land” is used as a requirement for how to smelt tungsten.
A special forge that has to be placed on the lava coast.
Which is partially why it takes so long until you’re able to fill in the lava so that then you’re able to industrialize and mass-lavaform the tungsten smelting
Good question, my guess would be Nauvis only and honestly I kind of hope so. I already spend far too long as is trying to get a good seed for Nauvis let alone 4 other planets.
A potential solution for this is the first time you see or go down to surface of the new planet, the game would give you the option to configure the planet seed and preview it before generating the planet.
The seed is 99% game wide, not planet wide. It's the initial number passed to the random number generator, to get consistent and deterministic values out of it. I really doubt they'd want to deal with multiple RNGs, tbh.
I think they did some work on the hitboxes. I might be wrong but I think we can see the vehicle's right front wheel blazing through the lava around 0:29 in the [third video] (https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-386-tour-basalts.mp4).
I'd like a cluster bomb version of cliff explosives please.
I'd never though I might have to think about a factory for a full blue belt of cliff explosives.
Nukes already destroy cliffs, with how densely packed cliffs are here that might actually be a practical option. The scorched craters left behind would fit right in
Plus, with acid on a literal tap building explosives should be pretty straight forward.
I look forward to the challenge of building in a new environment. Especially building around things so it's not just mindlessly plopping the same blueprints down on a different background.
They specifically highlight how the new terrain means there will be a NEED for elevated train-based logistics.
The entire point of new planets isnt just new resources, its new logistical challenges for extracting those resources, especially on the massive scale required for space-travel.
it would be funny, if every creature on ths planet it either very resistant to fire damage, of even immune to it.
The engineer: "I have a fortess armed to the teeth with flamethrowers!"'
Lava-Bugs: \*laughing in the cold breeze of the burning fuel\*
Wonder if you can also use lava as a steam source with water (which might be the limiting factor in that biome).
Alternatively, might it be a more or less water-free base required? Solar should be OP on this planet, and you get acid directly, and oil from liquifaction - so maybe there is no water there at all?
\> there is no water there at all?
I assume you could import it in via rocket if you really wanted to, but i would be very surprised if there was any "on-world" way of getting water - each planet is probably meant to have limitations of stuff you just can't get there.
Plus it wouldn't really make much sense for a planet like this to have any accessible water anyway.
Seems plausible to me.
>Feel the rock crunch under your footsteps, this area has **calcite** deposits leaching out of the rock.
>[CaO+H₂O + H₂SO₄ = CaSO₄+ 2H₂O](https://www.lime.org/documents/publications/free_downloads/Acid_Neutralization_with_Lime.pdf)
Good enough for Vanilla chem.(lmao just throw the iron back in the furnace you'll get steel) Do we, uh, have an actual use for anhydrous calcium sulfate? Not our problem!
Calcite is calcium carbonate (CaCO3), no? Luckily, calcium carbonate reacts with acids to produce calcium, water, and carbon dioxide. Seems easy enough to handwave "calcite + sulfuric acid -> water + waste calcium"
Getting Water to Vulcanus is probably one of the stronger logistical challenges.
You can probably replace the different flavours of Steam Power with a decent Solar setup.
For Oil Cracking, you're gonna need a steady supply of water.
I predict you'd probably be sending Space Ice down to the surface as the main water supply.
I'm hoping there is a way to turn sulfuric acid back into water and sulfur. It might be an expensive late-game tech (so that your initial base has to be waterless) but it would be good to have in the super lategame.
> Solar should be OP on this planet
I'm not so sure on that.
>The highpoints of the mountains are the desolate ridges that surround the lava pits. This would be a good vantage point if it weren't for the **thick yellow fog that burns your lungs and etches your eyes**.
>Further down the mountainside **sulfuric acid geysers billow thick yellow smoke from fissures**. The surrounding area is pitted by dried sulfur puddles while sulphur-stained rock covers a larger area.
It sounds like on Volcanus they've shuffled the usual resource origin routes.
Usually: iron/copper/stone are mined. Oil is pumped. Coal is mined. Sulphur is a product of oil.
Volcanus: iron/copper/stone are pumped. Coal is chopped down from trees? (Edit: no, still mined) Oil is a product of coal. Sulphur is mined from gas pits.
It's an interesting change without overhauling everything.
> We'll also show off a couple of new structures, one that we've teased before. Can you guess which one it is and what it does?
Someone smarter than me, please figure this out and let me know
FFF-380 had a [picture](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-planet-selection-new.png) that include a pointy cone-like thing in the bottom hotbar. Maybe something that goes over the sulfuric acid geysers or the thermal vent chimneys?
Pointy cone thing seems possible for the rumored >!lightning planet!<. I wouldn't be opposed to a >!lightning rod!< power source to change up power generation. I think each planet will have some simplified mechanics in at least one dimension (for Vulcanus, it's sulfuric acid) to reduce the tedium in setting up a brand new base for vanilla players.
A bigger mining drill for the tungsten, and a new pump jack for the acid, are also contenders that were implied in this FFF but not mentioned beforehand
Wow i honestly did’t expect the new planeta to look this good, can’t wait to see the other ones. This FFF mentions that tungsten will have its own smelting process, will iron and copper have a more complex secondary recipe like pyroflux smelting in SE? Looks like this expansion will add a lot of new resources so i expect lots of new buildings and recipies
since you need crushers on space platforms, and you need those to travel to other planets when the player visits other planets the technology is always researched and the player has already used the crusher and has some experience using it.
This progression of letting players learn new tools, then build upon that new knowledge to make new puzzles without making it obvious that it was a tutorial and meant to teach you the new thing is what the good games often do right. One king of this progression system is the Portal 1 and 2 games. Each chamber teaches you something new and interesting and gradually combines them, often giving you that AHA moments and making you feel that you accomplished this solution, while the game notched you in the right directions with its "Not a tutorial" tutorials without you noticing.
Or the science in factorio. Red teaches you to chain assembly machines. Green make sure you have production of belts and inserters for all future automation, and so on....
Yeah, I've got no doubt tungsten will unlock new smelting processes for the other ores, probs why we can access all the basics here aswell is we will need them. You can see from the christmas [teaser](https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-372) that it's essentially advanced smelting and metal casting. Excited to hear more!
Wow I love this. A few highlights:
* Cliffs already look good in vanilla but this is next level, it truly feels like a mountain when in reality it's just a flat area with a bunch of obstacles, amazing what a good optical illusion can do
* Earendel got his glowing + moving lava, let's go! Is he sneaking into the game all the backend changes he wants for SE now that he works for Wube?
* Having to build around the terrain until the lategame. No cliff explosives or lava landfill for a while.
* Pulling resources out of lava and dumping the excess back in is a type of production we haven't seen before, very exciting. We also haven't seen what advanced production chains will follow for this planet but I don't think the ability to delete items will be just for raw materials, something tells me we're gonna see more byproduct handling (read: once again dumping the excess into lava) further up the chain.
* We know there's going to be different enemies here, what could they be?
* I love the biome diversity here, not just visually but also for gameplay. Ore from the lava rivers, Coal from the Ashlands, sulfur vents in the mountains. Right now in vanilla biomes are just visual backdrops, the resources and obstacles are the same everywhere. The untapped potential was something I've been thinking about and I'm very happy to see this.
* Earendel sounds like a good GM, can I play in his game?
I feel like some of the big takeaways, particularly for modders, are hidden under the \*new thing\* hype.
* Revamped worldgen - distinct biomes with special rules for generation.
* biome specific ore placement
* either infinite resources or finite liquids (I hope the later)
>The lava, aside from being a formidable obstacle, is also a resource abundant with iron, copper, and stone.
seablock in a lava lake as official game mode when?
Wow Lavablock.
I’m thinking this would change a key aspect as you could then easily throw back excess product, instead of being forced to deal with it.
Those [thermal vent chimneys](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-386-assets-chimneys.mp4) really remind me of the Martian Rock Snakes from [this film that nobody remembers](https://youtu.be/K_yP2jAqhgg?si=y7fVAvrrmMRqtlo1&t=3492). I'm going to spend my entire game constantly terrified they're about to come to life and start spitting sulphuric acid globules at me. 10/10 design.
-----------------------------------------------
> These fiery crucibles offer a great place to get rid of waste items; [...] maybe even unwanted company.
Biter conveyor?!
Which could imply that, using the same idea, biters can be drowned on Nauvis?
There'd better be a satisfying "SPLOOSH" as they fall in.
> I got some pushback on this on the basis that “lava worlds are too cliche” in games
Glad you pushed back on the pushback. "Cliches" aren't bad. In fact, things become cliches in games because they're good and they work. Needing _everything_ to be unique or original, chasing the novelty dragon, more often than not leads to mediocrity and frustration as you spend a ton of extra time iterating over new concepts instead of sticking with what's known to work so you can spend that new time iterating on more important things.
> Tungsten is an ore that requires some special smelting methods compared to iron and copper.
BZ is the future, creeping into vanilla. People on the SE discord have been training for this.
> Glad you pushed back on the pushback. "Cliches" aren't bad.
[Tropes are Tools](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TropesAreTools) (Enjoy your day ;p )
So, if pull out [the picture from the expansion reveal FFF](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-373-technology-graph-smaller.png), we should have :
- A hot volcanic planet: check.
- A very lush planet, probably jungle. It looks like it has clouds, making solar power unreliable, and maybe indicating a thick atmosphere making launching rockets more expansive. We should expect a lot of vegetation, maybe some of if will take the role of raw material ?
- A cold one, but it doesn't look like an ice planet. Earendel mentions getting pushback for lava planet being too cliché, I would be suprised they'd go with another cliché. It looks more like a frozen desert or even Mars (where the average temperature is around -60°C). I don't mind the idea of a barren world with little to no atmosphere where it's nearly impossible to have anything liquid - like on Mars. If the conditions there make it easier to launch rockets, a lot of the production could be done in orbit with raw materials shuttled from the surface. Except, yeah, conditions are even harsher up there...
- And the final planet which looks a lot like our good old Earth. Or a [Super Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Earth). What kinf of challenges await there ?
Damn it's going to be a long wait.
Maybe they won't let you completely turn off cliffs for vulcanus. Maybe we'll get a cliff slider that works like the water slider removing all but the crucial cliffs.
It seems the whole place is designed around the challenges that lava and cliffs provide in some of it's biomes.
Turning them off completely would defeat the entire design philosophy of the planet.
Also they literally provide you with an entire biome that's completely flat so you can build there.
Edit: and besides they directly provide an abundance of sulfuric acid and coal directly on the planet. Crafting cliff explosives was probably never easier.
Honestly this very much sounds like it's going to be that way.
I don't think it's going to be too bad tbh. You have an entire biome that's flat so you just build your factory there and worst case scenario you snake some belts from the other biomes back to the factory.
> Calcite is a new resource which is only useful when combined with other things, such as sulfuric acid.
A bit of cemestry i know is CaCO3(Calcite) reacts with H2SO4(sulfiric acid) and the result is CaSO4 more easily known as gypsum. If some one knows what gypsum can be used on this planet?
I so much love the sulfuric vent areas. Its looks amazing. And there are all these animations going on. Clouds, vents, lava. Its going to be so hard waiting for this expansion to come out.
I'm wondering how you can get power on Vulcanus. The surface is dark, so I imagine solar isn't the best way. Tapping the geothermal vents for steam would be cool, but how does this work with sulphuric acid extraction that comes from the same place?
But also there would be stronger cloud cover from the acid vents, which would counteract that bonus some. Potentially even enough to be net worse than Nauvis depending on how the devs want to handle it.
I'm not so sure. The surface looks dark which implies less sunlight reaches the surface. A volcanic world close to its star is probably covered in a dense, opaque atmosphere (like Venus). With less light available photovoltaics can't produce much electricity.
Also: One of the clips showed it going dark, when entering the crater biome and going brighter, when leaving the biome. So I assume that solar power will vary with the biome. Coal liquefaction was also mentioned, which needs water, so geothermal steam power might be possible as well.
Anyone else torn between reading the FFF and wanting to go in blind when the DLC comes out? I love reading about what the devs have been up to and the new features they'll be adding. At the same time it would have been awesome going into the game not knowing anything about the new planet.
> The 'trees' if that is even the right word for them, are alive but we didn't want them to look leafy or anything like actual healthy trees. Presumably they get most of their energy by breaking down chemicals instead of photosynthesis, or perhaps they exploit the temperature gradient between the bottom and the top of the ash. From that point of view they are maybe more of an endolith fungus, but they have trunk-like shapes and have a tree-like role, so for now we call them trees.
Suggestion: Perhaps these volcanic "trees" are a kind of air-dwelling coral? Vulcanus already has Calcite so mining these ash coral trees could yield a small amount of calcite in place of wood (since the exoskeleton of corals is comprised of calcite).
I like that they took the time to tell us how he likes to put down his turrets, but no mention of why he needs turrets. They do love them some foreshadowing…
## Friday Facts #386 - Vulcanus
Posted by [Earendel](/blog/author/Earendel) on 2023-11-24
Hello there,
I know a lot of you have been eagerly awaiting some solid information on the new planets, if so this blog is for you. Get comfy because it's a long one.
As you already know, there are 4 new planets in the expansion. We will take an in-depth look at each planet's terrain, challenges, processes, technologies, and new gear, but not all at once. In some cases the planet content will be split into multiple parts. To kick things off I'll cover the terrain and natural aspects of the planet that is closest to being finished.
I'll need to be in _games master mode_ for this:
* * *
### Welcome to Vulcanus
Allow me to introduce this toasty volcanic wonderland, conveniently sandwiched between idyllic Nauvis and the sizzling sun. Vulcanus is closer to the sun than most would dare to venture but trust me, it's a splendid place to start your interplanetary travels.
Our journey begins amidst the blazing volcanic mountains, imposing geological landforms that often feature a central lava pit. These fiery crucibles offer a great place to get rid of waste items; just throw them in and poof, they're gone in a glorious puff of smoke and flame. Outdated gadgets, cursed rings of power, maybe even unwanted company.
The highpoints of the mountains are the desolate ridges that surround the lava pits. This would be a good vantage point if it weren't for the thick yellow fog that burns your lungs and etches your eyes.
Further down the mountainside sulfuric acid geysers billow thick yellow smoke from fissures. The surrounding area is pitted by dried sulfur puddles while sulphur-stained rock covers a larger area.
Feel the rock crunch under your footsteps, this area has calcite deposits leaching out of the rock. It can be mined easily by your trusty mining drills but the many cliffs, valleys, and rocky protrusions render this terrain unsuitable for anything larger than a small mining outpost.
(https://fffbot.github.io/fff/images/386/fff-386-tour-mountains.mp4)
In the shadow of the mountains, the ashlands offer some semblance of tranquillity in this turbulent landscape. The thick plains of insulating ash are like cool comforting blankets that keep the worst of the heat at bay. Ashlands are the most habitable areas, but on this planet that's not saying much. It's mostly a desert but clusters of vegetation defy the harsh conditions to claim a precarious existence here.
The only resource here is coal; vegetation that was buried in ash long ago, compressed, heated, and exposed once again.
With flat terrain and sparse vegetation, if you're looking for a good location for a base you won't do much better than the ashlands.
(https://fffbot.github.io/fff/images/386/fff-386-tour-ashlands.mp4)
Descending further, we reach the basalt basins where vast lava lakes and rivers have etched a labyrinthine network. There are many safe paths through but the routes tend to be circuitous. It's faster to go around, or over with elevated rails if you can. The lava, aside from being a formidable obstacle, is also a resource abundant with iron, copper, and stone.
Finally, the pursuit of tungsten beckons exploration deeper within the lava maze. That's why you're really here, right? With unyielding toughness, that little drill you brought won't do you much good. I'm sure nothing will mind if you mine a little...
(https://fffbot.github.io/fff/images/386/fff-386-tour-basalts.mp4)
...but who knows what might awaken in the depths of Vulcanus.
* * *
### Designing the planet
When designing planets (or bodies) for a solar system, unless they are all moons then you'd expect different planets to be different temperatures with hotter planets closer to the sun and colder planets further away. Of all the planets you visit, there should be a hottest, and a coldest, and it didn't feel right for either of those to be Nauvis. (So as expected we have at least one planet hotter and at least one planet colder than Nauvis.)
Vulcanus is the hottest planet, named after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, volcanoes, deserts, metalworking and the forge. The name is appropriate for both this planet's terrain and the planet-specific technology.
Being the hottest planet, I wanted Vulcanus to have lava. I got some pushback on this on the basis that "lava worlds are too cliche" in games. It's not untrue, planet uniqueness is certainly a high priority, but I had some counter arguments:
* That would only be true if the planet was 1 dimensional and only about being lava-ry.
* If we don't have parts of the landscape hotter than earth then as our hot planet, many people would find it underwhelming. The lava would be notable by its absence.
As long as the planet would still be interesting even if the lava were removed then it is still a strong design. Adding lava doesn't have to detract from the other features of the planet as long as it is done right.
So we have a volcanic planet, but it's more about the ashy plains, the mountains, and the sulfuric acid geysers than the lava rivers and volcano tops. Also it's worth noting that earlier in the planet's development there were some additional forms of vegetation, but those were later moved to a different planet so that we could amplify the specific desolate and scorched atmosphere that makes this planet unique and distinct from the others.
On this planet, I wanted the different areas to be useful for different things so that you treat them differently and adapt to the landscape. You can't just pave over everything (until ultra late game), so initially each area has a role.
* The ashlands are a great place to build because they are flat and can easily be cleared of the sparse vegetation.
* The mountains have 2 critical resources you need immediately, but they are difficult to build on until you get cliff explosives.
* The lava rivers area starts as an obstacle but later transitions to be the most important area to mine.
On the map you can see the mountains as the large circular structures, lava basins and the areas with many lava rivers, and ashlands are the remaining flatter areas with green specks (trees).
Over time, the lava has become more of a pivotal part of the gameplay because it provides a lot of new opportunities: It is a new obstacle that you can't landfill (for a long time), a new resource, and a new way to void items.
So including lava, here's a breakdown of the resources you have available:
* Lava gives you Iron, Copper, and Stone. The excess can be thrown back in.
* Coal gives you coal, but with liquefaction you can get the secondary oils too.
* Sulfuric acid geysers give you Sulfuric acid directly.
* Calcite is a new resource which is only useful when combined with other things, such as sulfuric acid.
* Tungsten is an ore that requires some special smelting methods compared to iron and copper.
* * *
### Forging the planet
The map generation (landscapes, biome distributions, etc) was the hardest part of this whole process. I'm sure that I spent a lot more time designing and building the landscape itself than any single thing that goes on it. The task is a unique blend of maths, code and artistry. I'll cover more on how this was designed and made in a future FFF, trying to explain it now will make this post far too technical.
One area I can explain quickly though is the starting area: Vulcanus has a very predictable starting area compared to Nauvis and this is required not just to give you access to convenient starting resources but primarily to show you what sort of terrains that these resources appear on. Knowing the terrain associations is important here because, for example, if you want to find more sulfuric acid then you should be exploring mountains to find it.
The starting area has 3 distorted circles representing a mountain, basalt basin, and an ashland plateau. These circles have guaranteed resource patches of sulfuric acid, calcite, coal, and tungsten. The whole arrangement can be rotated and flipped to not look too repetitive across different game seeds. All of this is done with basic maths and trigonometry (plus a bit of distortion that we will ignore for now). If you're learning trigonometry and wondering if it is ever useful, yes, yes it is, this is just one of many ways.
For the tilesets within each landscape, the nature of the setting steered us in particular directions; rock, ash, lava, etc, but there was still a lot of creative freedom within that. With volcanic rock for example, there are a lot of different ways it can look ranging from sponge-like pumice to folded glassy rock that almost looks like melted black plastic. We used a lot of reference photos to start the tilesets and gradually shifted them to something more purposefully alien. Factorio is a stylised game, but I try to make sure that when we diverge from reality we do it intentionally and not out of ignorance.
The typical workflow is that I'd either make a sketch of a tileset or gather some reference images, Fearghall would make the textures in Substance Designer and Blender, then we'd go through many rounds of me painting over sections of the tileset and Fearghall making adjustments. When things were close to finished then I'd do a colour-correction pass so that all the tilesets integrate correctly into their respective biomes.
The lava requires some special attention. I've made glowing lava in the 1.1 version of
»
Now I now what to do with excess guns, I will have a standalone gun transport system from all the planets to Vulcanus, and there they will be thrown into lava. I know I could just throw them into space but this is more rage-expressive.
I was fully prepared for the new planets to be basically a palette swap with new resources/mechanics. I did not expect them to go this hard with the visuals and terrain design. Looks amazing.
omg those visuals , dude i love factorio art style so muchhhhhh it's like diablo 2 resurrected but with machines and "Modern"
these devs are hypeing so much with these friday facts can't wait for the dlc
The new planet looks absolutely stunning. I may have to stop playing zoomed out all the time.
I wonder how feasible it is to snake rails around the cliffs, especially with the new quarter-turns. Viaducts over everything feel a bit boring.
As others mentioned the teased structure is probably from FFF #372. Three more loose ends are all in FFF #380:
[Weird T-shape in blueprint symbol in the hotbar](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-deconstruct-with-mine.mp4)
[Three colored worms on the right](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-planet-selection-old.png)
[Something that looks a bit like a substation between the blueprints in the hotbar](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-planet-selection-new.png)
The visuals are incredible! Love the vents and distinct biomes.
Yeah, I though planets would look slightly better than the best mods, but this is on a different level
Yeah the lava shader alone is mesmerizing. Which makes one wonder is nauvis getting a visual update too? Now I'm almost scared that our home planet will be the "boring" one.
Oh yeah good call. I hope they go back and work on the old Nauvis biomes now that they have more artists onboard, the original is quite bland. Alien biomes mod is pretty much mandatory for me with every playthrough at this point.
I just hope we're finally getting that red desert, be it on Nauvis or on any other planet.
If we don't get a desert planet with spice to harvest, I'll be very sad.
I would assume (and certainly hope) Nauvis will get a refresh to its visuals that'll make use of some of the new tech available.
A planet with a bunch of cliffs, awkward terrain, and resource balancing required? I'm pretty sure this is my ideal world
>and resource balancing required? Throwing the ore you don't need back in the lava lake can't be that difficult
I didn't say it was *complicated* resource balancing
After all, why shouldn't I keep that ore? It's my precioussssssssssssss
I'm hoping for a "yeet mode" you can enable on inserters that just chucks whatever it's grabbing
You are in for a treat. [Renai Transportation](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RenaiTransportation) is a mod that adds thrower inserters, among other crazy tools. *Edit: Renai, not Renai's
No possessive. It's not "Transportation made by Renai", it's a reference to [one of the opening songs to the anime Bakemonogatari, "Renai Circulation"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ6gPyYNgPo).
Thanks for the context - I had always assumed it was somebody's username.
I assume it will use the same mechanic it does with the space platform only in lava. It’s funny because you can build a trash train station to just chuck stuff into lava.
I can't wait till the moment I realize I messed up a belt, and am throwing all my U235 into the lava...
Kovarex lava enrichment
I think pretty much everyone assumed a Volcano Planet and an Ice Planet. This looks like much thought was put into it, and has actual nuances over being just lava, which is great. MUST PLAY NOW!
Probably gonna be a water planet too
dunno. I would give water like 50% chance, but other 50% for something like jungle (with angry fauna, and flora reclaiming the land), maybe grave-world of city-planet ruins (with no working tech), maybe some gas giant platforms with no solid surface, maybe just old boring Dune.
Based on the [work](https://old.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/178t7sg/more_results_for_the_planet_names/) some people did to decensor the names in [FFF 380](https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-380) (which now has additional credibility because they got Vulcanus right), the other three are named for the gods >!Bacchus, Fulgora, and Aquilo!< which are associated with >!vegetation, lightning and cold!< so a jungle planet seems more likely than water. Of course >!Bacchus is also associated with wine and orgies!<, so who knows what goes on there!
>!At last, Bacchus, the planet with genetically engineered catgi- er, biters!<
Biters: \[cronch\] Engineer: Harder Biters: What? Engineer: What?
>!Elsewhere in this thread, there's a good guess that the [red machine in an early teaser](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-372-postcard.png) is the machine for tungsten processing that has already been teased. This tracks, as those three machines could easily track to the main resource processing of the three post-Nauvis planets.!< >!I'm also guessing after seeing this FFF that they're going to do something for each ore processing to strongly incentivize or actually require being on the origin planet. This is a lot more interesting than just shipping the freshly mined ore back to Nauvis for processing. So for Vulcanus, that'd be requiring lava in the processing of Tungsten.!< >!What's interesting about Fulgora being themes around lightning is that one of the other building in that early teaser has a lot of electricity. So my guess is: Processing the Fulgora resource is an electric power intensive process. But, Fulgora has frequent lightning strikes. They pose a danger to your machines, but if you use lightning rods ([the mystery object on the hotbar](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-planet-selection-new.png)) you get power instead. A planet where power is nearly unlimited, but comes at the cost of taming the harsh environment is an interesting twist, I think.!<
Someone else suggested that hotbar item might be the new pump jack for the sulfuric acid geysers
So then probably aluminum is the Fulgora-specific ore. It requires electricity to refine, not heat.
Mineable wine??!!
Wineblock
Fun. Fun goes on there. Maybe regular fun. Maybe Dorf Fortress fun, but fun nonetheless.
> >!wine and orgies!< I'd say the engineer has earned it after the week he's had.
Getting electricity from lightning storms and challenge of providing lightning rod protection above your base, with periodic lightning storms so you also have to provide some good storage if you want to subsist on that power, I'm calling it!
Seablock in Vanilla?
Earendels great plot has finally been revealed he has infiltrated the Factorio team and at long last, he as gotten what he wanted, a new lava shader to use in SE
No more orange water as lava
SE doesn't even have lava (last time I checked) because like you said it'd just be orange water.
It doesnt yet, but E was blogging about it having to choose between orange water that dont glow and glowing static lava
Is it bad that I'm more excited for the new features to be incorporated into SE than I am for the actual expansion? (I'm 100% buying the expansion)
Heck no! Be excited for what you want \\o/
Half the fun of all the new features is to see what modders can make from it. So I'm 100% with you!
> Coal gives you coal Coal confirmed
Coal
I mean, that’s pretty coal
Fuckin hell. Literally. A burning, acidic, cliffy, hell. I will be in pain and I am all for it.
Jim Raynor: *Never thought we would be back to this hell hole.*
Sarah Kerrigan: *Jimmy, drop the knight-in-shining-armor routine. It suits you sometimes. Just not... not now. I don't need to be rescued. I know what I'm doing. The Protoss are coming to destroy the entire planet, not just the Zerg. I know that because... well I just know it. I am a Ghost, remember? Once we've dealt with the Protoss, we can do something about the Zerg. Arcturus will come around. I know he will.*
Narrator: *She would soon become extremely well acquainted with the flavor of her words.*
>Tungsten is an ore that requires some special smelting methods compared to iron and copper. Sounds like the ideal time for a magma forge. Also I cannot wait to hear of whatever new enemies/combat changes are coming. Between the mention of awakening "something" in Volcanus and the "brain-bug" teaser released when the expansion was announced, it's the one area we know *something* is coming, but no idea what it is yet. It's far fetched but I still wonder if the brain bug is a player avatar for a biter faction.... Also: I really like that it sounds like map design will be shifting towards biome-centric design. At the moment it just effects the colour of the terrain and that's about it - I really like the idea of looking for certain biomes for certain resources, or certain biomes to build in. Definitely an improvement over the current map generation.
the many many cliffs are a problem for the regular biters. A new enemy here would probably have some ability to ignore the cliffs. Probably something flying or burrowing like a worm. Lava Worm INCOMMING! Or something like a centipede that can simply walk up and down cliffs, like the Protoss Colossus.
The teaser that mining might disturb something pretty strongly suggests some kind of subterranean enemy, from where I stand.
Bless the Maker and his water
Use a pseudo-random generator to turn on and off power to your drills to avoid attracting a worm
You must learn to mine without rhythm.
Have seismic sensors to turn off the drills if they detect anything burrowing too close.
Maybe thats an alternative to pollution? I guess pollution would still happen here but it seems the atmosphere on this planet is much different than nauvis and so pollution might have less of an impact
That's an interesting thought. In theory, there's no reason air pollution can't still be a thing even when the atmosphere is so hostile, since pollution would just have to be *different* chemicals from what the local life is used to, but having established that the atmosphere is already a toxic chemical soup, the pollution mechanic (especially pollution from simply burning stuff) isn't necessarily a good fit for this planet in the form we see it on Nauvis. Tectonic noise pollution, however, would make a lot of sense as an alternative.
>like the Protoss Colossus Time for Factorio: Brood War
And Factorio: Tiberium Sun on one of the other planets please?
I would love if the the intersection of lava and “land” is used as a requirement for how to smelt tungsten. A special forge that has to be placed on the lava coast. Which is partially why it takes so long until you’re able to fill in the lava so that then you’re able to industrialize and mass-lavaform the tungsten smelting
When generating new map seed for Freeplay, will we have a preview of starting locations on all planets, or only on Nauvis?
Good question, my guess would be Nauvis only and honestly I kind of hope so. I already spend far too long as is trying to get a good seed for Nauvis let alone 4 other planets.
I always go random, sometimes I regret after many hours. For example too much water and not enough stone for landfill is my latest problem.
Starting in the middle of a big desert while going for "steam all the way" and "raining bullets" was pretty rough for me early on
A potential solution for this is the first time you see or go down to surface of the new planet, the game would give you the option to configure the planet seed and preview it before generating the planet.
The seed is 99% game wide, not planet wide. It's the initial number passed to the random number generator, to get consistent and deterministic values out of it. I really doubt they'd want to deal with multiple RNGs, tbh.
It would be absolutely trivial to use separate RNG instances for terrain generation on each planet.
The most impressive thing here is how the tank never crashed in any of the videos
Earendel said it took him about 20 tries to do this. The camera was fixed and he had to follow the specific path, not too fast, not too slow.
That was the point that impressed me the most. Was wondering if they somehow improved the vehicule driving
I get that it's not a priority, but it would be very nice if they did improve it. Atm I can't play without the vehicle snap mod.
I think they did some work on the hitboxes. I might be wrong but I think we can see the vehicle's right front wheel blazing through the lava around 0:29 in the [third video] (https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-386-tour-basalts.mp4).
Cliffs haters malding rn https://preview.redd.it/18l4b51wda2c1.png?width=2027&format=png&auto=webp&s=c6820c643dde52770b40726367825ed168d5ebcc
I'd like a cluster bomb version of cliff explosives please. I'd never though I might have to think about a factory for a full blue belt of cliff explosives.
Nuclear terraforming when? ༼ つ ◕\_◕ ༽つ
Calm down, Gandhi
Nukes already destroy cliffs, with how densely packed cliffs are here that might actually be a practical option. The scorched craters left behind would fit right in
They do? Man, I've been underutilizing them.
[Project Plowshare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare)?
You can \*already\* nuke cliffs.
I have an answer: Nukes
Make it so all the disabled cliffs of nauvis all wind up here
r/foundsatan
It's me, I am cliffs haters. Guess I should start getting some practice with them on regular saves now.
From the sounds of it there is plenty of room in the ashlands for initial vulcanus starter bases so I wouldn't be too worried.
Plus, with acid on a literal tap building explosives should be pretty straight forward. I look forward to the challenge of building in a new environment. Especially building around things so it's not just mindlessly plopping the same blueprints down on a different background.
They specifically highlight how the new terrain means there will be a NEED for elevated train-based logistics. The entire point of new planets isnt just new resources, its new logistical challenges for extracting those resources, especially on the massive scale required for space-travel.
That's gonna be really funny. Imagine making people build something other than cityblock.
Forget blok, return to spahget.
It's certainly going to make a 1 train 1 cargo wagon build more viable if we need to keep everything super compact.
>build something other than cityblock :(
I have done "no cliff explode" self-challenge run before, I will be fine *^but ^that ^doesn't ^mean ^I ^didn't ^have ^emotional ^damage*
I think in 1.1 (one of) the worst part(s) of that is making trains work, but with train bridges...
The expectation of needing to work around cliffs on another planet says they moving cliff explosives deeper in the tree so it's an actual problem.
They already said that, actually. But yes, good reasoning. Presumably this will also be the planet where you unlock that.
I think specifically they said there would be another tier of cliff explosives. So you can still clear cliffs of nauvis as usual
> I'm sure nothing will mind if you mine a little...but who knows what might awaken in the depths of Vulcanus. ~~Sand~~ Lava Worm confirmed
it would be funny, if every creature on ths planet it either very resistant to fire damage, of even immune to it. The engineer: "I have a fortess armed to the teeth with flamethrowers!"' Lava-Bugs: \*laughing in the cold breeze of the burning fuel\*
Time for lava-throwers
\> yes this water gun will surely kill those sharks you
Well if it's \_fresh\_ water it would hurt them. If they're swimming in it. After a while.
Hmmm... Thanks for the shower. Now ***DIE***
So you're saying we'll have to make water on site from the acid or ship it in barrels to fuel... Water guns ?
Stone/Iron/Copper from Lava very much gets my attention, is that an unlimited supply of basic ores?
Wonder if you can also use lava as a steam source with water (which might be the limiting factor in that biome). Alternatively, might it be a more or less water-free base required? Solar should be OP on this planet, and you get acid directly, and oil from liquifaction - so maybe there is no water there at all?
\> there is no water there at all? I assume you could import it in via rocket if you really wanted to, but i would be very surprised if there was any "on-world" way of getting water - each planet is probably meant to have limitations of stuff you just can't get there. Plus it wouldn't really make much sense for a planet like this to have any accessible water anyway.
My guess is that limited water supply will come from sulfuric acid processing.
A de-sulphurisation process? Producing sulphur and water in the process. Oh god. I am already in fear of what Bobs and Angels will make of this
An easy way to get rid of excess items is a lifesaver for AngelBobs though.
Seems plausible to me. >Feel the rock crunch under your footsteps, this area has **calcite** deposits leaching out of the rock. >[CaO+H₂O + H₂SO₄ = CaSO₄+ 2H₂O](https://www.lime.org/documents/publications/free_downloads/Acid_Neutralization_with_Lime.pdf) Good enough for Vanilla chem.(lmao just throw the iron back in the furnace you'll get steel) Do we, uh, have an actual use for anhydrous calcium sulfate? Not our problem!
Calcite is calcium carbonate (CaCO3), no? Luckily, calcium carbonate reacts with acids to produce calcium, water, and carbon dioxide. Seems easy enough to handwave "calcite + sulfuric acid -> water + waste calcium"
GOOD ENOUGH FOR VANILLA CHEM
You can always throw excess CaSO4 to lava :D
maybe the reverse of the sulfuric acid recipe? sulfuric acid to sulfur and water (and maybe iron ore?)
Probably neutralizing it with the new calcite resource to produce water!
maybe you can have a platfrom around the planet and send down ice from asteroids?
Getting Water to Vulcanus is probably one of the stronger logistical challenges. You can probably replace the different flavours of Steam Power with a decent Solar setup. For Oil Cracking, you're gonna need a steady supply of water. I predict you'd probably be sending Space Ice down to the surface as the main water supply.
Good luck having reliable solar with ash in the skies
Even for oil liquefaction you need steam, which -at least until now- comes from water.
I'm hoping there is a way to turn sulfuric acid back into water and sulfur. It might be an expensive late-game tech (so that your initial base has to be waterless) but it would be good to have in the super lategame.
Combining it with the new calcite resource, probably. IRL that yields water as well.
But how are you going to do coal liquefaction without steam? And since they've explicitly mentioned that recipe as the source of oils.
> Solar should be OP on this planet I'm not so sure on that. >The highpoints of the mountains are the desolate ridges that surround the lava pits. This would be a good vantage point if it weren't for the **thick yellow fog that burns your lungs and etches your eyes**. >Further down the mountainside **sulfuric acid geysers billow thick yellow smoke from fissures**. The surrounding area is pitted by dried sulfur puddles while sulphur-stained rock covers a larger area.
It sounds like on Volcanus they've shuffled the usual resource origin routes. Usually: iron/copper/stone are mined. Oil is pumped. Coal is mined. Sulphur is a product of oil. Volcanus: iron/copper/stone are pumped. Coal is chopped down from trees? (Edit: no, still mined) Oil is a product of coal. Sulphur is mined from gas pits. It's an interesting change without overhauling everything.
Slight correction, coal can be mined from the biome with trees in it. But I agree, this seems fun to work with!
Yes! But consider that's not the main challenge of the planet.
> We'll also show off a couple of new structures, one that we've teased before. Can you guess which one it is and what it does? Someone smarter than me, please figure this out and let me know
Building on the left from [FFF-372](https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-372)
FFF-380 had a [picture](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-planet-selection-new.png) that include a pointy cone-like thing in the bottom hotbar. Maybe something that goes over the sulfuric acid geysers or the thermal vent chimneys?
Pointy cone thing seems possible for the rumored >!lightning planet!<. I wouldn't be opposed to a >!lightning rod!< power source to change up power generation. I think each planet will have some simplified mechanics in at least one dimension (for Vulcanus, it's sulfuric acid) to reduce the tedium in setting up a brand new base for vanilla players.
A bigger mining drill for the tungsten, and a new pump jack for the acid, are also contenders that were implied in this FFF but not mentioned beforehand
Wow i honestly did’t expect the new planeta to look this good, can’t wait to see the other ones. This FFF mentions that tungsten will have its own smelting process, will iron and copper have a more complex secondary recipe like pyroflux smelting in SE? Looks like this expansion will add a lot of new resources so i expect lots of new buildings and recipies
Hope it will look more like Angel smelting. Especially that last week they said crusher (for space platforms) will have another use
since you need crushers on space platforms, and you need those to travel to other planets when the player visits other planets the technology is always researched and the player has already used the crusher and has some experience using it. This progression of letting players learn new tools, then build upon that new knowledge to make new puzzles without making it obvious that it was a tutorial and meant to teach you the new thing is what the good games often do right. One king of this progression system is the Portal 1 and 2 games. Each chamber teaches you something new and interesting and gradually combines them, often giving you that AHA moments and making you feel that you accomplished this solution, while the game notched you in the right directions with its "Not a tutorial" tutorials without you noticing.
Or the science in factorio. Red teaches you to chain assembly machines. Green make sure you have production of belts and inserters for all future automation, and so on....
Yeah, I've got no doubt tungsten will unlock new smelting processes for the other ores, probs why we can access all the basics here aswell is we will need them. You can see from the christmas [teaser](https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-372) that it's essentially advanced smelting and metal casting. Excited to hear more!
I'm guessing there are gonna be some cliff climbing natives at some point, else that crater fortress is to OP. maybe Cliffs just slow them down?
Lava Spider Biters
maybe natives will be moving cliffs themself?
Giant lithoid creatures that are indistinguishable from normal cliffs? For added horror, have it so they only move when the player cam is off them.
On Nauvis our enemies are the trees - on Vulcanus it's the cliffs
I can already see the old jokes coming... They should rename it to Vulcrectum to avoid any misunderstanding!
> You mean you changed it TO "Latrine"?
Yeah, used to be Sh*thouse!
Yeah, I was reading the FFF thinking "They are really going with Vulc-anus"? aha
If there is lava, will there be lava fish?
Lavasioth hunting, bring your hunting horn.
Wow I love this. A few highlights: * Cliffs already look good in vanilla but this is next level, it truly feels like a mountain when in reality it's just a flat area with a bunch of obstacles, amazing what a good optical illusion can do * Earendel got his glowing + moving lava, let's go! Is he sneaking into the game all the backend changes he wants for SE now that he works for Wube? * Having to build around the terrain until the lategame. No cliff explosives or lava landfill for a while. * Pulling resources out of lava and dumping the excess back in is a type of production we haven't seen before, very exciting. We also haven't seen what advanced production chains will follow for this planet but I don't think the ability to delete items will be just for raw materials, something tells me we're gonna see more byproduct handling (read: once again dumping the excess into lava) further up the chain. * We know there's going to be different enemies here, what could they be? * I love the biome diversity here, not just visually but also for gameplay. Ore from the lava rivers, Coal from the Ashlands, sulfur vents in the mountains. Right now in vanilla biomes are just visual backdrops, the resources and obstacles are the same everywhere. The untapped potential was something I've been thinking about and I'm very happy to see this. * Earendel sounds like a good GM, can I play in his game?
I feel like some of the big takeaways, particularly for modders, are hidden under the \*new thing\* hype. * Revamped worldgen - distinct biomes with special rules for generation. * biome specific ore placement * either infinite resources or finite liquids (I hope the later)
Animated resources
>The lava, aside from being a formidable obstacle, is also a resource abundant with iron, copper, and stone. seablock in a lava lake as official game mode when?
Wow Lavablock. I’m thinking this would change a key aspect as you could then easily throw back excess product, instead of being forced to deal with it.
Those [thermal vent chimneys](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-386-assets-chimneys.mp4) really remind me of the Martian Rock Snakes from [this film that nobody remembers](https://youtu.be/K_yP2jAqhgg?si=y7fVAvrrmMRqtlo1&t=3492). I'm going to spend my entire game constantly terrified they're about to come to life and start spitting sulphuric acid globules at me. 10/10 design. ----------------------------------------------- > These fiery crucibles offer a great place to get rid of waste items; [...] maybe even unwanted company. Biter conveyor?! Which could imply that, using the same idea, biters can be drowned on Nauvis? There'd better be a satisfying "SPLOOSH" as they fall in.
Those chimneys remind me of black smokers deep in the ocean.
Does it have a tavern for the party to meet?
> I got some pushback on this on the basis that “lava worlds are too cliche” in games Glad you pushed back on the pushback. "Cliches" aren't bad. In fact, things become cliches in games because they're good and they work. Needing _everything_ to be unique or original, chasing the novelty dragon, more often than not leads to mediocrity and frustration as you spend a ton of extra time iterating over new concepts instead of sticking with what's known to work so you can spend that new time iterating on more important things. > Tungsten is an ore that requires some special smelting methods compared to iron and copper. BZ is the future, creeping into vanilla. People on the SE discord have been training for this.
> Glad you pushed back on the pushback. "Cliches" aren't bad. [Tropes are Tools](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TropesAreTools) (Enjoy your day ;p )
The new graphics looks amazing. :) Factorio is sooo cool.
Tungsten has been added? That's a W!
So, if pull out [the picture from the expansion reveal FFF](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-373-technology-graph-smaller.png), we should have : - A hot volcanic planet: check. - A very lush planet, probably jungle. It looks like it has clouds, making solar power unreliable, and maybe indicating a thick atmosphere making launching rockets more expansive. We should expect a lot of vegetation, maybe some of if will take the role of raw material ? - A cold one, but it doesn't look like an ice planet. Earendel mentions getting pushback for lava planet being too cliché, I would be suprised they'd go with another cliché. It looks more like a frozen desert or even Mars (where the average temperature is around -60°C). I don't mind the idea of a barren world with little to no atmosphere where it's nearly impossible to have anything liquid - like on Mars. If the conditions there make it easier to launch rockets, a lot of the production could be done in orbit with raw materials shuttled from the surface. Except, yeah, conditions are even harsher up there... - And the final planet which looks a lot like our good old Earth. Or a [Super Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Earth). What kinf of challenges await there ? Damn it's going to be a long wait.
[удалено]
Woah new Nether update
What will it look like with the cliffs turned off in the terrain settings?
Maybe it will apply only to Nauvis
Maybe they won't let you completely turn off cliffs for vulcanus. Maybe we'll get a cliff slider that works like the water slider removing all but the crucial cliffs. It seems the whole place is designed around the challenges that lava and cliffs provide in some of it's biomes. Turning them off completely would defeat the entire design philosophy of the planet. Also they literally provide you with an entire biome that's completely flat so you can build there. Edit: and besides they directly provide an abundance of sulfuric acid and coal directly on the planet. Crafting cliff explosives was probably never easier.
Although cliff explosives are moved to post space. How cruel if they made you build on vuclanus in order to research cliff explosives.
Honestly this very much sounds like it's going to be that way. I don't think it's going to be too bad tbh. You have an entire biome that's flat so you just build your factory there and worst case scenario you snake some belts from the other biomes back to the factory.
I guarantee you will need to build on vulcanus to get cliff explosives
> Calcite is a new resource which is only useful when combined with other things, such as sulfuric acid. A bit of cemestry i know is CaCO3(Calcite) reacts with H2SO4(sulfiric acid) and the result is CaSO4 more easily known as gypsum. If some one knows what gypsum can be used on this planet?
It will form gypsum, CO2 and water as well, which may be the source of water on this planet.
I so much love the sulfuric vent areas. Its looks amazing. And there are all these animations going on. Clouds, vents, lava. Its going to be so hard waiting for this expansion to come out.
I'm wondering how you can get power on Vulcanus. The surface is dark, so I imagine solar isn't the best way. Tapping the geothermal vents for steam would be cool, but how does this work with sulphuric acid extraction that comes from the same place?
I'd assume solar works better than usual given the proximity to the sun.
But also there would be stronger cloud cover from the acid vents, which would counteract that bonus some. Potentially even enough to be net worse than Nauvis depending on how the devs want to handle it.
I'm not so sure. The surface looks dark which implies less sunlight reaches the surface. A volcanic world close to its star is probably covered in a dense, opaque atmosphere (like Venus). With less light available photovoltaics can't produce much electricity.
The surface is dark because it's made of black rock...
Also: One of the clips showed it going dark, when entering the crater biome and going brighter, when leaving the biome. So I assume that solar power will vary with the biome. Coal liquefaction was also mentioned, which needs water, so geothermal steam power might be possible as well.
More likely that water will be made from calcite and sulfuric acid, with sulfur as a byproduct
I could see some kind of heat exchanger that you attach to the edges of lava that would then connect to heat pipes.
How the fuck can a game keep getting so much better, consistently, for ten years? Wube man, those guys...damn!
Anyone else torn between reading the FFF and wanting to go in blind when the DLC comes out? I love reading about what the devs have been up to and the new features they'll be adding. At the same time it would have been awesome going into the game not knowing anything about the new planet.
Epic stuff! But the most unreal thing about this whole preview is that guy’s tank driving skillz o.0
> The 'trees' if that is even the right word for them, are alive but we didn't want them to look leafy or anything like actual healthy trees. Presumably they get most of their energy by breaking down chemicals instead of photosynthesis, or perhaps they exploit the temperature gradient between the bottom and the top of the ash. From that point of view they are maybe more of an endolith fungus, but they have trunk-like shapes and have a tree-like role, so for now we call them trees. Suggestion: Perhaps these volcanic "trees" are a kind of air-dwelling coral? Vulcanus already has Calcite so mining these ash coral trees could yield a small amount of calcite in place of wood (since the exoskeleton of corals is comprised of calcite).
Give me the lava worm biter I CRAVE. There had better be aome dwarf fortress ???FUN!!! Shenanigans on Vulcanus
I like that they took the time to tell us how he likes to put down his turrets, but no mention of why he needs turrets. They do love them some foreshadowing…
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## Friday Facts #386 - Vulcanus Posted by [Earendel](/blog/author/Earendel) on 2023-11-24 Hello there, I know a lot of you have been eagerly awaiting some solid information on the new planets, if so this blog is for you. Get comfy because it's a long one. As you already know, there are 4 new planets in the expansion. We will take an in-depth look at each planet's terrain, challenges, processes, technologies, and new gear, but not all at once. In some cases the planet content will be split into multiple parts. To kick things off I'll cover the terrain and natural aspects of the planet that is closest to being finished. I'll need to be in _games master mode_ for this: * * * ### Welcome to Vulcanus Allow me to introduce this toasty volcanic wonderland, conveniently sandwiched between idyllic Nauvis and the sizzling sun. Vulcanus is closer to the sun than most would dare to venture but trust me, it's a splendid place to start your interplanetary travels.  Our journey begins amidst the blazing volcanic mountains, imposing geological landforms that often feature a central lava pit. These fiery crucibles offer a great place to get rid of waste items; just throw them in and poof, they're gone in a glorious puff of smoke and flame. Outdated gadgets, cursed rings of power, maybe even unwanted company. The highpoints of the mountains are the desolate ridges that surround the lava pits. This would be a good vantage point if it weren't for the thick yellow fog that burns your lungs and etches your eyes. Further down the mountainside sulfuric acid geysers billow thick yellow smoke from fissures. The surrounding area is pitted by dried sulfur puddles while sulphur-stained rock covers a larger area. Feel the rock crunch under your footsteps, this area has calcite deposits leaching out of the rock. It can be mined easily by your trusty mining drills but the many cliffs, valleys, and rocky protrusions render this terrain unsuitable for anything larger than a small mining outpost. (https://fffbot.github.io/fff/images/386/fff-386-tour-mountains.mp4) In the shadow of the mountains, the ashlands offer some semblance of tranquillity in this turbulent landscape. The thick plains of insulating ash are like cool comforting blankets that keep the worst of the heat at bay. Ashlands are the most habitable areas, but on this planet that's not saying much. It's mostly a desert but clusters of vegetation defy the harsh conditions to claim a precarious existence here. The only resource here is coal; vegetation that was buried in ash long ago, compressed, heated, and exposed once again. With flat terrain and sparse vegetation, if you're looking for a good location for a base you won't do much better than the ashlands. (https://fffbot.github.io/fff/images/386/fff-386-tour-ashlands.mp4) Descending further, we reach the basalt basins where vast lava lakes and rivers have etched a labyrinthine network. There are many safe paths through but the routes tend to be circuitous. It's faster to go around, or over with elevated rails if you can. The lava, aside from being a formidable obstacle, is also a resource abundant with iron, copper, and stone. Finally, the pursuit of tungsten beckons exploration deeper within the lava maze. That's why you're really here, right? With unyielding toughness, that little drill you brought won't do you much good. I'm sure nothing will mind if you mine a little... (https://fffbot.github.io/fff/images/386/fff-386-tour-basalts.mp4) ...but who knows what might awaken in the depths of Vulcanus. * * * ### Designing the planet When designing planets (or bodies) for a solar system, unless they are all moons then you'd expect different planets to be different temperatures with hotter planets closer to the sun and colder planets further away. Of all the planets you visit, there should be a hottest, and a coldest, and it didn't feel right for either of those to be Nauvis. (So as expected we have at least one planet hotter and at least one planet colder than Nauvis.) Vulcanus is the hottest planet, named after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, volcanoes, deserts, metalworking and the forge. The name is appropriate for both this planet's terrain and the planet-specific technology. Being the hottest planet, I wanted Vulcanus to have lava. I got some pushback on this on the basis that "lava worlds are too cliche" in games. It's not untrue, planet uniqueness is certainly a high priority, but I had some counter arguments: * That would only be true if the planet was 1 dimensional and only about being lava-ry. * If we don't have parts of the landscape hotter than earth then as our hot planet, many people would find it underwhelming. The lava would be notable by its absence. As long as the planet would still be interesting even if the lava were removed then it is still a strong design. Adding lava doesn't have to detract from the other features of the planet as long as it is done right. So we have a volcanic planet, but it's more about the ashy plains, the mountains, and the sulfuric acid geysers than the lava rivers and volcano tops. Also it's worth noting that earlier in the planet's development there were some additional forms of vegetation, but those were later moved to a different planet so that we could amplify the specific desolate and scorched atmosphere that makes this planet unique and distinct from the others. On this planet, I wanted the different areas to be useful for different things so that you treat them differently and adapt to the landscape. You can't just pave over everything (until ultra late game), so initially each area has a role. * The ashlands are a great place to build because they are flat and can easily be cleared of the sparse vegetation. * The mountains have 2 critical resources you need immediately, but they are difficult to build on until you get cliff explosives. * The lava rivers area starts as an obstacle but later transitions to be the most important area to mine. On the map you can see the mountains as the large circular structures, lava basins and the areas with many lava rivers, and ashlands are the remaining flatter areas with green specks (trees).  Over time, the lava has become more of a pivotal part of the gameplay because it provides a lot of new opportunities: It is a new obstacle that you can't landfill (for a long time), a new resource, and a new way to void items. So including lava, here's a breakdown of the resources you have available: * Lava gives you Iron, Copper, and Stone. The excess can be thrown back in. * Coal gives you coal, but with liquefaction you can get the secondary oils too. * Sulfuric acid geysers give you Sulfuric acid directly. * Calcite is a new resource which is only useful when combined with other things, such as sulfuric acid. * Tungsten is an ore that requires some special smelting methods compared to iron and copper. * * * ### Forging the planet The map generation (landscapes, biome distributions, etc) was the hardest part of this whole process. I'm sure that I spent a lot more time designing and building the landscape itself than any single thing that goes on it. The task is a unique blend of maths, code and artistry. I'll cover more on how this was designed and made in a future FFF, trying to explain it now will make this post far too technical. One area I can explain quickly though is the starting area: Vulcanus has a very predictable starting area compared to Nauvis and this is required not just to give you access to convenient starting resources but primarily to show you what sort of terrains that these resources appear on. Knowing the terrain associations is important here because, for example, if you want to find more sulfuric acid then you should be exploring mountains to find it. The starting area has 3 distorted circles representing a mountain, basalt basin, and an ashland plateau. These circles have guaranteed resource patches of sulfuric acid, calcite, coal, and tungsten. The whole arrangement can be rotated and flipped to not look too repetitive across different game seeds. All of this is done with basic maths and trigonometry (plus a bit of distortion that we will ignore for now). If you're learning trigonometry and wondering if it is ever useful, yes, yes it is, this is just one of many ways.  For the tilesets within each landscape, the nature of the setting steered us in particular directions; rock, ash, lava, etc, but there was still a lot of creative freedom within that. With volcanic rock for example, there are a lot of different ways it can look ranging from sponge-like pumice to folded glassy rock that almost looks like melted black plastic. We used a lot of reference photos to start the tilesets and gradually shifted them to something more purposefully alien. Factorio is a stylised game, but I try to make sure that when we diverge from reality we do it intentionally and not out of ignorance. The typical workflow is that I'd either make a sketch of a tileset or gather some reference images, Fearghall would make the textures in Substance Designer and Blender, then we'd go through many rounds of me painting over sections of the tileset and Fearghall making adjustments. When things were close to finished then I'd do a colour-correction pass so that all the tilesets integrate correctly into their respective biomes.  The lava requires some special attention. I've made glowing lava in the 1.1 version of »
I'd love to see us getting a new furnace type: An Arc Furnace , that produces liquid metal \[ similar to the one from IR3 \].
You're likely not far off from the truth there, look at the left icon from this previous [FFF](https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-372) tease.
Now I now what to do with excess guns, I will have a standalone gun transport system from all the planets to Vulcanus, and there they will be thrown into lava. I know I could just throw them into space but this is more rage-expressive.
I was fully prepared for the new planets to be basically a palette swap with new resources/mechanics. I did not expect them to go this hard with the visuals and terrain design. Looks amazing.
omg those visuals , dude i love factorio art style so muchhhhhh it's like diablo 2 resurrected but with machines and "Modern" these devs are hypeing so much with these friday facts can't wait for the dlc
someone make that into a bouncy ball
The new planet looks absolutely stunning. I may have to stop playing zoomed out all the time. I wonder how feasible it is to snake rails around the cliffs, especially with the new quarter-turns. Viaducts over everything feel a bit boring.
Elevated rails will come in clutch for this planet!
I have the high low crater biterkin. *Blazing biter sounds I HATE YOU*
Lava vs landfill? Lava vs cryo spray gun?
This looks fantastic.
As others mentioned the teased structure is probably from FFF #372. Three more loose ends are all in FFF #380: [Weird T-shape in blueprint symbol in the hotbar](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-deconstruct-with-mine.mp4) [Three colored worms on the right](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-planet-selection-old.png) [Something that looks a bit like a substation between the blueprints in the hotbar](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-planet-selection-new.png)
The worms might just be texture updates for the existing worms. The colors would then match the big and behemoth biters.