Hi friends,
Slims here. I wanted to open up about my journey as a game developer and share some personal updates, along with news about the next content patch.
Building Final Factory has been a huge part of my life. It's been a long, often lonely road, one that many indie devs know all too well.
You might have noticed my development speed has slowed down a bit this summer. During the playtesting phase before release, I was tirelessly working, pushing out updates nearly every day. But those 70-90 hour work weeks took a heavy toll on my mental health and my family life. I had to step back and reassess my priorities.
My son was born just a few weeks before Final Factory launched, and that changed everything for me. I never imagined I'd be a father, and as it turns out, fatherhood kicks a lot of ass. But I've also had to find new ways of balancing the grind of (mostly) solo game dev and my family life over the last few months.
Anyway, I just wanted to let people know where I'm at at a personal level. Life is very full right now, and I'm trying to focus on my mental health and my new family as top priorities.
That said, I'm determined to continue to make Final Factory into a top tier factory game. I've managed to make good progress on Update 2, and I'd like to share more of whats coming.
Railguns and the Laser Rework
A lot of folks have requested 2 things: for lasers to not consume fuel, and for more weapon options on ships. The new Railgun weapon is going to kill 2 birds with one stone.
The blender model of the new railgun that can be attached to ships
Railguns have to charge up to fire. In order to charge up, there's a new structure called the Capacitor, which will convert electricity generated by a station/ship into charge over time. Railguns will use charge to generate the power needed to launch a new ammo type at massive velocities.
The Railgun will do massive damage in a line, it's projectile will penetrate everything it hits up to a certain distance (similar to the Obliterator Disk, but smaller).
The new capacitor structure which can store electric charge.
Lasers have also been reworked to use charge instead of fuel. Lasers merely requiring power felt too simple to me, and ship building needed some more love. It also makes sense physics-wise: high powered lasers need a lot of on-demand power draw all at once, Capacitors are the perfect solution.
You can power Capacitors however you choose, but I imagine folks will be burning fuel in Singularity Power Stations for their ships. We shall see how the meta shakes out.
Early Game Rework
A lot of the negative feedback for the game comes from folks who struggle to get past the first few hours, with frequent complaints about stability and the various constraints on station design.
I've come to the conclusion that the stability/heat/power trifeceta is just a little too restrictive and frustrating, especially for new players. There's also just too many mechanics thrown at the player too soon.
The following changes will be made:
- Free stability will be further increased to allow more flexibility, and prevent the need for Station Cores in the early game.
- Atomic Printers, Assemblers, and Ship Assemblers will no longer generate heat, but their base production speed will be greatly reduced
- A new item, the Overdriver, will increase the speed of production of all attached assembler-type structures at the cost of heat and power
- Solar Power will be buffed slightly to reduce the number of panels needed early game
These changes will make it so players will not have to worry about heat and stability for the first few hours of the game. Overdrivers will come into play as tier 1 science, and once placed will introduce the heat mechanic.
I also wanted to relax the solar panel spam required early game, as that was a common point of frustration as well.
Update 2 also contains the map markers feature and the enemy attacking rework, which are both completed at this point. You can read about it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1383150/view/4222769301362483587
Many are probably also wondering about multiplayer, and it's still happening! I'm trying to balance working on content and multiplayer, but we're making progress on both. Update 2 will have a lot of the netcode and required refactors as part of it, so we can start testing that infrastructure.
Anyway, I've gone over a lot in this post and I'll be sharing more as the next update draws closer!
Thanks for reading!
/Slims
Just a reminder: if you're enjoying Final Factory, steam reviews help a bunch!