Factorio talk:Editor noticeboard

0.15 update plan

I'm thinking of updating the Oil Processing page to reflect to 10x change in 0.15, and I'm a little unclear on the update policy. It says "For major changes to existing entities, update the pages to 0.15 info and move the 0.14 info to a small paragraph", which sounds like I should go ahead and do it; but also "As of stable release, fully update the page's text and exact values," which implies that I shouldn't update the values until the stable release. Phasma Felis (talk) 20:22, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I am also unclear of the policy. Should we mark removed features as archived or wait until the full release? Igwb (talk) 08:26, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Mark them as archived but don't remove things from the page until 0.15 is stable. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 09:57, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Total raw recipes

Some of the "Total Raw" recipe fields are wrong right now. For example Processing unit and Rocket part aren't decomposing their ingredients at all. I posted on the forum (https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=47617) but thought I should ask here as well. Are these fields getting automatically written by something? If so, can you point me to the script so I can try to fix it? If not, should I just manually edit the ones that I see are broken? Grumphrey (talk) 19:35, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Hey there grumphrey, we ran a tool by a community member that updated recipes to 0.15 automatically, and it's possible that it may have left some raw recipes unchanged. The tool isn't recurring, so go ahead and change the values manually to the fixed ones. --Gangsir (talk) - Admin 21:18, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

The errors in the files I was using have been found and fixed, so I updated all the infoboxes to the correct values. I should be able to update the technology infoboxes tomorrow. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 19:57, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Research icons

I'm gradually adding the new ranks of research bonuses (e.g. Mining productivity (research) but have hit a snag with the icons. once we hit double figures, the text overlay on the icons wraps i.e.

12-15

would be good if it used a smaller font - I'm guessing after a bit of digging around that means defining a smaller version of .factorio-icon-text (ideally dynamically selected depending on how much text to overlay). Also not sure how best to do the infinity symbol - it is as simple as using the ASCII ∞ symbol or will that get screwy in the code? Paulbrock (talk) 09:41, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

OK, so I've found 'navbox-icon-text' that allows me to do this:

12-15

But if you look at the code its pretty messy. Is there a better way?

Monitor links

Just to avoid some confusion I thought it would be useful to have a list of what should remain present on the following pages:

• [1] (Pages with broken file links)
• Unused files

For both of these my question is as follows: Which links/files should remain on the page?. The editor noticeboard says there should be some on there but doesn't mention which ones those are, so to prevent some confusion an answer would be appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Df1229 (talk • contribs) (Please sign your messages with --~~~~)

I've clarified further on the page itself. It's a pretty long list, but as the page says, just monitor from your perspective. If you check once, and then check later and there's a new page, look into it to see if it should be fixed. It's difficult to specify exactly what to do, as its different for each case. Essentially, if a ton of new pages appear there, or if a page from the main namespace (something like iron plate) appear, fix it. :) --Gangsir (talk) - Admin 13:58, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Expensive Mode

Hi all,

new here (to the Wiki, not Factorio). Below is kind of a random issue I noticed on the Wiki. If there's a page where these should be dumped instead of here (Some sort of list of pages people noticed are missing or might want added, perhaps with option to discuss?), then I apologize for cluttering up this page.

Now then, what I came here to say: I just noticed that there does not seem to be a page for "Expensive mode" at all, even though it's in the infoboxes of all recipes. (I also looked at the pages for related terms like Crafting and generic searches like "mode" or "recipe" - still nothing. The term as written is not even mentioned once in any of the full version history pages back through 0.10. For all this Wiki shows you, "Expensive mode" might as well not exist except as a mysterious infobox toggle.).

It seems conceivable that new(er) players would want to look up the term to see what exactly it entails. (I too am not completely clear on how it works, even though I'm not exactly a new player.)

While I don't have the information needed to write the page, I could probably look it up somewhere (forums?); but even if I could write it - should I? Or is there a particular reason that Expensive mode (or Normal mode) does not have a page?

Also, I'm not sure whether this level of documentation (half-page post) is appropriate given the relative importance of the issue at hand. In plainer English: I know I tend to be a windbag, so if it's TLDR, let me know. :)

Best

Mike --Misacek01 (talk) 01:44, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this is currently the right page to note such things here on the wiki. You can also contact us wiki admins on the discord server linked on the main page, in the wiki-work channel.

The expensive recipes were added in version 0.15 and are apparently not directly mentioned in the changelog. Some info regarding them could be found on the world generator page, and I now also added a small note to crafting. The expensive recipes themselves don't warant a whole page, they are just another configuration option when you start a new game. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 08:26, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate the info, your edit, and the indication of what does and what doesn't warrant a page that it provides. --Misacek01 (talk) 20:58, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Math rendering

Hi,

I was wondering whether it might be possible / practical to enable this wiki to display Mediawiki math markup (<math>...</math>). I realize this is not primarily a math-oriented site, but Factorio is basically a math-driven game (at least if played at any kind of non-beginner level), and from time to time the ability to display a simple equation would be useful.

I'm not a programmer and don't have much of an idea as to what enabling math would entail, but according to the documentation here, it might be as simple as enabling "$wgUseTeX = true;" in the wiki's "LocalSettings.php".

I've been using the <code>...</code> tags for an ersatz math highlight, but they're not really meant for it and the readability isn't the best. On the other hand, with the math rendering enabled, Mediawiki can run the majority of the professional-grade TeX markup language, which should be more than good enough for any math needed here.

If there's a particular reason math is disabled on Factorio Wiki, I'll understand, but if there isn't and if it's not too much of a bother in terms of work required, might I ask an admin to consider enabling it?

Thanks

--Misacek01 (talk) 15:19, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

This definitely sounds useful. However, for this to work we'll have to install https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Math . Sadly I didn't have the time to ask HanziQ to do it today. You can expect the extension to be installed and configured on Wednesday, but I'll let you know again when you can use it. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 19:42, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, that's great! Wednesday is perfectly fine. :) --Misacek01 (talk) 11:00, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply and incoming disappointment: We are having trouble with the service that is required by the extension, so currently it's not installed. The issue is still open on github so maybe we will find a solution for this some time in the future, but for now, this isn't happening. Sorry. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 20:35, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Documenting the Blueprint String Format on the wiki?

What's the word on doing this? This'll make the info a bit easier than random posts on forums spread around the internet. Since the format may not internally be "standardized" or "final", I think a bit of caution is healthy about this. But considering the format has a version number inherent in every blueprint now (last I heard), it might still be feasible to document. --Xunie (talk) 20:22, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

It's not really "worth" its own page since it's just two sentences. It's meant to be added to the blueprint library page, but since that doesn't exist yet... Here is the info for now:

The format of a blueprint string is json that has been compressed with zlib deflate and base64'd with the version byte (0 in vanilla 0.15) added to the beginning of the base64 string.

So to parse a blueprint string, skip the first byte, base64 decode the string, and finally decompress using zlib deflate.

-- Bilka (talk) - Admin 20:33, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, but what format is the JSON in? Am I just supposed to "figure" this out and "guess"? :p --Xunie (talk) 17:09, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Didn't even think about that... it's relatively easy to figure out, but I'll document it here. For the mean time, https://factorioprints.com can show the jsons for blueprints. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 17:29, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

This is exactly my point. You're linking me to something with the intent turning it into a 'guessing game'. "Just look at the JSON of current blueprints" isn't a complete example. You can never know if your implementation is 'complete'. I know I'm being pedantic about this and there might not be a pressing need for this right now. But documenting it sooner rather than later can help with quality of community tools, I guess? I dunno. Barely use blueprints myself atm. It's just something I'm personally running into. --Xunie (talk) 17:36, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

The same thing applies for documentation; it won't be more than a guessing game. Things literally always change, the docs will never be complete. And they are always from an outsider perspective, so they might be missing things etc. In the end, I am doing nothing different than the developers of current blueprint tools: Looking at examples and documenting those behaviours while hoping that I didn't miss some cases. And like I said, I want to document this. But I am still a volunteer, and sometimes there are more pressing matters than the wiki. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 18:43, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Question about i18n of infoboxes (structured passages, paragraphs)

The Infobox:Flamethrower_turret does have some english-only passages. Three example:

• fluid-storage-volume=Fuel buffer: 100
  Pass-through pipe: 100
• range = Minimum: 6
  Maximum: 30
  (Limited 120° arc)
• extra2 = Fire on the ground lasts 2 seconds. Area of effect size applies to igniting objects and contact damage. Objects are ignited for 30 seconds.

String like Fuel buffer are quite easy translatable by moving them to the translation templates. With Limited 120° arc I would think twice becaue the 120° is (probably) constant, but depending on the language, it might be unclear if the number is always between Limited and arc. And the last field makes me think if we should move the whole text into translation templates because extra2 contains a paragraph with two sentences.

How should one ideally translate these examples? --M.C.S. (talk) 11:57, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Both the fuel buffer example and the 120° arc should be completely included in the translation template. Your concern about the 120° not changing is accurate, however some languages may want to translate the ° sign (the game allows to do this, so we do too), and as you say, word order is also a concern.

The extra2 field is automatically included in the translation template, see Template:Infobox/extra, so you can just translate the whole text at once and dont need to modify the infobox for that.

One thing to keep in mind if you plan to go through infoboxes to add {{Translation|}} is that some languages like to translate units, like Items/s, so if you find those missing the translation template in infoboxes that you are looking at, you are encouraged to add them.

Thank you for putting so much thought into the translations, your changes so far have been really good. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 12:12, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion: We should separate wiki pages for each version

When updating recipes in some pages in Chinese Factorio Wiki, I noticed that it does not include version number. I think we should whether include version information declaring when is the page updated, or we separate the wiki into different versions. I prefer the latter one because the players playing older versions should be respected.

Examples of documentation for different version of one theme can be found very common. For example the python document https://docs.python.org/3/ v.s. https://docs.python.org/2/ . It's also an upper-layer persistence of wiki with which one can find the information of wanted version without navigating to history of the wiki. And the history is often partly missing since wiki in other languages is not updated frequently enough. For the pages which are lack of updates I think it's better to have the version information in it, so that the information is either correct or missing. The users will not be mislead.

--Simonmysun (talk) 11:02, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Pages cannot effectively be assigned a version number. This is the case because infoboxes are updated automatically to the latest version, while the page text is not. So in the case of an "outdated" page, the infobox usually isn't outdated, only the page text is. So, assigning any version number to such a page would be misleading.

We do not want to maintain separate wikis for different versions in the same way that older versions are no longer maintained by us. Python, which you link, is taking a different approach, until very recently they also maintained Python 2, so they also maintained its documentation.

Another problem with putting version information into pages is that with any new version, pages that did not change still have to updated to say "this is updated information". This is a lot of work that is better spent on updating pages that are about features that did change. With 1.0 drawing near, new features and gameplay changes are becoming rarer and versioning concerns for old content should hopefully disappear as the translated pages catch up to the English version. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 09:05, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

You are right. If the previous versions of the game are not maintained, so are the previous versions of the wiki. So when 1.0 become released, I will start to update the Chinese version of wiki. Thanks for your reply. --Simonmysun (talk) 20:16, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Template for "See also"

Hi, should we have template for this kind of section that repeat in so many pages and are exact the same? Camponez (talk) 12:01, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Ideally, we aim to make the "see also" sections not all the same, the opposite of using a template for them. The major culprit for identical "see also" sections are the research pages, which almost always link to only the very general "research" and "technologies" pages. However, these pages are often missing links to related topics, e.g. bonus technologies not linking to the entities they improve.

For now, I have included a link to Technologies in the TechNav templates. Whether all research pages need to link to the general research page is questionable. With this, the "see also" sections could be removed for many technology pages. Going forward, I encourage you to improve the "see also" sections of pages to link to more closely related topics or, in the case of technology pages, to remove them completely and transform them into short text blurbs that link to less general topics (if appropriate). As an example, I just did this to Space science pack (research).

In the future, I may add a general "make tech pages better" task to the editor noticeboard, to help transform the currently rather short and repetitive pages into more valuable documentation. The task would also make clear that short text blurbs about tech effects are now welcome on technology pages, as they were previously discouraged due to the game changing changing so much back then. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 12:57, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Style of disambiguation pages

I'm not satisfied with the look of the disambiguation page header. With its icon and text it looks like an error message or a warning, but actually many wiki pages explicitly link to disambiguation pages, so the reader can choose which item he needs information for. Such a prominent warning is not warranted if the reader gets a disambiguation page by regular wiki browsing. I propose a non intrusive icon.
The current one is: I propose one of: or or or or or or
My favorite is the book icon and the electronics icon.
And about the text: just keep the title and drop the two sentences "If unable to find the desired page ..." and "If an internal link...". I know these are the old venerable wiki standard texts, but they don't really apply any more. Tertius3 (talk) 11:44, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

You bring up a good point. The disambiguation template mostly comes from how Wikipedia uses it, where the term can often mean wildly different things. As you point out, we tend to have pages like "Artillery" or "Robots" that are more umbrella terms for one group of items. So, I did the changes you propose, I ended up going with the electronics icon. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 09:21, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Looks good. Not intrusive any more. Still feels a bit like text pasted together, but so are templates. Tertius3 (talk) 11:23, 10 May 2021 (UTC)