Development and Discussion

[Arch666Angel]

Hi Angel

As you know I have been messing about with the new Logistics mod...

Yesterday as I shut down my PC and was about to go to bed I remembered that the Logistics mod page contains Loaders (viewtopic.php?f=185&t=40654), but they are no-where to be found in the game (downloaded the in-game version so not the Arumba version). Is that because there is a newer version or am I just blind and cannot find it?

Also, I have completed the first three of my tutorials for your mods. I hope they do the mods justice Please let me know what you think.
Refining 1: Basic Crushing and Sorting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJUgGY9Rtpc
Refining 2: Advanced Refining and Sorting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UuYKyGWqNA
Refining 3: Crystal and Mineral Refining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NKjrCK8lh0

EDIT: Nevermind about the Loaders. I didn't know they required a separate mod for activating them. Now I downloaded it and it works. I still can't tell if I think it is a bit "cheating" as it trivialises a lot of inserter design...

Awesome, I like what you have done there, I think you mentioned most things that are helpful and important to starting off with refining.

The loaders require the add-loaders mod for now, because I dont want to include a script in the mod, at the moment you need scripting to copy over filters from one loader to another, but this will go away with 0.15 since they will do the implementation for that fix the update. My plan is to restrict the number of loaders you can have by making the resource you need to build them rare (crystal rocks *hint* *hint*). I dont think they are that overpowered, but as always you should have to decide where and when to use them (high throughput situation) and not just slap them down everywhere.

[aklesey1]

Hi People, what you think of rubber and its importance of application in a game, now it is used generally for solder and the insulated wires, where we can use it? May be some examples are - rubber strips, rubber hoses?
Maybe it is worth thinking of increase in importance of application of the insulated wires?

[The Draf]

Hi Angel

As you know I have been messing about with the new Logistics mod...

Yesterday as I shut down my PC and was about to go to bed I remembered that the Logistics mod page contains Loaders (viewtopic.php?f=185&t=40654), but they are no-where to be found in the game (downloaded the in-game version so not the Arumba version). Is that because there is a newer version or am I just blind and cannot find it?

Also, I have completed the first three of my tutorials for your mods. I hope they do the mods justice Please let me know what you think.
Refining 1: Basic Crushing and Sorting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJUgGY9Rtpc
Refining 2: Advanced Refining and Sorting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UuYKyGWqNA
Refining 3: Crystal and Mineral Refining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NKjrCK8lh0

EDIT: Nevermind about the Loaders. I didn't know they required a separate mod for activating them. Now I downloaded it and it works. I still can't tell if I think it is a bit "cheating" as it trivialises a lot of inserter design...

Excellent videos. Mind blown when you explained that the yield does not increase with more complex refining. I always scaled up and used the latest sorting method available for me and assumed that the total yield increased with every step. After watching this I tore down my huge iron ore refining plant and replaced it by a compact black/yellow ore sorting setup. Iron production was always a problem before this, now it skyrocketed and I have more then a thousand iron plates per minute.

[ukezi]

well the total does increase, but if you want the main ore of a line, that one decreases. in my signature there is the spreadsheet for that stuff.
@angel how about changing the blue catalyst to require cobalt and zinc instead of cobalt and titan? that would bring another use to one of the lower use ores and not require chemical sorting for the blue catalysts.

[Kazuar]

I have been working on a new vanilla mode and some improvements to make localization easier for different configurations of the mods, might be ready for testing at the start of the next week.

No one seems to have commented on this, judging from a cursory glance, so: nice ! Shame about the loss of rubyte/bobmonium, but I'd understand cutting down the number of raw ores to help make each ore feel meaningful? Anyway, I'm looking forward to this, since, y' know, I understand it's not the recommended way to play your mods, and the effort you put into this is being appreciated. I've tried the entirety of the bobs-&angelsmods package, and I'm not a 100% sold, yet, mostly due to the dang convoluted, near-lying techtree.

*****

Speaking of which: I understand that this'll amount to a large volume of ungrateful work, and I actually don't know whether this is comes from bobs or from your mods, but I figure I might ask anyway: is there any chance of the tech tree getting "straightened out"? As it is, jumping from vanilla-ish to the full bobs&angel package, I notice a lot of really nice sounding technologies being available for research that sound really fancy and desireable, but are actually, objectively useless to me at the current moment in the game, because recipes that are being unlocked require intermediates that, in order to produce, require a completly unrelated, different tech.

Earliest offender: Electronics. Electronics are offered really early, get researched probably immediatly by anyone coming from vanilla, only for the game to go full "evil voice" and be like: "Yes. You can make basic electronic circuits now, if you have carbon. You have carbon, right? It's an absolute prerequisite for electronics. What? No no, it's not actually reflected in the table of the technology called "prerequisites", you just have to know you need coal processing. What did you expect, player? That technologies whose main benefit is unlocking buildings that require basic electronic circuits to craft actually have electronics as a prerequisite? *sinister laughing*"

Seriously though, I'm sure this could be checked and "patched" automatically via scripting...? One can hope

[Light]

I notice a lot of really nice sounding technologies being available for research that sound really fancy and desireable, but are actually, objectively useless to me at the current moment in the game, because recipes that are being unlocked require intermediates that, in order to produce, require a completly unrelated, different tech.

Earliest offender: Electronics. Electronics are offered really early, get researched probably immediatly by anyone coming from vanilla, only for the game to go full "evil voice" and be like: "Yes. You can make basic electronic circuits now, if you have carbon. You have carbon, right? It's an absolute prerequisite for electronics. What? No no, it's not actually reflected in the table of the technology called "prerequisites", you just have to know you need coal processing. What did you expect, player? That technologies whose main benefit is unlocking buildings that require basic electronic circuits to craft actually have electronics as a prerequisite? *sinister laughing*"

Seriously though, I'm sure this could be checked and "patched" automatically via scripting...? One can hope

Indeed. Trying to get the mandatory filter inserters early on is a massive pain in the ass in its own right. Not only is the carbon research required, but also mechanical refining to even smelt lead and tin, plus the metal mixing furnace to make solder plates. Assuming you didn't also get fast inserters first, that's another path you need to add as well.

So despite being such an early tech with attractive options, there are four paths required that aren't outright obvious to a new user who can't find out what they're missing and why.

Another confusing one would be plastics. The plastics tech isn't a prerequisite to make plastic bars, so you wouldn't immediately know you make plastics via an entirely different chain than you normally would. Setting the plastics as a prerequisite alongside chemistry might aid in any confusion as to where it is in the tech tree.

[MainTango]

So despite being such an early tech with attractive options, there are four paths required that aren't outright obvious to a new user who can't find out what they're missing and why.

Step 1: Open research screen.
Step 2: Type 'filter inserter' into the search bar.
Step 3: Follow the tech tree to unlock your filter inserter.

What do you mean when you say 'new user'? People who are new to factorio?

[Kazuar]

Step 1: Open research screen.
Step 2: Type 'filter inserter' into the search bar.
Step 3: Follow the tech tree to unlock your filter inserter.

What do you mean when you say 'new user'? People who are new to factorio?

People who are new to the mod pack. And again, unlocking the recipe is not the problem. The problem is that the tech tree allows for unlocking recipes that cannot be crafted with the intermediates that are unlocked along the way. Go ahead. Start a new game and try out your own suggestion: research Automation, then go straight into filter inserters, no detours. You'll find yourself unable to actually craft filter inserters, since you cannot craft the intermediates along the chain for lack of an unlocked recipe (specifically, along others, you cannot make carbon, since Coal Processing is not a prerequisite for unlocking filter inserters, despite being a prerequisite for crafting them).

And yes, one can argue and say "well, if you actually took your time and looked at the tech tree and etc and so on", but the logical extreme of that argument is that gating techs behind other techs is essentially pointless, because even in vanilla factorio, you should just know you couldn't craft Rocket Silos, even if the research were available from the start. But the reason for gating a tech behind another tech is so that the player isn't getting his UI spammed with choices that are worthless to the player at his or her current point in the game. You couldn't craft Pumpjacks right from the start, thats why they're "hidden" behind other techs. You coudn't craft Laser Turrets right from the start, thats why they're hidden as well. The list goes on.

And I'm not asking for perfection, either; even the vanilla tech tree has its derp moments (Why?? even show blue beaker techs when I can't even craft blue beakers?), and I do appreciate the effort that is being put into the mods I'm using, I merely want to point out that the art of gating technologies through prerequisites has a large and positive impact on the players learning speed.

[Tony3D]

Hi, I appreciate the development work that you have done. The design make the games more interesting to complete.

In first few games I found the similarity of a few gas icons made things a bit tricky (think it was raw gas and natural gas from memory).

There were two different gas products that had an identical icon but obviously the pipes could not be connected together. The other less intuitive thing was when attempting to produce the first sulfuric acid - the lead/galeana method was in a totally different tab to most of the other acid based products and there was no cross reference in the help text that came up.

Other idea that you might consider is actually making your silo behave like a real life silo where goods first placed into it are withdrawn first rather than behaving like a box where the last thing that you put in is taken out first. Useful if you throw a mix of items into the silo. It should not interfere with the filtered extraction by inserters or loaders etc

[Shenpen]

...

Also, I have completed the first three of my tutorials for your mods. I hope they do the mods justice Please let me know what you think.
Refining 1: Basic Crushing and Sorting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJUgGY9Rtpc
Refining 2: Advanced Refining and Sorting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UuYKyGWqNA
Refining 3: Crystal and Mineral Refining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NKjrCK8lh0

Nilaus tutorials and lets-plays are higly reconmendable!
Best base structure for bobs/angels I have seen so far!

[NewSwiss]

My plan is to restrict the number of loaders you can have by making the resource you need to build them rare (crystal rocks *hint* *hint*). I dont think they are that overpowered, but as always you should have to decide where and when to use them (high throughput situation) and not just slap them down everywhere.

I dislike the idea of making them hard to obtain. I feel it should be left to the player to determine whether they want to use a inserters or just slap down loaders. I wouldn't mind if loaders were made more expensive (in terms of iron, copper, lead, or tin), but I feel it should be open to the player to decide whether they want to take the lazy route. I liken this to doing things by robot vs by belt. If you want, you can build a very hodgepodge factory, free of belts, and just have everything run by bots. But to do so costs a fair bit of power and materials to build the necessary infrastructure.

[afk2minute]

Just make loaders consume ALOT of energy.

[madras51]

Using Arumbas latest Bobs + Angels mod pack with yuoki Industries.

Has anyone encountered a problem with Lithium Ion Batteries - I have all of the ingredients (thermal water, lithium, cobalt...etc) but cannot find lithium ion batteries in the Tech Tree or the Crafting menus - I have all science researched including Blue but can not get purple science.


thanks

Madras51

[afk2minute]

Using Arumbas latest Bobs + Angels mod pack with yuoki Industries.

Has anyone encountered a problem with Lithium Ion Batteries - I have all of the ingredients (thermal water, lithium, cobalt...etc) but cannot find lithium ion batteries in the Tech Tree or the Crafting menus - I have all science researched including Blue but can not get purple science.


thanks

Madras51

Have you tried search function?

Maybe its just somewhere in unexpected place.

[madras51]

Hi afk,

Yes I have tried everything I can think of - have searched everywhere - nothing, yet it is listed as a required ingredient for purple science.

thanks

Madras51

[madras51]

Here is a screenshot of my tech tree.

[afk2minute]

Try searching for lithium.

I dont have PC with factorio nearby sadly, cant check....

[mexmer]

most likely bad override from some other mod (not angels nor bobs, just some other mod you have installed)

[Kazuar]

Here is a screenshot of my tech tree.

Well, the tech that unlocks lithium-ion batteries is at least visible on your screenshot - top row, second from the left. Maybe a prerequisite tech thats still missing?

[madras51]

Hi Kazuar,

If you mean Batteries 2 - here it is: it requires purple science which requires lithium ion batteries!!!

So frustrating lol.


regards,