It's been a long time since I last commented on Helmod. I recently started playing factorio again and helmod got updated to version 1.x since.
I really appreciate you working and improving on Helmod. I like the general idea with using the new tree structured view very much.
But to be honest - I got confused and either it's me not understanding how to use it, or maybe it can be made better.
So I'd like to contribute a little bit by politely giving my thoughts about what could be improved.
I don't want to be rude, but focused, short and on point, so that's how I will be writing it.
And most important: I couldn't do any better myself and I like using Helmod.
Help/Documentation
With Ver.1.x the Help/Documentation for the mod seems to be outdated on many parts and in general not to be in a good shape.
The way it is structured can be improved a lot. Many parts are overloaded. Other parts should be split in smaller parts.
There is inconsitent usage of terms (production line/block, factory etc..) on many occasions and flawed language in general. I'm not a native english speaker and I know that this is a lot of work.
Preview pictures are outdated. Examples are missing, explanations many times not useful or completly missing for new features (what is 'deep count'?).
The Help panel could use horizontal screen space better, by aligning pictures to the left and text/annotations to the right.
Does factorio support GIF pictures in the help documentation?
Of cause it is obviously better to finalize the functionality of the mod and redo the documentation afterwards, when features are finished and locked.
If you would like some help or more concrete feedback, maybe I could find some time.
Main Panel / Child-Block
There is an inconsistency in the Main Panel when using child-block for recipe calculations.
Let me show you. With this example I'm playing Industrial Revolution 3.
- Current0_.png (177.51 KiB) Viewed 1327 times
1.row: main production block recipe for "basic computers"
2.-4.row: child-blocks for the 3 ingriedients.
I took me a while to understand what the meaning of the numbers in the recipe collum for row 2-4 is. Especially because in this example they are right and wrong at the same time
The mistake lies in row 4: 40 glass plates and 32 copper ingots will make for 16 green circuits but not by using 18 machines. Let's have a look the child-block for green circuits...
- Current2_.png (200.31 KiB) Viewed 1327 times
I designed this block to fabricate 5 green ciruits from 12.5 glass and 10 copper ingots using 18 machines. Basically I limited the output to 5 green circuits.
So now I understand that the 3.2 is a multiplier for the child-block, as 5 * 3.2 = 16.
But the amount of machines is not correct, because it wasn't multiplied by the blockfactor.
If we look at the child block, we can see it has 18 machines but the power doesn't add up to 5.7MW.
The total for the whole production line should be 58 machines @ 5.7MW. The total for the whole production line should be 103 machines @ 9.8MW
That's when I tried the 'display deep count':
- Current1_.png (203.05 KiB) Viewed 1327 times
- Current3_.png (223.4 KiB) Viewed 1327 times
Other than that, I marked what shows the wrong values. Further I made crosses which values are imo obsolete.
I believe it to be more useful when using the deep count view, that the first row shows the constrained/limited child-block values and the second row the values multiplied by the blockmultiplier (in my example, 3.2).
If not using the deep count view, I'd recommend to use the total values (total #machines, total power, total in/output items) for the production line overview and the restricted values in the corresponding child-block.
I have no idea what the clear button is supposed to do. When I use it, it just sets the output to 0 but the recipe in this case always calculates to an output of 1 anyway. What's the point?
Furthermore it might be a good idea to implement a (optional?) ceiling function on block-multipliers and for the calculation of the amount of total machines needed, too.
Let's say I want to produce a green circuit, I need 1 assembler for this and assume my child-block is exactly this one assembler. But now my production line need's 1.5 green circuits. I can't build half of an assembler and have to build 2 anyways. So I would like Helmod to tell me to built two blocks.
For child-blocks my argument is that I would try to get the whole block to some nice and buildable ratio, next I blueprint it and I always put down a whole blueprint.
This example shows the problem of not using a ceiling function clearly: You can't have this like this.
- Current4_.png (116.12 KiB) Viewed 1327 times
Again: Thank you for working on this mod, it helps a lot.
Cheers
