My Factorio MOD’ing wish list for 0.17 / Release

[TheSAguy]

I’m not a strong modder and a lot of the things I’m going to ask for probably does not exist because it’s not technically possible, but hey, if you don’t ask…



Modders Entities:

I use a lot of HIDDEN buildings to accomplish things in my mods. The reason I use these hidden buildings is because the primary building I’m using does not have all the attributes I need, so I combine two buildings to get to what I need.

Example:
The Light Entity has a on/off image, depending it it’s day or night, so if I want my building to have two different images, depending if it’s day or night, I have to tie it to a hidden lamp.

If I want the building to glow at night, I need to add a hidden light entity. (The Rocket Silo actually has this built in, but that’s on the Silo entity and not Assembly Machine, Furnace or Radar)
If I want a range overly, I need to use a hidden turret entity to display the range a building affects.
I have an Artifact collector. I need to hide a turret to show the radius. I need a hidden radar to show the player the scan cycle. and a container to actually collect the artifacts.


Could we create Modders Entities that have a lot of Attributes associated to them and just have it blank {}, if not used
Have an Assembler, Radar, Furnace—etc. with a host of attributes like:

- Working / Idle Images = {},
- Day / Night Images = {},
- Sector Scanning – Used for display, to show the user when an action is performed. (When the bar is full)
- Light = {},
- An Inventory.

I realize that there can't be a single god entity, but maybe add a few of each to those that can use it without major editing. Like a light source, radius....


This way I won’t need to use hidden entities, but just populate the needed attribute on the Modding Entity.
I’m hoping this is coming across clearly…


Energy Sources:

I’d like to create solar entities, for instance a Solar Boiler. That’s not currently possible, even with a hidden solar entity.
I also wanted to create a custom energy source. I thought this would be possible with 0.16’s “fuel_category”. Like to be able to create a custom category. Let’s say I want to burn Alien artifacts, I’d give that a custom fuel category and set the burner to only use that fuel.


Hidden wires:
Topic here

Yeah, have been asking for this one a long time and I know it’s not easy, but really would like to have a way to hide the wires on custom power poles. (I know it’s possible to hide ALL wires, but I only want to hide the wires on my custom poles)

This will give me the ability to connect two entities, without showing the wires. Like Electric rail, floor tiles etc.


Attributes to Rail
Topic here


- Rail speed limits
- Powered rail options
- Vehicle type limitation
-- Could be achieved in reverse, by using a track type limitation array on the vehicle, rather than a single entry

This will allow a lot of diversity in Rail and other transport mediums, like roads.
You can have cheap slow rail, high speed rail. Freight rail, Power rail....


More Bio Diversity. (Fauna and Flora)
This should probably be a DLC. Yes I said it! I don’t mind paying a little for adding these features that’s not needed for the core game.

Basically take Earendel's Alien Biomes for the Flora and adding in some more creatures.

Need ability to define flying, jumping, amphibious.
Types of food they eat. Vegetation, Meat, Minerals…
Aggression due to pollution
Mutation probability and what they mutate too.

Veden has done wonders in his Rampant mod!

Add Seasons. Rivers freeze in Fall, lakes in winter...




That's it for now
I just want to say that the Devs of Factorio are GREAT and they go out of their way to support the modding community. Thanks so much!! This will keep Factorio going for years and years to come!

[bobingabout]

There are only real 2 peices of input I have here.

1. The rail related things are unlikely to happen. I've had discussions with the devs on things I would like to do with railway related things in the past, and the only real answer I get is... it would cause too much overhead. Rail as it is now is basically just a "Locomotives can go here" check, there's no filtering of any kind, be it electrified, filtering, or speed limits, and this has been put in place purely for a performance perspective.

God I hate that my new PC at work doesn't have a spell checker, and I can't turn it on nor install a plugin. I guess I've gotten lazy and dependant on it.

2. Solar as a power input sounds like a reasonable request for 0.17 to me, but will likely end up being one of those "If you want it, you'll have to do it yourself" things, and by yourself, they mean people with source access, like me.
But, on the note of power related things, I want to do 2 things. Firstly, add in a new energy type, my case being Fluid, similar to how you can use fluids with the generator entity. Likewise, I'd be interested in an "Anything in, Anything out" power converter entity, where you specify one power source as an input, and another for the output.

So you could create a solar panel that outputs heat. One of the issues with it though is you want to limit what types of output you can get, likely to only heat or Electricity, and probably the easiest way to do that is simply have two different entities, one that creates heat, and another that creates Electricity, and in both cases you select the energy source from any existing type... Electricity, Burner and Heat, but also if they're added as energy sources, Fluid and maybe some other new types, like Solar or Wind.

And if they're implemented at all, will likely be 0.17 features, not 0.16.

[TheSAguy]

Thanks for the feedback Bob!

I figured the rail changes was still a no-go, but was hoping

Maybe you could explain to me the reason/difficulty adding attributes to certain entities.

Let's take a few examples.
Why can't we add a light radius on an Assembly machine?
The rocket-silo had the "base_light". Why can't something similar be added to the assembly ma

Same with a "Range" overlay. The turret can show a range, why can't something similar be added to other entities.
I have a radar entity that can convert enemies in a range, but can't easily show that range to the player.

The Radar entity has a little bar that fills as it scans. This is a great visual for the player to know when an action is going to happen. I have an Artifact collector box, that I'd like to show this on, so the player know when something is going to happen. So I had to add a radar just for that. Some with my building that reduces evolution. I had to add a radar to show the player when the action will happen.

Add add to your fuel comment.
Since we already have a couple fuel categories: Chemical and Nuclear, is it really so hard to create a custom one, and adding that to a furnace?

Like your energy idea and hope to see it and solar at some point.

Thanks.

[steinio]

Yeah something with inherit classes would be nice.

Example:
- new assembler with self defence turret = new entity assembler inherit properties of turret.

[eradicator]

@Rails: Meh. We actually had different rail types once. Until a certain someone decided for no good reason to remove them. (The reason stated was that all types would still use the same signals, like if that was a problem. It wasn't even argued with performance concerns oO). Given the amount of usage trains get in larger bases it would really be nice to see at least some more routing options...

@Energy Source:
I'm still waiting for free energy.

@Fuel category:
Defining new categories should already be possible.

@Compound Entities:
I think this is mostly a memory usage concern. As far as i understand prototypes always have to load all available options, so by adding light to assemblers every assembler would have to load that property, regardless of if it has it or not? I only have a very vague understanding of that aspect. So i have no clue if a special seperate modding-only prototype could solve that without a performance impact on vanilla.

@Hidden wires: Yes please.
@Flora/Fauna: Yes please. Though that sounds like a good candidate for the "but performance!" counter-argument.

[bobingabout]

@Energy Source:
I'm still waiting for free energy.

Maybe I should add that to my list. (of possible new energy_source types)

@Fuel category:
Defining new categories should already be possible.

Yeah, just add one of these, and it should work.

Code: Select all

data:extend(
{
  {
    type = "fuel-category",
    name = "my-fuel-category"
  }
}
)

Yes, that's a fuel category definition, which you need to do before you can set it on a burner energy source, or a fuel item.