[MOD 0.13.15+] Surfaces 0.0.7

[Simcra]

Type: Mod
Name: Surfaces
Description: Reach up to the skies or dig deep below, expand your base vertically... If you're into that kind of thing.
License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)
Latest-Version: 0.0.7
Latest-Release: 2016-08-09
Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 0.13.15
Category: Alpha
Tags: Surfaces
Download-Url: https://github.com/Simcra/Surfaces/releases/latest
Website: https://github.com/Simcra/Surfaces
Update: This mod has been discontinued, see https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Erdbeerb ... ces_remake

NOTICE - I am looking for GFX artists

Artwork

Feel free to contact me on Steam if you have any questions regarding artwork, below is a list of things that need to be done:

• Rework on surface access shaft textures (they look absolutely horrible, at least to me.)
• Servo icons (at the moment I am just using the engine icons from Factorio, this is only temporary!)
• Connector icons (these don't make a whole lot of sense, they should be much smaller and look like a cable lead with a bunch of connectors on the end, again the current icons are only temporary)
• Underground wall textures (all variants [main, outer-corners, inner-corners, sides, u-transition, o-transition], current ones are only temporary)
• Underground dirt textures (all variants [main, outer-corners, inner-corners, sides, u-transition, o-transition], current ones are only temporary)
• Underground stone texture (all variants [main, outer-corners, inner-corners, sides, u-transition, o-transition], for the floor, I am thinking of making a random chance to place stone or dirt, this is not as important as the others)

License

License (Am I allowed to share/modify this mod?)

This mod is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license which can be found linked in the top-most section. As such it is permitted that you may make modifications to the mod as long as you inherit this license and give appropriate credit to the original author when distributing the modified files. Now that we have the legal business out the way, I honestly don't care how you use my mod. Feel free to include it in a mod-pack as long as you credit where you got it from, preferably using a link to this forum or at the very least the name of the mod and the name of the original author. On that note, I'd also like to point out that this mod is work in progress and I would appreciate if you informed me of any bugs or incompatibilities with other mods that you find.

Long Description

Description
The Surfaces mod offers you the opportunity to exploit the natural resources of the planet through the ability to dig caverns of limitless depth (granted this may seem a little crazy, the time required to find resource nodes gets exponentially larger, especially when using RSO or other resource altering mods). In addition to adding underground resource-rich surfaces, this mod also allows players to create surfaces above the main surface ("nauvis") and will require them to build tiles before they can start utilizing sky surfaces. This mod provides the means to successfully transport liquids, items, electricity, players and circuit signals between these surfaces without requiring constant player interaction. Many of the icons and images in this mod are simply placeholders, feel free to contact me on steam or here if you would like to make a contribution towards graphics.

Pictures

Pictures

See flabort's album below for screenshots (my appologies for lack of content, my skills with MS Paint suck)
http://imgur.com/a/WxvGn

Version history

Changelog

• 0.0.7
  • Updated recipes for many items to balance out their provided benefits
  • Created migrations for maps with previous versions of Surfaces (in 0.0.7 map names use "-" instead of "_" and it is appropriate for all old surfaces to be renamed)
  • Updated textures for underground dirt, sky and wooden floors
  • Changed storage tanks to inherit their vanilla properties (such as pipe connections, size, etc.)
  • Updated icon for intersurface storage tanks
  • All paired entities of type electric pole have been removed and replaced with new Intersurface accumulators due to a recent factorio limitation (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30651)
  • Created addons for boblogistics and bobpower mods
  • Fixed various issues and bugs that were caused by Factorio 0.13.10 update
• 0.0.6
  • Created prototypes for warehousing mod (they will only be loaded when warehousing is installed)
  • Fixed a major bug that prevented surfaces from being created in a non-peaceful game
  • Fixed a minor bug preventing surfaces from being assigned a random seed
• 0.0.5
  • Updated to Factorio 0.13.x
  • Fixed compatibility issue with bobwarfare
  • Made underground surfaces dark at all times
  • Created new floor tile for sky surfaces
  • Major restructure and performance improvements
  • Removed smart chests and improved recipes for all items
  • Updated locale files
  • Created a "tier" system for transport chests, more expensive chests will move items faster
• 0.0.4
  • Modified data loading sequence for better mod compatibility (it was crashing with bob's mods, so I fixed it)
  • Fixed fluid tank entity being invisible (it still looks terrible)
  • Tiles placed by paired entities will now be removed when the paired entity is removed, respecting any tiles placed by the player
  • Paired entities will be dropped on the floor when placed invalidly and in a similar fashion, solar panels may no longer be placed underground
  • Optimized small segments of code for better performance and fixed a few minor bugs
• 0.0.3
  • Created Small, Big Intersurface Electric Poles and Intersurface Substation
  • Prototyped Intersurface Train Stops (I have put these off indefinitely due to problems with the LuaEntity teleport function)
  • Created Wooden, Iron, Steel and Smart Transport Chests
  • Optimized back-end and improved access for dependent mods
  • Reworked entity pairing system and chunk generation function to account for custom sky tile placement
• 0.0.2
  • Separated power network from Access Shafts
  • Added Intersurface Fluid Tanks
  • Added Intersurface Electric Pole
• 0.0.1
  • Added Sky and Underground Surfaces
  • Added Access Shafts for accessing Sky and Underground surfaces
  • Added Transport Chests for moving items between surfaces

see github for full changelog

Planned Features

Planned Features

• Intersurface Train Stop - A train stop that when trains stop at will teleport them to another surface providing there are rails in the trains current location.

Feel free to post suggestions, but please clarify as much as possible (and if you're a programmer, include lots of comments).

Known Bugs

Identified Bugs & Issues
Please read here before posting bugs/issues, it'll make all of our lives easier.

• Underground lagspikes - Caused by the 100% fire resistant square trees and on chunk generated event in underground surfaces.
• When removing stone path/concrete from the floor in the sky objects are deleted and I get killed - not really a bug, just annoying

Contributors

Acknowledgement of Contributors

• Supercheese, Rhamph, flabort, Keyboardhack and many others from Factorio IRC (providing interesting conversation and opinions)
• Szentigrade (Graphical work and rigorous testing)
• MojoD, Antice (pre-release testing)
• StanFear, jorgenRe (creators of similar mods which influenced Surfaces)

I highly recommend installing RSO (viewtopic.php?f=79&t=13783) alongside surfaces for an improved experience.

[albatrosv13]

deleted

[flabort]

Ill grab you some. Not right away, you may need to crop or edit them too, but Ill get them soonish for you.

[Simcra]

Ill grab you some. Not right away, you may need to crop or edit them too, but Ill get them soonish for you.

Thanks

[flabort]

Bug (?) report while gathering screenshots. Or issue report, whatever.
If you go to the sky without some way to build a platform, you're stuck. You need to move away from the shaft and back to it before it will let you move.

Haven't tried going underground yet, still getting screenshots. Will report when encountering another issue or when done collecting raw footage.

[Simcra]

Bug (?) report while gathering screenshots. Or issue report, whatever.
If you go to the sky without some way to build a platform, you're stuck. You need to move away from the shaft and back to it before it will let you move.

Haven't tried going underground yet, still getting screenshots. Will report when encountering another issue or when done collecting raw footage.

interesting, let me see if I can reproduce that. Just a minute.

[Simcra]

Bug (?) report while gathering screenshots. Or issue report, whatever.
If you go to the sky without some way to build a platform, you're stuck. You need to move away from the shaft and back to it before it will let you move.

Haven't tried going underground yet, still getting screenshots. Will report when encountering another issue or when done collecting raw footage.

interesting, let me see if I can reproduce that. Just a minute.

That's really wierd, I don't see how it could do that. It's set to check if the player is not moving and the player is close enough to the access shaft, if either of those conditions are not true it resets any stored data and repeats. Can't reproduce this bug. Also the sky surfaces requiring you to place down stone bricks or concrete in order to walk around is intentional, wouldn't want you to fall out of the sky now would I? Here's an image of what they're supposed to do when placed (this is on the surface above where I placed it)

[flabort]

Maybe I wasn't waiting long enough.

Here's an album of un-edited screenshots showcasing everything this mod has to offer (so far).
Starting with recipes for the shafts up and down (might want to crop those), then showing that there are no recipes for the chests yet?

Then a fresh sky-block, no bricks or concrete placed down to make it workable. Showing off the shaft graphics, with and without wires connected, the skyblock with some bricks placed, a brand new level underground, and a lucky find underground.

If you don't crop the images yourself I might do it later, but not right now.

Edit: Is this intended behavior?
http://imgur.com/ULuxfkG

[Simcra]

Maybe I wasn't waiting long enough.

Here's an album of un-edited screenshots showcasing everything this mod has to offer (so far).
Starting with recipes for the shafts up and down (might want to crop those), then showing that there are no recipes for the chests yet?

Then a fresh sky-block, no bricks or concrete placed down to make it workable. Showing off the shaft graphics, with and without wires connected, the skyblock with some bricks placed, a brand new level underground, and a lucky find underground.

If you don't crop the images yourself I might do it later, but not right now.

It's okay I'm heading off to bed now but I'll probably have another look at this tomorrow sometime, really I just need replacement graphics for everything since it all looks terrible.

[Simcra]

Maybe I wasn't waiting long enough.

Here's an album of un-edited screenshots showcasing everything this mod has to offer (so far).
Starting with recipes for the shafts up and down (might want to crop those), then showing that there are no recipes for the chests yet?

Then a fresh sky-block, no bricks or concrete placed down to make it workable. Showing off the shaft graphics, with and without wires connected, the skyblock with some bricks placed, a brand new level underground, and a lucky find underground.

If you don't crop the images yourself I might do it later, but not right now.

Edit: Is this intended behavior?
http://imgur.com/ULuxfkG

No, not at all. That bug has been annoying me for awhile, don't know what's causing it but I know it has something to do with my on_chunk_generated event and the way that grass autoplaces 1 tile radius around itself. Notice how it's on the border of the 2nd chunk radius away from where you placed the access shaft.

EDIT: I think I put in a temporary fix for that, try placing an object on it and then removing it, or near the sky tiles.

[flabort]

So any plans to add flying or burrowing enemies that can travel between surfaces? Or even just enemies which spawn in each surface?

Edit: Also, compatibility. If I want something to be able to spawn in the sky (like... mana nodes from Wizartorio), or if I wanted to be able to find an ore underground, what API hooks do you have in?

[Simcra]

So any plans to add flying or burrowing enemies that can travel between surfaces? Or even just enemies which spawn in each surface?

Edit: Also, compatibility. If I want something to be able to spawn in the sky (like... mana nodes from Wizartorio), or if I wanted to be able to find an ore underground, what API hooks do you have in?

Biters spawn in the underground, it's a little wierd though. In the sky, currently every resource and object is just removed on chunk generated. As for API hooks, none really but if you create a resource which spawns in the nauvis layer, it will also spawn in the underground layers. It doesn't actually "generate" the ores, it just copies them from the autoplace_controls so it has full mod support for mods that create ores.

[Supercheese]

Why not code the access shafts/ladders as Car-type entities and make use of the on_player_driving_changed_state event, rather than using the on_tick event?

[Simcra]

Why not code the access shafts/ladders as Car-type entities and make use of the on_player_driving_changed_state event, rather than using the on_tick event?

That's actually a really good idea, I'll add that to my todo list for 0.0.2.
EDIT: Except for one thing, electricity. Although I guess i could just create a new entity for the electricity grid.

[StanFear]

Why not code the access shafts/ladders as Car-type entities and make use of the on_player_driving_changed_state event, rather than using the on_tick event?

haha, I think I know why he did it that way !

anyway, @simra, you might want to try to use simple_entity as an entity type for the underground walls, the only thing you need to be able to have them removable with robots is to have a minable entry in the prototype. Yhat way, it would not(?) be removed by FARL

[Simcra]

Why not code the access shafts/ladders as Car-type entities and make use of the on_player_driving_changed_state event, rather than using the on_tick event?

haha, I think I know why he did it that way !

anyway, @simra, you might want to try to use simple_entity as an entity type for the underground walls, the only thing you need to be able to have them removable with robots is to have a minable entry in the prototype. Yhat way, it would not(?) be removed by FARL

Simple_entities can not be removed by construction robots and cause A LOT of lag on the chunk generated event. I don't mind FARL removing my walls, I just don't want it to give wood. Choumiko has since fixed this problem in FARL, it is possible that trees may give a different type of wood so it makes sense for FARLs to respect this fact.

TL;DR: simple_entities cause bad lag (wierd huh?), Choumiko has fixed the wood issue with FARL.

Surfaces 0.0.2 can be expected in June, during University holidays I will have five weeks to work on Surfaces among other things.

[StanFear]

TL;DR: simple_entities cause bad lag (wierd huh?), Choumiko has fixed the wood issue with FARL.

maybe you should make a bug report?

[Simcra]

Why not code the access shafts/ladders as Car-type entities and make use of the on_player_driving_changed_state event, rather than using the on_tick event?

following up on this: turning access shafts into car entities is incredibly hacky and I'm not sure if it's possible to do this the way that I want to. I've have decided to separate access shafts from the electricity grid however, in the next release there will be separate entities for both the access shafts and power poles. In addition to this, I am starting work on the fluid transporters.

TL;DR: Surfaces 0.0.2 may have fluid transporters, access shafts will no longer connect electricity/circuit network. (separate electric poles will be created to do this)

[flabort]

I was just thinking today that it would be cool to have a mod that had this mod as a prerequisite.

I've been watching Avaak's Let's Play of Rimworld Alpha 13, and in that game there are mountains/cliffs/stuff you can dig through like your underground surface, except on the "surface" surface.

So if someone made an entity that was like your un-dug underground entity, added an autoplace script, and used your pairing script to make it so that a mountain-top tile entity would spawn above the first entity, with the option/ability for more cliffs to spawn on there, so you could have a genuine mountain ~1-4 layers high...

Actually, let's make it three entities. cliff-diggable, cliff-shadow, and cliff-top. cliff-diggable has an autoplace script. Whenever it is placed or spawned, it places a cliff-shadow, which is paired with cliff-top in a surface above it. You can mine cliff-diggable, but not cliff-shadow or cliff-top. Whenever you mine cliff-diggable, it checks in a radius for any cliff-shadows that still have cliff-diggable; if they is some, nothing in particular happens, but if there aren't then the cliff-shadow and the paired cliff-top both are destroyed, as well as anything on the cliff-top tile. Periodically, about every 10K frames, it would check all cliff-shadows in a similar way, with a slightly smaller radius, for cave-ins. The mod could include a timbers entity which is player place-able and would function as cliff-diggable for the purpose of these periodic checks.

I don't think there is a peak in AutoplaceSpecifications that governs surfaces, unfortunately, so if someone makes this add-on mod, or if this gets included in Surfaces, these mountains could wind up infinitely tall, but it would still be a cool mod to have.

[Simcra]

I was just thinking today that it would be cool to have a mod that had this mod as a prerequisite.

I've been watching Avaak's Let's Play of Rimworld Alpha 13, and in that game there are mountains/cliffs/stuff you can dig through like your underground surface, except on the "surface" surface.

So if someone made an entity that was like your un-dug underground entity, added an autoplace script, and used your pairing script to make it so that a mountain-top tile entity would spawn above the first entity, with the option/ability for more cliffs to spawn on there, so you could have a genuine mountain ~1-4 layers high...

Actually, let's make it three entities. cliff-diggable, cliff-shadow, and cliff-top. cliff-diggable has an autoplace script. Whenever it is placed or spawned, it places a cliff-shadow, which is paired with cliff-top in a surface above it. You can mine cliff-diggable, but not cliff-shadow or cliff-top. Whenever you mine cliff-diggable, it checks in a radius for any cliff-shadows that still have cliff-diggable; if they is some, nothing in particular happens, but if there aren't then the cliff-shadow and the paired cliff-top both are destroyed, as well as anything on the cliff-top tile. Periodically, about every 10K frames, it would check all cliff-shadows in a similar way, with a slightly smaller radius, for cave-ins. The mod could include a timbers entity which is player place-able and would function as cliff-diggable for the purpose of these periodic checks.

I don't think there is a peak in AutoplaceSpecifications that governs surfaces, unfortunately, so if someone makes this add-on mod, or if this gets included in Surfaces, these mountains could wind up infinitely tall, but it would still be a cool mod to have.

If you are interested in prototyping this we can make this a part of Surfaces, I really like this idea. Unfortunately, I am a little bit occupied with trying to get rid of the lag spikes and the super secret train stuff