[MOD 1.1] Xander Mod v3.6.1

[Repofme1]

Hi All -

I had a spot of time and motivation today, so I took a look at the mod again.

Talking about bugs -
I fixed a few of the ones I saw people mention, they'll go on GitHub but I don't have time for an update tonight.

• Improved clay brick tech
  Recipe category of standard transport belt, underground belt, and splitter changed from basic crafting -> crafting so they can be automated by all assemblers.
  Iron chest now uses iron shaft instead of steel
  Removed flue gas output from rutile chlorination
  Reduced logging camp crafting time 5 -> 1 seconds

I can't find several of the bugs I see reported. For example:

the steel rod can be made in the burner assembly machine instead of the automatic feed lathe mill

I look in the recipe categories, and see: the steel rod recipe says "machine", the burner assembler says "basic-crafting" and "crafting", and the lathe mill says "basic-machine" and "machine" - I don't doubt the bug report, but I also don't know what's causing it. Maybe I'm missing something.

The issue with rutile chlorination is the two fluid outputs. This recipe should actually be done in the electric refining furnace, but that only has 1 fluid output, and the recipe makes two, my oversight. I can't think of a satisfactory way to make more than one fluid in/out put on a furnace, so I'll just remove the flue gas output for now, the small break in realism is worth the fix in game progression.

I sincerely apologize for the immense volume of balancing problems, but worthwhile fixes that will actually hold will probably have to wait until I have more time to play the game (should be in about two months). I designed the balancing all at once, and it looks like my whole underlying structure is pretty bad, so it needs a lot of attention period. One specific note: the Flare Stack mod is probably a very good idea, as XM waste processing is one of the hottest messes in the whole mod

@eradicator:
I made the logging camp basic-crafting because it was supposed to be a placeholder, but as the wood issue has dragged on I can tell it's become more of a staple. I can't think of a good way to automate it (too many ingredients but needed early), so I'll just reduce the crafting time from 1 to 5 for now. I also doubled the increase from 1 to 2 per recipe.
The standard belt only working in assembler 1 should be fixed in my latest dev version.
The machine tools making belt is another one of those things I don't understand, because in my files I see the machines can do some varieties of "machine" recipes and the belts are "crafting" variety recipes

Talking about other progress -
I went to go start a new game tonight, but I got preoccupied thinking about resources, since I want to make some changes to them (again :p). That led to considering the recent file size problems, and the possibility of constructing some of the color-shifted XM sprites in the code, instead of supplying a distinct color-shifted image, to save file space. I know some other mods do this, like Bob's Ores, but I never really understood how until I took a careful look at the code and found the "tint" field in the array for each sprite sheet. So I played around with that and discovered how it behaves, and I'm wondering if there are other similar color functions available. I tried the API but I guess I'm not so great at looking because I couldn't find anything related to graphics! Anyone who knows this better than I have anything to share? Now that I know how to tint sprites, the next step is how to apply it only to a certain part of the image via a mask. I know that can be done, it's just a matter of finding the syntax and format.

I also figured out one way to properly initiate a GitHub repository (on my own). I probably could have done it earlier, but I just never felt comfortable with it, and now I do. This is good, in case we have to go the route of breaking the mod up into multiple chunks. I actually hope that we don't have to, by using the strategy of tinting base game graphics where possible, to save data. This can't handle everything, mainly because so far I can only tint and not, for example, increase the contrast or brightness, but it'll help a lot.

[purdueme91]

I would suggest changing the wood recipe to produce either 1/4 or 1/8 surplus. so 7 in gets you 8 out or 3 in gets you 4 out. This lets you run a belt and funnel off the surplus using 2 or 3 splitters in series. Then you can set it and leave it.

Only thing with reducing the crafting speed to 1 is loading and unloading all the wood. 10 in and 12 out in one second isn't going to happen with burner or slow electric. You can probably get there with standard inserters.

Because of the steel use in simple coils with resol, I'm still using the wood resin recipe. Ditto for the first circuit boards that use wood. Might be something to look at next time I play because steel is getting better

[eradicator]

@repofme1:

(Trigger warning: Longpost ahead! :p)

Nice to see you're still in action. No reason to hurry ;).

@Logging camp: The crafting time is (for me) not an issue at all. Taking 0.1 or 30 seconds or whatever doesn't change the fact that i need to remember what components i need, collect them from chests all over the base and then start hand crafting early enough for them to be done when i need them. I don't mind handcrafting them in early game at all. But i'm currently in mid-game-ish i'd say, and my factorian soul cries for automatability. Current main use in our base is resin and soda (because yea, the non-etched-board-based simple circuits are a lot easier...). Tried using charcoal to fuel some furnaces once but the output was way too low. So. Making it automatable might cause balancing issues as it reduces the (psychological) threshold to just mass spam them (but having a non-automatable machine feels so wrong in factorio :D). Regarding the out/input ratio i have a hate/love relationship with that sort of "same stuff back in" recipe. I like that they're different in handling than "out only" recipes, and having variety is really important to me. On the other side it's not really a difficult challenge to solve, especially with the new filter/priority splitters.

@Throughput: Another "weird" thing with xanders is that even though i personally don't like the concept of loaders that much, due to the tech tree, availability/cost of fast inserters and output volume of some recipes i use loaders all over the place, because standard inserters are just not fast enough to handle the job. The best example for this is coal coke in steel furnaces being so fast that even 2 input/6 output inserters per furnace can't handle the load even though 1/1 standard loaders do it just fine. The only way to "fix" that would be to increase the value of output items (coke fuel value in this case) though, and that sounds pretty boring as it just makes coal coke the same as everything else. So, less of a "thing i want fixed" than a "i noticed this huh/cool/weird thing and i wanted to tell you".

@Category bugs: Have you tried printing the actual prototype to console and looking at that print(serpent.block($sometable)). They might be inheriting categories from somewhere else, or it might be some sort of cross-mod issue (print in data-final-fixes or control stage to be sure to see all changes).

@Tint: First the API documentation only documents control.lua stage and not data stage. Data does not have any official documentation and the only options are looking at base, other mods, the wiki, good guessing skills, and luck. I haven't done much with tint lately (or at all :P) but my understanding is that it tints the layer it is used on. Vanilla machines use this mostly for shadows, but you can use them for whatever you want and as many as you want (well, ok, there'd probably be some hardcap if you tried to use a million layers :P). As far as i remember you can use layers = {} everywhere where you'd use a normal file name specification otherwise (I.e. animation=,animations=,picture,pictures=). So the code would look something like this (shortend, half-pseudo code):

Code: Select all

animation = {
  layers = {
    {filename = '__xander__/path/base-image.png'},
    {filename = '__xander__/path/mask.png',tint={r,g,b,a}},
    {filename = '__xander__/path/some-other-mask.png',tint={r,g,b,a}},
    {filename = '__xander__/path/top-layer.png},
    }
  }

Not quite sure what kind of "similar" functions you need. There's util.color() to convert different color formats to {r,g,b,a} that comes to mind. By the way if you have any coding questions feel free to pm me, or contact me on IRC ;). I haven't released much, but i've done my fair share of modding.

@You did balancing all at once?: I think the mod as a whole is a pretty amazing feat. I have trouble even shuffling all the recipes around in my head i need to build one subcomplex of the base. So being to able imagine the mods recipe network as a whole sounds like a pretty awesome skill ;). So i'd say you're doing a really great job ^^. And balancing is really the most difficult part of game design anyway.

Edit:
Tested adding a second output fluid-box to a furnace and you're right. It's not satisfactory at all, as it shows on all recipes that have at least one output :/.

furnace.jpg (13.8 KiB) Viewed 8275 times

[purdueme91]

So I started poking around in the mod files just to see if I could understand and help a bit so here are some things I found that seem backwards (may have been mentioned previously but maybe we can help with some balancing)

1) crude soda vs improved soda versus solvay process. Crude soda uses charcoal but nets 1/sec. improved soda uses limestone + NaSO4 and nets 0.25/sec while solvay uses limestone/salt/ammonia for 0.5/sec. No real reason to switch away from wood. Not saving any steps and it is slower.

2) improved glass-again improved process is much slower than crude and you have to bring in Aluminum oxide. Might be able to electrify it and speed it up later but not a priority in mid-game

3) Improved methanol-get rid of wood input but again much slower than the crude process

4)crude sulfuric versus Oleum-this one for me keeps on throwing me for a loop. You get twice the result as crude for end product but you are bringing 1/2 back in as input so not faster than crude?!? I adjusted the recipe to use only 5 Sulfuric as input to oleum and my sulfuric acid problems disappeared so I can finally get rid of the crude processing.

5)graphite block-I guess this one is a little better than it first looks like (crafting speed 2 nets 0.25/sec for advanced versus 0.2/sec for crude at speed 1). I like that you can support it strictly through improved coke process and use the waste products. I think the speed should be reduced to 48 seconds or 36 seconds. It might not be obvious to someone first few times it is better compared to crude because of the crafting speed difference. Blocks are so slow and a 20% bump in output plus not using an ore isn't worth tearing up part of the factory.

Most of the processes moving from crude to improved/proper are 2 or 2.5x faster than crude. These ones stood out as 2.5 to 4x slower than crude

[eradicator]

4)crude sulfuric versus Oleum-this one for me keeps on throwing me for a loop. You get twice the result as crude for end product but you are bringing 1/2 back in as input so not faster than crude?!? I adjusted the recipe to use only 5 Sulfuric as input to oleum and my sulfuric acid problems disappeared so I can finally get rid of the crude processing.

Are you using Oil to make Sulfur Dioxide from Hydrogen Sulfide?!
In our base Sulfur Dioxide is a waste product from Copper/Zinc processing which has to be thrown away because there's too much of it. And since i built the Dioxide -> Trioxide - > Oleum -> Acid facility we have so much free Sulfuric Acid that again we need to throw away the surplus.

[purdueme91]

4)crude sulfuric versus Oleum-this one for me keeps on throwing me for a loop. You get twice the result as crude for end product but you are bringing 1/2 back in as input so not faster than crude?!? I adjusted the recipe to use only 5 Sulfuric as input to oleum and my sulfuric acid problems disappeared so I can finally get rid of the crude processing.

Are you using Oil to make Sulfur Dioxide from Hydrogen Sulfide?!
In our base Sulfur Dioxide is a waste product from Copper/Zinc processing which has to be thrown away because there's too much of it. And since i built the Dioxide -> Trioxide - > Oleum -> Acid facility we have so much free Sulfuric Acid that again we need to throw away the surplus.

I have zinc finally going so I have that source but only using for brass ATM so not a huge amount of demand. Have not set up advanced copper yet. I'm still on the basic recipe figuring out how much soda to set up. Same with galena-->lead. My main source of SO2 is from the methane processing that I'm also using for hydrogen supply. I have a stupid amount of natural gas in my base and 4 oil spots that are now defunct.

My problem has been getting enough oxygen and getting rid of the excess nitrogen. Finally got that balanced last night with enough SO3 and SO2 is keeping up now that I doubled oxygen production.

[Aeppo]

Hello,
I am play with XM a tiny bit, and I must have say it is absolutely impressive in terms of complexity, which is great. My game is rather in very early stage, barely leaving period of steam and moving towards first uncertain steps on electricity path.
Issues I have noticed so far are, that one may get electric refining furnace and have no recipes to use it with, while I believe it at least could make brass from standard recipe. Also, electrolyzer can be unlocked before one has any recipe to use in it which is mildly annoying to spend a lot to discover technology that gives new building which gets exactly no reactions to use it with.
From just recipe browsing in tech tree, I noticed that improved brass recipe is not any more efficient than old one, additionally using phosphorus which defeats feel of 'improvement' with it of any kind. Another observation I have is that tin recipe uses so much coke for process aside of fuel that it makes it more expensive in my opinion to make tin using this recipe than iron smelting. Which is a little bit odd knowing that iron require quite significantly more heating power and temperature than tin to melt. I would probably suggest reducing coke use there as it acts only as reducing agent I believe.
Another items I felt I'd like to have are cast-iron small poles, that use castings or two instead of wood, and maybe have 1 node more wire reach but not more area, as cast iron pole would be more robust in terms of supporting longer cable. Another would be some earlier/simpler lamp that probably makes more pieces from one set of supplies, and gives less light radius/ plus maybe energy, just to make feel more that they are obsoleted by more modern ones few technology steps later.
I know this post is already pretty much wall of text but, I felt that this mod is impressive. Even if there are some more rough spots, that does not spoil experience of actually rising your factory from steam age towards electricity.

Best regards,

[eradicator]

Issues I have noticed so far are, that one may get electric refining furnace and have no recipes to use it with, while I believe it at least could make brass from standard recipe. Also, electrolyzer can be unlocked before one has any recipe to use in it which is mildly annoying to spend a lot to discover technology that gives new building which gets exactly no reactions to use it with.

While i don't mind having a furnace without recipe at first (tech tree restrictions of the engine), it would be nice if the recipes had some sort of clear nomenclature that made it clear to which machine a recipe belongs. For example it is not clear why you can research another "iron castings" recipe from the tech tree that is exactly the same as the one you already have... until you research it and realize that it is for a different machine. 0.16.21 introduced a new always_show_made_in (= true ) property for prototypes that makes the crafting screen tooltip always show the corresponding machine, even for handcraftable things, which i find to be rather neat. Also supposedly adding main_product = "" to recipe prototypes should make them always show an icon of the product instead of just showing the item name as a text string if there's only one output item, which i haven't gotten to work yet, but that would be an awesome addition with all the icons being introduced.

[foodfactorio]

Tested adding a second output fluid-box to a furnace and you're right. It's not satisfactory at all, as it shows on all recipes that have at least one output

hi, just as a thought, what if there was one more type of furnace, (for example an Advanced Furnace), and this was just a separate furnace entity, and then people could specifically build it, but only if they actually wanted one of those furnaces having a 2nd output? (maybe even call it a "Furnace 2-way")

[Raccoon]

Do you have a Discord Server?

[rheil]

Just a quick note of thanks!

I've played dozens of mods, Bob's, Angels, etc - enjoyed them all but this one is my favorite by far.

The reward that comes from figuring out each step is unlike any other mod or base game. Not only does it take some effort to figure out how to get a particular next step working, there are always additional resources that need to be figured out, tech to learn (meaning improving/expanding science) and an increased need to think about space layout. Even belt use becomes a challenge (slow/cheap vs normal/needed for science).

Even the first times playing the base game wasn't as rewarding as the sense of accomplishment making each new iteration of the factory 'better'. That plus the semi-realistic chemistries involved add a new layer of fun. And I'm only just getting into oil processing, after two weeks of play!

Note one mod I'd highly recommend is Factorio NEI - to see all the recipes. Huge and necessary help. Given the complexity of the game, I'd suggest baking it in (or building similar functionality)

Well done and thanks for already many hours of pure enjoyment. I can't wait for the more balanced successor, but even as is an immensely enjoyable experience!

[purdueme91]

anyone else think that the materials you have to put into a portable solar panel for what you get out is a little skewed?

16 solar cells + stuff-->1 solar panel (40kW)
1 solar panel + 16 solar cells + stuff-->1 dense solar panel (160kW)
5 dense solar panels + stuff-->1 portable solar panel (10 kW)

Just seems you shouldn't loose 90% of your efficiency by miniaturization. Or you go straight with solar cells only.

Still don't have construction bots because I have to unlock the 3rd tier of motors which is far down the tree still with lots of purple science in front of it. Not really looking forward to ripping apart factory to get things better placed and flowing so that I can get purple science more efficient. Not to mention all the bootstrap areas I have everywhere just to build me some stuff that I would like to clean up. But after 80 hours of playing, last night I finally automated long handed inserters . Maybe I should automate iron and steel chests too.

[eradicator]

Not really looking forward to ripping apart factory to get things better placed and flowing so that I can get purple science more efficient. Not to mention all the bootstrap areas I have everywhere just to build me some stuff that I would like to clean up. But after 80 hours of playing, last night I finally automated long handed inserters ;). Maybe I should automate iron and steel chests too.

When i first got fed up with slow belts (around 20~30ish hour mark?) i just went off into the distance and built an iron/steel processing plant just for belts. Which was about the same size as the whole bootstrapping complex. It has since grown to produce inserters and some other small things, but mainly it's still a $metal-plate supplyer for the bootstrapping complex. So...just walk a few screens away from your factory and build some large furnace arrays. Then belt all the stuff back :P

[purdueme91]

Has it been discussed why that copper cables and fine copper wire cannot be made in the universal machine tool?

When you look in the mod, it has those two listed as made by "basic machine" but you have to turn them to "machine" to use the universal tool. According to the comment in the file, the basic machine recipes are supposed to be able to craft by hand or any machine tool.

Also found that there is a faster recipe for relay component using steel rod, brass gear, graphite powder. But it is never unlocked by any technology. Called "component-1-b". Assume that that one can be used in a universal tool. Going to force it enabled in a sec.

And...getting to robots sucks...106 hours and still need to research brushless motors to get the robot frames.

[purdueme91]

More digging and playing last night.

1) flamethrower ammo cannot be crafted by anything because of the two liquid inputs. It's set-up as "crafting-with-fluids" which has no assemblers that can do that. I kept the recipe and changed category to "basic-chemistry" so it can be crafted at least in the chemical reactor.

2) cast iron gears can't be crafted in universal machine tool. I changed recipe to "machine" from "basic-machine" to allow that. I'm still trying to figure out why some of the "basic-machine" recipes can be made in the both auto lathe and universal tool like fine gold wire while others like the gears, relay components, and wires cannot. Maybe it would be an option to unlock alternate recipes via a high-speed machining technology that you get when you unlock the universal tool or an alternate stand alone technology step.

3) IMO aluminum plate and magnesium plate are just way too slow for crafting time. (as a QOL, the inputs for HCl could be flipped to allow easy lining up with the electrolyzer outputs). Aluminum is probably worse because the ratio for aluminum to duralumin is 10:1 right now. Magnesium is more of a pain because MgCl is so much faster that you only have to put down one but the first Mg crafter grabs the first 80 before the second one can start filling. Not a real problem normally but one of my gas outputs got stuck which meant my MgO/NaOH/salt got stuck and the whole process had to start from scratch.

4) brushless motors for flying robot frame was too much for me. I switched it to induction motors which I first set up with purple science. Did not realize the stuff I still had to set up afterwards to get roboports (semiconductor power supplies and titanium alloy). Robots are helping me more now in setting up my first outposts and keeping the base repaired. Small logistic area to keep me supplied with the absolute basics and keeping my inventory clean. Yay 108 hours without robots!

[eradicator]

More generic digging:

The logging camp can do "crafting" which includes some smaller electronic components and miscellaneous stuff.

[purdueme91]

Wow, forum has gone dead.

Anyway, still more suggestions.

Working on removing wood and resin from my bus. Down to solder flux for resin and steel tooling/smokeless powder for wood. Steel tooling has an alternate recipe but smokeless powder doesn't. So was thinking of adding a synthetic wood recipe using liquid resol that was twice as fast as the standard wood recipe. Just not sure what I should set input/output ratio at yet. Thinking 10 resol=1 wood so maybe a cycle is 1 or 2 with 40 input and 4 output. Course an alternate is just changing smokeless powder precursor to have an alternate recipe.

Also the black powder recipe for grenades is only place I'm using sulfur and saltpeter off the bus. Wondering if there should be an alternate that uses either TNT or smokeless powder and steel plate/forging. Leaning toward TNT because of the use in landmines, cannon shells. But smokeless powder is used in rockets. nm I found the alternate recipe and it should be unlocked but I haven't set it up yet.

If I can get the recipes added correctly and in a good place in the technology tree, I'm willing to open a GitHub account and share my modifications so the original author and anybody else could look at them/try them out.

[Repofme1]

Hi all -

Again, unfortunately I haven't had time to post It's disappointing, I know, and it can get pretty dull at times. But we're still here, and I'm still trying.

Companion mods -
I remember some comments earlier about resource distribution, particularly with the base game, which reminds me of why I like RSO. To start, my general hunch is that the base game generation patterns can only handle about ~10 total ores before things get too dense, while with XM we have like 16 or something. Possibly more to be added, see below. The reason why I like RSO as a solution is mainly because of its regions feature, where I can make relatively large regions that each end up with several medium-large deposits of a few different ores. I feel this is not only realistic, like several individual mines around a really large geological formation, but also makes for interesting gameplay: not quite infinite ores, but there may be a medium to HUGE amount in one region. And with my time already tight, optimizing the ore distribution for the base generation in addition to RSO is not high on my priorities list. This is only one companion mod I consider important, but I know of a few others for various reasons:
- Infinizoom (less relevant now with radar making the map visible)
- Day Night Extender (mainly to fix the awkward 0.7 daylight/nighttime fraction)
- Beam Laser Turrets (aesthetic)
- Resource Spawner Overhaul (with XM configuration settings)
- Bulk Rail Loader (useful logistics)
- Lumberjack (gather wood faster at the very beginning - algae tank planned as fix for late early game and mid game)
- Flare Stack (useful for a lot of problems people have been having - eventually I'll have enough recycling recipes to cover most things)
- Factorio NEI (useful to navigate such a complex mod)
And my real question (finally) is how to approach all these. I think I should just share the list with recommendation and let people install what they want, with (eventually, time and practice) specific XM recipes or other integration.

New resource foundation -
As I might have mentioned, I aim to start a test playthrough world to build the mod with, but before I generate the world I want to make sure it gets a good resource base. Amounts and distribution are not too hard to tweak, but the main thing is identity: which resources and elements are we going to have? I'd like to change to a new set, something like:
Apatite -> Phosphorite Deposits (P, F, Ca)
Bauxite -> Laterite Ore Deposits (Al, Ni, SiAl2O5)
Coal -> Coal (Bituminous formation) (C, H, S, REs, Th)
Copper Ore -> Porphry Copper Deposits (Cu, Co, Au, S)
Iron Ore -> Banded Iron Formations (Fe, Mn)
Crude Oil -> Crude Oil (C, H, S)
Garnierite -> Magnetic Ore Deposits (Fe, V, Cr, Pt)
Granitic Ore -> Skarn-Type Sn-W-Mo (Sn, W, Mo, Au)
Heavy Mineral Sand -> Sand Deposits (Si, Fe, Ti, Zr)
Lead Ore -> Zn-Pb-Ag Sulfide Ore (Zn, Pb, Ag, S, C(graphite))
Mineral Water -> Evaporite Salt Formations (solid) (Li, K, Na, Cl, B, S)
Natural Gas -> Natural Gas (C, H, S)
Pitchblende -> Pegmatite-Type Pitchblende/Rare Earth Deposits (Li, Zr, REs, P, U, Ta)
Stone -> Carbonate Rock (Ca, Mg, C(graphite))
Sulfidic Ore -> Fe-Ni-Cu Sulfide Ore (Fe, Ni, Pt, Cu, S)
Air -> Air (N, O, CO2)
Water -> Water (H, O, Na, Cl, Mg)
Although in listing this all out, I realize that it's actually the exact same number of ores as we have now - 15. So hopefully I can handle most of it with migrations. Although, the change of mineral water into a solid resource (evaporites or salt formations) would mess up existing worlds. Hmm... I tentatively think I'll go ahead with these new resource names and compositions.

[eradicator]

Have you thought about just including RSO (+config?) as a dependency to force it's usage (or at least optional dependency to give a strong hint to the user)? That way you wouldn't have to spent time on the vanilla distribution, and everyone gets a good world. The main problem here is that, as opposed to all the other mods you listed, RSO is the only one that you can't really change once a game has started. And when we started our mp world we simply didn't know that RSO was recommended this much.
Also if you're already overhauling the resources please make the map colors the same as the resource colors (as far as possible). Currently the map has completely different colors for some things.
As for the new ores yay! Starting to read that i thought oh...but we can't do this on our map. But if you're migrating 14 of 15 resources it sounds feasible enough to convert an existing world. And the 15th would still exist too, just with a rather low amount :P

[purdueme91]

I ended up not getting pitchblende on my current map without RSO. I had to console in a patch. My try with RSO could have been better if I had some granitic close. I think i didn't have lead either.