Development and Discussion

[khalismur]

Flare Stack technology, which is just an excess gas burner without any sort of energy generation, seems to be locked behind other techs that are more complex in theory. Examples are: electrolysis, induction furnace, "burner electric generator", etc.

It would make early steel production smoother if we could get rid of hydrogen somehow before Flare Stack, other than filling inline tanks and pipes and deconstructing them. Or is there another recipe I missed?

Also, since there is the item "burner electric generator", have you thought about letting us burn hydrogen and other gas fuels, generating a bit of electricity? Flare Stack could have a much much higher consumption rate, but no electricity gain, making it suitable for large volume production in mid and late game, which would match its placement in the tech tree.

A gas burner for hydrogen and other fuels, heating up water into steam would be pretty cool as well. It could have a very small production when compared to common boilers, but would be a nicer way of getting rid of hydrogen before Flare Stack.

[valneq]

I am currently playing Angel's + Bob's and I realized that (I believe it is from Bob's mods) there is a recipe to turn Hydrogen gas + coal into solid fuel. It is available with Automation + Transport Science (green science in vanilla language) and is made in a chemical plant, so you will need to use your first steel to build the chemical plant. This is a good early sink for hydrogen, since you can burn the solid fuel in cars, furnaces, boilers, or trains.

But then again, the main stopper for flare stacks is steel, too.

Furthermore, Bob's mods add oil burning entities (boilers, furnaces, generators, heat surces) that can also use hydrogen directly – but they are at slightly later tech. I am not sure exactly how you are supposed to deal with this problem in a pure Angel's game. Or with the new Tech Overhaul / Component Mode.

[edit:]
Do you play with Bob's mods? Do you play on Factorio 0.18?

[khalismur]

Yes, 0.18.24 and latest Bobs + Angels.
I'll look into trying that Hydrogen + Coal -> solid fuel recipe. This wasn't showing up in FNEI at all, thanks.

EDIT:

A gas burner for hydrogen and other fuels, heating up water into steam would be pretty cool as well. It could have a very small production when compared to common boilers, but would be a nicer way of getting rid of hydrogen before Flare Stack.

Furthermore, Bob's mods add oil burning entities (boilers, furnaces, generators, heat surces) that can also use hydrogen directly – but they are at slightly later tech.

Oh well I just found out there is such an item, as you mentioned, but it does require steel to build and it's past green science. Feels a tiny bit out of place having to get rid of the first batches of hydrogen for steel production before either these burners or the flare stack are available.

[valneq]

Oh well I just found out there is such an item, as you mentioned, but it does require steel to build and it's past green science. Feels a tiny bit out of place having to get rid of the first batches of hydrogen for steel production before either these burners or the flare stack are available.

The first couple houndred hydrogen can easily fit into one of Bob's small inline tanks. Once you have a couple of steel plates, you can have several options to get rid of the hydrogen.

[lovely_santa]

The next version of angels is out! Check out the changelogs on the github release or on the mod portal/ingame for each mod separately!

Major features:

• This release has bugfixes for syncing in multiplayer games and the loading errors introduced in 0.18.27.
• A better way for garden mutations (less rng based) has been introduced, and moved it up to red+green science instead.
• To make obtaining crystals easier, intermediate (less productive) ways have been introduced. To make biters easier to obtain, extra puffer recipes have been introduced as well.
• Industries received some extra logistics entities and some tweaks on those parts.
• Component mode now has reduced crafting times on the blocks.
• Angels industry now has a dedicated nuclear power loop as well.

[MeduSalem]

The next version of angels is out!

Noice.

• Angels industry now has a dedicated nuclear power loop as well.

Tinkered around with it last night already... and I am not sure I fully get how the loop is meant to be played... hahaha.

1. So the Kovarex Enrichment recipe is gone... now you are pretty much forced to stockpile the U-238 I guess until you have U-235, then make a U-235 fuel cell to get the U-235 cycle going.
2. Eventually you need the advanced U-235 fuel reprocessing to get Neptunium-240 and from the Neptunium make Plutonium-239 and then start the Plutonium-239 aka Mixed-Oxide fuel cell cycle?
3. To get to the a reliable Thorium fuel cycle you need the advanced Mixed Oxide fuel cell reprocessing for the Curium-245?
4. Eventually to get the Deuterium Fuel cycle you need the advanced Thorium Fuel Cell Reprocessing to get the Muon Fusion Catalyst?
5. As I have seen it also isn't self-sustainable.... with 5x used Deuterium Fuel cells giving only 4,95 Muon Fusion catalysts back... so you need ALL previous fuel cycle systems to get the necessary stuff to keep the Deuterium cycle running.
6. Also you need to establish an inevitable U-234 fuel cycle line to get rid of that byproduct from Uranium Processing/Thorium Fuel Cell reprocessing?

Am I also right to assume that once the Advanced Mixed Oxide Fuel Cell reprocessing is up and running you don't need Americum-241 anymore at all? Or is it still required to get more Plutonium-239?

Also the Bobingabout enrichment process is still there... I guess because the Radio Thermoelectric Generator from the Revamp mod needs Plutonium-239 on a regular basis or is there another reason behind why the Bobingabout enrichment is left in?

I also have a question on the U-234 fuel cell... shouldn't it also require lead? At least it should in my opinion. Kinda doesn't make sense to me that it needs steel. Seems like it doesn't occur very much anyway with only a neglible 0.006% chance from Uranium processing and a 5% chance from the two Thorium Fuel reprocessings.

• Industries received some extra logistics entities and some tweaks on those parts.

So can we assume that Bob's logistic network items will eventually be superseded/overriden? Because now there is twice the items doing the same thing.

[MeduSalem]

Also after toying around last night again and doing tons of construction/deconstruction due to the update I again want to point out that bob's item tiers DON'T go well with Angel's components. Not at all.

If you have Angel's components enabled then bob's machines/items SHOULD NOT require the previous crafting tier of the same item anymore to be crafted.

Having both Angel's components and bob's previous tiers as recipe requirements is a totally convoluted concept where two completely different design philosophies are fighting with each other (and not for the better) and it starts to drive me crazy.

It is plain annoying that every time I deconstruct a machine I also get the previous tier machine back. Like for example an assembler 6 or whatever I also get an assembler 5 which I don't want or need, or with an ultimate stack inserter a turbo stack inserter, or with a Steam Turbine 3 a Steam Turbine 2 etc... which I then have to put back into the Logistics network and store somewhere because previous tier stuff starts filling my inventory (not to forget that in a haste I often pick the wrong tier from my inventory for placing because I don't always read which tier it is).


Instead you should really consider overriding all of bob's machine/item recipes so that for an example an assembler 6 only needs Mechanical Block 2, Construction Block 5, Electronics Blocks 5 and that's it. Only angel's blocks. No assembler 5, no additional tungsten carbide/nitinol crap or whatever.

That way it would become a lot more managable and it is easier to upgrade everything.

Also if you fear about the tungsten stuff etc well it is already inside the the Construction Block 5 anyway. No need for it on the machine recipe itself too. No need to go through the entire crafting cascade in 2 places (namingly Angel's blocks and also Bob's items). Just focus on ONE thing and that obviously should be Angel's blocks.

The machines may become cheaper to craft, yes, but in fact they are already expensive enough with high-tier Angel block requirements... and if they are not expensive enough in your mind then well make an Construction Block 6 or Mechanical Block 3 using Nitinol themed components or whatever.

Same with all other items. They should only require Angel blocks or components anymore. No previous tier bob items.


Really... because having both concepts at the same time like now is totally counter productive and works against the spirit of reusable angel's blocks.

[lovely_santa]

1. So the Kovarex Enrichment recipe is gone... now you are pretty much forced to stockpile the U-238 I guess until you have U-235, then make a U-235 fuel cell to get the U-235 cycle going.
2. Eventually you need the advanced U-235 fuel reprocessing to get Neptunium-240 and from the Neptunium make Plutonium-239 and then start the Plutonium-239 aka Mixed-Oxide fuel cell cycle?
3. To get to the a reliable Thorium fuel cycle you need the advanced Mixed Oxide fuel cell reprocessing for the Curium-245?
4. Eventually to get the Deuterium Fuel cycle you need the advanced Thorium Fuel Cell Reprocessing to get the Muon Fusion Catalyst?
5. As I have seen it also isn't self-sustainable.... with 5x used Deuterium Fuel cells giving only 4,95 Muon Fusion catalysts back... so you need ALL previous fuel cycle systems to get the necessary stuff to keep the Deuterium cycle running.
6. Also you need to establish an inevitable U-234 fuel cycle line to get rid of that byproduct from Uranium Processing/Thorium Fuel Cell reprocessing?

Yes, you are right.
Uranium has a nice loop, but it will stockpile some byproducts in the form of U-238 or plutonium.
The next loop with plutonium is net negative on plutonium, so merging that with the previous loop, you should consume all plutonium.
The next loop is with thorium, which will be positive on plutonium again, so you can fully sustain plutonium on its own (with uranium loop included). This can then be used to make thorium fuel.
The last loop will decompose the thorium for catalysts. For now catalysts only have a small sink into deuterium, but we plan on using it in the future in exploration.

Am I also right to assume that once the Advanced Mixed Oxide Fuel Cell reprocessing is up and running you don't need Americum-241 anymore at all? Or is it still required to get more Plutonium-239?

Also the Bobingabout enrichment process is still there... I guess because the Radio Thermoelectric Generator from the Revamp mod needs Plutonium-239 on a regular basis or is there another reason behind why the Bobingabout enrichment is left in?

The bobingabout enrichment is still there, only when you have the Radio Thermoelectric Generator. It is disabled in all other configurations. This is somewhat a shortcut in the nuclear loops. The loops should work perfectly without needing the enrichment process. The only reason it is in place is to still have access to great amounts of plutonium when needed.

I also have a question on the U-234 fuel cell... shouldn't it also require lead? At least it should in my opinion. Kinda doesn't make sense to me that it needs steel. Seems like it doesn't occur very much anyway with only a neglible 0.006% chance from Uranium processing and a 5% chance from the two Thorium Fuel reprocessings.

This is indeed an error due to bobs mods. We have 4 different fuels, so we wanted to use 4 different plates as well. The issue is with bobs mod that replaced our 15 iron plates with 10 lead plates on the U-235 fuell cell. I've added an issue card on the repository to keep track of what needs fixing.

• Industries received some extra logistics entities and some tweaks on those parts.

So can we assume that Bob's logistic network items will eventually be superseded/overriden? Because now there is twice the items doing the same thing.

I have no idea what we want to do with bobs robot entities. I am of the opinion of removing the bob zone expanders and the bob roboports. However I do feel that bobs components are an addition to angels (the charging pads, robot chests and interface). We're undecided, so for now both will stay.

If you have Angel's components enabled then bob's machines/items SHOULD NOT require the previous crafting tier of the same item anymore to be crafted.

Having both Angel's components and bob's previous tiers as recipe requirements is a totally convoluted concept where two completely different design philosophies are fighting with each other (and not for the better) and it starts to drive me crazy.

I did add some sort of compatibility for inserters in the latest release, as these only use components, hence why they do also require their previous tier as ingredients. I also want to say that we're still heavily working on the components (like we'll have to add more....), so we do NOT have compatibility with bobs recipes yet, as we use bobs recipe as a testing facility for the basic replacement script for other mod compatibility, which is getting more or less to a final state, minor tweaking is still required and we want to add some extra features to this script still.

It is plain annoying that every time I deconstruct a machine I also get the previous tier machine back. Like for example an assembler 6 or whatever I also get an assembler 5 which I don't want or need, or with an ultimate stack inserter a turbo stack inserter, or with a Steam Turbine 3 a Steam Turbine 2 etc... which I then have to put back into the Logistics network and store somewhere because previous tier stuff starts filling my inventory (not to forget that in a haste I often pick the wrong tier from my inventory for placing because I don't always read which tier it is).

Instead you should really consider overriding all of bob's machine/item recipes so that for an example an assembler 6 only needs Mechanical Block 2, Construction Block 5, Electronics Blocks 5 and that's it. Only angel's blocks. No assembler 5, no additional tungsten carbide/nitinol crap or whatever.

It is indeed not intended that the buildings (which do require blocks) would give their previous tier as a return value. We do want to make custom recipes for bobs mods, and not require their previous tier, making them craftable from blocks only. Since the most recent update did focus on bobs rework of nuclear fuel, we chose to not add in any additions to the component/tech mode other than some small fixes where needed.

[lovely_santa]

The next version of angels is out! Check out the changelogs on the github release or on the mod portal/ingame for each mod separately!

Bugfixing patch release as followup of release v0.18.7 will probably happen tomorrow!

EDIT: Bugfixes are released! You can find the changelog with the link provided above!

[MeduSalem]

Yes, you are right.
Uranium has a nice loop, but it will stockpile some byproducts in the form of U-238 or plutonium.
The next loop with plutonium is net negative on plutonium, so merging that with the previous loop, you should consume all plutonium.
The next loop is with thorium, which will be positive on plutonium again, so you can fully sustain plutonium on its own (with uranium loop included). This can then be used to make thorium fuel.
The last loop will decompose the thorium for catalysts. For now catalysts only have a small sink into deuterium, but we plan on using it in the future in exploration.

Does that account for Bob's Productivity Modules 8 in the creation of Fuel Cells?

Because after letting all processes run for like 20 hours or so I can already foresee swimming in Plutonium eventually.

Currently I have set up 4 Uranium Reactors which are on circuit network priority override to first get rid of the U-234/U-235 fuel cells if there are any and otherwise these 4 reactors run on Plutonium-239 fuel cells to breed Curium-245 for the Thorium Process. Or at least it is my plan to let them run until a threshold of Plutonium/Curium is met.

Next to that I have 16 reactors of Thorium-232 running all time as main energy producer for the base and it seems like from all the various fuel cell recycling processes I still get more Plutonium/Curium than I need.

I guess eventually either the Plutonium or the Curium output will fill up a chest and stall one of the process outputs and then the imbalance will slowly cause me to run out of one of both and most likely I expect it to be the Curium because my current predicted rate of its generation is lower than that of the Plutonium.

Guess someone should do the math on it to see.

That said this surplus of Plutonium is without other Plutonium drains like Bob's Radio Thermometric Generator, which I still have to connect as a drain to the process and which currently runs alone, self-sufficient on Bobingabout Enrichment process which I built before the Nuclear update.



Also I don't want to outright say there is a bug but there might be something weird/wrong in the Muon Catalyst output chances. I have run the Thorium Fuel reprocessing for hours on end now (and with 16 thorium reactors the reprocessing is pretty much running all the time) and so far I got like 4-5 times U-234 already even though it has only a 5% chance... but in all the time not a single Muon Catalyst even though it says there's a 13.33% chance for it. Going by pure probability I should have gotten at least 8-10 Muon Catalysts by now but I got none so far. So maybe there is something off there or I am just extremely unlucky.

The bobingabout enrichment is still there, only when you have the Radio Thermoelectric Generator. It is disabled in all other configurations. This is somewhat a shortcut in the nuclear loops. The loops should work perfectly without needing the enrichment process. The only reason it is in place is to still have access to great amounts of plutonium when needed.

Ah okay. I probably should also mention that the Bobingabout enrichment recipe should probably be relocated into the Angel's Power tab. Currently it is still in the Default Intermediates tab.

And yeah, I actually have to see if I still need to run the Bobingabout enrichment recipe like I used to because with how much Plutonium I am producing now through the new Nuclear loop I it might actually be possible to go completely without it. But I still have to see.

That or in the worst case change the Radio Thermoelectric Generator to need something different as ingredient. Because of now the Bobingabout enrichment recipe kinda sticks out like it doesn't have a proper place.

This is indeed an error due to bobs mods. We have 4 different fuels, so we wanted to use 4 different plates as well. The issue is with bobs mod that replaced our 15 iron plates with 10 lead plates on the U-235 fuell cell. I've added an issue card on the repository to keep track of what needs fixing.

Actually you have 5 different fuels... but you are only using 3 different plates.

U234/235 both need Iron Plates now.
Plutonium need Lead plates.
Thorium and Deuterium both need Zinc plates.

It is indeed not intended that the buildings (which do require blocks) would give their previous tier as a return value. We do want to make custom recipes for bobs mods, and not require their previous tier, making them craftable from blocks only.

Ah good. Guess I should be more patient then.

[Mecejide]

Maybe introduce a new item that is only used by the RTG such as Pu-238.

[evandy]

Maybe introduce a new item that is only used by the RTG such as Pu-238.

U-234 would work.

[MeduSalem]

Maybe introduce a new item that is only used by the RTG such as Pu-238.

U-234 would work.

But the U-234 output isn't reliable. Even much less so than the existing Plutonium.

[lovely_santa]

If you follow along in angels discord, we're re-looking the loops about balancing them. The plutonium loop should be positive on plutonium, while the thorium loop should consume them. There is a way to consume all the plutonium, but it's not intended. You can run a thorium fuel setup perfectly balanced with a plutonium/uranium setup as plutonium input. However if you want to make deuterium fuel cells, you'll end up being positive again, so that's not intended.

So we'll rework the ratios on the plutonium production a bit, such that thorium is a sink of plutonium at all time. I'll post the final results when we have them. I am fairly certain that the uranium and plutonium recipes will not change, only some tweaks to thorium (as it seems now).

[Chapeau-Claque]

The purpose of mud as an item has evolved from being a nuisance by-broduct in the washing chain that had to be managed to an input product in the farm-power chain. Therefore, it would be good to have a recipe in the washing chain that focused on producing mud, to complement the current methods of generation.

Currently, the expected yield is 1.5 per craft. A dedicated recipe ougth to yield at least 10-fold of that. As a suggestion, it could include a, say, 10% chance of 1 stone since most Angel-recipes have some by-product.

[valneq]

The purpose of mud as an item has evolved from being a nuisance by-broduct in the washing chain that had to be managed to an input product in the farm-power chain. Therefore, it would be good to have a recipe in the washing chain that focused on producing mud, to complement the current methods of generation.

Currently, the expected yield is 1.5 per craft. A dedicated recipe ougth to yield at least 10-fold of that. As a suggestion, it could include a, say, 10% chance of 1 stone since most Angel-recipes have some by-product.

The most recent release of Angel's has an additional recipe to make soil from sand. If you need the mud for soil, you may want to look into that.

[lovely_santa]

The purpose of mud as an item has evolved from being a nuisance by-broduct in the washing chain that had to be managed to an input product in the farm-power chain. Therefore, it would be good to have a recipe in the washing chain that focused on producing mud, to complement the current methods of generation.

Currently, the expected yield is 1.5 per craft. A dedicated recipe ougth to yield at least 10-fold of that. As a suggestion, it could include a, say, 10% chance of 1 stone since most Angel-recipes have some by-product.

The most recent release of Angel's has an additional recipe to make soil from sand. If you need the mud for soil, you may want to look into that.

You need mud for 2 things: swamp farming as ingredient directly, or as ingredient to soil. The main consumer being soil, I've added a recipe to make soil from sand. This will be a consumer of sand, which results in some washing that has to happen, which then yields again more mud. I'm not a 100% onboard with that change because by the time you need loads of mud, you also need loads of saline water, hence why my opinion is making saline water from viscous mud water instead of the salination plant. However, I can see how not everyone likes to do it this way, hence why I added a semi-consumer of some washing products (sand) in order to balance this out. This way you need less mud, while increasing the mud production, which is a nice tradeoff I think.

[Chapeau-Claque]

The purpose of mud as an item has evolved from being a nuisance by-broduct in the washing chain that had to be managed to an input product in the farm-power chain. Therefore, it would be good to have a recipe in the washing chain that focused on producing mud, to complement the current methods of generation.

Currently, the expected yield is 1.5 per craft. A dedicated recipe ougth to yield at least 10-fold of that. As a suggestion, it could include a, say, 10% chance of 1 stone since most Angel-recipes have some by-product.

The most recent release of Angel's has an additional recipe to make soil from sand. If you need the mud for soil, you may want to look into that.

You need mud for 2 things: swamp farming as ingredient directly, or as ingredient to soil. The main consumer being soil, I've added a recipe to make soil from sand. This will be a consumer of sand, which results in some washing that has to happen, which then yields again more mud. I'm not a 100% onboard with that change because by the time you need loads of mud, you also need loads of saline water, hence why my opinion is making saline water from viscous mud water instead of the salination plant. However, I can see how not everyone likes to do it this way, hence why I added a semi-consumer of some washing products (sand) in order to balance this out. This way you need less mud, while increasing the mud production, which is a nice tradeoff I think.

Ok, thanks for the feed back - your call to make.
The second soil recipe is great for tree production. I hadn't noticed it was introduced.

[evandy]

The purpose of mud as an item has evolved from being a nuisance by-broduct in the washing chain that had to be managed to an input product in the farm-power chain. Therefore, it would be good to have a recipe in the washing chain that focused on producing mud, to complement the current methods of generation.

Currently, the expected yield is 1.5 per craft. A dedicated recipe ougth to yield at least 10-fold of that. As a suggestion, it could include a, say, 10% chance of 1 stone since most Angel-recipes have some by-product.

The most recent release of Angel's has an additional recipe to make soil from sand. If you need the mud for soil, you may want to look into that.

You need mud for 2 things: swamp farming as ingredient directly, or as ingredient to soil. The main consumer being soil, I've added a recipe to make soil from sand. This will be a consumer of sand, which results in some washing that has to happen, which then yields again more mud. I'm not a 100% onboard with that change because by the time you need loads of mud, you also need loads of saline water, hence why my opinion is making saline water from viscous mud water instead of the salination plant. However, I can see how not everyone likes to do it this way, hence why I added a semi-consumer of some washing products (sand) in order to balance this out. This way you need less mud, while increasing the mud production, which is a nice tradeoff I think.

should swamps maybe take viscous mud water, instead of mud, as an input? You can always turn mud into viscous water...

And, well, swamps are kinda wet...

[lovely_santa]

The purpose of mud as an item has evolved from being a nuisance by-broduct in the washing chain that had to be managed to an input product in the farm-power chain. Therefore, it would be good to have a recipe in the washing chain that focused on producing mud, to complement the current methods of generation.

Currently, the expected yield is 1.5 per craft. A dedicated recipe ougth to yield at least 10-fold of that. As a suggestion, it could include a, say, 10% chance of 1 stone since most Angel-recipes have some by-product.

The most recent release of Angel's has an additional recipe to make soil from sand. If you need the mud for soil, you may want to look into that.

You need mud for 2 things: swamp farming as ingredient directly, or as ingredient to soil. The main consumer being soil, I've added a recipe to make soil from sand. This will be a consumer of sand, which results in some washing that has to happen, which then yields again more mud. I'm not a 100% onboard with that change because by the time you need loads of mud, you also need loads of saline water, hence why my opinion is making saline water from viscous mud water instead of the salination plant. However, I can see how not everyone likes to do it this way, hence why I added a semi-consumer of some washing products (sand) in order to balance this out. This way you need less mud, while increasing the mud production, which is a nice tradeoff I think.

should swamps maybe take viscous mud water, instead of mud, as an input? You can always turn mud into viscous water...

And, well, swamps are kinda wet...

I feel that the water input + the mud looks "muddy" enough, especially when comparing to the other types?