Development and Discussion

[valneq]

I've just discovered something unintuitive in late game Angel's petrochem with the simplex solver:
The ethylene gas should be flared instead of converting into liquid plastic II to make more plastic.

Here's how we make plastic with liquid plastic II
[…]

However with the same amount of naphtha we can make
[…]

The second option you list there uses hydrogen and carbon monoxide as additional inputs. These two mixed together are essentially synthesis gas, and thus alone already enough to make plastic. I think this is the main reason why the second one has such a high plastic output. Would need to actually crunch the numbers in detail to be sure.

[yzorr]

So I'm thinking a bit about how bio and biters fit into AB. You've got to do some bio for wood, and you've got to do biters for modules, but after all is said and done the integration feels a bit thin. If you'll spot me a pun: it feels inorganic. For the most part, you play around bio/biters, and engage when it's tactically advantageous.

Why not wrap bio/biter tech around the ore crush/sort chain, replacing chemicals and catalysts? Give away something almost for free for everyone who bothers showing up; perhaps the first tier of catalyst sorts? Slag processing of some sort?

Also consider getting rid of oil and gas and thermal water completely; use native bio/biter components instead.

This also creates some character.

[lovely_santa]

So I'm thinking a bit about how bio and biters fit into AB. You've got to do some bio for wood, and you've got to do biters for modules, but after all is said and done the integration feels a bit thin. If you'll spot me a pun: it feels inorganic. For the most part, you play around bio/biters, and engage when it's tactically advantageous.

Why not wrap bio/biter tech around the ore crush/sort chain, replacing chemicals and catalysts? Give away something almost for free for everyone who bothers showing up; perhaps the first tier of catalyst sorts? Slag processing of some sort?

Also consider getting rid of oil and gas and thermal water completely; use native bio/biter components instead.

This also creates some character.

exploration will be more focused on biter killing and so forth, once that's done we plan on introducing biter processing into bio, which then will do **things** related to refining.

Our current priority is to balance biters depending on when exploration is or is not present. Our other main focus in getting components (and thus science) to a more stable place. It is now somewhat stable in the current state, so we can think about introducing some new recipes and tweak existing ones.

[cheshire_cat]

I've just discovered something unintuitive in late game Angel's petrochem with the simplex solver:
The ethylene gas should be flared instead of converting into liquid plastic II to make more plastic.

Here's how we make plastic with liquid plastic II
[…]

However with the same amount of naphtha we can make
[…]

The second option you list there uses hydrogen and carbon monoxide as additional inputs. These two mixed together are essentially synthesis gas, and thus alone already enough to make plastic. I think this is the main reason why the second one has such a high plastic output. Would need to actually crunch the numbers in detail to be sure.

Well the second plan actually doesn't use carbon monoxide at all, as input or intermediate product. All of the synthesis gas comes from naphtha and residual gas. The naphtha input is the same amount as used in liquid plastic II. The high plastic output is due to the high recycle rate of synthesis gas (cracking 970 synthesis gas gives back 670 synthesis gas from residual gas) so it is like a 3x multiplier to the 300 synthesis gas from naphtha.

Also, due to this 3x multiplier, it is more economic to break methane -> methanol -> propene -> liquid plastic I than methane -> benzene -> phenol -> liquid plastic III, because the former gives more residual gas, which gives back 1.5x synthesis gas, combined with the 3x recycling multiplier. the total result is that the former makes slightly more plastic than the latter, provided that all of the butane is turned into benzene -> phenol -> liquid plastic III alongside.

I currently(0.17, B+A, endgame) make plastic and all other chemical product from carbon monoxide <- carbon <- charcoal <- wood pellet <- cellulose fiber <- green-algae <- mineralized water <- crushed stone. The recycling is so efficient that I don't need to mine any oil or natural gas and all I need for coal is the coke and sulfur it gives. In this case naphtha is more expensive because it needs 150 synthesis gas + 50 monoxide to make 100 naphtha, making liquid plastic II even less efficient.

[BendyStraw]

I don't mind biters now being turned off, but I wish that there was at least some incentive to keep pollution low.

[valneq]

Well the second plan actually doesn't use carbon monoxide at all, as input or intermediate product.

My bad, on the scaled down screenshot I mistook the oxygen for carbon monoxide ^^

[bitwiseshiftleft]

Is there a way to vent steam from cooling towers? You can run it through a steam engine, but if your base is solar-powered this only works at night because steam engines have lower priority than solar panels. The flare stack won't vent steam, and Angel's Petrochem disables the venting pump from Bob's mods.

It's always possible to recondense it to purified water and then recycle/void the water, but this feels kind of ridiculous because (1) in real life it wouldn't sink heat, and (2) an array of cooling towers ought to generate impressive plumes of steam as a matter of principle.

Is there something I'm missing? Or could you change the flare stack to be able to vent steam?

[cheshire_cat]

Is there a way to vent steam from cooling towers? You can run it through a steam engine, but if your base is solar-powered this only works at night because steam engines have lower priority than solar panels. The flare stack won't vent steam, and Angel's Petrochem disables the venting pump from Bob's mods.

It's always possible to recondense it to purified water and then recycle/void the water, but this feels kind of ridiculous because (1) in real life it wouldn't sink heat, and (2) an array of cooling towers ought to generate impressive plumes of steam as a matter of principle.

Is there something I'm missing? Or could you change the flare stack to be able to vent steam?

Maybe you can separate a part of factory that consumes enough power, connect it to the steam engine and relay it to the main network with accumulators. Like in:

Then the steam is consumed first in that power network and the rest of the power is supplied by the main network.

[bitwiseshiftleft]

Maybe you can separate a part of factory that consumes enough power, connect it to the steam engine and relay it to the main network with accumulators.

Yeah, I was thinking next time if there isn't a steam vent, I will isolate something around the cooling towers using fast accumulators. Even a dedicated cooling setup doesn't generate that much steam, so it probably can barely even power itself if you include the chem plant for replacement coolant. If that produces a surplus, I could isolate the induction and casting instead. My current factory is packed too tight and has separate coolant loops everywhere, so this wouldn't work, but it's donezo anyway (30 UPS due to an over-complicated logistics system, and I just launched the rocket). So when I ran into this problem I just condensed the steam, but I thought long-term there should be a less silly solution.

[alercah]

You can always use more purified water anyway.

[mrvn]

I ran into the same problem in my current PyBlock game. Problem there is that they have 60°C steam. Even steam engines won't accept that. I have to cool it down to water (which I can then feed back into the factory, no need to void it).

Annyoing. Please add steam to the gas venting.

[valneq]

Is nobody using steam cracking for oil or gas?
I usually need more steam …

[mrvn]

Is nobody using steam cracking for oil or gas?
I usually need more steam …

Steam is so easy to produce and cheap I usually make it local. Moving steam by train always seemed to be more of a hassle than the little waste of throwing away unwanted steam elsewhere.

Note: Mainly because one station can't accept many fluids and fluid stations with tanks and pumps are wide. But you can always squeeze in a little fuel in an item station basically for free.

[CharonM72]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but what are the plans for 1.0? And is there a timeframe for when Angel's mods will be fully ready to use with 1.0?

I've been abstaining on Factorio until 1.0 and I plan to dive in headfirst with a Bob's+Angel's campaign.

[valneq]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but what are the plans for 1.0? And is there a timeframe for when Angel's mods will be fully ready to use with 1.0?

I've been abstaining on Factorio until 1.0 and I plan to dive in headfirst with a Bob's+Angel's campaign.

The same rule applies, as for Bob's mods: Both Angel's mods and Bob's mods are ready to use with the current experimental 0.18. Since 1.0 will be essentially the stable version of 0.18, the mods will be ready to play with 1.0 shortly after release. The dev team is usually fairly quick about that.

[Roodvlees]

I've narrowed the bug down to the following set of mods:

A Sea Block Config
Angel's Petro Chemical Processing
Angel's Refining
Angel's Smelting
Base mod
Bob's Electronics mod
Bob's Functions Library mod
Bob's Logistics mod
Bob's Metals, Chemicals and Intermediates mod
Bob's Ores mod
ScienceCost Tweaker MOd (mexmer)
Sea Block
Space Extension Mod

Adding either of the following mods works, but combining them results in an error when starting Factorio:
Bob's Technology mod or bobstech
Angel's Bio Processing

Producing the following error message:
Screenshot of this error message: https://imgur.com/0DDGTKY

Failed to load mods: Difficulty normal: Cycle in technology tree detected.

ore-crushing
-> basic-chemistry
-> angels-sulfur-processing-1
-> slag-processing-1
-> steam-power
> electricity
-> ore-crushing

Disabled all mods, Restart, Exit

Please fix this.

[valneq]

Producing the following error message:
Screenshot of this error message: https://imgur.com/0DDGTKY

Which version of Factorio are you running? I cannot reproduce this on my Factorio 0.18.43 with all mods updated and all mod settings default, so mybe it is related to startup settings for the mods. Can you provide a savefile that contains the mod settings you are using? Then I could try to sync to your settings. Maybe then we can figure out which of the mods is causing this error.

As a workaround, maybe there is a way to reset all mods to default settings on your end by activating them in groups and resetting, and then adding more mods, and resetting again. Alternatively, if you feel like messing with files, the "mod-settings.dat" file stored in the mods folder contains your user settings. If you rename or delete it, it should reset all settings to default.

[mrvn]

Producing the following error message:
Screenshot of this error message: https://imgur.com/0DDGTKY

Which version of Factorio are you running? I cannot reproduce this on my Factorio 0.18.43 with all mods updated and all mod settings default, so mybe it is related to startup settings for the mods. Can you provide a savefile that contains the mod settings you are using? Then I could try to sync to your settings. Maybe then we can figure out which of the mods is causing this error.

As a workaround, maybe there is a way to reset all mods to default settings on your end by activating them in groups and resetting, and then adding more mods, and resetting again. Alternatively, if you feel like messing with files, the "mod-settings.dat" file stored in the mods folder contains your user settings. If you rename or delete it, it should reset all settings to default.

My guess would be SeaBlock is interfering. Note that 0.18.43 breaks Seablock (didn't read any details), could this be what broke?

[Roodvlees]

Thanks for the replies, Bob responded to my request on his mod page:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/bobtech/d ... e852ccce85
The solution is to disable the burner phase.
In Sea Block that phase doesn't make sense anyway because at the start you don't have access to coal anyway.

[Cabble]

It would be nice if ore sorting with catalyst to a single ore would get nerfed.
I like the challenge to balanced out multiple ores from 1 sorting, but it doesn't feel rewarding because the yield of catalyst sorting is as good and doesn't even have by-products to worry about.
Imho it would be much better if catalyst-sorted ores yield less. So it's still a good idea using the recipes to balance out the multi-ore sorting.
I'd suggest to decrease the yield from 100% (not counting catalyst) to 75%. For example: 2x crushed stiratite + 2x crushed bobmonium = 3x tin instead of 4.
Also I'd like to see some minor improvement to multi ore sorting.
Multiple ore sorting is interesting and would scale nice through the game stages, but from the point catalysts are available to sort, I see no reason to struggle with multi ore. Thats kinda sad.
What do you think about that?

Catalyst sorting does have a nerf already, but it's not efficiency... the catalyst nerf is tech level. Like many things Angels, first you do it messy, then later you can tech out of it to do it more efficiently. If you want a personal challenge to avoid catalyst sorting, you can always levy that on yourself, though I have to wonder what you're going to do with your slag at that point; making catalysts out if it is one of the prime uses of slag.

Tech level as nerf doesn't really apply. Catalyst sorting is possible with only red and green science for relevant ores at this stage of game. With blue science you have access to all catalysts, making crystal-ore-sorting and purified-ore-sorting copmpletely irrelevant. That should be changed. A healthy combination of default sorting and catalyst sorting should be the best option imo.