As it stands, Homeworld Redux is currently mostly a direct port with only minor changes to handle Factorio changes since 0.13. It needs a lot more work than that though to fix some of the issues it has, especially balance due to all the fluid and barrel changes. So, here's a thread to discuss feedback on potential changes.

1) Redo the sand collector to work more like the farm. Instead of relying on a sand resource (that's currently probably WAY too common), it'd instead produce at a variable rate based on how many sand tiles are under it. This would make sand an infinite resource, but would mine much slower than currently. Sand is used only for glass for wine, which is only used in one tier, and also as a component to concrete. That last use might be removed, as it's a bit out of scope for this mod. Alternatively, might make the sand patches significantly less common, but infinite. I think ideally a sand biome would have one small cluster of infinite sand in the center, but I don't think that's really possible with the spawn system.

2) Speaking of farms, I'd like to redo them and separate out the various resources so that a single farm produces ONE thing. This would make balancing out all the items much easier, especially as the tiers go on and the needs for each change wildly. Perhaps this would be done with a new tech tier that allows taking the farm and specializing it to a single resource, each with their own requirements for the best tiles to place them on, instead of water + grass always being best (for instance, growing grapes would work much better if there are cliffs nearby. They like hills.)




Redo the tech costs to be in line with factorios 1 to 1 change in 0.15. Shouldn't be a huge change, few techs and they don't cost much.

0.16.6 Update:
Sand miner description added.
Portal inventory increase to 49.
Last tier population requirement dropped to 2,000,000 from 9,000,000. I was doing this anyway for testing and it still feels pretty long. Anyone beyond 2M pop should immediately hit tier 7.
Adding mod to pre-existing game should work - all players will get a homeworld portal in their inventory. This may fail if players inventory is full.
Homeworld GUI now has a dedicated button, removed GUI from PDA item. Portal will still always open the GUI

0.16.5 Update:
Fix for terraformer broken tile names due to 0.16 migration.
Farms now properly gain increased yield from all vanilla tiles. Added support for additional tiles based on tile name.
Removed some leftover debugging code.
Terraformers+Seeders no longer allow productivity modules (they did nothing anyway)

0.16.4 Update:
Attempted to resolve crash arising from not closing the GUI of an entity that was mined.

0.16.3 Update:
Added circuit connection to the homeworld portal. Shows what items are currently inside
Added new item Need Tracker. This outputs circuit signals for the amount the homeworld currently needs to last one full day. Note that the portal activates multiple times per day, approx. 6.94 times.

0.16.2 Update:
Added alien biomes biomes as potential sand mining locations
Belt gate now works properly
Belt Throughput Reader now works properly.

0.16.1 Update: 
Resolved a potential MP crash, code from the 0.13 git
Reinstated on_pre_player_mined event
Removed arrow pointing to reward spawn - caused some issues with mod GUIs.
Fixed issue not allowing completion of tier 6, thus not spawning the final reward or prompting the victory dialog.
Fixed missed 0.16 tile name change with sand miner
Disabled functions of belt gate and belt throughput reader to prevent crashing. Still buildable but they won't do any special functions at this time. Belt throughput reader will still send items through itself normally.

Possible upcoming changes:
Update reward list for balance, and remove military focused rewards when biters aren't enabled, possibly peaceful as well.
Redo the population changes around tier upgrades - it's pretty easy to immediately go down a tier because the new requirements are vastly different - 4 to 5 only shares two of 8+
Collision on homeworld portal - currently lets you sets inserters inside it's boundaries

Homeworld issues list:

portal.lua has the code to empty out the inventory it seems. Make it not take anything that isn't required.

Terraformers are janky. Putting in a different module overrides the running one. Picking it up when partially completed returns the module.

Latest version of tiers.lua from git has different reqs for tiers, and more tiers. Only two sets of rewards, and tiers 1-3 use the first set, 4-8 use the second. Requirements are MUCH different.
Possibly merge in seperate GUI from that one fork. Was there anything else in there worthwhile?
Probably a better way to do rewards. Currently one random list item, spawned in chest near portal.

0.16.2 changes:
data-updates.lua:
created, adds stuff for alien-biomes

belt_gate.lua:
Fixed logic for belt gate

belt_throughput_reader.lua:


0.16.1 changes:
homeworld_logic.lua:
merged in change from old git to resolve potential MP crash
Removed GUI Arrow pointing to reward - causes issues with GUI buttons
Fixed not winning the game on completing Tier 6. Also it should now provide a reward.

control.lua:
changed sand depleted tile to "dry-dirt"

belt_throughput_reader.lua:
disabled circuit setting - seems to have changed from 0.13
belt_gate.lua:
disabled 

0.16 changes:
button_styles.lua:
Removed _style suffix from several parent styles due to internal name change

resources.lua: 
category: "sand" added to final line
Added various sand and red sand tiles to spawn locations for sand resource

Freaking everywhere:
icon_size: 32, added to a ton of places

homeworld_logic.lua:
Added code to check for portal entities exist on nauvis before attempting to give reward, preventing hang

tiers.lua:
alien science pack rewards changed to high-tech-science-pack
Various names updated from old names

info.json: various stuff for new version, changed mod name

entities.lua:
19 instances of __homeworld__ replaced with __homeworld_redux__
2 instances of icon_size = 32 added for fish.png icon

fluids.lua:
3 instances of __homeworld__ replaced with __homeworld_redux__

technology.lua: 
alien tech used to be used to unlock making homeworld portals. Changed to Adv Elec 2 (hi-tech science), renamed variable "HiTech"
terraforming-2 uses alien science pack for research. Changed to "high-tech-science-pack"
terraforming-2 prereq changed from "alien-technology" to "advanced-electronics-2"
Four instances of __homeworld__ replaced with __homeworld_redux__
1 instance of icon_size = 32 added for fish.png icon

gui_helpers.lua: 
gui.icon changed for oil barrel exception - uses empty barrel icon due to differences in how the game handles barrel icons

progressbar_styles.lua: 
"less-then" -> "less-than"

items.lua: 
water-barrel and wine-barrel - subgroup changed from "barrel" -> "fill-barrel"
25 instances of __homeworld__ replaced with __homeworld_redux__

terraforming.lua: 
seeder-module ingredient change from "alien-artifact" to "high-tech-science-pack"
Terraformer-module ingredient change from "alien-artifact" to "high-tech-science-pack"
8 instances of __homeworld__ replaced with __homeworld_redux__

recipes.lua: 
changed fill-beer-barrel subgroup from barrel to fill-barrel
homeworld portal ingredient change from "alien-artifact" to "high-tech-science-pack"
Four instances of __homeworld__ replaced with __homeworld_redux__

resources.lua:
2 instances of __homeworld__ replaced with __homeworld_redux__